Chapter Eleven
"What is this?" The camp lord spoke, directing his disgusted look to Naya, but his question to Cassian as though noticing her was fine, but speaking to her would be beneath him.
He was tall, nearly as tall as Azriel, taller than Cassian. His thick blonde hair was lightened by the specks of snow that had rested in the strands on their walk over. A thick scar etched down his neck from his jaw, disappearing under his fighting leathers to stretch who knows how far.
His three commanders stood behind him, a protective stance that semi-circled around his person, hands resting on the hilts of their swords. Only one wore a siphon in the center of his chest. The faint red glow cast light like a dying fire over the black of his leathers.
Cassian wasn't the light-hearted, joking male she had met back in the House of Wind anymore. Here, his expression was hard, unmoving, as he lazily shrugged his shoulders and pointed for them to have a seat.
They hesitated only a moment, long enough to establish their own defiance and unwillingness, before they all settled in on a single couch. Cassian didn't take a seat of his own, using the leverage to peer down on them as if they were children readying to be scolded as he made his way to stand, instead, right in front of them.
His lashes cast shadows over his sharp cheekbones, giving a menacing look to his darkened eyes as he held the leader's stare.
"Why are there no females in the ring?" he asked it simply, no anger in his tone. Just pure authority.
The camp lord snorted rudely and again threw his gaze to Naya. She half expected him to spit on the decorative rug. "I do not discuss camp business in front of females."
She didn't know where the burst of courage came from. Perhaps, the heated glares of the four Illyrians set a fire in her own belly, but the fear evaporated in the scorch of their hatred and she did her best to imitate the strongest female she knew.
Allowing Mor's personality to possess her, Naya kicked off her boots casually and strode to the opposite couch. Reaching up to give Cassian's bicep a squeeze as if her touch alone could tell him she would handle it, she sat cross-legged on the large cushion.
"I'll let you know if I can't keep up." She smiled devilishly as she faced them off. Her voice didn't sound like her own. It rang clear with a confidence she'd never had.
Cassian, bless him, didn't immediately call her out on her show of bravado. He didn't so much as falter from his original stance.
The commanders all seemed to size her up now, wondering, surely, how someone like her had wheedled her way into the most powerful group of, perhaps, all of Prythian. She could see the question dancing behind their eyes. What power could this female possess to win her that spot?
She hoped they never found out the truth. That she was nothing and no one, a fallen Illyrian who had come into their companionship by pure luck alone.
She didn't turn to watch Azriel as he slowly moved up, didn't want to see what he made of her pretense. She would lose her nerve. None of the others, aside from Cassian, noticed his closer position, and she knew he was doing what he was made for, standing back and absorbing what information he could get.
"Continue." Cassian ordered.
He was the front run man, the leader of the wars, the commander above all others. Though the camp lord may not respect him, Naya could see he feared him.
The words fell like spoiled meat, unwanted and disgusting. "They do not wish to train."
"They do not wish to train?" Cassian repeated harshly.
The camp lord braced his hands on his knees and spit. "No."
"Not one of them?"
A commander, a strongly built Illyrian with hair to match his lord's, snarled. "They know their place."
Anger flared inside of her this time. She had heard those words her entire life.
Know your place, it had been thrown in her face since she was little and had dreamed of more, beaten into her once she grew and tried to claim her right to fight. Fingers had been broken to drill the meaning into her head, skin sliced, flesh blistered.
"And I wonder," she growled right back. "who taught them that place."
Before he was fully off the couch to launch his assault, Azriel's hand was around his throat, lifting him to dangle inches from the floor. His shadows wrapped around them, blurring the scene of boiling tempers radiating off of both, two Illyrians meeting in a battle of rage.
"I wouldn't." Azriel said flatly, lifting the massive male higher as if he weighed no more than a sack of flour and tossing him back.
The male landed hard, knocking over one of the white vases to crash to the floor where he now sprawled. Glass littered the ground.
His dagger was in his hand before he stood, held parallel to his chest, heaving breaths lifting his shoulders in fury.
"No." the camp lord said calmer than Naya anticipated, eating up the scene with hungry eyes that seemed to hold a new understanding.
She had flinched. When the commander had sprung from the couch, she had launched herself back into the cushions, arms coming up to defend her face. She knew he had seen it, knew it splintered the image she had tried to build.
She did her best to repair what she could with a level gaze, not daring to glance away when he raised a taunting brow.
"Enough of this." Cassian demanded, and all attention snapped to him. "My orders will not go unheard another time."
The camp lord raised to his full height, the commanders following suit in unison. Even with four against one, Naya's bet would favor Cassian if another fight broke out. He stood unaffected against the tide of their anger, his hands never seeming to itch for his weapons as theirs did. She doubted he would even need them, seven siphons to his person and enough skill to lead an army.
They knew it too. It blazed in their want for defiance, in their fear to truly seek it out.
"This is your last chance." He warned. "I'll take your updates in the morning before we leave. Be wise in what you choose to decide."
It was a dismissal, an early one at that if she was to take their surprise as confirmation. They waited for their leader to act, and when he, after taking long enough to slowly size Cassian up from toe to head, made his way from the tent, they followed.
"I'm so sorry." Naya was quick to apologize, feeling a flood of foolishness crash over her in their departure.
The change in Cassian was immediate. He unbound the cord that held his hair back. The strands fell over his temples and brushed against his shoulders. He ran a hand through the length and chuckled.
