Page 60 of Black Wing and Shadows
“I’ll take her to the infirmary,” Zane said. I hadn’t even noticed him move to the mat. One breath, he stood beside us, the next he scooped her up—and vanished.
My pulse lurched. What the hell? How did he do that? In the tower attack, he had appeared the same way, out of nowhere.
I glanced around. I wasn’t the only one staring. Gile and most of the Drusearons barely blinked.
Teleporter. Was Zane a teleporter?
“Let’s get back to sparring, next up…” Gile continued. I stopped really listening when I didn’t hear anybody else in my platoon.
“How did you do that?”I said down our bond.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”he teased.
“I mean, yeah, I would. Can you teleport?”
“Yes, but we call it roving. Most Drusearons of Royal Fae can learn to do it. We have to have been to the place we want to go, and when we first start doing it, we can only go short distances. I have been doing it for a while so I could go quite a distance by myself. Carrying someone is about half the distance.”
“What other abilities do you have?”
“Oh, my sweet love, I have so many. Most of them left for the bedroom.”
“I got it, not sharing that information quite yet.”
“I can’t… I want to. I will, but not now. Please, my love, don’t push.”
“How’s Sadie?”
“Nice change there, she will make it, it missed her heart by millimeters. She will be here for a day or so.”
Sparring finally concluded, resulting in a few more injuries. Aside from Sadie, our platoon mainly remained unscathed. By the end of the day, I felt utterly exhausted, a typical feeling for me these days. The day grew more challenging because I had to carry my belongings from my seventh-floor chambers down to the second floor. My room was only two doors away from Lili’s, which made me happy since I was closer to my friend. After finishing, I returned to the seventh floor, gathered the other first-year students, and led them to the infirmary to visit Sadie. When I was injured, my squad came to see me, and I made sure to visit them as well.
CHAPTER 23
I finally returned to my room for the evening, taking everything in. Fortunately, my room faced the field beside the college. The chambers on the other side lacked windows because they shared a wall with the dining hall. The room featured a full-size bed, larger than the small chamber bed upstairs. There was a high-back reading chair in the corner, an armoire opposite the bed, and a desk in front of the large floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the field. Black drapes could be drawn closed for privacy.
Flight Guides didn’t get private bathing chambers. We used the common hall bathing room. Only Wing Commanders, Executive Officers, and Platoon Leaders had private baths in their rooms. Their rooms were also significantly larger—a benefit of their rank.
I hadn’t addressed my cuts from sparring earlier. They weren’t deep and really wouldn’t require stitches. I pulled out my mom’s med bag and started taking out the items, looking to see what I could use to take care of them. I pulled out a brown bottle of salve. It had ‘wound care’ written on it, so I set it aside. I pulled some gauze out and put it with the salve. As I felt into the bag, I noticed a small zipper halfway down. I opened it and pulled out another deep brown bottle. There wasn't anything written on it, and it was hard to see inside. I opened it and looked inside, finding a neatly folded paper. I gently pulled it out. It had definitely been in there for a while.
My dearest Auri,
If you're reading this, it likely means something has gone wrong. I wrote two letters for this bag—a general one in case something happens to me, and this one. I'm writing this before my meeting with your father, the general,and other senior officers. If I am not here to retrieve this letter later, assume I was killed due to what I found out. Auri, I really hope you reconsider and decide not to join at all. Your dad is in deep, with more secrets than I can share. We only stayed together for you. They are taking powerful cadets and experimenting on them. However, if you join the military, hopefully, your dad will finally change. A war is coming, and it might arrive before you actually enter, but they don’t expect everything to fall into place for another eight years—by the time you’re twenty-two, you should be graduating. The King of Rudemont is building an army, recruiting Fae to join him. Some of the dukes in our provinces are collaborating with him to stage a mutiny aimed at breaking away from Yebel. Our king is corrupt, and maybe joining the mutiny is what you need to survive. But all of this will come out over the next several years—pay attention, baby girl. I’ve taught you everything you need to know. Now you need to put it all together. Remember what I discussed in your other letter about your mate—they will always be loyal to you. You can trust Lili. Her mom doesn’t know everything, but enough to try and keep you three safe. I have always loved you, and everything I have done is for you.
Love always, Mama
Tears streamed down my face, and I hadn’t realized I was crying. My mother had been murdered, and my father was involved. How did this happen? My heart pounded fiercely, my chest felt scorching hot, and heat radiated down my arms as it climbed up my neck. I placed the letter on my bed and decided I needed fresh air. I fortified my mental shields block by block, certain he could feel my pain through them. A faint tingling ran along my spine as I ignored it. I didn’t want to speak right then. I couldn’t speak right then. I was shattered. I ached to set the entire world on fire.
I climbed to the top of Watchtower One, where two Riders sat on watch duty. I didn’t say anything, simply moved to the ledge and sat on it, gazing at the sky. The moon was bright, and stars were scattered across it. Facing towards the Flier’s Vale, I saw fliers circling overhead for overwatch. It was quiet tonight, and I appreciated that peace. I thought about my mom and the last year of her life. She was murdered the year before I was raped—were those events connected? I never believed so, but now I wasn’t sure. My dadhad enemies who, in some way, also became my enemies. Honestly, he only recently became my enemy. He was involved in my mother’s murder, or so she implied. At the very least, he knew who did it and did nothing. Was that why he didn’t want me to join?
Swoosh. Suddenly, he sat down next to me on the edge. I didn’t bother to look at him because I knew it was Zane.
“You’ve successfully blocked me out.”
“That was my goal.”
He looked over his shoulder at the two Riders, nodded to the side, and they moved down the stairs.
“I felt glimmers of sadness and anger, but you have gotten good at shielding.”
