"Within my personal armory there lies a sword. It absorbs magick, draws it in, holds it, redistributes it on command." Falkus took his feet off Damian's desk and for the first time since I'd walked in, looked directly at me. His eyes were a strange hue. Dark silver with threads of black running through them like cracks in stone. "Three nights ago someone broke in and took it along with several other valuables."
"The sword emits a unique signature. We traced it east." He let that sit for a moment and poured himself another drink without offering me one. "It entered the ruins of Draznkal. After that the signature vanished entirely."
The word dropped into my chest and stayed there.
"I'd be glad to take the mission." I kept my voice level. "But why me specifically?"
Falkus laughed once to himself, quiet and private, like I'd said something that confirmed what he already thought. He stood and straightened his cloak, gold trimmed, sigils running the full length of it, and walked around the desk until he was towering over me.
"Your shadow affinity resonates with the embedded magick of that place. You'd move through those ruins where a conventional operative would be useless." He set his glass down. "Beyond that you're new. Unproven. If something goes wrong in there I haven't lost anything that took years to build."
He said it without looking away. No cruelty in it. Just facts.
"You leave tomorrow. I'd get your affairs in order tonight." He handed me a folder as he walked past me.
He walked out. The door pulled shut behind him and I was alone in an office that wasn't mine with the words still sitting heavy in my chest.
I stood up slowly. My legs felt heavier than they should.
Tomorrow. First light.
I'd faced Ragnar on a hill with arrows coming down like rain and held my ground. I'd survived Catarina. I'd survived things that killed people who were better than me.
But this was different and I knew it was different and I couldn't explain why, except that some part of me had known since the mountain road that Draznkal wasn't something you prepared for. It was something that happened to you.
"Oren." Damian's voice came from behind me.
I turned. He was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me with that expression he wore when he already knew the answer to something.
It hit me standing there looking at him. Today was my birthday. Sixteen. I'd been so caught up in everything that it hadn't registered until this exact moment, in this office, with a mission folder in my hand and Draznkal waiting at first light.
Some birthday.
"The whole time I've been here you've pushed me past my limit. Sent me on missions that should have killed me." I held his gaze. "Why?"
He didn't answer. Just studied me for a moment like he was deciding something. Then he pushed off the doorframe and opened the door wider.
"I'd say good luck," he said, his voice quiet and almost disappointed. "But where you're going, luck won't be enough."
I walked out.
● ● ●
I walked the path toward the dormitory. To my left the smiths hammered away at weapons and armor, the sound of hot iron hitting water cutting through everything else in sharp bursts. To my right a commander called out orders for sword drills. Magick surged with every blow that connected, metal on metal ringing out in hard clashes.
"Faster. Stronger."
I looked around at the compound. Took it in slowly. The tower. The training yards. The lanterns that hadn't lit themselves yet.
Hell. It might be the last time I saw any of it.
Sixteen years old today. This wasn't exactly how I imagined spending it.
Dormin and Layla were outside the dormitory training and talking. They stopped the moment they saw my face. No greeting needed.
"Hey." I walked over and dropped into a chair, sinking lower in it than usual.
Dormin crossed over without a word and set my blades in their sheaths across my lap. Then he took the folder from under my arm and opened it. His face moved from something like hope to dead calm. The kind of calm that only comes from hopelessness.
"I see." He handed it to Layla.
She read it once. Then again. Her jaw tightened.
"This is the most unfair thing I've ever read. Draznkal is Grade One and above." She looked up at me. "And they're sending you alone."
Nobody said the next part out loud. We all knew it. The missions. The pattern. The way Damian watched me walk into things that should have killed me.
Dormin disappeared into the dorm. He came back with a bottle, old and dusty, the label nearly worn off entirely. He turned it once in his hands before setting it on the table between us.
"Aged Drazian Rum. A gift from Charlotte."
He pulled the cork with a loud pop and took a long slow drink. Then he set it down and looked at me steadily.
"Oren. If this is the last time we talk." He paused. "I'm glad to have been your partner. And your trainer."
He slid the bottle to Layla. She took it. Went to say something. The words didn't make it out before the tears came. She pressed her lips together hard and looked away, one hand gripping the bottle tight enough that her knuckles went pale.
"This isn't the end. You will come back to us. I'm not accepting any other outcome." She took a long drink and leaned into my shoulder.
Dormin looked at me one last time. Something in his face said everything he hadn't. He clasped my shoulder once, firm, then walked into his room and shut the door quietly behind him.
Layla kept her head on my shoulder for a moment. Then she took my hand and led me to my room without a word. She shut the door behind us and looked at me in the dark.
Nobody had wished me happy birthday. Nobody knew. But the rum and the quiet and the way she looked at me right then felt like the closest thing to it I was going to get.
Her clothes fell from her body revealing the curves I'd thought about more than I'd ever admitted. I barely got my shirt off before she pushed me onto the bed, her legs wrapping around me, her lips finding my neck.
We made love through the night like it was our last time living.