The Alpha King Marked Me. I Still Haven't Told Him I'm A Girl novel Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Nineteen

"Did you hear?"

Bryn’s shoulder bumps mine as we move away from the serving table. Eyes track me down the aisled rows of the recruits’ hall

and while I’d prefer to think it’s because it’s the first time since my ’promotion’ that I’m having breakfast with them, there is hostility brimming in the air.

Directed at me.

I couldn’t stomach seeing Rafe at the tower, so I snuck back into my old room last night, thankful that it was still unoccupied. He didn’t show up for my personal training either. Better. After last night, I never wanted to see him again.

My heart hammers as I clench my tray tighter, the weight of so many stares dragging heavy on me. Did they somehow find out what happened last night between me and him? Maybe he told them what I was, what he’d witnessed? No. He wouldn’t have done that. It’d compromise him, too.

"Heard what?" I ask Bryn as we drop onto the only free bench in a hall full of men.

Bryn leans in close, his fingers grabbing a laddle. "We are to fight at the front line."

My spoon clinks against the bowl. "We?"

He points at the rows of faces--hungry, hollow, tired. "Us. Not you. You belong with the Elite. The Quartermaster debriefed us this morning. We go first, swarming them on the battlefield. The Elite pick up what’s left of them."

I blink. "Are you saying--"

Bryn nods gravely. "Yes. They say we are the Vanguard of the army, but in truth, they use us a Canon Fodder. Soldiers sent in first to die and wear down the army."

"No." My voice shrinks around the word. "That can’t be right. The Elite are the Vanguard. We’re the attrition units, the ones they use to smash through their defenses and pave the way for the main force. It has always been this way. Always."

Bryn’s gaze lowers to his porridge. "Have you never wondered why every year, regardless of how little survivors there are, the Elite units always return, claiming victory in pushing back the enemy, yet they appear untouched and unwounded?" His eyes are dark and devoid of hope. "They don’t fight, Valerian. They don’t do... anything."

I think of the training hall in the tower, the beastly strength of those men who have fought wars for longer than we have been born and experienced loss. Men I have trained alongside. I think of their laughter in the dinning halls, the light-hearted air that comes from drinking booze and eating only the fastest lamb and richest food-- because they’re prepare to go and lay their lives down for us.

Accepting Bryn’s words mean accepting that they have never considered us as people. Just life stock to be slaughtered en masse, while they gorge and drink themselves to stupor, enjoying the spoils and victory of a war we peasants die for.

It would mean accepting that Prince Rafe and the wealthy of Silvermoor are despicable and vile bastards. And the ones who killed my brothers, my father, wasn’t the Dark King, but the men who set them on the front line, despite knowing they wouldn’t survive.

Year after year.

It would mean accepting that I wasn’t singled out because of my strength or my usefulness to this war. Nothing made sense. Nothing makes any sense.

"You’re wrong," I say. "The General has enough foresight to pick strategies he thinks best. There must be a different plan--"

A deep voice cuts in, dark and loud, causing silence to ripple in the hall. "You think yourself better than us, eh?"

Leander is standing at the head of our table, leaning like he owns the bench. His lips curl with contempt. "You wear their shiny armour, move around with the princely prick, and now, you think yourself so much better that we shall be sent to battle to die for the likes of you?"

Their gazes bear holes into me and suddenly, I understand their hostility. They’re being sent to die and think that I will be amongst those who will drink to their deaths.

"I’m sure it is all a misunderstanding," I say, voice carrying over the hall. "I will speak to the General to clear it up--"

"Don’t patronize us!" Leander roars. "Will you beg for our lives then? Get on your knees and suck his cock to change his mind? Pretty as you may be, Ironfang, I don’t think the Prince likes his cock getting sucked by a low born bastard runt."

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