My heart ached at the thought of my cousin Rylan – he and I had been so close as cubs, and I hated that we were on opposite ends of this brewing war. He’d tried to get me to join the Resistance, and when that had failed, in an effort to keep me safe he’d warned me several times to keep my nose out of their plans. We still loved each other, but I knew that if the Resistance caught me here Rylan wouldn’t lift a finger in my defense. To him, the cause was more important than family.
“The fact that Rylan would do that only makes me more certain that I don’t want Noria anywhere near the Resistance,” Annia whispered fiercely, the crackle of frying meat covering her vehement words. “When we get home, I’ll knock some sense into that stubborn head of hers, even if it means sending her off to a foreign country.”
“She’d either find her way back here or just join up with whatever passes for the Resistance over there.” I shook my head as a wave of exhaustion that had nothing to do with my lack of sleep washed over me. “I’m starting to think that the only way to keep Noria safe is to help the mages crush the Resistance.”
Annia’s eyebrows shot up. “Never thought I’d hear you say those words.”
My lips twisted in a wry smile. “Must be a sign of the end of times or something.”
A somber mood settled over us. We quietly finished cooking the rest of the meal and laying out the food on the serving counter for the men to help themselves. Soldiers started trickling in, and though they were a little bleary-eyed, their faces were washed and their uniforms were clean. The fact that these men took their duties seriously and had pride in their appearance told me that they were truly dedicated to their cause. I shuddered to think of the kind of force they would become if they had experienced military leaders commanding them.
As before, Annia took control of the serving line, greeting the soldiers with smiles and cheer that had them brightening up and grinning back at her. Even Captain Milios, who gave us both the stink-eye as he walked in, huffed out a reluctant greeting to her as she handed him his morning coffee. I watched him as he surveyed us with those keen eyes of his for a long moment before taking his food and sitting down at his table, which was angled perpendicular to the other tables and centered along the wall so that he could observe everyone at any given moment.
About ten minutes into breakfast, a soldier burst in through the doors and rushed straight to Milios’s table. “Captain, captain!” he shouted. “There’s an airship circling the plains, and it’s passing near us!”
Instantly, soldiers rushed from their tables to peer through the windows set in the back and front walls. They ignored Milios’s shouts, crowding around the few windows that weren’t broken so they could see what was happening. Annia and I had our own window in the kitchen, so we hurried over to see what all the fuss was about.
I spotted the airship instantly – the taut canvas was tinted royal blue, and Canalo’s emblem, stamped on the side in gold, shimmered in the early morning light. My fingers curled at my sides, and I sneered up at the rescue ship. Had the Council heeded my request to join their rescue team, we’d be a lot closer to finding Iannis. Instead, they were circling the plains fruitlessly, while we were stuck down here feeding these misguided soldiers. If the mages at least had a shifter aboard, Fenris and I could have communicated with them via mindspeak and gotten them to rescue their colleagues in that putrid mineshaft. Instead, I watched them sail by overhead with frustration searing my chest.
“ENOUGH!” the captain finally roared, silencing the fervent buzz that had spread throughout the room. “Stop acting like a bunch of hysterical housewives, the lot of you, and sit down!”
The men obeyed, returning to their seats with bowed shoulders, though plenty of them still glanced furtively in the direction of the windows.
Captain Milios huffed at the sight of his men. “You all are acting like a flock of hens who’ve had their feathers torn out,” he scolded them. “That dirigible isn’t going to spot us from so high up. We’re too well camouflaged.”
“With all due respect, captain, we’re not worried about the town being discovered so much as the dirigible that Xiver took down,” one of the soldiers, a skinny guy with mousy brown hair and a thin face, spoke up. He pointed toward a broad-shouldered man with inky-black hair and a square face sitting two tables away, who straightened instantly at the sound of his name. “If that airship finds the dirigible, they’ll know the delegates went down near here.”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, Private,” the captain scoffed. “That’s why we’ve sent our resident mage out to take care of it. He should be done waving his magic fingers around by now. There won’t be a single trace of that dirigible left behind.”
“A mage!” Fenris shouted in my head as Annia and I exchanged a look. “There’s a mage helping them?”
“Wipe that look off your face before someone sees it,” I hissed back at him – his eyes were snapping fire, his cheeks turning a brilliant shade of red. “The last thing we need is for the captain to be even more suspicious of us!”
“I don’t think that search party’ll find the dirigible, even if that mage doesn’t do his job,” Xiver drawled, a lazy grin on his face as his barrel chest puffed out. “I did a pretty damn good job hiding it away when I landed it in the mountains. And they’re never gonna find the Chief Mage, not after what I did to him –”