Rise of the Legion

by Chloe Cullen

  She seemed to think for a moment, her eyes flicking down to the box she held in her hands. “Yes, I think I would.”

  ***

  Maveron’s eyes twinkled as he chuckled again before launching into his story.

  “Well, as you already know, your father was a legacy, just like you. He was born into the Legion - so as you know, he was permitted to live on the premises, with the intent for him to train when he turned thirteen.” Cori nodded at the familiar story. “Brennan was in the year above me when I started as an initiate, and when my class would all gather to watch his group train, my first impression of him was how intensely focussed he was, and already better than those who were years ahead of him. He was an inspiration to all of us.”

  Maveron’s voice wobbled slightly on the words, and he stopped to clear his throat. Cori could feel the sting of tears threatening in the corner of her eyes, but she sucked in her lip and bit down on it to keep them at bay.

  “The day that I had met him was also the day that I met Thoren’s mother.”

  Cori hid her surprise. She had never known Thoren’s mother, much like she had not known her own. Thoren’s mother had chosen to leave the Legion a few years after she had given birth, and so she had barely anything to do with raising her son, leaving him when he was only three years old. Cori’s own mother had passed away giving birth not long after that. Cori could only recall small facts about her own mother – a feeling of a warm hand on her cheek, the smell of perfume, and a melodic, lyrical singing voice. Her father had hardly spoken about her, but Cori knew it was because losing her had broken his heart. He had never loved another woman after her. Except for his daughters. It had been different for Thoren. He had not lost his mother in a tragic incident like Cori. He had been abandoned. Cori had always told Thoren that his mother had lost him.

  Maveron chuckled again. “Oh, she was a glorious thing to behold. Thoren’s mother – Rayna, was fierce, beautiful and to many… she was also thought to be quiet and cold.” Cori watched his eyes turn inward, seeing something that was no longer there. “But on the day that I officially met Brennan, I first spoke to Rayna… because of him.”

  When Maveron smiled at Cori, she found it difficult to return it. Cori had always known that Maveron had loved Thoren’s mother, but she had heard little else, also knowing that her choosing to leave him and the Legion had been a dark time for him. Cori had once heard that Maveron had watched on helplessly from the crowds while Rayna was de-branded, the skin of her forearm peeled off with a burning blade in front of the entire Royal Quarter. Cori had balked at the thought of that kind of pain, both at having the brand removed, and at having to watch it happen to a loved one.

  “I owe Brennan everything for that day,” Maveron said sincerely, his eyes softening at her grim expression, “you must be thinking whether he had actually done me a favour, but without him, without Rayna… I wouldn’t have my son.”

  Cori thought of his son and felt her own expression soften, and she managed a ghost of a smile and a nod of understanding.

  “So, I was with a group of initiates, and one of them was bragging to anyone who would listen about how they were going to be in the Five before the rest of us.” Maveron rolled his eyes playfully before shooting another grin at her. “There’s always one… I didn’t have much time for it – I always believed that if you were good, you showed it. Well, your father didn’t have much time for it either. He was training not far off from our group of lads, and upon hearing the boastful bloke next to me, Brennan casually strode on over and joined the group quietly, just standing there with his arms crossed and looking at us all with his brows raised.”

  Cori huffed out a laugh. “Sounds like him.”

  Maveron shook his head, a wide grin in place. “He was a force of nature and he proved it that day. The annoying bloke – I’ve forgotten his name now – finally noticed him there, and I swear to all the Gods that he went as pale as a ghost.” He stopped to chuckle again. “Brennan may have only been a year ahead of us, but he was already a legend, and he just looked at the guy, placid as anything, and told him – ‘perhaps you should worry less about becoming a Five, and more about your piss-poor reflexes’ – and I swear that before anyone could blink, Brennan had taken one of the daggers strapped to the guys’ side and had thrown it downward. By the time we all looked to the floor, Brennan was already stalking away, and the hilt of the dagger still wobbled in the ground, this close to the guys’ big toe.”

