Castrum
Astralis Academy – A Month Later
Lucille
and Cain step out of the mess hall together and into the river of
cadets flowing past the doors, some still laughing, some already
exhausted, all of them moving with the restless energy that never
truly leaves the Academy. Boots strike stone in overlapping rhythms.
Voices blur together. The smell of food clings to the air like smoke
that refuses to fade.
Lucille stretches her arms
over her head with a wide yawn, spine arching until something in her
back pops.
Cain snorts. “You eat too
much and now you’re ready to collapse.”
She drops her arms and
bumps his shoulder with hers. “Please. I could run a lap around the
entire Academy right now. I feel amazin'.”
“That’s what people say
right before they regret it.”
They fall into step
together, letting the current carry them down the hall. The ceiling
arches high above, carved stone lit by long strips of cold white
light. Banners hang motionless, watching.
Cain glances sideways at
her. “So. Classes. Verdict?”
Lucille hums, considering.
“Tactics are fine. History is… exhaustin'.” She grimaces. “Too
many names. Too many dates. They expect us to memorize the bones of
dead men like it’ll save our lives someday.”
“It might.”
She sighs. “I know. Still
hate it.” Then, softer, with reluctant pride, “Combat theory’s
been good though. And weapons drills. I’m not terrible.”
Cain smiles at that. He
knows better than to praise her too openly, she never trusts it, but
he lets the silence sit warm between them.
Lucille’s expression
darkens a fraction. “Korvin’s harder on me than the others.”
Cain actually laughs.
“That’s because he cares about you.”
She shoots him a look.
“Don’t say it like that.”
“He treats you like
you’re his daughter,” Cain says easily. “Same tone. Same
expectations. Same disappointment when you don’t meet them.”
Lucille exhales through her
nose. “I made it this far without a parent. I don’t need one
now.”
Cain doesn’t argue. He
just smiles, small and knowing, and keeps walking.
Then the hall shifts.
Sound swells ahead of them,
excitement, sharp and electric. Cadets begin veering off course,
pulled toward the long stretch of reinforced windows overlooking the
inner grounds. Whispers turn into murmurs. Murmurs into open chatter.
Lucille feels it before she
understands it: that pressure in the air, like the Academy itself has
drawn a breath.
“What’s going on?”
she asks.
Cain is already looking.
His posture changes, instinctive, shoulders squaring. “That’s not
normal.”
They move closer with the
others. Bodies press in. Someone gasps. Someone else swears under
their breath.
Lucille cranes her neck and
finally sees past the glass.
Three black vehicles sit in
the courtyard below, angular and armored, engines still warm. A light
escort fans out around them, disciplined and alert. And at the center
of it all stands a man in a dark coat trimmed with the sigil of House
Tiberius.
General Aedinius Tiberius.
Even from this distance, he
radiates authority, an old, brutal kind earned rather than declared.
But he isn’t alone.
Two figures stand just
behind him.
Tall. Broad. Still as
statues.
Their armor is heavier than
anything Lucille has seen outside of sanctioned broadcasts, marked
not with names but with numbers etched deep into the metal: 142
and 139.
Their faces are bare, scarred, unreadable. Eyes forward. Hands
relaxed at their sides, close enough to weapons that don’t need to
be visible to be felt.
The hall goes quiet in a
way that feels almost reverent.
Lucille’s heart starts to
pound.
Living legends. Here.
Inside the Academy.
She takes an unconscious
step closer to the window.
Cain catches her sleeve
immediately. “Don’t,” he murmurs. “That’s General Tiberius.
And his Vardengard.”
“I just want to look,”
she whispers, eyes fixed on them.
“Lookin' turns into
noticin',” Cain says. “And noticin' turns into trouble.”
But Lucille barely hears
him.
Down below, one of the
Vardengard, 142, she thinks, tilts his head just slightly, as if
listening to something no one else can hear. For a heartbeat, Lucille
has the irrational, chilling sense that if he looked up, he would see
her.
Not the crowd.
The thought sends a shiver through her spine. And somewhere deep in
her chest, something old and restless stirs, answering a call she
doesn’t yet understand.
Spartan leans close again,
her voice low, steady, unyielding.
They let themselves be
pulled along by the current of bodies, the noise of the cadets
swelling behind them like surf breaking against stone.
Lucille looks back anyway.
Just once.
