by Riley Storm
“I was going to add that I think you are cut out for it,” he said respectfully, before falling into silence.
“Oh.” Now she just felt guilty. “Thank you, Altair, I appreciate that.”
“The others can see it too I’m sure,” he said. “If they can’t, they will in time. Don’t doubt yourself, you can do this.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“If there’s any way I can help, just let me know,” he said awkwardly.
“You can focus on the mission at hand,” she said, the words coming out without even meaning to. “Stop always staring at me while we’re working. Three times you caused us to fail today. That’s more than anyone else.”
Altair stood up straight, but she didn’t notice, too caught up in venting her frustrations.
“If you could do your job, that would help me out. ‘Cause right now, I can’t afford to babysit you and everyone else. Step it up, Altair, or else it’s not going to work with you here.”
The dragon shifter stiffened.
“Of course. I was just on the library to start brushing up on my knowledge of creatures of the Abyss and how to defeat them. I’ll go now, so that you can focus on everything else. Since I seem to be such a distraction to you.”
She frowned, looking up sharply but he was already gone, back turned to her. What the hell had he meant by that last comment? He was the one distracted, the one always looking at her, watching her. Not the other way around. Right?
“What was that all about?” Jessie asked as she came over. “Lovers’ quarrel?”
Christine hit her with a glare. “We are not a thing.”
The other witch rolled her eyes. “Okay. Fine. I’ll play along. What were you two arguing about?”
“I told him to do his job. He said he was going to leave, so he would stop being a distraction to me. Can you believe that? The nerve of him!”
Jessie folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t follow. Why are you upset at his comment?”
“Why?” she cried. “Why wouldn’t I be upset at a lie? He’s not a distraction to me, he’s a weak link in the team. All he was doing today was looking at me, staring at me, focusing on me, and not what was out there.”
Jessie’s head tilted to the side a little, but she gestured for Christine to go on.
“That’s it, really,” she said. “I just couldn’t believe he was going to assign me some of the blame for our team’s weak performance today.”
“Can I ask you something?” Jessie said carefully.
Christine frowned. “You agree with him, don’t you? You think I’m distracted?”
“I think you’re being a huge bitch to him, because you don’t want to admit to yourself that you’re just as much at fault for what happened today, Christi.”
“I’m being a bitch? I’m at fault?” She started to snap at her friend, but Jessie held up a hand.
“Tell me. How would you know he was always staring at you, unless you were looking at him? I was there with the snow elementals, Christi. You froze. He didn’t do anything. You froze. You were distracted. Stop denying it to yourself. And when you realize I’m right, apologize to him. He didn’t deserve that outburst. The dude is in way over his head, trying to play catchup to some of the best combat mages at Winterspell, on the fly. And even you, in your pissy mood, have to admit that as the day went on, he did better.”
Christine grumbled something that may have been an agreement.
“Now come on, let’s get back to our rooms. I need to shower.” Jessie sniffed the air. “And so do you.”
“Ew!” she exclaimed, but she laughed. Not for long, or hard, but she laughed, and her mood started to change.
With it came a wave of guilt. She didn’t like the way things had ended with Altair, the animosity between them. She much preferred things like they had been the night before in the library, the two of them working together. As a team.
Have I ruined things permanently because I refused to admit that I was at fault too?
Or could she salvage their friendship?
After all, it was just friendship between them. Nothing more.
Her mind went back to the fight with the snow elementals. Her eyes had met his, and time had frozen. She’d felt it, felt herself drawn into him.
It was just friendship though. Wasn’t it?
Chapter Ten
Altair
He walked out of the arena, flushing with embarrassment over the chewing out he’d received from Christine.
Some of it had been earned, he knew, but what he couldn’t figure out was the basis for the rest of her anger toward him. It’s not like he’d been the only one to screw up today. There was no way she could pin it all on him, though it had sure felt like that was what she had tried to do.
It was why he’d thrown the last comment in her face. It didn’t make him feel good to be so petty, less so with Christine, but he couldn’t resist. She was just as at fault as he was. Something was going on between them.
Altair wasn’t sure just what, yet, but he knew he needed to figure it out, and figure out soon. He couldn’t have himself be distracted by feelings and thoughts about someone. His head needed to be clear, and free of anything that might prevent him from doing what needed to be done. Including feelings for anyone.
He was exhausted after the long day of training, and wanted nothing more than to sleep, but it was still early. He couldn’t risk that. Not yet.
Food, however, sounded perfect. The witches hadn’t been prepared for just how much energy a dragon needed to consume to keep up the kind of output he’d been doing today, and their food stocks had been nowhere near adequate to feed him. Consequently, Altair had dipped deep into his reserves, and was now running close to empty.
Sleep was not something he wanted to face without fresh energy.
“Altair.”
He jerked to a halt as he entered the dragon quarters. I knew I should have just gone straight for food. The lure of a warm shower had directed him upstairs first, to clean up before heading to the kitchens.
