Chapter 17

Helios

By the end of the ten days we had almost sixty Mageia in the underground barracks awaiting the arrival of the Chrysalis.

Tensions at the base were running high. V stayed behind most days to help Betts keep the peace between the different Mageia factions. They had all been conditioned to battle and be suspicious of each other. A lifetime of indoctrination didn't disappear overnight. How they managed to keep so many tempers under control I would never know.

Kat realized part of the challenge was that none of them were used to downtime. Mageia always had tasks to do, training to complete, classes to study for. The forced inactivity was driving them all a little stir crazy. I wasn't comfortable sending multiple teams of Mageia into the city and risking discovery, especially since I often needed to be in the infirmary. That meant it was up to V and Kat.

V resorted to requiring daily training sessions with the other Mageia, teaching them the benefits of using minimal amounts of power to accomplish a goal and how to work together. These tiny uses of power were something many of them struggled with. Kat told me the Legion teachers had primarily focused on developing brute strength instead of finesse. Many resisted at first, but when V and Kat were able to demonstrate some remarkably subtle uses of power, they began to cooperate.

It helped that Betts was able to demonstrate some of the Illyrian techniques as well. The fact she was a Dual Mageia had many of the group in awe. She was living proof that everything they had been taught was a lie.

Despite all this, I was losing my mind. The little Mageia was driving me crazy. The worst part was, I don't even know if he was doing it on purpose.

The cave system that had felt so empty just a few days before now teemed with activity. We were converting more and more Mageia to the Illyrian cause. Every few days brought additional recruits, which meant working out a lot of logistics to feed and clothe so many.

Fortunately, I had a pretty decent stockpile of food and supplies, it was just a matter of figuring out the logistics. Kat jumped in immediately, working with V and Betts to set up a plan for meal schedules, showers, and sleeping arrangements.

I noticed most of the other Mageia treated him with a wary respect, but there were some who seemed to just gravitate toward his orbit. I wasn't sure exactly what it was they all had in common, but I sensed there was something that united them.

One day, I watched as Kat was training with the other Mageia. He was walking among them, pausing here and there, giving a word of encouragement or some advice. He stopped at one young man whose opponent, an Earth Mageia, had just knocked him down. The boy seemed beyond angry and held his head in his hand.

Deliah had been practicing hand to hand combat, and just stopped for a drink, her own workout raising sweat on her dark skin.

"You see it, don't you?" she stood next to me quietly, her brown eyes solemn as she watched Kat with the young man. Kat knelt by the boy on the ground, speaking to him briefly, gripping his shoulder gently before helping him to his feet.

"There's something about him. I don't know exactly what it is, but some of them just seem…" I paused, unsure how to finish the sentence.

"Drawn to him?" she finished.

I nodded.

"They're both like that, V and Kat. The ones they attract - they're the vulnerable ones," she said. "The smallest. The youngest. The weakest. The ones everyone else wrote off as too broken to survive."

I watched in silence as the pair squared off for another bout, then the Water Mageia broke out into a grin as his Earth opponent went sliding across a suddenly slick area of floor. He high-fived Kat before walking over and offering a hand to help his opponent to his feet.

"He gives them back something that was taken away from them a long time ago," she smiled. "Call it dignity. Call it confidence. Whatever. It makes them more than they were before."

"I'm surprised the Legions would waste so much potential."

"The Legions tend to treat anyone below a certain threshold of power as disposable. If they graduated half the number they send to a Machi, they'd consider it a successful class."

"Wait— so they expect half of their trainees to die?" I demanded, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice.

"More like two-thirds," she said, setting her water down. "To graduate, each person needs multiple medallions. They don't supplement with that many wild animals. So if a third graduate, they're happy."

"It's such a waste!" I exclaimed. She shrugged.

"It's how it's always been," she said.

After that, it seemed like every time I turned around I was catching a glimpse of Kat talking with a new Mageia, helping set up some bunks, handing out supplies, or working on training a Mageia in some piece of magic. But I could never get the man alone.

One night I spotted him at dinner, talking quietly to the new recruits while helping serve food. The perpetual frown on his face had softened, but the wariness in his eyes remained. He spotted me watching him while he spoke to young Tik. I began making my way across the kitchen area, only to be interrupted by a Mageia with a question. By the time I made it to the serving area, he had disappeared again and Tik had taken his place in the serving line.

I sighed. I just wanted to talk to him. That's it. Talk. But he was making it abundantly clear that he didn't want to talk to me. I should never have kissed him. I had obviously pushed him beyond his comfort zone.

I stomped back to one of the storage rooms, slamming the door behind me. I leaned my head back against the cool stone wall.

I had met a number of Mageia in the last few years, but none of them had ignited the same spark in me that Kat had.

He was so damn infuriating. One minute that smart mouth made me want to shake him, the next he said something so heartbreakingly vulnerable that I wanted to wrap him in my arms and keep anyone from ever hurting him again. I'd never felt this way about anyone before.

The door flew open and Vlakas stood in the doorway, his arms full of empty storage containers. When he saw me standing in the darkness he jumped, obviously not expecting to find someone in the storeroom.

"Uh, sorry," he began. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

I sighed. "You're fine. I just needed to blow off a little steam."

