Lucas stood a little apart from the others, another two royal guards standing two steps behind him, and each passing officer nodded respectfully in his direction. His face was closed off, letting the watchers know nothing of his inner feelings. I didn’t let my gaze dwell on his features long enough to even attempt a guess.
Colonel Jennica approached as soon as we joined our year mates, and I sincerely hoped it was my imagination that her attention seemed focused on me. “There’s no time to be wasted at the front, as you’ll soon learn. And only one way to gain experience. You’ve been divided into three teams, and you will operate in these groups throughout your time here. I have assigned an experienced officer to lead each team. You will obey his commands as if your life depends on it—because it very well might.”
I thought I felt the weight of Lucas’s gaze, but when I risked a glance in his direction, he was focused on the colonel, his expression cool.
“I understood we were only here to observe.”
Jennica faced him down unflinching. “Certainly, Your Highness. But I would prefer that you observe under the protection of an experienced officer.” She nodded at the guards behind him. “Meaning no disrespect, but there’s a big difference between Corrin and the front lines of a war.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes at her but made no further protest.
The colonel wasted no more time on explanations, dividing us into the three teams. And whatever she might know or not know about our visit, she clearly knew something of us. We had been divided into three teams of somewhat balanced strength.
Coralie gave me a pained look when we were separated, and then a look of part relief, part frustration to find herself with Finnian. I didn’t envy them the rest of their team—Weston and Lavinia—but at least they were together.
The general’s children had been placed with Dariela and Saffron, and I felt almost as sorry for Saffron as I did for myself. Normally I would have rejoiced to avoid both of the Stantorns as well as the Devoras twins, but that meant I had been placed with the prince. There would be no careful avoidance of him now.
At least I wouldn’t have to worry about our finding ourselves alone. Not from the way Araminta was clinging to my side at any rate. And Clarence looked almost as relieved to be on our team as she did. Their expressions reminded me of Coralie’s earlier words, and even worse of the overheard conversation between General Griffith and Lorcan. Everyone seemed to be expecting great things from me, but I had no idea how to win a war.
I had no idea how to fight in a war.
Two other figures in silver robes stepped forward, and to my surprise I recognized them both. Captain Matthis looked only slightly less irritated than he had at breakfast, his demeanor making his companion look stiff and detached in comparison. I didn’t remember Captain Carson being particularly stiff when he saved me in Kingslee, however. Merely capable. Perhaps why he had been chosen.
Carson introduced himself and gestured for Coralie and Finnian’s team to follow him out of the tent. Coralie waved at me as they left, and I felt a slight release of the tension in my chest to know that she would be in the hands of an officer I had seen in action.
Matthis didn’t bother with introductions, merely signaling for Saffron’s team to follow him. Her glance back at me as they left was a look of desperation, but I could do nothing but smile encouragingly.
The four of us who remained looked around expectantly, but no further officers appeared.
“And you four are with me,” said Colonel Jennica after a moment of silence had passed. “It’s time to move out.”
Chapter 12
“You’re going to lead our team yourself?” Lucas made no move to leave the tent.
“Certainly. Your Highness could not be trusted to anyone less senior.”
“You have time for that?”
“I can’t afford not to.” She paused, a considering look in her eye as she examined him. “You are not just another soldier, Your Highness. But at the same time, while at the front lines, you must respect the hierarchy. Lives depend on a clear chain of command.”
“I have no wish to cause problems.”
I could hear the faintest off note in his voice as if he didn’t quite believe his own words, but Jennica didn’t seem to hear anything amiss. Nodding, she directed us out of the tent. Walking briskly, she expected us to keep up, pointing out various places around the camp as we passed.
“The sooner you learn your way around, the better,” she said. “My soldiers have better things to do with their time than direct lost trainees.”
Araminta made a stifled squeaking sound and took a step closer to me. I nearly tripped over her and couldn’t resist shooting her an irritated look.
“Sorry, Elena,” she whispered, giving me more space.
When we reached the edge of the tents, Lucas stopped abruptly. His four guards closed in around him, their heads whipping around as they looked for what had startled him. His eyes were on Jennica, however.
“Where exactly are we going, Colonel?”
She looked for a moment as if she didn’t intend to answer, but I saw her eyes flick to the red and gold uniforms in formation around Lucas. “We’re catching up with our patrol.”
“Excuse me?”
“We’re running behind schedule, so they will have already departed camp.”
“Patrol.” Lucas sounded beyond unimpressed.
“Yes. We’re going to observe a patrol.”
“And Lorcan approved this?”
“I received the orders from General Griffith himself. Your Head is with the general at headquarters now.”
Lucas’s gaze shifted to the open land beyond the tents before he nodded once and made no further protest. I had no doubt he had noticed the same thing I had, though—Jennica hadn’t actually said Lorcan was in agreement with our little outing. Or that he even knew about it.
