To the Sun, To the Stars, To the Sky

16: Betrayal While Planning for Battle

A/N: I just keep lying to you guys, huh?

Reyna POV

We were marching into the capital right on track while everything else around me crashed and burned. We stopped to sleep and I entered a makeshift tent that a small group of rebels had set up for me. Thalia and Luke told me they'd talk to me about the letter after we'd stopped, but they had yet to show up. Not willing to waste any time, I set to work drawing out maps of the capital on some parchment. Then I labeled one for the castle and the bases around it. Nico might have to help with those.

My plan was to cause a ruckus on the east side. If we had a spy in our ranks, it wouldn't be much use to try to stay hidden the entire time. We just had to try to draw some of their ranks away from the west side, where the rest of my troops would then fight our way into the castle. We would have to ignore the army's soldiers as much as we could—they didn't deserve to die but we couldn't let them live if they got in our way, either. I just felt bad killing people who'd hardly been given a chance to escape a place like the army.

I was finishing labeling the map of the city when Thalia entered with Luke. It was nice to have a familiar face with me, especially one as downright gorgeous as Thalia's. Now, though, it was grim and stressed. I stood up.

"Who is the letter addressed to?" I asked first.

"We think this letter is a fake," she told me.

I looked between them. "It's written in the king's golden ink. Someone would've had to steal it from him just to fake that letter, which is unlikely. Who is the letter to?"

"It was too easy to solve," Luke said. "Anyone could've done it. It took us like four minutes."

"Okay, so maybe they wrote it in a rush," I said hesitantly. "Who is it addressed to?"

Thalia set it down on my desk. "Someone innocent, we think. It doesn't make sense. Those symbols are the only layer of code, and it's written in English, and once you figure out the letters everything is straightforward. There's no code words or anything, which would've been extremely easy to add in. No invisible ink. Nothing."

I grit my teeth. "Thalia. Luke. Who the hell is that letter addressed to?"

They paused to glance at each other nervously. Then,  reluctantly, Luke finally caves: "Nico di Angelo. Soldier Ten-seventeen."

I stared at my paper before slowly sinking back into the sitting position I'd been in before they entered. "Dammit. I was hoping Octavian was wrong." Not to mention, I'd been hoping we'd been making progress with him. Convincing he was safe here with us. That he was our equal, not our inferior.

Luke snorted at my comment, and Thalia shook her head to continue arguing with me. "Reyna, I really don't think it's him. And Luke and I talked to him; if he's a spy, he's a hell of a good one. I sent someone to watch him and someone else to watch the prince."

I nodded along. "Because if Nico's the spy, then Will is one, too."

"Right," Thalia said.

I leaned back. "I'll talk to him in the morning. Make sure the people guarding him are awake all night, or that they switch out if they can't be. Nico can't spend any time alone."

"I already arranged that," she said.

"Okay," I decided, head hurting. "Then go to sleep. We'll figure the rest of this out in the morning before we leave again."

Luke saluted me semi-jokingly and Thalia stepped forward to sit with me.

"So. How's your planning going?"

I bit my tongue. "Well, now that Nico might be a spy, horribly. He was supposed to help me plan this out."

She made a humming sound. "You should go to sleep, too, Reyna. You'll need to be able to focus in the morning."

I sigh. "Yeah. You're probably right. You're sure the guards will watch Nico all night?"

She kissed my cheek. "I'm sure. I'm going to sleep. You should, too."

She laid down. I blew out a long breath. This was all falling apart. Of course the one man I needed would be a part of King Apollo's forces. Or, probably a part of King Apollo's forces. There was a chance that Thalia was right, and someone was trying to frame the poor guy. But a larger chance was that he really was guilty, and that was a devastating blow.

I laid down by my girlfriend to sleep. 

Word count: 766