I put my pen down and sighed. Contemplating history a decade old was getting me nowhere. I really needed to find Penny and get that coffee.
I stood and heard a knock on my office door. The guards on either side stiffened.
“Come,” I said, curious. Penny wouldn’t have knocked, and I didn’t have any appointments scheduled for this morning as I was working on the plans for a new attack.
Beatrice Ignatia entered the office and saluted, an unusually unsettled look on her face. Beatrice was one of my lieutenant generals. She was competent at her job, but wasn’t always the most pleasant person to be around. She was proof positive that whatever side of the war you found yourself on, there would be good people and bad. I found her narrow-mindedness exasperating at times, and preferred not to interact with her unless it was absolutely necessary.
“Beatrice,” I acknowledge as she entered the room and saluted, fist over heart.
“War Leader,” she responded crisply.
“What brings you to the Thirtieth?” I asked, gesturing to one of the chairs and sat down across from her. No point in being rude. “I thought you were greeting the new Mageia from Heraklion and delivering them to the Pavilion first. Is something wrong?”
Beatrice looked decidedly uncomfortable. Her gaze seemed to linger on my face for longer than normal before she finally spoke.
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, nothing untoward happened, the Mageia are being transported to the Tower Pavilion as we discussed. You had requested to meet with one of the Somas, but there was someone among them you need to meet.”
I thought furiously for a moment, then remembered.
“Oh yes! That’s right,” I said, snapping my fingers. “You were bringing back— Helios, was it? The Soma who started recruiting the Machi Mageia. Is he with you?”
I had heard stories of Helios Asimenios for some time. He held a certain… infamy in Illyria. He was a Soma who’s Bonded had died, but he had survived. That almost never happened. I’d heard it was attributed to not having completed the Bonding ceremony at the time, but there were also less-charitable rumors. He had volunteered for an assignment with that damned Omada. For once, I had to agree that Captain Kopanos’ pet project had yielded fruit.
Asimenios had been dispatched with one of our precious few Dual Mageia to protect a shipment of ammunition to an outpost. His partner had returned, but Asimenios hadn’t. We had thought him dead, until he had flagged down a ship along the coast and sent the first group of five Mageia to the capital.
I still wasn’t sure exactly how he’d done it. I’d taken on the role of War Leader only the year earlier, and he had been funneling Mageia to us for at least three. I had been lucky enough to be on the ship that had seen his signal fire on Crete and caused us to investigate, but I hadn’t met him or any of the rescued Mageia personally. I was anxious to meet the man who had come up with the plan to spirit away our enemy’s most valuable resource from under their noses.
Okay, and I admit, there was also thesmallhope in me that he might be my match, my Soma. At times it felt like I’d met virtually every Soma in Illyria. None of them had caused the sparking reaction that I’d heard so much about that indicated a potential match.
As an unbonded Mageia, I wasn’t able to access all four elements, just my primary element, which was Fire. It had helped me escape Alexandria but was of only minimal use in Illyria.
I wondered from time-to-time what Elex’s might have been, if he had survived. I didn’t even know if he actually was Mageia; I had just assumed it because we had never heard word of him being legitimized, or killed. Would his primary have been Fire, like me? Or maybe the opposite, Water? I had no idea. We’d heard no word of my twin since I had escaped, despite my subtle inquiries. It was almost as if he had fallen off the face of the earth.
I knew I could do so much more to help my adopted homeland if I were able to block the Suppression power of the Elusians amongst our enemies. I remembered my first experience with Suppression when Maalik had targeted me and shuddered.
Beatrice’s voice brought me back to the present.
“Yes, sir, I did. Helios is in the conference room. There are--others with him, though,” she began.
“Others?” I asked. “Your orders were to bring just Helios.”
“I understand, sir. He refused to come without his… companions.” She said, her voice trailing off.
“Yes?” I prompted. “Who are his companions?”
“One of them he sent to take care of the other Mageia, but our soldiers say he is a Prince of Alexandria. He goes by Luke. He could be Prince Lucien. More importantly…”
Her voice trailed off. I couldn’t imagine what she thought was more important than Luke being rescued. Happiness burst in my chest. The need to see my younger brother was overwhelming.
“Sir, there is also a soldier and, well, a Mageian who looks—just like you, War Leader. Except… His hair is black with a white streak, not white with a black,” she said.
In that moment you could have heard a pin drop in the room. I don’t think either of us were breathing.
Black hair with a white stripe. My face. There was only one person it could be.
I don’t even know how it happened, but I was running down the hallway to the conference room, Beatrice close behind me, my Soma guardians trailing her.
I heard her yelling something at me, but I couldn’t stop, couldn’t listen. Not if there was even a chance.
