The two headed back towards camp and Adan discreetly spit out a mouthful of blood when Lynn wasn’t paying attention.
“Seriously, Sai, I didn’t directly tell him anything that couldn’t have fit with the backstory the Sun Tribe have given me. Did you really have to classify it as a protocol breach?”
“Sai doesn’t want to talk to you,” the A.I. snapped. Yet, it continued, “you know Sai has no choice in this matter! Why do you insist on keeping to push the limits? Repeated offences force me to increase the punishment! Please, Adan. Stop this now.”
Adan paused in her steps. Sometimes she forgot that the downside of an A.I. starting to feel emotions was that it could understand her pain too—and it did hurt.
“I’m sorry, Sai.” Adan’s gaze followed Lynn as he walked into camp, looking more confident than when they left. “I will behave once we leave.”
“Adan!”
“I’m sorry for always acting up and I’m sorry for dragging you with me.”
The A.I. quieted down. For a long while it said nothing. It wasn’t until later that night—after Adan had trained for hours with both fire and ice, and after exhaustedly retiring to her own tents and falling asleep the second her head hit the pillow—that the A.I. finally spoke again.
“No Adan, Sai is sorry.”
A few days passed, during which the camp was busy gathering intel from various sources and making arrangements for their coming course of action. The council had agreed to the suggestion of sending Adan and Lynn, together with a smaller guerilla troop, back into Fire Isle to try and rescue the king. Meanwhile, the remaining troops would split up in smaller groups and do their best to act as distractions in the areas around Fire Isle, hoping to keep the army preoccupied with searching for Lynn.
As they had been discussing different tactics, the council had slowly been warming up to Lynn, seemingly finding his suggestions helpful. They were, of course, shocked to learn Adan was a woman—but their near-blind devotion had helped them accept it quickly.
The biggest difference in attitude came from the warriors in the camp. At first they had been very wary of Lynn, but he had still noticed their curiosity when he trained and often lingered to watch. Just as Adan had mentioned, people fear power they don’t understand, and the more they watched, the more their apprehension turned towards curiosity.
The biggest change had happened little over a day ago. Adan had come back from one of her “morning runs”. She claimed they were just warm-ups, but the faint scent of iron suggested she’d been in combat. Lynn suspected that she was taking care of any army soldiers straying to close to the camp and these covert morning excursions had started to annoy him. He didn’t like the idea of Adan being out there alone, without anyone to have her back.
He had stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the tent. “I’m not some wallflower that needs protecting. Let me join you next time,” he demand.
Adan had raised an amused eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Let me join you next time,” Lynn repeated, not backing down.
“Haha, very well, Princess. Let’s spar. If you can manage to land a strike on me, any strike, I will let you join me next time.”
“Fine!”
Looking back, Lynn could admit he had let his emotions take over—but he wouldn’t have done anything differently.
Adan lead him to an open clearing that the Sun Tribe warriors had left for training. She walked to the center of it and motioned for him to strike first. The gathering crowd jeered with excitement. Nobody had managed to land a strike on Adan yet.
Lynn narrowed his eyes. He knew more than anyone how fast Adan was. If he wanted to land a strike on her, he needed to take her by surprise. But that too was easier said than done. He had managed it once though, that second time they meet in the forest.
Steeling himself, Lynn took a deep breath and charged at Adan. One step away, he grounded his front foot and pivoted, aiming a high kick at her head with his other leg. Adan crouched low, easily avoiding the kick. She reached for his stabilizing knee, but Lynn had seen that move before. He kept turning his body, letting the second leg follow into a spinning kick, while his left hand touched the ground.
Adan took a step back, narrowly dodging the second kick. A look of interest flashed by her eyes as she was forced to dodge again when a stream of thick water trailed after Lynn’s foot, lashing out like a whip towards her face.
“Brave, Lynn,” she chuckled, summoning a small flame that she flicked playfully between her fingers. “Very brave.”
It was a silent threat. If he used the elements, so would she.
Lynn didn’t let himself get distracted.
As Adan retreated, he followed, the water now flowing from his hands like a literal whip, chasing her relentlessly. Water droplets flying everywhere with each strike.
