I nearly snorted. Eddy, however, was forced to swallow a laugh and instead sounded like he was choking on a rat bone. Both Professor Analine, Sia, and her cronies looked at us like we had lost it.
“Well, thank you for all your help, Professor. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I would like some time to breathe after that ordeal,” Sia said, nodding once to the Professor before slipping into her room, all four of her shadows following behind.
Which would have been fine, except that the room she had escaped into happened to be the one right next to mine.
So much for keeping the meddling medusa out of my life.
“What is this? Some kind of joke?” I shrieked, loud enough that I was sure they could hear before I dodged my way inside, pulling Eddy in after me. I had no clue if guys were allowed in girls dorms, but who the fuck cared anymore.
They had roomed me next door to the devil incarnate. All bets were off.
“I swear if one thing of mine is out of place, she’s going to feel it in the morning.” I snarled, going right to the mess of papers they had given me yesterday, the ones I had thrown on the desk with the full intent of forgetting about their existence.
“You can’t help but think that this was on purpose. What was it that the Queen said to you again?” Eddy said, sinking down into the overstuffed chair and putting his feet up on the little table right in front of it. I still had no idea what the little thing was for, it was far too low for anything practical.
“You mean that I am in prison and have to help them stop the anarchy that they created?” I still wasn’t sure what that meant, the woman was a mystery.
“No, that other thing you told me about, the whole thing about enemies with different skills and allies where you least expect it…” He waved his hand in the air, expecting me to continue, but I was frozen, the paper I had been searching for in my hand.
You better believe I was scowling at it.
Period One: History of Imdalind with Professor Analine Krul
Period Two: Wind-Based Powers and Control with Professor Lexia Stone
Lunch
Period Three: Basic Skills and Harnessing of Power with Professor Georgio Gregario
Period Four: Healing and Defense with Professor Etma Diarius
Period Five (M, W, F): Remedials with Professor Analine Krul
“Fucking hell,” I snarled, letting the paper drop to the floor like a dead leaf. A dead, grey, decaying leaf.
“What is it?” Eddy asked, it didn’t escape my notice that he was chuckling.
“I have two classes with that woman, and get this. It’s Analine Krul. Wynifred’s daughter.”
“The badass from Last Pyre created that?”
“She wasn’t a badass, Ed. And her daughters a bitch.” Screw chuckling, he was full on laughing now. “This isn’t funny.”
“Sure, it is.” He said, kicking off his shoes and spreading his toes through the holes in his socks. “We may have been the only two from our group to get through that masochistic shit show, but here we are. Not only do we both have supercharged magic, but we have the son, the nephew, and a niece of the King and Queen right here. You want to make a point? We are in the right place to do it.”
“We are in the right place to end everything.”
I had said from the beginning that the queen was a fool to bring me here, turns out I was right. Maybe I could see the future better than she could.
17
Adrian
"Aria!" My shout echoed over the stone, rattling the loose bits of rubble and the flimsy metal scaffolding that we were using to hold the tunnel open.
The rock shifted underneath the reverberation and I jerked, tensing for another collapse, but it didn't come. One more cave in from this excavation and I didn't think I could convince Last Pyre to continue with the project that had become known as "Adrian's Death Trap". Not that it would stop me. It had been almost two weeks. We had to be close. I wouldn't give up until I found it.
Until I knew the truth.
"Aria," I grumbled under my breath that time, carefully placing the rock from the wall of loose stone on the ground and made my way back through the tunnel to the sleeping rooms where everyone was clustered.
The long tunnel was devoid of people. Rocks and scaffolding piled and pressing against fragile tiles and stone of an old subway track that had collapsed a little over nine years ago. Just weeks after Gemma had been bitten when her and her parents had been in this very cave in search of food.
It wasn’t a coincidence this tunnel had collapsed. I had pieced that much together even if the elders wouldn't tell me more than a few hidden secrets.
"Aria!" I yelled the second I burst through the door that concealed the caved-in portion of the subway and raced into the massive hall.
No one turned. They were all clustered around the far end of the huge space, and what looked like ten people who were bringing in piles and piles of boxes. Boxes that were clean and unstained, just like the people that were carrying them. The tall, blonde, ethereal looking people.
Skȓíteks.
My blood boiled when I saw who was in the middle of the group. Who was smiling and shaking hands and handing out blankets and apples.
That same damn Eternal that Gemma had led down here. The one that had attacked me. Gemma had led her right to us. Gemma had brought war to our door and then left us defenseless.
She had put me in charge and I sure as shit wasn’t about to let this happen.
"What the hell?" I nearly screamed, candle ears rattling overhead as I stormed toward the group, all of their eyes turning toward me in varying degrees of shock, fear, and joy. The light in their eyes only made my blood boil more.
"Oh!" Wynifred said, smiling as though we were great friends as I plowed my way over to her. "Nice to see you again!"