I wanted nothing more than to crawl back into my firm cot, but Lucas was made of sterner stuff. I didn’t need to read it in his face to know that he wanted this. The chance to see what life was really like on the front. He was willing to give up love for the war effort, and yet he had never had the chance to see it for himself until now.
We didn’t have to go far to find a squad of ten soldiers with a silver-robed mage officer leading them. All of them, including the officer, greeted the colonel with a swift salute.
“As you were,” she said, nodding at the mage. “Remember we are here purely in an observational role. Please proceed as if you were alone.”
The mage nodded once, but I snorted quietly. Yes, ignore the fact that three Academy trainees, the second highest ranking officer at the front, four royal guards, and the prince himself had joined them. Our numbers alone almost doubled their small group.
To my surprise, however, Jennica pulled our group behind and had us group together far enough back that we could observe and hear them, but not close enough to be easily engaged in conversation ourselves. And after half an hour or so, the patrol began to relax and operate normally—or at least what I assumed was normal.
The longer I watched them, the more certain I became that the young mage leading the patrol looked vaguely familiar.
“He was a fourth year when we were first years,” Araminta whispered to me when I risked asking her about him while Jennica spoke to Lucas.
So he was serving the second year of his two year term with the Armed Forces, then. At first he had seemed hesitant, throwing glances back at us every time he spoke or withdrew a composition. But as time passed without comment or intervention from us, he settled into a rhythm and no longer paid us any particular attention.
The patrol moved south along the bank of the Abneris, a mere stone’s throw from the rushing waters. Here the ground sloped gently down to meet the river, providing easy access for someone brave enough to attempt to ford the fast-moving water.
The commonborn soldiers—a mix of youngsters around my own age and older veterans who had chosen to remain in t
he Armed Forces after their original three-year terms, presumably because no better opportunity awaited them at home—walked in two columns. At first glance they appeared to be disorganized, with no unity to their focus. But as I watched a pattern emerged. Their attention was scattered in all directions because between them they scoured the environment around them for something, although I didn’t know what. Some soldiers watched the near bank and the water itself, others studied the far bank, while still others devoted their attention inland.
“They’re looking for signs of anything amiss. For any change that doesn’t seem natural,” Jennica said when she saw me watching them intently. “Compositions can only take us so far since we must spread our power thinly across a great many needs. The human eyes can see more than you might think.”
“And the mage?” I asked, watching him.
He walked in the center of his squad, his eyes gliding loosely over the landscape without the focus of theirs. Almost as if his attention were somewhere else entirely.
“He searches for any sensation of power,” she said.
Lucas, who was walking a few steps ahead of us, slowed, joining the conversation although he kept his gaze on Jennica.
“But there’s power everywhere here. I can sense it in the water, in the ground, in the sky. It even lingers around many of the plants.”
I nodded my agreement. “I assumed those were compositions of ours, like the ones that seem to coat every inch of Bronton.”
“They are. Or most of them. Some are the residual compositions of the enemy, ones we have already dismantled. The job of the patrol mage is to look for any changes in the tapestry of power this battlefield has become. When mages first arrive, they are required to walk the patrol routes many times until they can recognize the feel of the existing power.”
“Couldn’t a composition achieve the same task?” I asked.
“It could,” she said. “But it would be a significant drain on our power resources. Many years ago that was how we did it. But then the enemy started sending workings across the river with inbuilt triggers that would blow on contact with a search composition. The general was a young man in those days—a rising star in the Armed Forces—and he was the one to come up with this system. It has served us well since.”
I looked away from them both, mulling over her words. How many of the systems currently in place had been established by the general? I had been casting my suspicion on entire families, but here was a single man with enough knowledge and access that—if he turned traitor—he could single-handedly change the course of the war. In first year Lucas had assured me that none of the great families would act against the crown. But the attacks on me were no longer the only suspicious happening. Something had changed at the front, and my certainty that Ardann harbored a traitor had only grown.
I wished now I had seized the moment and questioned Walden when he mentioned the general’s name. The librarian might spend his life sequestered in the Academy, but a lot of important people came and went inside its halls. What had he heard to make him so ill at ease? Did I have reason to fear a defense system that had been entirely formulated by the general? And should I mention my fears to Lorcan or Lucas?
I shook my head. Supposition would do no good against a general. If there was treachery at play, I needed proof. Hard evidence that Lucas could not gainsay as he had done last time. And I could not trust him to find it for himself. Lucas would not be able to see treachery among the great families because he did not want to see it.
“Sir.” One of the soldiers spoke in a tight, low voice, and the entire squad, including the mage, stopped instantly.
The man who had spoken pointed at a small group of trees and bushes a short way from the river. Most of his squad mates trained their eyes on the patch, but at least three of them kept their suspicious gazes roving over the river on their other side.
“Might be something, might be nothing,” said another of the soldiers, a veteran like the one who had spoken.
I looked to Jennica, but she made no move to intervene, watching the squad with a calm expression.
