Centuries

Chapter 15

Over the next few days General Janazain enforced the fence harder and harder. I would've asked the Darkling what he thought about it but I'd barely seen him.
I was worried Zoya would get discovered but she seemed to blend in well which was a relief.

One night when I was playing cards with Zoya and Willow when we heard an explosion in the distance. It was past the curfew General Janazain had also set. Which meant if we weren't on patrol then we couldn't go outside the fence. Also there were already people outside and the Darkling ordered us to stay inside the fence tonight. Instantly the camp erupted in chaos as everyone scrambled to get their orders.

"We should see what's going on."
I could barely hear Zoya through all the shouting.

"What about curfew?" Willow asked but she was already running to an exit.

"We'll just ignore it." said Zoya while following her.

I assumed the Darkling was out wherever the explosion was since I hadn't seen him in the camp that evening other than him giving us our orders. We snuck through the fence and into the forest. None of us had lanterns and although Zoya knew about my power I couldn't risk revealing it to Willow so we were in the dark. The moon was blocked by thick clouds. I hoped we could get back before a storm hit.

"Which direction was the explosion?" I asked

"I think it was north." Willow answered

"I thought it was west." Zoya said.

I rolled my eyes. We didn't have time for this.

"Let's go northwest then." I said taking the lead.

I stumbled over rocks and branches every few seconds. If I couldn't summon sun I wished Kate could've come with us and used fire to light our path. We stayed silent to possibly hear someone or another explosion.

I thought I heard a voice in the clearing and ran towards it. Zoya and Willow trailing behind me. I saw several soldiers in army uniforms and called out to them.

"Alina?" I recognized the Darkling's voice and slowed down.

I felt something hard underneath my foot. It made a strange clicking noise. I almost ignored it but the panic on the Darkling's face stopped me.

"You just stepped on a landmine, whatever you do don't move." He instructed, I got a closer look at him when he cautiously stepped closer to me. His uniform was soaked in blood. What the hell happened here?

"Since when were there landmines to worry about?" I asked,

I had never heard anything about them here.

"Since tonight if you stayed at the base like you were supposed to instead of being a pain in the ass you would know this."

I didn't appreciate being called a pain in the ass but he was right. They were clearly already in enough of a mess.

"Zoya, can you summon enough wind to blow Alina a safe distance from the explosion?" Willow asked.

"Probably."

That wasn't exactly the answer I wanted.

She said while bringing her hands up. The rest of the soldiers backed up to avoid the explosion. A strong gust of wind hit me and sent me flying backwards. I didn't have any time to recover before the explosion went off. Everyone was out of the way so no one was hurt.

"Witch!" someone screamed at Zoya.

She was probably the most powerful squaller these people had seen.

"Asshole!" Zoya shouted back.

"We need to get back to camp before more fijerdans find us." the Darkling said once everyone recovered.

They must've been attacked before we got here.

"What about the land mines?" One of the soldiers asked

"We'll just have to be really careful."

"What exactly happened before we got here?" Willow asked

"A few fijerdans set up land mines probably within the last few days and someone stepped on one which blew our cover and they attacked. I'm pretty sure they are all dead but we still have to avoid the rest of bombs." said the Darkling

"They figured out we're dangerously close to the border if they keep attacking us like this." Willow said to the Darkling

"I know l requested to move the camp further away from the border but the General started building that fence so it's clear that won't happen."

"We're only a few miles away from Kribirsk what does he mean by the border." Zoya whispered once everyone was ahead of us

"Fijerda had a lot of northern Ravka conquered at this point."

I couldn't tell her more because I didn't want anyone to overhear us. The walk back to camp was slow in order to avoid triggering another explosion. When we got back I was about to go to sleep when the Darkling stopped me.

"You're on watch until the morning."

"I was just on watch." I complained

"It's your punishment for sneaking out."

"Where's Zoya then."

"Last time I tried to give her orders she threatened to fry me and feed me to a wolf."

That definitely sounded like something she would say.

"What about Willow?"

"I put her on another patrol. She's not getting off easily either."

I was a little bit jealous of her since being on watch was incredibly boring. I assumed the Darkling was going to sleep but a little bit later he found me. He was in a clean uniform and his hair wasn't as messy as earlier.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were mad at me." I said

"It's impossible to stay mad at you."

I was relieved that it was dark so he couldn't see me blushing.