“Bleedin’ hell,” Vince said. “You fuckers need to sort your shit out.”
He advanced on Mal, but I didn’t get to see what happened next because Hyde was steering me out of the room and into the corridor beyond. He shoved open the door to what looked like a broom closet and pushed me in.
“You can change in here,” he said.
“A supply closet?”
“I’ll get Vince to clear out a room for you to use while you’re on duty here.”
As much as a space of my own sounded great, it felt wrong. “I’ll take a separate changing room, but I’ll bunk down with my team, whoever that may be. I’m a shadow cadet, and I don’t want to be segregated.”
“You’re also a woman amongst a bunch of horny supernatural males.” He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose as if he’d said too much.
But he had a valid point. “It’s not like I have a choice, is it? If I isolate myself, I stay the shiny new thing. If I become one of the guys, then I lose the whole woman status and become a cadet. I become one of them.”
His jaw flexed as he mulled this over. “Vince will be here all the time. He lives here. So …” It seemed like he was reassuring himself more than me. “I’ll get your armor.”
He left me in the closet and returned a moment later with a set of skins, breast and shoulder plates, and some shin pad things. “The greaves may be too big.” He held out the bundle. “Vince will make you some armor to fit. You’ll have it before the trial. In the meantime, you’ll need to make do.”
I took the armor. It was lighter than expected. And the reality of this situation hit me hard. This was my future, whether I liked it or not. I’d gone with the flow, neglected to dwell, to turn this over in my mind for what it was. My map. My goal. Chosen for me by fate.
This was a fighter’s destiny, so why did my insides feel so twisted?
Doubt stabbed at my chest. What if I was shit at this? I’d learned to fight, to stand up for myself and not back down. I’d survived in the supernatural slums, but all I’d had to worry about back then was me. This was bigger than me. If I fucked up, other people could get hurt.
“Justice?”
I looked up and was caught in the snare of Master Hyde’s gaze.
He sighed. “This has always been a male gig. Your being here is going to stir up shit. And yeah, it’s going to take time for the others to accept you as an equal, to see you not as a woman but as a cadet. But you have just as much right to be here as they do.” He pouted in thought. “I’ll train you myself. One on one.”
My gaze flew up to meet his. “Why would you do that?”
His smile was all sharp edges. “Because unlike those boys in that room, I won’t go easy on you because you’re a woman. I won’t be trying to impress you to get in your pants.”
My mouth was suddenly dry. The thought of him in my pants …
Heat coiled in his blue-green eyes for a moment as if the same thought had just occurred to him too. He sucked in a sharp breath, and the heat evaporated.
“We start tomorrow. An hour before regular training. Are you in?” There was a challenge in his tone.
And despite my doubts as to the wisdom of being alone and sweaty with him, there was no way I’d back down from a challenge.
“I’m in.”
Seventeen
The skin fit like, well, like a skin. Swirling patterns decorated my legs where the almost see-through material clung. I hope they fucking washed these before getting us to wear them. They were so tight they were almost indecent. But then, if this was Winterlock Tech fabric, it was probably self-cleaning. The breast plate was a little too big, and the greaves were too long. It was like swimming in metal, but when I did move, the metal didn’t clank together like I’d have expected. It molded to my limbs, not exactly but enough to not be totally awkward.
I joined the other cadets in the armor room. They were all suited up, and damn, did they look hardcore and impressive in the silver and black armor.
Hyde had slipped into armor too, and if he’d looked impressive before, he looked like a metal monolith now, one I’d have no problem climbing and then polishing with my body. I took a deep breath to dispel the inappropriate thoughts. Thank goodness Larkin wasn’t about.
Hyde’s gaze flicked my way, but his impassive expression didn’t change.
“You okay, Justice?” Harmon asked.
“Yeah, just feeling ridiculous in this getup.” The breast plate was too big and made it difficult for me to see my feet.
