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“Of course you will.” Merrik told himself that he wasn’t mourning the fact that he also wouldn’t be kissing Adry for the next while.

After several minutes, Adry returned to his side, carrying a mushroom stuffed with meat in each hand, juices soaking into the paper wrappings. She held one out to him. “It turns out they had a version without the spices. It seems they’ve already figured out how to cater to elven palates.”

Merrik took the one she offered, eyeing it. He sniffed it. It didn’t smell like the spices wafting on the breeze.

Adry huffed and rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to give you a spicy version just to laugh at you. That’s something a sister does. I’m your girlfriend. I’m more mature than that.”

He probably should trust her. They weren’t children anymore, after all.

With a deep breath, he took a bite. A meaty taste burst across his tongue, undergirded with the rich earthiness of the mushroom. And, thankfully, only a hint of salt for added flavor.

“See. I told you.” Adry grinned before she took a bite of her own mushroom. “Hmm. But you’re missing out.”

“Missing out on a burning tongue and singed throat.” Merrik shook his head and took another bite. He didn’t understand the appeal of so much spice.

A few feet away, Fieran and Pip brought Lt. Rothilion one of the elf-approved meat-stuffed mushrooms.

As everyone set out once again, Merrik found himself walking near the back close to Mak and Lt. Rothilion while Adry had fallen in with Lije, Stickyfingers, and Aylia, comparing notes on the dwarven food they’d tried.

Merrik smiled, watching them. It was good to see Adry bonding with the squadron. Not just because they were his squadron and his friends, but because she could use a few friends. She and Fieran had never had many friends besides him, and now that he and Adry were courting, that left her with precious few other friends. He could see her and Aylia especially becoming good friends. They both had a similar, throw-caution-to-the-wind attitude.

On second thought, perhaps he should encourage Adry to stay well away from his squadron mates. Neither she nor they needed any more reckless ideas.

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Adry sat on a bench in a train car, once again watching Fort Defense disappear behind them as they clacked over the bridges into Mongavaria. This time, she wouldn’t set foot in her homeland again until the war was done.

Dacha, Uncle Iyrinder, and the elite guards sat on the benches around her, rucksacks piled in the middle by their feet.

She peered out the window at the flash of aeroplanes overhead, rising higher in the sky as they took off from the airfield, although these were from one of the other squadrons, flying on a bombing run into Mongavaria.

The Half-Breed Squadron was being sent forward into Mongavaria as well, but they wouldn’t take off until later that morning since their trip through the skies wouldn’t take as long as the train ride. At least this time when she went into battle, Merrik would be in the skies, protecting her.

She settled in, trying to get comfortable as the countryside crawled past the windows. Her knees bounced, and she kept shifting in her seat so often that Yralissa scooted farther away from her.

Across the way, her dacha fidgeted as much as she did. As the train leveled out into the rolling farm fields of Mongavaria, Dacha stood, his two swords strapped across his back. With a nod to Uncle Iyrinder, Dacha picked his way past the piles of rucksacks to the door at the end of the train car.

“Where is he going?” Adry leaned forward, keeping her voice low, as she faced Uncle Iyrinder.

Uncle Iyrinder gestured toward the ceiling. “He is going to practice on the roof.”

Adry hopped to her feet, grabbed her own two swords from where she’d set them on the bench next to her, and hurried down the train car after her dacha. She caught up to him just outside the train car as he was ascending the ladder to the roof.

He paused, glancing down at her. “Did you need something, sena?”

“Could I come?” She pointed toward the roof.

Dacha paused for a moment before he gave one sharp nod. “Yes. Come.”

She hurried to sling her sword sheaths across her back and buckled them in place before grabbing the ladder. She followed her dacha upward, even as the train swayed and dipped.

At the top she climbed onto the flat middle of the train car’s roof, each side sloping steeply over the windows. The train swayed and jolted beneath her feet, but no worse than the elven branches in a stiff breeze.

Dacha strolled to the middle of the train car before he halted, turned to her, and drew his swords. “We did not have our practice this morning, sena.”

No, they hadn’t. They’d left first thing in the morning since they had so far to travel into Mongavaria.