Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

DACRE

One of the new recruits moved out of my way as soon as they saw me enter the training grounds, and I was glad. I had no interest in dealing with them this late at night.

“Your father’s with Reed,” Kai said quietly from beside me as we walked together, and I grunted in reply as we rounded the corner to where my father stood.

I didn’t feel like dealing with him either. Although, I rarely felt like being around him anymore.

“I heard you brought someone back with your sister.” My father barely spared me a glance as he spoke. He didn’t ask about Wren at all.

Fuck, I was starting to hate him.

“We did. I sorted through the rest of the recruits as well.” The word recruits sounded sour on my tongue. “Only one chose not to join us.”

My father nodded as if I hadn’t just told him that I had been forced to kill a man. But the blood on my hands always seemed insignificant to him.

“And you?” I shifted and looked around the grounds at the warriors who were still training. “Were you able to find anything from the intel?”

“Not enough.” He huffed as he finally looked up to me. “But there has been word that the king was spotted on the palace grounds. If he’s still there, then the princess has to be there too.”

The princess.

She was his current obsession, and he believed that she would be the key to winning this entire revolution.

A girl barely old enough to be considered an adult, and everything we were doing was dependent on finding her.

The king had kept her hidden since she was a child, and my father was convinced there was a reason why.

“If she’s still there, then we don’t stand a chance of finding her.”

Getting into the dungeon was one thing, but taking a guarded princess who was heir to the throne was something else completely.

She had been the thing my parents were looking for when the first raid happened. When my mother had…

I shook my head. I couldn’t think about that right now.

“We have to.” His gaze slammed into me, and I flinched at the agony I saw there. “There’s only one reason the king would keep her hidden the way he has her whole life. The king craves power above all else, and he’s hiding her magic until he needs it.”

I knew my father was probably right. The king had always been secretive about the princess, but after the raid, he had become even more paranoid. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of magic the princess possessed that made her so valuable.

She was his heir, but this was more.

She was more.

And there had been no sighting of the king or the princess since the raid. Though there hadn’t been a sighting of the princess in years.

“There’s no reason to hide unless he knows we can use her.”

I opened my mouth, preparing to tell my father about the girl I had brought in, about Nyra, but I stopped. She claimed she had no magic, and I had never met anyone who didn’t possess power before. I didn’t believe her.

She was hiding something.

There was no reason for her to hide unless she knew we would use her.

And the moment I told my father, he would do just that. He would try to use her in any way he could.

But she wasn’t just any normal recruit. She had grown up in the palace, which meant her loyalties were to the people who murdered my mother, to the people who had massacred thousands of our people while draining the magic from the rest through the king’s tithe.

My fists clenched at my sides as I thought of the fire in her eyes as she tried to fight against me.

I should have been more than happy to allow my father to break her, to figure out her secrets and exploit them to benefit us in any way they could.

But still, I kept my mouth shut.

“Do you think any of the recruits today will have information?” My father was searching my face, and even though there was a nagging urge inside me not to tell him about Nyra, I knew he would find out about her soon enough.

He would know that I lied for her.

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “The girl we brought in was raised in the palace.”

He fixed his gaze on me, lip curled in a sneer and brows drawn together in a menacing scowl. His eyes were cold, radiating an unspoken hostility that was almost palpable in the air.

“Bring her to me.”

“She has no magic.” I shifted on my feet and my gaze met Kai’s for a moment before I looked back to my father. “She worked alongside her mother, and she claims to have not a touch of power.”

My father snorted. “That’s impossible.”

I nodded. “I thought so too, but I couldn’t sense any magic from her.”

“None?” His eyes narrowed further.

“None.”

“She still needs to be questioned. She couldn’t have lived at the palace her whole life without knowing something. She’ll have information on the princess.”

“She’ll begin training in the morning.” I crossed my arms and met my father’s stare head-on. “I will get her to talk.”

My father’s eyes flickered with approval before he turned. “Get me answers, Dacre, and get some rest.”

I frowned, watching as my father disappeared into the shadows of the training grounds.

I turned to Kai, my mind thinking of nothing but that damned girl.

“I want you to keep an eye on her,” I said to him. “I don’t trust her, and I need to know if she tries to make a move.”

Kai nodded, his gaze sharp and unwavering as he watched me. “Of course. Although, I’m not sure what she’d be capable of.”

I grunted in response, my thoughts churning. There was something about her, something that unnerved me. I rubbed at my temples in frustration. “Just keep her in your sights. We can’t afford for anyone to go rogue.”

“You’re really going to train her?” He smirked as he crossed his arms.

I rarely trained anyone anymore, not more than correcting stances or criticizing for lack of awareness when they were bested by an inferior fighter. I didn’t have the time.

“I don’t trust her.” I reiterated my earlier statement.

His lips curled into a smug smile, revealing a small dimple on his left cheek. “You never trust anyone,” he taunted. “But you never bother to train them either.”

I grunted in response, not bothering to defend my actions. “She’s different,” I said, my voice low and guarded. “She grew up in the palace.”

Kai’s eyes flickered with amusement, but he didn’t say anything else.

“I’ll start her training tomorrow.”