Emil waved at me from where he was speaking with a group of rangers, and I returned the gesture. Vail might be an asshole, but I liked his rangers. The heavy, wooden door of the weapons storage building creaked open, and I took two steps inside before being engulfed in a crushing grip.
“SAMARA!”a voice boomed. I would have clapped my hands over my ears, but my arms were pinned to my sides.
“Hey, Rokai,” I squeaked as the impossibly large ranger crushed me against his chest in a jubilant hug. “Too. Tight.”
“Oh!” My feet thumped to the ground, and large hands gripped my shoulders until I was steady. “I was just really excited to see you.” Rokai’s light brown eyes practically sparkled with joy against his pale skin. “I was just telling Vail about what you did for us!”
Well, shit. I tore my gaze away from Rokai’s cheerful round face and found Vail’s glittering hard stare on me. Definitely still pissed. I was hoping to give him at least a few hours to cool off before tracking him down again. Unfortunately for me, one of the many plans I was working on would require Vail’s help, which meant I would need to catch him in a good mood at some point.
This was definitely not that point.
“I’m glad to see you made it back okay, Rokai.” I reachedup to pat his shoulder. Rokai was the only Moroi I’d ever met who was larger than Vail. Everyone regularly joked that he must be half-Velesian, but that couldn’t be true because he was far too happy. “Maybe we can catch up later? I was actually just hoping to grab some dag— oh!”
Rokai tugged me over to where several other rangers were standing with Vail, and I nodded at each of them in greeting. They all smiled at me, and a few murmured their thanks, although not as aggressively as Rokai, who had me clamped to his side in a one-armed hug.
Vail was currently eying that arm like he wanted to rip it off. A couple of rangers noticed where Vail’s attention was, but Rokai continued to chatter on, completely oblivious. “We were investigating reports of some burrowing creatures in the badlands just south of Drudonia, and we fell into a collapsed tunnel. Luckily, the beasties were somewhat shy. They looked like giant grubs.” Rokai shuddered. “We killed one of them and the rest backed off, but we couldn’t get out.”
I snuck another look at Vail. He’d stopped glowering at Rokai’s arm like it was offending him and was instead looking at the ranger with a blank expression. I didn’t know if that was better or worse.
“It was pure dumb luck that I spotted Samara’s striker flying above us, and it came when I called.”
“He came because you spoiled the shit out of him every time you stopped by House Laurent,” I said pointedly, trying to give Rokai a stern look and failing completely.
“I won’t apologize for giving that cute little bastard extra scraps.”
Vail’s patience finally snapped. “Explain,” he barked.
Rokai stood a little straighter, finally sensing Vail’s dark mood, and swallowed. “I was on escort duty for most of the last few years and regularly stopped at House Laurent.” He glanced at me, unsure, and I nodded encouragingly. “They’re . . .uhhh . . . a little unfriendly there, so I never stayed long, but Samara and I would always catch up. We usually went up to where the strikers were housed because nobody ever hung out there.”
The poor big softie of a ranger seemed to be wilting under Vail’s hostile gaze, so I jumped in. “My striker had been returning from delivering a message to Cali. There are large, flying predators in that section of the badlands, so the strikers usually fly close to the ground so they can duck and cover if they need to. Rokai got the attention of the striker, used his blood to draw their location on the back of the scroll Cali sent me, and I sent some rangers to investigate.”
“And saved our asses.” Rokai beamed. “We might have had to eat one of those worms if we were in there much longer, and I don’t think I would have recovered from that.”
“Personally, I would have chosen to starve,” another ranger chimed in.
“Well, I’m glad no one had to make the decision between starving or eating an overgrown worm for dinner.” I wiggled out from under Rokai’s arm and patted him on the cheek. “Good to see you as always. Tell your mother I said hello and that we should have tea soon.”
“Of course.” He grinned playfully. “And I’ll be sure to pay the strikers a visit and give them all treats.”
“Obviously.” I gave him a wry smile before skirting past the rangers towards the small room in the back, where I knew there were always throwing daggers. The rangers continued the conversation about the new monsters they’d discovered, but I felt Vail’s gaze burning a hole in my back the entire way. He was probably pissed off at me for interfering with House Harker business when I’d been at House Laurent, but what was I supposed to have done? Ignored Rokai’s plea for help? Sent a message to House Harker and hoped they sent a rescue party in time?
I was fairly confident that no matter what action I had taken, Vail would have found fault with it. Whatever. He could stew in his pissy attitude as much as he wanted. I grabbed half a dozen daggers and headed outside towards the alleyway, which was thankfully empty.
The training courtyard was situated towards the back of the walled fortress of House Harker. The end of the alleyway was the outer wall, and two of the smaller towers made up the side walls. For targets, the rangers had cut down a large tree and sliced the trunk, hanging the circular chunks of wood on the wall. A few of the more creative rangers had used their artistic abilities to paint monsters on them. Once the wood was too chewed up for the blades to stick in, they were swapped out.
I flipped a dagger a few times in my right hand, getting a feel for it before throwing it at the center target. A loudthunksounded as it landed dead center. I sunk into a pattern, aiming for different sections of the targets, trying to be as precise as possible. Daggers weren’t entirely practical weapons. The damage they inflicted was too small and rarely fatal for the monsters roaming Lunaria, but sometimes there were specific areas of a body that could be exploited. Even if it didn’t result in a fatal wound, it might injure the beast enough for someone else to take it down. Eyes were always a good target. The other problem with daggers was once I threw them, I no longer had a weapon, which I had been reminded of in the cave incident.
I retrieved all the daggers for a third time and set them on a workbench near the front of the alleyway. Then I had a thought: Roth could control their ribbons with blood magic—maybe I could do something similar with a dagger? I thought through a few of the glyphs that might work and then sliced open a shallow cut on my forearm and used my finger to paint one on the hilt of the blade. If I figured out something thatworked, I could carve the glyph into the handle to make it more permanent.
After surveying my work one last time, I stepped to the center of the alley and hurled the dagger at the target. The blade dug into the wood, and I took a deep breath, trying to center my focus. No one had been around to teach us how to use our magic, so we’d had to figure it out on our own. Magic worked differently between the Moroi, Velesians, and Furies, but the one thing it all had in common was that intentions mattered.
Moroi couldn’t just carve a glyph into something and expect it to work. We had to imbue that glyph with our intent; otherwise, it was just a scratching on a wall. The purpose of the glyphs was to help us channel our intention and keep it there. It was a tricky thing to learn, which was why simple spells were the easiest. I used to tinker around with different glyphs when I’d been at Drudonia, but it’d been a long time since I’d tried to create something new.
Holding my hand out to the side, I tugged on the link I’d formed with the dagger, and an invisible force ripped the blade from the wood before it spun in the air. I had a brief, exhilarated moment of triumph before a sharp pain sliced into my hand.
“AHH! FUCK!” I gripped my wrist with my other hand and clenched my jaw at the pain. The spell had definitely worked, because the dagger had returned to me. Unfortunately, it had returned point-first, and the dagger was now buried hilt-deep into my palm, the bloody blade sticking out the back of my hand.
“Brilliant move,” Vail said from where he was leaning against the wall at the alleyway opening. I had no idea how long he’d been standing there, and embarrassment flooded me. He’d once made fun of me when I’d bragged about being goodwith knives, and here I was, injuring myself with my own moonsdamned dagger.
