“Usually two more, but I think they’re canceling the last one today because we started late,” Esmeralda said.
“Isn’t it all indoor work?” I asked.
Esmeralda and Vayvin exchanged looks. “No, they take us outside sometimes to do physical work. Some days it’s one and some the other,” Vayvin explained.
“I thought we were in more danger outside,” I said.
“We are, but we don’t really have a choice. We can’t stay in the castle all day. You yourself said that,” said Vayvin. I knew she was right.
Several girls in ruffles passed us in the halls. We all wore the same uniforms, but if a student chose to, he or she could wear a small identifying detail that symbolized his or her home province. Nerys was from the Dry Mountain province; she wore ruffles. Esmerelda’s province of Red Field allowed tiny gold buttons on the cuffs.
As the group passed us, Nerys herself marched up to us. “You two are seriously still with her? Isn’t she a bit weird for you? I mean, seriously. She was just in prison,” she said.
“Get out of my face, Nerys,” said Vayvin. “We’re just showing her the ropes. Besides, we know we can trust her. She wasn’t here last year, so at least she isn’t a crazy murderer.”
“Whatever,” hissed Nerys, looking around. “At least the new guys here are cute. I thought this year was going to be a dud, but every single guy I’ve seen has been gorgeous.”
In my opinion she was right, and it was the first thing Nerys had said that made any sense to me. Our kind were naturally attractive, but all the males and females here were beautiful. It was as if the best of the best really meant looks too: good-looking, well groomed, and well built.
I thought of the prince and his two bodyguards, who, like me, were new arrivals at the academy. Many of the other first-year students had been here last year for a preparatory year, which wasn’t required, but which a lot of fae opted to do.
I was one of the few who had been allowed in on top of the group that already had a year under their belts. The officials who had sent me here had simply decided to throw me into the deep end and see if I could swim.
Swimming still wasn’t my problem, but the thought of it did remind me of what my problem actually was.
My stomach tightened again. I really had no idea how I was going to deal with that. The idea that it wasn’t going to come up was laughable, since it already had.
I glanced at Vayvin and Esmeralda. Would they help me if I needed it? I didn’t want to have to ask. I shook my head in puzzlement as we made our way to the next class.
This one was taught by Fallyan. As we walked, I noticed how many guards were scattered around the campus. Everywhere we went throughout the castle we just kept passing more guards. They were everywhere.
This place was a fortress, safe from anything except what was already inside.
There probably wasn’t even going to be any student brawling because of how many guards there were. They were stationed roughly every twenty feet along every hallway that we walked down on our way to the next class. Their presence was going to make it all the more difficult for me to slip away, but I told myself that was a problem for another day.
Fallyan was a good and lively teacher. That’s how he had struck me to begin with, and that’s how he taught. His class wasn’t anywhere near as boring as Clouda’s, but it was still pretty dull. As he lectured, I sat there wondering how many students managed to survive this place. Based on my first afternoon of classes, I wondered how they ended up not simply being bored to death.
Fallyan’s topic was history, the history of the kingdom, the history of the gods.
There was a lot of war and battle in the kingdom’s history, and that part I did find interesting. The fact that ours was the most recently formed kingdom on the continent somehow made other countries think they had a right to it. Whessellond’s wealth of natural resources also contributed to that attitude. That had all changed when the Trifecta had formed. Now that the Trifecta was broken, those same attitudes had returned. Whessellond’s only hope was to re-form the Trifecta, something that didn’t look likely to happen anytime soon.
Fallyan barely scratched the surface during the hour-long class, but the most interesting thing about it was that two of the three princes sat in front of me, specifically the two I hadn’t had a good look at so far.
The smaller of the two was really small, only about my size. He wore spectacles and looked like he might blow away in the wind. He had six bodyguards around him, and he looked nervous at all times. He also didn’t look like he had any friends.
The other prince was a study in contrasts. He wasn’t hiding. He had flaming red hair and wore a red outfit. He looked around and glared a lot, and he had only one bodyguard.
When Vayvin noticed me looking, she leaned over and said, “That’s Prince Connor. He’s very good with fire. It’s a rare talent. That’s why he isn’t afraid. He thinks he can meet any attack with fire, and burn it to the ground before it gets to him. That’s also why he only wants one bodyguard. He doesn’t want to burn someone else in his own defense.”
