Chapter Fifty-Three – The Captain’s Return

  Leaving Rynn, he felt her as she moved down the hall and into the living room to greet their squadmates. He could get a sense of what she was feeling as well, a little excited, a little scared, but mostly happy to see their friends. It had been one of the most important days of their lives.

  Gray had wondered what being bonded might feel like. Now he knew. He could feel Rynn, and she could feel him—where he was, what he was feeling, who he was with. The idea that their lives had become so tangled together also made him wonder what would happen if he lost her.

  He knew. From talking to the Widow Stone, losing your bonded meant a hole opened up in your heart and it could never be filled. It didn’t kill you, but you might wish you were dead.

  He pushed through the door to find the captain taking off her mask. She hurled it at him. “You fucking children, bonding at a time like this. The house reeks of your love play stench. And I could feel the mana, from you I suppose, even while I was in the tunnel. Explain yourself.”

  “My core is full,” Gray said. “I have a resonance…the Sex Instinct, though I’m praying to any of the unmurdered gods left that chastity isn’t going to be my path. I enjoyed the love play—as you put it— far too much to ever give it up. Rynn and I are bonded. It’s happened. I can feel her laughing even now.”

  The captain stared at him for a long time. Then her face crumpled like a piece of paper being balled up and thrown away. She went from anger to sorrow like an unexpected storm. Gray had seen such storms before, blowing in from the west. A nice day could turn into a hurricane in seconds.

  He easily found her soul, it was so big, and so hungry in a way the others weren’t. Envy. He could feel it coming off her in waves. It was envy, and some kind of false pride, that didn’t have mana in it. It was this terrible thing in her, the belief that all the world could be happy but she could never be.

  The knowledge struck him suddenly, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the souls of his friends, and especially not the complicated maze of emotions that Sette Sevanya carried around inside of her.

  He tried to draw in the envy mana, but he had no practice in dealing with his newfound resonances, and yes, he had more than one it seemed—the Sex Instinct and the Ambition Instinct.

  He stood away from her. With any of his other squadmates, he’d would’ve tried to soothe them with a touch. But not the captain. She might kill him if he approached her. He had all this mana, but he didn’t know how to use magic in any meaningful way. But he would learn.

  “I can feel the envy,” he said quietly. “I knew it, from before, even though you denied it. Now you can’t because I feel the mana.”

  Settie went from crying to laughing, her eyes changing, turning serpentine even as they lit up in anger.

  “Impossible! I’m ageless. Your doomed little love affair means nothing to me!”

  A fresh wave of mana came from her, and he felt wash over him. He smiled. “Yes, that is the pride of a dragon. The Status Instinct. To become better than everyone else. To rise above, to be feared and worshipped for the goddess you are.”

  She dashed over to him, and he would’ve liked to fill his legs mana, or use it to dodge her, but he couldn’t.

  She grabbed his arm, and he felt her core blazing within her. By the gods she was powerful. “What do you mean? You can’t feel those things. You don’t have a resonance. You can’t. I know you inside and out. I’ve been in your heart, Grayson Fade. You are so fucking limited.”

  “I was,” he said quietly. “Take another look at my core.”

  She shoved him toward her bed. “Get down, on the bed, and we’ll play this game again. Me at your bedside, like a fucking nurse, as if I needed you. I don’t. You did what I needed you to do. I can discard you at any time.”

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  It was cruel talk, and it was all a lie. Fresh tears slid down her face.

  Gray removed his shirt and laid down, dressed only in his pants. Somehow, having his feet bare made him feel more naked than being shirtless. Maybe it was because he’d spent a year training, and he was far more muscular than he’d ever been in his life.

  Settie touched his chest, eyes gleaming red, and then her hands traveled down his chest. “Oh, you two and your sex. You think it means something. You think being bonded will make all of your dreams come true. Are you going to settle in as her dutiful little husband while her family makes a fortune in the Belly? You think you will love to watch her shine, but how will you like the shadows, Grayson Fade?”