“What do they see?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been at the front in some time and am unfamiliar with the specific patrol routes. Something different I can only imagine.”
The mage moved forward, drawing a small roll of parchment from inside his silver robe. When he ripped it and flicked his fingers toward the area in question, new power surged out, rushing toward the indicated spot. It settled over the area, doing nothing that I could see or sense.
I blinked. And blinked again. Now that I looked more closely…
At first it had seemed like a trick of the light, but both the land and the greenery now glowed in a faint overlay of color. Filmy red, green, yellow, and blue washed over the natural landscape, twining through each other in some places while leaving others entirely bare.
A composition to visually reveal power.
I had only ever seen one in the classroom before, and it had looked different inside in an enclosed environment. Plus it had only been revealing two previous compositions, not the hodgepodge that had saturated this area.
The colors the composition created meant little to me, but the mage officer looked alarmed.
“Saunders. Thompson,” he barked, and two soldiers—one young and one an older veteran—stood to attention. “Go back to camp. We need a suppression team out here as soon as possible.”
Both soldiers saluted him before jogging past on their way back toward the tent city. Neither broke stride to pass us, but they both saluted again as they drew in line with the colonel.
The young officer surveyed his remaining soldiers. Two young girls—perhaps eighteen or nineteen—looked nervous as his gaze passed over them, but his eyes settled on an older woman. When he ordered her to remain at the spot to observe the trouble area until the arrival of the suppression team, I understood the younger soldiers’ nerves. I wouldn’t want to be left here alone with a potential enemy composition either, and I had the ability to protect myself at least.
The chosen solider expressed no concerns, however, merely saluting and stepping away from the rest of the group. From her look of long-suffering, I guessed this wasn’t her first time being assigned such a role.
The patrol soon resumed their progress. The officer looked twitchier than before, whether because they had actually located something, or because he only had two veterans remaining among his reduced squad, I couldn’t tell. He certainly cast a few concerned glances at the seven soldiers. But he also sent one surreptitious glance back at us, and the sight of his shadows seemed to buoy him.
We continued on for some way with no further unsettling incidents. Twice the mage stopped to retrieve compositions from his robe, ripping the parchment, and then staring intently at the water. I watched it closely for the same wash of color as earlier but could see only the blue-green of the water, interspersed with the occasional patch of white foam where it rushed around submerged rocks.
If the mage saw something I missed, it didn’t appear to concern him, and the patrol moved on quickly after both incidents.
“What is he looking for?” Lucas asked.
“Any kind of interference with the water quality,” Jennica replied.
“We’re downstream from camp, though. Shouldn’t the tests be run upstream?” asked Clarence, speaking for the first time since the command tent.
“Naturally we run the same tests upstream,” said the colonel. “But parts of northwestern Ardann use this river as their sole water source. We have a responsibility to them as well.”
Clarence nodded quickly before drawing back slightly behind Araminta and hunching his tall frame. Even so, Araminta’s short stature did little to obscure him.
I tried to think of something to say that might set him back at ease but hadn’t come up with anything when the grizzled soldier at the lead of the squad eased to a stop. The rest of his comrades halted behind him except for
the mage who continued forward to stand beside the veteran. The two of them faced into a gully that veered away to our left, ancient evidence that the river had once run a different course.
“What do you see?” asked the mage.
The soldier grunted. “Nothing I can exactly put my finger on, sir.”
The mage looked away from the gully to frown at him. “And what exactly does that mean?”
“I’ve walked this patrol more times than you can imagine, meaning no disrespect. Something’s off, even if I can’t point at exactly what.”
The mage sighed, his face twisting into a frustrated grimace. For a moment he stood in silence, and then with a subtle glance back at our group, he pulled out a parchment. Ripping it, he flicked his fingers toward the gully, focusing his full attention on the power that rushed along them and out to cover the surrounding area.
I stared forward as intently as he did, although my view was more obstructed, and caught faint glimpses of color, although fewer than last time. We all stood in frozen silence until the mage made a disgusted sound in his throat.
“Nothing. As you can see as well as me. I don’t like wasting my compositions because you’re jumping at shadows.”
“I ain’t the jumping type,” said the soldier, not backing down despite his superior’s displeasure.
The other remaining veteran, the one who had pointed out the previous anomaly, nodded in agreement, although he didn’t say anything.
“Well, there’s nothing there. You saw for yourself.”
“There ain’t nothing that composition of yours can see, you mean. That don’t mean there’s no danger to be had.”
“Our patrol leads us through this gully. Would you have us shirk our duty?” The mage asked sharply, trying to stare the man down.
“I’m no shirker, but I didn’t survive this long by rushing heedless into danger either,” the soldier said, refusing to budge.
“I am your senior officer,” the mage snapped. “And for a reason. I have worked a composition; the area is clear. Do you refuse to obey your orders?”
Voice of Dominion (The Spoken Mage Book 3) Page 12