Page 6 of Elven Prince

Or as normal as life could ever get for a member of Shade.

Another trembling cheer rose from nearly the entire task force. The only other person who could get close to her was Leonard.

The mage looked happier than anyone else to be standing there beside Nyx—delighted, even. He settled a gentle hand on the katari’s shoulder while another raucous cheer for Nyx’s recovery blasted through the common room.

“It’s about damn time,” Rebecca muttered beneath a flooding rush of her own relief and gratitude. “I’d started to think Zida was keeping her in there as some kinda warning.”

“Good.” Maxwell’s gruff but no less endearing word rose beside her, and Rebecca had to stifle another unbidden shiver at the sound and the tempting warmth rising toward her on his breath. “She deserves a welcome like that.”

“If anyone does, it’s Nyx. Absolutely.”

Now that they’d cleared that up and there was nothing to do but watch in appreciation, Rebecca found herself far more interested in studying the faces among her task force enjoying the katari’s welcome-back party.

The joy and pride scrawled across every expression as contagious laughter ricocheted across the common room. The palpable pride radiating off every operative and member of the compound staff in attendance.

Even Bor had paused his morning hustle in the kitchens to see what all the fuss was about, allowing himself a tiny smirk as he poked his head through this service window over the counter.

On the far side of the room, standing just beneath the arched entrance of the hallway leading toward the infirmary and the residential wing, Zida folded her arms, her beady black eyes surveying everything all at once, though a reminiscent smile lingered in the wrinkled pucker of the daraku’s pursed lips.

Yes, everyone was glad to see Nyx up and walking around, mostly recovered again, if not fully. Even those who didn’t know her well or hadn’t yet had the opportunity to meet her looked just as pleased as all the rest.

There were five of them—the brand-new faces within the task force, who were probably seeing Nyx the katari in person for the very first time.

Five of the thirty rescued civilians Rebecca’s Shade teams had recovered from Harkennr’s transport convoys the night those teams had later staged an assault on the warehouse outside the city.

Five of the six freed civilians who’d possessed enough presence of mind, physical strength, and marginally working knowledge of firearms to join in on the chaotic mess that assault on Harkennr’s warehouse had eventually become.

The witch Maddie Everest and her sister Lacey—from Boise, Rebecca remembered—were among those new faces now, as well as the skittish dwarf Adam, a troll named Braxus who looked surprisingly more like an oversized nymph, and Shade’s second Cruorcian mage on the roster, though Theo hadn’t yet proven his own blood-magic skills against Diego’s.

It was a large number of new initiates among Shade’s ranks to declare their desire to join the task force all at once, though each of them had successfully completed The Striving with flying colors—if that was anything to judge by.

Now, they called themselves members of the privatized task force that had saved their lives, liberated them from unspeakable tortures at the hands of Harkennr’s forces, and helped those victims to wage their own war against Harkennr while seizing whatever vengeance they could find in demolishing the warehouse.

The memory of that remained painfully fresh in Rebecca’s mind, despite all the good things that had come out of it in the end. Now, though, watching her operatives through the window of her office overlooking it all, amidst the pressure of everything that could go wrong bearing down on her as Shade’s Roth-Da’al, she couldn’t help but revel just a little in the evidence of everything that had still goneright.

Five new members among their ranks, all recruited in a single night, each of them so grateful for the opportunities Shade had already provided that they’d wanted to become a part of the very organization that had saved them.

If that many new magicals had felt the call to join like that and devote their lives to Shade the way everyone else had, this organization was clearly doing something right.

Rebecca had to be doing something right.

A small but no less dazzling silver lining to their current difficulties and all the challenges they still had yet to face.

Then Rebecca’s thoughts returned to those challenges and their inherent risks, not to mention the burdensome weight of full responsibility settled squarely on her shoulders as Roth-Da’al. Just like that, the moment of swelling pride and momentary levity was over.

It was all she could afford.

There were too many other things to juggle right now. Too many other threats to keep an eye on. Too many potential disasters, both for Shade and for Rebecca personally.

If she didn’t pay each of them the close attention and proper consideration they each deserved, those threats were likely to topple down around her and drown her beneath the crushing wave of consequences. Not just Aldous’s and not just Shade’s, but her own as well.

“She looks a lot better than I expected.”

Maxwell’s voice ripped Rebecca the rest of the way into the present, where she settled with a crash of self-awareness and responsibility.

“Honestly,” she added, “it kinda feels like a miracle that you recovered from near death a hell of a lot faster than she did. And I know she took one hell of a beating to get her there.”

“A miracle, huh?” he asked, shooting her a sidelong glance.

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