The Unbroken by C. Clark (ebook reader .txt) 📕

“You Touraine, then? I have a message from General Cantic.” His voice was pitched to crack. Several years her junior, then. His black uniform was plain, no pins on his collar or rank stripes on his shoulders.

“Lieutenant Touraine.” She folded her arms. Beside her, Pruett tensed. Touraine had gotten into more than one fight over her rank. She wouldn’t this time, though. Not with Cantic so close, not with the chance for promotion at her fingertips. Her record was—mostly, minus some temper here or there—exemplary. “One of several,” she growled. “What’s the message?”

“There’s several of you made it to lieutenant?” He threw his head back, laughing.

If you kill him, you definitely won’t get promoted. Sky above, it would feel amazing, though.

Touraine felt Pruett’s silent warning behind her. She snatched the paper from him. “At least we earn our ranks.”

She shoved past him without looking back. She didn’t know what else to expect in this new country, but some things would clearly stay the same.

“What’s our dear old instructor want with you?” Pruett asked, close on Touraine’s heels. “Think that she-wolf still loves whippings?” Her amusement was tinged with bitterness.

West of the compound, the sandstorm rolled north through the city and into the sea. Touraine held one hand across her face and flicked the note open with the other. Nothing but a summons and an ink stamp.

You’re Jaghotai’s daughter. Cantic had heard the man.

She forced a smile. “If she were going to kill me for some kind of treason, she wouldn’t send a messenger first.”

The logic managed to comfort her, until Pruett said, “If she were going to kill you, she’d do it when it suited her and not a second before.”

Touraine snorted. “A kiss for luck, then?”

A shadow passed across Pruett’s face. Touraine could tell she was scanning the compound, watching Balladairan blackcoats and Sands alike—watching them watch her and Touraine. A constant habit. While fraternizing within the brigade wasn’t forbidden—in fact, it was the only fraternization allowed—Sands couldn’t afford the weakness of public affection. You never knew if it might be used against you.

Touraine leaned in a hair. “If they see us as citizens,” she murmured, “as more than bodies to throw in front of Taargen cannons, maybe we could be more than just this one day.”

Pruett shook her head, her expression shuttered. “We have this. Please.” She locked eyes with Touraine. “Don’t say or do anything stupid. Kiss her ass like you used to. Lieutenant.” She flicked a salute, and then she was gone, pushing away against the wind and into the canteen.

Touraine had thought about the general often since the woman had stopped being the Sands’ instructor. Touraine had been thirteen and devastated when Cantic told them all she was going back to the field. She had been wearing a formal dress uniform with a lieutenant colonel’s golden shoulder stripes.

The only people the Sands gossiped about more than each other were the instructors, and after Cantic left, rumors about her spread like a plague. She had been disgraced once, and teaching them had been her punishment; now she was forgiven. No, she had fucked her way up the ranks until she got to the duke—that was how she got a promotion so quick. No, Cantic was lying entirely, and it was just an excuse to retire without looking weak. Touraine had believed none of it and fiercely wished to be an officer under the woman one day. But after Cantic had left, Touraine had never thought she’d see the general again.

Now, after all that time, all those hopes to impress, here she was, summoned when she was sweaty with heat. Though she had changed her uniform and washed from a basin before the hanging, she imagined she still smelled like body odor and seaweed and fish gone bad. Her stomach looped itself in knots, and she hadn’t wanted to be sick like this since the first week at sea. Yes, Touraine had stopped an attempt on the princess’s life, but she’d also been recognized by one of the perpetrators. Would that condemn her, too, somehow?

He had called her out by name. The thought still made her shudder with—what? Revulsion wasn’t right, and neither was fear. It was the sense that she had been walking a broad path along a cliff only to find it was a bayonet’s edge. She was just waiting to be pushed.

And how she’d stumbled with the praying woman. If Cantic thought Touraine had sympathized with the woman, this could be a different meeting entirely. One that ended with her own neck at the end of a rope. Touraine was long past the age when they were only whipped for sneaking prayers and hiding holy beads.

The administrative building was guarded by a sergeant at attention, rifle at her side. The sergeant was trying and failing to pretend the wind didn’t bother her. Even though the storm was blowing north through the city, the wind here ran wild.

“Lieutenant Touraine to see General Cantic.”

The soldier scanned Touraine up and down, lip curled. The effect was ruined by her flinching squint. “Address your betters appropriately, Sand.”

“Lieutenant Touraine to see General Cantic, Sergeant.” She leaned heavily on the subordinate title and left it at that. Irritation in the back of her throat threatened to bubble into temper as Touraine passed, but she swallowed it down.

She walked through the small hallway and up the stairs, dropping her eyes whenever another Balladairan passed her. They were all high-ranking military administrators or aides-de-camp. Here were officers in black and gold.

They made her feel small, even more conscious of the sand falling from the folds of her uniform to scatter across the floor. One day, she wouldn’t tiptoe through compound halls. She would belong there. Her soldiers wouldn’t be at the mercy of horse-faced bastards like Rogan. She’d have the certainty and safety that came with rank.

One day, even farther away, people would look at her like they