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Synopsis
Blending fantasy and science fiction, N. E. Davenport’s fast-paced, action-packed debut kicks off a duology of loyalty and rebellion, in which a young Black woman must survive deadly trials in a racist and misogynistic society to become an elite warrior.
It’s all about blood.
The blood spilled between the Republic of Mareen and the armies of the Blood Emperor long ago. The blood gifts of Mareen’s deadliest enemies. The blood that runs through the elite War Houses of Mareen, the rulers of the Tribunal dedicated to keeping the republic alive.
The blood of the former Legatus, Verne Amari, murdered.
For his granddaughter, Ikenna, the only thing steady in her life was the man who had saved Mareen. The man who had trained her in secret, not just in martial skills, but in harnessing the blood gift that coursed through her.
Who trained her to keep that a secret.
But now there are too many secrets, and with her grandfather assassinated, Ikenna knows two things: that only someone on the Tribunal could have ordered his death, and that only a Praetorian Guard could have carried out that order.
Bent on revenge as much as discovering the truth, Ikenna pledges herself to the Praetorian Trials—a brutal initiation that only a quarter of the aspirants survive. She subjects herself to the racism directed against her half-Khanaian heritage and the misogyny of a society that cherishes progeny over prodigy, all while hiding a power that—if found out—would subject her to execution…or worse. Ikenna is willing to risk it all because she needs to find out who murdered her grandfather…and then she needs to kill them.
Mareen has been at peace for a long time…
Ikenna joining the Praetorians is about to change all that.
Magic and technology converge in the first part of this stunning debut duology, where loyalty to oneself—and one’s blood—is more important than anything.
Release date: April 5, 2022
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Print pages: 416
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The Blood Trials
N. E. Davenport
I slam the shot glass down on the table. The amber liquid stopped burning on its way down my esophagus three swallows ago. I’m on my sixth shot. I think. I blink, and the room tilts. I cling to the latest shock of euphoria that floods my system. Triple-distilled Mareenian whiskey with legalized boosters is a glorious thing.
I don’t wipe the miserable look that steals onto my face in time.
My friends glimpse it.
“You good?” Selene asks.
I snicker at the irony. Usually, I’m the one looking after her when we’re partying.
“We should call it quits,” Zayne slurs. He stands up, adamant, only to sway and flop back onto his barstool.
Selene snorts into the ale she’s been sipping alongside the shots. “Lightweight.”
She’s not wrong. Zayne is only drinking so much tonight to indulge me. I insisted we celebrate with one last hurrah before Commencement in the morning busts up our trio. And they leave me behind.
Selene and Zayne will be declaring Praetorian, throwing in their bids to become two of the most fearsome and respected soldiers of the Republic. I’m not declaring anything. I’m doing what the psymedics who conducted our exit evals suggested and taking a year off. It’s been three months since my grandfather’s death, and according to the professionals, I’m still struggling at finding healthy ways to cope. Unprovoked brawls have become my friend. I’ve stopped attending most classes and combat-training blocks, filling that time with parties and drinking.
I grip the edge of the table, cursing the fact that while I still have a nice buzz, my euphoria is gone. The extra, numbing punch that boosters pack is fleeting, until you reach a certain threshold, and then the boosters drop you into oblivion. Oblivion is what I’m seeking tonight. The crooked room means I’m almost there.
Our waitress, a petite girl with red hair a shade lighter than Selene’s, saunters up to the table. “Can I get you another round?” Her green eyes framed by short, dark lashes don’t stray from Zayne. She’s been eyeing him all night. She angles her body so he gets an eyeful of her cleavage.
He grins, taking notice and flashing twin dimples. “Sure, Leslie.” The way her name slips off his tongue is both an assertion and invitation. Selene and I roll our eyes at the same time. Zayne’s ash-blond hair, blue gaze, tanned complexion, and boyishly handsome features make him more than attractive. They make him gorgeous. He knows it, and every girl he comes across knows it.
Leslie blushes while nibbling coyly on her bottom lip.
Ha! She’s coy, my ass. The slow way Zayne’s half-lidded eyes rove over her curves is exactly the thing she was angling for each time she came over.
“What time does your shift end?” he says.
She pauses, pretending she has to think about it. “One.”
“I’ll wait on you. Escort you home.”
I roll my eyes again.
She blushes redder and emits a breathy “Okay.”
“Drinks,” I butt in with the demand. “We’ll take two more rounds.” Two should get me to where I want to be.
“How about one more and we call it quits?”
I stare at Selene like she’s sprouted horns. “Since when does Selene Rhysien, party girl of our academy class, cut a night short?”
She and Zayne exchange a look. I bristle because the look is about me.
