by Viola Grace
Kabyl nodded and staggered toward the mess hall. She could smell the food and just needed a place to wash her hands, but she didn’t want to make others queasy, so she went to barracks A and changed before she used a damp cloth on her face and hands, scrubbing quickly.
The food was a finite substance. She wanted to get in before it was gone.
She headed for the food, and when she got there, she got in line with the others. Only five out of twenty-five had washed up, and they were given a special table and access to the food on a priority basis.
The commander came in, wrinkled his nose and said, “Eat up, and for those who came into this mess without cleaning up, you eat what you have and then leave. Return to your barracks, clean up, and if there is anything left, you can eat more.”
What followed was a frenzy of consumption, and men and Echo sprinting out to the barracks.
Elioth smiled at Kabyl as they ate. “Your father was very thorough in his briefings.”
She nodded and went up to get a second tray. Elioth did the same, but his wasn’t for him. She ate rapidly and swapped trays with him. He smiled, and she kept eating. When she finished, she took the trays back and scraped them down before putting them in the catch slots.
She finally felt like she wasn’t hollow.
She went back to the table and sat with her water glass held between her palms.
Elioth smiled. “So, how did you find the course. I thought it was exhilarating. If I had known such fun existed out here, I would have come sooner.”
She gave him a dark look. “It was difficult, but I have been through worse.”
“It was a great jump; it was like you two wanted to fly but held back.”
“I am thinking that it was the case. It definitely was for me.” She chuckled softly. “And now we have an afternoon of classes.”
“Is it only noon?” one of the men from their table asked. He looked ready to drop.
“Yeah, now they are going to show us our sins.”
One of the guys looked up, “What?”
“They are going to show every goof, stumble, elbowing, tripping, stepping on hands, and kicking in the face that occurred on that run where the only reward was going for a meal. The competitive moment can exist but not when sabotage is right behind. That isn’t what peacekeeper training is all about.”
“What is it about?” The voice was a familiar growl. The commander had come in behind her.
“It is about learning to be an effective peacekeeper. Blending with your community and gaining their trust. It isn’t just about being strong and fast, but you need to be trustworthy. That is a key component.” She sipped at her water. “If they don’t trust you, they won’t come to you, and that means people will get hurt.”
Some of the now-clean guys were rushing back in for a chance at a second meal.
“Ambermarle. That name is familiar.” The commander sat at their table and smiled slightly.
He hadn’t asked her a question, so she didn’t respond.
The commander asked them, “So, who here has a peacekeeper in the family?”
Four out of the five at the table raised their hands. Elioth just smiled.
“You, where did you come from?”
“Originally, my people were in the Drake Forest.”
He nodded. “Why are you in training? Your people don’t really leave the forests.”
“I am here with my training partner. She is here, so I am here.”
It took a lot of concentration not to blush, but suddenly, all the gazes at the table were directed at her.
She sipped at her water again. She felt the cold creeping out, and she had to pull it back in, but there was a bit of frost on the edge of her glass.
“That is a new one.” The commander’s gaze took in her glass and asked the table at large. “Is anyone here a new shifter?”
Kabyl raised her hand. “I am two months in.”
He blinked. “That wasn’t on your file.”
“I applied three months ago. We thought I was human. It was a stress shift.”
The men at the table stared, and Elioth looked concerned. “Should you be speaking about this?”
The commander waved that off. “How much food do you need?”
“As much as I can get.”
He nodded. “Right. I will give you a pass to the kitchen.”
She smiled, and Elioth’s expression cleared with understanding.
“Do you have control?”
“I do.”
He nodded. “Good.”
He sat and chatted with the other folks at the table. Their little group of clean faces and hands had just gotten them a discussion with the man who could make the next few weeks hell.
When he got up from the table, he yelled, “All right, everybody to the classroom. Let’s see what you know.”
She took her glass to the rack and then walked out. The fun run was over. Time to get to work.
Chapter Three
The next four hours were taken up with municipal codes and how to approach situations. All the cadets had already taken basic exams, written essays, and proven their awareness of the law, the requirements of the job, and why they wanted to be peacekeepers. This course was the practical application of that information. Across the continent, they had all gone to their record offices and filled out the applications, written the essays, and gotten everything witnessed by the local magistrate. In her case, she had gone one town over and gotten the whole thing witnessed by Judge Merrix.
She sat in her seat and wrote notes as the lectures changed subject. Each situation called for a different type of approach, and knowing what you were walking into was a luxury.
Elioth was making notes, but his were being done in a graceful script that Kabyl envied. Her writing was designed to take up as little space on the page as possible. Shipments of paper goods were not frequent back home.
“Right. That’s it for today.” The instructor smiled. “See you after breakfast tomorrow.”
Kabyl smiled, it was totally not it. Sometime tonight, there would be an alarm, and they would need to be up and out of their beds, running toward the situation.
