Obsidian Flame (Guardians of Ascension #5)

But she hated all this nearness, this closeness. She couldn’t bear it.

She tried to pull away but found she couldn’t, not even a little. A war began to rage within her mind, a battle between This feels so good I could stay here forever and I’ll kill them both for touching me.

But the women didn’t let up. The feels-so-good sensation kept flowing and her body grew quiet. Unfortunately, the more calm she felt the angrier she got, two sensations that couldn’t live within the same body at the same time. She ground her teeth together and small grunts came out of her mouth. They needed to back off.

Her wing-locks had completely settled down and even the muscles of her back that had swelled, readying for the release, were thinned out and normal. But something in her mind began to spin in ever-widening circles. Wider and wider. Suddenly the wood floor of the cabin rushed up fast.

Warrior’s Lament, fragment

I bloodied the dirt, blood on my heel

My sword cared not the cost

And though I won, thus was I lost

—Collected Poems, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 8

Thorne was breathing hard. “Good workout.” He clapped Arthur again on the back of his neck and shook him for good measure. Arthur smiled. He wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist then shook off the sweat.

They were both dripping.

Glancing at the Militia Warriors, Thorne addressed the leader. “You’ve got good men, here, Ettgers. Why don’t you take your troops and work what you’ve seen here. In my experience, this is the best time to get in some good drilling.”

“Yes, Warrior Thorne.” He turned to his troops, which included at least three women, and gave a short brisk order to head down into one of the local pastures. Almost as one, the unit turned and moved at a quick jog down the shallow grade toward the lower farms.

Thorne put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Your instincts are good, your speed better. Speed is your biggest advantage. Only Warrior Kerrick might be faster. He could teach you what I’m not sure I can.

“What I can tell you, though, is that you need training, persistent, day-to-day training, by one of us. I don’t care which one. Jean-Pierre might be the best choice because you’re lean in the way he’s lean and you move like him.”

Arthur glared at him and set his jaw. “I’m not leaving the colony. With all due respect, Warrior Thorne, you need to get used to that right now. And the hell if I’m joining the Warriors of the Blood.”

Thorne smiled. He couldn’t help himself. He knew that look well. He’d seen it on eight warrior faces for the past several hundred years. Basic belligerence seemed to be a defining trait for this level of skill and power.

Thoughts of the warriors, however, and the post he’d abandoned, dropped a stone in his heart. Shit, he had to get back. What the hell was he doing here anyway?

He’d been able to talk for an hour to Diallo, who’d invited both Thorne and Marguerite up to his house for lunch.

Thorne had been making his way back to the cabin when Arthur had waylaid him and asked for a training session. He had strong instincts about the boy, and something more, a hint that the future lay with this young man, even though he couldn’t imagine how yet. So he’d accepted.

Ettgers had joined in with his group.

It had been a good session.

Besides, he knew Marguerite had needed some time to think, to work things out in her head. He had no doubt that his woman was anxious to leave, despite the great lovemaking. She had itchy feet, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

He looked up and down the lane, always on the alert, always hunting for death vamp sign, or maybe just for some clue as to how to get himself out of this mess.

“Now you’re pissed at me,” Arthur said.

Thorne looked back at him. “I don’t know what you’re seeing, but this isn’t pissed. If I was pissed, you’d be facedown on the ground with my foot on your neck.”

But Arthur smiled that half smile. “Good to know. Let’s hope I stay on your sweet side.”

“Just so ya know, not sure I have one.”

But Arthur laughed. It was a good sound.

Jesus H. Christ. The kid had killed five death vampires last night. No question he was Warrior of the Blood material, but Thorne had just enough to compassion to know that he didn’t want that for Arthur. He wanted Arthur to stay all bundled up in this secret society, to stay safe and as innocent as he could for as long as he could. But how innocent was a young man who had just gone into battle and come out with a whole lot of blood on his hands?

“So why are you here?” Thorne asked. “Why aren’t you back on Second figuring out an occupation, going to university, dating, all the usual? You must have friends you left behind?”

The minute the last question left his mouth, Thorne regretted opening the lid to this goddamn box. Arthur shifted his gaze away from him and narrowed his eyes. Damn if he didn’t look just like Jean-Pierre right now, and with a familiar haunted expression that told Thorne the war had already become personal to Arthur.

