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  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.

  “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.

  On the training grounds near the creekbank, Instructor Hiroshi was giving some presentation about the different elements that magic could be drawn from and their manifestations, and in that moment, Thorn didn’t feel like a machine at all. He felt—tired. Hollow. His mind began to fuzz, and—

  “Stellers!” Hiroshi startled him out of his daydream.

  “Sir?” Thorn had become proficient in the art of snapping out of it.

  Hiroshi said, “Unless you want to be the subject of my presentation, I’m going to need you to fall in with the rest of your squad.” The compact, muscular man was a Lieutenant Commander out of Magecorps, and within it, he was the foremost authority on elemental magic. Hiroshi, the recruits learned through the grapevine, had come into his power at the age of twenty, when a ship’s airlock went haywire and killed two sailors in front of him. As with many people who found magic later in life, Hiroshi needed trauma to awaken his power, which made sense given how Thorn had come to know his own magical ability.

  The breeze freshened and Thorn realized he may have actually fallen asleep when he saw the recruits had moved to the field above the rocky bank.

  “Sir, yes, sir.” Thorn hustled to join them, a cloud of confusion fading as he pelted up the incline, feet churning damp soil.

  Hiroshi twisted his hands in a deliberate series of motions, light beginning to flare between the palms. Each mote was blue, then silver, and then they combined into a serpentine flow that danced in an unnatural sight that had once been reason enough to burn people at the stake. The rushing water slowed its current and flowed obediently upward, joining the ball of glowing matter between Hiroshi’s hands. There, the water vanished, held in a magical reservoir beyond the normal senses of humanity. With a dismissive flick, Hiroshi split the globe of light, water crashing from his palms in a torrent that sent spray ten meters in the air.

  Not one recruit spoke. They were unable to in the face of such power.

  Hiroshi’s black hair billowed backward with the opposing gust of wind, coming to rest around his face like a hood. “The dynamism of magic is completely in the hands of the Mage. Rodie, perform. The target cairns are downrange, and you will each destroy one of the stacks. If any rocks are still touching, you have failed. Begin.”

  Rodie made the earth tremble along a well-placed line and passed his bright white energy through the cracks to dismantle the targeted cairn, each rock flying away with enthusiasm. Drigo’s power manifested in a living red flame, directed precisely to a point of earth that was left charred glassy. Val could spin a ball of blue energy into whatever caliber was necessary and hit the target cairn three hundred yards out—when the spell hit, the first stone it touched exploded in a shower of rocky fragments, some glowing like lava.

  Streya seemed to pull on the very air around her and act as a conduit for the natural power of the environment. Thorn had never seen her so ominously present as when she pulled the clouds
down from above her and swirled them into a cyclone, obliterating the stack of rocks. When the cyclone disbanded, the rocks flew in all directions. More than a few left their marks on the recruits, and one knocked Rodie out cold.

  Hiroshi threw water from the river on Rodie to bring him back to consciousness.

  “Hey, Rodie. Now that melon head of yours has a lump of its own,” Drigo said.

  Hiroshi struggled to keep the smile from his face but still commanded Drigo to do fifty physical push-ups for speaking out of turn.

  “Stellers, let’s see what you can produce.” Hiroshi stood near the cairn, daring him to miscalculate his attack. The atmosphere was tense, but Thorn was not.

  Thorn had no trouble performing the Mage tasks. The trouble came in controlling them. He moved to the riverbank and chewed his lip in trepidation. He enjoyed Hiroshi’s teaching style. If there were an instructor he would hope not to abolish in a cloud of dark energy, Hiroshi would be the one.

  He breathed deeply and concentrated. On what, he wasn’t sure. At first his thoughts swirled through his head, colliding, threading through one another in a woven skein of uncertainty and—there was something else. Under the surface, like a riptide—

  It was power. And it was Thorn’s, if he could take it.

  Then the image of a schoolboy pulling seven-year old Kira’s long copper hair flashed before his eyes—Kira, enduring abuse for no other reason than she was unable to defend herself. Then, not now. Thorn gathered the molecules that surrounded him, letting the anger grow to a diamond point.

