The
Northern Mountains – That Night
Lucille
leads. She sits tall in the saddle, reins loose in her hands,
the horse’s breath steaming faintly in the cooling air. Cain rides
at her right, close enough that their knees nearly brush when the
trail narrows. Behind them, Marcus, Tiber, Decimus, and Arruns fall
into a staggered line, silhouettes rising and falling with the rhythm
of hooves.
Rucksacks sway from the
backs of the saddles, canvas whispering with every step.
By the time they leave the
Academy’s outer perimeter, the sun is gone. The last red smear of
daylight bleeds out behind the hills, replaced by a hard, starless
sky. The chill settles in fast, summer giving way to night without
warning, cold fingers slipping beneath armor plates and down spines.
The rear of the formation
murmurs with low conversation. Short bursts of laughter.
Half-whispered boasts. Tension bleeding off in nervous ways.
Lucille and Cain remain
quiet.
Cain has the dossier open
in his lap, one hand steadying it while the other clicks on a small
flashlight. Red light spills across the pages, dim and disciplined,
painting the paper in blood-colored shadows. He studies the map with
a soldier’s focus, eyes tracing lines, measuring distance by
instinct.
Lucille leans just enough
to glimpse it.
The coordinates are broad,
an insult masquerading as guidance. A cluster of grid squares boxed
together, terrain marked in careful detail: elevation changes,
ravines, tree lines, broken stone, old structures. Somewhere inside
that space is their VIP. Somewhere inside it, enemies are waiting.
Nothing about it is
precise.
Nothing about it is kind.
Cain taps the edge of the
map with a gloved finger, thoughtful. “They don’t want this to be
quick,” he murmurs, more to himself than to her.
Lucille hums softly in
agreement, eyes lifting from the page back to the trail ahead. The
land rolls dark and uneven before them, the path narrowing as it
climbs. Trees crowd closer. Shadows thicken.
Hours
grind past beneath the slow, punishing rhythm of hooves.
It is late, deep into the
night, when the team finally calls a halt.
They find shelter at the
foot of a smaller mountain, where a tall, jagged ridge rises like a
broken wall, cutting the wind and casting a long shadow over a narrow
clearing. The air here is still, heavy with the scent of stone and
pine. The horses snort softly as they’re tied off to a thick,
gnarled tree nearby, their hides dark with sweat, breath fogging
faintly in the cold.
Rucksacks are unlashed and
dropped to the ground with dull thuds. The team gathers in the center
of the clearing, boots crunching softly over dirt and loose gravel.
Cain speaks first, quiet
but firm.
“We rotate watch,” he
says. “Everyone sleeps. No exceptions.”
No one argues that.
The problem is who goes
first.
“I will,” Lucille says
immediately.
Decimus turns on her,
scowling. “Absolutely not. You took a halberd to the side today.
You’re not pulling first watch.”
“I’m fine,” she
replies.
“That’s not the point,”
Decimus snaps.
Before the debate can turn
into something louder, Arruns kneels and opens his rucksack. He
rummages once. Twice.
Then he freezes.
“You’ve got to be
fucking kidding me,” he growls.
That does it.
The others drop to their
knees and start tearing into their own packs.
The inventory comes
together fast and ugly.
No MREs in Arruns’ pack.
None in Tiber’s either.
Marcus finds one. Cain
finds one. Decimus finds one.
Lucille has two.
Silence settles heavy over
the clearing, broken only by the soft rustle of fabric and the
distant night sounds of insects and wind through stone.
“They didn’t forget,”
Decimus mutters, jaw tight. “This is deliberate.”
They tally the rest just as
grimly. One fire starter. Three flashlights. Ammunition enough to be
dangerous but not generous. No comfort items. No margin for error.
“They set us up to
bleed,” Decimus adds bitterly.
Lucille doesn’t say a
word.
She reaches into her
rucksack, pulls out both MREs, and hands them to Tiber and Arruns
without hesitation.
