J: Tempting offer. Raincheck tho. I’ve got this.
T: Dinner tomorrow?
J: Yes. I need to vent dramatically and require an audience.
T: You know I’m a slut for some good tea.
I put my phone down and looked at the snake drawing again and thought, with a kind of detached clarity, that the hostility was so performative and weird for a bunch of powerful adults.
The next day in Combat Fundamentals, the instructor was called Hadley, who had the build of someone who’d been combat-trained for thirty years and the personality of a brick wall, which I respected enormously. The training hall was large and smelled of sweat, char and metal. We were doing a sparring rotation, one-on-one, pairs assigned by Hadley from his list.
“Black,” he said, without looking up from his clipboard. “Paired with Calloway.”
The girl who stepped out of the group was about my height, Virgo designation based on the silver pin she wore, with auburn hair and a solid athletic build that told me she actually trained. She looked at me with curiosity on the surface and something harder underneath it.
I heard someone mutter under their breath, but didn’t quite catch what they said. There was laughter though so it must have been a banger.
I looked at Calloway. She had the grace to look slightly uncomfortable about the commentary from behind me, which told me she wasn’t the source of the hostility. “Ready?” she said, keeping her voice neutral.
I gave her a curt nod, no words needed. We started unarmed, Hadley’s warm-up protocol, and I could feel every eye on me. It was different from the controlled Assembly drills whereeveryone already knew what I could do. Here, the crowd was waiting for me to trip up.
Calloway was quick and obviously very trained. She scored two solid hits in the first thirty seconds. I let her land the first one while I gauged her timing. The second I could’ve dodged but took it on purpose, learning her style. Her right shoulder dipped a fraction before she shot for the knee. I filed that away.
Then I moved. Within thirty seconds the gap between us was unmistakable—not cruelly, but unmistakable. She was a skilled fighter, and I was something else. I put her down twice, each time clean and controlled, offering my hand when she hit the mat. She accepted the second time, her eyes flicking between respect and bitterness, but more-so respect, which I appreciated.
“Nice,” Hadley said from the edge, jotting on his clipboard. “Both of you. Good control, great reflexes.”
Nobody on Nightfall Shield had seen live drills today. Rumor would reach every corner of Dominion by dusk, though. I knew my reputation would have to make room for whatever whispered version of me would spread next, and secretly, I was relieved. Better to be a fresh rumor than an old legend. I wanted them all to know I could fight. That I wasn’t the type to take shit sitting down.
After class, I walked across the building still in my workout gear. The corridor lights hummed overhead as I turned toward the library, my thoughts drifting to the mountain of zodiac history texts I’d been thinking about checking out.
Rounding a shadowed corner, I almost bumped into him. Draco was taller than I expected. His shoulder length white hair was loosely tied into a knot, a few rebellious strands framing brows darker than midnight. The barbell in his brow caught a glimmer from the wall sconce. His sleeves were pushed up, revealing intricate tattoos that curled around pale forearms—ink so fine it must have required hours of stillness.
“Sorry,” I murmured, stepping aside. “Didn’t see you there.”
“I hear you can actually fight,” he said by way of greeting.
I arched a brow, folding my arms over my chest. “Did you think I made all that shit up about fighting the bane for three years?”
He took a small step closer, and I held my ground. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
I stared at him, wanting to say something snarky, but I didn’t necessarily see disgust or hatred in his pale hazel eyes. Only frustration.
I let out a humorless laugh, running my fingers through my hair. “It’s new to me too, you know. Trust me, I didn’t exactly wake up one morning and decide to become the zodiac boogeyman everyone’s been whispering about. My parents are both Scorpios, so I guess statistically speaking, my chances were higher than most. But shit, when it happened I was just as blindsided as everyone else. Four years ago, I was planning on being a normal, boring Scorpio like my parents. Maybe a nice desk job tracking bane movements, not actually fighting the damn things.”
“Yet here you are,” Draco said, running his gaze over the length of me. “The Assembly’s shiny new asset.”
That made my hackles rise. “I’m not an asset. I’m a person.”
“So you’re not just here to infiltrate what will likely be the most powerful shield in history?”
I felt a flash of anger. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“I know that coincidences don’t exist in our world.” He shifted his weight, leaning slightly against the wall. “So forgive me if I’m skeptical about your sudden appearance at Dominion.”
“Trust me, there’s nothing sudden about it,” I said, crossing my arms. “And if you think I’m enjoying being paraded around like some kind of sideshow, you’re delusional.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but footsteps approached from around the corner, and we both tensed. Percy appeared, stopping short when he saw us. His eyes narrowed, moving between Draco and me with obvious suspicion.
