10. Rowan

Chapter 10

Rowan

K ai Grayson is already inside the commandant’s office by the time Kyrian leads me up to it, as are two other officers who’ve been summoned to participate in mast. I look down at my clothes, which are combat black instead of the enchanter red I’m supposed to be wearing, and the pit in my stomach drops a few more miles. I try to at least iron out the wrinkles with my hands. These aren’t even dress blacks.

“I doubt your clothes will be a central issue,” Kyrian says, stopping me a few steps short of the door. He is also wearing training blacks, but on him they look like a panther’s shiny coat and fit for royalty. Even his tousled hair appears artfully arranged instead of unkept.

“It won’t be a central issue, but it won’t help.”

Kyrian frowns then studies me, tilting his head like a dog. “You are terrified.” He says it as if it's news. And curious news at that.

“Of course I am. What were you expecting me to feel?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “Dread, apprehension, annoyance. Take your pick. But terror is taking it a bit far in my opinion.”

“What bloody world have you been living in for the past two years?” th e words escape my mouth before I can think better of it. “She is going to order me to the post. And I don’t imagine anything about what that feels like.”

“She?”

“The commandant, Kyrian.”

“The commandant isn’t going to do anything.” Kyrian rocks back on his heels. “This will be Grayson’s show.”

“From the frying pan into the fire. He is the one who called the mast.”

“Because that arsehole ye call your boyfriend will have reported everything to the commandant before breakfast anyway.”

Collin? No. He wouldn’t have.

Kyrian catches my cheek in his hand and tilts my face up to meet his gaze. The pressure of his thumb against my tight jaw consumes my senses for a moment, reminding me how it felt being between him and Kai last night. That false sense of absolute security, that came before the pain.

“Grayson will not let you bleed at the post,” Kyrian says softly, “if that’s what has you in knots. I’m certain of that.”

I snort without humor and try to pull away, but Kyrian holds fast.

“Of course he will,” I tell him. “Why do you think they moved the mast up? The commandant wants to send a message on discipline, start the year off on the right foot.” I swallow. “Plus have you met Grayson? The way he killed last night? The man can’t tell the difference between blood and oxygen.” For that matter, I’m not sure Kyrian or Logan can either, so this may be a moot point. In fact, this whole conversation is surreal.

I suddenly recall the look Kyrian gave me last night, the quickly concealed assessment of an enemy, and step away from him. Hard.

Kyrian drops his hand away and knocks on the closed door. “You will not be flogged today, chaos,” he says quietly over his shoulder. “Not because Grayson is kind—he is not—but because you don’t deserve to be.”

“Chaos? ”

“If the name fits,” he says just as the door to the office opens.

Two heartbeats later I’m once again standing in front of the commandant’s desk, though this time colonels Leeroi and Dra’ash flank my mother on either side. Kyrian, as my direct superior, is behind me and Kai stands to the side, the third point of the doomsday triangle.

“Well?” The commandant asks. The only part of the woman sitting behind the desk that is my mother, is the part that worries about how my behavior might reflect on her. “What’s happened, Commander?”

“Cadet Lexington snuck out into Doverly last night,” Kai says evenly. He has his arms crossed over his chest as if this whole mast is an imposition on his schedule, and one that he’d like finished sooner rather than later. “I found her there personally. She is charged with being absent without leave past curfew.”

"Explain yourself," the commandant orders me.

"No explanation, ma’am," I say, which is what's expected. I don't even understand why she bothers to ask the question.

“Given the situation—” Kai continues, but the commandant cuts him off. I’d give Kyrian the I told you so look if he wasn’t standing behind me. That, and if my heart wasn’t pounding loudly enough to replace marching drums.

“- I would like to obtain a better understanding of this situation, Commander,” she says, ignoring the way shadows snap out around Kai, leaking like deadly ink to the floor. Her face swings toward me, her gray eyes as hard as the metal they echo. “Cadet Lexington.”

