Lottie stepped forward to the microphone as the last of the Somas exited the stage and the roar of the crowd reverberated through the ground.
“Such cause for celebration!” she exclaimed. “Every single new Mageian has matched with atleastone or more Somas!”
Even I could hear the roar of the crowd then. That meant almost sixty new potential Bonded pairs! They had never had that many matches in a single Touchpoint before.
A familiar bulk interposed itself between me and the screens.
“Looks like your services won’t be needed, Katastrofis,” Captain Kopanos sneered at me. “Not even dregs for a cripple like you.”
The urge to punch the captain was so strong I realized I had already made a fist. Kopanos saw it and smiled.
“Do it,” he said, his eyes narrowing as he dared me.
Just then someone dodged between the two of us, shoving rudely between Kopanos and I as they ran down the hall. I felt something strange flash through my body; it was a strange electrical vibration that shook me to my bones. All he saw was a flash of coppery brown and gold hair and a ragged black t-shirt before the man disappeared.
“Savages,” muttered Kopanos as he turned away, dismissing me as if he were beneath notice.
I almost punched him then, but stopped as the scent of the man who had run past hit me It was…intoxicating.
I’d always been sensitive to smells and tended to associate specific scents with specific people. Kopanos, for example, smelled sweet and sour, like fruit left out to rot. The stranger who had rushed by them had smelled like vanilla and cinnamon and everything that meanthome. I felt myself taking deeper breaths just to try and take in more of the stranger’s scent.
Since all of the Mageia had made a match, and Kopanos had technically dismissed me, I found himself following the scent of the stranger down one of the halls, my anger at Kopanos forgotten. Maybe the man was a human who had come with the new Mageia? I couldn’t imagine a Mageia rushing to escape a Soma, but I figured I should make sure he made it back safely.
Somehow making sure the man was safe seemed more important than anything else I could think of.
Without further though I followed the scent of the young man into the empty halls of the administration wing.
Chapter 8
Hel
When Bea finally got in the car, the drive to the Tower took longer than I would have liked. I knew the buses the others had taken would have a much shorter trip to the Pavilion, but we were going to the War Master’s offices. We would have to travel most of the way around the Tower to enter. The car really wasn’t built for speed, but with Elex settled in next to me, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Part of me wished he’d let me just wrap myself around him, but I knew he was too damn independent for that. I had to resign myself to just wrapping an arm around the back of the seat. When he sighed and leaned his head back against me and smiled at me, I counted it as a win.
Bea’s insult shouldn’t have surprised me. I’d heard far worse after Ri had died, but after the last three years of relative isolation I’d forgotten some of the attitudes in Illyria that had driven me to accept my inadvertent exile. The only good thing about her comment was seeing Elex jump to my defense. Something about my fierce little Mageia rushing to protect me warmed my heart more than Bea’s insult had chilled it.
When we reached the buildings surrounding the tower the car finally slowed. We passed a number of checkpoints where Bea showed her papers, and we were waved forward.
She slowly circled the exterior wall of the Tower complex before stopping at a door, waving her badge over some kind of sensor that caused the metal fence in front of us to open. We drove into the building, parking the car in an underground parking area.
When we exited the car Elex looked taken aback. There had to be hundreds of vehicles in this parking area alone. From what little he’d told me, I knew in Alexandria only the very rich used conveyances, and they were usually either animal or Mageia powered. Everyone else walked.
Beatrice was speaking to someone on a cell phone. She seemed to be issuing some kind of coded commands, because her speech certainly didn’t make any sense to me, even with my training. Allard was watching her closely, her orders catching his attention.
“Clear Holly Tango five to the elevators,” she said over the device. “Then clear the thirtieth to Eagle one.”
“Acknowledged,” I heard a voice on the device say. I didn’t even need Soma senses to hear it.
Allard raised his eyebrow at me, and I shrugged. For all I knew this with standard operating procedure. I had no idea what she was doing, or why. I still didn’t know why Polemos wanted to see me. As we gathered outside the car, I saw Elex looking around in amazement.
While he wasn’t as obvious as his brother, Elex had a fiercely curious mind. I knew he had to have a million questions about what he was seeing. The loyalty they had for each other was one of the things that had attracted me to him in the first place. I knew that no one and nothing would get between the two brothers, a fact I’d had driven home to me shortly after I’d met them.
I had been in Heraklion on a mission to look for more Mageia to recruit during the Machi when I’d met Elex and Luke. Elex had stayed with Betts for the day, so Luke had gone with me to talk to any Mageia we encountered. We had stopped for a rest a few miles away from our camp in a courtyard that held four carved statues of former heroes of the city, one in each corner of the courtyard.
“Hel, can I ask you something?” Luke had said.
“You just did,” I responded flatly, then laughed as he rolled his eyes at me.
“I’m serious,” he said.
