For the first week and a half of his imprisonment all he knew was darkness.

Adrian slept fitfully on the cold ground, trying to tuck up his bound legs and arms close to his body to preserve what heat he could contain and to calm the racing of his anxious heart. Despite his best efforts to keep warm, the start of fall had brought an unbearably piercing chill to the air, and it was hard to stay comfortable. They kept the rough spun bag over his head during the days he was left out in the open and other days he was left in a guarded tent, tied to the center pole driven deep into the ground.

Adrian had realized early on that they were traveling. But where they were exactly going was lost to him. These were not lands he knew well and even the wind sounded foreign. It made him long for the warmer climate of Pracis, where the waters were sweet and the land was forgiving to the likes of him. Atelaer seemed full of nothing but biting gusts and even harsher people.

He trained his pointed ears for the noise outside and the hissing of angry voices. Adrian knew that during his first two days, while he tried to tuck his arms under his aching head to rest, there were two men outside the tent arguing and shoving each other violently. They were trying to figure out what to do with him and he knew that once or twice someone had come asking to kill him themselves.

To him it would have been a welcome mercy.

All sense of time and distance had escaped him, for all he knew when they moved him from place to place they were going around in circles. Or they could have been taking him farther and farther away from Empire barracks and any chance of escape. The camp was a terrifying and arduous ordeal, much different than the comfort of home. It was shambled together by tents made of linens and the thick tarp of old sails. Only the officer’s tents seemed to carry any semblance of refinery and sense to their design and layout. Adrian longed for escape, to return to the simple life he had led and his studies.

Yet he was here with his fellow countrymen, fighting rebel colonies to the north. Why? He was told that the enemy had designs of ruining the peace and splendor of their home. He could only assume that was true.

“The Colonel wants to take him to the General.”

Cold fear dropped into Adrian’s stomach and he rolled as quietly as he could, gazing at the shadowy figures outlined on the tent walls.

The other voice huffed, “Better if we just skipped the niceties. Why waste valuable time and energy to move to the General?” They sounded high-pitched; more than likely a woman.

Adrian shifted uncomfortably, shivering from the cold against the rough spun mat they had placed under him. His throat ached with dehydration and it was scratchy when he tried to raise it. “H…hello?”

The voices outside paused, one of the figures giving a jerky movement away from the tent flap and physically turning from its opening. So they were going to ignore him then.

“Hello?” Adrian called, louder this time, as he tried to swallow past the dryness.

“What do you want?” the woman hissed, ducking her head inside with a ferocious look on her face.

Adrian shrunk away, shoulders tucking defensively in as he tried to look her in the eye. They were luminous blue eyes that glinted like a cat’s in the darkness, and her green skin turned a ghastly gray from the firelight outside. The feathers on the sides of her face fanned out in her anger. She was small and young. Something Adrian had learned while they’d traveled. Her name was Private Junia, but he had been too afraid to speak to her and her cohort, Private Curran. They were resentful that they were forced to guard him.

He dragged his tongue over his teeth, feeling the ache grow stronger. Between pride and survival, Adrian would choose to live.

“Water,” he rasped. Curran outside scoffed loudly, but Adrian’s face hardened and he pressed on. “May I have some water…please?”

Junia’s eyes narrowed, her thin lips pursed in disgust as he spoke. The first time he had spoken to her he had been too informal, had asked her if she painted her skin green or if she was born that way in a blunt attempt to get to know her. His fascination and confusion in the first days had earned him a few hard scuffs to the jaw.

Her feathers gave a soft shutter along her face. She glared from the sides of her eyes as she turned away without an answer. He could feel his hope of relief sink as she turned her slight back to him, but she then poked her head out of the tent and said, “Oy. Go get the loon a flagon of water aye?”

“What?” her companion snapped.

Adrian’s eyes widened when he saw the outline of a fluffy tail lash.

“Why the hells would we waste good water on him?”

“Cause he got interrogation in the mornin’, you oaf. Colonel finally gonna get somethin’ out of him. If he can barely talk how he gonna be any use?”

“Better he don’t talk. He should just stay silent and accept what he’s done, take it like a man.”

Junia hissed, stomping one foot at Curran’s flippant tone. “Go get it already or I’ll tell the Colonel! Then maybe we can have a trial for you being a big lazy bear!”

There was a stiff silence before Curran snarled and stormed away, shouldering his rifle as he disappeared from the lights shining on the tent.

With a huff, Junia slipped back in, snapping the tent flap closed and returning her opalescent gaze onto Adrian. He could think of nothing to do but stare at her boots, dirty and falling apart and stitched with rough threads of twine. She had a straight back, short and skinny and dressed more like a boy than a young woman, though Adrian would never be able to guess her actual age.

“No weird questions today?” she snapped, “No rude comments about being green?”

