by Chloe Cullen
“What are you doing here? Why are you not resting?” Thoren demanded in a tight voice.
“I came to…” Cori paused. What did she come for? To help? To look at the faces of those that had murdered her family and friends? She wasn’t sure, but she felt compelled to be here. Knew she had to be involved in this part of the aftermath.
Without finishing her sentence, Cori shrugged out of his grip, and kept her feet moving towards the bodies in black. Thoren didn’t try to stop her again.
When she got closer to the dead Shadow Soldiers, she saw that their masks and hoods had all been peeled away, and she could see their pale, bloodied and bruised faces.
Then she halted, a sick jolt of realisation flooded through her as she looked upon the closest figure.
Cori knew him. He had been a Legionnaire.
She swallowed some bile that stung its way up her throat, and forced her feet to keep moving, walking down the line of bodies, she surveyed every face of the men and women. Cori recognised most of them. They were all Legionnaires, some had even been initiates, and with a start, Cori even saw some that she had trained with herself, some that she had considered friends. They slaughtered their own brothers and sisters. Legion members.
Slowly, Cori turned to find several pale, drawn faces watching her. Her eyes found Thoren’s, sorrow etched across every one of his features.
“What is the meaning of this?” Cori asked in a cold, deadly voice.
The man nearest her, Yannos, an older Legionnaire trainer, shook his head sadly. Cori faced him as he spoke.
“We don’t yet know the reason for their betrayal.”
Betrayal. Yes, Cori considered that word to sum up her feelings precisely. She felt a sheer, overwhelming betrayal.
Cori looked down at the woman she recognised at her feet. She had a wide, open wound in her chest, and her eyes stared at the ceiling, mouth slack. Cori’s chest ached, thinking about the children she knew the woman had living outside of the Compound, and she also knew that Cori had made those children motherless. It was one of the attackers Cori had dispatched the night before, recognizing the build of the woman and the wound on her chest as her own handiwork.
Swallowing against a suddenly dry throat, Cori backed away from the bodies, and shook her head. Her family had been killed by their own people.
She had to get out. Leave. Now.
And Cori did. She ran blindly from the foyer, ignoring the shouts of her name.
When she reached her rooms, she threw some things into a bag, hardly caring what they were, and as a knock sounded on her door, Cori hurriedly threw open the windowed double doors that lead to her balcony.
She slung the bag over her shoulder and began painfully climbing down the vines and ivory attached to the old stone building. She could barely put together a coherent sentence in her head, so she stopped thinking altogether. When she took the last few feet at a jump, landing in a crouch, Cori continued mindlessly as she walked steadily and assuredly down the lawns and out the front gates of the Legion Compound.
Cori didn’t look back once and just kept on walking.
12
Cori had spent her first full day back at the Compound without anything too dramatic or overwhelming happening. After her conversation with Maveron earlier in the day, she had dedicated her time to relaxing in her new room and preparing herself to don the uniform that had been sitting neat and folded on her bed when she had returned hours before. Cori carefully placed the spare uniforms into a set of wooden drawers set along the wall, and then had sat and stared at the set of clothes she had left out.
The black slacks and grey tunic with the insignia of the Legion. She had remembered the last time she had worn those clothes. It had been the worst day of her life.
It took a few hours for Cori to steel herself and slip into those neatly fitted and sturdy pieces of fabric. But she had managed it and was now staring at herself in the reflective glass on the wall, her heart beating quicker with both sadness and relief. It had taken two years for her to get here, but she felt more herself now standing in this uniform, than she had felt for those years she had been away.
Maveron had told her to immediately return to training, and even though it had taken Cori longer than she would admit to finally don her uniform, she would obey.
With fingers that shook from the familiarity of the action, she strapped her old belt around her waist, and it still sat perfectly around her hips as she pushed a few small daggers into the sheathes there. Cori would need to get some fresh sets of training gear from the training hall. For now, her uniform would do.
With one last look at herself, she saw her blond hair braided and flowing over her shoulder to brush over her chest, and her green eyes were wide with a hazy, confused recognition at the girl reflected back to her.
Cori left her room and made her way downstairs and towards the other end of the Compound that held the large indoor training area. She had always loved that area; it had been the place where she had grown more and more into the warrior she had always hoped to be. In the hotter months, they would open all of the doors that lead out on to the back gardens and let the fresh, flowery scent of summer float through as they had all trained and laughed together.
She could only hope that she would get to experience that kind of contentedness again.
As she passed a recreation room near the training area, Cori could hear laughter floating through a partially open door, and she paused. A familiar sounding voice was speaking over the laughter.
When she nudged the door open a little to peer inside, she was shocked to see a lot of familiar faces, including a few of the Legion Five members. She could see Thoren seated in an armchair next to Soraya who was perched on the arm of his chair, an arm draped casually across his shoulder. Her red hair was pulled up to sit perfectly on top of her head and Cori felt herself feeling foolishly jealous of her natural looks and the rare colouring.
Just as she considered retreating, the leader of the Five, Ione, spotted Cori at the door.
“Well, well, well,” Ione drawled, a pinched expression on her face, “look who’s back.”
