Chapter 4

Luke

The sight of Tik, one of the youngest members of our little band sitting on the ground in the crowded terminal with his head in his hands brought me back to the here and now.

"Hey Tik, how you doing?" I asked, stopping next to the young man.

Machi participants were supposed to be at least twenty-one before the event. Tik, or Pontiki, as he had been named by his Legion, had barely been sixteen. I was only eighteen. Something had caused our captors to change the cadence of the Machi, and no one was sure exactly what it was, but I had my suspicions.

Tik looked up at me, his eyes wide.

"It's just… a lot, you know?" he asked, swallowing nervously as he glanced around the noisy harbor.

"It is," I said. "But we're in this together. You're not alone. Not anymore."

I squeezed his shoulder briefly and he nodded, smiling wanly up at me. Tik was an Earth Mageia and had suffered from some serious seasickness on the journey, just like I had. His face was still pale. In the morning light I noticed a small scar running down his temple I'd never seen before.

"Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on him," Deliah said, stepping up next to us. She was a Fire Mageia from Greece who had joined us early in the Machi. Tik had attached himself to her and tended to follow anywhere she led.

Betts stalked in front of us, a device she called a cell phone to her ear. It still seemed odd to see such common use of technology. Illyria did not have the reservations on sharing knowledge that Alexandria had.

"Where the fuck are the buses? I told you we'd be in by nine…" She saw me watching her and rolled her eyes. "Traffic." She whispered as she put her hand over the mouthpiece. "All right. See you on D Street."

I laughed. Betts was an able captain and we owed her a debt that could never be repaid. She and her crew had been making the trip to rescue Mageia from the Isle of Crete for almost two years now. We were just the latest refugees she had guided to this harbor.

"Okay, everyone!" she called out. "I want you all to follow me! We are going to be exiting the harbor. Please, pay attention! I know that this is all new to you, but it's easy to get lost in the crowds here. If you get lost, look for this."

Betts held her hand up and a shaft of light sprang from her hand to make a sparkling ray shine above her hand. Betts was a Dual Mageia, she controlled fire and water both, even though she was not yet Bonded. She was already formidable. Once she found her Bond mate, she would be a power to be reckoned with.

"If you can't see me, ask anyone for directions to the Tower Pavilion. That's where you will be staying until you acclimate a bit and are assigned your own quarters."

We followed Betts through the crowd which finally thinned as we moved away from the waterfront. She paused once more to collect everyone at the main exit.

The docks were vaster than I had thought possible. I had traveled to Crete once with our father, but that had been by air. The only water travel I had experienced before had been when the royal household transitioned between the summer and winter palaces before I had developed my powers. Those docks were a few thousand feet long at best. The pier of Nymphaeum looked like it went on for miles.

From a purely military standpoint, I realized this place would be a bitch to try to attack or defend. It was just so big, you would have to have hundreds of battleships or airships to come anywhere close to shutting it all down at once, and that was sea power I didn't think even Alexandria possessed. That was probably why it was still operating. We had passed multiple warships on our way in. The Illyrians knew they needed to protect this port.

I kept a close eye on the other Mageia, trying to make sure we didn't lose track of anyone. Like me, I knew they had to be overwhelmed at the size of this place. I saw Hel stop a few times to encourage one of the Mageia to keep moving when they saw something new or startling.

Our ragtag group of fugitives met up outside the main building of the docks. Betts counted everyone to make sure we hadn't lost any stragglers, then waved everyone over in front of three large vehicles, where we loaded everyone up and were whisked away from the waterfront. The buses were a novelty, powered by electric batteries according to Helios.

The buses slowly made their way through the crowded streets. This city was packed.

"Is it always this crowded?" Elex asked, craning his neck to peer out the windows.

"Nymphaeum is our capital, so it's pretty much always like this," Hel said, nodding. "Except on holidays when it's really busy."

Elex paused to look at his Soma for a moment, trying to determine if he was joking. I didn't think he was.

"So what's next?" I asked.

"Polemos scheduled a Touchpoint in an hour," Betts said, grimacing and rolling her eyes.

"A Touchpoint? What's that?" Elex asked.

"It's a ceremony introducing Mageia and Somas. It's an opportunity for Mageia and Somas to meet, literally touch hands, and see if there are potential Bond matches," Betts explained. "We have at least a thousand Somas who have passed their training that will be involved."

"Sounds like speed dating," I said, laughing nervously.

"Sort of," Hel said. "But for magic, not sex. Or, well, not only for sex."

Great. I knew, of course, from what Hel had said that sexual attraction could be part of a Bond, though not all Bonded had sex. I had asked a million questions over the last few weeks to try and understand what we were getting into. The thought of Bonding with someone kind of freaked me out, though. I had some experience with sex, but the majority of it had been neither positive nor voluntary. The thought of being forced to spend the rest of my life with someone like that gave me pause, but I pushed my panic down. I couldn't let it take me now.

We were just entering the Pavilion when a woman in a tight blue Illyrian military uniform approached. She had graying short-cropped hair with a pair of gold-framed glasses sitting low on her nose. She was carrying a clipboard with a number of papers attached and seemed to be glaring at them determinedly. She was the walking epitome of the word "uptight".

