Field training: Day 24, hour 4
Second battle
After our punishment, aka drowning in the sea, we moved into a new room in the fortress.
It was a massive upgrade.
The singular stall with the shoddy wall was replaced with a massive en suite bathroom that had rows of marble shower stalls and a steam room.
The adjacent bedroom had four-poster beds pressed along the wall; a roaring fireplace; thick rugs; tall, stained-glass windows; and twinkling galaxies swirling on the high ceiling.
It was as relaxing as our new schedule, which included three square meals a day in the great hall and six hours of sleep every night.
Class in the morning, an hour for lunch, afternoon nap break, access to warm showers every day.
I didn’t miss the broken cot and cold metal walls. The wind no longer screeched, and the endless cold had abated.
It should have been a cushy paradise.
It was a nightmare.
All the comfort in the world couldn’t make up for the other days—the hours, minutes, and seconds that lasted a lifetime.
An unspoken haze hung around all of us because at any moment, we were expected to be ready to realm jump and fight the ungodly.
Lothaire informed us that he had a network of spies tracking the creatures across the realms, and as soon as they pinpointed a new location, he would bring us there to fight them.
He didn’t explain how the ungodly traveled or their motives.
The question of where dominated my every waking thought, and I mulled over the possibility for hours. Where had they come from? How could something so heinous just suddenly start terrorizing people one day?
I had no answer, and pondering felt futile.
So I lived on edge.
Whenever Lothaire entered a room or looked at us, I flinched and waited for him to tell us it was time to fight.
I existed on the precipice of disaster.
Until it happened.
Lothaire walked up to us at lunch and said cryptically, “Meet me outside.” Then he stalked away.
Now a stiff wind whipped my cheeks, and the bloated moon mocked me from high above.
I was going to war.
Again.
I picked at the scab on my hand that hadn’t healed because of my incessant fidgeting.
Lothaire walked back and forth in front of us with the three half warriors standing silently behind him.
“The ungodly are creatures of chaos, and chaos expands. That is what it does. War is coming, and the High Court needs you to be ready.”
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
His black boots dragged across rocks as he paced back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. My bare toes curled with discomfort, and I swallowed anxiety.
No doubt he kept our feet unprotected as some training technique to increase our pain tolerance. You didn’t realize how luxurious shoes were until your feet were covered in cuts.
It was a constant reminder that we were nothing but soldiers being molded into killers. We didn’t deserve luxury and comfort because there were no such things in war. Only pain.
This is really happening.
Endless moments stretched as we waited for Lothaire to expand on his statement.
He was silent.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
People radiated energy, and right now, the eight of us were all giving off the same vibes—dread.
My back itched, and my monster was eerily silent. It unnerved me.
Lothaire paced for the millionth time.
I blurted out, “What about the other assassins this school has already trained? Shouldn’t they be handling this threat?”
It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to flinch as Lothaire cracked his baton across his hand.
An awful smile pulled his scar tight. “What makes you think they aren’t fighting the ungodly?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You just said? I thought that—”
He held up a hand and cut me off. “This is a training exercise. You are facing the weakest ones. You will join the other assassins sooner than you think.”
I ignored the latter part of his statement and focused on the important part. “So you’re saying there are stronger ungodly out there?”
Opal fangs flashed. “Yes. You’re fighting their equivalent of civilians. Meanwhile, members of the High Court are fighting the real ungodly. Soldiers that are bred to kill, maim, and destroy. Soldiers you couldn’t even begin to fucking handle. Especially not with how fucking pathetic you were last time.”
I struggled to inhale.
Lothaire rolled his eye. “Yes, I see you do understand.”
We stared at each other for a long moment.
Lothaire slammed his baton across my face, and my jaw cracked.
Blood splattered.
“Don’t talk back to me ever again. Understood, soldier?”
“Yes, sir.” I spat blood onto the rocks. Eyes blank. Face dead.
Someday, I’m going to snap his femur and stab him with it.
I breathed out a small sigh of relief as Lothaire turned his attention away from me and said, “That’s why you’re all going to fight as many times as I fucking say necessary, for as long as I say necessary. Until I believe you’ve learned what I’m trying to teach you. Understood, soldiers?”
“Yes, sir,” we chorused.
Once again, Lothaire handed out the twin daggers, and the silver blades glinted red in the shadows of the eclipse.
They reminded me of Malum’s eyes.
I breathed deep. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold.
Lothaire raised his voice. “You all have a long way to go. Buck up, and man the fuck up! Link arms, soldiers.”
He grabbed John’s shoulder.
The world exploded with fire as we jumped realms.
Disoriented, I shook my head and tried to process that once again, we were on a snowy mountain. It was similar to the last one but taller with more jagged peaks.
It was the same realm.
The snowfall was heavier, and snow gathered on my lashes while a frigid wind kissed my cheeks.
“Follow me!” Malum yelled as he took charge.
