Aran
Field training: Day 34, hour 23
Days passed in a blur of smoke, classwork, long runs, and depressive thoughts. The only difference was at every lunch and some dinners, Tara and Sari sat beside me and I helped them with their essays.
I also had a smoke crow that was sitting on my shoulder for longer and longer periods of time before it dissipated.
Its name was Horse.
I named it after the four horsemen of the apocalypse, because Horse had an unsettling look in his smoky eyes. Like he wanted to raze the world.
It was a nice distraction from the men, and Lothaire didn’t say anything about it.
One thing was for sure: without Horse, I would have lost my mind.
In the past few days, the men had become disturbingly horny. It seemed like every time we had a break, they were inviting women into the room for orgies.
After my first disastrous experience, I’d started leaving and hanging out in the library.
I hadn’t even known we had one until Sari complained at dinner that the lighting was too dim for her to get her work done.
As soon as I walked in, I fell in love.
It was dark, moody, gothic, and quiet—the perfect place for a depressive episode.
Sweeping chandeliers hung off of high, arched ceilings. Black marble with gold veins decorated every inch of the floors and walls.
Stained-glass windows in shades of blue and gray depicted scholars brandishing words like weapons.
Cherry tables scattered among towering stacks. Shelves were filled with dusty tombs from every realm in the universe.
The best part was hidden in the back corner: a winding iron staircase that led to a sitting nook.
Curled up on a blue velvet chaise, I spent most of the time enjoying the silence with Horse. Sometimes he flew lazily above my head, and other times, he curled up on my shoulder and slept.
I fingered the cracked spines of old books and flipped through to locate some pictures, but I couldn’t find the energy to read.
Picture books were just as enriching.
Sprawled on the chaise, I enjoyed the darkness of the stacks.
It was dead silent.
I loved the ambience.
The sense of peace was all thanks to the librarian. He was a floating specter that everyone called Ghost.
According to Sari, the rumor in the school was that he’d bargained with death, and as a reward for committing unspeakable atrocities, he was allowed to return to the land of the living.
Even if that was true, it wasn’t my place to judge others.
I liked Ghost.
Anytime a student spoke, even the smallest whisper, he flew over and kissed their cheek.
They called it the kiss of doom because the offending student would seize and foam at the mouth. But another student always carried them out to get healed by Lyla, so I never got to see how far the symptoms developed.
Usually it was just students who spoke that got kissed, but I’d seen Ghost do it to a student because they opened a book too loudly.
But that had been a one-time thing, and I think he just did it for the drama. Which I respected.
Now I lay on the chaise with my head upside down as I stared down from my nook and looked through the stacks.
I liked to watch.
Ghost averaged about one kiss per hour because people really didn’t know how to shut the fuck up. So it was free entertainment. Sadie definitely would have been his victim.
He left me alone for the most part.
My first day in the library, Ghost had floated up beside me and stared down at me.
I’d thought he didn’t want me to smoke.
But after thirty awkward minutes of staring at each other in silence, I’d held my pipe up into the air.
Ghost had leaned his head forward and taken a spectral drag, his transparent cheeks hollowing as the smoke swirled around his exposed chest cavity.
He’d blown out a skull and crossbones image.
Ghost was chill like that.
Unfortunately, he was the most unproblematic man I knew at the moment.
The kings had been so weird during their little sexcapade, and I’d started to notice the three of them stared at me. Often.
Orion was the only one that looked at me like he didn’t want to rip off my face and wear it. But when I helped Sari and Tara, his scowl rivaled Malum’s.
My gut cramped at the implication.
They had definitely figured out I was hiding something, and they were starting to treat me differently.
Maybe they’re planning to hand me over to the fae? Maybe they’re working with the half warriors and they’re going to ambush me any day now?
The possibilities were endless.
Which was why I spent my time with my head upside down in the library as I inhaled the musk of old leather-bound books and cracked pages.
It mixed well with the burned taste of my pipe.
I sighed silently as the grandfather clock on the wall struck 3:00 a.m. Half-naked girls had entered our room at 8:00 p.m., so the orgy was hopefully ending.
It was time to leave the library and face the men.
As I silently moved through the stacks, I paused when I heard someone whispering. Excited to see Ghost do his thing, I hid behind the bookshelf and listened.
