The Agrista (Between the Lines Book 1) (26 page)

  Marie felt somewhat disappointed when she found out she wouldn’t be bunking with Alex. She found his touch comforting – even though it always left her hungry for more – and it seemed to be the only way he knew to offer her solace. As disappointed as she was, he was far more upset about it, not that either of them would ever admit to it.

  His intentions were purely platonic, he told himself. He often drew comfort from the warmth of her slumbering body, mindlessly tracing the line of her jaw as she sighed softly into the night. He needed to feel her safe in his arms to assure himself that no harm would befall her while he was around, but it would never escalate beyond that. She was a heavy sleeper, that one. Snored too. He laughed suddenly, in fond remembrance.

 
I’m a mess
, Alex grimaced. They might die tomorrow, and the only thing he could think about was touching her. He was beginning to wonder if his desire to be near her wasn’t quite so altruistic; a forbidden longing that he’d banished from his being. Every time his mind grew flooded with lascivious inklings of something more, he set fire to the troublesome thoughts and sent them screaming into the night. Hopefully this time they would stay away for good.

  When they’d arrived at their destination, he reluctantly parted ways with Marie on a note of uncomfortable silence. He mentally chastised himself for not offering her the comfort of his bed before he’d left, but eventually came to the conclusion that it was for the better that he hadn’t made a
complete
fool of himself; something he only cared about in regards to Marie.

  Bria had a surefire way of turning her ideas into reality, and had decided early on in the evening that all the
girls
were going to bunk together tonight, which included Marie, Laylia, Johanna and herself. Apparently Fallon didn’t count, but in all fairness, Bria was more feminine.

  Marie had trouble not busting a rib at the sight of Bria in a pink silk chemise, her rippling muscles poking out in all the wrong places. Her rib was still healing, and it was excruciating to laugh, so she did her best to stifle the mirth struggling to escape. Fortunately, she was soon distracted by the beautiful ambiance Laylia had created.

  A rainbow of silken lilies danced along the arched ceiling, floating on a gentle draft like scattered petals bobbing along the steady current of a rolling tide. Each flower emitted a different scent, ranging from spicy gingerbread and juicy apples to warm blueberry muffins and spring flowers. The delightful scents coalesced into a surprisingly pleasant heady aroma that made Marie sigh in ecstasy.

  The two beds – no more comfortable than two stone slabs, and nowhere near big enough to accommodate the four of them – had been pushed together and plumped up with down ticks and overstuffed pillows, shrouded in a billowing canopy of sheer pink and cobalt blue.

  The soft chime of glass bells resounded in rhythm with the twinkling lights scattered along the walls. The lights hypnotically flickered like the gentle patter of a rainstorm lapping the treetops, lulling the land to sleep, and with it, Marie. She felt herself drifting away to a dark place, and quickly reacquainted herself with the here and now.

  “Don’t just stand there! Hop in!” Laylia demanded playfully. Marie didn’t hesitate, and before long, she found herself swimming through the covers and rocking with laughter.

  “This is remarkably feminine for a soldier’s hut. I assume this is your doing?” Marie teased Laylia.

  “When this horrible ordeal is finished, I’m going to teach you how to use magic,” Laylia said decidedly.

  “Stop being such a downer, Johanna!” It wasn’t until Bria’s crude remark that Marie noticed Johanna sulking in the corner.

  “What’s wrong?” Marie struggled to be taken seriously as she crawled across the bed toward Johanna, sinking into the folds of feathers as she sailed across the sheets on her belly.

  “This isn’t right. My friends are probably being tortured right now, and you’re all laughing it up. How can you be so carefree knowing what awaits us tomorrow?” Johanna glowered.

  “Tomorrow’s going to be awful,” Laylia said candidly. “None of us know what’s going to happen, or if we’re even going to succeed. Tonight may be our last night to
enjoy
ourselves. It would be wrong not to seize the opportunity.” Laylia crouched down in front of Johanna at the foot of the bed and sighed. “Take a moment, Johanna. Appreciate the beauty that surrounds us.” The floating lilies waltzed around the room in synch with Laylia’s swirling pointer finger, coaxing a hesitant laugh from Johanna.