Through the tall panes of
reinforced glass, she watches General Aedinius Tiberius cross the
courtyard below. His boots strike stone in an unhurried rhythm, each
step measured, deliberate, as if the ground itself has already agreed
to bear his weight. The Praetorians fall in around him with practiced
precision, their movements sharp, deferential.
And the Vardengard.
They move like shadows
given mass, too smooth, too controlled for something so large. Their
armor is dark, scarred, old in a way that speaks of survival rather
than neglect. They do not look at the cadets pressed against the
windows. They do not need to.
Lucille feels it again,
that pressure behind her ribs, that tightening in her chest. Not
fear. Not awe.
Cain’s hand presses more
firmly against her back. “Lu,” he murmurs, low and insistent.
“Enough.”
She lets him steer her
away.
The sound of the crowd
dulls as they put distance between themselves and the windows. The
corridor narrows, the light dimming to the Academy’s familiar,
austere glow. Stone walls. Banners hanging heavy and unmoving. The
faint hum of distant generators beneath it all, like a heartbeat
buried too deep to hear clearly.
Cain exhales once they’re
clear. “You stare like that,” he says, half-joking, half-worried,
“someone’s goin' to think you’re plannin' somethin'.”
Lucille snorts. “If I
were plannin' somethin', I wouldn’t be dumb enough to do it in
front of a General.”
“That’s… not
reassurin'.”
She finally looks at him,
really looks at him, and the grin she gives is sharp but tired around
the edges. “Relax. I just wanted to see them.”
“The Vardengard,” Cain
says.
“And him,” she replies.
“Especially him.”
Cain doesn’t argue. He
glances back down the hall, as if the General’s presence might
still bleed through the stone. “Tiberius isn’t someone you want
noticin' you,” he says quietly. “Trust me.”
Lucille hums, noncommittal.
“He didn’t notice me.”
“No,” Cain agrees.
“That’s the point.”
Lucille’s Dorm Room –
Midnight
Lucille
lies awake in her bed. Her room is dark, shared with two other girls
her age. The space is neat, clean, and smells faintly of orange
blossoms, polish and detergent and the ghost of a warmer season
pressed into stone. The other two girls are sound asleep in their
beds, tucked tight beneath their blankets, breathing slow and even.
Lucille, on the other hand,
lies on her back staring up at the ceiling. The blankets are kicked
off and bunched around the foot of her bed. One hand idly twists a
lock of her hair around her fingers, over and over, until her scalp
aches. The other rests flat over her belly, rising and falling with
breaths that never quite deepen.
She has not been able to
truly fall asleep.
She has spent the last hour
tossing, turning, counting cracks in the ceiling she knows by heart.
Turmoil in her classes keeps dragging her back to wakefulness. Every
drill. Every correction. Every look that lingers just a moment too
long after she outperforms someone else.
Lucille
turns the thought over and over until it grows teeth. The
ceiling above her is a dull gray, veined with hairline cracks that
catch the moonlight slipping in through the narrow window. Each
breath she takes feels shallow, unfinished. The air is too warm. The
blankets itch where they tangle around her ankles.
She squeezes her eyes shut.
Stop.
Her instructors’ voices
creep in anyway, measured, disappointed, precise.
Again.
Not
good enough.
You rely too much on instinct.
That
won’t save you.
She beats half her class in
drills. Outlasts them in endurance. Bleeds quieter. Gets back up
faster. And still they look at her like she’s unfinished stone,
like time spent shaping her is a gamble they already regret making.
Still the feedback comes
sharper, colder, edged with something she can’t quite name.
She wonders, not for the
first time, if it’s because she’s a girl. Most of her classes are
boys-heavy, the handful of other girls scattered thin and funneled
toward “safer” disciplines. She wonders if it’s because she
refuses to break the way they expect her to.
Or maybe it’s simpler
than that….
Her jaw tightens.
It’s because you’re
a Domitian, a voice whispers. Not one she recognizes, but it
sounds like truth. Because you were dragged in from the margins
instead of born to this place.
She exhales through her
nose, slow, controlled, the way Korvin taught her. It doesn’t help.
She rolls onto her side,
facing the far wall. One of her roommates murmurs in her sleep and
turns over, hugging her pillow closer. The other doesn’t move at
all, breath deep and even, utterly untroubled.
Lucille envies them.