Tiber blinks at her. “What
about you?”
Arruns frowns. “You can’t
just—”
“I’ll be fine,”
Lucille says with a shrug, already closing her pack. “I’ve gone
longer.”
Cain opens his mouth to
argue.
She doesn’t let him.
“I’ll grab firewood,”
she says, turning away. “We need it anyway.”
Before anyone can stop her,
she steps into the brush, swallowed quickly by shrubs, shadow, and
the dark slope of the mountain.
“Lucille—” Marcus
calls.
She doesn’t answer.
He swears under his breath
and jogs after her, catching up just before the night fully takes
her, his broad frame slipping into the darkness at her side.
The
clearing feels colder once Lucille and Marcus disappear into the
brush.
For a moment, no one
speaks.
Arruns shifts his weight,
arms crossed, breath fogging faintly. “Is she always like that?”
he asks quietly. “Just… goes. Like resting is optional.”
Cain exhales through his
nose, slow and tired. “Yeah. She doesn’t know how to stop.”
There’s no judgment in his voice. Just fact.
Tiber, glances toward the
dark where Lucille vanished, then down at the half-empty packs. “I’ll
see what I can scrounge up,” he says. “Dry sticks. Kindling.
Maybe we can have a fire going by the time they get back.”
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He moves off a few steps,
already scanning the ground.
Arruns squats near the
rucksacks, frowning. “Tomorrow morning, we should forage as we
move. Roots. Berries. Anything. We can’t hit contact half-starved.”
Cain nods. “Agreed.”
Tiber pauses,
straightening, his expression sour. “Still doesn’t sit right,”
he mutters. “This isn’t how armies operate. You don’t send
soldiers out on fumes. Not unless you want them dead.”
Cain looks at the packs
again. The missing weight. The deliberate absence. “They’re not
training an army,” he says quietly. “They’re breaking people.
Seeing who snaps. Who turns on their team. Who can’t adapt.”
He lifts his gaze to the
others, eyes hard in the low light.
“Phase One showed us
they’ll let us die,” Cain continues. “Phase Two is about seeing
who survives when the structure is gone.”
The night presses closer
around them, the mountain looming silent and indifferent, as the
truth settles in.
Lucille and Marcus –
Continuous
Marcus catches up to her
easily, long strides eating the ground between the trees.
“Man, you’re fast,”
he remarks, glancing down at her with a crooked grin. “Didn’t
think you’d vanish that quick.”
Lucille only shrugs. She
crouches, fingers sweeping up fallen sticks, snapping a few to size
before adding them to the bundle in her arm. She moves on without
comment, eyes already searching the shadowed ground ahead.
Marcus trails her, stooping
now and then to collect his own handful. He talks, nothing important,
just noise meant to fill the dark, but Lucille doesn’t answer. She
watches him from the corner of her eye, guarded, silent.
When the bundle in her arms
grows unwieldy, Marcus steps closer. “Here,” he says, already
reaching.
Before she can protest, he
takes the sticks from her, tucking them against his side. He flashes
her an easy smile. “You shouldn’t be straining yourself. Not with
that side.”
“I’m fine,” Lucille
replies flatly.
Marcus laughs under his
breath. “Sure. And I’m blind.”
She stops walking. Turns to
face him. “Why do you care?”
The question is sharp,
defensive.
Marcus doesn’t hesitate.
“Because we’re a team.” His tone is simple, matter-of-fact.
“That means everyone stays in fighting shape. We watch each other’s
backs. We don’t let pride get someone killed.”
He shifts the sticks in his
arms. “It’s what Dravon said. What Vale’s been drilling into us
since day one.”
Lucille studies him in the
dim light, searching for mockery, for ulterior motive.
There is none. Only
resolve.
They push deeper between
the trees, the ground uneven beneath their boots. Then Lucille stops
short.