Several heads swivelled in her direction, and without skipping a beat, Cori told herself that it was show-time and strolled into the room, with a small smirk on her face and a swagger in her steps.
“Hey everyone,” Cori said casually, “miss me?”
There was a beat of comical silence, and then Ryker, a Five member who used to train Cori’s age group, stood from his chair and walked straight to Cori with a wide grin on his face. He threw his arms around her and lifted her from the ground in a swinging hug.
“It’s so good to see you,” Ryker said loudly in her ear. Cori laughed quietly as Ryker set her back on the ground, “I heard a rumour you were around here again. Are you back then?”
Cori glanced to Thoren and Soraya, the only ones who might have known about her return. Then Cori looked at Ione again, her mouth slanted to the side in clear displeasure. Ione had been in the Legion since before Cori was born. She had travelled to the capital at an early age from Northwich, her skin dark like many who were born in the north. Ione had always been way too serious about the Legion, and even more so when she had been chosen to ascend as the leader of the Five. Ione had been the only one Cori had disliked before, with the exception of Soraya, who had started to treat her like an unwelcome fly buzzing around.
Cori sent Ione a grin before saying to the wider group. “Aw, come on. As if I would ever leave you guys for good – this place needs someone with my skills considering I could fend off most of you with my hands bound.”
Ryker, still standing next to her, let out a booming laugh and clapped her on the back. “She’s back, all right!”
Cori ignored Ione’s glare and moved to take a seat next to Romy, a Legionnaire who was roughly six years older, who she had always really gotten along with. Romy had always come across as such a quiet and gentle person, until you saw her fight. Romy was like a lethal
creature let out of her cage when there was a threat. Cori thought her quiet ferocity might stem from her past, and the burns that could be seen clawing up her neck and across the side of the bronze skin on her face. Romy had never told her where the burns had come from, but it had never mattered to Cori. A person was so much more than their scars, whether they were visible or not.
“Hey, Romy – what’s new?”
Romy smiled a faint smile, and just shrugged before saying in a quiet voice, “just you, I suppose.”
Cori grinned. Same old Romy.
“So, Corisande, since you have so kindly interrupted an evening that before now had been very pleasant, why don’t you tell us where you have been?”
Cori turned her head towards Ione, before shooting a quick glance at Thoren, who was staying unusually quiet as he watched her closely.
“Well, if you must know, I happen to have been whisked away with a secret organization for people who actually have social skills and a sense of humour. You wouldn’t know anything about that I’d guess.”
Ione bristled and her eyes shuttered with indignation.
Ryker had sat back down next to a smaller male Cori didn’t know, and he scoffed on a laugh while the younger boy’s eyes widened with shock. Ione may be a leader around here, but Cori didn’t have time for her nonsense.
Cori looked right at the boy she hadn’t met yet and smiled at him. “Hey – I’m Cori.”
The boy opened his mouth to reply, but Ione quickly interrupted him following a small scoff. “He already knows who you are, Lone Oakheart.”
Cori stiffened, and she heard Thoren suck in a breath from across the room. A hundred different responses flew through her head, one of which included a knife piercing through skin, but Cori instead chose to respond in as calm a manner as she could muster.
A forced smile towards the woman. “Classy as always, Ione.”
The younger boy cleared his throat and Cori looked back to him. He looked too young to be a Legionnaire, but she could see a fresh tattoo on the inside of his arm, so he must be newly eighteen.
“I’m Sam,” he said with a nervous smile, “it’s really nice to meet you.”
Finally, Thoren leaned forward to speak, and looked at the younger boy with a soft smile on his face. “Sam is one of our best new Legionnaires.”
Sam looked at Thoren and visibly glowed with pride.
“That’s high praise,” Cori said to Sam, who went a little red and averted his gaze.
There was a small pause in the conversation, and then Soraya spoke up. “I want to say how nice it is to have you back, Cori.”
Cori spied how close Soraya was to Thoren, their sides almost touching, and for a moment she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Thoren had found himself a new best friend, or something else in Soraya while she had been away. A small churn of something she could only describe as jealousy stung through her. But she smiled at the other girl.
“Thanks. It’s strange… to be back,” Cori said honestly, “but it also feels right.”
“It does feel right having you here again,” Romy said quietly from next to her, “like the old Legion again.”
Cori pressed her lips together. She wanted to remind Romy that it would never be like the old Legion, but that wouldn’t serve a purpose.
“Let’s hope so,” Cori said instead, “so, what’s been happening around here?”
“Well, we—” Soraya began before she was cut off.
“Really?” Ione said, red in the face and seething with indignation, “are we all just going to welcome Corisande back as one of us, like she didn’t abandon us at the first hint of discord?”
Silence.
Several eyes flicked between Ione and Cori, and from their stunned features, Cori could tell that they had no idea how to respond. She could see that Thoren’s jaw was clenched tightly, and his hands at his sides were white knuckled with restraint.
Cori rose slowly from her seat, her insides shaking with a quiet rage.
“I know you and I have never seen eye to eye, Ione,” Cori started, her voice as calm as she could manage, but still shook, “but if you think I abandoned the Legion for insignificant reasons, you are mistaken.”