“Commencement is tomorrow,” Zayne says, slipping into his usual rule-following form. “We all need to be coherent, upright, and not nursing head-splitting hangovers in the morning. It’s probably wise to cancel the drinks and head to the barracks.”
Fuck that noise. I hiss in a breath at the pounding that kicks up in my head. The tilted room starts spinning. A glum, victorious smile twists my lips. “I think it’s too late for me to avoid any of that.” I laugh like it’s no big deal.“It’s not like tomorrow is as important for me as it is for you guys.
“Bring two more rounds only for me,” I tell Leslie, in case I need an extra push over the ledge. “My friends do need to be done for the night.” I, however, don’t. Who cares if I make it to Commencement at all? I won’t have family present eager to see me graduate from Mareen’s most prestigious academy, and there’s no grand next step for me afterward.
“You need to be done too,” Selene says without the tact Zayne used.
Our waitress watches the exchange awkwardly.
“Let’s compromise.” Zayne, of course, is ever the diplomat. “We all have another round together then we allleave together.”
I glare at him.
He and Selene stare back at me, an unyielding and united front.
“Fine,” I lie, already thinking of ways to skirt the promise. “One more round, since apparently it’s gang-up-on-Ikenna night.”
Leslie smiles in relief, then makes her escape.
“For real, Kenna. We’re all leaving. I’ll drag you out of this bar if I have to.” Selene gives me a humorless look that tells me You know I’ll do it.
“Okay,” I say, exasperated. “We all leave together to get some rest for a Commencement ceremony that will mean nothing to me and everything to you.” Bitterness drips from my words. It shouldn’t. The psymedics’ recommendation is a good thing. It allows me to keep numbing the pain by shirking all duty and indulging in reckless shit for the next year.
Embarking on my personal grand adventure early, I look around for Leslie, willing her to hightail her ass back to our table with the next round.
She reappears not a moment too soon.
I swipe up the full shot glass she sets down in front of me and toss it back. A new high instantly hits. The euphoric numbness lasts longer this time, perching me on the ledge of oblivion but not yet pitching me over. My stupid system is purging the alcohol and boosters too damn fast.
I nod toward Leslie, who’s taking the drink orders of rowdy Praetorians at an adjacent table. “Weren’t you planning on going home with Miss I’m-pretending-to-be-coy-but-I’m-game?” I ask Zayne, trying to maneuver out of the promise my pushy friends muscled me into making.
But I don’t really care about his answer the moment I recognize the people at the table she’s serving. I instantly wish I hadn’t looked over at the Praetorians, because it blows my high and sends me sprawling back from the ledge on my ass. The tiny symbol emblazoned in gold above the left breast pocket of their maroon dress coats marks them as belonging to Gamma cohort.
Grandfather’s cohort.
One of the guys sees me watching his crew. He salutes me with a raise of his glass before downing its clear contents. His chestnut-brown hair is buzzed half an inch longer than an induction cut. He has dark-cobalt eyes and a leanly muscled, powerful form shown off by the way his dress uniform is specially cut to his body. The tip of an inktat peeks from under the stiff white collar of his coat. He’s attractive, but it isn’t his good looks I’m staring at. It’s the wretched Gamma symbol. An ache blooms in my chest, and treacherous, unbridled thoughts of everything I’ve lost pummel into me like steel-fisted blows. My grandfather. Our plans for my future. My friends come morning. I don’t just need to be back on the ledge again, I need to be careening over it. But to do that, I’m going to have to stay in the bar and engage in a fresh bout of heavy drinking.
Which means ditching these two before Commencement.
I need another shot.
“Isn’t your father expecting you at home tonight?” I remind Selene. Her father is a Tribune, one of the fourteen powerful generals who sit on the Tribunal Council and help govern Mareen. His rank places her family among the great war houses of the Republic, and it’s a long-standing tradition for their children to spend the night at home instead of the barracks on Commencement Eve. At dawn, breakfast feasts will be held by all the war houses in honor of their graduates, who will undoubtedly declare and be confirmed to the venerated Praetorian rank. I should be returning to Grandfather’s residence tonight. He and I do not hail from a war house, but I should be waking to an intimate breakfast between the two of us in the morning.
Instead . . .
Selene shrugs. “He’ll get over it. I’ll be at Rhysien Manor by sunrise. If he wanted me in residence overnight so bad he would allow you and Zayne to sleep over with me. I’m not letting you stay in the barracks alone.”
I curtail a wince. After tomorrow, I won’t be a cadet anymore and I’ll have to move out of the barracks. The only other place for me to go will be Grandfather’s vacant apartments. I will be passing many nights alone then.
