Traitor (9 page)

It took eight trips and most of the day to move all the crates from the elevator to the storage room. We only stopped once for a quick bite of lunch. By the time we unloaded the last crate, my clothes and hair were soaked with sweat. Now I understood why Jace hadn’t cared too much about how dirty he was this morning.

When we were finished, we didn’t stop to rest. As soon as our shift was over, Jace led the way to the sparring room so we could train together. It was a decent sized room with skinny windows on three sides to let the cold, fresh air blow in—which felt amazing after working for so long. The ceiling was a lot higher, too, and there were an assortment of different training weapons hanging on the far wall.

A few other men were already practicing. Some were sparring with swords, and others were grappling on the floor. Jace must have had something more intense in mind because he plucked a wooden scimitar that was a similar size and weight to mine off the wall and tossed it to me. Then he took two swords for himself and nodded toward one of the big sparring circles painted on the floor.

I’ll admit, I was nervous. I had sparred against Felix and all the other avian students in my graduating class more times than I could count. I’d even sparred against Sile a time or two. But I had never once locked blades with Jace—not like this, anyway.

He had a reputation for being especially brutal. I wasn’t sure what to expect from him when it came to style and technique. I’d never seen him
really
fight anyone.

Our eyes met from across the sparring mat as the atmosphere between us changed abruptly. My instincts came alive, and all my senses snapped into focus. I forgot about how tired I was and I couldn’t feel how my back and arms were aching from working all morning.

“You’ve learned to fight human enemies,” Jace said as he paced the outside of the circle, spinning both of the swords over his hands with effortless speed. “Fighting against gray elves is completely different. Like our dragons, we hope to never fight on the ground. But if that becomes necessary, you need to know what you’ll be up against.”

I stepped into the sparring circle with my mind quiet and my breathing calm and steady. I never took my eyes off him. “And what is that, exactly?”

“They’re smaller, faster, with reflexes that border on the supernatural. Their bones are as hard as metal, and their strength is impressive for their stature. They will hit you hard. And they will hit you often. Their strategy is to overwhelm you, to put you on the defensive immediately.” He stared me down like a wolf, powerful and likely to strike at any given moment. I could see that dead soldier’s look in his eyes. “But their weakness is their independence. For whatever reason, they don’t fight together as a unit.”

I narrowed my own eyes and tightened my grip on my scimitar. “Shouldn’t we have learned this at the academy?”

Jace stopped his pacing and he turned to face me with a humorless smirk on his lips. “Probably. But the ruling powers decided that the role of the academy is to produce as many effective riders as quickly as possible. Some things had to be cut from the curriculum in order to meet the demand of riders to replenish the ranks. And let’s face it, not all of you are cut out to put your sword and flame against a gray elf.”

I sank slowly into a defensive stance and raised my scimitar as a signal; I was ready. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

His dark eyes glittered with feral energy as he snapped his arms out wide, a sword in each hand. That was all the warning I got. Jace rushed me like a hurricane, striking with speed and precision I’d never experienced from anyone. Sure, Felix hit with incredible force, but his blows were slower and easier to predict. Sile was fast, but his aggression made him reckless and careless when it came to defensive maneuvers.

Jace was as close to flawless as I imagined a fighter could be.

We blurred through our best combat moves, testing each other at every potential weak point. It didn’t take Jace more than a minute to find one of mine. He feigned a strike, which I fell for like a complete dummy. In a blur, he disarmed me and my scimitar went clattering across the floor as Jace planted a kick squarely in my chest and sent me flying.

I hit the ground hard, gasping for breath. There was a boot print on the front of my shirt and I could see stars winking in my vision as I got back to my feet and picked up my weapon again.

“Don’t be stupid,” he snarled. “On the battle field, you’re always one stupid mistake away from having a blade hilt-deep in your gut.”

I watched as he stepped back and assumed a defensive stance. It was my turn to strike first. There was a flicker of a smirk on his lips—which I could only imagine was his way of taunting me.

“You have some of that gray elf speed in you. I’ve seen it before,” he said. “So use it.”

My blood was boiling. I was making rookie mistakes. I couldn’t afford to be this sloppy. It wasn’t just my life on the line now; I had the rest of my brothers in Emerald Flight to think about.

“You want me to use a gray elf skill on you? That’s new.” I glared at him with renewed energy.

“I want you to do whatever you have to in order to stay alive.” He curled a finger at me, taunting me further by inviting me to attack him. “Now shut up and hit me … if you can.”

The weather turned foul on the day Felix was supposed to arrive. Powerful storms weren’t uncommon here, and the already dismal skies were growing even darker. Thunder growled over the mountains, and the temperatures plummeted below freezing. From the safety of the tower, I watched the king’s banners whipping in the violent winds. Snow mixed with frozen rain made the platforms miserable to land on. Soldiers were frantically spreading salt over them to keep them from freezing over.

I’d only been in the tower for a few days myself, but I already felt like a caged animal trapped behind these stone walls. The howling wind was like music to my ears, and the cold made me feel alive again. I breathed it all in as I watched the sky.

I saw her an instant before I heard the sound of her roar. Felix’s dragon, Nova, came in with her wings flared and her legs outstretched for landing. I winced when she finally touched down. Her feet slipped and slid dangerously on the icy platform, but she managed to stick the landing.

Right away, the soldiers working the platform cranked open the iron gate. Several of them rushed out to help guide Nova into the tower, and I followed to meet Felix as he came in out of the storm.

