A holographic arm suddenly slipped around my throat. I made a small sound of shock that caused Navan to turn sharply, wielding his sword, but there was no way he could slash the attacker away without risking hurting me. Thinking fast, I remembered what I knew of Aksavdo, the Vysanthean martial art. I placed one hand over the enemy’s arm and pulled, putting some space between us, before dropping to the ground, causing my assailant to roll to the floor. Navan plunged his sword straight through the figure, forcing it to disappear with a dull fizz.
As I caught my breath and looked around, I realized that Navan and I were now the only two left on the battlefield, with a limited number of enemies still coming at us in waves. For the most part, Navan was doing the grunt work, slashing this way and that with his katana, but I raised my fists and struck at anyone who came too close. I knew I was holding him back, but there was nothing else I could do. We were still too far away from where my knives had fallen, and per the rules, Navan wasn’t allowed to fetch them for me, which left nothing but my limited knowledge of Aksavdo to get me through.
I was just glad I couldn’t see the rest of the trainees watching us. I didn’t need the distraction of their hostile faces, waiting for me to fail.
A circle of enemy soldiers came at us, hemming us in. Navan zigzagged between them, focusing on protecting me from their weapons, but one broke through his defenses and hurtled toward me. I dropped to the ground, managing to duck under the soldier hologram’s sword stroke and trip it over its own feet. It reached out for my arm as it fell, but I managed to dodge it. Before I could go another round with the hologram, Navan swooped in behind me, gripping my arm and pulling me away. I opened my mouth to tell him it was okay, that I had this hologram under control, then watched in horror as a soldier emerged from behind him and plunged a knife into his back. A look of shock rippled across Navan’s face as his vest lit up red.
In a flicker, the enemy and the knife vanished, the scenery shifting back to black screens, the rubble and texture disappearing beneath my boots. The sky faded away to a plain white ceiling. At the far side of the training room, my teammates were watching through the glass of the observation chamber. They couldn’t have looked more unimpressed if they tried.
Navan had fallen, while the puny Kryptonian was the last one left standing—though they’d all seen she didn’t deserve to be.
I sighed. The simulation was over.
Chapter Two
“Why did you do that?” I asked Navan as I hurried across the black landscape, picking up all the knives I had dropped and using the gloves to quicken the job.
He raised a brow. “Do what?”
“Why did you sacrifice yourself for me?” I replied, feeling disgruntled that he had forfeited his own success to save me from a situation that I had under control. I slotted the last of the throwing knives back into my bandolier, and we headed over to the far side of the room, where an exit sign glowed above the doorway.
“You needed help,” he said.
“I didn’t need help. I shoved the soldier out of the way. You thought I was falling, but I wasn’t—I was fine,” I insisted, trying to rein in my emotions. I was sore from days of training, and irritable from lack of sleep. I wouldn’t be nearly as bothered by this if I didn’t feel like a broken husk of myself.
“What did you plan to do with him on the ground?” Navan asked.
“I’m not sure, but I’d have thought of something.”
“And by the time you’d thought of something, you’d have been dead,” Navan said pointedly. “Look, Riley, you already have the makings of an incredible soldier, but you’re starting at a disadvantage compared to the rest of us. Most of us have been practicing Aksavdo and training with weapons since we were kids. I know I need to leave you to your own devices a bit more, but I can’t help stepping in when I see you in trouble.”
“And I think you need to stop doing that,” I said, the disapproving faces of the other trainees flashing through my mind. “The others already think I’m weak and stupid, and you saving me all the time is making it worse. I appreciate you looking out for me, but you need to let me mess up. Let me figure out where I’m going wrong, so I don’t make the same mistake twice.”
Navan sighed. “I just don’t want you getting hurt.”
“It’s a simulation, dude. How much harm can it do? Plus, I’m already in pieces after the assault course and training grounds. There’s nothing these simulations can do to me that I haven’t already suffered through. And what are you going to do if we find ourselves on an actual battlefield, where there are real risks and real lives at stake? You can’t be running around playing the hero and watching my back all the time. That is likely to get people killed.”
“The goal is to make sure you never see a real battle, remember?” Navan said.
Before I could respond, the throng of trainees descended from the stairwell that led up to the observation chamber, the hum of their chatter echoing through the hallway beyond as they streamed out toward the armory. Navan pushed open the door to the training room, leading me into the corridor, and we followed.
A few of our teammates looked back at us with cold stares—well, at me. Navan wasn’t doing himself any favors by fraternizing with the puny Kryptonian, but they didn’t seem to have the balls to snub him directly. It was just me they had no problem ostracizing.
When we reached the armory, I wandered over to my locker and waved my bracelet over the lock. We had each been given a bracelet when we’d started our training; it contained our food tokens and let us into otherwise restricted areas. The bracelets also ensured we were assigned to the correct weapons, and they recorded our daily training performance, which could be viewed if we flashed our bracelets in front of the performance log. The bracelets themselves were made of a strange metal that almost looked like hematite, with a small ruby in the center. It was this small jewel that seemed to hold all of our personal data.
