The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills

Author:Samantha Mills [Mills, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781616964146
Google: evcm0AEACAAJ
Amazon: 1616964146
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2024-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

All victorious warriors share these common principles: belief and commitment.

Belief in their god. Commitment to their commander. Belief in moral authority. Commitment to discipline.

Hold tight to these, and you will know no grief, no fear, no hesitation.

The Collected Wisdoms of Saint Vitalia

Zenya had never experienced such pain.

She couldn’t run from it. She couldn’t fight it. It was a steel bubble buried deep in her chest where the surgeons couldn’t reach, and it was growing larger every day, pushing out her heart, her lungs, her ribs.

Her mother’s death had been painful, but complicated—the woman a distant figure, defined more by what Zenya wanted from her than by what she ever gave. But her brother? It was a grief she’d never even contemplated, except for the vague, morbid fantasizing of every would-be fighter: if anybody hurt my family, I would get revenge. Except there wasn’t anybody to revenge herself upon. Tomel and Niklaus—they’d sided with anarchy. They’d hidden in siege territory, vowing sedition. They were casualties of a righteous attack.

Nushki, the steel bubble cried, and she swallowed against it, struggling for breath.

She couldn’t revenge herself upon the Winged who’d dropped the bombs. She couldn’t revenge herself upon the Tooth who’d breached the building. She could only fight the rebellion that had seduced her family.

Her despair felt like a hunger for victory.

By the time Zenya emerged from her hellish stay in the containment cage, the siege of Quaser was over, but there was plenty of work to be done. Pockets of resistance flared up in violent skirmishes every few days. The Quaser survivors had gone into hiding, moving and regrouping as quickly as they were routed out.

Now when Vodaya went into the city, she took her five-unit as a ground team. They followed tip after elusive tip, driving knots of fugitives into the open for a wing team to subdue. These places were dark and desperate—a perfect focus for Zenya’s rage. She volunteered for the dangerous point position more often than not (a meager apology for abandoning her team at the tower), but found little more than wet and pleading faces behind each door.

“You have no right!” they cried. Or: “This is blasphemous!” Or: “Please, please, please, I have children—” “—a mother—” “—a lover—”

A brother?

In the weeks following the siege of Quaser, Zenya devoted herself wholly to the fight, and it was only in the very heart of combat that she felt any purpose. On every mission she was first to her post and last to leave. In the lulls between missions, she hit the training grounds, working out alone after hours and creeping home well after the others were asleep.

Zenya cautiously eased back into enhancers. This time she paid careful attention to her pacing and dosage, charted her symptoms, and eased off when she felt the beginning tickles of madness at the edge of her vision. She reduced her nightly sleep to roughly four hours, an unavoidable window just before dawn.

Pava Romil was the first one to take her aside when he caught her dressing for combat on a free day.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.