A girl’s voice whispered, “Can you believe the sacred tree bloomed black for Aran?”
“I know,” another female voice whispered back. “I read that it means you’ve been marked by a god.”
The other girl gasped softly. “Really? I heard it means you’ve been marked to do terrible deeds.”
“Same thing either way.” The voices rose with excitement. “I still can’t believe Aran and the three kings are the only ones in the history of the academy that the petals have turned black for.”
Abruptly, the girls were quiet. A strangled, choking noise let me know Ghost had arrived, but I couldn’t muster excitement about it like I usually did.
Their words were still hammering around my skull.
Marked by a god.
Terrible deeds.
Just like the three kings.
My stomach plummeted because nothing made sense, and my vision wobbled as I panicked.
On shaky legs, I fled the library.
I wandered down lightning-streaked halls with Horse cawing softly like he felt my pain.
As I walked, I barely noticed that the commoner and royal students cleared a path and bowed their heads.
Some openly gaped in awe, while others ran away like I would slit their throats if they looked at me wrong. I wished.
The entire academy had a weird fetish for the assassin program.
When I was finally back at my room, I leaned my forehead against the door and forced any thoughts about black petals from my mind. The gossip mill at the academy was infamous for making shit up.
“They’re wrong,” I whispered to Horse as I breathed deeply and shoved the revelations from my mind. I already had enough things to worry about.
I pushed open the door and forced my shoulders back.
The men were all clothed and lounging on their messy beds. The room reeked of sex and copper, definitely from Horace, but since no one was naked, I didn’t care.
“Where were you, Egan?” Malum snapped. “Where the fuck do you keep going?”
Horse cawed at him aggressively, and I gave him a kiss on his smoky head. “It’s none of your business,” I muttered.
I was too tired to spar with the deranged king.
Too tired to think thoughts.
How nice it would be to be a single-celled amoeba floating around the ocean without a care in the world.
I yearned for that lifestyle.
Malum made a harsh noise that sounded suspiciously like a growl. “Actually, it is my—”
The door slammed open, and Lothaire entered.
Hell was knowing you were fucked before it happened.
A tsunami of terror ripped through the room. Spines straightened, and muscles tensed as we hustled into a line.
“Are you ready, soldiers?”
“Yes, sir!”
I missed the library. Missed hanging out with Ghost while he sent students into comas.
“Good. More civilian ungodly have been spotted. This time, they’ve taken over a primitive town in a desert realm. Prepare your pathetic fucking selves. Because of interference with enchantments, we’ll have to RJE to a remote location, and you’ll have to hover in.”
The flames in the fire screamed at me.
Mentally, I screamed back.
“Did I fucking stutter?” Lothaire exploded at us, long braid thumping against the floor as he shook his head.
“No, sir!” we yelled back.
Men were so dramatic.
It was exhausting.
“Knives.” Lothaire thrust the dreaded daggers into our hands.
My fingers shook as I sheathed them in the thigh holsters that were built into our pants.
Lothaire lunged forward, and yet fucking again, the world erupted into scorching fire as we jumped realms.
Grit stabbed at my eyes, and it took me a long moment to process the new realm.
Blood-orange sand whipped around a hot wind and pummeled.
I was kneeling on impossibly soft sand.
Visibility was shit.
Sand everywhere.
I couldn’t even tell how many suns the realm had, but from the scorching heat, my guess was at least three.
From what I could make out, sand scraped against dunes in every direction and made a low scratching noise that accumulated into a harsh buzz.
Lothaire shouted, but his voice was swallowed by the coarse wind. “Take….the hovers. Ungodly. I’ll…watch. GO!”
I heard every other word, but the message was clear as Lothaire pointed to a line of thin machines that glowed with blue enchantment and hovered over the sand.
“Let’s move!” Malum shouted.
Maybe the sleepless nights were getting to me, or maybe I was dissociating, but everything seemed to move in slow motion.
Time crawled.
Throwing myself onto a curved saddle like the rest of the recruits, I jolted because the handlebars were shockingly cold.
I twisted my hand forward.
There was a loud bang and a jolt, then I shot forward like a bullet across the sand.
As I hung on for my life, sand slammed into my face like it was trying to grind off my skin.
It succeeded.
