12

“Nyx has sent trackers to find Colonel Starborn,” Nero told me. “They’ve all come back empty-handed. They can’t track her.”

“Why not?” I asked.

When the Legion’s regular teams could not find someone, Nyx sent in the trackers. They could find anyone, anywhere on Earth.

“The Legion suspects that Colonel Starborn has gone dark,” Nero said.

It suddenly all made sense. The Legion’s trackers tracked light magic. If Colonel Starborn had switched sides, her magic had switched too.

“The trackers can’t follow her dark magic,” I said. “But you can.” The darkness inside of Nero gave him that power. “That’s why Nyx sent you here.”

“Nyx sent me here to find Colonel Starborn, but I came to find you. I need your help. You can track dark magic even better than I can.”

I possessed what Nero called a ‘perfect balance’ of light and dark magic. Perfect certainly wasn’t the word the gods, champions of light, or the demons, champions of darkness, would use. Both of them believed in the purity of magic; they just disagreed as to which kind of magic should reign supreme.

“I don’t know, Nero. I’ve never tried to track anyone before.”

“You were a bounty hunter before you joined the Legion. You have tracked down many people,” he pointed out.

“That was different. I tracked down humans—or an occasional supernatural when I was desperate for money. I used mundane means to find them, not magic. I’m not even sure how to use magic to track people.”

“You will figure it out.”

Figure it out or die trying. That was the way of the Legion. Of the angels. Even though I had Nero with me, tracking down a rogue angel was at best a recipe for a whole lot of pain. At worst, it was a suicide mission. I’d learned that very well in the Lost City. And I wasn’t eager to repeat the experience. Somehow, I didn’t think the Legion was giving me a choice. Holding onto every angel they had was important to them—and I just wasn’t. I was expendable.

“I hope you’re stronger than Colonel Starborn,” I sighed. “Because I really don’t want to die.”

“She’s been an angel longer than I have. And she was trained by a legendary angel warrior. If it comes to a fight, defeating her will be difficult.”

You had to love Nero’s brutal honesty.

“Then let’s hope it doesn’t come to a fight,” I replied. “Maybe we can catch her off guard.”

“Angels aren’t caught off guard.”

I laughed in his face. “You just said that because it sounded good, didn’t you?”

“Of course.” His poker face didn’t even crack.

“So, how do we begin this foolhardy mission to capture a formidable angel warrior? Do we get a team, or is it just the two of us?”

He said nothing.

My heart sank. “Don’t tell me I have to do it alone. Nero, I can’t go after an angel alone. She’ll kill me. You know that. The Legion knows that. And if I’m dead, I won’t be able to bring her back.”

“Relax, I’m going with you,” he said. “But no one else. We need to keep this quiet. No one can know Colonel Starborn is missing.”

The Legion had already lost an angel recently: Osiris Wardbreaker, who’d decided he’d rather torture people than protect them. General Wardbreaker was dead now, but the Legion’s image had taken a heavy blow. This wasn’t just about having powerful soldiers. It was about maintaining an image of absolute power and competency. That’s how the Legion kept order.

“Don’t tell anyone, not even other Legion soldiers,” Nero said.

We couldn’t even trust our own? That was taking paranoia to a whole new level. Nyx must really be on edge right now.

“Who knows Colonel Starborn is missing?” I asked.

“Nyx and myself. And now you.”

He trusted me. I tried not to let that go to my head. Just as I was trying to not think about the last time we’d seen each other—and our blood exchange. Even knowing he’d marked me in that exchange, I couldn’t help but remember how good it had felt. I’d been remembering it for a whole week. I couldn’t shake the memory. His fangs popping my skin. My blood flooding into him. A rush of heat bathing my body, starting at his mouth and spreading like wildfire, consuming me. His pulse throbbing beneath my lips. His blood spilling into my mouth, as sweet as Nectar. Drowning in a river of liquid ecstasy.

“Leda.”

