In my mind, I laugh in shock because no one ever dares to disobey Cinuska’s orders. She raised many of us inside a ring of fire, so I would always know my place.
“I need to speak with Jorusk alone.”
“I need to heal him before he can do much of anything else.” Fieri repositions the device and works on my left wing’s last break. “So deal with it or wait. This is an Amphiran ship. He is my responsibility. And you are aguest.”
Mother Cinuska’s eyes gleam with red-hot rage. “He is my responsibility. I raised him.”
“With twenty others.”
“Fifty-three, over the years,” she corrects. “They had no one else.”
I glance between the two as they argue.
Fieri moves to another injury. “He did not get a nuclear family. You raised him like a student.”
“A soldier of Wrath,” she corrects. “And I did the best I could with all the orphans.”
When Fieri’s electric current dances off of him in faint wisps, Mother Cinuska finally relents.
“Fine. Easy, Amphir. Do not kill your patient.”
“He can’t,” I say. “Amphiran current doesn’t hurt me. Ithurtsbut doesn’t damage me.”
She stutters for a moment. “You are not classified correctly.”
“I like where I’m at,” I defend.
The moment she begins to protest, I’m already expecting it.
“Please, Cinoska. Just let it be. I am happy to serve our people with my current team, repair assault systems as needed, and fight where I can. I do not want to be with the Dragons.”
She seems perplexed by my response. “It’s not about where you want to be but where you need to be.”
“He should be ash with the stunt he pulled,” Fieri mutters. “Smashing into a mothership like a fucking missile.”
I tug my wing from Fieri’s grip. “It wasnothing.”
Fieri scowls at me, then glares down at Cinoska. But there’s something in his eyes that hesitates to loathe her. “He is the reasonVictiramcrashed to the planet. I know you came in here to lecture him. Just because I do not have an Inferno does not mean I cannot sense the tension and anger in your soul, bitter female.”
She gapes at him, and I bite my lip to keep myself from laughing.
“How dare you…”
“I’ve been a soldier much longer than you,” Fieri states, gently guiding my wing back to him and completing the repair on another broken finger. “I keep tabs oneverything. Many think I am just a pissed-off old gruntpa, but I cannot hear what is going on if I am alwaystalking over everyone else.”
“You don’t get to…”
“I know exactly how you feel,” Fieri interrupts. “I could hear you in the commons just from walking by the door. If there is one thing that I have learned about a young anomalous soldier, it’s that it’s best to help them thrive than try to cram them into the cookie-cutter form of all the rest of us.”
“What’s a cookie-cutter?” she asks.
He stutters. “A thing human Princess Jovie uses. It makes all the desserts the same size and shape.”
She still doesn’t seem to get it.
“It’s a food, Cinuska,” I tell her. “A sweet food we do not have time for.”
“Oh.”