V looked at me sympathetically. "Kat's avoiding you, isn't he?" he said.

"Is it that obvious?" I asked.

He shrugged. "He's good at hiding. In more ways than one."

"What do you mean?"

While Kat had avoided me, V had shared a little bit of their history with me over the last few weeks, so I knew they had lost a brother when Kat was younger.

"Kat had to change when he joined the Legion," he said as he settled on a storage crate, and I pulled up a bench across from him.

"Change? Change how?"

"As a kid, Kat was never the one to start a fight. He'd end one, if he had to," V said, a wry grin on his face. "But the Legion—it turned him into something else. Something…darker."

"Isn't that what the Legion is supposed to do?" I asked. "Turn Mageia into weapons?"

He shrugged.

"The Legion is supposed to teach us how to fight with our magic," he responded. "Kat already knew how to fight. He and his brother had to fight for everything they had for years. He'd always avoided killing, especially any of the other Mageia, though, until I was sent to the Legion."

"What happened?"

"When you're sent to the Legion, you aren't supposed to be allowed near any family members. That's one of the reasons they change our names; they want to break all your ties outside the Legion walls. I guess they want to keep you from relying on old loyalties," he said. "When I was sent to the Alexandrian Legion, we didn't think anyone knew that Kat and I were half-brothers. We did everything we could to keep our connection a secret. Someone…someone we used to know was also sent to the Legion, and he threatened to tell everyone and get us separated."

"Kat… he had already lost two other brothers you see, and he was determined not to lose me, too," V swallowed thickly. "Ypoulous threatened to tell the Tagmatarches if I didn't do certain… favors for him."

V's face reddened, and I had some idea as to what kind of favors might have been involved. The thought of anyone doing something like that to these two made my blood boil.

"What did he do?" I asked, though I was pretty sure of the answer.

"Kat and I were practicing in the courtyard when Ypoulous had an…accident. Tripped and fell over a four-foot-tall railing, four stories up. Broke his neck," V said, his voice low. "Kat is really good at tripwires. Especially small, invisible ones with an extra gust of power behind them."

"And since the Elusians can't see magic…" I said, my voice trailing off.

V nodded.

"No reason for them to know it was anything except a freak accident," he continued. "Still, I think they suspected, because there had been a couple of blowups between the two. Unexpectedly, several other Legionnaires vouched for us that we were nowhere near Ypoulous' room at the time. We found out later he had a history of this kind of extortion."

V sighed, continuing in a near whisper. "We also found out that same month that the Legion doesn't even consider half-anything to be family. Ypoulous' threats were empty ones. So Kat killed him for nothing."

"Shit, V, I'm sorry," I said. "But it wasn't for nothing. He was protecting his family. That's not nothing."

V smiled sadly.

"I know, but I also know it's a burden Kat carries around with him every day, and it's not even the heaviest one."

Something V said caught my attention.

"You talk about Kat and his brother and what they went through, but you make it sound like you didn't go through the same thing," I said.

"Because I didn't," he responded. "They had it a million times worse."

"Why? Because they were slaves?"

"I'm a legitimate child of the King and Queen Eurymenye, not that it really matters. Since we were declared Mageians, we were all disinherited. Our half-brother Maalik was declared the Crown Prince when he developed his Elusian abilities, even though he was a literal bastard. Since my mother returned to Greece in disgrace it's doubtful he'll ever have another legitimate heir."

"What happened with your mother?" I asked.

V's eyes went wide, and he squirmed for all the world like a five year old. I wondered if he was trying to figure out how to lie to me.

"She…she got caught trying to protect me," he said finally. "The laws are harsh for anyone who tries to hide a Mageian. When they found out I had developed Mageian powers and she had hidden it from him, he effectively divorced her. They dragged her naked through the streets. He personally whipped her bloody in the market square before shipping her back to her father."

"It sounds like she was lucky to escape alive," I said.

He nodded.

"Of course, everyone talked about how benevolent he was, how kind he was not to kill her," V said angrily. "He announced he would keep the peace treaty, but according to its terms, he could have restarted his war against Greece. They were in no position to fight him."

V was staring down at his hands, blinking rapidly.

"He made me help. He put the whip in my hand and made me strike her," he tightened his fingers into fists. "He said I had to strike her one blow for every year of my life for disappointing him. And that for every blow that I made that didn't draw blood, he told me he would deliver five."

"Goddess," I whispered. "You were fifteen?"

V nodded.

"Almost sixteen. I couldn't do it. I tried. I knew it would have saved her more if I could have done it, but I couldn't." His head was bowed, and I could see tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

"I'm sure she understood," I whispered, gripping his shoulder. He shook his head.

"She told me she never wanted to see me again," he said. "I got to see her a final time, and I told her I'd find a way to get to Greece, somehow. She told me no, that I wouldn't be welcome there."

He dashed the tears from his eyes and sniffed.

"So, I ended up in the Legion, which then brought me here," he said with a note of finality.

"The Goddess works in mysterious ways," I said deciding a change of subject was in order. "So, how do I get your brother to give me the time of day?" I asked.

V's face turned from sad to mischievous as he said, "You don't give him a choice."