The Art of Blood and Power (Book 2 in The Gifted Trilogy)

23- Changing Tides

After that night, war preparations were made at record speed.

Kess now spent most of his days locked up with Ash and Alak creating war strategy. Only a few days after the attack, Orion began sending his first ambassadors to start joining these meetings in his place. I was free to join as well and sometimes I did but it was hard to contribute any worthwhile ideas. War was a foreign concept to me. I hadn't been living and breathing it in my entire life like the other people in the room.

Most days I spent my time training with Cicero. The shadows became easier to summon to the point that I now sometimes did it unconsciously, unnerving the people around me. The other former Garner participants had broken into two groups, the ones who joined Briar and Katrina during the Ember Army's training and the ones who took over leadership roles for the non-Gifted of my old village. Every day it seemed as if the crowd of non-Gifted people living in the barracks grew larger and larger.

It was only after two weeks of this that I bothered asking Blaine about it.

"They keep coming, non-Gifted from all different villages" she answered while simultaneously double-checking a list of supplies needed for the people now living in the old barracks. "I guess word got out about the raiding of your village and for the first time in a century, non-Gifted are starting to see living near the Ember castle as safer than living as far away from the Gifted as humanly possible."

"Can we support all of them? If they continue coming?" I asked, growing worried at the idea that people might be abandoning everything they once knew to come here and only find limited resources and limited space.

Blaine scribbled something on the paper as she answered. "Believe it or not, non-Gifted people are quite resourceful. We work harder than the Gifted farmers and employees here so I've developed a system of trading goods and services with the workers in the Ember Market to get what we need. Everybody works, and because of that everyone gets fed with a roof over their heads and the safety of the Ember Army if anyone tries to attack. That's a lot more than what most of these people had in the past."

I nodded, feeling a hint of shame for doubting the skills and efficiency of the people from my old village. They weren't looking for handouts, only a fair chance to make a new life after Nox tried to destroy their previous ones.

"Turns out Anya comes from a housing architect family and is almost done making blueprints for a new set of barracks to accommodate the rising number of non-Gifted traveling here" Blaine continued. "It would go a long way if you could ask your boy for permission for us to cut a few trees in the Ember Forest down for the timber. We only need a few and we'll take them from different locations so it won't disrupt the forest floor."

"Consider it done" I answered, giving her shoulder a squeeze before turning and heading back towards the castle. Only when I was halfway there did I realize that Blaine had referred to Kess as my "boy" and that I hadn't corrected her.

******

A month passed as Kess, Alak and Orion slowly started sending a portion of their troops to the borders of their courts. The Ember and Earth Court shared a border which made things easier but the Wind Court was between the Shadow and Ocean Court. The armies had been combined so that there was at least one Gifted from each court at each border checkpoint. The first attack happened a week later at dawn. Kess, Briar, Katrina, Cicero, and I were able to arrive by midday. Kess had ordered June to stay back and protect the castle in case there was another attack so she sent Briar and Katrina in her place.

It was a surprise attack, the captain of that checkpoint told us when we arrived. A group of Ocean Gifted came out of nowhere and attacked their camp, harming a few men before retreating only a few minutes later.