*COMPLETE* "People don't believe in us anymore. They don't believe that in the end we will do what is right. We can't let them down. We can't let Ben win."
Decisions made on top of the lonely, wind-swept cliff of Lethinor reverberate around the five...
Pale drifts of fog hang heavy along the road when they head out, shrouding them in a veil of white, obscuring their features. Cloaks hang heavy on shoulders and thick hoods dip low over brows as the horses hooves clink quietly against rock and stone.
They drift down the mountains like specters, shadowed forms melting into the mist and silence. Her team hasn't said anything to her, hasn't asked, but they know who they are looking for. Amidst the calm, Allayria's mind is a buzz of stretching, spindling plans. If she had known, if she had been told that it was the Cabal they were heading for, she would have trained them all in that intervening week much differently. Even in the cold glow of her anger she has doubts: her plans, their forms, they all seem too rote now, too predictable.
They don't know you're alive, they won't expect you.
But this is not enough, it cannot be enough, and her fingers spasm across her reins with the thought of the task that lies ahead of her.
"Your first objective is to obtain the book," Beinsho's parting words seem to echo out at her, over the fog. "Live capture is secondary."
Live capture is secondary.
The council had watched her at this, all of them watched her at the steps of the base, and it was as if there was an eye, a wide, unblinking eye, pressed up along her mask, swiveling from crevice to corner, looking for the cracks. Seeking, always seeking those tender spots, the failures that wound too deeply. But they didn't anticipate her anger, pulsing and holding fast, keeping all the crumpling bits of her in. She answered their inspection with a smile made of ice, baring teeth as she murmured, voice steady:
"Of course."
Anger had been her cloak the night previous when she returned to the mess room, to the wide, piercing stares of her team. Clearly Lei had not told them anything.
"A change of plans," she had said, iron laced in her voice. "A small side mission before our main objective."
The plan was four—her and Lei, and two others. Maybe Tara and Caj, to balance things out. But even the vague beginnings of this suggestion created uproar, with Fae and Hiran actually leaving their seats, hard words flying fast through the air, ringing in protest.
"Speed," she had told them. "Speed and secrecy. Seven people—"
"We're a team," Fae had answered flatly, fury flushed hot on her cheeks. "We work together. All of us."
It was a statement they had rallied to, Allayria remembers, her gaze now sliding over to the petite nose and pale lips dipping out from beneath Fae's blue hood. She was the first one in the stables this morning too, a non-Skiller determined not to be left behind.
They move deeper into the forest—eastward now, on a road that will take them all the way out to the place they must start if Allayria is ever going to find the Cabal.
My fierce friends.
The words taste acidic in her mouth, as if their presence eats up everything it touches, burning and poisonous. They will be unpredictable. They will be brutal.
They will probably try to kill you. It's what Beinsho wanted to say to her when he saw them off. They will probably try to kill you again.
Lei knows that. She can see him hum with it next to her, see it in the way his hands twitch on his own reins, the way he shifts ceaselessly, the orders and plans churning in his brain. Here is the great test to his highest imperative, the first challenge to Beinsho's directive. Allayria's mouth curdles at the thought, the ghost of all the ceaseless shadowing she will have to endure.
They travel deep into the forest when they set up camp for the night. The city dwellers, Fae, Hiran, and even Lei glance around at this: kipping down in the wide, whispering forest, but this place, filled with flitting birds and tall, warm, brown oaks holds no fear for Allayria now. She has been in far worse places, far worse forests.
The others seem to think they will set up camp and then relax, but they are sorely mistaken, and sorely injured once Allayria is through with them. She has them spar against each other, and then takes them on each.
Unlike their previous sessions, she does not fight like a Jarles soldier; she fights like Iaves, the wordless directive of her Beast call wild and fast. She fights like Meg, all nerve and earth-cracking force. She fights like... She fights like Ben, with grace and intuition. She pulls apart all of their stuffy, rigid forms, hits them in places they don't expect, moves in ways they haven't anticipated. She creates as she moves, because that is what they will do; it is what her team must do, if they are to win.
Tara spits out blood when Allayria slams her down into the earth, and she winces with a hand pressed to her cheek. She must have bitten down on the inside of it.
"Why don't we take a break?" Hiran suggests, stepping in quickly and holding out a hand to pull Tara up. "Eat some dinner before you pound us to pulp."
Words, raw and biting, fly to the tip of Allayria's lips but she holds them in, grunting as the others hurriedly begin to prepare the meal. She bends down to rummage through her pack and finds Lei mirroring her actions.
"You can't just beat them down after a full day of riding," he says quietly, and though his tone is smooth and unvaried she can hear the reproach beneath it. "They're exhausted."
"We have to train," she shoots back at him, astounded she has to tell Lei of all people that training and preparation is necessary. "They need to train."
"They have been training—"
"But not for this," Allayria cuts in. "We were training for Jarles soldiers. Not the Cabal."
"More exercises and lessons would be good," he concedes, "but its three people, three against seven—"
"You're not listening," Allayria grits out. "We trained for soldiers, not these people. We trained for rigid, disciplined fighters who rely on set technique and forms. We're hunting people who take advantage of that—people who fight based on intuition and unpredictability."
She shoves her scarf into her bag with unnecessary force.
"If you come at them with your swan forms they're going to tear you apart," she tells him. "And they won't hesitate to do it."
He's quiet after that, and Allayria wonders if maybe he saw too much in that last statement, heard too much of the anxiety.
"You underestimate your team," he murmurs after a moment.
Allayria glances over at them, all huddled around Caj's fire, glumly digging into day-old stew and beans.
"You underestimate our enemies," she replies.
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A/N: The Cabal symbol makes a return in our header art this week as suspicion and paranoia sets in.
Happy belated Valentine's Day, readers! In the spirit of love and emotional exhaustion, we're doing a two-fer this week; also because I need a silver lining in my life. And if, gentle reader, you did not have a most excellent V-day, just remember that at least your boyfriend didn't shoot you off a cliff.
I'll show myself out now.
References: Allayria first thinks "My fierce friends" in the "Removing the Linchpin" chapter of Paragon.
