The city was mostly dark, the buildings little more than silhouettes against the deep blue sky, but where there was light it looked like a barely contained apocalypse. Fire licked at the clouds and billows of orange-tinted smoke spiraled upward. She could see three fires from her vantage point, none near enough to pose a threat but still too close for comfort.
Since reuniting with her father in the ruins of their Consulate, she’d learned more about what was happening in the city. In the week she’d been in the Overworld, things in Brinford had gone to hell. The Gaians had destroyed seven Consulates in a row, the last one being her own. Once they had everyone’s attention, they’d focused their efforts on Brinford in particular.
After the war seventy years ago, there were few heavily populated cities left. Most of the population lived in small, rural communities instead. Of the remaining cities, Brinford was not only on the larger side, but it also had one of the highest daemon counts. Aside from the Head Consulate, there were several daemon embassies—such as the Ra embassy—and numerous daemon businesses, both legal and illegal. Months ago, when she had fought in the Styx ring, she’d seen a couple hundred daemons in the crowd, and that had been at just one establishment, albeit a popular one.
From the Gaians’ perspective, Brinford must have looked like the head of the snake. It appeared they’d decided to prove their theory—and their abilities—by exterminating the largest daemon population in a single city.
She doubted it was going very well for them. She suspected the Gaians didn’t have any real idea what daemons were capable of. They were born predators and lived in a world of “kill or be killed.” Did the Gaians really think their half-trained haemons stood a chance against daemons who felt threatened enough to retaliate with lethal force? Not all daemons were great fighters or possessed powerful magic, but it only took a few to cause serious destruction—as the fires in the city testified.
The clouds of smoke from the nearest fire roiled lazily. The air stank of burning wood. She tried to imagine where her mother was at that moment. Was she sitting in a meeting somewhere, discussing the results of their efforts with the other Gaian leaders? Did extent of the destruction upset them, or was it just part of “the greater good” they all preached?
She watched the flickering glow of the fires as the sky slowly lightened from deep sapphire to pale blue. When the sun breached the lowest buildings on the horizon, she slipped off the windowsill and trotted back down the steps.
As she stepped through the doorway, she heard the soft murmur of conversation already filling the sanctuary. When she’d first arrived ten days ago, there had been only three Consuls in the church besides Quinn. The rest of their small band of rebels was supposed to return today, and she was curious to see who trusted her father enough to join him in exile.
Entering the sanctuary, she eyed the group gathered in the aisle between rows of pews, not entirely surprised that she recognized the newcomers. Aside from the three she’d already met, three new Consuls stood in quiet conversation, with four apprentices waiting off to the side. Piper’s jaw tightened. She knew the apprentices too.
Randy and Jerome were apprentices at the same Consulate. Lee was from another a bit farther away; she’d only met him twice before. The fourth was Melonie, the only other female apprentice besides Piper within a hundred mile radius; Consulhood was a rough, dangerous job, and most girls quit before their first year was over. Melonie had been a year ahead of Piper and at the top of her class.
Wariness infused her; she’d never gotten along well with other apprentices. Part of the problem was that they resented her inclusion in their exclusive group—her, the haemon with no magic. The other part of the problem was that Piper had beaten all of them in practice combat. Since they couldn’t boast about their superior fighting skills, they tended to take every opportunity to rub her lack of magic in her face instead.
The apprentices stood together a little ways away from their elders. As Piper approached, they turned to watch her.
“Piper,” Jerome said as she stopped in front of them, hesitating under their scrutiny. “You look ... different.”
“What?” she asked flatly. She looked down at herself. She was still heavily armed, but all things considered, she found it surprising that they weren’t. Otherwise, she looked normal.
“Yeah, you do,” Lee seconded. He pointed to her halter top. “What kind of material is that?”
“Dragon scale.”
They stared at her, waiting to see whether she was joking.
Lee squinted at her doubtfully. “Where did you get it?”
“It’s just leather, Lee,” Randy said dismissively.
Piper shrugged. She didn’t care much if they believed her. Melonie stepped around Randy and reached for Piper. She stiffened as Melonie gave her a firm hug.
“We all heard that you’d died at the Griffiths Consulate,” the girl said. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
Melonie cast a look over her shoulder. The guys cleared their throats and mumbled how relieved they were too. Piper managed not to roll her eyes.
“Thanks,” she replied. “It’s been an interesting few weeks.”
“What happened?” Melonie asked. “Where have you been since the attack on your Consulate?”
Piper shrugged again. “It’s a long story.”
Melonie’s eyebrows rose as she tucked her chin-length chestnut hair behind one ear. Everyone was waiting for Piper to continue.
“I had a run-in with the Gaians,” she told them reluctantly, “then the Ras. Took me a little while to make it back here, that’s all.”
“The Ras?” Lee repeated. “You actually met a Ra? They almost never use Consulates.”
Before she could respond, the side door opened and Quinn walked in. He greeted the Consuls and gestured for them to join him—completely ignoring the apprentices, Piper included. His makeshift office was just down the hall; her father was incapable of existing without an office and desk over which to brood and give orders.
