“Bran.” Rynna rolled her eyes.
They both knew Taren was one of the most talented students in their class. Truthfully, though, she was having a hard time focusing on the present. Her mind kept drifting back to the night before, images flashing uninvited through her thoughts, sending waves of heat rising to her cheeks.
“Anyway,” Bran pressed on, undeterred. “I just hope this Fenn guy is as good as they say. The last thing we need is a flop for a Unit Leader.”
“Bran!” Elara huffed, finally tearing her gaze away from Taren to cross her arms. “Guide Fenn is supposed to be amazing. We’re his first unit. I can’t believe they let him off rotation to take us.”
“Amazing, huh?” Bran glanced down at the 'trap' he’d set in the hall’s entryway. “We’ll see about that.”
“He better not dismiss us for that,” Elara grumbled before turning her eyes back to Taren, effectively dismissing Bran’s antics.
Rynna was about to speak when the soft rattle of the latch turning caught their attention. Bran practically vibrated where he sat, barely containing himself, while Elara and Taren straightened in their seats.
The door eased open, and a Hollow-bound in dark, close-fitted layers stepped through, his shoulder brushing the doorway as he entered. Pausing, he scanned the room—calm, controlled—until his gaze found Rynna.
He froze.
Then, a beat later, his boot pressed onto the thin reed mat Bran had oh-so-innocently laid by the threshold.
Pop.
A pouch of fermented fruit mash and crushed desert herbs burst beneath his heel, releasing a sharp, tangy reek that rushed up around him in a pungent cloud.
“Gotcha!” Bran shot out of his chair, laughing as if he had just won a war.
“Fuck,” Rynna breathed, pulse tripping as her handsome stranger, her anonymous mistake, stood there in the drifting haze, wiping a smear of sticky herb pulp off his sleeve with murderous dignity.
“Fang Unit, I presume?” He stepped fully inside as the scent bomb settled around his ankles like smoke. “I am Guide Fenn, your Vessel Hollow-born.” He looked to each of them in turn. “Taren. Elara. And Bran. I presume?” Then his gaze caught hers and held. “Plus, our unexpected addition… Rynna.”
Chapter nineteen
Thesofttinkleofmetal balls clanging, followed by the brittle snap of dried reeds, pulled her attention away from the butterfly she’d been studying. The training yard had been set up near a small oasis, ringed by date palms and scrub clinging stubbornly to life. Their shadows rippled across the sunbaked ground, broken only by the thin, tightrope stretched over the narrow pool at the center. The water below lay still as glass.
Nearby, Fenn stood next to the anchored post, idly handling a bag of fist-sized metallic balls strapped to his hip.
“I almost made it that time!” Bran, previously flat on his back, pushed himself to his feet the moment Fenn’s shadow loomed over him, eyes darting between his unit mates and their Guide as if waiting for a reprimand. Even Taren, usually composed, straightened slightly, though he tried to mask it beneath his nonchalant demeanor.
Fenn barely glanced up from his notebook, the faintest twitch of his hand signaling to the group to continue. Despite his outward indifference, Rynna knew that he’d already mapped every one of their movements with precise clarity.
She wondered if it was the same notebook he had been scribbling in the night they ‘met,’ before they’d…Rynna shook her head.Don't go there. It was just a one-night stand. It was a mistake, and that’s all it will ever be.
Either way, the man hadn’t said a single word directly to her since then. Not when he gave them instructions for where to meet, not when he greeted them that morning, andcertainly not during his vague explanation of thetestthat would, apparently, decide if they advanced to actual assignments. To be fair, he hadn’t answered Bran’s thousand questions or Elara’s scattered yelps of dismay, either.
Just cross the pond? It should have been easy.
Fools, Rynna thought, blowing out a puff of air that sent the butterfly flitting up from her fingers.
It hovered just out of reach, wings flickering as if to say:Don’t be an asshole just because you’re mad he’s ignoring you.
Rynna frowned, watching it dance further away, leaving her to her thoughts.
Sure, Fenn’s indifference irked her, but the truth was, she was more pissed at herself for making such a boneheaded decision in the first place. What the hell had she been thinking, hooking up with some random man like that?
Whatever. She settled back on her elbows, trying to relax.
The warmth of the sun soaked into her skin as she started counting clouds to pass the time. Somewhere behind her, a grunt or splash of water would break the quiet now and then—another poor soul getting tossed across the training yard or falling off the rope in a failed attempt to cross the narrow strand of rope while Fenn threw those metal balls like cannon shots.
Just as she hit cloud number thirteen, a sudden shadow blocked the sunlight, a coolness brushing over her skin. Her eyes narrowed in response, muscles tensing with annoyance.