Adrian’s head lifted to glance at her with a wince of worry at her tone. He hadn’t the energy to try to make conversation; all he wished for was to stand properly and stretch and fill his belly with water and a proper meal. He wondered where the hens he had befriended had gone. They were an amusing, beautiful blue of sapphire and green jade, so unlike any color he had seen on a chicken before. He knew that the Adamas Ore had done things to morph the creatures and people that lived in Atelaer, but he did not know it would go to such extents. Not that he had seen many chickens at all before, unless they were cooked upon his plate. But they were docile, large and fluffy and friendly due to him feeding them scraps of his stale bread. They were always gone by nightfall, off to rest in whatever traveling coop they had been given.

As he thought of the hens in an attempt to ignore the woman glaring down at him, one question did come across his mind and made suspicion swell inside of him: “I’m to be interrogated?”

“For the death of Alfonse. Best to fess up and tell all your secrets before you get to Surryfield. They got people who are a lot meaner to get you to talk.”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

Junia scoffed, a feathered tail lashing. “No one believes you.”

Adrian’s shoulders tensed and he tried to sit up a bit straighter; he didn’t know what to say to that. “Who was Alfonse? Why was a boy wearing a Private’s coat?”

Junia stiffened, giving a slow and miserable tilt to her head as she scuffed a boot at the dusty ground. “He was the Colonel’s favorite. A drummer boy.”

Adrian’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “But…he was supposed to be in a white coat then. Untouchable. Why-”

“Be quiet!” Junia shouted, whirling and striking him hard across the jaw.

The punch dizzied him and brought Adrian tumbling to his elbows and knees. He saw stars behind his lids as he tried to get a grip on where the floor and sky were.

Junia’s voice was shaking with grief as she shouted, “Silence yourself…you killed him. We all know it! They all told us what they saw! He was just a boy and you killed him!”

Dizzy, head aching from the blow and blood coming from his split lip Adrian lifted his eyes to watch Junia storm out.

The shadowed figure of her companion returned and for a moment they spoke low and furiously. With a harsh breath Junia ripped the flaps of the tent back open, glaring at Adrian as he sank back and brought up his arms in a cross to block another blow. Her face twisted and with a grunt she threw the flagon at him, water splashing across his shirt and onto the dusty floor. “There’s your damned water your rat!”

Curran’s rough voice followed with a growl, “I hope the Colonel does a number on you.”

The flap of the tent closed, lacing up tightly so that no one could come in again for the remainder of the evening.

Adrian was shaking as he got up and sat back against the pole of the tent. His bound hands ached as he pulled them taught, trying to make the pain of it drown out the howling void of fear that was swallowing his chest whole at the thought of morning.

“Lieutenant Octava.”

The Colonel’s voice carried well through the officer’s tent, despite his attention lingering on the last few words of a document under hand at the spindly desk. The sunlight of dawn had just begun to paint the ivory canvas around them in warm tones.

Returning the quill to its inkwell, Francis turned to acknowledge the guest to his quarters. “Have you news from our intrepid courier for me?”

“Aye, sir,” replied the Atelan man with an expressionless face of sable and umber. He stepped forward with a piece of parchment shuffled from his coat sleeve.

The men exchanged quiet looks before Francis took to reading the correspondence.

“Well done, Atticus. So the Imperials are on the move east of us. Hoping to force a surrender of Fort Howley I presume. I can’t imagine they’re left with much of a choice after our interference last week.”

“It would appear that way, Colonel.”

Francis’s brows furrowed. “I’m almost certain Major Baxter at Fort Howley will require our additional forces. This will delay our march to the barracks in Surryfield, however.”

“With respect, Colonel, perhaps this gives us time to gather information from the prisoner.” Atticus paused, working his jaw. “Forgive me if I don’t understand why it’s necessary to take him to Surryfield when justice for his crimes can be handled among us.”

The wintery eyes of the Colonel narrowed dangerously at Atticus, as he folded the correspondence letter closed and tossed it on the desk briskly. “I am a passionate man, just as any of us serving in the Wiskusset 17th, Lieutenant. But I do not to submit my emotions to savagery. He will be trialed fairly by the General’s protocol at the barracks.”

Atticus’s verdant eyes flashed. “Savagery? Do you think the Emperor’s army honors us with the same courtesy? That man out there killed Alfonse!”

“You will be wise to hold your tongue, Lieutenant, and keep your pistol in its holster!” boomed Francis, standing and making the irritated thrash of his tail known. “You are dismissed.”

Narrowing his eyes, Atticus gave a reluctant bow of his head and turned out of the officer’s tent.

Francis stood quietly for a few moments, plucking his thoughts and contemplating the hour of his interview with the prisoner in question. Tethering his saber and drawing a cloak over his shoulders, the vacant bedding beside his desk drew his attention. How curious; he hadn’t seen any of his hens all morning.