Souls Divided [Souls Series 1]

Chapter 2

“Weapons Specialist First Class Anya Inaresh for Specialist Commander Alpha Rohan Vale.”

The man at the gate took his sweet time, or maybe that was just Anya’s impatient nature. His eyes had gone distant and unfocused several times— different mindlinks, it seemed, checking her story against whoever was on the other end. She let him. She knew they hadn’t expected her yet, and it gave her some time for a first impression of the camp.

The gate was black wrought iron and old timber and looked older than it had any right to; it had definitely seen better days. Somewhere in the back of her mind she still pictured war camps as temporary — canvas and rope, exposed to the elements. Maybe because you’d rather not think of how "temporary" could quietly become years, decades, or even a century when peace always seemed close but still remained out of reach. It was not a nice thing to think about.

Anya had grown up mostly in the Royal barracks, because that was where her grandmother needed to be. Which was, and still is, a different world from this one here on the front lines.

While it was part of the fight, it held the real fight at arm’s length — it trained people and rehabilitated both body and soul, or whatever could still be passed for a soul, of those that needed it. Yet this place, Delta, was the fight itself.

She'd been playing at training since she was five. Real training, every day, by eight. First missions out in other corners of the world by twenty-one. She was twenty-eight now, and she'd killed people — had no discomfort in admitting that — yet also knew she hadn't seen the worst of it yet.

After Adira, her grandparents had become fiercely protective. Still wanting them raised independent, still training them hard — Aster first, decades before the twins ever came along as a surprise nobody had planned for.

But Anya knew, the way you know things nobody says out loud, that losing Adira had cost Koko and Pop a piece of their souls neither of them had ever fully gotten back. And that some small, permanent part of them stayed terrified of losing another.

Koko — the name had started as toddler Anya failing spectacularly at "Aiko," getting halfway through the sound and just yelling "Koko" instead, delighted with herself. It stuck. Nobody ever bothered fixing it.

Anya herself had never met Adira. Would never get to. A fact that used to bother her more than it does now — doing what she did and now going to the front lines, she felt a connection to her. She hoped she was a bit like her. Like the great War General that fought side-by-side with the - then would-be - Queen.

Sometimes she thought about how strange it was that she grieved for a stranger, but it was like how grandmother put it; blood remembered blood.

Her sister had died making sure that all knew that the crest that was now bolted on the gate, the crest of the Queen, served the light and served justice. It was the sun of Solerith, which symbolized light and peace, being embraced from below by a waxing moon – almost like the sun lay safe in a bed made by the moon — like the moon and the goddess Selene protected and carried Solerith.

Of course, a stylized impression of a wolf’s head slightly in front of and below the moon completed it; both this kingdom and its royalty had a long wolf shifter heritage, and they were the dominant shifter type of Solerith.

She liked it, liked how, from the stories she had been told as a little kit, she knew the queen had purposely chosen a waxing moon and not just a crescent moon, because a waxing moon stood for growth.

But standing there waiting in front of that old gate, she could see the crest had now become dulled by time and the weather.

"The Alpha was not expecting you until this evening," the guard stated, bringing Anya, once again, back to the present.

"I came ahead."

"You traveled alone, miss?" He said miss like it was something fragile. Maybe because of the recent attacks and kidnappings of women.

"Don’t worry that pretty head of yours; at those speeds, on that road… Nothing was catching me even if it wanted to. And if it wanted to try…" she patted the rifle in the passenger seat, already out of its case and on standby just in case, almost affectionately, and chuckled, "… I'm a very good shot."

She knew she was.

“Good enough to shoot the hair of a camel’s ass!” as Pop would say with a thundering laugh. Of course, earning him a whack from Koko. The great High War Commander Aiko Inaresh showing her playful side, something nowadays only reserved for those she truly loved.

"If you say so…” He didn't sound convinced. “However, it is against current protocols and will be discussed inside with both Specialist Commander Alpha Rohan and War Pack Commander Randall.”

“Do not deviate and do not take too much time, Alpha Rohan instructed specifically!” he said. Then, with a short nod and the instructions to park at the parking site next to the large training grounds in the left-back of the camp, she was let through the gates.

She followed the wooden signage posts, this camp was bigger than she would have guessed at the gate. The surrounding forest and curves in the landscape hid a lot from view. Probably why they chose the place.

Driving through, she could see that it was definitely one of the older war camps; it had proper roads and even some stone buildings at places. Looked like there was even a row of shopfronts that had probably started as supply tents and were now selling more than just army supplies. One of them apparently was even selling actual flowers, which in this place felt like either defiance or delusion, she couldn't decide which.

There were even children running around, not too many, but enough for Anya to notice. She wondered if they were army kids, like her, or refugee kids. This close to the front line it could be both.

She parked where she was told, nose-in between two big trucks that had definitely seen combat and looked like they had barely made it back alive. That surprised her. She knew there was more unrest at the borders, but she had not heard of recent big fights, as the damage would suggest.

She grabbed her gear and took a good smell of the place. Now that she was no longer driving, the smells blended less and she could get a better feel of the place. She smelled a great number of varying shifters, some quite exotic to this place in the world.

She liked that, actually. More than she expected to.

A war pack this size and in this part of the realm, being this mixed, couldn't have happened by accident. It meant that those in charge most likely cared more about keeping the realm standing than old bloodline politics. Her kind of people.

She heard and smelled the training grounds before she saw it – people were hitting the dirt, dust and blood were mixed in the air, and there seemed to be whole conversations in undignified grunts.

She rounded the last barracks and saw a large open ground, firing lanes – for both gun and bow – behind that, and all the way to the back, there was an intricate and very large obstacle course with varying levels of difficulty. About 60 people seemed to be training at this time, of whom a group had gathered on the open ground in the form of a fighting ring.

And in the middle stood a god of a man. Damn! And f**k! That was obviously him; Alpha Rohan Vale….

Oh. Well. That was inconvenient.

Alpha Rohan Vale was unfairly, almost rudely, fine. The kind of fine that made you briefly forget whatever sentence you'd been building. Built like something designed on purpose rather than simply born, broad through the shoulders but not so heavy it looked like he focused on bulking up. He looked like he was made to move, prowl, and attack. He was moving through his current sparring partners with the kind of coiled economy that said this cost him nothing at all.

She could already hear Aster in her head, dry as good wine: a connoisseur such as myself does not say this lightly, little sister, but that man is a full-course meal. Damn fine meal indeed.

She even felt her body react and purr a bit… WTF, that had never happened to her… being without a beast normally also meant she was exempt from those animalistic reactions.

Shame she was about to ruin his whole afternoon.