Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

of the world would settle for some much-needed rest. The Magpie had more, uh, ambitious plans.”

Milo chuckled at the statement, recalling his brief encounter with the mastermind behind Nicht-KAT. You had only to lock eyes with the man to know he was capable of great and terrible things.

“So, if your whole goal was to help Jorge, and by extension, the German Empire, why is Marid sending me on errands?” Milo asked. “Wouldn’t it make sense to keep me at Ifreedahm so I completed my studies quicker and got on to helping turn the tide?”

Rihyani took another toke and sent the smoke curling out of her nostrils before answering.

“Ideally, yes,” she said. “But the Bashlek is concerned, with good reason, about such a force stomping around his mountains and caverns. Ifreedahm is one of the largest gatherings of the Folk in the world, and while no official edict has been made, Marid has made it known his alliance with humans by taking you in. If the army even accidentally stumbles across ghuls and lives are lost, what do you think is going to happen?”

Milo nodded, seeing her point.

“They’ll say I betrayed him, and he looks weak,” he said. “And from what I’ve seen, I imagine he won’t last long on top with that being the case.”

Rihyani let out another plume of smoke, nodding slowly.

“Even worse than that is what it would do to the cause,” the contessa added. “Not to seem cold, but Marid, for all his assistance, is not key. What is key is proving that the Folk can work with humans and human fear and ignorance will not win out. In this case, Marid’s self-interest runs perfectly alongside the greater movement.”

Milo’s stomach settled like a lump in his belly, and he felt a drowsiness that reminded him he’d only slept a handful of hours before Imrah had woken him for his lessons. He noticed Rihyani watching him through the haze of smoke. Shaking off the lethargy, he squared his shoulders and met the fey’s eyes.

“I guess that tells me what I’m doing,” he said, rising from his seat on the floor. “I’ll be back as soon as I can with word of what is being done to keep our forces off the mountain.”

Rihyani smiled, her teeth flashing white and sharp behind her dark lips.

“I appreciate you taking this so seriously. I’m glad to find we can be allies.”

“Is that what we are?” Milo said, holding out a hand to her.

The contessa took his hand, her skin surprisingly cool but still soft and smooth.

“I don’t see why not,” she said, snapping the nearly spent cigarillo into the ether with a twitch of her fingers.

“If we are allies, there is one thing I’m going to need from you very soon,” Milo said softly, staring intently into her eyes.

Enigmatic but clearly intrigued, the fey stared back.

“Oh,” she breathed. “What would that be?”

Milo released the hand he’d been holding and raised his own to do a flapping imitation of Rihyani’s magical gesture.

“You're going to need to teach me that trick, only I want cigarettes. Students shouldn’t be putting on airs.”

“I can’t remember much from our last conversation,” Captain Lokkemand growled as he massaged his temples with one hand and gripped the map table with the other. “But it seems that you’ve forgotten even more than I have.”

Milo took another drink of water from his canteen before responding. The heat in the tent was smothering, and both men had not only shed their surcoats but also had their sleeves rolled up to the elbow and collars undone.

“Captain.” Milo swallowed, doing his level best to ignore the sweat dripping down both their noses. “I understand your situation and that of the division, but we are talking about avoiding another front for the war to be fought on. Surely, there has to be some way we can keep them away from the ghuls, or at least direct them around.”

Lokkemand frowned at Milo before gesturing at the map.

“I understand you’re not really an officer, Volkohne,” he said tartly. “But you can read a map, can’t you? What’s this?”

His fingers stabbed down at a city south and east of Bamyan, its location marked with a star. If Milo was reading the topography of the map correctly, it sat at a lower elevation, and the slope of the land progressively descended from there.

“A city, sir,” Milo said with a forced level tone, wiping sweat from his eyes as he squinted at the name beneath the captain’s finger. “Kabul.”

“Yes, Kabul, the capital of this hellhole,” Lokkemand spat, then traced a furious line with his fingers farther south and east, past a border. “And what is this?”

Milo felt the longer this dragged on, the less chance he would have of winning Lokkemand over, but a combination of heat and fatigue was making a difficult conversation even more daunting.

“India, sir.”

“And who controls India?”

“The British,” Milo said before quickly adding. “But Captain, we are already fighting the British in the west. What I’m talking about is preventing a completely new conflict, one—”

Lokkemand silenced Milo with a dismissive flick of his hand, forcing the magus to grind his teeth as he bit his tongue.

“Yes, yes, you’ve covered that,” the captain snapped. “But what you haven’t explained is how you expect me to redirect the flow of this river. You come in here with alarms about an apocalyptic war with monsters, but I have my own world-ending crisis with humans right now.”

His finger stabbed down at Bamyan.

“Epp may be a monster in the making, but he isn’t stupid. Pushing to Kabul has to succeed and well enough that he can push on to India without too much delay. That means a greater concentration of forces right here, a few short hours from the prize. The ghul king can moan all he wants about soldiers on his mountain, but I’ve got problems of my own right now.”

Lokkemand turned from the map with a growl in his chest, hands bunching into fists.

“Epp and his cronies