Her fingers curl against
her stomach, pressing lightly, as if she can pin the ache down and
keep it still. It doesn’t work. Her thoughts drift, unwanted,
persistent, back to the General. To the way Tiberius walked as if the
Academy itself made room for him. To the Vardengard at his heels,
silent and immense, not owned by the place, but belonging to
it in a way Lucille never has.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Her chest tightens.
She thinks of Valroth Kyr’s
statue, cold stone and shadow, the one place on Academy grounds that
never feels like it’s watching her back. She thinks of the archives
beneath the Academy, sealed and guarded and full of things she isn’t
meant to see.
She thinks of what Manius
said, laughing it off. Just dogs that require a special hand.
Lucille’s fingers clench
into the sheets.
That’s a lie,
she thinks fiercely. She doesn’t know how she knows, only that the
certainty settles into her bones like a bruise she’s learned to
live with.
She stares at the ceiling
again.
Another minute passes. Then
another.
Finally, she swings her
legs over the side of the bed.
The stone floor is cold
against her bare feet, sharp enough to cut through the fog in her
head. She pauses, listening. No movement. No voices. Only the distant
hum of the Academy’s night systems and the slow breathing of the
other girls.
Lucille rises carefully,
gathering her blankets and folding them back into place with more
care than necessary. Habit. Survival. She pulls on her boots,
tightens the laces just enough to keep them quiet, and shrugs into
her jacket.
At the door, she hesitates.
This is stupid, she tells
herself. Reckless. Korvin would tear into her if he caught her
wandering after curfew, especially after everything.
Her hand lingers on the
latch.
I just need air,
she decides. Just a walk.
The door opens with a soft,
controlled click. She slips into the corridor and eases it shut
behind her.
The Academy at night is a
different beast.
The lights are dimmed,
motion-sensors casting pale halos along the hall as she moves.
Shadows stretch long and warped, clinging to pillars and archways
like they’re alive. Every footstep echoes too loudly in her ears.
She moves anyway.
Past familiar turns. Past
stairwells she knows by heart. Her body leads more than her mind
does, feet carrying her forward with purpose she hasn’t fully
admitted yet.
Downward.
The air changes as she
descends, cooler, drier, tinged faintly with metal and old stone. The
sounds of the upper levels fade until the Academy feels hollow, vast,
and watchful.
Then she smells it.
Smoke.
Lucille stops dead.
It’s faint, barely there,
but unmistakable, wood and fat and heat, carried on a current of air
that shouldn’t exist this far underground. Her heart stutters once,
hard.
There shouldn’t be fire
down here.
She swallows and steps
forward, following the scent deeper into the shadows, unaware that
with every step, she is moving closer to something that will never
unsee her again.
Lucille has the thought to
let it be. There’s no need to investigate. If something is wrong,
the Praetorians will already be moving. They always are. The Academy
does not sleep, no matter how much it pretends to.
But there’s a tingle in
her spine. A subtle tightening just below the nape of her neck. A
pull she can’t quite explain.
Maybe hunger.
She snorts softly at the
thought. She shouldn’t be hungry. Dinner was heavy, meat, bread,
broth, more than enough to weigh her down. Still, the idea nags at
her, and her hand drifts to her jacket pockets out of habit.
Her fingers brush foil.
She stills, then smiles
faintly.
She pulls out a dark
chocolate bar, salted caramel filled, already missing a few uneven
pieces. Cain’s doing. A gift, smuggled in with that conspiratorial
look he gets when he knows he’s breaking a rule for her. One of her
favorites.
She snaps off a square and
tosses it into her mouth.
The chocolate melts slowly,
rich and bitter-sweet, the caramel blooming warm against her tongue.
Salt bites at the edges. It’s perfect. Comforting. For a heartbeat,
it almost works.
Almost.
The tingle doesn’t fade.
If anything, it sharpens,
like a breath being held just out of reach.
Lucille exhales through her
nose and folds the wrapper carefully, tucking the bar back into her
jacket pocket. She tells herself she’s just restless. That this is
what happens when your body is trained to react to danger long before
your mind catches up.
Still, her feet carry her
forward.
She follows her nose.
The smell is faint but
unmistakable: burning fat, old smoke, something savory and illicit.
Fire where there should not be fire. The Academy is stone and steel
and rules layered thick as frost. Flames are permitted only where
they are sanctioned.
