I find my gaze inadvertently lingering on the matching wraps tightly covering his muscular forearms and calves, and I clear my throat. “Well, you’re one face mask away from being a very shitty, easy-to-spot ninja.”
Dusk rolls his eyes. “Oh, hush. We need to meet the gloomy goth king in an hour on the training field, and I’m starving. Let’s go.”
After a quick breakfast, Dusk leads me out of the castle. We walk through the front gardens again, heading in the opposite direction from our living quarters. One archway opens onto a small path surrounded by hedges, which eventually leads to a clearing with a much larger archway. Nestled between tall stone barrier walls, it holds a massive set of solid iron doors.
They’re already open when we arrive, but my pace slows as I walk through, my eyes catching on the magnificent scene engraved on the doors. The majority of the surface is taken up by a skillfully carved dragon, fierce and menacing, with angels as small as beetles fighting valiantly against it.
“Is there a dragon in the apocalypse prophecy?” I call after Dusk.
“Possibly.”
“What do you mean ‘possibly?’” My eyes jerk to him, where he’s paused a few paces ahead of me.“Are dragons real or not?”
“Anything can be real. The Bible mentions some beasts; interpretations vary. Come on, we’re almost late.”
Dragon-slaying wasn’t on my apocalypse bingo card, but I shake it off, catching up to him with a few quick strides.
The first thing I see inside the barrier wall is the massive domed building. It’s built from the same charcoal shade as the castle, the rock so smooth and pristine that it’s semi-reflective, but it’s topped with a metallic gold roof. Numerous columns support an overhang around the outside, almost reminding me of a stadium-like structure.
About halfway to the building, Dusk stops. My focus shifts to him,and I steal a glance at his white boots. Mine are completely dusted with red dirt, while his remain spotless. I frown, envious. “What am I even supposed to be training for?”
“Opening the Abyss,” he answers, looking around.
“Yeah, I got that. But will I be fighting, I don’t know, fallen angels or something? If there’s a dragon in there, that’d be nice to know, too.”
His golden eyes flick to me. “Do you not think figuring out how to control your gift will be enough of a challenge? If this star is even a fraction of the small skills angels utilize, it’ll take a heavy toll on you. You need to be much stronger than you are now—physically, mentally, and spiritually.”
I huff. “I can gain that by training to fight, too. If the world’s ending, it’d be nice if I knew how to protect myself. Even if it’ll only ever be useful against my fellow species.” Crossing my arms, I level him a look. “And I’ve been regularly going to the gym for well over a year now, too, but Jackie’s only taught me the bare minimum of self-defense.”
Dusk takes a long look at me, visibly assessing my body in a way that’d be either enticing or insulting in another context. “You have very little muscle tone. You’ll need to go on an intensive workout plan. And a richer diet, too. I know your culture loves to glorify leanness, but it makes you fragile. Easier to break.”
“I’m not hearing a ‘no’ to the fighting.”
“Fine,”he concedes, seeming exasperated by the idea. “You’ll be allowed to train to fight, but not at the expense of anything else. I hope you’re prepared for some very long days and very full weeks.”
A grin spreads across my face. “I’ll take it.”
Dusk looks less than enthusiastic, but I can’t be bothered to care. For the first time in a while, I’m optimistic about my future. The thought of becoming lethal isexciting. And at the helm of celestial warriors? Hell yes. Jackie would be so jealous.
“I won’t be the only one teaching you, you know.” His disgruntled voice catches my focus, bringing my high down a notch. “Look around. Abaddon has a general specializing in every single aspect of combat. Which, given the intentional design of the locusts, is quite a lot.”
I pull my eyes away from him, taking in the surroundings in more detail. They’ve given us some respectable distance, but there are at least a dozen locusts—maybe even two or three dozen—scattered around the courtyard, all engaged in intense combat exercises.
The air carries echoes of their hellish symphony, a cacophony of metallic clangs and insectile buzzing. Sparring locusts on the ground move at impossibly fast speeds, wielding their spindly mid-limbs like swords as they strike each other over and over again. Locusts in the air barrel into each other, grappling for leverage. I watch a set parry until the loser falls out of the sky, landing with athudon the ground in an unconscious heap. The victor catches itself on the impossibly vertical surface of the barricade wall, using only the briefest moment to reorient itself before launching off towards a practice target on the courtyard floor.
To my utter horror, I realize its practice target is a tender mannequin crafted in the grotesque likeness of a human. I watch as the locust uses its mandibles to rip out the throat, a blood-like substance oozing from the fleshy filling.
Bile rises in the back of my throat, and I stumble backward.
“Kae?” Dusk places a hand on the small of my back, steadying me. “Is everything okay?”
I can’t answer. I’m too busy breathing in through my nose to keep from vomiting.
These monsters have been training for centuries to be the perfect predator ofmyspecies, and I’m expected to release them? Trusting they’ll only be used for evil? There are millions of them! That’s a wide margin for error!
“Kae, tell me what’s going on so I can help.”
“Why are they training to kill humans?” My voice is small, quiet. It’s unlike me. I’m usually exceptionally unbothered by gore, with all my anatomy labs and medical shadowing. But this is different. This is a promise of violence, not the aftermath.
