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  “Commander Schrader, Thorn Stellers. Wixcombe arrived with this one yesterday.” Narvez’s hatchet-lined features went blank when speaking to the Commander.

  “Bring Wixcombe to me as well, Lieutenant Narvez,” Schrader said.

  “Aye, sir. Right away, sir.” Narvez hurried from the room.

  Thorn stood in a cloud of uncertainty as Schrader and Ashworth sat, their eyes pinning him from two angles. After a few minutes, Narvez returned with Kira. Thorn turned his eyes toward her bright auburn hair as she brushed it neatly back away from her face and stood at attention.

  “Commander Schrader,” Kira said.

  “Wixcombe, what do you know of this recruit?” Schrader appeared genuinely curious, and Thorn’s nerves settled a bit at the Commander’s demeanor.

  “Commander, sir, this is Thorn Stellers. I arrived at Code Nebula with him yesterday. I sought him out because I believe he will be a fine addition to the Magecorps, sir.” Kira never looked in Thorn’s direction as she addressed Schrader.

  Schrader steepled his long, boney fingers. “And why do you believe that, Lieutenant?”

  Kira dropped her eyes to the ground for a brief moment as she cleared her throat. Thorn could see that she was struggling with whether or not to reveal their connection.

  “Stellers was…” She lifted her eyes and set her jaw with a new resolve. “Thorn was my brother at the Children’s Refugee Collective Home. He might be a little broken, but he’s a good man.”

  “And you thought… what did you think, Lieutenant Wixcombe?” Commander Schrader stood and placed his fingertips against the desktop so that his knuckles bent like spider’s legs. “You thought you’d collect this boy you haven’t seen in more than a decade and bring him to Code Nebula without even holding him accountable to the trial first?”

  Kira’s hair fell into her face, head dipping. “Aye, sir.”

  Lieutenant Ashworth drew his breath in between his teeth. “Wixcombe, you know he must be held accountable to the trial. Why in hell would you expect to plant him directly into training without accountability protocols?”

  Kira cast a glare toward the second in command. “Because I know this man. And I know what he is capable of. It may have been years ago, but he has passed the trial. A trial need only be given once.”

  Schrader lifted a closed fist in the air, silencing the lieutenants immediately.

  “Lieutenant Wixcombe is right, a trial need only be given once. If she says this trial has been passed, then we take her on her word.” Schrader left his cold stare on the olive-skinned man. “But all magic may become tainted through time without proper instruction. You”—his gaze moved to Kira—“have just run the risk of contaminating our entire fleet of new recruits with your carelessness.”

  “Sir,” Kira began, but she was cut short when a single pointed finger was raised toward her.

  “To your bunk, now, Lieutenant. Tomorrow you train with the recruits.” Schrader sat once more behind his mahogany desk.

  “But Sir, I…” Kira started, but it was useless.

  “Butts are for the stock of your rifle. They do not belong in my office.” The angular commander’s shadow grew against the wall and the strong bass of his voice resonated in their chests. “This man”—he pointed to Thorn—“needs to learn full control of his magic immediately. It may interest you to note that these people will be going to war with the Nyctus—and soon. You are taking that responsibility on yourself, Lieutenant. If the dog is not broken in a month’s time, you will join him on whichever slum-bucket you pulled him from.”

  Kira’s eyes narrowed and Thorn could see the anger darkening her face, but she maintained her composure with some effort. “Sir, yes, sir.”

  “Dismissed.”

  With that, she turned and left.

  “Now, Stellers. Is there any thought in your head of what it is you’ve produced?” Schrader turned his attention to Thorn.

  “I don’t want to lie,” Thorn began but paused as he realized that even the truth was evasive. “I…felt it happening. Inside me, but I don’t know where the power came from. When we were kids, I did it so I could survive—my book from home was life to me. But as to a plan, no sir. I had none.”