Ione scoffed. “The losses of that day were significant for each and every one of us, and I don’t see anyone else in this room who ran away like a wounded little girl.”
The movement was so fast, that no one in the room understood what had happened until Ione screeched with anger. The dagger Cori had thrown in the space of a second, had struck true, pinning Ione’s sleeve to the plush chair beneath her, a breath away from the skin of her arm. Perhaps Maveron should not have told her about her father’s stunt earlier, but Cori felt an overwhelming anger when she looked at the woman.
In the next moment, Cori had moved to get right into Ione’s personal space. Narrowed eyes met hers.
“Listen to me,” Cori seethed at the other woman, “you might be the leader of the Five, but I really don’t care what your rank is. If you talk to me about that day ever again as though I didn’t lose everyone who mattered to me at the hands of those we called Legionnaires, I will not hesitate to throw my dagger a little more to the right.”
Ione had blanched, and Cori almost felt embarrassed for her.
“Move. Away,” Ione said through gritted teeth, almost spitting on Cori, they were that close, “or I will tell the President of your insubordination.”
Cori pressed her lips together, barely suppressing a smile. “Be my guest. Tell Maveron whatever you wish.”
But Cori did move away, leaving Ione looking stunned and enraged as Cori pulled the dagger with a swift pull from the sofa to release Ione’s arm, and with steps that she measured to seem as though she weren’t affected by this conversation, Cori returned to her seat. She crossed her legs and looked at the other faces, keeping her expression placid.
“Sorry, Soraya - you were saying?”
Soraya, eyes wide, could barely contain her shock as she cleared her throat. “Well, uh… I was going to say that things are generally the same around here. Right now, we’re mostly concerned with an assassin who seems to be employing their own kind of vigilante justice around Everton.”
As Soraya spoke, Ione had silently risen from her seat and left the room without speaking to any of the others, shutting the door with a definitive snap behind her. Sam, who looked pale and uncomfortable, winced as the door had closed.
Shaking off the confrontation, Cori raised her brows at Soraya, and caught Thoren’s eye for a moment. He was frowning and she could see a question in his gleaming silver eyes, silently asking her, are you okay?
Cori ignored him and looked back to Soraya. “Really, an assassin? That’s unlikely in this part of town.”
Assassins were generally more prominent in other parts of Holmfirth but given that Everton was the capital and crawling with Legion warriors, it was pretty risky to be an assassin in this area.
“Yes, we have inspected a few bodies they have left behind the past few weeks,” Romy said, her voice quiet as usual, “they all seemed to suffer a rather unusual and brutish death.”
Cori looked thoughtful for a moment. “And what measures are the Legion taking to find this person? Obviously, we can’t let it continue.”
For a moment, Cori stunned herself. It had felt too easy and natural to use the word we when describing the Legionnaires and herself. No one else seemed to find anything amiss, and Cori felt another surge of feeling like she belonged somewhere. Regardless of what Ione had said.
“Well, since the Assassin only seems to kill at night, and has only been sighted at night as well, Thoren and Trey have been keeping a close eye on the area where they have been striking the most during night patrols,” Soraya explained.
“Right,” Cori said, meeting Thoren’s eyes again, “I suppose I’ll be joining you in that search for a while.”
When he didn’t react beyond looking at her for a moment before glancing away again, Cori assumed M
averon had already discussed this with him. At the look on Soraya’s face, it seemed she had caught Thoren’s lack of reaction to her. She seemed… pleased by it.
“You’re patrolling with Thoren at night?” Sam asked, his voice filled with a kind of awe and jealousy. Cori turned her gaze to him and smiled, remembering when she had first received her brand, and how hungry she had been for any mission she could take on.
“That’s right – and with Trey, too,” Cori said to Sam, “what’s your first mandate?”
“I don’t have one yet,” Sam said in a low voice, turning red again and looking to his feet, “I only got my brand last week, and the President has said I need to keep focusing on my training.”
Cori sent an amused glance to Thoren, who was glancing at the boy with the kind of look she could only describe as a brotherly affection.
“Well, training is especially important. I was still training for months after my branding before I started patrolling.”
Sam looked up. “Really?”
“Of course,” Cori answered, and even if it were only half honest, she could forgive herself the small lie for the hopeful look in the other boys’ face. Cori had never stopped training, and in her opinion, none of them ever should, but she had been immediately posted in the Royal Palace when she had been branded. Some people had called it favouritism, that her own father had positioned her in such a high-profile position in the Palace so early in her career. But call it what you want - Cori had been good.
She would’ve bet a good amount of gold, too, that if she had stayed, she would have come very close, if not win, the Legion Five trials they had last year. Her biggest competition had always been Thoren, and clearly now Soraya, who currently sat so close to Thoren she was practically in his lap. Soraya’s blue trimmed uniform spoke of her new elite status, and seeing it rubbing against Thoren was harder that Cori would have thought.
“So,” Cori said, pointedly looking away from the two of them and instead focussed on Romy next to her, “the Assassin is the only present threat?”
Romy grimaced a little, the movement pulling at the scars against her cheek. “We are also on the hunt for news about the Faction.”