Alera
Voss’ Office – Continuous
Voss flips through the
pages with sharp, deliberate movements, the candlelight catching on
the gilded edges of the old vellum. Her lips move soundlessly at
first, her expression shifting between disbelief and a growing,
unsettling certainty.
“Wolves…” she
murmurs, more to the book than to any of them. “Of course He would.
Valroth Kyr saturates His symbology with them. Apex predators.
Pack-minded. Relentless. Ecosystem shapers, presence or absence, it
does not matter. They alter the world simply by existing.”
Her voice trembles
with...fear? Awe? It’s impossible to tell.
She lifts her gaze toward
Lucille. The look is not harsh, but it is heavy. “If you saw one…
if one led you…” She shakes her head, unable to fully
speak the implication.
Chosen.
The word hangs in the room
without being said.
Korvin breaks the silence
first, voice low, cutting through the tension. “Cain.” His amber
eyes narrow. “You said she’s seen the wolf 'gain. How many
times?”
Cain shifts, troubled.
“Since we were kids.” He looks at Lucille, almost apologetic. “I
thought she was imaginin' things. Everyone did. Tennessee don’t
have wolves. Hasn’t for—” He trails off, swallowing.
Lucille’s voice cracks
the momentary stillness. “I’ve seen it my whole life.” Her
hands twist together, knuckles white. “Always at the edge of the
trees or across a field. Watchin'. Waitin'. Sometimes… sometimes it
led me places.” She glances at Korvin, then Voss. “But it has
never tried to hurt me. I never felt afraid of it. Not once.”
Korvin studies her with an
intensity that borders on reverence. Or dread. “It guided you last
night.”
Lucille nods, barely.
Renn, who has been pacing
in a small, tight pattern, stops dead. He turns to Voss, brow
furrowed in confusion and something close to alarm. “Why?” His
voice cracks with it. “Why would a God choose a child? Why pick
anyone at all? What possible purpose would He have?”
Voss closes the book
softly, her hand splayed over the sigil on its cover as if to steady
herself. Her eyes are dark, haunted. “Valroth Kyr does nothing
without intent. Nothing without cost.” She swallows, the sound
sharp in the quiet room. “And He does not appear in visions. He
drags His chosen into revelations.”
She looks again at Lucille,
and this time her voice is barely more than a breath.
“If He has touched you…
then whatever comes next will not leave the world unchanged.”
Voss’s silence hangs over
the room like a stormcloud ready to burst. Lucille’s breath
quickens, panic rising in tight, shallow bursts.
“Why?” she blurts,
voice cracking. “Why me? Why choose me? I’m a
Domitian! I’m nothin'. Why not someone from a Great House? Someone
who matters? Someone who—” Her words start spinning out of
control, fracturing into panic.
Korvin moves before Cain
can. His hands find her shoulders, firm, steadying, grounding her in
place. His presence cuts through her spiraling thoughts like an
anchor driven into the earth.
“Lucille,” he says,
voice low, sharp with certainty. “You went to Him seekin' purpose.”
His eyes hold hers, unflinching, iron-strong. “Now He has given it
to you.”
Her breathing stutters. His
grip doesn’t falter.
“All you can do now,”
Korvin continues, “is get stronger. And wait for the inevitable.”
His gaze never leaves her. “Wait for His call.”
Lucille feels the words
settle on her like chains and wings both, heavy, suffocating,
freeing.
Voss straightens behind her
desk, fingers pausing on the fragile pages of the old tome. Her
expression is grim, thoughtful.
“Korvin is right,” she
murmurs. “If Valroth Kyr has chosen you… there will be purpose
behind it. But the intentions of Gods are never simple.” Her eyes
flick to the book again. “I’ll need time to study, to
cross-reference old texts. There are fragments, pieces of prophecy,
symbols, rites, but I need to be sure.”
Korvin nods once. “Then
we’ll leave you to it.” He steps back, releasing Lucille but
staying close enough to catch her if she sways. “It’s nearly
lunch. Lucille, Cain, you haven’t eaten. Go. Get food. Then head to
class.”
