Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X #1)(31)
Author: Richelle Mead

Justin and Tessa’s presence in the RUNA wasn’t something that could be kept secret, so Mae gave them a quick—and extremely edited—rundown of her Panamanian adventures and glossed over the murders, simply saying she was working as Justin’s bodyguard. Judging from her friends’ faces, Mae wasn’t the only one who found those events bizarre.

“What the f**k did he do that was bad enough to get exiled?” asked Dag.

Val traced the rim of her glass, dark eyes lost in thought. “And yet apparently wasn’t bad enough to keep him from coming back.”

“They don’t tell me stuff like that,” Mae said, trying to act like it didn’t bother her. “I’m just the messenger.”

Dag brightened. “Still, a lot more exciting than monument duty. Not as honorable, of course.”

That caught Mae by surprise. “Monument duty? What are you watching?”

“The National Gardens,” Val said. She knocked back half her drink. Maybe she wasn’t slamming the implant, but she wasn’t really holding back either. Mae was tempted herself, after drinking that Panamanian swill.

“Both of you are in the gardens?” she asked. Her friends nodded together.

“There are a bunch of Scarlets there right now.” Val ticked them off on her fingers. “Whitetree, Mason, Chow, Makarova…”

“Lucky,” muttered Mae, not voicing what the others were thinking.

If they’d assigned a Scarlet team to the capital, she might have been in it—if not for recent events, of course. The most celebrated prætorian posts were in places with active fighting, like the provinces and borderlands. Those were around-the-clock missions and also the ones prætorians died in. Prætorians were also rotated through the capital, however, to guard senators and important national monuments and buildings. It was relatively sedate work for soldiers like them, but there was power in it. The prætorians were a symbol of the RUNA’s strength and perfection. Putting prætorians on display in Vancouver reassured citizens of their country’s superiority, even if it also sometimes frightened them. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, though. Capital duty had shifts like ordinary jobs, meaning prætorians received a lot of time off. Having a significant amount of one’s cohort on hand was an unusual perk since they were normally split and scattered around the world.

Val and Dag were fully aware that they’d landed a very sweet assignment, but Dag diplomatically tried to make Mae feel better. “I’m sure you’ll see cool stuff with a servitor. Maybe you’ll get to take down some crazy cult. I saw this one on the news that was sacrificing animals and having na**d moonlight dances.” He turned wistful. “I wouldn’t mind a little of that. The na**d part, that is. Not the animal part. I heard they tried to stone the servitor.”

Mae gave him a smile for his effort. “Cults usually get taken down with paperwork instead of brute force. They only show the sensational ones on TV.”

“Well, just remember, it could’ve been a lot worse for you.” Val’s voice was light, but there was a warning note in it. Nobody was mentioning the funeral, but they were all thinking about it. “And hey, how crazy is it that you’ll be with a mysterious exile and a provincial girl? That’s drama right there. You can’t make that stuff up.”

“No,” agreed Mae, thinking back on what she’d seen. “You really can’t.”

“Is he cute?” asked Val, with a look Mae knew all too well.

“Don’t get any ideas.” Mae wasn’t going to breathe a word about what had happened with Justin. There’d be no living with Val or Dag then. “I don’t need you showing up at his door.”

Val’s eyes lit up. “Ah, he is cute.”

Dag shook his head. “Ignore her. She hasn’t been laid in, like, a week. It’s a wonder she’s still alive.”

He was joking, although prætorians did tend to have particularly active sex lives. It was another side effect of the natural physical responses that the implant kicked into overdrive. Justin had been Mae’s first sex in almost six months, an astonishingly long span for prætorians, but after Porfirio, she hadn’t really felt up to it right away.

Val elbowed Dag for the joke, but at least Mae had the answer to a question she’d wondered about. Val and Dag were constantly on-and-off-again, making it hard to keep track of their current status. Apparently they were off right now. That always made Mae a little sad, but at least the two stayed friendly.

She glanced at the time and finished her drink. As much as she loved her friends, she suddenly longed for some downtime. “I’ve got to go, guys. I’ll give you a drama report the next time I see you—unless you see us on TV first.”

“Where’re you off to?” asked Val. “Hot date? Wouldn’t hurt you to get laid either, you know.” If only Val knew the truth. “You’re cycling back to that castal stiffness of yours.”

“That never goes away,” Dag said. “But you do need to relax, Finn.”

Dag had started calling her that back when they’d first been assigned to their cohort and begun prætorian training. He’d never been able to remember her last name, but he could remember that she was Nordic, hence the nickname he and eventually Val had both started using. Everyone could tell she was castal, which had made for some rough adjustments in the military. Val and Dag had bonded with her immediately and unquestioningly, maybe because they needed her as the straight man for all their jokes.

“I can’t relax,” said Mae, standing up and swiping her ego to pay for the drink. “I’m not the one on vacation. I mean, monument duty.”

“Ha ha,” said Val. She rolled her eyes but was obviously relieved at the turn of events, and Mae felt a small pang of guilt for not getting in touch with them sooner. They’d had no idea what had happened to her after the funeral and had probably assumed the worst. They were closer to her than her biological family.

“Hey…” Mae hesitated and rested her hands on the back of her chair. “Do you guys know how Kavi’s doing?”

“Still hospitalized,” said Dag, sobering. “Well, that’s what the rumors say. The Indigos aren’t really talking to us.”

That queasy feeling Mae got whenever she thought about Kavi returned. “I guess that’s normal. It hasn’t been that long.”