  Maveron smacked the table in front of him, a deep, real laugh rumbling around the room. Cori put a hand over her mouth as she laughed at her father being so brazen.

  “I swear, Cori, that guy nearly wet himself.” Another smack to the table, and Maveron finally calmed himself down with a deep breath. “And I was just… in total awe of him. I remember walking away from my group and straight up to Brennan, introduced myself and just asked if he could teach me to do that.”

  Cori smiled. “And what did he say?”

  “He told me to prove I had guts first.”

  Humour lanced through her and she laughed. “How were you supposed to do that?”

  Maveron shrugged one shoulder and smiled slyly. “He told me to ask Rayna if she would have dinner with me. You see… he noticed much more than anyone ever realised. He told me later that he had noticed that I had been watching her, both because of her beauty, and because she was such a fierce warrior… so he gave me that task to prove myself.”

  Cori’s brows furrowed as she laughed. “But that’s all? That doesn’t seem so difficult.”

  Maveron chuckled. “It would if you knew her at the time. She was always distant and would just… snap at anyone who made her angry. But I admired her because, well, because she was pretty, and she was a wonderful fighter, and sometimes… I saw her sitting in the garden reading and she always looked so peaceful there.” He looked down at the table, a small, sad smile on his lips. “So that very day I asked her if she would have dinner with me, she said yes, and the next day Brennan was training me, and we’d been friends ever since.”

  Cori looked down and flipped open the book again, to peer at her father’s old Legion Five insignia, at his name stitched into the fabric, and for the first time since she left, she thought about her father with a light wonder and happiness instead of with grief.

  She looked back to Maveron and met his watery gaze with one of her own. “He was a special person, wasn’t he?”

  He pressed his lips together and reached forward to hold his hand out for hers. Cori let him take her hand and he squeezed it gently. “Very much so. As are you.”

  A tightness that had been sitting in her chest eased slightly. The fear that she was making a mistake at coming back, that she couldn’t possibly find a family here again… that feeling lessened.

  Sitting back into her seat, and taking her hand back, she cleared her throat before she could speak again. “Thank you, Maveron.”

  After another beat of silence, Maveron spoke. “So, shall we discuss what you will be doing with us now that you’re back?”

  With a deep breath, Cori nodded. She didn’t know what to expect. Before she had left, she was a guard in the Royal Palace, a high honour for someone as young as she had been. She didn’t expect anything high profile to begin with, but she also didn’t want to be doing nothing of value.

  “Well, to start off with, you will need to return to training twice per day,” Maveron said, his tone becoming more business-like, transitioning from the fatherly figure to the President of the Legion, “and in the evenings, I would like you to patrol the Quarter with Thoren or Trey. They both complete shifts on alternating days, please liaise with them to shadow their patrols for a time. Then once you feel like you’re able to take more responsibility, we will talk again about another mandate which I have for you.”

  Cori couldn’t hide her curiosity. “You have a task in mind for me?”

  “Yes,” Maveron said, “one I think you will enjoy greatly. But first – off
to training, my dear.”

  Cori sighed, but was smiling when she stood, the little book with the secret in its depths clutched in her hands. As she reached the doorway, she turned back to him again.

  “Maveron?” He looked up from some paperwork on his desk and raised his eyebrows in question. Cori took one step back towards him. “How… how has Thoren been the past two years?”

  She didn’t mean to ask it; had thought she didn’t want to know it. But she couldn’t seem to help herself, being back in Thoren’s presence had been confusing at best, and so she found the question had formed without much conscious thought.

  Maveron gave her a small, grim smile. “Don’t you think you should be asking him that?”