"Beatrice," Hel acknowledged warily as we approached.

"Helios," she said coldly, looking up at him. Her eyes raked Hel from top to bottom. "Polemos wants to see you immediately."

"I'm sure he does," Hel growled. "But I have almost sixty new Mageia that I need to get settled first."

Her eyes went wide in surprise and her expression seemed to thaw. "Sixty? That's almost the complete complement of the Machi! However did you convince so many?"

Hel glanced at Elex, a small smile on his face.

"I had some help," he said. "Beatrice Ignatia, this is Elex. My Bonded."

If I'd thought she'd looked surprised before, it was nothing compared to what she looked like when she looked at Elex.

"But—but that's… that's not…" she stammered incoherently, looking from Elex to Helios, then back to Elex. She looked around wildly, then hissed. "Does he have a hood? A hat? Something?"

Hel and Elex both looked at her in confusion.

"Why?" Hel growled. Betts looked equally confused.

"Goddess," Beatrice sighed. She dug in her pocket and pulled a rumpled knit hat and threw it at Elex. "Put this on."

Confused, but seemingly willing to go with it for the moment, Elex pulled the hat on over his curls. It was a little warm for hats, but whatever. Maybe it was some weird Illyrian custom? But Hel and Betts seemed equally confused.

"You two, follow me," she snapped. "We need to get you to the Tower. Betts, you can take the rest to the Pavilion for the Touchpoint."

"I'm not going anywhere without Luke and Allard," Elex snapped back at her, stopping at my side.

"Luke? Luke who?" she demanded searching her paperwork.

"He's my brother," Elex said, nodding at me, and a small part of my heart warmed at hearing it.

"They can go with the others," she said dismissively. "But you need to come with me."

"No way," he said. "They go with us, or we go nowhere."

Her eyes flashed angrily.

"Look here, young man," she began, shaking her finger at him. "I don't know who you think you are, but here in Illyria, we do things differently."

"Bea, you put that finger away, or you're going to lose it," Hel growled.

Something in his tone must have caught her attention because she turned her irate gaze on him.

I glanced at Hel and saw that his teeth had lengthened and ears sharpened to a point.

"So it's true, you finally found someone else who was stupid enough to Bond with you," she sniffed. "Spasmenos."

Hel started to move forward at the insult, but Betts was between them instantly.

"That's enough out of you, Aunt Bea," Betts said, her voice cold and cutting through Hel's growling. "Hel doesn't deserve that!"

"Why not? He is Broken," she hissed. "He should have died before he let Orion come to harm."

"He almost did!" Betts responded.

"Almost isn't good enough," Bea spat.

"Enough!" A voice sounded from behind us, and I jumped automatically. Old habits die hard.

Allard had come down the walkway behind us, his slightly silvered hair glinting in the sunlight. He had been assigned to the Legion a short time after I had been sent to it. He was Elusian, but had always been kind to Elex and I. He had actually turned against this own people when he protected Betts from being attacked by Maalik. The fading bruises on his face a start reminder of the cost of that defense.

"Who the hells are you?" Beatrice demanded sharply.

"Allard Andinos, former Lochagos of the Alexandrian Legion," he said.

I saw her hand automatically go to her sidearm. Her eyes narrowed at him.

"You're an Elusian. Andinos. I've heard that name before," she said, glaring at him. "You were in Greece. The Battle of Athens."

He nodded as I watched in confusion. There had been rumors that Allard had been assigned to the Legion in Greece before he became my father's Weapons master. When he had been essentially demoted and sent to the Legion as Lochagos no one seemed to know why. Only after Heraklion did we find out that the King had assigned Allard to try and rein in Maalik's more destructive impulses.

She nodded at him sharply.

"Fine, you, your Bonded, and the Elusian, but the rest of you need to go to the Touchpoint. We have over a thousand trained Somas waiting to meet you."

My heart began to hammer in my chest. A thousand Somas? When Hel had said it earlier it hadn't really registered.

"So many? Really?" I asked, my voice sounding thin even to my own ears.

Elex came over and bumped my shoulder. He knew how I felt about large crowds of people.

"You don't have to, adelfos," he said.

"I-I want to," I lied. He had enough things to worry about, he didn't need to worry about me. I'll be okay."

Elex stared at me for a few minutes, his eyes gone the blue gray of the stormy ocean. Finally he relented. "Okay, but only because I want someone with them I know and trust." He nodded toward the rest of the Mageia who were assembling a short way away.

Hel turned his back on Bea and came over to join us.

"I will bring Allard and Elex to the Pavilion once we are done with Polemos," he said.

"You'll take care of them?" I asked the Soma.

"I promise," he said. "No one will hurt either him or Allard without going through me." He and Allard had formed an odd friendship on the voyage to Illyria.

I held his gaze for a moment, but when he nodded again, I nodded back. He knew how serious I was when it came to the safety of my family. Somehow, I realized to my surprise that somehow along the way I had added both Hel and Allard to that list.