He gives Lucille a faint,
knowing look. “I’ll see you both there.”
Voss has already fallen
back into her pages, flipping, scanning, muttering under her breath,
hunting answers like a zealot searching for divine truth.
Renn lingers by the door,
shaken, staring at Lucille as though he’s seeing her for the first
time.
Cain gently touches
Lucille’s back. “Come on,” he murmurs. “Let’s… just
breathe for a minute. And eat.”
But Lucille can’t shake
the feeling that the world has already shifted beneath her feet, that
nothing ahead of her will ever be the same.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Mess Hall Tango –
12:00
Mess
Hall Tango thrums with the usual clatter of trays and scraping of
chairs, but the moment Lucille and Cain step inside, the atmosphere
shifts, subtle, but unmistakable. Conversations falter. Heads turn.
Cadets tense. A ripple moves through the crowd like a cold wind.
By the time they reach the
buffet line, a wide berth has formed around them, around her. At
least a pace of empty space on every side, as though she carries a
plague, or a curse. As though she might ignite. Cain notices none of
it at first; Lucille feels all of it immediately. The scents hit her,
fear, suspicion, disgust wrapped in the sharp, sour tang of whispered
judgment. Her eyes stay low, shoulders tight, her tray clutched like
a shield.
Most of these cadets have
known her eleven years. They know her temper, her fists, the way she
burns hot and fast. That used to be something they could shrug off.
Now they look at her like she’s a live blade.
Sure, she was declared
innocent. Officially. But cadets are children of the Praevectus; they
know how to read between lines. They think she played the system.
That she got lucky. That she gutted Maelia and slit Ilara’s throat
both. That even if she didn’t, she could.
A girl like Lucille
Domitian would.
Cain finally notices the
retreating bodies, the darting eyes, the distance opening around
them. He frowns, puzzled, watching a younger cadet nearly trip over
himself to scurry away.
Lucille keeps her head down
and says nothing.
They move through the
buffet line. Steam wafts from metal trays, standard southern fare
today: cornbread, greens, roasted vegetables, gravies thick and dark.
The main line has a laminated sign clipped above it: FRIED CHICKEN —
TODAY’S SPECIAL. Extra crispy, extra seasoned. One of Lucille’s
weaknesses.
Cain selects his usual
delicate arrangement, careful, balanced, neat portions. Nothing
excessive. Nothing touching. A plate curated like a tiny museum
exhibit.
Lucille builds a mountain.
Heaping scoops of mashed potatoes, then sweet potatoes, then a slab
of fried chicken, then another. Corn fritters. Two rolls. More
protein than anything else, enough food for two, sometimes three,
cadets. If she weren’t who she is, someone might comment. Today, no
one dares come close enough.
Cain watches her pile the
food with a soft, helpless laugh. He murmurs, “I don’t know where
you put all that.”
She shrugs, still not
looking up. “Trainin'.”
“Lucy, I train too.”
“Not like me,” she
says, quiet.
Cain chuckles again, but
this time there’s a strain behind it, confusion threading with
worry. He’s always been amazed she can devour half a buffet and
stay lean, strong, carved from wire and iron like every other top
cadet.
And today, as the cadets
part around them like prey avoiding a predator, he sees something
else too.
He sees that she’s alone
again. More alone than she’s ever been.
Cain and Lucille sit down
in their usual seats. The moment their trays hit the table, several
cadets nearby shove back their chairs and stand, some so abruptly
their utensils clatter to the floor. No one says a word. They just
leave, quick, stiff, purposeful, vacating the surrounding seats until
a ring of emptiness surrounds the two of them.
Lucille doesn’t react.
Hunger rules her more than shame or anger ever could. She tears into
her food like something feral, jaw working relentlessly, shoveling it
in with single-minded focus. Grease glistens on her fingers, steam
rising from the heap of food she demolishes.