  Cori looked to her feet for a moment. Perhaps Maveron was right, but she no longer knew how to speak to him like they had so comfortably before. “I suppose I should. But…” She looked up at him, and felt the fire behind her eyes, in her soul. “He wasn’t there Maveron. He promised me he would come back to help, but he wasn’t there when…”

  She couldn’t finish her sentence. She knew the words would become stuck in her throat.

  His eyes sombre eyes made Cori pause. “Neither was I,” he said softly, “and while we both are sorry for it; we cannot offer our regret for it.”

  “How can you say that?” Cori felt the anger simmer to the surface, her hands tightening on the book in her hands.

  “Because those in the front hall with you were not the only in danger,” Maveron said gently, like she was a skittish forest animal, “we were requested by Brennan himself to be elsewhere, guarding and protecting other areas, other people. And when the President gives you an order, you follow it.”

  Cori heard the logic, and she even understood it, but still she threw Maveron a hurt look and left the room without another word.

  ***

  Cori walked down the corridor and was about to enter the stairwell to head down to her new room when she ran into Thoren.

  Her heart thudded at seeing him so suddenly, the darker thoughts about him still swirling around in her mind.

  “Hey,” he said, his tone neutral, “how did it go with my father?”

  Cori took a step back from him, needing some distance between them. He tracked her movement with a frown on his face.

  “Fine,” she said, folding her arms over her chest.

  He shifted his feet. “Good, are you going to get back into some training?”

  She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him, her temper rising at his nosiness. “It’s clear that I’ll start training again, isn’t it?”

  Thoren narrowed his eyes at her. “I was only asking.”

  “Ask questions that don’t have an obvious answer,” Cori retorted.

  He just stared at her, dumbfounded. Momentarily, Cori regretted snapping at him, but her temper won over and she pushed past him to enter the stairwell and left him standing behind her with his mouth agape.

  ***

  Thoren stormed away from Cori, returning to his rooms with a slam of his door and a kick to the innocent chair in front of him.

  For so long, Thoren had walked these halls missing the vibrancy and humour she had brought to the place, to his life. He had wished every day for her to return… to him. Now that she was here, all she had to offer was a bleak and snarky attitude, acting as though Thoren were the enemy. He couldn’t stand it, couldn’t swallow that this was Corisande, the girl who had once meant more to him than anyone else in the world.

  Anger took root deep inside of him, growing wildly and out of control. With a growl of frustration, he shucked off his formal uniform, donning instead his training suit and stalked out of his room for the training hall, ready to curse, sweat and lose himself in a fight.

  11

  FIVE HOURS AFTER THE MASSACRE

  Cori woke up sluggishly, like she was wading through a viscous river, the air thick with fog.

  She blinked heavily, noting her surroundings were minimalistic, the bed underneath her harder than her usual soft and comfortable bed. When she shifted, Cori stifled a groan at the muscles that ached with each subtle movement.

  That was when she remembered.

  The fight, the blood, the death. Cori felt each blow she had taken all over again, both to her body and to her mind.

  Her father. Nessida.

  Eyes closed again, Cori felt the full weight of what had happened, and let it drag her down into a pit of despair.

  “Cori? Are you awake?”

  Cori opened her eyes again, and tears that had begun to pool spilled down her cheeks as she slowly turned her head towards the voice next to her. Thoren sat there, draped across a small wooden chair, discomfort splayed across his face as he shifted, as though he had been sitting there a long while. When he looked upon her face, he was out of his chair in a heartbeat, and stood next to her, taking her hand in his.

  He opened his mouth, then closed it, his brows lowered over stormy grey eyes.

  “Cori, I – how are you feeling?” he asked, voice low and thick with emotion.

  Cori took a moment to assess. How was she feeling? Physically, she knew she would have a lot of scrapes and bruises, and her muscles would ache for days after the blows she had taken. Emotionally, Cori still felt as though it couldn’t possibly be real. That her family couldn’t be gone. Dead. But they were, and she hadn’t been able to stop it.