The locker sprung open, revealing the drawers where my knives and other items belonged. Slipping awkwardly out of my military attire, I pulled on the white t-shirt and navy-blue trousers I had left in my locker and instantly felt more comfortable.
“I’m serious about what I said before. You can’t fight in a real battle,” Navan said, once the rest of the coldblood trainees had left, their laughter ringing down the hallways.
I sat down on a nearby bench and leaned my head back against the wall. I was hot and sweaty, and my stomach was grumbling. “Yeah, I know that. I don’t exactly want to fight in a real battle either. But what if things don’t go according to plan? I want to be prepared, in case I don’t have a choice. If Queen Gianne’s soldiers ambush us, or Queen Brisha orders it, I might have—”
He shook his head. “Nope. Not while I have breath in my lungs. A real battle is nothing like these simulations. You would be dead in an instant, Riley. Your knives are exceptional, but they won’t protect you in a true battle.” He sat down next to me. “Plus, the training will never prepare you for the psychological damage that taking the life of another person causes. Nothing can prepare you for that.”
I glanced at him, surprised by the emotion in his voice. His expression was hard to read—he was good at hiding his suffering from me—but I sensed a well of pain flowing behind his gray eyes. He had described some of that pain to me before, but in that moment, I felt I had only scratched the surface. To be honest, it seemed he could distance his mind without a problem once his temper took hold. He had killed Jethro easily enough, and he’d spoken openly about how it had felt to murder his best friend… but the flicker of regret in his voice told me that killing had been hard for him once. Was there someone else he had killed, earlier in his life, whose death had caused him untold damage?
“What?” he said, making me realize I’d been staring at him for way longer than I’d meant to. Not that I minded staring at him. He was nice to stare at.
“I just… I’m wondering what it might be like to actually take a life. You know… coul
d I do it if I had to? It’s not something I ever thought I’d have to think about,” I said, and even as I spoke, I was hit by a sudden wave of doubt. Could I do it, if such a moment came? I was the kind of girl who had trouble swatting flies and wasps; how would I cope if faced with killing a being so similar to myself?
“It’s not something I ever want you to think about,” Navan replied, taking my face in his hands and planting a firm kiss on my lips. In the safety of the empty armory, I let myself sink into the moment, only for him to pull away a second later. In Vysanthe, there was no such thing as a safe place.
We’d managed to keep the true extent of our relationship a secret from our fellow trainees—Brisha knew about it, but there was no point in everyone and their mother knowing if we could help it—but they were starting to suspect, more and more each day, that there was something amiss between Navan and me. Having someone walk in on us while we were kissing would only fuel their animosity.
“It’s still something I have to consider, Navan,” I said. “What if the day comes when I have no choice but to defend myself… to kill… and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it?” It was something I’d been thinking about more and more recently. Proving myself here in Queen Brisha’s army was a double-edged sword. If I could prove myself, then the queen would deem me useful and very possibly send me out in the field. If I didn’t prove myself, then I had failed, and shown just how weak and vulnerable my species was. It wasn’t exactly a simple situation.
Navan scowled. “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. Right now, all you have to focus on is getting through training, okay?”
“And you’ll take it easier on the hero front?” I asked, nudging him in the shoulder.
He sighed. “If you want me to back off, I’ll back off, but if you want me to help, I’m here,” he said, brushing strands of my hair behind my ears.
“Okay, deal,” I said.
I was still desperate for a shower, but the loud growl of my stomach took precedence. I hadn’t eaten for hours, and we’d already agreed to meet Angie, Lauren, and Bashrik for a late lunch.
“I suppose we should get going,” I murmured, stretching out my tired arms. “Wish I had time for a shower first, though. I feel gross.”
At the mention of the word “shower,” Navan dropped his gaze, running an awkward hand through his short dark hair. My cheeks flushed too, as I remembered just how close we’d come to taking things to the next level, over a week ago. Before we’d even reached the bathroom, where the enticing promise of a hot shower had beckoned, we’d fallen onto the sofa, tangled up in one another, making out like our lives depended on it. It had gotten pretty heated by the time I finally suggested that we continue things under the tumbling water. He’d scooped me up like I weighed nothing and carried me across the room—only for the devastating sound of a knock at the door to interrupt us.
A moment later, Bashrik had burst into the room, coming to find out where Navan had run off to, since there were things that still needed to be discussed, brother to brother. Seeing me in Navan’s arms, he’d immediately announced his disapproval, though I suspected that was more out of embarrassment than true condemnation. Bickering between the brothers had followed, with Bashrik insisting that we were taking too much of a risk by allowing ourselves to be an item here, and the moment had been ruined. Since then, we hadn’t really had the chance to pick things back up where they’d left off, with the brutal training regime, the early starts, and the unexpected calls to additional sessions.
“Well, you don’t look gross,” Navan said, breaking the silence. Smirking, he dipped his head and caught my lips in his once more, though his eyes flicked cautiously to the door. After the arguments Bashrik had made, and the cold stares of the other trainees, I was beginning to worry Northern Vysanthe wasn’t quite as liberal as I’d hoped when it came to interspecies relationships.