Warm liquid poured down my neck as I gripped the handlebars and bent forward, thigh muscles burning as I fought to stay on the bike.
Barely conscious.
The bike had gone dark beneath me, the enchantment exploding in a burst of power that flickered out. It was a slingshot across the sand.
The “interference,” as Lothaire had called it, was a tornado of a sandstorm that whipped particles with a vengeance. My fingers turned ruby red as blood streaked across my exposed hands.
Blurs of black around me were the only indication that I was with the men.
Fingers slipping across the cold handles, I focused every ounce of concentration on holding on.
With me moving at this speed, there was no one to save me.
Abruptly, the number 300 flashed on the center of the bike. I squinted, and it blinked “MPH” before flicking off.
Holy. Fuck.
I lowered my head and put all my willpower into my finger strength.
Why the fuck didn’t Lothaire have us wear masks or gloves? That motherfucker did this on purpose.
Time coalesced into endless seconds of desperation.
Suddenly, the wind knocked out of my chest, and like a ragdoll, I slammed into a wall.
The world went dark.
“Get up, Egan. Get the fuck up now!”
Cruel silver eyes hovered inches from my face, and a bloody monster screamed at me.
“Get up!” The monster tried to pull my arms out of my sockets as it threw me around.
Throbbing agony burned my face and hands. My eyelids were slabs of meat as I blinked painfully. Pink tinged my vision.
“Let’s go!”
Slowly, I realized the monster was Malum, and he was dragging me across a sand dune, six other men stumbling to awareness around us.
The storm raged. It whipped sand into the bloody wounds that covered every inch of our exposed skin.
Malum’s face was a mess of gore and limp flesh.
“You look like shit!” I yelled at him. “Very ugly!”
He flipped me off, and it weirdly made me feel better.
“Get your head out of your ass!” Jinx yelled in my mind, and I nodded with agreement. She always knew what to say.
I opened my mouth to breathe deeply and choked as a mountain of dust scratched my esophagus.
Bent over, I heaved.
“Didn’t see that coming,” Jinx drawled sarcastically.
“Move! Why are you standing there?!” Malum screamed and shoved me forward.
Internally, I answered, I’m just talking to my best friend’s mate’s little sister in my head because she’s the meanest person I know and she calms me during awful times like this.
Externally, I followed.
Malum leaned down and hoisted Orion up by his shoulders, shouting something in the other king’s ear.
I gained a little more visibility as I grew accustomed to the burn of my mutilated eyelids.
Plugging my nose, I filtered in the smallest bit of air possible.
I slowly got my bearings, and I joined the other men stalking across the sand.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad?
From what I could see, which was about three meters in every direction, the world was an abandoned wasteland of orange dunes.
Either our bikes had all failed at the same time or Lothaire had gotten shitty intelligence about the ungodly.
As we trudged forward over the dunes, nothing changed. We were alone in this desolate realm.
Lothaire must have been wrong.
Thank the sun god.
Head lowered, shoulders curved inward, I cursed the fact that I could have been under my covers in bed. Sure, the nightmares kept me awake, but at least I wouldn’t be being sandblasted.
This is stupid, there’s nobody here.
I relaxed.
Pow. Pow. Pow.
Sand exploded all around as bullets rained.
Chaos descended.
Malum screamed something, but his words were swallowed by the stand storm. Someone’s dagger whizzed by my cheek, but in the shit visibility, I couldn’t tell if it made contact with anything.
A cloaked body covered in white cloth sprinted a few feet from me with a gun pointed forward.
I was three feet away from the figure, but it didn’t see me.
As quickly as it appeared, it was gone, swallowed by the punishing wind.
I opened my mouth to scream and choked on the gritty sand. Sharp pain stabbed my thigh, and a chunk of black-clothed flesh sank underneath the sand.
Something had shot me from the other direction.
I whirled around.
Jinx’s voice was sharp. “Are you just going to stand there and take it like you did in the beast realm? Is that all you are, a slab of meat for target practice?”
Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow.
More bullets spat up sand around me.
I couldn’t see any of the men.
Sharp pain stabbed my upper arm, and I looked down with horror. Some fucker had shot me. Again.
A low growl ripped from my throat.
This time, it was personal.
My monster screamed in my head, and metal bars squealed as they were ripped apart.
It woke the fuck up, and it wanted blood.
