Chapter Forty Two
Dahlia awoke to a sunset and distant cheers. That was a first. It seemed her body overrode her decision to take just a quick nap. She heard more noise around her. The news from the other captains had been greeted with celebration. She wasn’t surprised. Besides the soldiers standing guard many would be enjoying their victory. She suspected even those on guard would be indulging a bit. She pulled herself upright once more and collected her sheath and axes. She noticed more of the noise came from the direction of Kenny’s barrack than from Borreal’s, but not by a lot.
She made her way back to the main area of her barrack and found some soldiers not on guard duty strone about with drinks and a couple small fires. She imagined more had gone to join Kenny or Borreal’s men. She made her way inside to find Sabir with a cup of spirits himself. She dropped down next to him.
“Not on guard duty tonight?” she asked him, surprised. He certainly deserved the night off but she hadn’t imagined she could convince him to take it.
He smiled at her and pushed a bottle towards her, “I thought one cup wouldn’t hurt.”
“Fair point,” she said and grabbed a stray cup to pour herself a small measure. She took a sip and nodded in approval.
“You must have been hiding this,” she said, taking another sip. “It would have been gone in an instant if anyone else knew about it.”
Sabir laughed, a rich, pleasant sound. “You’ve caught me, Captain. I put it behind one of the meditation books you gave me.”
Dahlia snorted. “We need more barrack members with dominante psychic abilities so someone will take my meditation training more seriously.”
“You’re too nice.” Sabir leaned back and drummed his fingers on his cup. “I suggest that once everyone has recovered you push past their shields in training and give them a little scare.”
“If that’s what it takes,” Dahlia said as she raised her cup in a mock toast. Outside the sun’s final burnt orange rays crept below the horizon.
Sabir drained the last of his cup and stood up. “I’m leading the first shift. Arreal lost a coin toss and has the second.”
“You go on ahead, I have something I’d like to do first. Then I’ll catch up with you all,” Dahlia told him.
As Sabir left, Dahlia nursed her cup and mulled over in her mind how much to tell Borreal. He was one of the few people she’d ever taken into her labyrinth with her. The amount of trust and self-control it required from both her and the other person made it a challenge not worth pursuing with many other soldiers. It meant that he understood how the interior of her mind created representations of the physical world so that much was easy. What was less easy was the emotional side of what she’d experienced. It was hard for her to talk about her worries, about her hated title, and it made her nervous to tell even the one person she trusted completely about the savagery she’d started to find in herself. She certainly wouldn’t tell him how it had reflected in Kenny. The madness and uncontrollable hungers it had brought out in her for blood, combat, and...well, sex. She couldn’t talk to him about Kenny, she’d have to skirt around that part of it. The power and the uncomfortable new part of her psyche she should confide in her mentor-now-friend. A captain who had dealt with the turmoil of combat for far longer than she had, Borreal would be able to understand the delicate balance a soldier walked between savior and savage. He knew enough about her to understand why it was riskier for her to be seen leaning towards savage.
She lingered a while longer, realizing she was putting it off. She imagined she was using this to put off talking to Traedon but that self-analysis got a little too deep for her taste. One thing at a time. She pulled herself up, focused for a moment, located Borreal, and headed in that direction. She may have checked to make sure Traedon wasn’t with his captain, but she wasn’t going to admit that.
She found herself heading into the trees. Odd that he’d be there, but sometimes Borreal liked his own company. All the better for her. She didn’t want to have to think of an excuse to pull him away from any of his men.
The further into the dark trees she walked the more she started to second guess her decision. Did she really need to tell him after all? He had told her his ability, did she owe him this much trust? She did want to hear more about him, though.
As she debated this with herself she felt him close by. A moment before she came upon him she heard voices and a familiar laugh. She stopped and moved quietly towards a spot she knew Borreal liked. A small clearing with flat stones and flowers that were lovely in the moonlight. Feeling guilty but curious, Dahlia stayed in the shadows.