I met his eyes and saw that familiar spark of desire. Either he’d read my thoughts, or he was responding to my body. I dropped my hand from my neck.

His eyes went hard again. He looked so serious. I had to get serious too. And, seriously, I didn’t want him to bite me, to mark me. He’d made his point, and I was making mine. I wouldn’t let him mark me—and I certainly wouldn’t ask him to do it.

“Leda,” he said again.

Was it crazy that the sound of my name on his tongue sent shivers down my spine. Yes, it was very wrong, I decided. I should never have drunk all that Nectar tonight. It was making my head all funny.

“So the other Dragons don’t know about Colonel Starborn?” I asked, keeping my tone professional. Professional was the way to go.

“No, and we need to keep it that way. News of her disappearance—and possible defection—would unsettle them. The Dragons need to be calm. They need to be balanced. They are the keepers of the Earth’s elemental magic. The ones who keep everything in balance. This castle is a conduit of power, drawing on the elements. It links the elemental magic of heaven to Earth. If the Dragons fall out of balance, it could affect the weather everywhere on Earth, overriding nature with magic. The results would be devastating. We cannot allow that to happen. We must keep the Dragons in the dark. All but one of them.”

“Which one?”

“Basanti is holding Colonel Starborn’s place. The other Dragons should have petitioned the Legion for a replacement in Colonel Starborn’s absence, but they were clearly too impatient. And desperate.”

“Desperate about what?”

“The four Dragons link with the castle, keeping its magic in check. If any one of the Dragons is gone for too long, the castle’s magic becomes unbalanced.”

Which could lead to the weather everywhere on Earth going crazy.

“So, we’re telling Captain Somerset?” I asked.

“Nero has already told me,” she said as she closed the door behind her. She turned toward him. “I spoke to the Dragons about Leila.”

“I trust you were discreet.”

“Of course. Before the Elemental Rites tonight, I asked them what Leila had been working on prior to her departure. I tried to make it seem like I just wanted to be thorough in taking care of her responsibilities until her return.”

Nero dipped his chin. “What did they say?”

“For the past few months, Leila has been experimenting with new magic. She was sure she could make the castle better, more powerful, more in control. That she could maybe even control the weather in the monsters’ lands. She wanted to change the elemental magic in the wild areas to make the weather hostile to the resident monsters, clearing the lands for humanity.”

“That is a bold endeavor,” commented Nero.

“Leila was trying new spells.”

“It sounds like she dug too deep into the magic wells,” I said.

“Yes,” Nero agreed. “She could have hit dark magic. It has the power to seduce, to lead astray.”

“Leila is almost entirely light magic,” Captain Somerset said. “That’s how she is and how she was trained. She wouldn’t dip her toes in dark magic.”

“Perhaps not intentionally, but darkness is very seductive. Especially to those with no experience fighting it.”

Captain Somerset planted her hands stubbornly on her hips. “She hasn’t fallen, Nero. I know her. She lives and breathes the Legion—duty, honor, and propaganda in all.”

He set his hand on her shoulder. “That was long ago, Basanti. People change.”

“Not angels.” The pained look on her face was undeniable. That was the look of someone whose heart had been broken. Of someone who had loved and lost.

“Colonel Starborn is the angel you were involved with,” I said.

She gave her hand a dismissive wave. “As Nero said, that was long ago.”

“We’ll try to bring her back,” Nero promised her. “If you sense anything from her, it would greatly help with our search.”

“Our connection is not as strong as it once was,” Captain Somerset replied. “I feel…something. It’s so weak. I’m not even sure if it’s her.”

“I trust your feeling,” said Nero. “You point us in the general direction, and we’ll track her from there.”

“The Fire Mountains. I think she’s there. Or at least she was there.”

“We’ll check it out,” Nero told her.

“Now?” I asked.

“No. A storm is raging tonight on the Elemental Expanse. I barely made it here. I couldn’t see three feet in front of me.”

That explained his disheveled hair.