“Ma’am?”

“I’ve reports placing you in the middle of a treasonous riot, one you yourself may have started. So I am going to ask you again. What were you doing at the Wishing Well Inn, if not instigating treason?"

Well, when put that way, the truth seems pretty good in comparison. "I was distributing a cough elixir I made to civilians, children mostly,” I say quickly. My mind spins, wondering what reports she is talking about. The only other Spire people at the inn, besides me and the azure tw ins, were Ellie and Trish. The girls would never say anything, and neither would Collin. So who’s left? “I was there when the riot broke out, ma’am, but I certainly didn’t start it.”

The commandant leans back in her chair and tents her fingers. "So you stole medical supplies, abused your access to the Spire’s workshop, and misused your position as an enchanter trainee all to run an unsanctioned project that ended in rioting civilians.” It’s not a question. “Where would we be now if Commander Grayson hadn’t pro-actively dispatched the officers to the area and Squad Leader Chambers hadn’t been there to settle the rioters?”

Wait. The only thing Collin settled was an upturned bucket. My jaw tightens. Coud Kyrian be right about Collin talking?

The addition of insult to injury stings that much more. Collin is the one person who’s always been there to guard my back, to stand between what the gods dealt me and my family’s expectations.

The walls of the commandant’s office seem to widen away from me, leaving me alone and exposed in their center. I say nothing. There is nothing to say.

“Let us try a simpler question,” the commandant says. “Who else was with you?”

My pulse spikes so high that it cuts off my breath, and it takes a moment to summon my voice. “No one, ma’am. I was alone,” I say, not daring to look Grayson’s way. Please don’t have noticed Trish and Ellie, please don’t have noticed Trish and Ellie.

My mother’s brows narrow on me.

"I found Cadet Lexington alone, unguarded and ill prepared for the situation,” Kai says with more than a hint of disgust. “I would hope that had others been present, at least one of them would have had enough situational awareness to make wiser life choices."

The two colonels beside my mother snort softly, and a fraction of my tension releases into the floor. Whatever is going to happen, Ellie and Trish won’t suffer for it. Though the way Kai phrased his words leaves me certain that he knows exactly who my co-conspirators are. Knowledge that he’ll no doubt weaponize in the future.

For today though, I’ll take the win.

Colonel Dra’ash rubs his long mustache, fighting a smile. “I think you may be giving twenty-three year olds too much credit, Commander Grayson.”

The commandant presses her lips together and turns to Kai. “The repercussions of this incident will set the tone for the rest of the year. I would like it made clear to all cadets that the Spire addresses all misconduct immediately and severely, with no special treatment afforded to anyone. The queen’s niece included. Set the punishment accordingly.”

Here we go. My body freezes on me, my eyes dropping to the floor. My breath halts.

“I agree with you completely, Commandant,” Kai replies, killing what little hope I had in my chest that Kyrian was right. Uncrossing his arms, he drapes them behind his back, his muscles rippling with even those small motions. “This incident is an important opportunity to clarify expectations for all cadets involved. Especially those in the positions of leadership.” He turns to face me, but then his gaze shoots right over my head. “Squad Leader Sorel.”

Wait, what?

Kyrian steps forward, effectively placing himself between Kai and me. The way he did at Wishing Well Inn. “Sir?”

"As Cadet Lexington’s squad leader, the responsibility for her whereabouts and actions falls to you. Your dereliction of this duty last night led to the endangerment of both personnel and property. As such, you will personally stand night shift watch outside her quarters every day for the next two weeks.”

I inhale sharply. Two weeks with barely any sleep, bar what he catches during the training day? That’s somewhere between barbaric and impossible.

Kai rotates back to the commandant and inclines his head. “Additionally, with your permission, I will now be requiring all squad leaders to submit daily written accountability reports of all cadets under their command, to be continued until such a time as I’m satisfied with their competence. ”

The commandant’s brow rises. “That will be a very unpopular order, Commander Grayson.”