She fought back a shocked gasp. Borreal was sitting cross-legged against one of the stones, running his hands through the pink hair of the woman whose head lay in his lap. Fidelity giggled as he murmured something to her and Borreal leaned down to press his lips against hers.
Dahlia was frozen for a moment before she regained her senses enough to softly back away from the couple. When she was sufficiently out of earshot she covered her mouth and muffled her giggles. Who would have thought? Her serene, gentle captain and the “pink-haired monster”, as he’d called her. No wonder he’d stopped by for breakfast and Fidelity had left shortly after. She silently wished Captain Dacaar luck if he thought he had a chance.
So if Fidelity was with Borreal, where was Genji?
The night exploded around her and she fell to the ground covering her head. Energy seared through her mind. As the pain slowly dissipated she forced her eyes open. There was no sign of damage. What she’d experienced must have been purely psychic, but she’d never heard of anything like that. It couldn’t have been targeted at her. It had been too big, too widespread. She’d felt it ripple around her like an explosion. Her shield was still firmly intact.
She raced back towards Borreal and Fidelity. When she reached the clearing she found Fidelity balled up holding her head and Borreal looking scared, trying to ascertain what had happened.
“Borreal,” she said and he snapped towards her, “you didn’t feel anything?”
“No,” he said, “what’s happening to her?”
“Psychic energy. A lot. Like nothing I’ve ever even heard of before.” She knelt down and rubbed a hand across Fidelity’s head, dispelling some of the lingering energy. “It must only be affecting people sensitive to it. She’ll be alright in a moment.”
Fidelity’s face cleared and she slowly opened her eyes. “Captain?”
A voice blared through the announcement system, “A breach in the perimeter, Barrack Nine.”
“Shit, Kenny!” Dahlia stood up and took off.
“A blast has taken out a significant section of the wall, all soldiers report immediately,” the announcement continued.
“No!” Dahlia screamed, frantically reaching out her senses for him. She felt him, uninjured, before she felt another mind brush against hers.
“Genji!” She’d felt him worn and in extreme pain in the direction of Barrack One. “No, damn it!”
Kenny was fine. He was the commander of the combat division and could take care of himself. Even in the unlikely event that the rest of his barrack went down she’d seen enough to know he would likely be alright on his own. Genji was her responsibility and no one else was coming to aid him. She turned towards Barrack One and ran as fast as she could, focusing on Genji’s presence.
How the hell had he been able to reach her? Had his psychic abilities been latent? She’d heard of latent abilities being amplified during extreme duress. As she ran up the paths she had to dodge soldiers running in the opposite direction, slowing her down.
“Damn it, Genji, I’m coming, hold on.”
The number of soldiers she encountered dwindled as she reached Barrack One. She felt Genji’s presence pulling her towards the research division. What the hell? She went in to find it deserted. All of the researchers would have gone to aid the defense. They were all trained to fight as well.
She ran into a dead end down one of the halls and snarled. She could feel the direction he was in but that didn’t mean she knew how to get there. She ran through the mess and chaos created by the announcement, circling where Genji’s presence called to her.
She stumbled into a library and knocked over a bookshelf. Frustrated, she turned to go on to the next room but a staircase caught her eye. It was slightly hidden by another bookcase that had fallen over. She pushed it out of the way and descended down, reaching out her senses. She felt Genji growing closer.
She could tell she was heading far underneath the building, into the ground. She had never thought to consider if anything lay beneath the research building before. What the hell could Genji be doing down here? Her instinct screamed at her that something was wrong. She quieted it and stayed close to the wall as she descended. Obviously something was wrong if Genji was hurt and being held underground but there was nothing else she could do. She couldn’t leave him and go back for help. Help wouldn’t be there anyways, not with the current attack. She’d just have to be cautious and ready to fight. She pulled energy to her and felt her hands tingle as it built up.
Deep under the ground she finally saw light at the end of the staircase. She could feel Genji and another familiar presence, but it was masked and she couldn’t make out who it was. They probably knew she was coming. Throwing her shoulders back and drawing her blades she did the only thing she could and walked into the lighted room at the end of the stairs.