Ahead of them,
half-swallowed by shrubs, lies an old tree fallen on its side, dead,
hollowed, its bark split and soft with rot. Lucille’s attention
locks onto it immediately. She kneels without a word, drawing her
knife and beginning to carve.
Marcus watches, puzzled.
After a second, he digs into his pocket, pulls out a flashlight, and
clicks it on. The beam cuts through the dark and lands where she’s
working.
White-rimmed,
orange-fleshed blooms cling to the dead bark in thick clusters.
He whistles, low. “Damn.
You saw that in the dark?”
Lucille blinks, pausing
mid-cut as if the question surprises her. She slides several broad
crowns into her rucksack. Only then does she seem to realize, she
hadn’t been using a light at all.
“I can see,” she says
simply.
She keeps carving,
methodical, precise, harvesting the rest of the mushrooms cleanly.
Chicken of the forest. Good eating. A gift, if you know how to look.
Marcus grins to himself and
bends to gather a few more sticks while she works.
When she’s finished,
Lucille rises and approaches him. She pulls a length of rope from her
kit and holds it out. “Hold still.”
Marcus chuckles. “Careful.
We don’t know each other well enough for that.”
The joke falls flat.
Lucille only raises a brow,
clearly missing, or ignoring, the humor entirely. She loops the rope
around the bundle of sticks, fingers moving with practiced ease. A
looping knot, tight but adjustable. Efficient.
As she ties it off, Marcus
clears his throat. There’s a flicker of nerves beneath his usual
confidence, but he presses on.
“So,” he says casually.
“You and Cain. You… together? Or just friends?”
Lucille stills for a
fraction of a second. A faint blush touches her cheeks. She shakes
her head.
“Just friends,” she
says. “Always have been.”
Marcus hums at that,
thoughtful.
She finishes the knot and
hands the bundle back. Marcus slings it over his shoulder with ease.
Lucille turns away and starts walking again, already scanning the
dark for what comes next.
They wander longer than
intended, the forest thinning and thickening in uneven patches.
Sticks are all they find beyond the mushrooms Lucille has already
harvested, enough, she judges, to feed everyone for a night. Maybe
enough to spare the MREs for a worse day. A quieter mercy.
Marcus keeps trying to talk
as they walk. At first it’s one-sided. Then, gradually, Lucille
begins to answer, short replies, clipped, but real. She responds when
he says her name. When he asks her something directly.
It feels like progress.
Eventually Lucille slows,
then turns. “That’s enough,” she says. “We won’t get
luckier tonight.”
Marcus nods. “Yeah.
Camp’s not far.”
They start back.
Lucille stops without
warning.
Marcus bumps lightly into
her back and mutters an apology, but it dies when he sees her
posture. Her head is tilted, her gaze locked into the trees to their
left.
He stills. Listens.
Nothing. No snap of twigs.
No breath. No movement he can hear.
He leans closer, voice
barely a whisper. “You okay?”
“Maybe,” Lucille
murmurs. “Thought I heard a deer. Far off.”
Marcus raises a brow but
doesn’t argue. They move on.
A few dozen paces later,
Lucille slows again, this time gradually. Her gaze lifts.
The scent hits him a
heartbeat later.
Honeycrisp apples hang in
clusters above them, pale shapes against the dark leaves.
Lucille steps toward the
trunk and reaches up, then immediately hisses, gripping her side. The
motion pulls at the stitched wound beneath her armor.
Marcus swears under his
breath. He drops the bundle of sticks and catches her by the
shoulder. “Easy. Don’t.”
“I can—” she starts.
“No,” he says firmly.
“I can reach.”
He stretches, fingers
brushing a low branch, and twists one free. He hands it to her as she
leans back against the tree. Then another. And another.
Six apples in total.
“That’ll do,” he
says. “We can grab more in the morning.”
Lucille nods, cradling the
fruit against her chest. “Yeah,” she agrees softly.