  Marie internally appraised every interaction Laylia had. Her sister was nothing short of an enigma. She ruthlessly ran cons on unsuspecting innocents and shielded herself with sassy comments and sardonic wit, yet she was extraordinarily empathetic, and was always the first to offer a word of comfort to those in need.

 
Maybe she has some sort of Robin Hood Complex. Steal from the rich, and give to the poor?
Marie briefly considered the thought, but quickly discarded it. Laylia didn’t discriminate and was always the sole recipient of her kleptomaniac tendencies. Perhaps it simply came down to greed. She didn’t want to hurt others, but couldn’t resist shiny things. Considering her past, Marie was convinced that her reasoning couldn’t possibly be quite so simple.

  “As much as I’d love to stay up all night, I think we should be well-rested for tomorrow,” Marie interjected suddenly.

  “Fat chance,” Bria scoffed.

  “Cerin gave me some Sleep Solution. There’s more than enough to go around.”

  “I love that stuff!” Bria eagerly grasped for the vial, but Marie sharply drew her hand back.

  “I saw what you did to that kid in Artifex. I think
I
should be the one to administer it,” Marie quirked a brow. Bria couldn’t help but burst out laughing, and the others quickly followed suit.

SWEATING BULLETS

 
M
arie awoke in a stranger’s bed, alone. The dreadful feeling that accompanied her reluctant rise was one she knew all too well, and didn’t particularly care for. The other girls had left while she was sleeping, taking with them the magic that had illuminated their surroundings last night and ignited a fire in Marie’s heart. Now her nerve was nothing more than dying embers. In the harsh light of day, she could see things for what they really were: empty and fleeting.

  Marie emerged from the hut – haggard and glassy-eyed – to see Cerin explaining the devices he’d made to the three Umbra. It was an odd looking contraption. A fat disk the size of a man’s fist, filled with a clear gelatinous fluid and mounted on three steel prongs. The devices looked harmless enough, and were anything but.

  “For the sake of convenience, I will henceforth refer to this device as an IV. It’s short for Intravenous Infragilis venom, obviously,” Cerin chortled.

  “Wouldn’t that be I-I-V?” asked Bria.

  “Technically yes, but it’s a lot easier to just call it an IV. Moving on,” Cerin harrumphed. “The IV will go under your manes and inject between your shoulder blades. The microscopic sensors at the end of the prongs will constantly test your blood. As soon as they detect even the smallest trace of Baindingu poison, they’ll release the necessary amount of IV to counter the effects.”

  “So the IV’s release IV? That’s confusing,” Bria huffed.

Cerin went on, ignoring her. “The venom will halt your human transformation, but you’ll be susceptible to immediate change the second it runs out. I know nothing of the gas and had little time to prepare, so I can only give you a rough estimate as to how long you’ll have before the venom runs out, and it’s based on nothing more than my intuition. By my calculations, you should have an hour. Presumably, an hour should be ample amount of time to traverse to Slave Quarters.”

  “Providing your guesswork is correct, and the blinding pain doesn’t paralyze us,” Bria added grumpily.

  “It
will
be excruciating,” Cerin admitted. There was no use lying to them. They’d find out soon enough.

  “We have no other choice.” Alex forced a smile to imbue Bria with courage, though he found himself lacking as well.

  “That doesn’t make the choice we do have any more appealing,” Bria groaned, rolling her eyes.

  “Alex. Bria.” Cayden jerked his head toward Marie, whose lingering presence had gone unnoticed until now.

  It wasn’t until that moment that Marie realized she was no longer alone. Johanna and Laylia seemed to have silently materialized alongside her, irritatingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
What are they so happy about?
Marie frowned.

  “Come with me, girls.” Cayden gently placed his hand on the small of Johanna’s back and steered her forward.

