CANELIS FRACHDAL's promotion comes with a price and that is to investigate a supply issue in the army. Upon arrival, she is greeted with a renegade camp underneath the Army's nose, a magical anomaly creeping inward from the ocean, and warring sides...
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They stopped and made camp on an obscure spot in the forest. Unlike the trade route in the Xai-Ren outposts, there was hardly anyone on the well-worn road through the forest. Canelis found an empty space and sat on it, leaning her head against a rough tree trunk and closing her eyes to relax. Leaves of multiple colors rustled with the cool breeze shuffling in the canopies, providing a calming focus in her mind. She was cooped up in that filthy cell for so long she forgot how nice a forest breeze felt against her skin.
A flash of light behind her lids sparked. She opened her eyes to find Cailen striking a flint into a meager pile of branches he had made. Within a few seconds, a bright fire burned and licked the sticks.
"We won't last that long with that scant thing," Canelis jerked her chin at their small fire when Cailen dusted his hands with a sigh and fell back. "You need to work on your fire-lighting skills."
"Yeah?" Cailen glared at her. "And you need to work on your people skills. Your way of starting and holding a conversation sucks."
Canelis opened her mouth to defend her honor when Cailen turned to the flame, bracing his elbows over his knees. "I wouldn't blame you though," he said. "The Army has pounded you into a non-feeling machine with how rigid it is."
"There you are again, degrading the only thing I know to be true," Canelis snapped. "If you've got nothing to say about my comrades, shut up. Unlike you, I've been in the Army far longer. I know what I'm talking about."
A small chuckle shook Cailen's shoulders. "I'm not apologizing for my thoughts, though," he said. "There really are some aspects in the way you guys do things that needed improvement."
Canelis raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"
"Letting people choose for themselves," Cailen said. "The Army doesn't do enough of that."
"Are you speaking from personal experience or are you relaying to me somebody else's sentiment?" Canelis inclined her head to one side. How much difference the absence of the grates between them could make, right?
Cailen mussed his hair, turning to her with a stupid grin on his face. "A little bit of both," he said. "I was born in Ok-Sa to renegade parents. Like how you're born inside the Army, none of us had a choice about where life would take us."
Canelis pursed her lips. So this was what it was? Generational renegades not being able to do what they want, enjoy what they felt entitled to just because they're born from the wrong family? "Do you want to serve in the Army?" she asked, daring to extend a proverbial limb out there.
The boy hummed. "If it meant having a roof that could collapse any time over my head, why not?" he said. "If I am going to survive, I owe it to myself to give me a better chance, right?"
"What about your parents?" Canelis knitted her eyebrows. "Your siblings? Children?"
Cailen's expression fell. "My parents are gone. Taken by the plague."