  “I—” Cori stopped to clear her throat, the one word scraping up her larynx hardly sounded like a word at all. “I let them die, Thoren. I couldn’t save them.”

  Thoren made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat before he gathered Cori into his arms, pulling her into a sitting position. He mumbled wordless sounds of comfort, his hand in her hair.

  She wanted to embrace the comfort being given, melt into him and beg him to never let her go. But there was something that nagged at her, tugging at every piece of her, demanding that she get answers. From him.

  “Why weren’t you there, Thoren?” Her voice was a muffled sound against his shoulder, and she felt him stiffen against her. He pulled back from Cori and searched her eyes, but found nothing but a steely question in hers, waiting for his answer.

  “I was… your father, he told me to guard the back…” he answered in a voice smaller than Cori had ever heard come from his large frame before.

  She let out a rough, disbelieving breath. “The back? Away from where you were needed most?”

  Thoren took another step away from her, but his gaze on her did not waver.

  “I was ordered to lead a small group to the rear entrances, to ensure they couldn’t get in anywhere else. We had children still running about.”

  Cori gritted her teeth. “You’re one of our best warriors, and you went to assess the back of the building? While the fighting was happening up the front? While people were dying!” Cori was losing her control, flames of anger licked every nerve ending in her body and she started to breathe raggedly, her hand fluttering to her chest and eyes closing in panic.

  “Cori?” Thoren’s voice sounded closer again, and then he yelled for the healer, panic clear in his voice.

  Cori focused on breathing in deeply, to calm her raging heart. When she felt under control, she opened her eyes to see the squat and gentle healer bustling into her room.

  “Is everything okay in here?” she asked.

  Cori met Thoren’s gaze for a moment, his eyes pleading, then said to the healer, “no, I’m quite tired and I want to be alone, can you please ensure I have no visitors for the rest of the day?”

  “Of course, sweetie,” the healer said, then held out a hand to usher Thoren from the room, “come now Mr Swarbrik, let’s leave her to rest.”

  Thoren didn’t move an inch, his eyes bored into hers. “Cori, please let me stay with you… I have more to tell you.”

  She held his gaze for a long moment but decided she didn’t want to hear it. Breaking the contact, she shook her head and turned away from him. She heard the two set
s of footsteps as they both left the room and the door shut with a soft hiss.

  It was only an hour later that Cori got to her feet and after a few shaky steps, she stalked out of the infirmary without permission to leave. She had been changed into a white gown, her clothes she had been wearing probably in the bin after being covered quite thoroughly in blood. So, before she did anything else, Cori took the east stairwell near the infirmary to the upper floors and made for her rooms. The sunlight of a fresh morning streamed in through the high windows of the stairwell, mocking Cori with its cheerful brightness.

  She walked into the dark, quiet room; the curtains all pulled closed. Without thinking too much about the silent, empty room and cold belongings that had been her sister’s, Cori marched into her own living area and pulled on some fresh clothes and laced on a pair of black boots. As part of her ritual, she absent-mindedly strapped on a weapons belt, and slung some daggers into her sheathes and into the sides of her boots. She left her room, ready to demand answers for what had happened the evening before.

  When she descended the wide set of stairs to the main foyer, her heart stuttered at the sight. There were still bodies being removed, blood still coating the ground, smears of it riddled the marble floors like some sick, dark piece of artwork.

  Bodies were lined up against one side of the room, all wearing the grey of the Legion, and a much longer line of bodies lined the other side, all donned in black.

  She could hear them speaking in soft tones near the bodies, and a few words drifted over to her. She heard them calling the attackers Shadow Soldiers, and when she thought back to their dark attire, it seemed fitting.

  Almost everyone in the foyer stopped as they recognised Cori as she walked towards them, the lone daughter of the dead former president. And then, before she could reach the line of the dark cloaked enemies, Thoren was suddenly at her side, a hand gripped her arm, firm but still gentle.

  Cori stopped.