Leah's Hero - Miranda Martin Page 0,10

to her.

“Hey,” I say, motioning with a hand as I try to push past the cold knot of fear that is screaming at me to run and hide.

“Hey,” she responds, flashing a brief smile before returning her attention to the work she’s doing.

The lump in my throat is too thick. I swallow several times before I can force words out.

“So, I can help, I can do this, I’m sorry about the, I want to contribute, to help, so maybe we can go and you know, get the, well I don’t want to be a downer so can you, could we go and get the vegetables?”

It rushes out of me in a confused, babbling mess. Allie watches, eyes widening, a grin forming on her face. Her lips part, my heart pounds, waiting for the admonition to come.

“Sure,” she says.

I almost collapse to the floor as relief floods me.

“Yeah?” I ask, afraid to believe she means it after my earlier meltdown.

She stops what she’s doing and looks at me. “Yes, I’m sure.”

She smiles and then slides the leafy vegetables she’s working over into a crate. After she sets the crate aside, she places a hand on my shoulder.

“We got this,” she says.

I hope she’s right, but I don’t share her confidence. Outside is terrifying. The two of us out there alone? I don’t think there’s enough training to ever consider it safe. The cold certainty in my gut tells me we don’t have a clue what we’re going to be facing.

4

URUKOL

Eyes closed, I listen to the sounds of the early morning. This is my favorite time of the day. It’s quiet. In these early hours, before the suns rise and the day begins for everyone else, I find the only peace I’ll know for the day.

I grit my teeth and ignore the itching where my wing should be. I resist as long as I can before giving in and scratching the scars. It eases it, some, but never gets rid of it. That ache, it’s an emptiness, something that should be and isn’t.

I rise from my pallet and carefully pick my way along the wall and out to the kitchen area. I don’t want to wake anyone up. This is my time. Me and the food that I’m going to prepare. It’s a ritual. I find solace in my rituals, a balm for my soul. They’ve helped me to keep pushing forward after my accident.

My accident. My death is a more accurate description. The members of the Order were told that’s what happened to me. That I died of my wounds. The sting of that betrayal is as fresh today as it was when it happened years ago. The truth is the Eye didn’t think I was useful, being maimed and imperfect. He had no further use for me and banished me.

If Thargar and Dalagh hadn’t found me, I’d be dead. I was still wounded when I was taken deep into the jungle, far from the Order’s compound and left to survive or die on my own. So much for my brothers in arms.

As I’ve found out since, my true brothers never knew the truth about what happened to me. I think that no one beyond the Eye and his two rabid enforcers, Zirthoan and JKaran know the truth. Those two were the ones who carried me on a stretcher out into the jungle and left me to fend for myself.

The memory hurts even now. I begged them not to leave me. In that moment of weakness I debased myself to begging for my life. It haunts me still but their reaction haunts more. They not only smiled, it was a gleeful, joyous smile as they watched me grovel. They took pleasure in my pain and my despair.

Looking back, it shouldn’t have surprised me. As the Eye’s enforcers, their job was to dole out punishment, but it was common talk among the Order that they enjoyed their work too much. It was different than punishment—for them it was pleasure. It wasn’t pride in a job, it was sadistic. It was evil.

Evil at the heart of the Order, in its very core. They were evil and the Eye knew it, which could only mean… cold chills spread across my arms and even out onto the missing end of my tail. The phantom part that I still feel, even though it’s been gone for so long.

The others with me have similar stories, though for different reasons. Living with these males, I’ve come to understand