Page 61 of ColdIron
“No.”
My blood went cold. I remembered the look in Drakken’s eyes when we’d locked gazes across the formation. It didn’t matter that I’d done nothing wrong. He thought I was a threat. He’d marked me as the closest thing to the White Witch—his mortal enemy—and the Sorting was a clean, legitimate way to get rid of me.
“Lots of speculation,” Bryn continued, her voice low enough that the wind nearly swallowed it. “They say during the Sorting, there’ll be death. Anyone deemed disloyal to the Zodiac Covenant gets cut down. The trial scores you too. Even if you survive but score low, you get shipped to a regular training center outside Denver. Standard infantry. Career over before it starts.”
If I failed, I’d either be killed or be expelled. No more Drakken breathing down my neck. No more cadets lining up to make my life hell.
But I’d never see Aelindor, Nikolai, or Caspian again.
They wouldn’t grieve for a failure, no matter what they’d said about my potential. Pain stabbed through my ribs at the prospect—disappointing them, being separated from them. The reaction was so sudden and fierce I frowned at myself for it.
I hadn’t known them long. I shouldn’t be attached. But this went deeper than attraction, deeper than gratitude. My blood hummed when they were near. My body ran hot the instant any of them appeared. I couldn’texplain it any more than I could explain the demon or the Coldiron.
And I knew I’d be the target. Every cadet in that courtyard had watched their general single me out and strip me down in front of the battalion. For them, the Sorting was permission.
If the dragon got his wish and tossed me from the academy, I’d lose the best training and resources on the continent. I might never be strong enough to get Missy out alive.
I ran faster. Lifted my chin. Forced the dread out of my gut with each exhale.
Failure was unacceptable.
And fuck the dragon.
24
DRAKKEN
I’d never seen Aelindor so pissed at me.
Over that fucking warlock.
Before Max had even finished his seventh lap, Frost—one of Aelindor’s aides—jogged toward him with a pair of new boots. The warlock glanced in my direction, uncertain. Frost said something, and Max nodded in gratitude. Then, with his face all eager, he laced up the boots, puffed out his chest, and lifted his chin like a fucking peacock as he continued his run at the center of the track.
Aelindor had intervened. He was the only one who could override my decisions, but he’d never gone to such lengths for anyone. Not until Max. Still, he kept the correction subtle—a slap on my wrist rather than a public undermining of my authority. He sent the boots but didn’t cancel my order. Max still had to run the full twenty laps.
Officers and cadets craned their necks toward the track, waiting for more drama. Expecting my temper.
“Get on with your training,” I barked, “or join Private Cadet Max on the track.”
No one spared the tall warlock another glance.
I was hard but never petty before. This boy witch got under my skin like no other. My dragon was agitated as hell, too. And I felt sick to my stomach. Whenever I was on the academy grounds, I couldn’t stop myself from seeking him out or demanding reports on him, asking trivial details. If I didn’t know myself better, I’d say I craved him.
So when I spotted the warlock, I singled him out to punish him. To ease something unsettling in me, be it rage or hunger.
Now I was facing the wrath of all three heirs in the soundproofed war room at Greymantle. The command building was fortified concrete and warded steel, closest to the main courtyard at the south gate, flanked by the buttermilk-colored medical wing.
The underground room had no windows, lit by Stormglass sconces bolted to stone walls. A long oak table dominated the center, ringed by two dozen chairs. On it stood a three-dimensional tactical map of North America—all four kingdoms rendered in miniature, every strategic position marked with colored pins: outposts, supply lines, enemy strongholds, contested borders.
It was just the four of us behind the closed door.
“That wasn’t discipline.” Aelindor’s voice didn’t rise. It stripped bare, and the effect was worse than shouting. “It was an excuse to torture Max without openly beating him up. You’re better than that, Drakken.”
My face darkened. My stomach soured. Why was he so protective of Max?
“Making him run that death track barefoot?” Nikolai hissed, disgust plain on his face. I returned the same. A vampire suddenly growing a moral compass? What a dark joke. “What was it meant to achieve, other than sending him to the medic wing for bleeding from the soles?”
“You went too far this time, Drakken.” Caspian glared at me. “Too fucking far.”
