Dad considered this need a weakness. It was one of his regular lecture points, but he humored my weaknesses in a way he would not do with others. It was a sign that under the ruthless archangel exterior, he really did love me.
He was tough but not stupid. Never stupid. He’d heard about Eva’s betrayal, and he must have known how hard it had hit me. So he’d used his influence at the Legion to get Allegra transferred with me. She was, after all, my only friend.
“You’ve been so quiet since your return from the Sienna Sea,” Allegra said. “I thought it was because of what Eva did, but that’s not all. You’re not just hurt. You’re…day-dreamy.”
I blinked. “Am I?”
“Yes. Which means something more happened. It must have been a wild adventure to get you so tangled up in your own thoughts, and yet I’ve heard almost nothing about it.”
“What do you want to know?” I asked her.
She glanced at the dagger strapped to my thigh. “Is it true that’s an immortal weapon?”
“Yes. And no.”
She frowned. “Cryptic comments must have come with the wings, Cadence, because you were far more direct before you became an angel.”
“It’s not my wings, Allegra. It’s the dagger. It’s not as simple as you think.”
“Then explain it to me.”
I sat down next to her on the bed. “I’m not sure I can explain it.”
“Try.”
“It’s just a feeling. Yes, the Diamond Tear has the immense power of an immortal artifact, but it is also something more. I can feel the hum of its magic song in my magic—and in my soul. It feels so good, so right. In just a few short days, it has become a part of me, like a dear old friend. I cannot imagine life without it.”
I looked at her to gauge her response to my words, but I couldn’t read her expression at all right now.
“Maybe I’m just imagining things,” I sighed. “Maybe after losing Eva, I’m just so sad and desperate to replace that ache in my heart that I’m filling the hole she left with an inanimate object.” A pitiful laugh escaped my mouth. “I’m trying to make friends with a dagger. I really am crazy.”
“If you can question your sanity, it’s unlikely that you’re insane.” She took my hands and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Maybe you and the dagger have a special connection. Or…” Her brows arched. “…or maybe this isn’t about the dagger at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Colonel Dragonsire were in very real, very grave danger. Shared peril forges connections.”
“You think I’m transferring my feelings for him onto the dagger.”
“You tell me.”
I thought about it. “I’m not sure what Damiel is to me. Or what I am to him.”
A smirk curled her lips. “You really like him.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You are the perfect soldier, Cadence. You live and breathe procedure.”
I frowned.
“You can’t help it, honey. It’s the way your father raised you. Haven’t you ever noticed that Eva and I are the only soldiers at the Legion that you refer to by our first name?”
“That’s not true. What about Nyx?”
She chuckled. “Ok, smarty pants. The First Angel is like the gods. She doesn’t have a last name. But Colonel Dragonsire does. You called him ‘Damiel’, which means you at least see him as a friend.” Her smile spread to her whole face. She wasn’t just smiling now; she was beaming. “But I think he’s more than just a friend.”
“The Master Interrogator is…complicated.”
“No kidding.”
“Defining my relationship with him is even more complicated,” I added.
A devilish spark lit up her eyes. “You have a crush on Colonel Dragonsire.”
“Can you call it a crush if it’s not entirely one-sided?”
Damiel was drawn to me too. I could feel it. And this wasn’t just about magic. I’d felt something drawing us together, even when our magic had been muted.
“Colonel Dragonsire has a thing for you.” Allegra flashed me a grin. “The General is going to love that.”
No kidding. Dad had warned me about Damiel.
“So when are you and Colonel Dragonsire going to see each other again?” Allegra asked me.
“I have no idea. But he did promise to visit sometime and make me pancakes.”
“If he’s offered to make you breakfast, he must be planning on staying the night.” She winked at me.
I opened my mouth to respond with a witty retort—the details of which I was still working on—but a solid knock on my door cut my moment of rhetorical genius short.
“Well, that was fast,” Allegra commented.
“It’s not Colonel Dragonsire,” I told her. “It’s my father.”
Dad had a very distinctive knock.
I walked over to the door and opened it. Sure enough, my father stood on the other side. He wasted no time, striding into the room like he owned the place.
His gaze locked on Allegra. “Captain Prior, you are dismissed.”
He sounded especially gruff, even for him. Maybe he’d overheard our gossiping.
“Cadence,” he said after Allegra had left and closed the door behind her. “We need to talk about Colonel Dragonsire. You understand the dangers of piquing the Master Interrogator’s interest. You were not careful enough in your last mission.”
I struggled to keep a straight face—and to not flush bright red. Well, that proved it. My father had overheard us talking about Damiel. And as Allegra had said, he didn’t like it.
At this point, my best option was to play it cool.
“I didn’t do anything but obey orders. I haven’t been anything less than a perfect soldier.”
“Do not confide in Colonel Dragonsire. Do not trust him. He is not your ally, and he is certainly not your friend. No one is safe from him, not even the most perfect soldier. Even I have done things that would get me into trouble if the Master Interrogator investigated long enough.”
“You’re being cynical,” I said.
“I’m being realistic. You need to be realistic too if you want to survive the Master Interrogator’s investigation. He will stop at nothing to get his job done, even pretend to be your friend. He has studied you. He knows your weakness, your need to forge friendship.”
My father had raised me to be the perfect soldier. He thought he’d failed in one regard: my need for friends. The Legion believed personal connections made its soldiers weak.
“You weren’t careful in the Black Forest,” Dad said. “You showed your magic resistance, and now Colonel Dragonsire is out to expose you.”
“I did what I had to do in order to save Colonel Beastbreaker. I was trying to do the right thing.”
“You need to concentrate on doing the accepted thing, Cadence, rather than doing the moral thing.”
Yeah, I’d heard that one before. Many times, in fact. Apparently, I wasn’t capable of learning that lesson.
“Get some rest. I will see you at the ceremony in the morning,” he told me, then left my room.