Marcus doesn’t hand her
the last apple.
He pauses instead, watching
her with a look that is no longer casual. “You never answered me,”
he says quietly. “How you knew they were there.”
Lucille blinks up at him,
still pressed lightly to the tree, apples cradled against her chest.
“I—” Her lips part, then close again. She isn’t used to
anyone standing this close. Not like this. Not blocking her space
without meaning to.
Marcus steps in another
half pace. He plants a hand against the bark above her head, leaning
down, his shadow swallowing hers. She feels the heat of him through
the armor, through the night air.
His voice drops, rough but
careful. “You’re impressive,” he says. “When you fight. When
you move. I’ve thought so for a while.” A crooked smile tugs at
his mouth. “And yeah. I think you’re cute.”
Lucille’s thoughts stall.
The words don’t slot into anything familiar. Her pulse spikes,
sharp and fast, the same way it does a heartbeat before violence.
Marcus finally places the
last apple on top of the pile in her arms. His fingers linger. Then,
gently, they slide along her jaw, toward the back of her head.
He leans in.
Lucille reacts before she
understands.
Her fist snaps up and
forward, a clean, brutal motion. Knuckles slam into his throat.
Marcus folds instantly, air
tearing from his lungs. He stumbles back, coughing, one hand braced
on his knee as he fights for breath.
“Sh-shit,” he wheezes,
dragging in air that won’t quite come. He rubs his throat, voice
wrecked. “Okay. Yeah. That— that was too bold.”
Lucille stands frozen, face
burning hot. The apples tremble in her grip.
Marcus chokes out a laugh,
hoarse and broken. “You could’ve just said no,” he rasps.
“Didn’t have to try to kill me.”
That breaks her paralysis.
She gasps, dropping the
apples into the dirt, and lunges forward to grab his shoulder,
turning him slightly so she can see his face. “I’m sorry. I’m—
I didn’t think. You got close and I— I panicked.”
He straightens slowly,
still coughing, then waves her off. “I’m okay.” He clears his
throat carefully. “You’ve got a hell of an arm.”
Lucille doesn’t laugh.
She just nods, mortified, hands hovering uselessly as if she doesn’t
know where to put them.
Marcus finally rests a
steadying hand on her shoulder, light, unmistakably respectful this
time. “No harm done,” he says. “Lesson learned.”
Lucille hesitates, then
reaches up, fingertips brushing the side of Marcus’s neck. “Are
you… really okay?”
Marcus catches her hand
before she can pull it back. Gently. He doesn’t restrain her, just
holds it there, thumb warm against her skin. He grins, that same
stupid, boyish charm flickering back into place like it never left.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll live.”
He chuckles softly, then
adds, “Next time, I’ll actually ask first. Instead of… you
know. Assuming.”
Her blush deepens
instantly. “N–next time?” she stammers. “What do you mean
by—”
He straightens slowly,
releasing her hand as if to give her space. “Kiss you,” he says,
as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Lucille short-circuits.
Her face goes scarlet. She
drops into a crouch so fast it’s almost a dodge roll, scrambling to
gather the fallen apples and very pointedly keeping her face turned
away from him. “W–we’re in a war zone,” she blurts. “We
don’t have time for… for that kind of thing.”
Marcus laughs, low and
warm, and before she can snatch it up he plucks one of the apples
from the dirt. He kneels, holding it out to her between them. His
grin softens, losing its edge. “Fair enough,” he says gently. “We
can always try again. If you’d like.”
Lucille swallows hard. She
takes the apple from his hand without looking at him. “We should
get back,” she says quickly. “Cain’s probably starting to
worry.”
Marcus doesn’t push. He
just nods, easy as ever, and rises to his feet. He gathers the bundle
of sticks and swings it over his shoulder. “Yeah,” he says.
“Let’s go.”
They turn toward camp
together, the night closing around them, quiet, tense, and carrying
more weight than either of them is ready to name.