"You were…" he searched for the word, and she dreaded what he would come up with. "Entertaining."
"I was prideful." She disagreed. "I didn't mean to get in your way. I just couldn't stand for them to look at me like that anymore."
He shrugged. "We're going to ruffle a lot more feathers than that. You might as well get used to it."
Naya looked up when movement caught her eye. Azriel was standing in front of her, having moved when she didn't notice the way he always seemed to do.
He looked down at her with kind eyes. "Are you alright?"
"Fine." She answered softly. "You were pretty impressive."
Cassian howled with laughter, throwing himself on the cushion beside her and wiggling suggestive brows at Azriel.
"Impressive Azzy." He teased and plucked the throw pillow off his seat to toss at his friend.
Azriel caught it midair.
Naya went scarlet. "Did you say we're leaving in the morning?"
"We'll leave after breakfast." Azriel answered for him, chucking the pillow back with more force than when it'd been thrown. It hit Cassian's chest with a thud.
"But we didn't do anything." She protested. "I thought we were here to speak to the women."
"We'll start in more progressive camps. If you can call any of them that. You two only met me here because it was the last camp I needed to be at." Cassian explained, stuffing the pillow behind his head and leaning back with a groan.
"Hey, Az," he called. "Mind getting me a whiskey? You're just so impressive at it."
Azriel started forward in threat, but it was Naya who yanked the pillow from behind Cassian and reeled back to hit him over the head with it.
He caught her wrist on its downward swing and smiled at her with wicked delight. "You've gotten bolder since the last time I saw you."
She uselessly attempted to pull free of his grasp so she could complete her attack. "And you've gotten more annoying."
Azriel plucked the fluffy weapon from her fighting grip, and chuckled. "You just haven't gotten used to him yet. I'd argue he's always been this annoying."
"Har. Har." Cassian mocked, pointing to the broken vase still scattered on the floor as if to say Azriel clearly caused more annoyance. "Want to clean up the mess you made, brother?"
Naya took the opportunity to dislodge herself from between the couch arm and Cassian's splayed body. "I'll get it."
Before she could reach it, however, a blue smoke had beaten her to it, curling around the shards and lifting them into the air. It carried them to the trash can beside the sink, and discarded of them smoothly.
"I didn't know you could do that with your powers." Naya breathed in awe.
Azriel gave a casual shrug.
"Oh, yeah." Cassian smiled eagerly. "He can do so much with his powers. It's…."
Before he could say "impressive" Azriel buried a fist into his gut.
Cassian doubled over in a comical mix of laughter and pain.
"Got it." he groaned out, and clapped Azriel hard on the shoulder. "Time to stop."
OOO
They were setting up tents everywhere in the open field, all of equal size and quality. Several fairies were constructing a fence around the border, made of tall, wooden logs with razor wire winding in dangerous circles around the top.
"There's a stream nearby for a water source." Azriel explained, pointing towards the back gate. Naya trusted that if she were to walk through, it wouldn't take long to find the babbling water. "And the woods offer plenty of game to hunt."
"I'm not sure many females know how to hunt. It was a male's job."
The bustling scene around her was a lot to take in. She'd had nearly no sleep, restless in the night both from the adrenaline that had never quite left her blood after the camp lord and his commanders had left, and from knowing, that just beyond her curtain slept two Illyrian males in close proximity.
They had flown here. Cassian could not winnow. Not that she was complaining. She would never find it in her to complain about flying, no matter how long it took. In truth, to her, the more time in the air, the better.
"We'll have them taught." Cassian said simply.
There were at least twenty fairies and fae working in the quickly becoming full-blown camp that would be ready to house the females who decided to break apart from tradition.
A ring had been built, much like her own, much like the one they'd just left behind. A few buildings had been erected as well. She watched as a fairy with lemon-yellow skin deposited a sack of grains inside. The cart behind him was full of them, along with potatoes, cheese, flour and other rations buried in burlap sacks and stacked to the top.
"To get them started." Azriel followed her eyes, and answered without her having to ask. "Until they're taught."
"But taught by who?" she shook her head. "They'll come for the females if they know where they are. We can't offer them safety if your soldiers are the ones who want to drag them back or kill them."
"There are Illyrians we can trust to teach them our fighting ways, close confidants who will be the only ones who know this location and believe in the cause as we do."
She waved pointedly to the workers and raised a skeptical brow.
"They'll be wiped." Cassian tapped his temple. "Their memory. It was a condition in the contract they signed to work."
"And they're okay with that?"
"It's money in their pockets, and none of them know what they're really building. To them, it's just another camp."
She allowed herself to really take it in, what all of this meant. She had longed for something like this since she'd been old enough to long for anything. It was a chance, a start of a new world, and even if she didn't fit in it the way she had thought she would, she couldn't help but be struck by the magnitude of it all.
Females training, learning and growing to be more than what fathers and brothers wanted them to be. Barbaric tradition could crumble where it truly belonged, in flames to never rise again.
Her heart raced madly. Females as soldiers, donning leather and swords and siphons, fighting alongside the males who had successfully squashed them into mere replicas of Illyrians and proving their worth to fight a war, to wield a weapon as any male did.
She looked over the banks of snow, imagining females carrying blades instead of laundry, sporting bruises from training rather than from abuse. They stood tall and proud in her mind and for the first time, she felt real excitement and hope.
"Now we just have to convince them."
Her conviction must have caught their attention because both her companions looked down at her with equal vigor.
"We just have to get them here."