Ikelos (The Ephemeral: Book 2)

Chapter 6

It was easier finding our way back to Belgate. The woods seemed much smaller now that we'd crossed the Range. Now that we'd battled in her valleys and nested in her trees.

But it still took time, and it felt like I'd aged forty years with Mason at my side.

We argued over nothing and everything. Each change in route, each rest stop. If it weren't for Harmon, we'd never get anywhere, and I probably would have thrown the boy off a cliff by now.

Harmon, on the other hand, was a quiet, competent companion. Like Will, his language mostly consisted of huffs, hums, and grimaces, but when our bickering pushed him over the edge, he'd shout at us 'squabbling pests' to shut our traps. He even threatened to abandon us a few times if we didn't cease our quarreling, but his volatile methods proved rather effective.

At least...most of the time.

"Seriously, Mason? Still with that sexist crap?" I groaned, shoving a snowy branch out of my way and taking pleasure in the harsh smack behind me as it struck Mason in the face. "I thought you finally accepted that women were capable of fighting."

"Maybe you and Siren. And Jo, if she even counts. But you're not like other girls. You're basically guys."

"What? What does that even mean?"

The female species was not a monolith. Women were all individuals with unique perspectives, human experiences, and capabilities—Jaden, Siren, Jo, and Valerie were proof of that. The five of us were completely different people, but at our core, we were all female, all women kicking at the current.

Calling me a man was just insulting.

"You can't put all girls in one basket, welt."

"I'm not saying you're all the same. I'm just saying that femininity and war don't go together. You're not soft, sensitive. That's the only reason you're alive, and honestly, it's the only reason the other soldiers take you seriously. Most girls aren't like that, and that's why they make good mothers."

I glanced back at him. "With that logic, you could argue that all men are naturally equipped for war. But just look at Fudge."

Mason rolled his eyes. "Exactly. Fudge is on the feminine end of the spectrum, and you don't see him fighting on the front lines, do you?"

His tunnel vision boiled my blood, and I looked up at the sky to calm myself. "Femininity and masculinity are just...arbitrary terms, Mason. You can't apply them to one sex or the other. We all have traits from each category—because they're human traits—and that's exactly why a gender-based law should never exist."

He faltered, seemingly out of comebacks. "Just admit that you don't have a counterargument."

I twitched, and I rounded on him, fed up with his unrelenting bigotry. "Why do you even care if women want to fight? Why do you care if we reject the roles we were assigned? It has absolutely nothing to do with you! I don't get why you're so obsessed with knocking us down!"

He stared at me for a moment, and then his pale eyes shrank to narrow slits. "It's the way life is, okay? There are laws for a reason. Limits. They protect us from radicalism, and they prevent us from devolving into a barbaric kingdom like Rhea. Or did you forget that the last woman to achieve power destroyed the entire world?"

My eyes roamed over him in disgust—his blond hair cropped short, his lean frame and muscles. He wore a leather vest from his mother's purse, and on his belt, a rapier from his father's wallet. This cookie-cutter soldier was the product of society, and he basked in that knowledge.