I lash out, mustering a bravado I don’t feel. Snorting, I say, “I can’t believe you wasted your breath asking.” It’s true—her Tribune General father would never abide me or Zayne sullying any of his private dwellings. I’m not the right skin color, and Zayne doesn’t have the right pedigree. But she’s not her father, and she doesn’t deserve to bear the brunt of my fear and anger. It’s my baggage. Not hers.
Selene opens her mouth to say something in defense of her father then snaps it shut. Consternation creases her forehead, and she’s about to speak again when she’s cut off.
“You’re Amari’s get.” The derisive voice comes from behind me. Already disgruntled, I swivel to face whoever it belongs to and glower at the dark-haired male with a gold Alpha insignia stitched into his maroon dress coat.
I return a sneer as contemptuous as the one he’s giving me. “No shit.”
He towers over me with a superiority that’s meant to intimidate. Smug arrogance due to his rank makes him dismiss the threat laced through my stare. He’s confident he can kick my ass. I’m confident he can’t. I was reared by the best combat mind Mareen has ever seen.
And I want this fight way more than he does.
The smile that carves onto the bastard’s chiseled face is cruel. His features are flawless. That fact is about to change if he doesn’t march away from my table. The temper Grandfather jumped through painstaking hoops to help me tame is running hot. Since his death, I haven’t bothered much to keep it in check. What I’m hurtling headlong into doing is a million times brash and stupid.
It’s the perfect way to top off the night.
You’re better than this, Ikenna. Rise above. Be smarter. Those like us have too much at stake. Grandfather’s cautioning voice sweeps through my mind. I ignore it because if he really cared, he’d still be here. He wouldn’t have let himself die.
Zayne grabs my arm when I push back from the table. “Let it ride. He’s a Praetorian.”
Selene presses her mouth into a hard line. She doesn’t warn me to let things go. She doesn’t urge me on either. But the ire in her gray eyes and her clenched jaw says she wants to. She really, really wants to.
Zayne is right. What the hell am I doing? My response isn’t normal for a green cadet fresh out of a martial academy. Even the northern one. Praetorians are the deadliest, most specialized soldiers of the Republic. Biochips enhance their already extraordinary skills. The implants elevate them from lethal to nearly unopposable. Me fighting the jerk runs too great a risk. I take a calming breath, letting better sense prevail for once.
The Praetorian’s grin spreads wider. “Listen to your friend. Stay seated and stay in your place, akulu.” He spits the slur at me. It’s a word that benignly means the color black in the Khanaian tongue of Grandfather’s paternal people. When Mareenians speak it, though, it oozes their disdain and prejudice against those with darker skin.
And even that I can ignore. I’ve heard it so many times I let the slur roll off my back.
His eyes tighten from my lack of reaction. “It’s a damn good thing the Legatus Commander died so early,” the fucker drawls. “Otherwise Mareen would have been stuck with an akulu occupying its highest office for decades longer. It’s a disgrace. Your grandfather was filth. I’m glad he’s dead. A full-blooded Mareenian is Legatus now, as it always—”
I lose it. One minute I’m perched on my stool trying to stay calm. The next my chest is heaving and my pulse races as my muscles tense for a fight. I surge to my feet as the spike of adrenaline surges through my blood. Call me whatever you want—sticks and stones and all that. But my indignation on Grandfather’s behalf blinds me to all sense of reason.
I strike out, faster than a lowly cadet should be able to move, catching the Praetorian off guard. I revel in the satisfying crunch of bones beneath my right knuckles. Blood spurts from the asshole’s nose. I rear back and punch him again in his broken septum. He wails, a sound you’d never expect to hear a Praetorian make, as he flies backward. I’m on him before he can pick himself up from among the fallen table and bar stools. I drive punch after punch into his pretty, porcelain face.
It’s better than the boosters.
Arms lock around me and drag me away. I assume it’s Selene or Zayne. I crane my neck to see that it’s neither. Another Praetorian from the asshole’s cohort is holding me. I struggle against his steel grip. His buddy finally peels himself off the floor with a grunt.
Asshole Number One glares at me through the eye that isn’t swollen shut.
I give him my best smile.
He steps toward me. He brandishes a combat-grade dagger in each hand. I laugh at the display that’s meant to terrify me. It’s an unhinged sound that’s sped a dozen miles past mad.
“Let her go!” Selene shouts behind me.
The noise of a scuffle tells me that she and Zayne have leapt out of their seats, and I look to see that a couple of the Praetorian’s Alpha cohort buddies are restraining them.
