“Running,” I answer truthfully.
She draws her head back, her brow furrowing deeper. “You never run.”
“Then it’s a good time to start,” I try to joke.
She glances between Imogen and me. “With Imogen?”
“Yep,” Imogen replies. “Apparently we’re runners now.”
Bodhi arrives in time to hear that, his eyebrows rising.
“Together?” Rhiannon’s gaze keeps bouncing—to Imogen, me, and back again. “I don’t understand.”
If you can’t lie, you keep your distance.
“Nothing to understand. We’re just running.” My smile is so tight I think my entire face might fracture with the effort it takes to keep it there.
Bodhi’s gaze narrows.
“But what if you don’t make it in time for breakfast?”
“We will,” Imogen promises. “If we leave right now.” She glances at Bodhi. “I’ve got this.”
“Let them go,” Bodhi says.
“But—” Rhiannon starts, her gaze searching mine as if she can see right through me. Imogen’s been training me since last year, but Rhi knows we aren’t exactly friends.
“Let them go,” he repeats, and this time it’s not a suggestion but an order from her section leader.
“I’ll see you later?” Rhi asks.
“Later,” I agree, unsure I mean it as I turn without another word and jog across the courtyard toward the tunnel. The gravel is shit for traction, making it harder, but that’s fine. I need harder.
Imogen catches me within a few strides. “What do you mean you won’t make it?”
“What?” We pause at the doors.
“You said you won’t make it.” Imogen gets to the handle before I do and holds the door shut. “When I asked you why you’re running. What did you mean?”
For a second, I debate not telling her, but she was there, too. She’s not sleeping, either.
“Soleil didn’t.” My gaze locks with hers, but her expression doesn’t change. Swear to the gods, nothing fazes her. I envy that. “She was on the ground when she killed her. The way she channeled…it drained everything from the land. Everything touching the land. Including Soleil and Fuil. I watched it happen. I watch it happen every night when I close my eyes. It spread so quickly, and I know…I can’t outrun it. Not if I’m too far from Tairn. I’m not fast enough for any considerable distance.” I try to swallow the tightness in my throat, but the knot seems to live there lately.
“Yet,” Imogen says, yanking the door to the tunnel open. “We’re not fast enough yet. But we will be. Let’s go.”
***
“It’s weird as hell to be all the way up here,” Ridoc says from my left as we sit in the first Battle Brief of the academic year later that day, looking down at where the first-years take up more than a third of the room.
It’s standing-room only in the giant, tiered classroom for the third-years behind us. This is the only place in the quadrant besides the gathering hall designed to hold all the rider cadets, but it will take a few weeks of death rolls before we can all sit in front of the stories-tall map of the Continent.
It reminds me of the one in Brennan’s briefing room in Aretia. He thinks we only have six months until venin challenge the wards, and yet there’s not a single indication on this map.
“View is a little better,” Nadine remarks from his other side.
“Definitely easier to see the higher portions of the map,” Rhiannon agrees at my right, taking out her supplies and setting them on the desktop before her. “Did you have a good run this morning?”
“I’m not sure I’d call it good, but it was effective.” I put my notebook and pen on the table, wincing at the pain shooting up my shins, and reinforce my shields. Keeping them up at all times is harder than I thought, and Tairn loves to remind me when they slip.
“Look at all those first-years with their quills and ink,” Ridoc remarks, leaning forward to look down at the underclassmen.
“There once was a time we didn’t have lesser magic to power ink pens,” Nadine retorts. “Stop acting superior.”
“We are superior.” He grins.
Nadine rolls her eyes, and I can’t fight my smile.
Professor Devera walks down the narrow set of stone steps on our left that follows the tiers of seats, her favorite longsword strapped to her back. Her black hair is a little shorter since I saw her last, and there’s a fresh, jagged wound along the rich mahogany skin of her biceps.
“I heard she spent last week with the Southern Wing,” Rhiannon says quietly.
My stomach tenses and I wonder what, if anything, she saw.
“Welcome to your first Battle Brief,” Professor Devera announces. I tune out as she gives the same speech as last year and warns the first-years not to be surprised if the third-years are called into service early to man the mid-guard posts or shadow the forward wings. Her gaze rakes over them before she raises her attention to the seconds, her eyes crinkling for a heartbeat as she flashes a proud smile at me before continuing upward as she explains how necessary it is for us to understand the current affairs of our borders.
“This is also the only class where you will not only answer to a rider as your professor, but a scribe, as well,” she finishes, lifting her hand toward the stairs.
Colonel Markham lifts the corner of his cream-colored robes as he descends, heading for the recessed floor of the lecture hall.