This is not sanctioned.
She moves quietly along the
arcades, boots soft against the stone, breath slow and measured.
Pillars pass her one by one, shadows stretching and collapsing as she
rounds corners. The night air is cold, sharp enough to sting her
lungs, but the smell grows stronger.
Then she sees it.
Snow on the stone.
Lucille stops.
Under the covered arcade,
the ground should be bare, clean, dry, swept by orderlies and
discipline alike. But here, scattered across the flagstones, is snow.
Not fallen. Dragged. Melted in places, refrozen in others.
Footprints.
Heavy ones.
They come from outside the
arcade, cutting through the untouched snow beyond the shelter, then
vanish inward. The prints are deep, deliberate. Not cadet boots. Too
wide. Too heavy.
Her pulse ticks faster.
She follows the trail with
her eyes until it leads to an alcove, a deep recess carved into the
wall, half-hidden by shadow. Within it stands a shrine to Valkarion,
God of War. Stone reliefs depict him crowned in iron, blade raised,
forever mid-stride toward slaughter.
Smoke curls faintly from
within.
Lucille’s breath catches.
She moves without thinking
now, dipping low and pressing her shoulder into the cold stone of the
wall just before the alcove. The heat brushes her cheek. The smell is
thick here, rich and alive.
She hears the clatter of
armor. Low, masculine voices murmuring to one another. Knives
scraping against metal. Fire popping softly in the dark. The fire
crackles low and steady, a small defiance against the cold stone. Fat
drips from the rabbit, hissing when it strikes the embers.
“…told you,” 142 murmurs in a thick Teutonic accent, nudging the skewer with the tip of his knife. “If he vill want comfort, he would have stayed at home. Ze archives… zey care not who you are. Rank, name… it means nothing to zem.”
139 gives a quiet huff of amusement, seated with his back to the statue of Valkarion, knees drawn up, forearms resting across them. The god looms above him, stone, scarred, eternal, sword planted point-down, as if even divinity must take its rest.
“He cares,” 139 says. “Just not about us knowing why. Zat… zat is difference.”
142 grins, teeth flashing pale in the firelight. “You are saying… you do not like surprises, ja?”
“I am saying,” 139 replies evenly, “zat when a General comes to Academy at zis hour, with only light escort, und spends his evening buried in restricted vaults…” He pauses, eyes flicking briefly. “…it is never about curiosity.”
142 chuckles, low and rough. “Ach. Everything is about curiosity, brother. Some people…” He shrugs, knife still in his hand, “…zey just lie to themselves about it.”
He adjusts the skewer
again, turning the rabbit so it browns evenly. His armor is partially
unfastened, plates loosened for comfort, the heavy collar resting
open at his throat. Old scars cross his neck and jaw, pale lines
against darker skin, clean, deliberate marks. Not accidents.
Lucille peeks around the
corner.
Her breath catches before
she can stop it.
Up close, they are massive.
Not just tall, dense, like stone given muscle and motion.
142 sits closest to the arcade, broad shoulders hunched forward as he
tends the fire, hands careful despite their size. His fingers are
scarred, knuckles thickened, nails cut short to the quick.
The smell hits her then,
smoke, meat, iron, and something else beneath it. Ozone. Like a storm
about to break.
139 shifts first.
It’s subtle. A lift of
his chin. A slight pause in his breathing. One hand loosens on the
haft of the blade resting across his knees.
He gives a lazy gesture
with two fingers.
142 turns his head toward
the arcade.
Lucille jerks back into
cover instantly, pressing her shoulder hard into the cold stone. Her
heart slams against her ribs, loud enough she’s sure they can hear
it. She clamps her mouth shut, breath shallow, willing herself to
vanish.
Silence falls.
The fire pops once.
Then again.
Lucille can feel
them listening.
“…huh,” 139 whispers at last, voice low, almost amused. “It seems ve have attracted ourselves little spy.”
142’s grin widens. He straightens slightly and raises his voice, not loud, but clear, carrying easily down the stone corridor.
“Pup,” he calls, calm as a man calling a friend in for supper. “You may come out now.”
Lucille swallows. She doesn’t move.
After a beat, he adds, gentler still, almost coaxing, “You are not in trouble. Yet.”
Her feet betray her. She peeks around the corner, then steps fully into the alcove, hands held awkwardly at her sides. “I-I was just passin’ by,” she blurts, words tumbling over one another in a soft Southern rush. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
The Vardengard laugh.