“So, this is how it’s going to be?” I throw over my shoulder to Asshole Number Two, who has my arms pinioned behind my back. “You’re going to hold me in place while your dickhead friend carves me up because otherwise he couldn’t beat me?” I spit on his gleaming white shoes.
I stare back at the Praetorian I attacked, refusing to cower.
“No. It’s not.” The Praetorian from Gamma cohort who saluted me steps between me and Asshole Number One. “Let her go, Chance,” he says to the guy holding me.
“Fuck you, Reed. Stay out of this. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
Reed rolls his shoulders then widens his legs into a basic combat stance. “I disagree. She’s Verne Amari’s blood, and the Legatus Commander was a Gamma man.”
Eight other Praetorians from Alpha cluster to the left of me. In response, the four from Grandfather’s cohort that had been sitting at the table with Reed crowd around him. Gamma is outnumbered. I assess the one girl and four guys—five guys including Reed—and something about the way they all hold themselves, with the absolute confidence of coiled predators ready to strike, makes me put my money on their team despite the odds. Gamma cohort has a long legacy of claiming some of the fiercest and most lethal Praetorians. Also, the proudest.
The bastard holding me grunts something unintelligible under his breath, then shoves me at his buddy. I stumble forward from the force of it. “Just the two of them then. Since she thinks she’s tough enough to take on a Praetorian, they’ll settle this the way we do. One on one. Bitch got the drop on my man because he hesitated. Radson didn’t want to hurt her.”
If that isn’t the most ludicrous load of shit I’ve ever heard. I didn’t get the drop on him. I didn’t sucker punch him. I’m simply faster. And probably stronger. And as well trained, if not more so. Grandfather made sure of it. I’ve been undergoing Praetorian-style strength conditioning and combat training since before I entered the academy.
The Praetorian in Grandfather’s cohort, Reed, looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s okay,” I say, brazen. “I got it.” I motion to Radson’s swollen left eye and broken nose. I’m a cadet. I’m nowhere close to his rank. I’m also so much more than that and good ol’ boy Radson decided to fuck with me on the right day. I smile at Radson while motioning him forward. Feeling the severe strain of my cheek muscles, I know I appear a little psycho. Maybe I’ve finally gone off the rails. Maybe today is the day that the psymedics warned me would come if I didn’t properly grieve. I can’t think straight, my emotions are whacked out, and good sense shattered to pieces about a minute ago when I took a swing at a Praetorian in a bar full of onlookers.
“Kenna, this is insane,” says Zayne, straining against the guy still holding him.
“It is.” Selene agrees with him, but the tone of her voice says she wants somebody to kick the Praetorian’s ass in the worst way. The guy gripping her forearms holds them so hard purplish bruises darken her chalk-white skin beneath his fingers. She kicks at him, but with lightning quick reflexes, he darts his left shin back and out of reach. It doesn’t deter her. She keeps fighting to inflict some kind of damage. She wants me to do the same.
Radson holds his combat daggers in a white-knuckled grip. He angles the pair straight at me. He’s livid, and his ego took an armored transport–size bruising. He’s itching to soothe his male pride. Too bad for him, that’s not how things are about to go down.
“Without weapons,” Reed says. “Otherwise, we’re not doing this. She doesn’t have any, and it won’t be a fair fight.” Actually, I do. I’m always armed. I just haven’t felt the need to reach for them yet.
Radson looks to Asshole Number Two, Chance, who seems to be acting as Alpha cohort’s leader.
He smirks but nods to Radson.
Radson drops the daggers.
I don’t wait for him to reach me and throw the first punch. I close the distance between us and hammer a side kick to his upper torso. I lighten the force of the blow so I don’t crack a rib that could puncture a lung. Punctured lungs collapse and his biochip won’t circumvent a mortal wound. I’m not so far gone that my aim is to kill him. That would be more than reckless. He’s one of the Republic’s precious soldiers. It would be signing my own execution sentence. Though the raging inferno in his eyes makes it clear he means to kill me, I have to content myself with the fact that his ribs will ache like a bitch for weeks even with expedited healing.
He doesn’t allow me to land a second kick. He hurls four punches at me in rapid succession. I dodge each one except the last. A right hook crashes into my left shoulder. It snaps out of socket. I shove aside the searing fire that explodes up and down my arm.
He attempts to inflict maximum damage and ram another punch into my dislocated shoulder. I dodge it, wrenching to the side and sweeping my leg out in a wide arc. He’s so focused on my upper body that he forgets to monitor my legs. I sweep his out from under him and he crashes to the floor. He springs back to his feet without the aid of his hands.
There are about seventy people in the bar in addition to the waitstaff, but none of them are going to get in between Praetorians fighting. They don’t have a death wish. Most of them stand around ogling the fight and casting pitying looks my way, despite the fact that I’m the one winning.