  He directed them at the memory of the sallow face on the boy, and he let go. The stack of rocks flew backward in a scorching blur, embedding in the trunk of a tree twenty yards away.

  Silence descended, along with sprays of bark, leaves, and the feathers of some unfortunate flying creature caught in Thorn’s cone of destruction.

  “Ah, well then.” Hiroshi cleared his throat, unused to being at a loss for words. “Dismissed. And remember to hydrate,” he added, warming to his position once again.

  Elemental magic had a way of sapping the fluids from the fibers of your muscles. Thorn sat at the bank of the river and splashed himself with the cool liquid.

  Before returning to his bunk, he caught a glimpse of Instructor Hiroshi speaking in hushed tones with Lieutenant Narvez and Commander Schrader. Lieutenant Ashworth stood nearby looking particularly sullen.

  “Hey, Stellers!” Rodie had a little too much enthusiasm as Thorn entered the barrack and stripped the mud-crusted clothes from his body.

  “What are you selling today, Rodie?”

  “You’re gonna love it, Stellers. I’ve reeeally got the goods this time.” The lump bulging just above his left eye made Rodie look like some street urchin who’d fought off dogs for a stolen loaf of bread.

  “Just get to it, Rodie.” Thorn plopped down on the edge of his bunk.

  Rodie pulled a small, rectangular bar wrapped in gold foil from his chest pocket. “I’ve got the king of kings, the lord of sweets, seventy-two percent gen-you-ine choco-late!”

  “I don’t really have a sweet tooth, Rodie.” Thorn lay with his face to the wall.

  “Suit yourself. I was offering it to you first, but I know Drigo’s gonna go crazy,” Rodie said as he sauntered off.

  Val stopped him in his tracks. “Rodie, did you just say you have-- chocolate?” Thorn turned to watch this exchange.

  “I sure did, darling.” Rodie said, grinning slyly. “And it can be yours for a small price…”

  “Let’s negotiate, shall we?” Val said.

  “Um.” Rodie rubbed one hand over his head, face wrinkling. “See, I was gonna ask for”—he cut his eyes at Thorn, who shook his head imperceptibly—“your good graces during, our, um…upcoming trials together.”

  Val lifted a brow. “Eminently reasonable of you, and forward-thinking.” She plucked the chocolate from his hand, grinning. “I applaud this kind of initiative in a squadmate.”

  “Yeah, initiative,” Rodie said. “Enjoy your bar, Val.”

  “I haven’t had chocolate in months. I don’t know how he gets this stuff.” Val spoke through chunks of the bar in her cheek, already halfway through the contraband treasure.

  Despite the exhaustion, Thorn rose from his bed and looped a companionable arm around Rodie. “You got hustled.”

  “Did not,” Rodie protested.

  Val laughed, chocolate smearing her teeth. “Sure did, Rodie. It was my feminine wiles. They’re irresistible.” She flexed a forearm corded with muscle.

  “Yeah. Wiles,” Rodie said slowly, but Thorn’s good humor helped him past the irritation..

  “Come on, Rodie, that’s enough commerce for one day. You might get to your rack without shoes if I don’t escort you there personally.” He gave Rodie a playful shove, then turned back to Val, whose eyes were half closed in bliss. He joined Val on the edge of her bunk and held his hand out for a piece of the chocolate. She obliged.

  Thorn nibbled at the square. “What brought you to the ON anyway?”

  Val nodded at Tuck. “Tuck and I have been best mates for ages. We used to play Navy versus Invaders as kids. Guess we both always wanted to join up. Never imagined this is what it would be for us.”

  “I couldn’t have imagined it either, but most of my ability to dream was torched in an impact crater,” Thorn said, but not in a dark way. He was practical like that.

  “Where’d you get hit?” Val asked.

  “Cotswolds, the main island. Nothing left but ashes now. And me,” he added, then smiled at Val for the first time—a real smile, earned by a growing sense of shared purpose. “Thanks for sharing your spoils. I’m gonna get the most sleep I can tonight.”

