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“They sounded the horn to bring all the cadets back. No point in searching if there’s no chance of winning.”
I hadn’t heard the horn since I’d been standing under the shower, but that explained why I saw cadets from all the schools dressed in clean clothes and ready for the celebration. This banquet wasn’t as euphoric as the one we’d had after joining our schools, but there wasn’t the pall of cadets who hadn’t survived the maze or been chosen for a school. Then I remembered Dom.
“Do you know if they found the cadet who went into the sea?”
“The Blade?” Morgan made a face as we walked farther into the long room. “I know they sent out a search party to look for him, but it might be more like a body recovery at this point.”
I shivered at the thought of going into the rough sea. “They don’t know why he went in? No one talked to him? He didn’t say anything to anyone before leaving?”
Morgan eyed me. “Why so many questions? Did you know the cadet?”
“Not really.” It was a long story, which I planned to tell Morgan, but the banquet was not the place. “I’m just curious.”
She nodded as if this made sense. “I can find out.” She swiveled her head around. “Where is Fiona? She might know.”
“She’s meeting with the Drexian who arrived with Inferno Force. I saw her and Lieutenant Bowman talking with him outside the Stacks.”
We both turned to see Fyn, who inclined his head at me. “Good work on the hunt, cadet. In case I forgot to tell you.”
“Thanks.” I tried to focus on the upperclassman, but my brain was stuck on Ariana and Fiona meeting with a mystery Drexian. It must be about the search for Sasha. I shot a glance at Morgan, who seemed just as intrigued. I snapped my fingers. “Shoot. I just remembered something I need to grab back in my room. I’ll be back in two seconds.”
Fyn nodded, turning his attention to Morgan and asking her a question about her battle team. She cut me a scathing look, and I knew I’d pay for ditching her later, but I had to see if the women were still with the Drexian. I had to know if there had been progress on the search for Ariana’s sister.
I hurried from the hall and headed for the Stacks, tipping my head to a few passing cadets. When I’d reached the corridor, I slowed. No one stood outside. Had they gone inside? Just as I put my hands on the door to push it open, an arm jerked me into the shadows from behind.
Chapter
Sixty-Nine
Torq
Where was Jess? I swept my gaze over the crowded banquet hall as I pushed my way through the throngs celebrating the end of the battle of the schools. Everyone had returned from searching the Gilded Peaks, either successful or not, and had changed into clean uniforms for the dinner.
Along with not seeing Jess, I noticed that the Blade search party had not returned, which meant that Kort and Kann were not present. I cast a quick glance at some of the other first-year Blades who were sitting at the end of a long table and pouring Drexian wine into pewter goblets. I could sit with them, but after meeting with Kax and the others involved in rescuing the missing human pilot, I wished to talk about that—and I wanted to talk about it with Jess.
She had been one of the ones to help Ariana from the beginning. I could tell her about the mission and my part in it without worry because she was involved. She would understand. I frowned as I tried to find pockets of Assassins, but she was not with any of them.
I know she had returned to the academy. I had seen her walk away from me with her team, and I had seen her with that team when I’d entered the main hall. So where was she?
“They are still on the water.”
I snapped my head to the gravelly voice, startled that it was Commander Vyk who had walked up to me. I did not think the academy’s security chief had spoken five words to me before today.
“That is who you are looking for, is it not?”
I nodded without speaking, still shocked that the Drexian with the silvery hair and beard, the one who had been partly responsible for the disaster of the trials, the one who had been open is his distaste for humans at the academy, was engaging me in conversation like we were friends. Even if I trusted him, I would not have told him the truth. And I did not trust him.
I knew that he had tried to stop the High Commanders before the trial, and I knew that he had taken a great risk trying to warn others about their plan. That did not mean I had gotten over his complicity in the difficulty of the maze, or his thinly veiled contempt for human cadets. I might have agreed with him at one point, but that was before I’d gotten to know the humans. That was before I had fallen for Jess.
“You do not like me.” Vyk said this without emotion and without question.
I thought about lying and telling him that was not true, but then I remembered the trials and those who were not as lucky as I was to survive. Anger flashed hot as I remembered the decent cadets who had died because some of the old-school Drexians had an issue with humans. “I did have to fight off more than one of the monsters you were responsible for unleashing into the maze.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I regret my part in that. I regret that my desire to keep the academy as it has always been only made it weaker.”
“We are not weaker because of human cadets,” I snapped, unable to hold my tongue, even if he was my superior and an Inferno Force warrior known for being a brutal fighter. Even if he had been included as part of Sasha’s rescue team. “We could all learn a lot from the bravery of the humans coming halfway across the galaxy to an unknown planet and dangerous school. What have we been defending Earth for if we do not believe the humans are worth taking as allies and mates?”
The commander blinked at me, and for a moment, I worried I had gone too far. “You are right. The humans all survived the trials. They were all selected by schools. They have exceeded expectations.”