Once we drew apart, I took my fur coat from the locker and we left the training room, the oddly sweet taste of his kiss still lingering on my lips. Coldbloods definitely didn’t sweat the same way humans did.
The hallways were silent as we headed through the now-familiar network of corridors that formed the training center. It was a large, silver-domed building, the majority of it built into the rock of the mountain range that nestled behind Nessun, the capital city of Northern Vysanthe. As we hurried out of the main exit, the biting wind nipped at my cheeks, prompting me to pull the coat tighter around my face. Even though the sun was high in the sky, it did nothing to warm the world below.
I shuddered, breaking into a jog. My eyes were fixed on the palace up ahead, on its three gleaming minarets standing proud, on the crystals and rubies that adorned it flashing in the sunlight. Even after more than a week in Nessun, I still hadn’t gotten used to the striking building, with the twisting statues of male and female coldbloods seeming to dance off the very sides of the palace walls. It might not have been as exquisite as Gianne’s, but it was darn close in my opinion. The gardens were my favorite part of the palace, with their frozen water features, beautiful blooms, and delicate trees, and though I could just about see them from the apartment I shared with Navan, I sadly hadn’t had the chance to visit them properly since training had begun.
We reached the relative warmth of the palace and headed toward one of the smaller dayrooms, where we’d arranged to have lunch and discuss what we were going to do about Orion and his cruel provisos. I had let training distract my mind from falling to pieces at the potential consequences of failure. If we couldn’t deliver the intel the rebel leader wanted, he would kill my parents and other innocent humans. A chill coursed through me, fueling my fear and rage. As much as I hated the idea of sending Orion information that could make him stronger, I couldn’t let the alternative happen.
We had yet to come up with a solution to delivering the intel, once we obtained it. The disc Navan had procured from Gianne’s Observatory, along with the black box that could transmit the information, had been abandoned in Southern Vysanthe with no hope of retrieval. Now, we needed a new way to get intel to Orion without arousing the suspicions of anyone in Queen Brisha’s kingdom. It wasn’t going to be easy, since Navan didn’t know the landscape of Northern Vysanthe like he knew the South, but I was hopeful we’d be able to get far enough away to at least send something. My parents’ lives depended on it. Countless human lives depended on it.
“How do we get information to him if we’re only allowed between the palace and the training center?” I asked in a low tone, a wave of concern rippling through me. A week had already passed, which gave us just under three weeks to get Orion what he’d asked for.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Navan said, “and I still think the queen’s control room is our best bet, when the time comes. I can’t see any other options.”
I bit my lip, wanting to agree but unable to shake the feeling that it was simply too risky. We’d had this same conversation a few times over the last week. “If anyone caught us, that’d be it, Navan. Game over.”
“They won’t catch us. Not if we’re careful,” Navan said.
I sighed, still unconvinced. “I guess we still have a bit of time to think about it. We need to gather information first anyway, before we even attempt to send it. Bashrik, Angie, and Lauren should have something for us today. Even if it’s something small, it’ll be a start.” Bashrik had asked Navan to give them all a week to try to piece something useful together.
A figure emerged from one of the side corridors that led off from the main hallway. With her purple-tinted hair woven through with golden ornaments, and her imposing stature, I recognized her in an instant.
“Hello, Pandora.” I smiled politely as Navan and I made to press on past Queen Brisha’s advisor.
She stepped in front of us, blocking the way, though it wasn’t an aggressive motion. “Riley, I hate to interrupt your afternoon, but the queen wishes to see you right away. I was just coming over to find you at the training center, but it seem
s you’ve saved me the trip,” she said brightly, gesturing for me to follow her.
“Has she requested my presence, also?” Navan asked, his hand instinctively closing around my wrist.
Pandora shook her head. “Not today, Navan. I am certain she will call for you when she requires you.” She smiled softly, but there was a firmness to her voice that brooked no argument.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” I promised Navan, loosening his hold on my wrist and squeezing his hand. He looked at me with a worried expression, but I turned my back on him, trying to act confident as I hurried after Pandora, who was already most of the way down the hallway, her impressive strides far larger than mine.
As I walked, however, I struggled to push down the ominous feeling that always came before a meeting with one of these regal sisters. I had no idea why Brisha wanted to see me so urgently. All I knew was that these exchanges rarely ended well for me. I still had a small scar where my blood had been taken the last time we’d met.
Chapter Three
I caught up with Pandora, determined not to fall behind, though by the time we reached Queen Brisha’s library I was out of breath, my lungs burning.
As we moved toward the huge carved doors to the library, Lauren emerged.
“I thought we were meeting for lunch,” she said, pushing her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose and looking at me with surprise. “Wait, did I get the time wrong?” A flutter of panic settled across her features, making me smile. I knew how Lauren got when she was deep in study mode, losing hours, and sometimes days, to piles of books and essays.
“Queen Brisha has asked to see me. I think everyone else is still going to lunch, though,” I replied.
“Oh, thank God. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t even sure what day it was.” She laughed, then flashed an anxious look back into the room behind her and clutched my shoulder. “Be careful, Riley. I’ll see you later?”