Harmon looked me up and down. “You look good to me.”
His gaze was momentarily intense and very unHarmon like. “Um … thanks?”
“Weapons,” Vince said.
Hyde walked over to the closed unit and yanked on the door handle. The door slid up, folding into the wall to reveal too many pretties hung there: axes, swords, and huge hunting knives. It was an arsenal of stabby things.
“You’ll be forging your own armaments next year,” Vince said. “But for now, you’ll be allocated a temporary weapon.”
“Line up,” Hyde ordered.
One by one, we approached Master Hyde, and one by one, he selected a weapon for us to wield.
“How come he gets to choose our weapon,” someone behind me muttered.
“Cos he’s the fucking master,” Vince snapped. “Hyde knows weapons. He can gauge compatibility between wielder and weapon.” Vince walked over and glared at the cadet who’d commented. “What do you think, Hyde? Is this one a short dagger guy?”
Hyde’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe a bare fists kinda guy.”
The cadet’s eyes widened.
Vince let out a bark of laughter and slapped the guy on the back. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
The queue moved up, and it was my turn. Hyde stared at me for a long beat and then reached behind him and picked up a small axe.
Disconcerted mutters rose up behind me as Hyde handed me the weapon. Our fingers brushed as I grasped the hilt, and a zing of awareness shot up my arm. He froze for a fraction of a second. Had he felt it too? I looked up at him, but he seemed unaffected. He released the axe, and the weight settled in my hand.
“Try it,” he said.
I stepped away from the line of cadets and turned my wrist, making figure eights with the weapon. I swung my arm so the figure eight grew larger. The whoosh of the blade cutting through the air felt right. The motion and weight perfectly balanced.
Several gasps and exclamations filled the air.
I nodded at Hyde. “This will do fine.”
He grinned and reached behind him and unhooked another one. “They go together.”
I took the other axe and moved back, swinging them both in a way that created a barrier of blade around me. I’d used twin blades before, but this was my first time with twin axes.
“Fucking awesome,” Harmon said.
“Show-off,” Thomas’s tone was good-natured.
The others watched in awe that had my blood heating with pride. I guess the hours of training and hard work that my father had dismissed were going to come in handy after all.
I smiled up at Hyde. “This can work.”
He returned my smile before turning his attention to Harmon.
I caught Mal staring and bared my teeth at him. Yeah bitch, I will cut you and I can do it fast.
He looked away quickly.
Vince wandered over to me and handed me something small and round affixed to a strap. It looked like a watch, but it was a compass. He made to walk away.
“Wait.”
He arched a querying brow. “Yes?”
“The Academy is south of the mist.”
His mouth turned down. “Is that a question?”
I gave him a flat look. “Is it south of the mist?”
He sucked in his lips. “It is, indeed.”
“And these barracks are south too?”
“Correct.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
He handed out the rest of the watch compasses, but no one else spoke to him or asked him any questions.
Several minutes later, Hyde had wrapped up his weapons allocation, and we were ready. Harmon had an axe and Thomas twin hunting daggers. We strapped on holsters relevant to our weapons. Mine slipped on like a waistcoat, so the axes sat against my back. Harmon helped adjust the straps to make it fit, his huge hands working deftly as if he’d done this before. It made me wonder about his life with the pack. Did they use weapons like these? Why would they need to when they had fangs and claws?
And then Hyde was leading us out of the barracks and into the night. The mist hovered fifteen meters away, rising like a wall to greet us. Feet faltered as everyone took a moment to appreciate the magnitude of what was about to happen. We were doing this. We were going into the grey stuff that shrouded the land.
And then we were moving fast, headed right for the mist, then into the mist, and then it was closing around us. I gasped as it touched my skin, and then coughed as it filled my lungs.
Others around me were doing the same.
“Relax,” Hyde said. “It can’t hurt you. Breathe normally.”
