Page 23 of Echoes of War

Abel glanced down at the floor, watching his feet stroll into the room. “Oh. Well, still, hey.”

“Hey yourself, handsome. Talk to me nice, and maybe I’ll make an exception,” Reina teased, never one to turn away an opportunity to snare someone in her lustful ways.

For most of us in this room, flattery would gain no one any favors. But with Reina, flattery could buy someone all the favors and then some.

Abel’s voice had been a surprise the first time I’d heard him speak now that he was an adult. I’d missed those pubescent years, and thus the drop of bass in his tone.

Which is why it took me a moment to process that it was him who asked, “Has it worked?”

“Don’t know yet,” I replied, ready to toss a question back at him. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” His words were clipped, eyes shifty, and the tip of his nose twitched.

I call bullshit. Some thingshadn’tchanged from when he was a child.

“I can’t believe Riley stationed you here. You’re a terrible liar.” Alexiares said, twisting beneath me, trying to pry himself free nonchalantly, but I refused to let up. We weren’t done here. I smacked the side of his head, making him pause.

“Sloan ordered me not to worry you, well, not yet. But she did in the future. I mean, it just happened. I haven’t seen her yet, maybe I should—” Abel took in the scowl on my face and decided who posed the greatest threat to him at the moment, “... don’t freak out. A few labs exploded.”

“Which ones?” I didn’t move from my position, though I was pissed. Didn’t matter which lab exploded, whether it was for the shields or magic disablers, either one would inevitably fuck up or delay our plans.

Abel glanced at Alexiares warily, then back at me. “Um, all of them?”

They were right next to each other in some old warehouses nearby.

“Amazing,” Alexiares growled out, attempting to sit up and take care of it. He’d been essential in their development sincehe’d been present when Finley had begun working on them. She’d kicked him out of the lab when she’d gotten to the good part. Wisely so, I would do the same, but it still pissed me off.

I shoved him back down. He wasn’t going anywhere. We needed to do this now more than ever. “Stay down. We aren’t done. Anyone hurt?”

“We’ll see once the fire is out,” Abel said, taking the seat Tomoe had previously occupied.

“Even more of a reason to continue,” I stated matter-of-factly. “Now, quiet so we can focus.”

Amaia

We tried for hours to no avail until suddenly, we found victory. Three hours of awkwardly staring into the depths of those soft brown eyes and snarky remarks, and it turned out Tomoe had been right all along. Vulnerability was key, but that was only a piece of the puzzle. We’d had to let our walls down completely, let each other in without hesitation. Low and behold, the resistance had been on my end, not his. I may have trusted him with my life. The innate sense of trust required for this, however, did not come easy.

Alexiares had dropped his guard an hour into our efforts. He’d been halted because of my blockade once my power seeped into his veins. It hadn’t been my intention, but subconsciously, my magic had fought back, refusing to submit and accept his presence that was now rooted within me. The push and pull of our magic,trying to find a way to merge peacefully was taxing. My magic drained at a concerning, unsustainable pace. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to stop fighting.

Every time I let my guard down this way, trusted with completion, the poor soul on the other end died. Loving me was a death sentence. Riley was the only exception to that. He acted as my shadow for so long that, at some point, my subconscious no longer recognized him as a different entity. He simply became an extension of me.

There had been a flash of pain as I met Alexiares’ eyes. For someone who had no control over his natural power, he sure knew how to agitate mine. Begging me to let him in and angry at my refusal.

Tomoe had fallen victim to exhaustion when I’d finally succumbed to his wishes. Reina’s dismay was evident in her heavy sighs pointed in my direction. She did her best to simmer his frustration while trying to rein in her own.

I couldn’t blame them. We’d been here half the day and now deep into the night. We were hungry and tired, but nothing we hadn’t survived before. The only difference now was that morale was nonexistent, and they didn’t want to be stuck in a room with me any longer than they had to. Abel had gone to update Sloan and come back with news from the explosion; no deaths but the labs were fucked, thus so were our chances of having shields anytime soon.Perfect.

We hadn’t had the chance to explore the full extent of what power sharing had meant for us. Alexiares had noticed a deeper well of fire, but that could be explained away by his lack of understanding of how far his gifts even went in the first place. Our fire wasn’t a real measure of how Tomoe’s spell had worked anyway. The maximum potential we had was obtaining a score of one hundred if we were to test things out in the Element Room. There was a steady flow of water underneath my veins, but I’d had not adrop of energy to test it out. Although time was of the essence, the rest could wait for tomorrow.

The following day had been equally as exhausting. Sloan’s soldiers finally returned. Holding off Covert had taken more effort than we’d expected. They were a determined bunch on both sides, I’d give them that. The men and women of Duluth had held their own. Both sides had suffered casualties. It was war after all. What mattered, though, was who lost the most, and this time we were lucky; we’d lost a few while Covert Province had lost almost every single soul.

I’d expected them to retreat. Smart soldiers would want to gather themselves a few miles back and wait for further orders, but no further orders had been needed. Covert’s soldiers had one mission, a suicidal one; no surrender. For five days, they’d shown no mercy for themselves or for Duluth. In the end, the last man standing had shot himself in the head rather than answer any questions Sloan’s soldiers had. Few had fled into the woods, but that had likely been intentional. Their role had been defined for them to do so as messengers.

That order had come from Seth. I could feel it in my bones. His cavalry had been instructed to operate under the same circumstances during times of war. I’d objected, but at the end of the day, his cavalry was loyal to him, not me. I wondered how that would change when we got back.Ifwe made it back.

With losses on her side and the labs completely fucked, Sloan had nothing better to do than hover down our necks on Sunday. Now that we knew the ritual worked, Tomoe and Reina had undergone the same process. There was no snow falling from the dense gray sky and it was no longer Saturday, but Tomoe and Reina had come to an agreement. The same ‘rules’ would notapply. The protections that were placed on Alexiares and I would be different.

Scientifically speaking, we needed to see what changes in a variable setting, different weather, different day, would bring. See how much any of that stuff mattered. We needed something to compare ourselves to, a control group.

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