Relinquish(59)

He has always been that for me, whether I like it or not.

I’m volatile when he is around. My emotions weigh heavily on my powers, but I’m most lethal when I’m hurt. Bastien knows this better than anyone.

“What’s with her?” I hear Niyah ask, and I speed up. I don’t want to hear Bastien try to make some pathetic excuse for my temper. He could try to tell Niyah what I’m like when I lose control, but no one really knows until they see it firsthand.

I put a fair amount of distance between us as we round a large bend, lined with spruce trees and dotted with small knee-high bushes with bright-red berries. The clouds shift overhead, casting me in shadow.

At first I think it is this movement that catches the corner of my eye, but the hairs rising on the back of my neck say otherwise. I drop into a crouch, searching the woods. Someone is out there. I can feel it.

I hear Bastien approaching at a run and turn to warn him but see him waving his hands over his head. “He’s one of mine!” I hear him shout.

Rising from a crouch, my grip loosens on my knife. I tap it against my leg, waiting for Bastien to arrive with Niyah right behind him, looking less than thrilled to have been forced to jog for my benefit. “He’s one of mine,” he says, sliding to a halt beside me.

“I heard you the first time.” I glance at the man concealed in the woods. He is good. If it hadn’t been for Bastien’s warning, though, he would be a dead man.

He isn’t alone. There are four more scouts up ahead. Two on the right, crouched within a tangle of thorns that mask their camouflaged uniforms. Two others are perched from above in perfect sniper position.

Niyah crosses her arms over her chest, looking perfectly comfortable with the scowl pinching her beautiful features. “So she saw one of them. Big deal. She didn’t see the others.”

“Yes,” Bastien says without any hesitation. “She did.”

His confidence in my abilities would’ve made me tingle with pride if I weren’t so angry with him. Instead, I ignore him completely and look to Niyah instead. “I assume this was your idea.”

Her eyes narrow into slits. Her fingers dig into her arm as she nods. “What of it?”

I toss my hair back over my shoulder and tuck my knife back into the sheath at my hip. “Bastien would never have made that mistake.”

Without waiting to see the heat rise in her face, I walk on. Bastien sends out a long whistle followed by three short ones. His soldiers melt out of the woods, standing at attention on either side of me as I pass. I don’t turn to look at them. Instead, I keep my gaze focused on the structure looming before me in the tangle of green.

Vines grow up a towering wall in a latticework pattern. The wood is dark, damp from the snow. The gates stand nearly ten feet overhead, crisscrossed with supporting beams on either side. I can’t see the hinges at the rim of the doors as they begin to swing open. They disappear into the thick overgrowth, hiding the true length of the walls that spread out on either side of me.

This place speaks of age. It was not constructed a year ago, but was erected long before. Was this some sort of an outpost used by survivors?

We managed to endure the Caldonian regime by hiding out in caves. Was it possible that someone actually managed to live above ground and survive?

I crane my neck back to look at the towering doors as I pass through, marveling at the rope and pulley system that controls them. A wheel-like structure with eight wooden pegs thrust out in a circle is being manned by four men. I can hear the cranking sound of gears hidden within the walls as the doors begin to close behind us.

A guard tower is perched every hundred feet along the wall, the space wide enough for men to walk side by side along the top. Thick, pointed tree trunks line the front wall. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I realize there are large bowl-like structures set evenly between each guard house.

“What are those for?” My curiosity gets the better of me.

“They hold oil,” a man beside me answers. “Just in case the Caldonians decide to scale our walls.”

“Wouldn’t the Sky Ships just blast through?”

He grins and I realize he is missing several teeth. “Perhaps, but I like to be prepared, just in case. Call me old-fashioned.”

I take a closer look at him, surprised to see wrinkles etched deeply into his weathered face. It is unusual to see an older man among the Caldonians. Time moves differently on their home world. This man must be several hundred years old.

There are patches of age spots on his face and a definite sag to his cheeks. His eyes are a dull yellow, reminding me more of a finch than of the sun. His hands are leathered, with veins winding just beneath a thin layer of nearly translucent skin. His shoulders are hunched slightly, his back curved.