Page 18 of Kingdom of Tomorrow
Two guards rounded the corner, dragging a hysterical soldier in uniform past us.
“The old gods will rise and bring the end with them. You know that, right?” His laughter echoed from the walls. “The Kingdom of Today is here!”
I grimaced. A Rock-worshipping Soalian dedicated to the destruction ofCuredhad infiltrated the military.
The medic who’d worked on me hurried over to inject him with what had to be a sedative. The traitor sagged into unconsciousness.
Fellow soldiers muttered among themselves, and I caught the wordsTome Society.
Oh, please no! The Tome Society was a small faction of Soalians responsible for the deadliest attacks againstCured. Supposedly the god Soal’s finest warriors and those he trained to fight an army of sleeping immortals.
Only when the foursome disappeared inside a room with a real door did I breathe again. As murmurs rose from my peers, Jericho looked me over from top to bottom, wiggled his brows, and snickered. “I liked the other outfit better. But this one will look amazing on my floor.”
Nope, he absolutely hadn’t changed.
The former ruckus forgotten, everyone focused on me, curious to see how I would react to the implication. To my consternation, I blanked.
“You know what will look amazing onmyfloor?” Roman asked with a calmness I didn’t buy for a second. “You. Talk to her like that again, and I’ll mop it with your face.”
The other soldier went red and puffed up with indignation. “You can try.”
Aggression radiated from Roman. More than I had suspected his powerful body contained. Jericho braced, as if ready to launch the first blow.
This couldnotbe happening.
“Arden!” Completely oblivious to the brewing cage match, or just uncaring, Mykal smiled and waved me over. “Did you hear my news? I’m—”
“Attention,” an unfamiliar voice called. “Nobility on deck.”
“Line up.” This hard baritone I recognized. High Prince Dolion had returned.
Everyone leaped to obey, rushing into the semblance of a formation as he strode down the hall.
“You’re Cyrus Dolion, and you’re here, within touching distance,” the girl from my school breathed.
“And you’re speaking out of turn.” He didn’t snap the words as he passed her, but somehow his measured delivery seemed far worse. “Don’t do it again.”
Mykal zoomed forward to take a post behind him. Oooh. He’d made his offer to her, and she’d accepted. That must be her news. And it was fantastic. Genuinely wonderful. And yet, regret overtook me. Had I made the wrong decision?
No. No, of course not.Eyes on the prize.
I forgot how to breathe as the HP stopped, faced us, and traced his gaze over every soldier. Hmm. Did his attention linger on me a split second longer than everyone else?
No, of course not. The strange blip of my heartbeat made it feel that way, that was all.
“You are here to learn how to protect your world and those in it,” he stated. “But you cannot help others if you cannot overcome the danger to yourself. That is why you will first learn self-reliance.” He locked his hands behind his back. “For the next six weeks, your highest priority is you. Only after each of you can hold your own will you train as a team. As your leader, I expect your best always, without exception or excuse. If I don’t get it, you’ll experience my disapproval.” His gaze landed on me and stayed put. “Trust me when I say you do not wish to experience my disapproval.”
I jutted my chin, because my only other option was to wither.
“Come,” he said with a slight grumbling tinge.
He marched us through the prison side of the compound, snaking around corners, climbing concrete stairs. Along the way, signs offered directions to different locations. The commissary. Locker rooms. Medical. There were no plants, and the lack proved more disappointing than my new leader. Why couldn’t I have gotten the archduke or the duchess?
Full-fledged lords and ladies, rather than those in training, strode about with knights, and most ignored us. Several cast us sympathetic glances, as if they recalled their own first days. No conversations took place, the regimented environment reminding me of my years at school. Numerous windows shattered the illusion, however. There were more panes here than I’d ever seen in one building, an occurrence I didn’t understand. The maddened loved to break glass. They thrived on destruction of any kind, really.
On the walls without windows hung portraits of former leaders, intermixed with detailed murals. Scenes painted to encapsulate the golden age before the Fall of Nations, a time when there’d been no Rock or Madness. No guarded cities filled with a hodgepodge of mismatched buildings. Flora and fauna had encompassed the whole world, rather than the top of a stone wall broken into small segments and placedthroughout civilization. I drank in a wide expanse of lush green grass, flowering trees, and soaring flocks of birds. Clearly, I’d been born in the wrong era.
Though I longed to study the painted images in detail, the HP never slowed his gait.
