Page 6 of Wings of War

“More time isn’t going to change my mind. And…maybe we can hold off on telling our dachas until after we’ve done it?” If only there was a way Fieran could just avoid telling his dacha entirely. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing the look on his face.

Merrik glanced over his shoulder at the closed door, something flicking through his eyes. Perhaps he had similar thoughts when it came to telling his own family because, after a moment, he nodded. “Fine.”

Fieran held out his palm. “It’s a deal.”

“No, do not—”

Fieran spat onto his palm, then held out his hand to Merrik.

“Do we have to? It is rather childish.” Merrik grimaced, not reaching for Fieran’s hand.

“Come on. One last time. A sign of our enduring brotherhood as we go into battle together.” Fieran wiggled his fingers, his hot spit sliding down his palm.

He and Merrik had sealed their deals with spit from the time they had been young and read a fiction series about an elf and a human who had become friends and like brothers during a time when the elves and humans had been at war with each other. The stories caught their imaginations, and they had pretended to be those two friends in many of their games, with Merrik as the elf and Fieran as the human.

“This is highly unsanitary and immature.” Merrik spat onto his palm, then shook Fieran’s hand, their spit squishing between them.

Merrik grimaced; Fieran grinned.

This was going to be a grand adventure. Fieran was finally going to fly.

Chapter

Three

Enlisting in the army was almost laughably simple. A stop at the military recruitment office in Aldon, a few pieces of paper, a few signatures, and Fieran had signed his life away. Merrik, too.

At least Fieran could easily pledge loyalty to Escarland’s current king. His uncle Averett was ninety-seven years old, but he didn’t look a day over seventy, thanks to being an elf friend with Fieran’s uncle Weylind. The extra years given to a human who was an elf friend weren’t quite like those given in a heart bond, which was what Fieran’s mother shared with his dacha. Mama would live hundreds of years beyond what a normal human would. Uncle Averett would only gain a few extra decades.

Fieran and Merrik stepped from the recruiting office and into the bustle of Aldon’s streets only a few blocks from Winstead Palace. A crush of people—from brawny, gray-skinned trolls in workers’ worn garb to human women in neat shirtwaists and bustled skirts to newsies with grimy faces—milled along the sidewalks and spilled into the cobbled streets. The streets themselves were clogged with horse-drawn carriages and magically powered vehicles, the drivers of each shouting at each other.

Fieran checked that his slouch cap was pulled low over his distinct red hair and the elven points of his ears while the collar of his coat was turned up against the brisk, late winter wind. He would rather not be recognized today.

Merrik still got a few second glances due to the elven style of his long hair cascading down his back. While trolls had become a common sight in Aldon, elves didn’t usually take to the bustle and lack of trees in the large city.

Technically, the trolls were a form of elf as well—mountain elves rather than forest elves. But long animosity between the forest elves and mountain elves had led to the gray-skinned, generally white-haired mountain elves becoming their own culture and identity. They had embraced the formerly derogatory term “troll” for themselves, even though the tall, athletic mountain elves were far from the hulking, disgusting figures implied in the word “troll.”

There was some talk about coming up with a different term that didn’t have its root as an insult, but the trolls didn’t want to go back to calling themselves mountain elves and no other term had caught on just yet.

After a brief stop at a soda parlor to purchase four bottles, Fieran and Merrik fought their way through the crowd to the nearest entrance to the Underground, the network of magically powered trains that ran beneath Aldon. Fieran and Merrik paid the fare, then climbed onto one of the train carriages, gripping one of the poles instead of bothering with seats.

The magically powered train clacked over the iron rails, the cars vibrating slightly. The smooth walls of the troll-made tunnel closed around them, but the darkness was broken by white lights fueled by the magical power grid.

Fieran and Merrik hopped off only three stops later, climbing up the stairs and back out onto Aldon’s streets.

Here, large factories filled whole blocks. A few still wafted plumes of smoke, but the days of a smoke haze were long gone now that most industry had switched to running on magic rather than coal.

The bustle had calmed as most people in this district of Aldon were occupied within the buildings at this time of day. Only those making deliveries or running errands hurried along these streets.

After only a short stroll, they reached the complex of eight massive buildings that comprised the AMPC, Uncle Lance’s invention warehouse, and affiliated factories.

Fieran turned off the walk, entering beneath an arched sign for the Alliance Magical Power Company. He showed his badge to the security guards standing in the alley, though the guards—one troll and one human—were already waving him through. It wasn’t like the guards couldn’t easily recognize him.

To Fieran’s left, the factory rang with the tings and screeches of metal as the workers constructed the empty magical power cells. On a walk overhead, a troll pushed a cart loaded with finished power cells from the building on the left to the warehouse on Fieran’s right.

Fieran opened the door to the warehouse on the right and stepped inside. There, the well-lit space crackled with the taste of magic. To one side of the space, Adry stood behind a protective, tempered glass barrier next to one of the machines that filled the magical power cells. She touched her magic-laced fingers to a wire overhead. The magic leapt along the wire, over the barrier, and down into the magical power cell.

In front of the barrier, Louise wore a set of goggles as she flipped the switches and pushed the buttons that ran the machine, all while monitoring the dials that tracked power levels.

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