Which of course meant that someone he loved had died. Wasn’t that always the way?

Arthur remained silent but Thorne sure as hell wasn’t going to press him for more information. He wasn’t exactly built for exchanging confidences and shit.

Then Arthur seemed to come to a decision and shifted his gaze back to Thorne. “You’ve been straight with me and you haven’t tried to order me around. So here it is. I was engaged to be married and before you tell me I was too young to know what I wanted, you’d be wasting your time. I was in love with her, we were engaged, then she died in the firebomb attack at White Lake during the Ambassador’s Reception.”

Oh, shit.

Thorne got that sinking feeling in his gut again, the one that weakened his leg muscles, that felt like the earth was pulling him down, that gravity had suddenly tripled in strength.

Maybe there’d been more than one reason he’d dropped down to Mortal Earth in pursuit of Marguerite. The attack at the Ambassador’s Reception a few months ago had been aimed at one of the warriors’ women, Havily Morgan. Her warrior, Marcus, had almost been killed. Marcus had done what he could to put distance between himself and the bomb, taking the attack away from a lot of innocent people, but he’d gotten shredded and almost died.

It had been a horrible night, not least because the firebomb had taken eleven civilian lives. He had never known who the victims were. Hell, he hadn’t wanted to know. Battling at the dimensional Borderlands every night had been its own form of torture. Having close contact with grieving families—well, he couldn’t keep doing his job if he did that.

Now he stood looking into the haunted gray-blue-green eyes of a young man who had once been committed to love, to a woman, to life. There was no more innocence for Arthur.

Thorne turned away from him. He couldn’t keep feeling the depth of his goddamn despair, that the war just kept rolling on, stripping people of hope and of a future.

That big thing began to move within him once more, maybe a need for change, maybe a great unwillingness for things to continue as they’d been. Anger boiled as well, but then that was nothing new. All the warriors felt it, a persistent fury that never stopped, rage against death vampires and against Greaves and his fucking minions, against a war without end.

But this whole encounter reminded him that he needed to get back to Second Earth, especially with Greaves turning up the heat with his military spectacle review.

On the other hand, once he got back, what the hell was he supposed to do?

He was used to command.

He liked command. He’d never questioned his job.

But he sure as hell had questioned the war.

He would do things so differently.

He could only imagine Endelle’s fury that he’d jumped ship. Talk about a tempest. He’d hate to be Alison right now. Alison served as her executive assistant and now Thorne had one more thing to feel guilty about: that he’d brought trouble down on Alison’s head.

Whatever.

But even as a sharp twinge deep within his mind told him that Endelle was trying yet again to bust through the shield he’d put around their shared mind-link, he knew that change wasn’t possible with her, not if things continued as they’d always been. Endelle had a lot of excellent qualities, and yes, he admired and respected her, but for a long time now he’d had a very different take on the war and what ought to be done about Greaves.

Thorne glanced down at the sword in his hand. He’d been using a practice sword, not one identified to him. The identified swords were capricious and would always result in death if grabbed by the grip by someone other than the owner. But sometimes an accidental touch could result in death as well.

His practice sword, which belonged to Arthur, had a nice weight, evenly balanced.

“Well, fuck,” he stated. In a quick flick of his wrist, he sent the sword skyrocketing and spinning. He hadn’t done this in decades, maybe not in centuries. It was a kid’s trick and something you never did with a sword, any sword. He blurred in the direction it would come down; as it reached the apex then began to fall back to earth, he waited, worked out the trajectory to within a hair’s breadth, then caught it by the grip.

“Some move,” Arthur said.

Thorne glanced at him. “Don’t ever do that.” But he laughed. Arthur had reached the age of magnificence, the certain belief he always knew best. He would do whatever the hell he wanted and there wasn’t a damn thing to be done. Arthur was a teenager.

“Warrior Thorne.” A woman’s voice called to him from the direction of the cabin he’d shared with Marguerite the night before. He turned and saw a short redhead wave him forward. “Can you come here for a minute? Something’s happened to Marguerite and we’re not sure what to do.”

“Of course.”

He tossed the sword to Arthur without thinking. It was a natural reaction. He would have done the same to any of the warriors, but Arthur wasn’t one of the warriors.