“Hi, Rokh,” he said, slowly turning to face the fire dragon, wondering just what he was going to hear about today.
“Where have you been all day?”
“Training, Rokh. You know this. Are we going to go at it again? Because you aren’t changing your mind, and neither am I. So, what’s the point?”
The fire dragon bristled, but he restrained himself. “Contrary to your belief, there are other things I might want to talk to you about.”
“Like what?” Altair asked, genuinely curious.
“Patrol.”
Stiffening, the storm dragon waited for Rokh to continue.
“Are you ready to go out yet?”
Altair hesitated. He wanted to be ready, to be assigned to go out on patrol, but he couldn’t. Not while he was still struggling with his nightmares.
“What about all the newcomers?” he asked instead, trying to avoid directly answering the question.
Rokh glared at him. “You haven’t gone on one yet.”
“Neither have they,” Altair pointed out. He hated dodging responsibility, because he should be out on patrol, but he would just be putting others in jeopardy.
So far, Damien and Rane had managed to cover for him. There had only been two incidents, but he knew that it was just a matter of time before things got out of hand, before he did irreparable damage.
If he went out on patrol surrounded by vulnerable witches, and had an episode out in the field, he wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt. The witches couldn’t be asked to monitor him, to stop him if he started lashing out with his powers in the middle of his dreams. No, Altair couldn’t put anyone else at risk.
“Altair.”
“Rokh.”
The fire dragon grumbled. “Listen, I’m done playing your games, Altair. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but you need to snap out of it. We have patrols that need dragons on them.”
/> “I have training I have to do,” he said, realizing he now had the perfect, tailor-made excuse. “Sorry.”
He backed away from Rokh for several steps, then spun and hurried off, not wanting to wait around for the fire dragon’s response. Reaching his door, he pushed it open and then closed behind him, sagging to the ground in relief.
I can’t keep doing this. Something needs to change.
Something was going to change, he vowed, picking himself up. Altair was going to shower, get some food, then he was headed right back to the library.
It was time to read up some more on Master Ada Erlinger.
Chapter Eleven
Christine
She groaned at the sight of a brown envelope sticking out of her door.
“Is that what I think it is?” Jessie asked, skipping forward, snatching the mail before Christine could get to it. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?”
Christine slipped past her friend and into the room, trying to shut the door in Jessie’s face.
“Hey! Not fair. Open up. I live here too, you know?”
“No, you live across the hallway,” Christine pointed out. “You just don’t like your room so you’re always in my room, pretending like you live here. I think you have separation issues, is what it really is.”
The two of them had been roommates for most of their year as Initiates, but Apprentices and up were granted solo quarters to better help them study. The two of them had remained close though and had chosen rooms right across the hall from one another. Despite the teasing she was giving her friend now, Christine was happy to have Jessie around.
Jessie made a dismissive noise and then pushed harder on the door. “Open up or I’ll huff and puff and blow your damn door in!”
“That’s not how it goes,” Christine muttered, stepping back from the door just as Jessie gathered herself to push again.
The other woman stumbled in as the pressure disappeared abruptly, nearly falling flat on her face. She shot Christine a pouty face, but the look disappeared quickly as she brought the letter out.
“Dearest Christine,” she cooed, reading the header.
“Do we really have to do this?” Christine moaned, flopping back onto her bed. “You know I’m not in the mood for more of Julian’s talk about the two of us. Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because it’s fun, and you know you would darn well do the same thing to me if I got myself into a predicament like this.”
Christine frowned, trying to understand just what Jessie meant. What sort of predicament was she in? Julian was a boy, a man really, from the town of Elk Pines, the closest human settlement to Winterspell. He’d taken a shining to her some six months earlier during one of her infrequent visits to the town. Since then, he’d sent her mail once a month, outlining his ambitions to court her and eventually marry her. She’d yet to reply, however, and only by returning to Elk Pines would she even have to risk seeing him again. There was no predicament there.
“Hey, what did you mean by pred—”
“It has been six long months since I last heard from you,” Jessie continued, hopping up to sit on the corner of Christine’s desk, pushing her papers into a pile to clear some space. “I hope that you are well.”
“Why are you reading the entire thing? It’s going to be the same stuff as always. Pleasant, polite, and thoroughly uninteresting. You know this. I know this. Can we stop pretending now?” Christine grumbled.
“You haven’t responded to him once, Christi. Six months he’s written you. Never once has he gotten snippy, or even petty about the fact that you haven’t written or returned to see him.”
“We’re not a thing, so how many times do I have to tell you that?” she said, exasperated at the situation. “We met, we had a drink together. I let slip I was from Winterspell. Now he sends me mail once a month, because having a drink means we’re meant to be together.”
“He’s cute though,” Jessie pointed out.
“There are lots of cute guys in the world,” Christine countered, staring at the stone ceiling of her room in irritation. “It doesn’t mean I’m interested in all of them.”
“You could have written to him saying you weren’t interested,” Jessie pointed out. “That would stop the letters from coming.”