Radson and I circle each other, reassessing and recalibrating. Grandfather taught me that everyone has a tell. Radson telegraphs his movements by shifting his weight to the side he’s going to strike with. He prematurely tenses the muscles he’s going to use. I shoot forward before a left hook can splinter my jaw and gift him a vicious roundhouse kick to the chest. Needing a good, cathartic fight—something that petty brawls with my academy peers hasn’t given me—I hammer kicks to his stomach, left hip, and knee. Bones pop and he curses as he falls to the ground.
He struggles to stand. He heaves himself a quarter of the way up before his shattered knee gives out. When he falls down, he stays down.
Sensing movement behind me, I spin around to the Praetorian that grabbed me when the fight first started. I recenter my weight, remaining light on the balls of my feet. He throws a punch that never connects.
Because Reed blocks it. “It’s over, Chance.”
Chance growls at me around Reed’s formidable stature. I meet his eyes with an unaffected, bored stare, goading him into fight two of the night. Fight one was the best time I’ve had in months. My blood is still whooshing in my ears, adrenaline is at a peak, and the electric current of something much more dangerous yet thrilling surges in my veins.
My death gleams in Chance’s eyes. Praetorian cohorts operate as fiercely loyal units, and I kicked his friend’s ass and embarrassed him in the worst way. Allegiance to his cohort demands he answer that with retribution.
He’s welcome to try.
I crack my neck, ready to fight the whole of Alpha cohort in one night.
Reed gives Chance his back and faces me. “Walk away. Go home.”
Home. I inwardly flinch at the word, though he could mean the barracks as much as Grandfather’s apartments.
“Kenna, let’s leave.” Selene touches my elbow. Zayne appears at my other side. I guess the Alpha cohort assholes restraining them finally let them go.
As much as I want to fight the entire world, I let them pull me toward the exit. Standing in the bar among the Gamma cohort team, Grandfather’s old team, and hearing the word home on Commencement Eve opens up a devastating dam of grief that threatens to drown me. I should be going home. I should be spending the night at Grandfather’s apartments, dressing for Commencement in the morning with his help, and being escorted to the ceremonial hall by him. But he won’t be at the apartments, and he won’t be at Commencement. Selene will be among a legion of family. Zayne’s labourii parents will be in town from the Southern Isles to see their son become the first in their family to declare Praetorian.
Nobody will be at Commencement for me.
Selene emits a shrill whistle once we’re outside the bar. “I know the Legatus Commander taught you some killer moves, but damn. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody move like that. Not even him, the times he conducted our training sessions. You were quicker than Praetorian-quick.”
I grimace as she, Zayne, and I crowd onto a steel bench curbside to wait for the public craft Zayne hails on his Comm Unit. I didn’t mean to show off like that. Because while biochips give Praetorians extraordinary abilities, something detested by the Republic confers my abilities. With my high completely worn off, the full weight of what I did crashes into me. I didn’t get tangled up in some dumb squabble with a fellow cadet. I fought a Praetorian. And I put a good extent of my skill level on display. The Praetorians and everybody else in the bar are going to be talking about how fast and with how much prowess they saw Verne Amari’s granddaughter move. Grandfather would be incensed. Igniting that kind of talk is the opposite of everything he taught me.
In places like Mareen that suffer no love for the Pantheon, people like you survive by laying low in plain sight.
It’s the second time tonight his voice rings in my head. This time, it’s laced with censure. I’d been fully responsible for myself for all of three months, and I was already massively screwing up. I catch my shoulders slumping inward in shame and straighten them. Grandfather’s ghost doesn’t get to lecture me or make me feel further like shit.
I study the scarlet spots staining my hands, navy cadet jacket, and white pants. I’m positive all of the blood is Radson’s. I still inspect my knuckles for cuts because I really was an idiot tonight. Magic signatures are left behind in the blood, that nagging echo of Grandfather’s voice scowls at me.
A sleek, silver bullet train zooms by on the skyrail that runs from the inner sector of Krashen City out to the capital’s commuter quadrants. I let its soft susurration drown out the rest of how Grandfather would berate me. The sky sprawling above the train is cluttered with clouds that are a fitting oppressive gray. Peeking between them are bright constellations that add splashes of color yet do nothing to make me feel less bleak. The constellation that shines directly above me—Krashna’s Sword, comprised of ten indigo-blue stars—finishes Grandfather’s lecture that I don’t want to hear. Krashen City is named after the ancient god of war that the Republic once patronized then eventuallydenounced. When it did, Mareen also culled all citizens bearing any blessings from the gods.
