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Anna
They walked back to the outpost hand in hand.
Anna no longer cared who saw it, or what other people thought of her relationship with Damien. They had fought side by side, her witches and his dragons, and they had all come out alive. It was time they started putting their silly issues aside and acting as allies.
A bigger enemy awaited them all.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for her to realize that the others didn’t see it that way.
“Bowen was right after all, I see.”
Anna turned, mouth dropping open in shock. “Lowry?” she gasped. “You can’t be serious right now.”
The Initiate whom she’d helped save from the frost dragon’s wrath had noticed them approaching the outpost and had come over to confront them. Gone was the look of gratitude on her face, instead replaced by something similar to what Anna had seen on Bowen’s face when she’d confronted her and Damien in the woods.
“Look at you. Holding hands with him, flaunting the fact that you two have likely been intimate.”
Anna’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were still fifteen and back in high school out there,” she snapped. “Where who kisses who is what you judge someone on. Have you really not moved past that? Are you really so immature still?”
Lowry’s face darkened. “Damien, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit harm, and for assaulting a witch of Winterspell.”
“This is a joke, right?” Anna said, dropping her hand from his and gripping her staff tighter. She wasn’t about to let everything just frazzle apart.
Rane and Altair had come over now and were arrayed off to one side, both of them watching Damien. They were waiting for his lead to see what to do, she noted.
“Why do you hate them so much, Jane?” she asked, leaning on her staff. “I didn’t take you as one of Master Loiner’s little cult. I thought you were better than that, capable of thinking for yourself.”
Jane Lowry snorted in disdain. “So did I. Then I got sent out here on some punishment detail. Look where trying to stay apart from politics has gotten me. Do you think I want to be here? Do you think I deserve to be here?”
“Did you ever think that you got sent here because, oh I don’t know, the Coven had faith in you? That they thought you were strong enough and worthy enough of such an assignment? That maybe they sent you because if I screwed up or left, you would be the one best suited to take over in my absence?”
For a moment, Lowry seemed to consider Anna’s words. “If that were the case though, Anna, they would have sent me because they know that I would uphold their rules. Which includes arresting Damien for what he did to Initiate Bowen.”
Anna cursed herself silently. She hadn’t thought that far ahead, but Lowry was right. The Coven would expect her to follow the rules.
“Except the rules have changed,” she said, latching on to her only hope. “The Infected. They were not a part of the plan. None of us expected or believed that they would be able to come through the portal, did we? But they have. Not just one of them, but two. Here, on Earth. That changes things, Jane, and I think you know that as well as I do.”
The other Initiate chewed on her lip. “Maybe,” she admitted. “But not enough. They’re gone now. We can get backup from Winterspell and go after them. We don’t need their help. Which means I have no choice but to arrest him. And you too, if you abandoned your post last night.”
“She didn’t abandon anything,” Damien said, speaking up at last. “I made her come with me. She didn’t have any choice in the matter.”
Lowry’s eyebrows went up slightly. She clearly didn’t believe that story, but without any evidence to prove otherwise, she would be forced to go with Damien’s version of the story.
“Then you are under arrest for two counts of assault on a witch of Winterspell, one count of kidnapping.” Her rod, a two-foot long piece of wood as thick as her wrist came up and began to glow blue. “Please come with me peacefully. I really don’t want to fight you.”
“Wait, Jane, you can’t do this!”
Anna blinked as Maddison Tolle jumped forward, putting herself between Damien and Lowry. This was most unexpected. After Bowen, Tolle had been the most vocal anti-dragon proponent in the little group of witches assigned to the outpost. Why was she now sticking up for Damien?
“What are you doing Initiate Tolle,” Jane said, waving her rod to the side. “Get out of the way.”
Tolle shook her head. “I can’t. You’re making a mistake.”
What the hell...
“How am I making a mistake? Unless you’re going to admit that you did everything?”
“No of course not,” Tolle snapped, irritated at the ridiculous question. “But you’re making a mistake. Just like I made with the dragons when they first arrived.” She exhaled heavily. “And maybe mistakes I made before that.”
