Page 63 of A Dawn Of Blood

She’s hurting, I remind myself. I take a deep breath and say, “I need him.Weneed him. Do this for me and I won’t ask anything of you ever again.”

There’s a moment of silence before Nuala lets out a weary sigh. “Alright.”

Hope floods me.

“What the hell are you doing, Nuala?” Dryden snaps.

She signals to him to shut his mouth. “We’ll take all the time we need to prepare…”

“Of course,” I rush to say. “We’ll be real careful.”

“And once we get our hands on him,” she drawls as she raises her eyebrows at me in a warning, “ifwe manage to do it, it won’t be so the two of you can have a candlelit dinner or whatever.”

Impatiently, I nudge her to just say it.

“It will be so we can have a chat with him about his father’s ancestors.”

“Still such a stupid idea,” Dryden mutters.

And I’m disappointed and worried, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get anything better than this. “I guess that’s reasonable enough,” I finally say.

Chapter 48

Amonth later, I’m in the Main Hall by myself, trying to have lunch.Tryingis the keyword here, since these days, appetite seems to be something that’s hard to come by. It doesn’t help that Alaric is in the process of setting a trap for Cain and we have to be on constant alert, never knowing when he’ll give the signal to get moving.

Picking at my food, I keep staring at the paintings on the wall across from me, acutely aware of how everything seems to be going to shit.

We never even eat together anymore, everyone being stretched too thin for hanging out.

We’re getting regular updates about Jaeger, and she’s alive and well, but she’s still imprisoned by the enemy. And while everyone is feeling her absence every second of every day, the situation is slowly driving de Groot crazy, regardless of how much she doesn’t want to admit it.

Ever since his rise in the enemy ranks, Alaric has barely been showing up at the Academy. Whenever he does and I grab the opportunity to try to talk to him, he just tells me he has work to do. But I know there’s something wrong, and it’s not just the immense pressure we’ve put on him — to rise in the ranks enough to get close to Cain, to learn all he needs to learn to find the right opportunity to drug him, to put himself in the most immediate danger by scheming to get us in like that.

And Raven knows there’s something wrong as well, better than I do. She’s proving to be a real asset to the Resistance, setting up a lab in one of the old classrooms and starting work on researching the shadowcurse. But she doesn't seem to be sleeping much, every appearance of Alaric’s — with dark circles under his eyes, strangely quiet demeanor and injuries he never wants to talk about — making her more and more worried.

With all this going on, you’d think I wouldn’t have time to obsess over Cain. Yet I do. Ever since I fought him in Lilith Tower, thoughts of him never desert me. I keep replaying the interaction, over and over again, but it only ever serves to confuse me more.

“Hey you,” Dryden’s voice snaps me out of it.

My eyes dart to him just as he comes around the table and lowers himself into the chair across from me.

At least there’s one upside to this — our breakup having been civil and the two of us managing to stay good friends despite all the awkwardness.

“Hey you,” I echo with a smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier seeing your stupid face. I was just wondering whether it’ll be until the end of time that I’ll be having lunch on my lonesome.”

He lets out a laugh and moves to grab a piece of pie off my plate, when Nuala storms into the room.

“It’s time,” she says.

Chapter 49

Cain

It’s after a long month of dealing with the uprisings that I finally return to the headquarters, a single question on my mind. I don’t get a chance to call for a briefing, though. The moment I use the private entrance to my quarters, I hear a knock on the door.

“Enter,” I say as I take a seat behind my desk.

Fritz walks in. “General, a couple of urgent matters for you,” he recites as he lowers a stack of papers on the table in front of me.

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