All such citizens they knew about.
Our public craft sidles up to the curb. Zayne and Selene stand. I lumber to my feet a moment later. A door made of one-way glass slides up as we approach the craft. I duck inside and slide all the way over to the opposite end of the plush burgundy seat so Selene can climb in next and Zayne after her.
“Your destination is Krashen Military Base—Cadet Barracks. Precise time in transit is five minutes,” a robotic female voice informs us as the craft zooms away from the curb. It angles upward into the drab sky and carries us toward the skytowers in the distance. Erected from precious obsidian and refined glass, the base’s skytowers are monuments to Mareen’s military strength. They stand sentinel over the Republic’s great capital city. They were originally raised in tribute to Krashna and are a stark contrast to the monochromatic, single-story, silver flats of the inner sector that were built centuries after the Tribunal Council renounced the god.
I eye one particular tower that twists into the air in a helix shape.
“Adjust destination to the Tribune General residences on base,” I direct the craft.
“New precise time in transport is seven minutes,” it responds back.
“We’re staying at the apartments tonight?” Zayne’s slim eyebrows shoot up in surprise. I haven’t set foot inside Grandfather’s apartments since his death.
“We’re not. I am,” I say as plainly as possible. “Thank you both for being so supportive, but go be with your family,” I tell Selene, “and go enjoy your waitress,” I tell Zayne. “I promise this isn’t about me trying to drink myself into a stupor,” I add before either can protest. In a rare moment in which I allow myself to be vulnerable, I openly share my misery with my friends. “Spending tonight by myself is the last thing I want to do. But as hard as today is, Commencement tomorrow is going to be harder when the option of passing nights in the barracks with you guys is torn from me. I think I might fare better if I go ahead and rip the bandage off before I’m more of a mess.”
“I understand.” Selene’s voice is soft. She scoots closer to me and hooks her arm through mine. “Are you sure about us not staying though?”
“Because we can,” Zayne says. “But if what you want is to be alone, we will respect it. We’re here for you and whatever you need to cope better.”
Selene frowns at him, but then nods.
“I’m sure.” I’m not sure at all. However, I insist to them that I am. They’ll be moving into the Praetorian Compound tomorrow without me and embarking on a new life. I need to get used to doing things without them. And they need to get used to not having to babysit me.
I walk off the elevator and down the hall with confident steps, but once I arrive at the entry to Grandfather’s apartments, my hand shakes as I raise it to the biolock, where a beep confirms I’ve passed the first security check. I almost snap my eyes shut so I can’t pass the second. I force myself to stare into the electric white laser so it can scan my retinas. The second beep sounds. The palladium doors slide apart to reveal a too-quiet interior, and all the oxygen vanishes from the hall because I’m back to being ridiculous.
I stand in the hall of the skytower that contains the Tribune General residences frozen in place. You can do this, Ikenna. It’s your living space now. Walk inside. The pep talk fails to get me moving.
I startle at the fall of footsteps on my side of the door. I turn in the direction of the elevator. A man with astute green eyes, matte brown hair shorn into a brush cut, and skin the same olive hue as Zayne’s stalks toward me. The elevator slides noiselessly closed behind him. Like the entry door, it requires submitting to a double set of bioscans. Aside from me and Grandfather, Rudyard Brock is the only other person with clearance for the three private floors that Grandfather’s residence spans. I face Brock with a scowl, making a note to revoke his unrestricted access.
“What are you doing here?” I’m too irritated at his presence to address him with a deference befitting his Tribune General rank.
Instead of answering me, he nods toward the open doorway. “Let’s go inside.”
“Why?” I say, automatically defensive. Brock was to my grandfather what Selene and Zayne are to me. He is also the Tribunal Council’s Spymaster, with eyes and ears everywhere. I bet he’s already heard of my bar fight and tracked me here to upbraid me.
“It is Commencement Eve. I thought we’d honor the tradition of spending the night with family. And we also need to have a chat.” He says the last part neutral enough. But his mouth tightens at the corners and his eyes widen a fraction. That expression is the look Brock gets when he’s disappointed about something. Well, he can take his current disappointment and shove it up his ass.
I want to be childish and demand that he leave. These are my apartments now, after all, and I don’t have to tolerate anyone inside them who isn’t welcome. But Brock deserves more respect than that, even if his insistence on trying to play a surrogate parent is too much.
I sigh and wave Brock inside. I enter behind him, trying very much not to trail him like a sullen child about to be scolded. Regardless of the respect I owe him, I am kicking him out if he goes too far.
