Page 37 of Red Ruin

A few weeks ago, Duchess Kyorgos was berating me for scraping my knife against my plate at our monthly “family” dinner.

Now, I’m a guard commander.

The responsibility of protecting Faervaine’s northern border can’t be under-stressed. The monsters that spawn from the mountains can’t be allowed to roam south to the border cities and farmlands.

I don’t know why the Farguard has been allowed to decline like this.

I do plan to find out.

Unless better-matching Guides than me magically appear, no one else has a chocolate’s chance in hell of shaping up these dukes.

“I also need the canteen and armory,” I add, letting Cherise steer me to the stairwell. “Then you can set me up in a guidance suite.”

“A suite? Are you sure?” Cherise bites her lip.

There’s no point in having my own room.

With two rabid Sentinels to guide, I’m not going to be spending nights alone. “They’ll come after me either way.”

We go for a medical check first, but I don’t need stitches. Apparently, Remy’s bites self-heal.

After I grab a ham sandwich and then a couple long-poled glaives from the armory, Cherise shows me to the suites.

All of the base’s residences are in the basement, which is dug much wider than the footprint of the building above.

“Guides to the left, Sentinels to the right.” Cherise gestures to corridors on either side of the downstairs lobby. Each is sealed with blast doors that glitter with the patterns of sound- and magic-shielding arrays. “The guidance suites are straight ahead.”

We walk through double doors into a reception area that would look at home in an upscale spa. Lush plants surround the comfy seating.

“Warden.” A guy in a Sentinel’s uniform jumps up from the desk and gives a crisp salute. He’s red-headed and his porcelain cheeks flush heart-attack red when his soul senses mine. I spot the shadow of a stud, hidden in the helix of his left ear.

Of course it’s the left.

“Guide,” he gasps.

Ugh. I’m so exhausted that my silks go rogue and stretch to greet him.

I reel back the misbehaving wisps while the Sentinel shoots me heart eyes.

Warden Cherise steps between us, folding her arms over her body-armor vest. “Did you just wave your silks at her while you’re on duty?”

“No. Yes. But —” he stammers, clutching his chest. “She’s my?—”

“She’s your new commander,” she cuts him off. “Show some respect.”

I’m too tapped to read the Sentinel’s emotions, but the resonance that says Icanis always there. I may as well get this next part over with. “Do you have a compatibility testing artifact?”

“You feel it too?” He knocks over a stack of logbooks in his rush to whip out the testing machine. “I’m Crispin Sebastian Pietrovski and I’m your?—”

“She’syour commander,” Cherise growls.

Crispin rushes to me with the artifact. Electricity is unreliable thanks to magical interference, so the machine is the archaic kind. No digital screen.

Instead, two handle pieces are welded to either side of a metal slab etched in a sparkling array pattern. An unlit crystal sits embedded in the middle of the magic circle.

Already gripping one handle, Crispin offers me the other side.

His heart eyes intensify.

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