As the Consuls headed into the corridor, she moved into line behind the last one. Quinn hadn’t included her in his invite, but she’d be damned if she just stood around like a kid waiting for her parent to pick her up from the schoolyard.
Quinn stood by the doorway as the Consuls passed him toward his office. When she reached him, he stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
“Our discussion will have to wait,” he said.
“It’s already waited over a week,” she said in a low voice, aware of the apprentices watching them. “You need my information if you’re having a strategy meeting.”
“I already have your information.”
She’d already told him everything she knew about the Gaians, but that didn’t mean she had nothing else to contribute. “I might have other insights. I was there, remember? I should be part of the meeting.”
“I will update you on the details afterward. They’re waiting for me.”
He turned and strode down the corridor, leaving her standing in the threshold. She gritted her teeth. She’d really hoped things were starting to change with her father, but maybe that had been wishful thinking. Did he really think she would disrupt his meeting? She knew how to keep her mouth shut, unless it was important.
She glanced back at the apprentices, skimming their gazes and feeling the weight of their judgment. Embarrassed over being turned away from the meeting, she huffed silently and strode toward the main doors. Slipping outside, she hopped off the side of the front steps, squinting in the morning light.
Around the back of the church was a small, dusty yard with struggling grass. Beyond that, old gravestones dotted the grounds, interspersed with sprawling trees, their green summer leaves the only vibrant color on the block.
With a sharp exhale, she stopped in the middle of the yard and stared sightlessly at the gravestones. There was something distinctly anticlimactic about trying to save the world. When she’d first met Quinn in the ruins of the Consul
ate, she hadn’t been sure what she was expecting his “resistance” to look like. But the reality didn’t meet her vague expectations. A ragtag group of Consuls and apprentices who didn’t really have a clue how to stop the destruction that had already been set in motion—at least she was guessing they didn’t have a clue. She should be in that meeting. If she’d been there, she could have pushed them to stop worrying about politics and start figuring out how the Gaians were organized in the city, the first step to stopping them.
She bit her lip; she missed Ash. It was like a pain in her ribs, an ache that wouldn’t cease. His experience would have been a big help, but more than that, he never made her feel inferior. Funny how her father was so good at that.
“Hey, Piper!”
She glanced back as Melonie trotted up to join her.
The girl smiled. “Want to do some warmups together?”
Piper shrugged. “I guess, why not.”
Unfazed by Piper’s lack of enthusiasm, Melonie touched one of Piper’s shimmering armguards. “Those are so cool. Did a daemon give them to you?”
“Yep.”
“Wow.” Melonie gave the armguards a slightly envious look. “Maybe I can get something like them someday.”
“Maybe,” she replied. No need to tell Melonie that that was about as likely as the Gaians declaring a new directive of peace and tolerance tomorrow. Hinote was just about the most generous daemon she’d ever met, seeing as how he’d saved her and Ash’s lives without asking for a thing in return, but she suspected his kindness only extended to her because he considered her kin. The ryujin didn’t have a reputation for benevolence toward strangers.
She unbuckled her belt and laid her sword and guns on the ground, out of their way. Together with Melonie, she began the simple routine. As they moved into stretches in unison, the silence between them softened from uncomfortable to companionable, and when Piper’s heel came down on a crunchy pine cone, they both jumped at the sound, then laughed.
As Piper leaned into a deep leg stretch, she noticed Melonie studying her while completing the same stretch.
“You really have changed, you know,” the girl said.
Piper blinked. “Why do you say that?”
Melonie shrugged as they switched legs. “Well, for starters, you’re leaner and more toned than when I saw you last year. Your face is ... I don’t know. Your cheekbones stand out more, I guess. You look older.”
“I do?”
“And more than that, your bearing is different.” Her somber stare swept over Piper. “You used to strut around like every step was a challenge to the whole world, but now ...”
Piper flexed her jaw. That wasn’t a flattering description. “But now?”
“You just seem more serious and ... confident.” She smiled. “I think it’s a good change.”
Piper made a noncommittal sound and began stretching her wrists. Had she really changed that much in the last few months? She supposed she’d lost a little weight—eating regular meals while running and/or fighting for your life was hard—but she hadn’t been aware of a sudden increase in confidence; if anything, her confidence in her skills had taken a serious hit. Then again, she hadn’t realized she’d previously been strutting around like a rooster all the time.
“I’ve heard quite a few stories,” Melonie said. “It sounds like you’ve been through a lot.”
“I bet the stories are barely half right,” she said with a snort. “You know how gossip in the Consulates goes.”
Melonie chuckled. “Oh yeah. Remember that rumor about Randy throwing out a blacklisted satyr?”
“He probably made it up himself.”
They laughed and rose to their feet to continue stretching. As Piper extended her arms out in front of her, Melonie pointed at her left hand.
“What happened?” she asked, wide-eyed.
Piper drew her hand back to her chest and rubbed her fingers over the bold white scars marring the back of it.
“A harpy.”
“A harpy?” Melonie gasped, clearly horrified. “Why would a harpy do that? Was she blacklisted for it?”
