Page 29 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

August was booby-trapping the bodies? Blatant bait so easily spotted. So, what was the play?

“It’s a cheap deterrent,” Adrastos rumbled. “But an effective one.”

“The king demanded the city.”

“And with it, your execution. By all means, make an example of yourself, but I won’t be the one scraping your flesh from the street.”

“So, we let the rats win? Just like that?”

“War requires strategy, Captain. Of which, you clearly have little.” A low grumble. “Wait, stop.” Though there was volume to the words, they embodied that same damn boredom. Like Lana cleaning her nails with a blade as she stalked toward an opponent.

Chewing a hole into my lip, I cautiously peered around the window frame as one man wrapped his shadows around the top corpse. When nothing happened, Adrastos simply retreated a dozen slow, methodical steps.

Then the man touched it.

The thing detonated.

My breath stilled, my eyes squeezing shut. But the image had already seared itself into my retinas. Like a goddamned bomb. Like contact had closed an electric circuit. Like August had somehow imbued the body with his lightning.

When I peeled my eyes open, all that remained was scorched earth and bloody chunks of fleshy shrapnel that ricocheted off the others’ shields.

With a sigh, Adrastos turned toward our building, and I darted back behind the wall. “As I said, you’ll have to at least mimic our enemy’s mind to survive.”

I didn’t have to look to feel his focus on us. On our building. My eyes locked on citrine irises, haunted in the shadows, and without a word, we all vanished into mist.

“Don’t touch the dead,” Jo muttered when we landed back at the manor, and I nodded.

But my eyes tracked Cyrus as he silently climbed the deserted steps and passed through the Gothic front door. We rushed to follow him, but the moment I stepped inside the foyer, Portia appeared and passed me a folder without a word.

I sighed, running my thumb over its thick stack of contents.

“How in the hell did he manage that?” Carr asked, shaking his head. “It’s like he bound his power into the body.”

“Without Adrastos, they might’ve fallen for it,” Gio pointed out.

“Why is it that bastard only appears when we lack the numbers to capture him?” Jo muttered.

“Because he’s fuckin’ brilliant,” Gio said bitterly.

But my eyes remained fixed on Cyrus’s back as he climbed the stairs without a word, the lights flickering in their sconces as he did.

That was—evidently—our new normal.

Ensure mission success.

Walk our separate ways.

He completed his duties. Remained steadfast in service to the crown. And got the fuck away from me the moment he could.

“Rest up,” I muttered, turning to follow and sighing when Carr did the same. “You were included in that directive, Cujo.”

“I go where my queen goes.” Another burdened sigh.

I turned to glare up at him as we headed toward the stairs. “Suspect someone’ll gut me in our own base?” As if the threat of violence was a summoning, Cali stepped out from her room, her eyes locking on mine and holding, even as she dipped her chin and turned back the way she’d come.

“Power transitions are turbulent,” Carr noted, eyes trained on his cousin’s now-closed door as the latch clicked.

“I think we’re doing just fine.”