This time, I didn’t hesitate to follow him up the steep cliffside. The small handholds and brutal fall didn’t seem as menacing.
Not when I knew what awaited us.
Once again, we pulled ourselves onto a rocky outcrop, but this time, the village had more huts and was built into the side of the mountain.
Villagers stumbled out. Men, women, and teens. They were all dressed the same.
It was like reliving a nightmare. Even though I expected their cries and ploys, it still shook me to my core.
But this time, I didn’t freeze in shock.
Yet I still hesitated.
The screams, the choking flames, the ripping flesh as creatures emerged from body cavities was overwhelming.
I stabbed with my knives as the chaos threatened to consume me.
I saw myself in their tear-streaked faces. They transformed into Sadie and the girls.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I fought blindly.
Hours passed, and as I grew tired, more blows landed on me. So I opened my eyes and stared at the people I killed.
All of a sudden, two villagers charged me with swords as I was distracted fighting an ungodly. Just when I thought the blades were going to fucking hurt, Scorpius appeared out of nowhere and decapitated them. They fell over, swords clattering inches from my body.
“Fucking concentrate.” He sneered as he moved smoothly back to Orion’s side. He fought like a dancer.
I fought like a wounded animal.
Smoke clouded my vision as bodies flung around me.
Mentally, I knew we should be fighting smarter, and it was obvious that we should have used the fire to corral the villagers and kill them at once. It would shorten the battle considerably, and technically we wouldn’t be using our abilities or a weapon.
Physically, I did nothing but slash and stab.
Just because I had the capacity to reason and analyze didn’t make a single ounce of difference in the midst of battle.
Maybe that’s why generals always watch wars from afar?
In the fray, there was no room for reason.
No logic.
Just death.
The closest I got to rational thought was during the seconds where an ungodly died slowly on my blade. I pondered the art of warfare. Recognized the paralyzing terror coursing through my limbs.
Another villager attacked, and the battle haze returned.
Slashing, ducking, stabbing, kicking, punching, and throwing.
Mouth open with a perpetual gasp, I just kept fighting.
I slit the throat of a villager and didn’t see the shovel being flung at me.
Suddenly, rusty metal split the side of my abdomen, and I whimpered at the streaking pain.
I threw my arm blindly and stabbed at him, but somehow, he evaded me, and the shovel reared back.
Fuck. No amount of calming breaths was about to get me through this pain.
The blow never came.
Orion had sliced off the villager’s arms and was precisely cutting off all his limbs.
I blinked through the smoke, convinced I was hallucinating.
The stunning fae pursed his bee-stung lips and eviscerated the villager with a quiet savagery I hadn’t thought he possessed.
When the villager died, the ungodly only pulled itself halfway out of the skin before Orion decapitated it.
“Are you all right?” Lyrical words spun like honey.
I nodded blankly, still shocked by his ferocity.
“Be careful,” he ordered, and it was the loudest I’d ever heard him speak.
“You too,” I whispered.
For some reason, the stunning fae wasn’t comfortable speaking, and it made me want to be quiet around him. I wanted to let him know that I was okay with the silence.
For some reason, I took a step closer to him. Chocolate eyes burned with intensity as he also moved closer.
“Remember what Scorpius told you,” Malum said to me as he smoothly stepped between us.
“I wasn’t doing anything.” We all ducked as a weapon whistled by.
“Wouldn’t want an accident to happen during battle.” Scorpius’s voice was close to my ear as he stepped up behind me and invaded my space.
Even with the scent of decay all around, the intoxicating scents of bergamot and musk wafted off him.
Surprisingly it was Orion who answered, “Leave Aran alone.”
For a long moment, as a battle raged around us, Malum and Scorpius froze with expressions of disbelief.
Scorpius whispered so only I could hear, “Mess with my mate one more time and I won’t be so forgiving.” He deflected a blow and spun so both he and Malum shielded Orion.
I sighed with exhaustion and turned back to the fight.
The kings lingered near me, and I remembered how they had stayed in proximity, helping to protect me in the last battle.
I purposely cut through bodies until I stood on the far side of the room next to John. My pride stung. I didn’t need my enemies protecting me.
The remaining hours of the battle pulled out impossibly long. Time crawled forward.
Sticky and slow like tar.
Seventeen hours later, the eerie silence fell, and déjà vu hit me.
Without the chaos of fighting, it was now apparent that we’d been fighting way more people. Hundreds of mangled bodies covered the floors. Piled atop one another.
Holy fucking sun god, did we just fight an entire city?
I was standing in a puddle of broken flesh, and I stumbled out of the hut like I was drunk.
Outside was worse.
The red-and-green gore splashed across snow in a macabre abstract painting. The same colors painted my skin.
John leaned against me, and we held each other up.
Then Lothaire appeared, and we RJE’d away.
As the world exploded in flames, I realized there was no reason for us to realm jump to the bottom of the mountain, and he was making us scale it as some type of sick warm up.
His sadism knew no bounds.
It was ruining me.