She extended one of the fluffy blankets towards me, the grey thing clearly soft, and warm, and thoroughly unwanted. I batted it away, wishing I could do the same to all the others. To pile them up and burn them and remove this damn bastard from our home.
But she was an Eternal, a powerful tyrant that had dislocated my shoulder and destroyed part of our home with little thought. I needed to play this carefully, even if the rippling muscles in my back were ready to take this the other way.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, heart pressing against my throat as I snarled.
"I'm bringing blankets, and food, and a dance-off, as promised." She was still happy, still smiling and still passing out the fluffy things. I batted the one on her hand away with a growl, throwing it into the corner where condensation and rot had a tendency to form.
"Don't take those," I hissed to one of the kids as I grabbed another blanket from them, throwing it back in the Eternals face. "She's probably smothered it in diseases meant to take us all out."
The woman’s' smile faded at that, her already dark eyes narrowing at me as she took a step closer, her short stature not even bringing us eye to eye. She looked like a kid.
As useless as I was against her magic, it wouldn’t take much to land a punch on her jaw. My fingers clenched together, broken nails digging into my calloused palms.
"I have no interest in taking you out." It was clear she was trying to be calm, but even I could see the tick in her jaw, feel the heat that was rippling off her skin.
"Same with the food," I said, ignoring her. "They want to kill us all. Why would they bring us blankets and food if not to kill us?"
"Because we want you to warm and not starving," Wynifred said, one eyebrow lifting as she gave me a half smile. "I mean, I get that you don't trust us, but it's food and blankets not witches brew and devils’ dogs. Not everything is cursed with some spell."
Her smile spread as she took the blanket I had shoved at her and handed it back to the kid, "Go be warm and not starving, kid. Let me deal with your boss."
Evan wasn't even ten yet, his parents had been swept away in a raid years before, and he was at the mercy of our community. He just st
ood looking between me and the Eternal in clear confusion. Follow his leader or be warm. Because he couldn't have both, because I couldn't give both.
At least right now.
I could if my plan worked. If we found what I was looking for in the cave I could. I needed to get this bitch out of here so I could get back to work. In the end, the kid bolted off, he and a few of the other orphans grabbing more blankets and apples as they took off to their corner.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to poison them," Wynifred said, taking a bite of an apple before turning back to the pile of blankets and some weird padded rolls that looks too plastic to be food.
"We don't want you here," I snarled, fists still clenched as I tried to ignore my need to send her flailing with a well-placed punch. "We don't want this, and we don't need your help."
"You sure about that?" She was now handing out those weird rolls to my people. No one second-guessed the gifts before they took off. "Because I am pretty sure starving, cold people need my help. Seeing as your girl, Gem, started her first day of school today you don't have anyone to knock over grocery stores for you. So here I am, with food, warmth, and good music if you guys will stop playing with the cables long enough that I can set it up. Be a good ruler, dude. Support your people."
She smiled with a grin that crawled up my spine before turning back to the Undermortals that were beginning to clamor around her.
"Listen to yourself, you hypocritical bastard. You can’t kill my people then come in here claiming to save us," I snarled, grabbing one of the apples from the crate to my left and hurling it at her. It smacked her right in the back of the head, sending bits of apple over her hair, over the faces of the few Undermortals who had been ready to greedily take her handouts.
She froze, the apple speckled faces of my people blanching as they looked at me, at my anger, at hers. They scuttled away as fast as if the CCC was rampaging our way.
"Nice one. Real adult." She spoke slowly, the temperature of my anger rising as the heat in the air did, as it rippled off her in waves. "Listen, I'm here. I'm helping. Be a leader, a non-hypocritical leader, and protect your people instead of leaving them to die."
"I am protecting them, from you," I yelled the words before I rushed her, ready to face whatever attack came my way, whatever repercussions.
Every head turned at my shout, Undermortals and the Skȓíteks staring as I swung, my fist inches from colliding with her face when instead of a blast, instead of some attack or act of martyrdom I was frozen in place.
"I can see why you lead," she said with a smile, the faint lines of a tattoo crinkling around her eyes, her mouth, down the arm that she was holding towards me, the fingers flexing as though she was going to choke me. "When all you know to do is fight, you pick the fighter to follow. But leading isn't about fighting and fighting isn't all there is. Go cool down, kid."
Wynifred winked as she snapped her fingers, a wind pooling around me and sending me hurtling through the air like the last time. But instead of a hard impact with the stone wall, I was sent back, through the door I had come in through, and passed the red ex that marked the passage as dangerous. The wind picked up as I moved through the tunnels, passed the stone and the scaffolding and into the pile of stone I had left at the very end.
Rock rumbled behind me, groaning in warning. Before I could move away, before I could run from the danger and take off down the cave, it all began to shift, boulders and rocks the size of the old toilets showering over me, covering me.
