Page 86 of A Warrior's Fate

Sebastian leaned back in his seat with a loud sigh—overdramatic and exaggerated—as if he were trying to lighten the mood. “For the record, if you had gone through with it—or if you did change your mind—he has my blessing.”

Isla peered up at him, unsure if she wanted to laugh or scowl. “One, I don’t need your blessing, and two, he gets your seal of approval?”

Sebastian snorted. “You think I want to go against Fate and the guy who killed four bak—three of them to keep them away from you? Unlike you, I know when to step back.” He took a hold of the bowl of chips and pulled the whole lot towards him. “Plus, saying my sister’s a luna sounds a lot more badass than saying she’s a warrior.”

CHAPTER 21

The two weeks leading up to Isla’s lumerosi ceremony trickled by slowly—filled with cold-sweat-inducing nightmares that led to sleepless nights, days at Io’s training center used by guard and warrior alike, and some intermittent periods spent at the local library.

For somewhere as large as the Imperial City, the selection of books on languages and linguistics—even books that stretched far back in history—were scarce. Many of the chronicles didn’t even expand beyond Io, into the tales of the other territories, and Isla swore if it weren’t for the fact she’d already possessed the knowledge, it would be easy to assume the existence of the Pack of Phobos was nothing but a continental hallucination. Still, even with the limited selection, she’d leave the building—a good twenty-minute walk away from home—with heaps of titles in her hands, some not related to narratives of the past. With how much she still had to recover from her injuries, reading had become a sort of new hobby.

She gobbled down fiction, escaping her thoughts with riveting tales of heroes and villains, love and betrayal. She engaged with some guides to “tap into her inner goddess”, pages and pages full of breathing exercises, stretches, and poses that pulled and moved her body in ways she hadn’t known possible. She wasn’t sure if it was those actions, time, or the physical work she’d been doing at the training center, but she was finally getting a handle on her wolf again. Finally able to complete her shift, but unfit to hold it for more than a few minutes.

She’d take any progress though, especially while her research and attempts to decode what the book and marker said were going nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.

But even with the times of stress, Isla never passed another man through her apartment door. She’d gone to the bars some nights—batted her eyes, flirted, even made out with two upstanding suitors in the restroom and back alley—but she couldn’t bring herself to go beyond the kisses or touching.

That little piece of her, that tiny piece of Kai that still latched onto her soul like a leech, like it had imprinted itself there in permanent ink, kept drawing her away. The number of times she’d cursed him to the moon was pathetic…

Although the warriors fell under the Imperial Alpha’s jurisdiction, the program’s base resided in Ganymede. Set on the eastern border, it was Morai’s largest kingdom solely by its mostly uninhabitable landmass. The Warrior’s Village, as the area was called, didn’t necessarily abide by its name. Easily, it could’ve been one of the largest regions within Ganymede’s borders, attributed mainly to the amphitheater located further eastward by the continent’s coast. Before the decimation—before the bak, the Hunt, the Wall—warriors had been deemed through duels and trials in that coliseum, filled to the brim with spectators, facing both each other and monsters that were described in ways Isla was convinced were exaggerated. Beasts other than the bak still dwelled amongst their lands, needing to be controlled, but none so terrifying.

She marveled at the large double doors of the entrance to the gallery as she approached them, the wood inscribed with the symbols of all the packs—Phobos included. Eleven markings set in a circle, Io at the top and slightly larger than the rest. Isla couldn’t help but run a finger along it as she passed through the entryway, feeling pride swell and crash like a wave. She’d been too short to reach the symbol when she visited the base for a field trip as a child on the arm of her mother and she first fell in love with the idea of what she’d become. Something her mother had never gotten the chance to be for the sake of her children.

The festivities that had been planned for the late afternoon—into the evening and then night—had been a lot of mingling and drinking, some speeches then a meal, more speeches, and then finally, just before the moon reached its peak, the releasing of the successful warrior class to the temple where the Elders would bestow what they’d earned. The act of receiving lumerosi was intense, painful, but for all it represented, what it meant, Isla would take it. She’d endured it before, and she could handle it again.

Unlike at the feast where she’d socialized beyond her heart’s content, as Isla looped through the gallery’s sectors, she mostly kept to herself. Her glass of white wine was gripped firmly in her hand as she meandered through the showcases. She’d come to the ceremony alone—something else that differed from the dinner before the Hunt—telling Adrien and Sebastian that she would rather they stay in Io and not miss any important intel rather than fuss around a party with her. And she hadn’t even needed to convince her father as he’d left Io again on some “important business”.

It all worked for the best. The last thing she wanted was any of them coming face to face with Kai. Who she realized, to her horror, had earned his right to the warrior mark as much as she had and could very well appear here.

But she hadn’t seen—or felt—him yet. Thank the Goddess…

Still, she frequently canvassed the area, stepping back into corners for the best vantage to scour the floor. It likely looked suspicious, but she was beyond caring.

No pulls. No reactions from her wolf. No sweeps of slightly curled dark hair. No catching of storm-cloud eyes. Just Elders, former warriors, the current class, and—

“There’s the new recruit.”

Upon the sudden voice from beside her, Isla, more on edge than she’d realized, practically jumped out of her skin, nearly coating her navy cocktail dress in wine. Heart hammering, she twisted to meet a familiar rugged face that she hadn’t seen since a few weeks prior. She blinked at him for a few moments, trying to get her bearings before she forced a grin and the sweetest tone she could. “General Eli.”

The general’s eyes danced with amusement. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you. I forgot how skittish recruits can be right after the Hunt.”

Isla held onto her smile like her life depended on it, remembering well the last time she’d been in Eli’s presence. She had an odd, almost comical feeling that if Kai was in fact here in the gallery, he’d surely emerge from the woodwork now.

“I didn’t have a chance to congratulate you after your victory,” Eli said, swirling his drink—which smelled like bourbon—in his hand. “I’d already departed for the base, but I heard you were a marvel.”

“I’m not quite too sure about a marvel,” Isla demurred, genuine in her hesitance to his flattery.

“I am,” he countered. “You’ve been on my radar since the high general sent me to scope the rising talent. He told me to watch out for you.”

“The high general spoke of me?”

“The daughter of the Imperial Beta,” Eli boasted. “He told me you could be promising, and you haven’t disappointed.”

Isla battled to keep her features from falling into a grimace. There it was again. All accomplishment and strength relegated to something that wasn’t even a title, simply an association.

“Have you seen your display?” Upon the shaking of Isla’s head, Eli smoothly slipped a hand behind her back to guide her in the proper direction. So much like the feast, but here, there were no possessive tugs of intangible tethers from her mate. “Let’s go relish in your glory.”

Relish in her glory.

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