As soon as I enter the great room, my eyes snap to the three wooden crescent moons that hang on the wall above the palladium door. Grandfather nailed them there. He never shunned the Khanaian arm of his heritage and embraced many of its customs instead. Hanging crescent moons on Khanaian lintels supposedly grants protection when leaving and returning home. Those moons afforded no such thing to Grandfather. He died in his bedroom, under their watch. Instead, they probably damned him.
I make a mental note to take them down. Clearly, they’re useless.
Brock points to the sofa upholstered in gold Mareenian silk. It’s an antique with silver, claw-footed legs, and Grandfather, a man who enjoyed the luxuries he worked his ass off for, paid a fortune for it. “Have a seat, Kenna,” Brock says.
Only four people on the whole planet of Iludu call me Kenna—well, three now. Selene, Zayne, Grandfather, and Brock. Grandfather raised me from birth, and Brock was there as his wingman for most of it. Since Grandfather’s death, I’ve pretty much pushed all of his efforts to be supportive away. And his using that name grates on me.
I cross my arms and lean against the wall. “I don’t need a stand-in for Grandfather.” It’s something I’ve had to remind him of often in the last few months. And, okay, maybe I’ve been being petulant and immature, but Brock thinks he can tell me how to grieve, and that is not a thing he gets to do.
“Are you sure? Someone has to look after you in Verne’s absence, since you insist on landing yourself into all the trouble you can find.” His voice is terse, but he makes a good effort to keep most of the ire from it, which is why I don’t kick him out—yet. “A Praetorian, Kenna. For the Republic’s Sake, you got into a bar fight with a Praetorian?Oren Radson could have killed you.”
No, the fucker actually couldn’t have killed me, but Brock doesn’t need to know that. Grandfather kept his confidence about many things, but the Pantheon-blessed gifts I harbor wasn’t one of them. The aberration might have been too much for even his brother-in-arms to abide.
I motion down the length of myself. “I survived the fight intact.”
A long-suffering stare is his answer to that. “You’ve spent the last three months trying your level best to demolish all you’ve accomplished at the academy over eleven years of training. Are you proud of that? Because Verne wouldn’t be. You’ve worked so hard to have the top marks to be able to declare Praetorian tomorrow, and your stunt tonight could’ve fucked it up.”
Okay, now he’s getting dangerously close to being shown the door. “It no longer matters if I make Grandfather proud, does it? He isn’t here. Just like you weren’t there, tonight. I was defending myself in the bar. That asshole came for me first.” Yet, as hard as I try—all the indignation I feel—I can’t shake all of the nagging shame his words produce. I also can’t shake how his reference to Grandfather makes my throat constrict and ignites an acute pain in my chest. He’s right. Grandfather would be embarrassed by my behavior. Grandfather trained me better. Grandfather raised me better. I should be better. Stronger. And yet, I’m not, and I have no idea how to be.
And here’s Brock, a living reminder of all that.
“I understand your challenges, Kenna,” he says. “But you must be smarter. Stunts like tonight place a target on your back. Don’t give your enemies more ammunition.”
I almost laugh at the speech coming from him; he has the Republic’s sacred trinity of legacy, lineage, and pale skin. What does he know about targets on backs? “I don’t need you to tell me the tight line I’m walking with Grandfather gone or the added scrutiny I’m under. I’ve lived with people hating me for who I am my whole life.” It’s a hatred that’s bullshit. But Mareen’s bigotry is so ingrained, especially among the upper strata of society, there’s nothing I can do except deal. Or leave, which I refuse to do, because the Republic is my home. I have a right to exist here and make a life here just like everyone else.
“Without Grandfather around, things will get worse regardless,” I continue. “I’ll have a target on my back regardless. It’ll magnify if I declare Praetorian, which is why I’m not.” There. I said it. The real reason why I’m not going out for the rank Grandfather and I always planned for me to achieve. Because I don’t know if I can handle it. Because I don’t know if I’m competent and capable to take care of myself without him. It was easy to be confident about everything with him around.
Without him, it’s brutal—and terrifying.
Brock stares at me like I stabbed him. “What do you mean you aren’t declaring?”
I meet his incredulous stare that says I’ve lost my mind and hold firm to my decision. “I’m taking a year off, as I’m sure you know my exit eval suggests.” Of course he knows. He hasn’t been able to help himself when it comes to keeping tabs on me.
Yet this news seems like it’s genuinely surprising to him. “Like fuck you are. You’re declaring Praetorian like Verne wanted,” he says with steel. “And even if he didn’t want it, I wouldn’t let you shit away your life with that misguided decision. You’re too good for anything else.” His tone blasts the absolute authority of a Tribune General that leaves no room to do anything other than fall in.