Kabyl closed her notebook and got to her feet. She and Elioth walked out of the class and headed toward the dining hall.
“So, how did you enjoy the first day of training?” she asked him as they walked.
“It was interesting. More fun than I thought it would be. There is an element of combat to the whole thing.”
“Yeah, even if we are supposed to be on the same team. A side effect of the competitive condition.”
He chuckled. “It is interesting.”
She got the feeling that she was going to hear a lot of that in the next few days. Her stomach rumbled.
“We had better get to the dining area before it all gets eaten.”
They stepped briskly to the dining hall, and Kabyl was unsurprised when four of the cadets were blocking her path. They focused on her, ignoring Elioth completely.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Her burly opponent crossed his arms.
“You shouldn’t be standing between me and food.” She stood with her arms loose at her sides.
“You ate enough at lunch. I am sure that a little thing like you shouldn’t be having too many meals. You might ruin your chances for a husband.”
She tried to get around him, stepped left, stepped right, and it was only when he reached out to grab her that she was free to act. When his hand closed on her forearm, she switched the grip and flipped him. His three buddies were stunned, but only one tried to avenge his friend.
Kabyl stepped to the side, and he tripped over the man who was just getting to his feet. She walked past the two onlookers, and Elioth met her at the door. He held it open for her, and she nodded. “Thanks. Now, let’s eat before I get called in.”
He nodded, and they filled their trays to the limit and sat near Echo. Kabyl moved the food into her face as fast as she could.
; The commander stormed in. “Ambermarle!”
She wiped her face and stood. “Yes, Commander?”
“Come with me.”
She followed him, and once outside, they walked to the quartet who was glaring at her.
There were two peacekeepers standing with them.
“Cadet Ambermarle, did you strike Cadet Williams or Cadet Ormin?”
“No, Commander.”
“What did you do?”
“Deflect two attacks, Commander.” She kept herself calm, but her dragon was stirring. The air was getting cold around her.
“These two cadets are saying that you attacked them. Their companions are witnesses. What do you say to that?”
She held up her arm, where Williams had grabbed her. “If I attacked them, he would not have been able to grip my arm, and if he hadn’t gripped my arm, I wouldn’t have been able to flip him. If I had not flipped him, Ormin wouldn’t have tripped over him as he was getting to his feet when I sidestepped Ormin’s lunge.”
The commander sighed. “Gentlemen, you have a choice before you.”
“Why, because she’s a girl?”
The commander paused. “You have a choice. You can either leave right now, or you can clean the showers and latrines every day while you are here.”
The men murmured.
“While there is a certain amount of hijinks to be expected at the training center, you are never to interfere with the food supply of a newly shifted cadet. Ambermarle is in her second month after her first shift, and your attempt to restrict her food supply will not go unanswered.”
The men all looked at each other in shock.
“She’s a shifter? Her file says—” Ormin snapped his jaw shut.
“Yes. She’s a shifter. You men have a chance to become something greater, to protect and serve those who are in need of your protection. Ganging up on a single female is not going to get you a passing grade. It shows a lack of confidence. If you want to prove you are better than she is, prove it. Be faster, smarter, stronger, and with better people skills.”
He turned back to her. “Ambermarle, resume your meal.”
She nodded and turned away as he tried to drum into the young men how close they had come to expulsion with prejudice. No one could mess with a shifter’s food for the first six months. There were shelters in every town and city that provided the meals if someone was caught hungry. No one wanted a beast to roam around on its own, confused and hungry. That route led to disaster.
She went back in, got a second tray, and returned to her seat.
Elioth asked, “Are you okay?”
“I am fine. They have a choice to make. I just want to eat.”
Echo blinked. “Why are you eating so much?”
“New shifter. It happened just after I sent in my application.” She shrugged. “I am going through a ton of food.”
“Really? So late? I shifted when I was eleven.”
“It was an emergency shift, painful and awkward.” She remembered the slices across her back, now silvery scars.
“Ah.” Echo dropped it.
She didn’t ask what Kabyl was. It was against etiquette. If they became peacekeepers, their nature would be made public. Small badges were sewn onto their uniform that had a stylized icon of their beast on it.
Kabyl looked at Elioth and smiled. “I wonder what your icon is going to be. Maybe a pointy ear?”
He gave her a dark look. “I think my bow will be a good marker.”
She smirked at his irritation. It didn’t happen often, and she had once nearly shot him through the foot.
She finished her food and sat back. “Well, I think I can make it a few more days without gorging again.”
He nodded but didn’t mention the hours of high-speed flying that she had put into getting them there on time. She had burned a lot of calories.
She took her notebook and stretched. “Time to study and then hit the bunk. You remember what we discussed?”
He nodded. “Be prepared for anything.”
She nodded and took care of her trays before leaving the dining hall and heading to the barracks. She was pretty tired, and tonight was not going to be restful.
