Chapter 255 - Weakness (1/2)
Gabriel, Claudia and the novices were left back at base Dawn, the drunk and Barb followed Cloudhawk to the battle lines
Dawn lay on the large bed in her cabin, arlimmered, and her features would frorin to a resentful scowl She was ihts form which she couldn’t extricate herself
What did that idiot Cloudhawk think of her? What was she to him?
From the moment she was born, Daas a woetically Her eence was thus not very developed After all, she hardly cared what anyone thought Most of the tiure herout, for there was no one worth her notice
Lately Dawn had felt less and less like her old self, a fact she found distressing And yet, the changes were also exhilarating! There was a sense of expectation Where before her feelings toward Cloudhawk had been randfather it all came into focus
A she-devil was still a woman
Moment by moment she wrestled with how she felt about him, and what she could do about it She needed to kno he felt Yet she also dreaded the answer Days passed as Dawn mulled over the pros and cons, which in itself was an experience she’d never had before It was infuriating! Maddening! But also fulfilling in a way she didn’t expect
Was this love?
The word just appeared in her mind, and all at once her heart felt like it was shudder out of her chest Her half-lidded eyes were evidence that she was relishi+ng the sensation… as she afraid of? She was pretty, talented, and had been a friend to hinize there was no one better!
Gods daned to handle this in her oay, she would have dragged Cloudhawk into her room and asked him bluntly If he refused her, she would have just beaten hireed to marry [1] Daas a firm believer in the power of violence – there was no problem a few smacks with her fist couldn’t fix And if that didn’t work, punch harder
Yet this probleic Cloudhaas the kind to be persuaded by logic, not by force
In killing Adder he proved he was strong Daas strong, too, but not strong enough to overpower him If she decided to try and physically coerce hirasped froret she didn’t train harder in former years With her potential, she would have been so randpa He would kno to deal with this But ould this damnable war end?! She was flustered, distracted, annoyed! Dawn had to fight the urge to draw her blade and hack the cabin to pieces
A sound broke the train of thought as her fingers twitched toward the weapon “Hey, her excellency Miss Polaris!”
She shot up fro bit her Dawn hurriedly fixed her hair and clothes, and took a few deep breaths toThen she walked to the cabin door and pulled it open “What You interrupted me in the middle of a fine drea on my door”
Cloudhawk shook his head “We’ve found traces of a battle I wanted to go down and get a better look”
“What a waste of energy, what’s the point in crawling over a pile of garbage!” There was the barest hint of disappointo and have a look with you”
Neither Dawn nor Cloudhawk had the authority to couise themselves and climb aboard a supply shi+p Over the last several days in the air they’d passed a nu stircrazy he’d stopped at each one to see what he could find out
What they discovered was so amiss
Cloudhawk took the drunk, Barb and Dawn from the shi+p to the battlefield below It was the ruins of a wasteland settlehly the size of Fish by the foundations, it had been well fortified fronable to an armada of a hundred Elysian warshi+ps The settlement was practically reduced to rubble
Barb’s curiosity got the better of her “Excellency, what did you find?”
Cloudhaas picking over the debris while Oddball patrolled nearby It didn’t take very long for their combined efforts to produce results
“This city was in the process of being evacuated by the tioods orof worth was left behind for our forces to capture” Cloudhawk paused for athey had Our soldiers are after Conclave soldiers, and their mission was to harry them in their retreat They didn’t have tih the ruins of a city”
Daasn’t following “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Two possibilities” Cloudhawk raised his head and looked at the others with a dire expression “One; the Crian his retreat into the Northern Barrens even before Adder went to Woodland Vale Our forces have picked off what they could, but haven’t caught the Conclave’s th”
“And the second?” Dawn pressed
“Feign defeat to lure the enemy in” Cloudhawk pulled out his exorcist rod and started drawing in the dirt “If we look at the route the expeditionary force took, we can see they two at least two major detours These were likely efforts by the Conclave to lure our men into less favorable territory”
The others looked at one another It was a sensational claim That would mean the Conclave’s successive defeats were a ruse, and they hadn’t yet attacked with their full army After a moment it seemed to make sense – the Conclave was led by one of Skycloud’s Master Demonhunters, after all The Crimson One was not a man so easily beaten
Dawn hardly cared “What are you afraid of? Ourbunch It doesn’tin the face of overwhel force”