  “Yes.” Schrader sighed, his anger dissipating, if it had been real at all. “Magic is a reflection of our deepest thoughts and emotions. When you are so broken, your magic, though powerful, is broken as well. It will control you before you have control over it. That makes you a danger to every soldier stationed at this base. That makes you a danger in training, on the field, or anywhere else. Do not let your emotions drive your actions, for in battle that is a sure way to never return home. Use your emotions to fuel your intuitions, and then train your actions to harness that energy into a controlled force. The snake does not strike out of anger or hatred, he strikes out of necessity. And when he does, his venom is released in a carefully measured dose to neutralize the enemy and preserve himself. If the snake were to strike out of hatred, the dose would not be carefully measured, and so the snake would drain himself of his precious venom and commit himself to a deadly fate. Measure your venom, Stellers. Keep your satchel full.”

  Thorn gave a cautious grin. “Got it. Be the snake. Channel the snake. Will do, sir.”

  Schrader waved his hand in dismissal, and Thorn felt as though he could finally breathe as he hurried through the door to the fresh air beyond.

  4

  “Get those knees up.” Narvez’s heavy black boots created a trench of their own as she paced in the viscous semi-liquid that Thorn had become well acquainted with over the past few weeks. The suctioning sounds resonated as the recruits raised their knees chest high.

  “Good,” Narvez murmured. “Tear them down. Then build them up.”

  The only energy Thorn had left was spent tearing his feet from the mud that grasped onto his boots. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been running in place, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could continue to lift his legs. They felt full of lead, and a punishing heat suffused every inch of his body.

  He faltered. Narvez saw. She saw everything.

  Narvez came to an abrupt stop and turned on her heel to face them with a look of irritation. “Drop!”

  The recruits obeyed, dropping to their stomachs in a ragged line, hands sinking into the putrid ground.

  “Now push that ground away from you in half counts—Stellers, you’ll be particularly delighted at this exercise. It’s all of the pain your body can take, but you’re using whatever magical ability you can muster. Think of it as a little vacation from running, won’t you? Now! One-and-two-and-hoooollld it. Four counts.”

  “Ma’am, yes, ma’am!” the troops called back at her. “One, two, three, four.”

  “Now down. Half counts. One-and-two-and-hoooollld it. Four counts.”

  “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.” The group response had already begun to lose its fervor.

  “One, two, three, four.” Among the shouts were groans of pain and a muted sob. Magic was hard, even if you were gifted.

  Narvez schooled her features into something that appeared neutral.

  Thorn thought he’d left the murk behind on Murgon 4. He’d seen the pristine barracks of the research facility upon entry and assumed that was the forecast of how his new life would be. He hadn’t taken into account the minds of the Magecorps’ Sergeants and how effectively they would force him to relive his muck-strewn past. At least on Murgon 4 he got to play cards.

  Thorn shook his head at the memory. “Coulda been rich by now,” he muttered to himself as he glared at the brown tar an inch beneath his nose.

  The air went still as his words tumbled out, and it took him a few seconds to notice the thick black boots standing in front of him. He turned his head up slowly, looking through his raised brow as he dared not drop to the ground and give the lieutenant a reason to start the drills all over again.

  “Did you speak, Stellers?” The sharp lines in Narvez’s face dug even deeper into her ta
nned skin.

  Thorn could hear the other recruits gasping as they held their form. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.” He struggled to project the response but refused to let her see his pain.

  “Recruits.” Narvez turned her attention to the flagging troops. “Did I give you permission to speak?”

  “Ma’am, no, ma’am,” they called back. Thorn was pretty sure a few of them were on the verge of crying. Or puking. Or both.

  “Lieutenant Narvez, ma’am, if I may?” Thorn’s look of apology was mild, even regretful.

  Narvez raised her brow as the silence stretched between them.

  “I was simply going to comment on the sad state of your boots, ma’am. Those are not ON officer compliant.”