Anna remained silent, stunned. What had caused Tolle to have this sort of epiphany, she wondered?
“But then, in the middle of the fight, Damien saved me. He jumped in front of the fire dragon. Took the attack that was meant to kill me.” She shook her head. “I would never in a million years have expected such an action from him or his kind. But there it was. It did happen, and he did so without hesitating, either. Like he never thought otherwise.”
Tolle looked at the ground, shoulders slumping in what felt like shame to Anna. “I know I wouldn’t have done the same.”
Anna didn’t know what to say, and by the looks of it, neither did Jane.
“This wasn’t your time to die,” Damien said softly. “We brought these beasts here, however inadvertently, and we would rather every last one of us dies before they hurt you.”
Maddison looked up with a grateful smile. “Thank you, Damien. But after what you demonstrated here today, it would be my pleasure to go into battle next to you, and if need be, save your life. You won’t face those things on your own when they come back next. Of that, you have my word.”
Initiate Lowry stirred. “That was touching, Maddy, but it doesn’t change the fact that he broke the rules. I don’t want to do it, but—”
“Then don’t!” Initiate Tolle snapped. “Use your head and think about this for once. He is not our enemy. They are!” she shouted, pointing in the direction the Infected had retreated. “So, stop further dividing us. We need to work together, Jane, not against one another. Can’t you see that? Things are different now. We need to start acting like it. Otherwise, we’re all dead when they come back.”
“We can’t wait for them to come back,” Damien said quietly while everyone else looked around, waiting for Jane to make her decision. “That’s the second worst option, after arresting myself.”
Jane frowned. “Reinforcements from Winterspell can be here in a matter of hours, Damien. The best thing we can do is sit around and wait for them. Then we will hunt down those Infected, I believe you called them, and rid our world of them together.”
“By then it will be too late,” Damien said.
“What do you mean? We hurt them. We drove them off. We have time to regroup now.” Jane was looking around the group for support for her plan.
But she wasn’t finding it.
“Jane,” Anna said, stepping forward. “We need to do this another way. Their way. Our rules don’t work anymore. These aren’t creatures from the Abyss that we’re up against. This is worse. Much worse. Let’s just listen to them, okay? They have far more experience with these Infected than we do.”
“Exactly. And yet they still lost their entire planet!” Jane shouted. “How does that make me trust them now?”
Suddenly, Anna understood what was driving Jane, what was making the woman do what she was doing. It wasn’t her desire to uphold the rules, to be the responsible one. That wasn’t it at all.
She was afraid.
“I’m scared too,” Anna admitted. “Terrified. I doubt I’m the only one.”
Maddison shook her head, not denying it. “Petrified. I almost died once. You think I want to do it again?”
“I don’t relish going up against them,” Damien said.
Altair and Rane nodded their agreements, as did Genna, who had remained silent and watchful at the rear of all the commotion. “Me too,” she whispered.
“But we can’t let that fear paralyze us, Jane. We need to do this. To work as a team, the seven of us. Everyone is counting on us now. We can’t let them down.”
Jane looked around the circle of witches and dragons, realizing she wasn’t the only one feeling the way she was. “Why is this happening to us?”
Anna walked up to the woman, no longer afraid of any confrontation, and pulled her into a hug. “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “We’re going to win.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because next time, we’re going to attack them. We won’t be surprised. We’ll be ready for them.” Jane smiled bravely, but Anna knew the other woman’s courage was barely holding together. There was an equal chance she would freeze or attack when the time came.
I just hope it’s attack.
“We can’t waste any more time,” Damien said quietly. “It’s already begun.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, turning to face him, fear fluttering in her stomach.
“I think only one Infected came through the portal,” he said quietly. “I didn’t recognize the ice dragon.”
“What do you mean?” Anna didn’t like where this was going.
Damien nodded his head in Rane’s direction. “Rane was one of the first through. He says the fire dragon is—was—Tellan. He came through the portal with the first wave.”
Anna froze as the implications of that hit home. Damien saw the understanding in her eyes and nodded.
“Yes. They’ve already infected at least one person on this side of the portal. Maybe more.”
Oh fuck.