The sudden vacancies don’t
escape Cain. He pauses, fork in hand, eyes narrowing as he scans the
retreating backs, the sideways glances, the muttered breaths
half-lost under the mess hall’s constant drone. But he still hears
it, fear, suspicion, distaste, threads of whispering woven through
the ambient noise.
He hates it already.
Cain’s fork pauses
halfway to his plate. The whispers grate against him, low,
venom-laced, half-formed accusations pretending to be casual
conversation. They slither through the mess hall air like smoke. He
tries to ignore them, but they multiply, a hundred small betrayals
murmured inches away.
He looks at Lucille.
She’s tearing into her
food, head bowed, shoulders tight, not from anger, but from
exhaustion. From hunger. From everything.
He watches her as she eats,
the way her jaw works, the way she keeps her eyes pointed straight
down at her plate as if looking anywhere else would break her. He
sees past the tension in her shoulders, past the hard set of her
mouth, straight into the truth of her...
A girl who has been
surviving her whole life on scraps of affection and the hope that
tomorrow might hurt less.
A girl with a heart carved
open by the world, who still somehow keeps moving.
A girl who had been so
starved for belonging that she’d chased a God into the night and
bled for Him without even understanding why.
He wonders, did she do that
because of him? Because he wasn’t enough? Because whatever warmth
he managed to give her wasn’t enough to keep her from freezing in
this place?
His stomach twists.
He knows the others see a
murderer. A feral orphan. A problem the Order hasn’t solved yet.
He sees Lucille.
Beautiful. Stubborn to a
fault. Reckless, yes, he knows that better than anyone. But brave in
a way that borders on self-sacrificial. And so terribly, hauntingly
lonely.
He puts his fork down
completely, unable to pretend anymore. His silver eyes track the
emptiness forming around them, the cadets who stand up without
meeting his gaze, quietly abandoning their trays as if they’re
fleeing a contagion.
Heat crawls up his neck. He
clenches his jaw.
Cowards. Every one of them.
Lucille doesn’t notice;
she’s famished, devouring the meal in front of her like she
genuinely hasn’t eaten in days. Maybe she hasn’t, not properly.
Not with the nights she’s had. Not with the weight she’s been
carrying.
Cain’s voice is low when
he finally speaks, not loud enough for her to hear over the scraping
plates and murmured fear, but loud enough for himself.
“They don’t know you,”
he mutters, eyes still on her. “And they don’t deserve to.”
Lucille pauses mid-bite,
like she senses something in him shift, even if she can’t name it.
But she goes back to eating.
And Cain keeps watching
her, heart aching in a way he doesn’t have the words for yet,
fingers tightening around the unused fork as the space around them
grows larger and colder with each passing second.
Lucille finally looks up at
him, having noticed he’s been staring instead of eating. She pauses
mid-chew, a far-too-clean chicken bone still in her hand, and points
it at him like an accusation. “Are you okay?”
Cain’s face colors
instantly. Caught in the full force of her eyes, those strange,
storm-lit blues and greens, he jerks his gaze back down to his tray
as if the food might save him.
“I-I’m fine,” he
manages, voice thin, stiff.
To cover the heat in his
face, he gestures weakly at the little pile of bones on her plate.
“It’s just… you clean those better than the kitchen dogs. I’m
half expectin' you to crack them open and suck out the marrow.”
Lucille snorts. A real,
unguarded sound. She tosses the bone onto the plate with the others.
“Chicken marrow tastes awful. Grainy. Bitter.”
Cain can’t help it, he
laughs. Quiet at first, then more fully as some of the tension in his
shoulders eases. For a moment, the whispers around them fade beneath
it. Her mouth quirks up in response, and for a heartbeat they almost
look like two normal cadets sharing a joke over lunch.
Almost.
The fear in the room still
lingers. The distance. The eyes on Lucille’s back.
But Cain watches her laugh
anyway, soft, unbothered, bone-tired, and he thinks she deserves so
much more than this. He thinks he’d burn the entire Hall down
before letting anyone hurt her again. And he keeps eating, because
it’s the only thing keeping him from saying any of that out loud.
