SAGE (under edit)

Chapter Seven

Sage turned over as she woke, sunlight warming her face from the nearby window. She blinked her eyes open and saw the rest of the bed laid out beside her, the blankets tangled around her legs – and she snapped upright in sudden understanding.

Raidan had placed her on the bed.

Sage looked to the corner that she had chosen as her sleeping space, but she couldn't recall Raidan returning to the room. She hadn't wanted to fall asleep because she hadn't known whether he would return to sleep in the same room, but clearly her exhaustion took over, and it had been strong enough that she hadn't even woken at being moved.

But why did Raidan move her? Compassion wasn't in his nature, after all.

Sage swung her legs off the bed, grimacing as her body ached with recovery. She lifted her shirt to inspect her abdomen, unsurprised to find a dark patch of bruising over the left side of her ribs.

After freshening up in the bathroom, Sage took a seat at the window and her gaze was drawn down to the small courtyard of the two-storey house. Beyond the courtyard Sage saw only forest, which meant the house was on the outskirts of a village or town. She wasn't familiar with the varying flora of each region, so the trees that she could see gave no hint of which region the Shadow Soldiers were taking shelter in. The house had to be some sort of base, but inconspicuous from the outside.

In the courtyard was Toren Micah, seated in the middle of the grass with his legs folded, his hands clasped loosely in his lap and his eyes closed. He looked like he was meditating. Yesterday was the first time Sage had seen Toren Micah's face; his expertise was long-distance so no one ever caught sight of his appearance and Stone Flats had refused to provide any information after he defected, even the reasons as to why he defected. There were rumours, though, that he had murdered a fellow comrade.

He and Raidan have something in common.

Sage thought of the other Shadow Soldiers. Nox Ludoco, she recalled, hadn't become a criminal because he had committed a crime such as murder or treason. He had simply left Green Coast, as if he had grown tired of being a Coastal Soldier. Given what Sage had seen of his personality so far, Sage wasn't too surprised but, like Stone Flats, Green Coast hadn't revealed much.

Non-disclosure by the regions was common when it came to explaining a Soldier's defection, which was why it was so surprising how forthcoming Sky Expanse had been about Dante Koran. They hadn't hesitated to release the news that Dante Koran had caused the destruction of one of their towns through senseless explosions, and in his efforts to escape he had killed several Sky Soldiers. There was apparently no justification for what Dante had done, but the evidence of the destroyed town – and Dante's expertise in explosives to assist Sky Expanse's mining industry – was enough to condemn him.

The Shadow Soldiers were as wanted as each other, and Raidan fit right in. Each year his records had increased with new victims; civilians, soldiers and criminals alike. There was no pattern, but the attacks, the sightings and the killings weren't meaningless either, not like other criminal gangs who killed and terrorised purely for the fun of it. To this day the purpose – the motives – of the Shadow Soldiers were still unknown.

Sage would take this opportunity to change that.

She knew she was missing something though. If she pieced together the events of the last week, Sage failed to make sense of it. She recalled the first attack by the Shadow Soldiers which, aside from eliminating the rogues, had seemed more like a test for Sage than anything else, as if the two had merely been there to assess and take notes. But why, if it was merely to kill her?

Raidan had said he wanted information about Lion Crest from her, so why hadn't they started interrogating her? What were they waiting for?

Sage pulled out of her thoughts and looked back down into the courtyard, only to find Toren Micah staring up at her. His gaze was calm, unreadable, and it unnerved Sage. So she moved away from the window and went to the bedroom door, hesitating with her hand on the door knob. She didn't want another confrontation with Raidan, especially if it wasn't going to end with his death, but she also couldn't achieve anything if she stayed in the bedroom.