Lynn was a fast fighter. Water benders were known for their agility, and Lynn knew his lifetime of training had paid off—few could now match his speed.
The whip whizzed past Adan’s ear as she dodged it again, but a shimmer at the tip of the whip seemed to distract her. She followed it with her gaze a little too long.
‘Now,‘ Lynn thought and discreetly resonated with the water that had accumulated on the ground. As Adan side-stepped to dodge the next strike, a layer of ice suddenly formed beneath her feet. She slipped. ‘Success!’
Lynn withdrew his water whip and lowered his center of gravity to perform a low sweeping kick, aiming to break her balance entirely. However, just as the kick was about to land, he noticed a smug smile on the corner of Adan’s lips.
He swore under his breath.
He saw a little burst of flames igniting under Adan’s feet, pushing her away from the ground with explosive force. In his mind’s eye he could see what she would do; she would fly above him and strike him in the back as he passed by below her.
He already had too much forward momentum to do anything about it.
Gritting his teeth, Lynn still committed fully—he focused, drawing up as much water as he could, and surged forward, attempting to pass by too fast for Adan to catch him. Adan’s surprise quickly turned into dread as he shot past her like a cannonball.
“Watch out!” she shouted, and Lynn just had enough time to register that he was heading full speed into a rack of swords before a immense force slammed into him from the side, pushing him off course. Somehow, Adan had caught up with him and now they tumbled to the ground a few meters away from the sharp weapons.
“Are you okay?” Adan frantically asked as she turned him over to check his body for injuries. There was a soft thud and Adan looked down at her chest, where Lynn’s fist had punched her lightly.
“I got in a hit,” he said, smiling sheepishly.
Lynn chuckled as he reminisced about the look Adan had given him in that moment. It was the first time he had truly seen her surprised and not just feigning it.
It was quite a cute look on her.
After that, the Sun Tribe warriors seemed to have started to feel some respect for Lynn and his dare-devil approach to winning the bet. At least, the fearful staring had all but stopped and some would even come and ask to train together. It had been a good opportunity for Lynn to train with people closer to his level and he had gained a lot from it.
Adan had also brought him on her patrols the day after, as she promised, and he was once again amazed by how effortlessly she moved though the forest. It was clear that he was slowing her down at first, but she didn’t seem to mind. She patiently taught him tricks to move faster, and as his control over water and ice improved, he began catching up. They hadn’t run into any army patrols though, so they had returned to the camp rather eventlessly.
Lynn looked up in the sky, feeling a growing restlessness within. For more reasons than one.
Just over a week had passed since they escaped Fire Isle, and the thought of his father and brother being stuck there, enduring who knows what kind of torture, was like a constant knife in his heart. Not to mention worries about his mother, who was preparing to engage in full scale war any day now, with only a fraction of the soldiers she needed.
On top of all that, Lynn found it increasingly hard to ignore how he felt about Adan. He didn’t even want to ignore it any more. Whenever he saw her, thoughts of her lips pressed to his as they swam under water would surface and he couldn’t help but want to feel that again. He wanted her, but not just physically. Whatever she was hiding, it wasn’t enough to hold him back. He didn’t mind the notion of spending a lifetime trying to figure her out. He even looked forward to it.
Conflicted, Lynn entered the command tent at the center of the camp. The broken table in the middle had been replaced and several maps had been put up on boards along the walls, riddled with marks on enemy sightings and movements.
Adan and Kimba where standing by the map showing the shoreline around Fire Isle and Lynn refocused his thoughts on the pending infiltration.
“The issue is still these patrols,” Duke Kimba insisted and tapped the tracks drawn along the shore. “Stationary and roving units. Even if you slip through, you’re exposed on the water.”
“Ah, Lynn,” Adan said, glancing back with a smile as he entered. “Tell me, do could control water precisely enough for create air bubbles around say five people’s heads?”
Lynn blinked at the sudden question. “You want to swim, underwater, to Fire Isle?”
“Partially,” she replied. “But even with water-boosted speed the swim would probably take half an hour. That would require intricate control from you over a large period of time, spending a lot of energy on water displacement alone.” Adan said, pensive. “No, I have a way for us to cross undetected, but we will need to dive to reach the tunnel I have in mind for entering Fire Isle.”