The pounding on the door got her up, and she shoved her feet into her boots while Echo fought her way out of a heavy sleep.
“Come on, Echo. We need to go.” She twisted her braid up and tucked it.
Echo sat up and groaned. “I thought my brothers were lying.”
Kabyl chuckled and left her, heading out to line up near the commander. Elioth arrived a moment after she did, and Echo followed suit.
Some of the men were definitely not morning people.
The commander moved his arm, and she followed his gesture to the table. She grabbed a flashlight and a map and oriented herself. She took off and went in search of whatever was out in the woods at night.
Kabyl was happy that she didn’t have to use the flashlight. She kept the map in her hand and ran through the woods silently. Elioth had been good about teaching her balance in the forest. She normally just thumped around to scare off bears and wolves.
She found the path that she was supposed to be on, and her dragon wanted to send a ripple of frost ahead of her to check the path. She throttled that urge back.
Her dragon was frustrated. After weeks of being allowed to fly and explore, she didn’t like being confined again.
Kabyl had tried explaining that this was the key to using the full extent of her skills, all day, every day. The dragon was being stubborn. She wanted out.
Kabyl soothed her dragon and kept looking for the item on the map. She moved a few feet to one side of the path and maintained a rapid pace as silently as she could. In the forest, she heard surprised shouts, and she ignored them. This was a solo mission.
She finally saw her target object. She grinned. Of course, she ended up with the body dummy. Getting it back out the way she had come was going to be a pain.
Kabyl walked around the dummy, and when she saw the cable hooked to the fake person, she nodded and quickly unclipped it. The dummy slumped forward, so she put it in a fireman’s carry.
She walked a few steps carefully to the side of the path and huffed her way back to the starting point. The dummy tried to snag on everything, but she kept walking until she made it out of the woods and walked up to the table, setting the dummy down carefully.
The instructor standing there reached in and took out some kind of mercury switch. They smiled. “Well done, Ambermarle. Back to bed.”
She nodded, put her map on the body, and walked back to the barracks. She had at least three hours to sleep before she was woken again.
Dropping back onto the bunk was a relief, but she was only out for a few seconds when something woke her.
There was someone at the foot of her bed in the dark. Her eyes picked him up immediately. “Williams. I would suggest that you just take that and leave.”
He jerked. “How are you here? You should be out in the woods, and what the fuck is it with your eyes?”
She flipped her bedding aside and stood, staring at him. “Placing stolen goods in my chest? Not classy.”
He swallowed. “No one will believe you.”
Her dragon roared, didn’t spew freezing fluid on him, but she roared. Williams dropped to the ground and covered his head.
The commander and two instructors came through the door a moment later.
The commander took in the situation, and he growled, orange fur in a striped pattern overlaid his features.
He grabbed Williams by the scruff with one hand, and the instructor picked up the wad of drugs and cash. They nodded and left.
She sighed that he had just thrown away all chances of being a peacekeeper and was now blacklisted, but then, Kabyl crawled back into bed and pulled her blankets around her.
It had been an eventful first day.
Chapter Four
Without the bucket of poison that Williams had been spreading, Kabyl’s next fou
r weeks went smoothly. Her dragon, on the other hand, was going crazy. She wanted out.
One day, before lunch, Kabyl went to talk to the commander. She knocked on his office door.
“Come in.”
She opened the door and stepped inside, stopping in front of his desk.
“What is it, Ambermarle?”
“Commander, I was wondering if there is a place nearby where I can let my beast out. She is getting very frustrated.”
He paused. “Is it endangering you?”
“No, but it is endangering others.”
He nodded. “Well, this slots neatly into a message I received this morning. You are required to attend the trial of Dennis Rygar.”
“Ah. Right. The senate told me that it might happen.”
“What was your involvement?” He frowned.
She stood and explained about the missing miners, the small village homes, the dead and missing homesteaders, and the lack of animals. Oh, and she told him about the creatures.
He blinked. “This man was responsible?”
“Apparently, he is a latent mage using glyphs from a badly copied page.”
His eyes went wide. “Shit. Right. They are going to come for you in two days. You will be picked up by them in our transport, taken back to town, and you will be able to fly from there. Come back when your part is over.”
She nodded. “Two days?”
“Two days.”
“I can manage two days.” She sincerely hoped that she wasn’t going to make a scene before everything was over.
“Good. You are dismissed.”
She nodded and left his office. Two days. She just had to make it through two more days of training, and then, she could fly.
Things had gotten positively relaxed when Williams had gotten himself expelled. Everyone gave her a wide berth, and it was nice that she hadn’t had to do more than roar for help.
Kabyl sat with Echo, Elioth, and the new friend they had made, Yelwin Cross.
Elioth asked, “Is everything all right?”
“It is fine. I just need a bit more exercise than I am getting.”
“Should we be worried?” Echo chuckled.