Prax hadn’t been able to trade his shift in the armory, so he’d asked me to come and meet Felix for him. I was more than happy to stand in and spare my best friend from that moment of personal horror for as long as possible. Just seeing Nova lumbering into the tower, shaking ice and snow from her wings, made me grin. She was making irritated chirping sounds and twitching the end of her tail like angry cat. I guess she didn’t like the cold any more than Mavrik did.

I felt Mavrik’s emotions swell in my mind. He could glimpse into my thoughts, and I guess seeing Nova got him all worked up. He started sending me excited swirls of pink and orange. Apparently they had some sort of dragon-romance brewing—or so Mavrik thought. I couldn’t tell that she was willing to give him the time of day.

He chattered at her musically when she crawled past his stall on the way to her own bed. Then he stuck out his chest, raised the black spines along his back, and tried to puff himself out to impress her. It didn’t work. She just stopped and sniffed him a few times before moving on.

I gave him a sympathetic pat on the snout. “Sorry, buddy. Looks like she’s playing hard to get this time.”

Mavrik grumbled his agreement and curled up in his stall again, snorting an irritated breath over the end of his tail.

Suddenly, someone punched me in the arm. I swung back immediately without looking. There was only one person in the world who did that to me.

“Miss me?” Felix laughed as he took off his helmet. His lengthy, dark golden hair was a tangled mess from being crammed under it for so long.

Despite the inevitable chaos he was most likely about to endure when he met his partner, I was still glad to see him. Of course, I couldn’t tell him that. The laws of masculinity forbade it. “Nah, not really.”

“You never were a very good liar.” He gave me one of his usual smirks, but I noticed right away that something was off. He wouldn’t look me in the eye for very long, almost like he was trying to hide something.

I followed him to Nova’s stall, and stood by the door while he got her settled in and took off her gear. I was silently wondering what was going on, or if something had gone wrong with his mother. He looked tired—which was completely understandable. Flying in weather like that was like being sloshed around in a bucket full of icy water.

Once Nova was settled, I picked up Felix’s bag and nodded down the corridor that led into the tower. “Quite a place, huh?”

He nodded, but still wouldn’t look my way. “No kidding. I couldn’t see much, though. This storm is pretty bad. My visibility was lousy.”

We walked together in silence almost the entire way to the room he was going to be sharing with Prax. With each step, I realized more and more just how awkward and quiet he was being. I started to get afraid that maybe his mother had already told him about Prax. Did he know? Was he upset? Should I even say anything about it until he brought it up on his own? Jace was right; it was a personal family matter. It wasn’t any of my business. I shouldn’t be sticking my nose in it unless I was invited to.

When we got to the door, Felix hesitated. He was chewing on the inside of his cheek vigorously and his brow was furrowed. We stood there for a few seconds while he just stared at the door like that. Eventually, he seemed to snap out of it. He flicked me a glance, forced a smile, and reached out to take his bag.

I hesitated to give it to him. “Is everything all right?”

Our eyes locked, and I saw it plainly; there was worry and absolute sadness written all over his face. I’d never seen him like this before. But he acted like he was ashamed of it; like he’d done something really horrible and he didn’t want me to know about it.

So I dropped his bag on the ground between us, put my boot on it, and crossed my arms. I wasn’t moving until I got some answers. “What’s this about?”

I was expecting him to scowl or maybe even fight back a little. But his shoulders dropped and he looked away dejectedly. “Fine. But I’m not talking about it here. Is there somewhere we can go?”

I knew of a place that was sure to be deserted at this time of day. After we threw his bag onto his bed and took off his outer layer of armor and padding, I led the way up to the sparring room. I knew everyone was bound to still be working their shift jobs, so we had the room to ourselves.

Felix glanced around for a moment like he was taking it all in. Then he strolled over to one of the windows that lined the two exterior walls, staring out at the raging spring storm that was wailing against the glass. He had that strained expression on his face again, and I noticed he was clenching his hands into fists so hard his knuckles were white.

Standing behind him, I decided to wait until he felt like talking. It didn’t take long. After a few minutes, he turned back around and leaned against the wall.

“The king issued a decree demanding that all gray elf refugees in Maldobar be immediately deported from their residences and taken to Halfax.” He didn’t mince words or dance around the topic, but he couldn’t hold my gaze while he spoke. “The prison camp at Halfax has been rebuilt. It’s much bigger than it was before. I passed over it on my way to my family’s estate. I could see the smoke for miles and miles. When I got back home, I heard about the decree. The gray elves are being taken there by the thousands every day from all corners of the kingdom—men, women, and children. And judging by the smoke rising out of that cesspool, it’s not a big mystery what is happening to them there.”

My heart was beating so loudly, and the silence between us was so heavy, I knew he would be able to hear it.

“It isn’t right. Those people came here for shelter.” Felix looked up at me at last. I saw bitter wrath blazing in his eyes. “The king isn’t interested in winning this war—he’s interested in exterminating their entire race.”

I was so stunned by what I’d just heard my reactions were delayed. Panic made my blood run as cold as the freezing rain outside. I was angry. I was speechless and utterly horrified. All I could say was, “Why?”

Felix shook his head. “Does he need a reason? He’s the king. His word is law. No one can refute it.”

My legs were beginning to get weak. I turned around to lean against the wall. A few seconds later, my knees buckled and I found myself sitting on the floor next to him.

“I gave word to every servant in my household to give secret refuge to any gray elf they found on my family’s grounds,” he said very quietly as he sat down next to me. “I signed up to be a soldier, to fight in defense of Maldobar. But I won’t be anyone’s executioner. It’s one thing to fight their warriors on the battlefield. It’s another to butcher innocent civilians.”