  “How did you like the shadows, Sette Sevanya?” he asked, half-guessing, half-knowing. “Did it not wound your pride? I doubt that gave you any mana.”

  “I found something better,” she said. “A patient anonymity. Maybe you’ll find that too, but I doubt it. You’ve been under someone’s heel before, and I bet like me, you swore you’d never let that happen again.”

  Her hand went to his belly. “By the gods. It can’t be.”

  “It is,” he said. “My core is full, and I can feel more of the mana around me.”

  “Sit up and turn around,” the captain ordered.

  Gray did, knowing what she was looking for.

  He felt her trace his mana mark on the back of his neck. “A full neophyte with your acolyte inch starting.”

  He did feel the itch of his second keenly for the first time, directly under the ink of his first mark. He had yet to study the pattern. The marks being on his back didn’t give him a good view of them.

  “I need a drink.” The captain stood and went to a cart in the corner. “Put your shirt on. This changes everything.”

  “It does?” He asked.

  The captain nodded. “I’ll have to think on how we should handle this. At this stage, though, you have guests to entertain. Your squad was very happy to be leaving Third Barracks. It seems my house will be filled once again.”

  He thought of the rooms. “We’re only five here, and we have two extra beds. Can we get more recruits for our squad? You and I both know that this will be infinitely easier if we had the full seven.”

  The captain turned, holding an ornate wine glass half filled with an amber liquid. “Expanding the team would require…it would be difficult. I’ve registered extra recruits but to bring them onto the team without them enduring Culling Day, well, it’s not been done. We could possibly pull recruits from other teams, and that no other squad would want to lose anyone. However, the fact that we won today makes our squad particularly attractive. Then there is the issue of my identity. The mask can only do much.”

  “Because of your past,” Gray said. “You’re adored in the Crown and despised in the Belly. Are you ever going to tell me about your life?”

  The tears were gone, and while she wasn’t wearing the mesh mask, she had a mask of a different kind. “Mr. Fade, who I have been doesn’t matter. Who I will become, the things I will do, those things matter. There might come a time when it would be beneficial for you to know me better. This is not that time. I have been…” She hesitated, clearly trying to find the right word. “I have been difficult. Maybe I have been cruel. I didn’t like abandoning you and our very fine dog, and yes, I was very upset that you trespassed. Yet, you have proven yourself, over and over. I would like to thank you. I will support you and Rynn, in your relationship. I regret, deeply, all of what I have said and how I have acted.”

  She sipped her drink.

  Gray could smell it. She might as well have been drinking lantern oil, it had a similar smell and probably had a kick that might send him to the floor.

  “I accept your apology.” Gray went up to her, head held high. “And I’m sorry for whoever hurt you. You were cruel because the world is cruel. I survived because in the end, it doesn’t matter how fucking awful life is. I will choose what I think and what I feel. And fuck the world.”

  She smiled. “Yes. Fuck the world. You and I have been cut from the same cloth. Go. Be with your squad. I will remain here. In the morning, we will start your resonance training. You and I will walk this road together. But keep in mind. I am so very old, a sovereign master, and we will never be equals.”

  “Unless I catch up to you.” Gray couldn’t help but grin.

  The captain went to say something but then thought better of it. “Now that would be magic, Grayson Fade.”

  “Since there is magic in the world, let’s not pretend that we can’t do impossible things. We’ll become gods together, and then? Let the world go to hell. You and I will smash our way into heaven.”

  “And that is why we’ll never be equals. You think there is the possibility of a heaven for us. There isn’t.”

  “If we get powerful enough, we can craft our own heaven.” Gray wasn’t sure if he really believed it, but right then, he was feeling there was nothing he couldn’t do. Eighteen months ago, his heart had been healed. And now his core was equally as strong.

  He didn’t need to know Settie’s past. All he needed was a teacher, and she could be that for him. End of story.

  He left to go join his friends where more surprises awaited him.