Page 9 of Wings of War

Mama nodded, as if she understood what he wasn’t saying. “Give your dacha time. He will come around. Though I’ll warn you, your morning training won’t be easy for the next month. Your dacha was sent off to war unprepared and far too young. He doesn’t want that for you.”

“I know.” Fieran grimaced, rubbing harder at the calluses on his palms. Mornings were majorly going to hurt from now on.

Fieran found his Dacha leaning against the railing of the patio balcony. A slight breeze toyed with his dacha’s long elven hair while he stared unseeing into the nighttime forest.

Fieran rested his elbows against the railing. It took some doing, but he swallowed back his words and didn’t immediately speak.

After long moments of silence, Dacha’s shoulders hunched as he dropped his gaze from the distance. “You enlisted.”

Fieran suspected his dacha wouldn’t be pleased with his logic that they should join up now so they didn’t miss any of the war. “Yes.”

Dacha’s shoulders slumped further, his head hanging. More long moments of silence stretched between them.

“I’m going to be all right, Dacha. I’ll have Merrik to guard my back, and you’ve trained me well.” Fieran shrugged, unable to keep the excited note from his voice.

“I have trained you to fight, but I have not trained you to kill. There is a difference.” Dacha lifted his head, though he still did not look at Fieran. His voice held a raw, weighty note. “I mourn what I know you will lose.”

Fieran swallowed. He wasn’t sure what to say to that. While his dacha did not talk about the wars often, Fieran had seen the scars that traced thin lines over his dacha’s wrists, arms, torso, and even his ankles. His dacha had been thrown into war when he was barely grown, far younger than Fieran was now. Dacha had been captured twice…and tortured twice.

“But, sason.” Dacha turned to him and gripped Fieran’s shoulders in the elven way of hugging. “I am proud of who you are now, and I will be proud of who you will become.”

Great. His dacha so rarely said such heartfelt things. For once, Fieran was at a loss for words.

He returned his dacha’s elven shoulder-hug and cleared his throat. “Linshi, Dacha.”

The elvish thank you rolled easily from his tongue. Fieran had grown up speaking both elvish and Escarlish as his family spent half their time in Tarenhiel in the royal elven palace and half their time at their Escarlish estate.

Dacha released Fieran, and they both stepped back to lean against the railing again.

Fieran turned his face to the forest as the icy breeze brushed his face and ruffled his short red hair. Soon, that breeze would be the cold winds of the sky as he piloted his very own flyer.

After long minutes of quiet, Dacha abruptly gave a soft snort of a laugh and shook his head.

“What was that laugh for?” Fieran eyed his dacha. He hadn’t expected laughter in the wake of his enlistment.

“Did you make your bed this morning?” Dacha raised his eyebrows.

“Uh, maybe? I don’t remember.”

“And your room? When was the last time you picked up your clothes?”

“Um…” Fieran winced, thinking about the clothes he’d left tossed on a chair and on the floor.

Dacha was smirking now, a knowing glint in his eyes. “The discipline of the Escarlish military will be quite the shock for you, sason.”

Fieran couldn’t argue with that. Of course he would have to get used to making his bed and being neat and tidy with his clothing. But he could handle a little discipline.

And once he was in the air…nothing else would matter.

Chapter

Four

Pippak Detmuk-Inawenys wiggled on her back underneath the train car, checking each of the devices that automatically applied grease to the bearings while the train was in motion. As she went, she looked for any loose or worn parts.

Dust rained down on her every time she brushed the underside of the carriage or gripped an axle. She scrubbed a sleeve over her protective goggles, but that just smeared the film of dust around.

So much dust. The trains and the cars picked it up as they rumbled back and forth across the Afristani prairies that separated the western edge of Escarland and Tarenhiel from the dwarven mountain kingdoms. If it wasn’t dust, then it was mud. Lots and lots of mud and slush dripping onto her head.

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