“We can’t use the route we escaped through,” Lynn noted. “Too heavily guarded by now.”
“This one’s a different tunnel,” Adan said with a wink. “A little gift from the Sun Tribe Chief. So, can you do it? Five head-sized bubbles. Maybe compress them for easier movement?”
Lynn considered it. No one had tried using water like that before—but it seemed doable. He nodded.
“Good, then we have our way in. We just need a distraction so I can implement our cover for the crossing. . . .”
“Maybe I can help with that?” A familiar voice called from outside.
Lynn stiffened. He hadn’t expected her to be here.
“Colonel Dallas,” the Duke stepped forward to let the woman into the tent. “I didn’t expect you to actually come.”
The young officer walked in, her normal uniform replaced by a more nondescript outfit, her hair in her tell-tail, tight ponytail. She glanced at Lynn with some apprehension but greeted him politely enough in the end.
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d come.” Dallas admitted. “But your message left me no choice. I managed to verify it—Valdmani is launching a full assault on our southern border, and Emberon is coveringit up.”
“I’m impressed your network managed to verify it. Our scouts have not managed to get any more messages to, or from, the southern districts,” Keeper Vashara of the Eastern Tribe filled in as she stepped in after Colonel Dallas. “Too risky.”
“I have my ways,” Dallas countered, clearly not keen on elaborating further. “I acknowledge the seriousness of Emberon’s crimes and am honourbound to support restoring King Fenix to the throne, but- “she glanced towards Lynn, “-some gaps will take time to bridge.”
Lynn could see distrust in her eyes but the woman was willing to help. That was impressive enough.
“Any news on the captives?” he asked worriedly.
“I have no news on the King, but the fact that the funeral has yet to be planned leads me to believe that his is still alive.”
Duke Kimba nodded. “Indeed, custom requires an open casket for the King. He will want to delay the funeral until he has gotten whatever he is after.”
Lynn listened to the Duke’s words but kept his eyes locked on Colonel Dallas, more worried about what she would say next.
“As for the Marquis and his younger son, I managed to visit them in the dungeons.” Dallas paused, looking a bit conflicted.
“Torture?” Lynn pushed.
“Yes, but they are holding up impressively well under the circumstances. They are hurt, but mentally strong.”
Lynn exhaled sharply. He had been prepared for it but getting it confirmed still hurt. A comforting hand touched his back—Adan’s.
“We’ll need that distraction,” she said.
Dallas walked up to the map of Fire Isle and pointed to a sector on the far east shore. “In three days, I’ll have loyal troops stationed on guard duty here. If the Sun Tribe stages an attack, I’ll order it treated as a drill. Delay tactics, no lethal force.”
Adan immediately shook her head. “Too risky.”
“Excuse me?” Dallas frowned. “What would a fake bodyguard know about—”
“She is our chief’s proxy,” Kimba cut in sharply as Keeper Vashara hissed and glanced worriedly at Adan. Was it fear Lynn saw?
“Even so,” Dallas muttered, exasperated, “how much military experience can a forest-born teenager possibly have?”
“I’m actually twenty now,” Adan replied with a teasing smile. “And have experience enough to see the risks. What if nearby troops see real danger and engage for real? You’d have to openly defy orders to stop them. Also, I need time to deploy my cover plan slowly or it will be too obvious, which would be hard with your plan.”
Dallas looked pensive, too distracted by the validity of Adan’s statements to continue argue.
“How much time do you need?” Lynn asked instead.
“One hour. Just before dawn if it’s clear. Middle of the night if stormy.”
“That’s awfully slow,” Dallas said, crossing her arms.
“It’s either subtle or sloppy. Your pick.”
For a while, ideas flew and died. Adan’s precise risk assessments swatted them down one by one—most were too complex, too exposed, or relied on variables no one could control.
Lynn stared at the map in silence. One wetland patch drew his eye.
