Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
“Join the club,” I say.
We all chuckle, but our laughter is cut short by the appearance of the fire offerings.
Raith walks at the front, and the others follow him in a tight group. The white offering uniform does absolutely nothing to hide the way his rows upon rows of muscles move beneath the fabric, fluid and powerful like some ancient predator. His scarred face and neck only add to the impression of barely contained danger. I force my eyes away, trying and failing to ignore the way my body reacts to him.
Skin flushed hot. A light sweat. Pounding heart. A pool of heat gathering in my lower belly.
He sits right behind the aspirants, and the other fires file in on either side of him, leaving an empty seat to his right and left, as if out of deference.
The dynamic within the water offerings is chaotic, with small packs of wolves and a larger group of—for lack of a better word—sheep.
The fires are a much smaller group, and they've already fallen into a military-like organization, with Raith as the apparent high commander.
The airs, as far as I can tell, get along better as a whole. If nothing else, fewer of them have died in training and I don’t see as much open hostility.
The earths keep to themselves, but the aura of general suspicion around airs and fires means people generally don’t make an effort to get to know them. Then again, everybody is too busy trying to stay alive to worry much about making friends.
"Can you believe that guy?" Ambrose asks. Like everybody else in white, he's watching Raith.
"Asshole," I say, as if agreeing with Ambrose's unspoken assessment.
"Asshole," Mireen agrees. She tucks a strand of copper hair behind her ear. "Very, very hot. But yes, an asshole."
I snort and shake my head, trying not to stare at the way Raith's broad shoulders taper to a narrow waist or how his hands—large enough to crush a throat without effort—are casually propped on the desk before him.
Looking at Raith has a way of bringing my mind straight to sex. To making me think that maybe a little nightly release wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, or how even if I’m sore as all hells, the right guy could still make it worth the effort. I'd blame my thoughts on the tension of knowing any of us could die at any moment, but that wouldn't explain why it's specifically him that triggers this response. In some ways, I think it’s how he wears scars on the outside that feel like a reflection of my inner self. Scarred. Broken. Both of us volunteered for this, and I wonder if that means there’s some kind of twisted kinship between us.
I tear my attention away, cheeks burning, and focus on the front of the classroom just as Instructor Pilton storms in, practically jogging down the steps until he's at the front, where he slams down a briefcase full of maps.
Instructor Pilton, like all in the north and eastern wings, isn't actually a primal. He's in his sixties with an explosion of gray hair and wild, tangled brows. His right arm is gone at the elbow, and the offering who asked about it on the first day got hit in the head with a piece of chalk.
In what I'm coming to see as "the usual," he spreads out his maps and begins going through historical battles and quizzing us on tactics and strategy. There's no introduction or preamble. He just launches straight into the topic.
Before he gets too deep, Mireen nudges me and points to something at the edge of the room. “Look!” she whispers.
I follow her finger and see a small gray rat scurrying along the wall.
“He’s a little survivor. Just like us,” Mireen says. “So godsdamned cute. I wish we were allowed pets here…”
“You want a pet rat?” I ask with a sideways smile.
“I’ll would take what I can get, Nessa.” Mireen’s expression is wistful as she watches the rat slip between a crevice in the stones and disappear.
"Now," Pilton says half an hour later as he whacks a large map with a thin, wooden pointing stick. "Empire had intelligence reporting that Red Kingdom had already moved this deep." He jabs a point several miles in from the border at the time. "If you were given two primals and a thousand soldiers to handle the threat, where would you start?"
Questions are lobbed around the room.
"How many primals does Red Kingdom have?"
"Two," Pilton answers, his voice carrying easily through the space. "They have the same number of primals, but twice as many soldiers."
A few students complain about the impossible task. Their voices rise in a chorus of protests about the unfair odds.
Bastian sits at the front, his golden hair making him visible even at this distance. He leans forward, his voice loud and clear. Attack their logistics," he says. "They're already miles into enemy territory. Cut off their supply lines and wait to engage until they're weakened from hunger."