After a moment of confusion, Piper realized that Melonie’s shock wasn’t from the severity of the injury, but from a daemon inflicting that level of damage on a Consul. Months ago, Piper had also been caught up in the same delusion that as a Consul apprentice, she was safe from daemons.
“It didn’t happen in a Consulate,” she explained. “It happened while I was on the run when my father was accused of stealing the Sahar.”
She flexed her hands, stretching the scars. On her other wrist were five white dots—scars from Ash’s claws. She had similar marks on her neck and mostly healed cuts on her sides. The last few months had been hard on her body, as well as her heart.
Melonie eyed the scars for a moment longer, then resumed her stretches. “I guess that’s just reality now, isn’t it? We aren’t protected by the rules of a Consulate anymore.”
“No,” Piper said grimly. Her gaze rose to the hazy sky and red glow on the horizon. “We have no protection at all. But I think it’s probably better this way.”
“What do you mean?”
Piper shrugged in the middle of stretching her shoulder joint. “Like you said, this is our reality now. But for everyone else, this was the reality all along. Humans and other haemons don’t have any protection. Daemons are only on their best behavior in Consulates. What about the rest of the time?”
“But if daemons are chronically violent,” Melonie protested with a frown, “they get blacklisted.”
“Yeah, but does that stop them from being violent? Sometimes we worked with prefects to kick them out of the city or had their embassy deport them, but those punishments were the equivalent of inconveniences.”
Melonie paused in the middle of her stretch. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know. But having seen what daemons are like outside of Consulates, I’m wondering if we were more like babysitters than peacekeepers.”
Dropping her arms, Melonie stared at the ground uncomfortably.
“I’m sorry,” Piper said quickly. “I’m just thinking out loud.”
“It’s okay,” Melonie said, flashing a weak smile. “I hadn’t thought of it like that before.”
“It’s a new perspective for me too. Being around the Gaians really forced me to think about everything objectively.”
Suspicion immediately flared in Melonie’s eyes.
“I don’t support them,” Piper added hastily. “They’re pointlessly violent, killing people and causing so much destruction, but I saw their other side too. They aren’t all bad. Many of their members are just haemons who have nowhere else to go.”
“How can they be ‘not bad’ when they’ve joined a radical group committing all kinds of violence?”
“People will ignore a lot so they can have somewhere to belong,” Piper said. “Most Gaians don’t care about exterminating daemons or burning cities. They just want a family, and the Gaians do some really good things, like rescuing homeless haemons kicked out by their human parents.”
Melonie tucked her hair behind her ears. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can feel sympathy for them while they’re turning a blind eye to the brutal actions of their organization.”
“Yeah,” Piper said with a sigh.
Before Melonie could respond, Lee, Randy, and Jerome came around the corner of the building.
“Hey ladies,” Randy drawled. “All warmed up? Maybe we should have a little practice session, eh?”
Piper and Melonie folded their arms in unison.
“Two on three?” he suggested.
“Girls versus boys?” Piper said. “What is this, elementary school?”
“You just know you’d lose.”
“You just know you’d lose if you took on either one of us by yourself.”
Randy laughed scornfully. “Tell you what. Me versus you then—but, magic allowed.”
“Randy,” Melonie began angrily
, “that’s not—”
“Not fair?” he finished. “It’s no different than what Piper’s gonna face in real life. Daemons aren’t going to hold back just because she doesn’t have magic.”
The only one who knew Piper had magic now was her father, and she didn’t plan to share the good news with anyone for a while. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew her skills were rudimentary at best, and she’d only done as well as she had because she had the Sahar’s raw power on her side. One of the reasons she was better at physical combat than other apprentices was because their training time had been divided between martial arts and magical combat. She’d devoted twice the time to the former and zero to the latter.
“Fine,” she said. “You’re on.”
Randy grinned, foreseeing a major ego stroke in his near future. He moved into the center of the yard and gestured for Piper to approach. She strode over to take her spot ten feet away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other three exchange worried looks.
“Okay,” Melonie called. “On the count of three. One.”
Randy tensed. His fingers curled.
“Two.”
Piper tilted her head to one side, smiling faintly. Randy’s jaw tensed.
“Three!”
Randy flung out his hand and an invisible blast of force rushed toward her—but she was already diving forward. The spell brushed over her head, ruffling her ponytail. She rolled, came out of it in a spinning crouch, and swept her leg out in a half-circle. Her boot hit his ankles, taking his feet out. He hit the ground on his back with a whoosh as his breath left his lungs.
She sprang up and waited. He got to his feet, looking a little stunned. His hand came up again for another spell, but she was too close. She hit his hand aside with her forearm and drove her fist into his side. He gasped and staggered. She struck again and he barely managed to block it, flinching from the force of her blow. Her fists flashed out three more times, connecting with soft parts of his body. He kept retreating. After her fourth blow connected, she left a deliberate opening and when he tried to take it, his fist swinging for her solar plexus, she grabbed his wrist, twisted his arm, and threw him over her shoulder. For a second time, he landed on his back with a whump.