“What about here?” He pointed just north of Dallas’ sector. “We can hide in the grass at water level—hard to spot in low light. If Sun Tribe scouts create noise to the north, and you feed false reports of sightings to the south, we could split the guards’ focus and slip through.”
Adan looked at him, expression unreadable. But Lynn could have sworn that he caught a glimmer of approval in her eyes.
Leaving the central tent a few hours later, Adan was smiling to herself.
“Sai is having trouble understanding you right now.”
“Oh?” Adan asked, following Lynn’s departing back.
He had managed the strategy talks excellently after his proposal had been brought to the table and it quickly gained wait as the most viable option. Once the plan was finalized and it was determined that they would move out tomorrow, Lynn had given her a brief stare, his expression complex, before quickly excusing himself.
There were many conflicting signals in his body language so Adan was unsure of what was on his mind at the time, but he had clearly been proud of his achievements just moments before.
“While you are unable to speak freely of your origin, this planet is currently a Playzone. Sai would have thought that you would have preferred a more direct approach, both in what tactics to use but also how it is decided. Why give Lynn so much space when the lacking consensus puts his family at more risk?”
“For the same reason I don’t mind being the bad cop in these discussions,” Adan sighed. “He needs a place here after we leave. Not just a family.”
In the distance, Adan could see Lynn making his way back towards her, carrying what looked like a sack of food and a bottle of wine.
“Besides, you heard the colonel, Emberon has yet to find what he is looking for. There is still time.”
“For them, yes,” the A.I. muttered, but Adan ignored the comment.
Instead she focued on Lynn. He looked almost angry as he reached her, but not the violent kind. More mulled over.
“Follow me,” he demanded and grabbed her hand, pulling her quickly towards her tent. The sun had set by now and few were walking around the camp, which was fortunate or Lynn would likely have been stopped from even entering her tent.
As it was, Adan let herself be pulled into her tent by him. Lynn clearly had something on his mind and given what they would sett out to do tomorrow, she could guess at a myriad of questions he might want to ask.
Inside the tent, Lynn paused, looking around the unfamiliar environment. He found a table and headed over, not realizing he was still holding Adan’s hand until he placed the bag down. He froze momentarily, looking down at their clasped hands, before quickly letting go.
Adan noticed his ears turning slightly red and his heart rate picked up. She smiled and let him set up the table with the food and wine he had brought in silence. Once done, he found two chairs and sat down, indicating for Adan to take the other.
She did and then there was silence again.
“. . . you said that you are twenty now,” Lynn added after a while.
Adan looked at him in confusion.
“When we meet, you said you would soon be twenty.”
Adan recalled the conversation.
“Ah, yes, that is true.” Adan was still not really sure were Lynn was going with this and why he looked upset.
“When was your birthday?” he asked, his eyes darting away.
Adan blinked. She didn’t really put much weight on birthday’s in general, none of the Amazonians did. First of all, when would they have the luxury to celebrate such a thing? More importantly, while she had a significant portion of DNA from her Amazonian “mother”, she was breed and brought to term fully in a tank and had left it at a more mature state, more a toddler than a baby. She counted her age from when she was brought out of the tank, but it wasn’t exactly a fair comparison to normal children-she could walk and form basic words from day one after all.
Lastly, the cycles of this planet and federation standards of age did not match up, so by those standards, Adan had still not completed a full annual age cycle. When she met Lynn, Adan’s A.I. had translated her age to match the yearly cycles of this planet and it had been just shy of 20 years. At Colonel Dallas comment earlier today, Adan’s A.I. had displayed somewhat of a fun fact in her status field, prompting the comment.
“My birthday is today actually,” Adan replied scratching her head. “By your counting.”
Lynn’s eyes snapped back to her face. “Today?”
If Lynn picked up on the other hint in her words, he made no show of it.
“You should have told me sooner!”
Adan thought of an excuse and gestured around the tent they were in. “We aren’t really in a festive situation.”
“Is that really the reason?” Lynn’s eyes stared at her fixedly and for a moment Adan recalled her sister’s penetrating gaze. A gaze that saw through her lies.
“Fair enough.” She sighed. “It is indeed a bit more complicated then that but, put simply, we don’t really celebrate birthdays in my family.”