It isn’t cruel. It’s warm, low, genuine, like thunder rolling somewhere far away.
“Passing by,” 139 repeats, lips twitching. “At midnight. After curfew. Into shrine zat smells very much like roast.”
142 snorts softly. “A bold route to be taking, ja.”
Lucille’s face burns hot. “I didn’t mean to— I just— I smelled smoke an’—”
“No point in lying,” 139 says mildly. “Ve are very good at knowin’ when someone is afraid.”
142 tilts his head, studying her openly now, emerald eyes catching the firelight. “You know it is well past curfew, little pup. You are not worried ze Praetorians might catch you vandering, hm?”
Lucille hesitates.
Up close, they’re
overwhelming. Taller than any instructor she’s ever stood before.
Broader than Korvin, heavier than any man she’s seen in the
training halls. Their armor bears the marks of real battle, deep
gouges, scorched edges, patches replaced rather than polished away.
They look ancient. Worn.
Like war never let go of them.
And yet, when they speak to
her, their voices drop, rough and gravelly but careful. Gentle. They
don’t bark orders. They don’t sneer. They don’t look at her
like a burden or a problem to be corrected.
They look at her like a
person.
Lucille opens her mouth to answer, and realizes her hands are shaking. She swallows, lifts her chin. “I ain’t afraid,” she says, forcing the words to stand straight even if her knees do not.
That earns her laughter. Deep. Rough. Unrestrained.
142 grins, teeth flashing pale in the firelight. “Ja? Is zat so?” He tilts his head, studying her like a curiosity rather than a threat. “You have a very brave bark for such a little pup. So, vhy are you out past curfew, hm?”
Lucille hesitates only a fraction of a second. “I couldn’t sleep,” she says. “I just… wanted to walk. Thought maybe I’d visit one o’ the shrines.”
139 snorts softly. “Valkarion?” His gaze flicks up to the war god looming behind him, carved stone soaked in shadow and old reverence. “Most cadets choose gentler gods when sneaking at night.”
She shakes her head, slow and certain. “I don’t want gentle.”
That earns her a long look. Not unkind. Not mocking. Just… assessing.
142 chuckles and nudges the skewer, turning the meat slowly over the coals. “You owe us no answer, pup. Not unless you wish to give.”
The fire pops. Fat hisses.
Lucille swallows again, then blurts, “Is… is that rabbit?”
Both of them pause.
142 looks at her, brows lifting. “You have a very good nose,” he says, impressed despite himself. “Ja. Forest rabbit. Took it clean.”
139 sniffs theatrically. "She smells it over fire and stone. Hells… perhaps ve should recruit her.”
Lucille almost smiles before she can stop herself.
“It will be ready in minute or two,” 142 says. “You want bite?”
She hesitates, caught between instinct and manners, but the offer is sincere, and refusing food feels wrong on a bone-deep level. “If… if that’s alright, sir.”
139 eyes her up and down, not unkindly. “Looks like you could use. You are all skin and bones.”
She sits, carefully, a few
feet from the fire. Close enough to feel the warmth soak into her
hands, into her ribs. Close enough that the Vardengard loom on either
side of her like living ramparts. Up close, they are immense.
Scarred. Old wounds layered over older ones. Not polished like
statues or holos; real. Used. They smell like smoke, iron, and
something feral beneath it all.
142 hands her a skewer, the meat dark and glistening. “Careful,” he says. “Is hot.”
“Thank you,” she replies, and she means more than just the food.
He watches her take the first bite, eyes sharp, unreadable. “Classes giving you trouble?”
Lucille chews, then nods. “Ain’t the lessons. Mostly the people.”
“Mm,” 139 hums. “Zat tracks.”
She explains, combat drills, tactics, endurance training, command theory. Enough that they understand the path she’s been put on without her ever saying the word soldier.
142 snorts. “Figures.” He jerks his chin toward her skewer. “Eat. You will need to get bigger if you plan on surviving zis life.”
She laughs softly, the sound surprising even herself. “Y’all are… nicer than folks say.”
That makes them both pause.
“Nicer than vhat?” 139 asks.
Lucille shrugs. “They say Vardengard are like rabid wolves. That you tear through anything in front of you.”
142 bares his teeth again, but this time there’s something wry in it. “Not wrong, ja.”