“I was unaware that being liked was part of my responsibilities, ma’am.”

“I see.” She leans forward. “And as for Cadet Lexington herself?”

“Cadet Lexington plainly has too much time on her hands and not enough discipline to use it wisely,” Kai says with a dismissive tone. “I’m confident Squad Leader Sorel will now find a more worthwhile activity to occupy her. For instance, Cadet Lexington may benefit from instruction on how to not get herself killed the moment she steps out of the school house.”

“Yes, sir,” Kyrian echoes smoothly, as if his own best friend hadn’t just sentenced him to two weeks of hell.

The commandant looks at the two colonels at her side, who nod their approval. Kai has read her perfectly, I have to give him that. He handed the commandant everything she wanted and then some: Accountability. Discipline. And nothing to mar her legacy. After all, what better way to ensure that none of my disgrace blows back on the commandant, than to shift the blame away from the Ainsley line entirely.

Best of all, in my mother’s eyes, Grayson punishing his best friend will strike terror in the hearts of all other cadets. I doubt anyone will dare to step out of line after this.

It’s vicious and brilliant. And it works out deceptively well in my favor. Which is one thing I know better than to expect from the azure twins. Something more is coming. It has to.

I keep my mouth shut as we are dismissed from the commandant’s office and clear the stairs back to ground level, Kai and Kyrian walking like sentries beside me. Then I turn to Grayson. “Well?”

Kai cocks a brow without breaking his stride. “Is there a sentence to go with that?”

“What do you want from me?” I ask, nearly jogging to keep up with their longer strides. “Because there is no way in hell you just got me out of trouble out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Out of trouble?” A chilly smile touches Kai’s lips. “Oh, you aren’t out of troub le by a longshot. What I got up there is license to do with you as I wish without anyone looking over my shoulder.”

Fuck.

I realize I said that aloud when Kyrian stifles a laugh. I still don’t understand why he isn’t more pissed, but maybe he is one of those people who doesn’t need sleep or something.

“Presumptuous,” says Kai.

Kyrian does laugh at that.

Kai punches his shoulder, which only makes Kyrian laugh harder.

Ignoring him, Kai returns his attention to me, all spots of humor disappearing from his face at once. It’s as if the sight of me reminds him of something unsavory. “I promised the commandant to find something worthwhile to occupy your time.”

“Technically, you said Kyrian?—”

“You are going to ensure Logan passes his mathematics exams,” Kai says, interrupting me. “And he, in return, is going to ensure your next practical assessment doesn’t read like a clairvoyant account of your likely demise.”

He brings us to a halt beside a door, and I realize we’ve walked all the way into the combat cadet barracks. Kai pounds on the wood three times, then pushes it open without waiting for a reply. Which is extremely unfortunate because we find Logan on the other side—balls deep inside a blonde he has bent over his desk. I thank the gods I cannot see the girl’s face.

“Rut off, assholes,” Logan says over his shoulder, not slowing his pumping on account of us. The blonde moans loudly.

My face flames and I try to back out, only to hit my back against a wall of Kyrian’s hard chest. “Shouldn’t we wait until he is… done?” I say under my breath.

“He is never done,” says Kyrian. “He just takes occasional life breaks.”

“Not inaccurate,” Logan agrees. His britches are mostly on, but the top of his ass cheeks are visible above the open waistline and they clench in rhythm to his nonchalant thrusting. “What do the lot of you want? ”

“Oh, I don’t want anything,” Kyrian says, retreating back into the hallway. “I’m just here for the entertainment.”

“I on the other hand am here to facilitate proper introductions,” Kai says, pushing past Kyrian. “Logan, this is Rowan Lexington. Rowan, this is Logan. Congratulations. My headaches are now your headaches.”

With that, the bastard leaves, shutting the door behind him.