“I’m afraid if I did that, he would come himself,” she joked.
“It’s winter. They can’t get through, there are no passes,” Jessie pointed out.
“Whatever. Just stop, please, okay? I don’t want to marry Julian. Or father his six kids, or however many he wants. Way too many.”
“Ugh, kids,” Jessie said. “No thanks.”
Christine smiled. “I’m going to laugh so hard one day if you find a man and suddenly come to me saying your ovaries are on fire, that you need a child immediately. Because you so strike me as that type.”
Jessie glared at her. “Stop.”
“Maybe he will woo you with letters!” Christine cried, jumping up from the bed and striking a pose. “His words will stir your heart and ignite a fire in yon loins. You will lust for him, and his long, magnificent, throbbing member as it—”
Jessie took out her wand and a ball of water hit Christine square in the face as she was speaking.
“Hey, that wasn’t nice!” she yelped, shaking off the cold water. It disappeared a moment later as the magic faded, but the point had been made.
“You’re being ridiculous,” Jessie said with a smirk, then waved the letter. “Give me one good reason why you shouldn’t respond to this, and at least go on a date with him?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Not good enough,” Jessie said, shaking her head.
“It should be.”
“I need a better reason.”
“Um.” Christine bit her lip. There was a better reason. Sort of. She didn’t really know.
“I can see your brain working,” Jessie said, speaking more friendly now, dropping the teasing tone. “What is it Chris? Spit it out.”
She frowned at her friend. “Why do I feel like you already know what I’m thinking?”
“Because I do, and it was written all over your face earlier. I’m just waiting for you to acknowledge it to yourself.”
Christine sighed, walking over and snatching the letter from her friend’s hands. She glanced at it briefly, then tossed it down on the desk.
“If you can’t admit it to yourself,” Jessie said quietly, yanking the letter back. “Then write him back. Where’s the harm?”
Christine considered her friend’s words. Though neither of them had said his name, they both knew she was thinking about Altair just then. Whatever it was, it was different between them somehow.
If she could admit it to herself.
Taking a deep breath, Christine made a decision.
“Give me that,” she said, taking the letter, flipping it over, and beginning to write.
Chapter Twelve
Christine
“Hold the line!”
Magic sizzled and flashed as her team dug in. They were in tough against a band of Fae. The faeries had a natural inclination to magic, and she thanked her stars that there were only four of them. If there were any more, her team would be in trouble. As it was, they were holding the line, waiting for a moment to strike.
She ducked low behind the rocks that were serving as cover, narrowly avoiding a brilliant pink lance directed her way. A moment later, some of the rocks exploded as more attacks struck home.
They must have realized that I’m in charge here. They’re going for the head. Cut me down, and they assume the body will fall apart.
She snarled. The constructs just might be right. Although her team was doing better this time, they were still mostly operating as individuals in a group, not as one cohesive, single unit. That would take time, however, and she had to be happy about the progress in just three days.
Her only worry was that Lord Berith wouldn’t give them the time they needed. She had
to push them harder than they were ready for, because they simply did not have a choice.
“What’s the plan, boss?” Jessie asked, standing up to launch her next attack, then ducking down.
“They’ve got us pinned down,” Christine growled, upset that she’d let them get into this position.
The witches were in a dry riverbed, using the rocks along the edge as cover, forced to crawl on their hands and knees in the areas where no rocks existed. The fae had the high ground, hiding just inside the trees that marked the edge of the forest.
Between the two of them were a hundred feet of open ground. No man’s land. One of her team was already down. The fae had waited to attack until her team was climbing out of the riverbed to continue on. Linny had been out front, walking point. She’d been too exposed, too far from the riverbed to make it back safely.
At least she’s getting to have a nap while we deal with this shitshow.
One of her witches cried out as a rock exploded, peppering her with shards of hot stone. The wounds weren’t real, but the pain was. Christine ignored the cursing of the other woman.
“Any bright ideas?” she asked, looking at Jessie. “They’ve got us good by my accounts. Their magic is stronger than ours with Linny down. They have the high ground and are wearing us down. Am I missing anything?”
Jessie thought about it. “Him.”
Altair. She didn’t want to use the dragon shifter, mainly because she didn’t trust him. So far, he had stayed hunkered down, out of sight, doing exactly as she’d ordered of him, nothing more.
Could he trust him not to screw them all over? Even if she could, what could he do to help them out of their situation? She thought about it, but the only idea that came to her was so crazy, she didn’t know if it would work.
“Altair,” she barked.
He looked up, eyes sparkling in the bright fake sunlight of the arena. At least they weren’t in the snow this time. Christine hated the snow.
“How can I help?” the dragon shifter asked, eager to join in.
“We need to gain the high ground back. But we also need an element of surprise,” she said. “If we can take out two of them in a lightning attack—bad words!” she yelped as he started to move, misinterpreting what she meant. “I meant, in a quick surprise attack. If we can halve their numbers, the other two should break and run. If they don’t, we can overpower them.”