Curling up into a ball, I protected myself the best I could shielding head and my already damaged shoulder from the paralyzing rain. In minutes it was over, the rumble silencing into the few rolling stones as dust and stone settled around me.
I wasn't crushed, I could breathe, I could see. I was sure the bitch did it on purpose. To leave me with some kind of shame. Instead, all I had was rage.
Moving slowly, I listened to the stone and what was left of the old metal scaffolding for signs of further collapse. I straightened, rubble falling from me like oil-slick rain as I assessed how trapped I was. What the damage was.
The tunnel hadn't collapsed.
The pile of stone that we had spent the last few days trying to dig through however, had. Rock had broken away, piling up like stairs into a massive cavern even bigger than the one I had been thrown from. Tall brick walls stretched up to several manholes that let in strings of glittering light. The multicolored shafts illuminated old tile images and smears of ancient art similar to those back n Last Pyre. Through it all, rivers of water ran over the old train tracks, the surface rippling and appearing blue in the tiny bits of light.
Clean water. Light.
It was like a paradise, a sanctuary that could hide us all. Save us all, if only for the thing that set in the middle of the place.
An old, rusty cage like the ones we used for the chickens sat in a beam of light. The golden, glittering light highlighting the metal, and the squawking creature inside of it. But this wasn't a chicken. It was a beast with leathery brown wings, and gnashing teeth and a scream that cut against my spine in both fear and unrequited victory.
"I knew it."
***
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Chapter One - Rowan
It had been one of the longest nights I had experienced in many years, I had gotten used to not sleeping, to keeping myself occupied, to the long lonely hours when no one in my home was awake.
They had become comforting in their own way. Familiar.
But here, all of that was gone. Swept away in a massive suite full of furniture brushed with gold and opulence that wasn’t me, bed piled high with blankets I would rarely use.
Mother had sent over a few things ahead of me. Drawing supplies, piles of books, and a few broken relics from when she was a child that I enjoyed tinkering with, VCRs and DVD players, and other things with letters instead of actual names, that I liked to tinker with.
They were all wrapped up with family photos, and a letter from both her and dad. One labeled. ‘For Now’ and the other ‘For Later’. I only opened the one, I didn’t want to know what the other one had to say.
‘Row -
I know being at the school was not what you wanted, and that circumstances have gotten worse in the last few days, but we wanted you to know that we are proud of you.
You have always had a heart big enough to swallow the world, you get that from your dad I think. Be brave. Be strong. And follow your heart, it won’t fail you.
-Mom’
Dad’s was even shorter.
‘Rowan -
You inspire me every day. I love you.
-Dad’
Sometimes I was sure he secretly read romance novels with the way he talked.
The letter wasn’t helping the feeling that I just wanted to fall through the floor.
Even after unpacking my trunk, hiding the mug in one of the many drawers that littered the room, and throwing a few shirts on the floor, I couldn't get comfortable. I had spent the hours wandering between the rooms in my suite, looking out the windows that were such an oddity in the caves of Imdalind that they made me nervous that someone would see in. That someone could sneak in. Like Sia, who had stalked me all the way to my door before I had slammed it in her face, a last minute promise to see her tomorrow hissed through the wood.
If she snuck through my window I would be sure to th
row her right back out of it.
Letting my pencil drag over the paper I had been drawing monsters and dogs on all night, I turned up my stereo, letting Dave Grohls ancient voice sing over the long yellow rays of sun that had begun to stretch over the floor, igniting the air into fireworks of their own kind.
Specks of white caught the light, shimmering and moving in a sunrise that painted the stars in streaks of orange and yellow, swallowing them whole. A dance, a beautiful dance that ignited against my fingers as they twirled and snatched at the light.
It was so much different here, above ground, watching the sun peak over the mountains, and stream through the massive pine trees that I had been told on more than one occasion had been burned to stubble by Aunt Wyn in one of the final battles of the war.
Living amongst it made it feel even more like a fairy tale than it had when I was a kid.
"One last thing before I quit. I never wanted any more than I could fit into my head.” I sang along as the sun filled the room, a red-breasted bird announcing the day that I had dreaded for the past six years.
"Please don't let this be a shit show," I said with a sigh, leaning back in my chair and pulling the class schedule I had been doodling on closer.
Period One: History of Imdalind with Professor Analine Krul
Well, that sounded boring, and embarrassing. Learning about my own family history from my cousin who Dramin and I used to tease was adopted. How someone so stern was born to the two weirdest people I knew I still couldn’t figure out.
Period Two: Wind Based Powers and Control with Professor Lexia Stone
Lunch
Period Three: Royal Dispatch - Headmasters Office
Period Four: Healing and Defense with Professor Etma Diarius
The Gauntlet Page 18