Except I’ve already carved out that room in my heart—I’m done with being ordered around. I bristle. “You don’t get a say. It’s my life. I’m not looking for your approval or input.”
“Deference, Kenna,” he says low. “I’ve had enough of you ignoring decorum.” His warning to proceed with caution holds a lethal edge, reminding me that he might have had a hand in raising me, and he might be like family, but he’s still one of the mightiest men in the Republic whom most people wouldn’t survive fucking with on a good day. I have to give it to him though. His restraint is impeccable. If he were Grandfather, my ass would’ve already been handed to me for the gross disrespect. It’s what makes the Republic what it is: adherence to these strict social rules that I want to pitch into the void yet are thrust upon us from our youth. If anything truly made me Mareenian, it’s this idea of snapping to when I hear the word “deference.”
It’s only an idea, though, especially in this moment. So I widen my stance and cross my arms. Yeah, it’s stupid, but I’m still feeling particularly reckless tonight and I can’t help myself.
A muscle in his jaw ticks. If I were anybody else, I probably wouldn’t inhale my next breath. But this is Brock—he’s here because he genuinely thinks he knows what’s best for me, and believes he’s looking out for me. It would be sweet if it wasn’t the total opposite of what I wanted right now.
Quietly, he says, “If you don’t become a Praetorian, it won’t stop people in Mareen from confronting you. You’re lost without Verne. He was your dagger and shield. Hell, he was the whole Republic’s dagger and shield—mine, too, so many times. So I get that. There are days I feel adrift without him. But throwing away Praetorian rank is not the answer. It won’t do what you think it will. It’ll only increase your vulnerability to attacks, not lessen them. If you’re a Praetorian, you’ll have a lot more protection. Both internally from your cohort and politically. Only a Praetorian can challenge or kill another Praetorian—both traditionally and because of skill—and the law states there always has to be a verifiable and valid reason. So once you hold the rank, your pool of enemies that can actually strike out and harm you in any significant way shrinks.”
I snort. I can’t help it. “I kicked the guy at the bar’s ass. Obviously, I can handle myself without the rank. I don’t need its supposed protections.”
He looks me over head to toe with intense scrutiny. His mouth settles into a thin, disbelieving line. “Did anyone intervene?”
I want to scoff and laugh that I didn’t need a damn person to intervene. I would’ve been good even if all of Alpha cohort decided to fight me. Or if Radson had wanted to use his knives. But that’s not a wise thing to confess. So, I swallow my pride and give him a person. “A guy named Reed. He’s in Gamma. He stopped the fight before it got out of hand. I think because of Grandfather. He spoke of him like he knew him personally.”
Brock’s stare sharpens. “Darius Reed approached you and spoke to you?”
“Yes,” I say, confused as to why he’s locked onto the fact with such interest. “Why is that important?”
“No reason,” he says coolly. Too coolly. My curiosity about the Gamma guy immediately heightens. It already sticks out as strange that he did insert himself in the middle of my altercation. I might be a fellow cohort member’s kin, but I’m not Praetorian myself, and Praetorians don’t involve themselves in non-Praetorian business. It’s one of their codes of decorum.
“What’s up with Reed?” I press.
“If he places himself in your path again, you need to be careful.”
“You say that like he’s a threat. But he took my side at the bar.”
Brock’s expression goes completely flat. “Maybe.”
I push off the wall. Brock is insufferable. “Stop being cagey. If you think he’s a threat, I want to know why.”
Instead of coming clean, he walks over to the marble wet bar—no respectable Mareenian dwelling lacks one—against the far-right wall and pours himself one of Grandfather’s aged whiskies from a crystal decanter. I think how I can use another drink, but Brock will not be amused if I ask him to pour me one.
He takes a sip of the liquor, then places the glass on the bar. He motions to the sofa again. “You’re right. You are owed an explanation. Sit down and I’ll give it to you.”
I comply with his request this time—at least it will get him talking—and plop onto the sofa.
He looks at me hard. “Whatever we discuss does not leave this room. It stays strictly between you and me. Do you understand? Rhysien’s girl and the Southern Isles boy do not hear of this.”
“Got it.” My mind races with what he might say if he’s explicitly made Selene and Zayne off-limits. I can’t fathom what it could possibly be.
He joins me on the couch. Showing a vulnerability I’ve never seen him display before, he scrubs a hand down the front of his face. He instantly looks a decade older than his sixty-four years. Whatever is going on with the guy from Grandfather’s old squad, it’s heavy.
“I don’t believe your grandfather died of a failed biochip like the official Tribunal autopsy states.”
“What?”
“I’m almost sure he was assassinated.”
His words reach my ears distorted. Warped. I couldn’t have heard him right. ...
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