“Not the vhole truth either,” 139 adds.
“I think you’re…” She searches for the words. “Loyal. And tired. And not monsters.”
The fire crackles. For a heartbeat, neither of them speaks.
Then 142 clears his throat and looks back to the skewer. “Careful, pup. Talk like zat, you get yourself in trouble.”
She takes another bite, savoring it.
139’s nose wrinkles. “Vhat is zis smell?”
Lucille freezes. “What smell?”
“Sweet,” he says. “Not perfume.”
Her eyes widen. “You can smell that?”
She digs into her jacket pocket and pulls out the chocolate bar, the wrapper crinkling softly in the quiet alcove. “It’s… um. Chocolate.”
Both Vardengard go still.
142 exhales, slow, disbelieving. “You are joking.”
“It was a gift,” Lucille says quickly. “From a friend.” She hesitates, then holds it out. “For… for y’all. Thank you. For the food.”
They stare at it like it might vanish.
“That is contraband,” 139 murmurs. “And a miracle.”
142 hesitates only a second longer before taking it. He breaks off a piece, hands the bar to 139, then breaks off another for himself.
The reaction is immediate. Eyes closing. Shoulders loosening.
“Hells,” 139 breathes. “I forgot.”
“Years,” 142 says quietly. “It has been years.”
They hand the bar back to her with reverence, what remains carefully wrapped.
“You’re cute, for a pup,” 139 grins, tossing her the rest of the chocolate bar.
Lucille fumbles it, catches it against her chest. Her ears burn.
142 watches her a moment longer, firelight carving deep lines through the scars on his face. “You are training here. Soldier track.”
She nods. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me zat,” he mutters, almost amused. “Never.”
139 tilts his head, studying her more closely now. “You do not move like the others,” he says. “You listen first. Then you step.”
Lucille shrugs, unsure whether that’s praise or warning. “I get hollered at less when I do.”
That earns a low chuckle from both of them.
“You’re small,” 142 says, blunt but not unkind. “For zat, they will try to break you. Force you to fight like everyone else.”
139 pokes at the fire with a stick. “Zat is how they ruin good blades. Hammer into shapes never meant to hold.”
Lucille chews slowly, the rabbit rich and warm in her mouth. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
142 looks at her then. Really looks. His gaze flicks to her uniform, to the way she sits, spine straight, even while trying to make herself smaller.
“Learn vhat zey vill not teach you,” he says. “No tricks. No shortcuts. Roots. History. Vhy zings are done, not only how.”
139 nods. “Zee old vays are buried for a reason. Zat does not make them useless. It makes zem dangerous in the wrong hands.”
Lucille swallows. The words settle in her chest like embers.
They talk a bit more, about patrol boredom, about how General Tiberius despises sweet wines and drinks bitter tea like penance. Somewhere in it, she lets slip her House.
“Domitian,” she says quietly, already bracing herself.
There is a pause. Not the sharp kind. The heavy kind.
142’s jaw tightens, just barely. 139’s humor fades, replaced by something older. Careful.
“Ah,” 139 says at last. “Zat explains it.”
Lucille stiffens. “Explains what?”
142 exhales through his nose. “Vhy you are vatched vithout ever being seen.”
They don’t say more. They don’t need to.
Then 139’s head snaps up.
Boots.
Distant. Measured.
Praetorian cadence.
Lucille’s breath catches. Her eyes flick instinctively down the arcade, counting steps, angles.
“Caepio,” she whispers.
Both Vardengard look at her at the same time.
139’s brow lifts. 142’s mouth curves, sharp and quiet.
“You hear like us,” 142 murmurs.
“Too vell,” 139 adds.
The boots draw closer.
142 leans forward, voice dropping to a whisper meant only for her. “You should go now, pup. Now.”
139 nods once. “Before zhey see you vith us. Before questions begin.”
Lucille hesitates, clutching the chocolate bar.
“If zhey catch you,” 142 continues softly, “zhey will punish you. If zhey catch us…” He lets the sentence die.
She understands. Lucille
rises, heart hammering. She gives them a small, awkward bow, then
turns and slips back into the shadows of the arcade.
Behind her, the fire is
doused. Armor shifts. Two massive shapes melt into stillness, as if
they were never there at all.But the embers they left
behind burn hot in her chest. And they do not go out.