Lynn didn’t move his gaze away for a long while and Adan found herself lost in his blue eyes, finding shades she hadn’t noticed before. Eventually he seemed to accept what she had said but his eyes cooled down a bit. Turning lonely.
Adan considered saying more but Lynn spoke before she had a chance.
“Since I didn’t get a heads up, I have not been able to prepare anything special.” Lynn gestured to the food and wine on the table. “I stole this from the Duke’s hidden stash, don’t turn me in.”
Adan laughed. “I knew such a well built man needed to have extra rations hidden somewhere!”
Lynn laughed too, pouring her a glass of wine. “You are a bad influence on me, Adan. It’s only our first birthday together and I’ve committed my first crime to bring food to the table.”
“Sai thinks you should point out that hiding his identity, fleeing from capture and planning a rebelion could all be considered crimes by Solmani standards.”
Adan ignored it, subconsciously activating the mute function.
“First birthday?” she asked, feeling a dull ache in her chest.
“Yes, well if your family aren’t big on celebrating birthdays, you could spend them with me instead.” Lynn suggested with a smile but his clenched fists gave away his nervousness. “We tend to go for really big birthday celebrations in my family and I’m sure mother would not mind including you too. . . cough, after everything you’ve done for us, I mean.”
Adan smiled weakly. It was a novel notion. A grand birthday celebration, just for her, with Lynn and his entire family in toe. Perhaps it could be on her federal birthdate. . . . Her thoughts drifted for a moment before Adan shook her head.
A novel notion. Nothing more.
“What are you thinking about?”
The sudden question startled Adan. She hadn’t even noticed Lynn moving to sit right in front of her. As she started to think of an excuse, Lynn raised a hand to stop her.
“You don’t have to lie. I know that something is holding you back from being fully honest with me. Sometimes it almost feels like it’s physically stopping you, but . . . but I want you to know that it’s okay. If you can’t say it, don’t. Just . . . don’t tell me any lies, okay?”
Adan stared into Lynn’s eyes, seeing his sincere hopefulness, and felt both warmth and coldness; Her heart stirred with warmth, wanting to lean in, but her gut turned cold, urging her to pull away.
“Lynn, I . . .”
Stumped for words, Adan watched as Lynn reached out and cupped her right hand in his. His touch was cool and sent shivers down her spine, stirring a tingling sensation as it passed.
“I learned this the other day,” Lynn spoke softly, his voice magnetic as his tumb stroked Adan’s wrist gently.
As his fingers moved, water flowed from his finger tips, forming a wide ribbon-like loop around her wrist. Adan watched in amazement as the band twisted and started to compress, turning thinner and stiffer in the progress. After a few minutes, the water had turned into a twisted bracelet, looking as if it was made out of rope, only it was completely translucent and firm as ice to the touch.
“It’s not cold,” she found herself commenting.
“No, I have been experimenting and found that I could make the water harden without freezing it. Just by forcing it into a smaller form. It’s not permeant but as long as I am not too far away, I can keep it stable without much effort.”
Adan stared at the bracelet, lost in thoughts.
It was beautiful.
It was an unscientific marvel.
But more than anything, it was hers.
Gently, Adan cupped Lynn’s hands too and leaned in. She felt Lynn’s body stiffen for a moment as she rested her forehead against his, but she simply closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Lynn’s crisp get elegant scent filled her. Crushed mints, white ceder, amber.
“Thank you, Lynn,” she whispered, ignoring the sting in her eyes. “I promise, no lies.”
Lynn’s muscles relaxed, but his heartbeat was so loud that Adan didn’t doubt that even a normal human would have been able to hear it. She was sure he could her hers too.
With every fiber of her being, Adan wanted to lean in further. She had done it before, when it didn’t really matter, but this time felt different—their breaths mingled, separated by mere centimeters, yet the space between them felt larger than ever. She couldn’t move in. It would be too cruel. Too selfish.
Her wrist tingled from the sensation of the water bracelet’s movement against her skin, it’s surface as slippery as the future it tried to promise. Neither hot nor cold, yet its presence burned.
It was Adan’s first birthday gift from Lynn—and likely her last.
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