Page 3 of Black Wing and Shadows
“This is the remainder of your platoon. Help them get settled into the empty beds.” Pascal turned and left us in the room.
We stared at them, and they stared back. My eyes moved from person to person, taking in the other cadets. Then, down at the end of the room, my eyes widened, my eyebrows lifted, and my heart dropped into my stomach.
Huge black wings.
CHAPTER 2
I knew that the children of Drusearon warriors had to attend Sandorg, but I hadn’t considered that I would be sharing a space with them. The Drusearon tribe, mostly residing in the northern part of our continent, was born with wings. From a young age, their children learned to fly, fight, and handle weapons. Their wings were similar to those of a dragon, lacking any feathers. Each Drusearon developed their magical abilities between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, depending on various factors. Some of them had potent abilities, while others had simpler ones.
I heard nothing good about any of them. Growing up, I had been told stories of their barbaric ways—not to mention what happened to me at fifteen. I didn’t want to think about that. That day had been the worst day of my life. Even losing my mother hadn’t been comparable.
I claimed an empty middle bunk and dropped the assigned duffel onto the mattress. A tall shelf loomed beside the bed, stacked with the other duffels above and below. I pulled mine open, sorting through the issued gear before sliding it onto the open shelf.
Voices tangled around me. One cadet laughed, another muttered low, two more argued over something I couldn’t catch. The sound pressed in from all sides, sharp and constant. My pulse kicked faster. My fingers twitched against my thigh, restless and tight. My jaw ached from how hard I clenched it, and every breath scraped shallow. My focus snapped from one thread to the next, jerking toward every word that spiked louder than the rest. My chest tightened until it felt like the whole room was trying to squeeze me out.
The day had wrung me out, every nerve stretched thin. I hauled myself into the bunk and rolled onto my side, knees pulled tight to my chest. The blanket came up over my head, muffling the voices and blocking the light. My muscles throbbed, heavy as stone, and my eyes burned each time I blinked. A dull buzz filled my skull, fading only when my breath slowed. The mattress caught my weight, and I let it drag me down into sleep.
“Waaaaaakkkeeee uppppp,” someone screamed, followed by a deafening bell that sounded like it came straight from Marzana. I rubbed my eyes, trying to figure out what happened.
“Get the fuck out of your beds and stand at attention.”
The haze cleared, and I realized I wasn’t at home—Pascal was screaming—and I needed to get upnow. Like the rest of the cadets running around me, we all scrambled out of our beds, any dexterity gone, and formed a line in front of our bunks. I wasn’t even sure what time it was, wondering how many hours I had slept.
“Now that I pulled you out of your slumber, make your beds!”
Was.
He.
Fucking.
Serious.
He ordered us out of bed in the middle of the night and demanded we make them again. We spun around, scrambling to tug sheets tight. The cadet above me fumbled from the floor, knocking into my rack and ruining my corners.
Three bunks down, Pascal stopped at a bottom rack. The bed looked perfect, but he stripped it bare, flinging the blanket and sheet to the ground.
“Again,” he snapped.
That’s when I understood—it wasn’t about the beds. It was about him showing us we had no control. One by one, Pascal tore our work apart. We remade them. He shredded them again. The hours dragged, our hands raw, our nerves stretched thin. By the time he barked for us to lie back down, every one of us knew he could strip us bare and force us to start over asmany times as he wanted. The beds had never mattered. Only his power did.
And in less than two hours, he indeed came back, waking us in the same manner as before. This time, as we stood at the ends of our beds, he started at the beginning and had us count off—one hundred and ten of us in this platoon. He told us to put on our uniforms immediately and stand at attention again. He went up and down the line, screaming profanities at each cadet, making sure we all knew he was in charge, as if any of us questioned it.
He escorted us to the dining hall, where we ate a speedy breakfast, all while listening to the instructors yell at various cadets for anything and everything they deemed annoying or wrong. After we ate, we stood outside at attention for what felt like an eternity. The sun was blinding, and my skin felt on fire. Every single sigh, cough, twitch made my brain race to see who else was restless. I wanted to remain still, trying not to draw any attention that might result in me getting yelled at.
After what felt like hours upon hours, the instructors returned and led us into an enormous stadium classroom built for thousands of cadets. We all piled in, instructed to sit with our platoons, each instructor sitting behind us, waiting for the opportunity to pounce on anyone who interrupted. A tall, pale, blue-eyed female with jet-black hair fashioned into two braids that merged into one walked into the center of the classroom and introduced herself as Professor Melamora. As she stood in the middle, her voice projected so loudly and gracefully that it had to be magic.
She told us we were in the elite college of special forces, and that some cadets came from legendary family lines. She studied each of us as she rotated in the middle of the classroom. She flicked both of her fingers, and above her, two projections snapped into place, allowing both sides to view. The map of our continent, Yebel, showed all seven provinces and the many bases across it. The Veil of Vultures spanned the northern part of Yebel, also known as the Drusearon Mountains. My eyes stopped at the western side, where the Veil of Vultures met Glonia, where a star marked Winterhand Stronghold. My breakfast turned in my stomach, andmy chest tightened and burned. It was one of the outposts where my parents had been stationed—the one where I lost trust in the winged Fae. I reminded myself I needed to calm down before my breathing became ragged and people noticed.
I looked to the northeastern province of Veskonia and focused on Fort Sanda, which was in the northern part of the province. My favorite fort to date.
I drew five deep breaths—in through my nose, slow out through my mouth—forcing myself to settle, to hold the rhythm. Every sound pressed closer. Beside me, a cadet panted, his ragged breaths loud enough to trip my own.
I shifted to smell. Gods, we needed another shower. Sweat clung sharp and sour, heavy in the air. Taste came next—the thin tang of orange juice lingering from breakfast, faint but steady, something I could hold on to. Last, I pressed my palms to my lap, fingers dragging over the thick canvas of my dark-green uniform pants. The rough cloth scraped my skin, anchoring me. Calming me. But I gripped tighter than I needed to, because if I let go, I wasn’t sure I’d stay steady.
After Professor Melamora finished reviewing Yebel, she moved on to discuss what college would look like for the next four years. Every cadet, no matter the branch, had to complete basic training because, whether you came to be a Healer or a Historian, you could be in a combat situation at some point. Basic training consisted of eight weeks of intense training, during which participants learned how to survive without magic or special abilities. While not every cadet would make it to the end, death was not encouraged in basic—unlike some of the branches, which sorted out the weak. All the second-, third-, and fourth-year students left for summer leave. Every cadet had to return by July twenty-eighth to check in, and courses began on August first, regardless of the day of the week it fell on.
She explained that some cadets didn’t leave for the summer, and some arrived back much earlier. However, we shouldn’t see them, as they were only allowed to use Dining Hall Two and stayed in their respective wings of the college. We were in the Bravo Wing, which contained the Instructors’Chambers, where the instructors could choose to sleep if they wished. Their section of the college was warded and off-limits to all cadets. On the other side of Bravo Wing were the barracks for basic cadets, located on floors four through seven. The Historian’s quarters occupied floors one and two, with the library extending four floors underground.
