I was dumbstruck. There was a rush of realizations. Daphne loved me so so much, and that made tears well in my eyes because it made me recall how much I loved her. Daphne was the Queen and could command that I not go—an idea which made me love her like crazy and also made me so angry that she might hold that power over me. Daphne was Queen, so maybe she was privy to some other piece of information; was I marching to my death? Was this a death mission we were going on? Then, Daphne was my best friend and knew me better than anyone, so did she think that I wouldn’t be able to handle it? But, then, she didn’t know all the ways I had changed in the last six months. She couldn’t possibly know what a great soldier I could be, because I couldn’t even know. Was it just because I was her best friend and she was scared of losing her last anchor to a world we would both never see again?
This was deeper, there was something else here…
“What’s going on, Daph? Why don’t you want me to go? I’ve been training really hard. I’m quite good—” I placed my hands on her arms where they tucked tight around her knees and head. She squeezed me back.
“I know. I know you are. Jase says you are and Kajo wouldn’t let him risk your life if he wasn’t a good leader to follow. I am sure he wouldn’t ask you along if he didn’t think you could handle it, or at least if he didn’t think you could try to handle it and he wanted to see how far he could test you.”
I felt my cheeks heat up a little as she spoke. That was really cool to hear that the leaders thought so highly of me, but I wasn't so sure what I thought of them, yet. Jase had such a maniacal, reckless, and ruthless reputation. He might be a blonde Greek god looking figure, tall and ripped, with sleeve tattoos of famed mythological battles, Farian battles, of course, that I had recently been reading as bedtime fables, of heroes and goddesses stretching up his arms and revealing themselves in slight chisel curls around his collarbone. I wondered how much they stretched around his body…
I shook away the thoughts of his broad chest and flexing biceps and tried to remember his razor-sharp brown eyes and cutting words. I refocused on Daphne, who had not stopped speaking in stuttering, shaking sentences.
“… I am sure you can handle anything. I know you’re… good… I know you’ve been training… But… Vania… I’m pregnant. I can’t lose you.”
My mouth dropped open, and I jumped up. “You’re pregnant!”
I grabbed her hands and danced around the room with her. The happy little skips tore a smile from her otherwise scared face as the lightning flickered against the curtains and rain lashed at the windows.
“You’re pregnant, Daphne! That’s amazing! Does Kajo know?”
"I haven't told him yet. You're the first. I don't know how to tell him… I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Is it going to be different from an Earthling birth? I don't know what to do!"
“Oh, Daphne, everything will be fine. You will have a ton of people to help you, and besides that, you’re the strongest person I know. This is amazing. What’s stopping you from telling Kajo?”
“Well, he is worried about Tarsine. Please don’t tell anyone I told you, because he really trusts Jase, but he is preparing troops, just in case, in order to smash Tarsine back if things get out of hand. He doesn’t want anything to go wrong and wants his Alpha Warlords set up well.”
“That makes sense, of course. But then why keep this happy news to yourself?”
“I don’t know how he will react. Maybe it will make him behave differently, distract him or something, and he really needs to deal with this war right now. And what difference will it make to wait until after the campaign to tell him?”
“I get that. I will keep your secrets.”
“Thank you, Vania." Daphne squeezed my hands and then walked us back to the sofa. We collapsed onto it, and I grabbed the bottle of non-tequila again. She sighed. "I know you will be great at war. You’re the strongest person I know. We are quite the pair.”
I gripped the bottle and nodded, my heart racing as I noticed the time slipping away from the clock on the wall. I had just enough time to go to my quarters and grab my gear. Then… off I went to war.
I smiled at my best friend and took another shot for good measure. “We will always be.”
Four
Jase
The spy rolled his head up at me in his drugged state, the whites of his eyes tinted blue with the mind-blocking medicine. The problem with a telepathic kingdom was that the easiest way to get answers would be to read his mind, while inflicting pain and asking questions, but also the easiest way for him to call for help would be for him to reach out to someone else through telepathy. Our interrogation facilities, the Rumor Caves as they were called, were hundreds of miles away and deep below the earth in the salt fields, a location hidden and difficult to find. The salts disrupted telecommunication through it. We could use telepathy inside the caverns, but nothing could get out of the crust. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to take him there. Even with the speed advantage teleporting might provide us, I just couldn’t be two places at once. So, we had to drug him to keep him from being able to access the telepathic skills, but that also made his thoughts fuzzy. So, while we were gathering a lot of information, some of it might be inutile.
I flicked my eyes up from the spy’s bloody face as the door creaked
