The Deian War: Conquest Read Online Free Page B

trees, I can feel it in my gut” Sabre openly admitted, not shy to confessing that he had no evidence other than a hunch.
       “You doubt the Lion’s ability, his strength?” Gaia questioned him, this time a little more penetrative than before. She had finished her work and now stood side by side with Calla, who in turn gave the slightest frown at her accusation.
       “Of course not, my Grace, but I…” Sabre began, but he found himself unable to explain his problem.
       “What is it that really bothers you, Commander?” Calla asked. “It is unlike you to be troubled be something this simple. An enemy escaped our net of attack and now the Lion is hunting them down. It’s not like anything can kill him Sabre, you know that”.
       Sabre looked from Calla to Gaia and back again, unsure of whether they would hear his next words without amusement, but he had to voice them. “The Apostle did not seem… himself , my Grace” he finally answered, but more to Calla than her sister.
       Gaia cocked her head at this. “You think some kind of mind play is at work here?”
       Sabre nodded once. “Perhaps the Gore Prince wasn’t the height of enemy power here. Maybe there’s something else waiting for us in that forest and the Lion senses it.”
       Gaia smiled at the Guardian, her expression earnest and conciliatory. “You were right to bring us this news, but I fear you overestimate the foe, Commander. If there was a Phantom higher than a Prince here, I and Whitewolf would have sensed it too-”
       Before she could finish her words a deep, loud roar resounded through the trees. It came from the other side of the ruined enemy camp, where the treeline stretched back and faded into the darkness of the mountains’ shadows. Sabre immediately turned towards the noise and before he could register what it could mean, Calla thundered past him on all fours, her transformation into Whitewolf instantaneous and effortless.
       With the speed only the Blessing could have granted her, she vanished out of sight. “ …Even I don’t know how she moves so fast,” Gaia mused, reading Sabre’s stunned expression. The speed with which Whitewolf moved was one of the few things he had still to get used to. “Still, it’s for the best. There’s no doubt half her strength comes from her love for him, though. No matter how much the rest of us adore the Lion, we will never be as fast as her in reaching or understanding him. We will never be as close”. She hung her head, revealing a hint of jealousy that Sabre could somehow tell no-one else had seen before.
       “My Grace- ” he started to say.
       “Speak to no-one of what I have said, Commander” she spoke over him, her eyes both pleading and demanding in equal measure.
       Sabre found no words to respond and just chose to nod at her again. As she ran off, pursuing the distant Whitewolf, he realised that out of all the Apostles he had served under, she was the most perplexing. One paradox refused to leave his mind and try as he might to mull it over or let it slide from his notice, it remained there like a cancer.
       If Gaia truly was the Apostle that took on the aspect of nature from the Auranair, why then did she defy the fate of things? If she was supposed to understand the world around her, why could she not accept the way things were between people as well as the environment? These were questions he could temporarily put out of his mind. For now, there were greater concerns. The Lion’s roar could mean only one thing; Sabre was right about the enemy survivor. 
     
    LUPUS SUNK HIS teeth into the neck of the second Devii bodyguard that he encountered. He took down the first with a brutality that he surprised himself by when they burst from the tree trunks around him. Before the shower of splinters and bark could even blur his field of vision, he had taken form by sheer response of instinct and clawed down the Phantom nearest to him. Now a second