Captain Walker nodded knowingly, that arrogant spark shining brightly in his eyes. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. I have fought and won many battles,” he declared proudly. “We can accomplish both goals, primary and secondary. We can free the Colonel and bloody those dark soldiers’ noses along the way.”
“Captain—”
“We need to hit back at the demons,” he cut in. “We need to stop them whenever we can, wherever the opportunity presents itself. The Dark Force’s numbers are growing faster than our own. They are a threat, and they must be stomped down every chance we get. It is our holy duty.”
I sighed. So Captain Walker was one of those crusader types. His ‘holy duty’ was going to get all of his soldiers killed.
“An angel’s life is in danger,” I said. “We must save Colonel Beastbreaker before it’s too late.”
“You’re new,” he replied with a patronizing smile. “Your eyes still gleam with the first taste of Nectar. It’s only natural that you’re still in awe of the angels. They are mesmerizing. But sooner or later, you need to stop allowing yourself to be blinded by their light. They are more resilient than you think. Colonel Beastbreaker can hold out longer than you can. And he would approve wholeheartedly of our dealing a major blow to the demons’ initiative on Earth. As would General…”
His eyes fell to the name printed on my poncho.
“Silverstar,” he finished, his voice lower, quieter.
“You are General Silverstar’s daughter. The archangel’s daughter.” His gaze flickered down to my name again. “The Legion…” He stopped himself before he said the word.
But I knew all too well what he’d wanted to say: Legion brat. That was what the other soldiers called the offspring of angels who served in the Legion. We were pretty hard to miss since we carried the honorific name of our angel parent. ‘Legion brat’ wasn’t a very honorific title, though. People called us that behind our backs and behind close doors. They seemed to think their name-calling never got back to us. They were wrong.
“I believe ‘Legion brat’ is the phrase that you’re looking for,” I supplied.
Captain Walker flinched. He covered it well, but not well enough. Not fast enough. I caught the beginning of the flinch before he swallowed it up.
He pulled himself together quickly, his confidence returning as he spoke once more, “I’ve worked with several Legion legacy soldiers before.”
Legion legacy soldier. That was the polite alternative to Legion brat.
“You are a talented bunch, to be sure,” he said. “But no amount of talent is a substitute for experience, don’t you agree?”
“Of course,” I said, smiling.
“And neither is an inherited angel name a substitute for rank.” He looked at me again, obviously expecting a response. And the response he wanted was nothing short of my complete and total agreement.
“Oh, yes, undisputedly,” I told him. “No name is a substitute for rank.”
“Well, now that we’ve cleared that up, I believe it would be best for all of us if we started over from the beginning.” He twirled his finger in the air. “From the time you entered the tent.”
“As you wish.”
I walked back to the entrance of the tent. Then I spun around and very slowly walked toward him as I peeled off my rain poncho.
“Captain Walker, your battle with the Dark Force is taking too long,” I said once more.
His eyes honed in on my chest. No, he wasn’t checking me out. With my poncho gone, he had an unobstructed view of the metallic flower pinned to my jacket. Just as his psychic-hand pin told me he was a soldier of the sixth level, my flower pin told him I was a soldier of the seventh.
The pieces were coming together in his head. I could see it. He’d now realized that I was not only the daughter of an archangel, but also one of the officers next in line to become an angel. And more importantly in this case, a lot closer than Captain Walker was to becoming an angel. I outranked him, and he’d just come to that unhappy discovery. The look on his face right now made the whole previous discussion—and his treating me like a clueless, new recruit—totally worth every second.
In an instant, he went from frozen, to saluting me.
I might have laughed if not for the seriousness of this mission. And the imperativeness that we continue on and rescue Colonel Beastbreaker as quickly as possible.
“You will disengage from this battle immediately, Captain,” I told him. “Then you and your army will follow me into the tunnel I have prepared.” I pointed to the magic lights floating in the air that represented the tunnel. “We will follow the tunnel until it opens up at the edge of the Black Forest, where the Dark Force is holding the angel Colonel Beastbreaker prisoner. We will rescue the Colonel and bring him safely back to Berlin. If some of the demons’ soldiers get bloodied along the way, then so be it. But we will not do anything to compromise this rescue mission or Colonel Beastbreaker’s life. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly clear, Major Silverstar.”
I grabbed my rain poncho and pulled it back on. “And just to be clear, I am neither lovestruck nor blinded by angels. I am personally aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and how resilient they are, just as I understand their critical importance in this immortal war. Something you would do well to remember, Captain.”
“Yes, sir.”
As I left the tent, I finally remembered to breathe. My father had trained me to be a leader, to have commands slide smoothly and naturally off my tongue.
And I could command with the best of them.
But it had never felt natural, and I doubted it ever would. I had to channel my father just to pull it off.
I knew I’d have to do that again before this job was done, no matter how uncomfortable it made me feel. My father had sent me here to command these soldiers, to rescue Colonel Beastbreaker. The angel’s fate was in my hands, and I wasn’t about to fail him. There was a huge force of the demons’ soldiers waiting for us at the end of the tunnel. And like me, the demons were well aware of an angel’s value. Their soldiers were not going to give him up easily.
2
The Laws of Magic
I emerged from the tunnel into the Black Forest, an army of Legion soldiers at my back. The rest of our soldiers were keeping the bulk of the Dark Force busy while we rescued Colonel Beastbreaker.
Whereas Captain Walker’s battle with the demons’ soldiers hadn’t done much to free the angel, at least it had kept the Dark Force busy—and cut them off from the magic mirror that was their ticket off this world. If they managed to escape the Earth with Colonel Beastbreaker, chances weren’t good that we’d ever get him back.
The Black Forest was moving all around us. Branches, trunks, and leaves twisted and shifted continuously. Someone had contorted several trees into structures that closely resembled war tents. Someone with powerful earth elemental magic had done this, someone I wished we’d had on our side. The spell was more than simply powerful; it was elegant. There was an artistry to the spell, a beauty. Even here, so close to the battlefield, it was a pleasant reminder that magic wasn’t just about making war. It could be used for so much more.