  “Where to?” Johanna emphatically convulsed and tore away from his touch, somewhat taken aback by the hurt look in his eyes when she pulled away.

  The four of them didn’t spend too long at the Armory. All three girls were too small for anything but Parvúlus Armor. It took no time at all for them to equip themselves, though Laylia’s incessant whining made it feel like it took a lot longer than it did.

  She complained that the armor was too plain, losing sight of its sole purpose. Dull as it may be, it was a lot more appealing than a gaping wound, Marie reminded her, causing her to finally accede. If they’d had BeDazzlers in this universe, Marie had no doubt she’d soon see Laylia sporting rhinestone studded armor, and laughed at the thought.

  Were Laylia not there to move things along, the tour of the Ordnantry would’ve been senseless torture. Cayden took it upon himself to educate them on the mechanics of every single weapon – and there were thousands – following each longwinded explanation with a thorough demonstration.

  Because Johanna was his daughter, Marie surmised that Cayden’s thoroughness was his way of coping with the idea of sending her into an extremely dangerous situation. It was silly, when she thought about it, because Johanna had been in one far more perilous for years. Knowing Cayden’s intentions were pure didn’t make the process any more bearable.

  When Laylia’s legs began to cramp up from being stationary for too long, she let it be known that she was ready to move on by means of candid distraction. She wasn’t used to being sedentary, and she impatiently broke away from the lesson at hand.

  “I’ve used one of these before,” Laylia’s mouth curled up into a twisted smile as she palmed a dagger with an embroidered hilt. There were several more just like it, splayed across a bed of soil.

  “On a person?” Marie’s eyes widened with surprise.

  “Of course on a person!” Laylia laughed. “On several, in fact.”

  “W-w-why?” Marie was a little afraid to ask, considering what little she knew of Laylia’s jaded past.

  “I freelanced as a vigilante for a time. Well, vigilante for hire, if I’m being honest.”

  “So in other words, a mercenary?” Marie laughed.

  “Vigilante
sounds
better,” Laylia reasoned weakly with a laugh.

  “The idea of carrying a weapon makes me feel safer, but the idea of actually having to use it,” Marie shuddered. “That frightens me to death.”

  “Why? If it comes down to a situation where you’re forced to use it, you can rest assured that your opponent would just as easily slit your throat without a second thought.” Laylia liked Marie, and she didn’t want to scare her off, but there was no use pretending to be someone she wasn’t, and she was
not
a compassionate person. Something about her younger sister made her want to abandon her many masks and give her a glimpse of the frightened child that cowered underneath. She was tired of feeling so alone, and Marie was different than the rest.

  “That’s not why I’m afraid. If my life is in danger, I’ll be more than ready to defend myself, but I’m not a fighter. Sure, having a weapon can save me, but if they get ahold of my weapon – which shouldn’t be too hard, considering my lack of experience – they can hurt
me
with it instead. I don’t want to make it easier for them.”

  “This isn’t your average weapon,” Laylia perked up. “It can’t be used against you.”

  “Laylia’s right,” Cayden finally caught wind of their conversation, and decided to intervene. “For both of our sakes, I’m not going to ask how you know that, Laylia,” he mumbled with a curious sidelong glance. “Would you like to know how it works?” he turned to Marie, who hesitantly nodded for him to go on. “A Milités official, such as myself, has to authorize its use.” Cayden swiped his thumb along the bottom of the dagger. “Now it’s active, and waiting to be assigned a wielder. Swipe your thumb along the hilt.” Marie did as he instructed. “Now the knife recognizes you as its owner. At least, until it’s reassigned. Only a high-ranking officer of Milités can reset it. Now, slide your thumb downward.” Marie dragged her thumb along the hilt and the blade instantly retracted. “Hand the knife to Laylia.” Laylia sensed Marie’s confusion and snatched the knife impatiently, rubbing her thumb back and forth over the handle. Nothing happened. She handed the dagger back to Marie and instructed her to do the same. Marie slid her thumb upward, prompting the blade to pop back out. “It will only work for
you
now.”