“We’ll set out tomorrow morning. The cleansing storm will have run its course by then.”

Every month, the Dragons got together for the Elemental Rites. They combined their magic with the castle’s to cast a great storm over the Elemental Expanse, a storm that cleansed the whole area. It kept the magic here in balance.

“Are you really taking her along?” Captain Somerset asked Nero, but she was looking at me. “She is in the middle of a very important training.”

“I am personally taking over Leda’s training for the duration of this mission. I’ll make sure she’s ready. There will be plenty of opportunities for training during the mission. She needs an extra push anyway.”

I knew Nero’s training would be rougher than the Dragons’ obstacle courses. He’d never taken it easy on me. I couldn’t really complain. He was exactly what I needed—someone who pushed me to be better, to become stronger.

“We’ll leave at first light,” Nero told me. Then he patted Captain Somerset on the back and left the room.

I wondered which tower he was staying in.

The Sea Tower, just like you, he spoke in my head. But if you try to prank my hot water, Pandora, I will retaliate.

The delightfully vicious way that his words hissed through my mind shot shivers up my spine. Nero would have made an excellent ghost story teller.

“Are you all right?” Captain Somerset asked me.

“Are you?”

“It’s all water under the bridge,” she said unconvincingly. “You need to worry about your mission and your training.”

“Actually, I’m more worried about the angel who will be taking me on the mission—and training me.”

“Nero will be good for you. Maybe he can get some of that nonsense out of your head. What were you thinking, swooping in and saving Nerissa like that? This isn’t a storybook, Leda, and you aren’t a knight.”

“I was just trying to help.”

“You can’t save everyone.”

“Nerissa is your friend too,” I reminded her.

“This isn’t about today. It isn’t even about her. It’s about you. The mortality rate in the Legion isn’t all that great. You have to learn that you can’t save everyone. There’s a time to be a hero—and a time when trying to be a hero will just get everyone killed. Do you know the difference?”

“Yes.”

“Do you? Because I’m pretty sure that you’re telling yourself right now that there is no such thing as a no-win situation.”

“I don’t give up on friends.”

“You have to learn to let go. If you can’t, you’ll lose more people than you’ll save.”

I had a feeling this wasn’t about me and my training. “What happened between you and Colonel Starborn?” I asked her. “Was it the reason you pushed back and reclaimed your humanity?”

“You ask too many questions.”

I smiled at her. She did not return the gesture. For a moment, I was sure she was going to tell me where I could shove my questions. But then her expression softened, and she let out a heavy sigh.

“I couldn’t take the angels’ power games,” she said. “The blind faith in everything the Legion said. The need to mark your lovers and family as property.”

“I’m with you on that one.”

“And the jealousy over every single person who looked at your lover,” she added.

“So she didn’t approve of your admirers.”

“Of course not, but that wasn’t the problem. I could handle her jealousy. It was my own that I couldn’t take. She made me mad with jealousy. That’s what being with an angel means. You become like them. You lose your mind. You want to attack anyone who might take her from you, even your own friends.” Her eyes burned with regret. “I had to let her go. It was the only way to save myself.”

“How long ago was this?”

“It’s been nearly a hundred years.”

If letting go had really been the right thing to do, then why did her heart still ache a century later? Why did regret mar her face when she spoke of her former angel lover? If I let Nero go, would I end up like Captain Somerset, regretting that decision for the rest of my immortal life? I cared about Nero. His angel ways were a lot to take, but then again, so was I.

“You should get to bed,” Captain Somerset said, interrupting my thoughts. “You have an early morning tomorrow, and you’ll need your strength. Who knows how many things will try to kill you along your journey.”

“You have got to work on your pep talks,” I told her.

A wicked smile spread across her lips, pushing out the melancholy. “I’m just trying to prepare you for your date with Nero.”

“Date? I’d hardly call tracking down an angel who might have gone dark a date.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention, Pandora. This is the Legion of Angels. Grab life by the horns and pray you never fall off this wild, wild ride.”