I closed my eyes and willed my pulse to relax. It was mist. Nothing more. My pulse calmed and I opened my eyes to a world that was muted and hazy. Visibility was reduced by about thirty percent, but it was nowhere near as thick as it looked from the outside. The air tasted different, too. The taste was familiar. What was it?
“Licorice.” Harmon spat the word from beside me. “Fucking hate licorice.”
“Stay together,” Hyde said. “You stray, and you’re on your own.”
He strode off, vanishing into the mist. We jogged to catch up. Shadows to the left and right.
“AM posts.” Hyde came to a halt by a thick metal post. A ladder was attached to it. He placed his hand on it. “You’ll be trained on AM maintenance starting tomorrow. You’ll be split into three groups and allocated a second-year troop to man barracks with once a week.”
He led us away from the post, farther and farther away from the barracks. Deeper into the mist.
“How far does sector one stretch, sir?” one of the cadets asked.
“A mile north. And a mile east and west,” Hyde said. “The width of the breach.”
He angled his body east and continued walking. A low hum registered.
“Do you hear that?” I nudged Thomas.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I think that’s the mechanism of the posts.”
They were poisoning the air against the fomorians, but it looked like the air had an effect on the terrain too. The earth was dry and dusty, and I had no idea how any creatures could possibly live here.
Hyde came to a halt again, and beyond him, through the mist, a dark, cavernous space was visible. It looked like the mouth to a cave. We got closer, and yes, it was definitely a cave.
Hyde turned to us. “These are the catacombs. This is where your first trial will take place. The mouth of this cave leads to the only entrance and exit to the catacombs beneath. It’s sealed up now, but it will be opened in three weeks for you. You’ll be sealed inside for eight hours. If you survive, you pass.”
Sealed in … That hardly sounded like a trial, unless … “What’s inside there? What are you going to seal us in with?”
His expression was stony. “Hounds. You’ll be sealed in with hounds and their younglings.”
A shiver of apprehension rushed up my spine. “You want us to kill them?”
He smirked. “Or be killed. Your choice.”
Someone snickered. Tosser. Obviously hadn’t thought shit through like I had. It was why I was so confused. The knights raised and trained hounds to work alongside them. Killing them was counterproductive.
“Isn’t it a waste to kill the hounds that the knights use?”
His brows snapped down, and then his frown cleared. “I see your confusion. Allow me to clarify. The hounds in the catacombs aren’t ours. They’re not trained. They’re feral, and they’re fed meager amounts of meat once a month to keep them alive. They’ve procreated and built their home in these catacombs, and their numbers are culled once a year by the cadets in the shadow trial.” He canted his head. “That’s you, by the way. Ten of you and goodness knows how many of them.”
Was that worry skipping across his brutal features?
“If you want to survive the trial, you need to train hard. You need to work as a team. You need to be ready to kill.”
He stared us all down, one by one. With the mist swirling around us and the night pressing in on us, his words were an ominous premonition of impending death.
He smiled. “So, how about we start with a mini test. If you find your way back to the barracks on time, you might get some lunch.”
He turned away and strode off into the mist, leaving us huddled in a group.
“Shit!”
“What the fuck?”
“Which way?”
Exclamations broke out, and this test suddenly made sense. Vince had handed out compasses, and no one, aside from me, had questioned it. Fucking idiots. What would they have done if I wasn’t here? Would Hyde have come back for them?
“Hey!” I held up a hand. “We head south.” I tapped the compass on my wrist. “You guys do know how to read a compass, right?”
Mal threw a filthy look my way. “And why the fuck should we listen to you? You could be trying to get us lost.”
“Not everyone, just you.” I walked up to him. “Because you’re an asshole. And assholes should always be left behind.”
The cadet beside him let out a bark of laughter. “She’s got that right, Mal.”
“Fuck you, Gimble,” Mal said. “No one cares what a bastardized fey thinks.”