  Thorn shuffled to his bunk and fell face down into the welcoming crisp sheets. The night brought him thoughts of home again, a flickering story of fire and loss, but even that couldn’t stop him from sleeping—a state he achieved almost instantly, and without anything more than a long, thin sigh.

  For the first time in a month, the recruits were woken after the sun had risen. When Narvez arrived to lead them to breakfast, she never said a word. As they approached the mess hall, Thorn was sure his senses were failing him. He smelled the unforgettable scent of bacon.

  Commander Schrader stood near the trays, a pressed black uniform neatly folded about his crossed arms.

  “Congratulations, recruits.” Schrader didn’t have to raise his voice—ever. When he was present, the troops were devoid of sound. You could hear a pin drop from across the room, save for the hum of overhead lightbars.

  “You’ve hit a milestone in your training. Every one of you has efficiently controlled your elemental magic, and I’m proud to report you’re now Magisters, one and all. Next stop—Starcasters.” Schrader stepped aside and his arm swooped around to reveal their prize. The troops whooped at the sight, their voices lifted in relief and joy.

  Thorn began to salivate like one of Pavlov’s dogs. The buffet was stacked full of sunny yellow eggs, fresh fruits, links of spicy sausage, and the mother of all holies, piles of bacon. He filled his tray to the brim and nearly stumbled over Kira as he turned to find a seat.

  Kira stood with one arm behind her back. “You did it.” She handed him a piping hot thermos that held a deep aroma of dark, floral sweetness. “You got your shit together. I’m off training duty and you’ve got yourself a cup of one of the smoothest Columbian joes you’ll ever taste.”

  Thorn nearly dropped his tray. “Colombian? Like, Earth Columbian?”

  “That’s right.” Kira’s eyes glimmered when she saw her surprise had, in fact, astounded him.

  “How did you…I didn’t think any of this roast even existed anymore.” Thorn took a sip a bit too quickly and burned his tongue. “Ah, shit.”

  “This batch is one of the last, so I hope you still get a chance to taste it once your tongue cools.” Kira left him to enjoy. It would be a long time before he was treated to such extravagance again.

&nb
sp; Over the brim of his cup, Thorn watched her walk away, her steps light with a new optimism.

  Now the real work begins, he thought.

  He was right.

  5

  Thorn twisted beneath Burnitz’s arm as he swung a hammer fist; the destination, Thorn’s right temple.

  For a split second he thought he may have gained the advantage on the powerful instructor, and he jabbed his knife-wielding hand in an upward trajectory. He didn’t realize how much he had underestimated Burnitz’s agility until he was in the air on a short list for a meeting with the ground. He hit the dirt with a hollow thud and dropped the knife at his side.

  “Well, that didn’t work,” Thorn wheezed.

  “You look natural down there, Stellers. Like you’re in your element.” Burnitz kicked the knife away as Thorn grimaced.

  Burnitz addressed the plebes. “Self-defense—fighting, to you kids—does not rely on the ability to use greater speed alone. No, instead you should watch their eyes. They tell you everything you need to know, and you can predict their actions. Then, you can enhance your advantage.” He dropped a clear bottle half-full of a mottled brown liquid on Thorn’s chest.

  “Dit da jow. Become acquainted. The ancients of the old world developed this cure for bruising and to strengthen bones against breaking. The herbs used to create the salve are worth more than your weight in gold, and we’ve…augmented it…with some of our own processes.” Burnitz tapped a foot against Thorn’s ribs with enough force to get his attention. “But if you use more than a drop, I’ll break those ribs before you get the chance to toughen them up. Clear?”

  Thorn opened the bottle and gagged at the noxious aroma. “Are you sure these are herbs, sir? Smells like you took a dunk in the latrines.”

  Burnitz stooped and grabbed Thorn by the shirt, then he pulled him up. When Thorn was standing, Burnitz smoothed out Thorn’s uniform front and leaned in close. “I don’t like you. You’re overconfident and undisciplined, and you don’t know shit about control. Impulse control makes an officer. Good judgment makes a mage. You’re neither right now.”