  Thorn had only a fraction of a second to revel in the troop’s laughter before Narvez’s boot came down between his shoulders and pressed him into the mud. Above them a cloud began to swirl—far from natural, and contained only by the power of Narvez’s magical will. It took shape in seconds, growing darker and more intense by leaps and bounds. She glanced up at the unnatural structure as a sense of doom began to fill Thorn’s chest. Her face was still. Inhumanly so. And in that blankness, he sensed power.

  Above her, power continued to gather, just at the edge of his senses.

  Narvez’s voice rang with metallic clarity as she raised her arms to the sky. “Lay your arm out to the side, Stellers,” she commanded.

  The recruits were stunned to silence. Thorn was compelled to obey.

  “Fingers spread.”

  A ball of light began to form in Narvez’s palm and she held it as it grew, sparking in wild, spasmodic growth. Thorn stared in horror at his fingers, spread unwillingly in the mud, wishing his arm to pull back in toward his body. When he realized he no longer had the mental capacity to control the limb, he turned to his side, grabbed the rogue shoulder with his other hand, and pulled against it. Nothing. His heart hammered against his ribs as his feet scrabbled for purchase; thoughts of his stupid mouth bringing this on to him unwelcome, bitter—and true.

  The glowing globe shot from Narvez’s hand into the clouds and generated a bolt of lightning. It separated into four thin, distinct branches as it hit the ground between each of his fingers.

  Narvez turned her dimming eyes toward him and lifted her boot from his back. “You can spit shine my boots later, Stellers. Thank you for your concern.” She grinned—a hideous effect on her features—and floated back to her trench, her feet skimming over the ground in a show of magical ability designed to make the recruits feel small

  It worked.

  Thorn threw his hand to the sky, then turned it over and back, checking his fingers for singe marks. Momentary fear still coursed through him at the sight of what true magic could do.

  “Now push that ground away, recruits.” Her voice had returned to its natural grit. The recruits resumed their positions with a newly discovered motivation and continued their half count pushups.

  “No, no, no,” Narvez hollered. “I said push that ground away.” She held her palms out toward them, drawing on the white-blue light once again and letting it hover in the air in front of each hand. “Push!”

  Thorn regained his composure and placed his shaking fingers just above the mud. He looked up at Narvez in mild shock, then he pushed. The black cloud of shimmering energy shot from his hands and propelled him upward.

  Narvez looked up at him, and for a moment her stoic demeanor faltered. The recruits stared up at Thorn in disbelief.

  “Umm, a little help up here?” Thorn wobbled against the current of energy, some twenty feet off the ground.

  “Release it, Stellers.” Before Narvez had a chance to complete her sentence, Thorn smashed to the ground. “Slowly…dammit.”

  Thorn coughed and spat mud into Val’s shoulder beside him. “You could have led with that, ma’am.”

  Val smacked him hard on the arm and wiped the mud from her skin. “Keep your filth to yourself, Proby.”

  Narvez commanded their attention once more. “When you’ve all finished getting to know your own magic a little better, you can return to the mess hall for chow—then report to Instructor Burnitz for weapons training.” She turned to the back of the mud pit. “Lieutenant Wixcombe, direct the recruits and ensure each and every one of them initiates a magical push before they are dismissed. Not a pushup. This isn’t some childhood gymnastics class. I want command of their body mass against gravity, not an archaic workout.”

  “Lieutenant.” Kira accepted the shift of responsibility and made her way to Narvez’s trench, kicking the mud from her boots into Thorn’s face as she passed.

  Thorn couldn’t blame Kira. Because of him, she was stuck in the ditches with the rest of the grunts until he got himself under control—at the very least, he had to control his mouth. The magic would come with practice, he hoped, but his damned attitude might stop him from surviving in the program long enough to find out. Kira’s rigid form told him she was accustomed to the officer’s quarters and recruitment life—but her movements proved she could also get her hands dirty. Thorn was caught admiring the woman who he had first known as a girl.