Gimble, a skinny, mousy-haired guy with a pronounced Adam’s apple, looked as if he’d been slapped.
Bastardized fey was a slur used to refer to the feybloods who came from lesser blood lines. Lines not directly associated with Winterlock and Bourne, and only assholes used the term anymore.
“And what does that make you?” I narrowed my eyes at Mal. “What is he, Harmon?”
Harmon shrugged a huge shoulder. “Not legacy.”
“Bastardized nightblood,” Thomas said with a smirk.
Mal reddened. “You think you’re special, Justice, cos you got a pussy and the fucking gene.”
“At least I’m not just a pussy.”
He advanced toward me. “Let me tell you somethi— ompf.”
My knee connected with his balls, and he went down, clutching the only jewels he’d ever get to hold.
I turned to the rest of the cadets. “I’m fucking hungry. How about we get back and grab some grub?”
I checked my compass and then set off south. Harmon and Thomas fell into step on either side of me. If the rest of them wanted to hang about, then that was up to them, but I needed some O neg and an apple. Stat.
Eighteen
Harmon and I peered in through the round window to the med bay. It was four hours until dawn. Classes were over for the day, and I’d been on my way to see Minnie when I’d bumped into Harmon.
He hadn’t asked me to come with him, but fuck it, he’d looked like he could do with some support, plus he’d stood up for me against Mal at the barracks. I owed him. The lights were dim out in the main med bay area, but they were lit up in Lottie’s private room. She was sitting up in bed, reading a book. She looked … normal.
“She’s doing fine,” Madam Mariana said from behind us. “Physically, of course, but I was unable to find any traces of her memories when I did a sweep of her mind. She’s retained all her skills: reading, writing, and general knowledge is sound. But memories of attachments, childhood, family … They all seem to be gone.”
I turned away from the door. “What could cause this?”
“I don’t know,” Madam Mariana said. “Her temperature was elevated when she was brought in—a slight fever—which leads me to postulate that this could be th
e result of some kind of virus.”
“Supernaturals don’t get sick,” Harmon said shortly.
“Not unless the sickness is supernatural in nature,” Mariana added.
“A supernatural sickness?” I raised both brows. “Do we even have any? I’ve never heard of them.”
Madam Mariana looked uncomfortable. “It may not be from our world.”
Wait, was she suggesting … “An Otherworld sickness?” Oh, shit. “You think it’s fomorian?”
“An attack?” Harmon was on high alert now, his huge body bristling with the need to act.
I touched his wrist lightly, and he exhaled sharply. “Tell me about this virus?”
The weaver held up her hands. “It’s just one theory. We can’t say anything for sure. Unfortunately, there is no trace of antigen in Lottie’s blood. Nothing for us to go on aside from speculation.” She sighed. “She could be infectious, but then again, she may not be. My tests have picked up nothing conclusive. We have her in quarantine as a precaution. Master Payne is running more bloodwork as we speak. If all the tests are clear, she’ll be able to go back to classes at the end of the week.”
“My father … Did you call him?” Harmon asked.
“I believe he was informed,” Mariana said softly. “I’m sorry. He said he was too busy to come.”
Harmon nodded. “Figures.” He tucked in his chin. “Can I see her? Once the quarantine is over?”
“Of course.” Mariana placed a hand on Harmon’s shoulder, her expression flooded with sympathy. “She understands what’s happened. She knows she has a brother here, family. She’s much calmer now, and who knows, maybe seeing you will jog something.”
The door to the lab opposite the reception area opened, and Master Payne strode in. “Everything okay?” His attention was on me before he glanced to the quarantine room. “How is the patient?”
“She’s fine,” Madam Mariana said. “We didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”
He shook his head. “No, that’s fine. I’m coming up empty.” He frowned. “I’m sorry this happened, Harmon. If there is a way to fix it, we will.”
“Thank you,” Harmon said.
Shadow Caster: The Nightwatch Academy book 1 Page 12