  “Stellers.” Kira wasted no time singling him out. “You’ll continue to push—with control—until every one of your squad have followed suit.”

  “You know you don’t have to ask me twice.” He ran his mud-covered hands through his hair before returning to the plank position. “Ma’am.” For the next hour, Thorn pushed and released, practicing his descent and harnessing the energy that remained as he lowered himself to the ground for the next push. He felt like a leaf, caught in currents of his own making.

  The food provided in the mess hall consisted of a small handful of nuts and a few cubes of cheese. His stomach roared in defiance as he chewed the last cube of pasty cheese. He dropped his tray on the conveyor and turned to see Kira standing behind him with her jaw jutting out. The childlike attitude reminded him of the days at the Children’s Home when she’d been pissed at him for one thing or another.

  Kira punched him without holding back. “You dumbass.”

  Thorn rubbed his shoulder. “Ouch. Tad excessive, don’t you think?”

  “Get your shit together or I’ll show you what excessive is.” Kira marched off, pulling her hair tight in its frayed ponytail as she did.

  Stave training was no less exhausting than the emotional breaking Narvez had subjected them to that morning. Though the planet was smaller and the resulting days shorter, these first few weeks at Code Nebula felt as though they were one continuous blur of pain and failure. Burnitz had made it his personal job to make sure every inch of Thorn’s body was covered in welts or bruises. The burly bearded man could move with the grace of a gazelle and struck with the force of a rhino. Thorn had no idea how to deflect his blows, let alone best him with the wooden planks, and Burnitz had two full decades of experience in hand-to-hand combat. He’d forgotten more than Thorn knew, and Thorn had grown up using his fists on a daily basis.

  Rifle training was only different from stave training in that the ON demanded live ammunition. Luckily for Magecorps, the ON had not yet banned the use of Lifer energy—healing magic—on training wounds. That didn’t stop it from feeling like a red-hot iron rod was being projected through your skin, nor could it revive an instant death from a badly placed shot.

  Thorn made his next mistake by asking the instructor a question when the recruits were marched out onto the live-fire range.

  “What happens if we’re hit, sir?”

  “This.” The instructor’s rifle snapped up, fired, and went back to resting position before anyone else could move. The shot cut a hot furrow through Thorn’s shoulder, leaving him lurching to one side in shock and pain.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it? You’ll learn to dodge. Or you won’t. Either way, you’ll answer the most important question on my range,” the instructor said in a casual tone. He was a grizzled veteran, with eyes like black gems and a scar that split his scalp in three parts.
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br />   “What question is that, sir?” Thorn gasped as a medic began holding hands over the wound, her lips moving without sound. The healing spell worked—but it still hurt like hell.

  “How do I learn to dodge a bullet?”

  The day proved to Thorn and his class that gunshot wounds are the greatest teaching method ever devised. All the instructors assured the trainees that they never aimed for vital body parts. Thorn suspected they found pleasure in the soft thud of lead against those non-vital squishy bits, but with every failure to deflect a shot, the medic was called immediately. Thorn began to understand that the instructors weren’t sadists—they were trying to save the recruits from death.

  Day after day, the instructors pulled the recruits from their bunks, pushed them through a paltry breakfast, tore them down physically, and then broke them mentally. When they were sufficiently depleted and broken, they would demand that the trainees perform magic with clarity and conciseness. When they inevitably failed, they broke them down once again. They worked their posts like prison guards with a penchant for punishment.

  While Thorn found himself succeeding in Weapons and Tactics, he was not so adept in Clearance and Material Sciences. No matter how many times he repeated Commander Schrader’s snake analogy, he couldn’t seem to let go of simmering frustration that Burnitz and the others didn’t care what they put the recruits through, and in his darkest moments, Thorn was convinced the instructors made it personal. It didn’t matter to them that the troops were running on eight hundred kcals a day or less than four hours of sleep a night. They expected them to perform without exception. They were shaping them into war machines but treated them as if they were just that—machines.