The description of the prince as mighty and strong fit the reality. He looked unafraid despite the dangers that surrounded him.
I nodded my head, although I didn’t quite believe it. Prince Connor looked like he’d be happy to burn everything down to ashes.
“What about the other one?” I asked.
“Prince Orlando. He’s new here as well. I’ve heard he didn’t want to come, since he knows he’s a prime target. He thinks he’s the most coveted target of all because he’s the weakest. In case you can’t tell, he’s not exactly as physically fit as the rest of us.”
She was right about that. Orlando was at least a head shorter than any other male I had seen at the academy, nor did he have the well muscled arms and shoulders of the rest of them.
“Why is he so much smaller?” I asked, shrugging.
“Rumor has it that his mother is a queen and his father a king consort. The gossip-mongers say that the king couldn’t sire a child, so she found somebody else to do it, possibly someone of lesser birth. Nobody knows if that’s actually true, but that’s the rumor.”
As I looked at Prince Orlando, a small dollop of pity welled up inside me. Who would want to hear of rumors about your parentage all the time? It was much better to be like me and simply not know who your parents were, although mine were allegedly noble born.
I thought, not for the first time, that perhaps my parents weren’t from Whessellond. That would explain everything, wouldn’t it?
I looked down at the cuffs. No, that might not explain everything.
At dinner time no one wanted to return to the atrium, and no one in charge wanted us to, either, so it was ordered that food should be delivered to the dorm rooms.
Back in the dorm, I found a tray of food on my bed. It looked exactly like every other tray in the room, presenting me with a slab of bread smeared with butter, an apple, and some water.
I fell on the food. My stomach had been rumbling for hours, and at first I thought of nothing else.
The worst edge of hunger dulled, I finally noticed that there was a note on my bed that said I should report to the kitchen before breakfast for work duty.
I sighed. I knew I had to have a work assignment; most of the students did. But of all things, I didn’t want to work in the kitchen.
For one thing, I was a terrible cook. For another, it would be blazing hot down there, and in that sense it would remind me of prison.
Then again, I could think of worse things, like running down a mountain as a child in the dead black of night, covered in the blood of friends, family, and clan.
As I sat on my bed munching my food and looking around, I noticed hostile looks from several of the girls. I was pretty sure that many of them had been at the academy the year before, and I knew they didn’t like outsiders. Even if they knew I wasn’t a murderer, I wasn’t one of them, and they weren’t going to change t
heir minds about that.
I finished my food and added my tray to the stack by the door. There was no homework that had to be done that night, but some of the girls were reading.
Given the time of night, others had gone to the library, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. What was the point, anyway?
Vayvin and Esmeralda had disappeared after class, and there had been no sign of them since then. I figured they were probably busy with student activities.
Well, I didn’t have any of those yet, either. I’d have to pick a couple and try to rise in them, because I was going to get hassled if I didn’t.
But it still sounded like a joke, me being part of any organization at the Noble Fae Academy for wealthy lords. Wanting to succeed and actually managing to do it were two different things, especially in my circumstances.
I glanced out the window to see a light smattering of rain starting up. Ever since that night when I’d had to flee the mountain, I had hated the rain. Now it sent a shiver down my spine.
With that comforting thought, I slipped my covers back and crawled into bed. I was the first one to close my eyes that night, but it was a long time before I slept.
The tap tap tap of the rain against the window mocked me. I pulled the covers up to my chin, but I still didn’t feel warm. My only comforting thought was that by morning the rain would stop and the sun would shine. I just hoped I didn’t get too used to the sunshine. More likely than not, I wouldn’t get to see it for very long.
Chapter Twelve
I rose early, before anybody else. I tried to be quiet, not because I cared what they thought but because I didn’t want to deal with them on an empty stomach. I got dressed and padded gently out of the dorm room, knowing that I wouldn’t be going back until at least lunchtime. Given that I was working in the kitchen, I’d be eating breakfast down there as well.
I examined the cuffs on my wrists again, and then again and again. I had seen several other students with the same cuffs. That fit with what I had been told repeatedly, which was that the cuffs weren’t uncommon. I still hoped that my own would be removed soon, because I was tired of them.
Turning all that over in my mind, I made my way downstairs. At first I didn’t know where to go, but I followed my nose.
I kept going down and down and down, through hallways where there were no expensive tapestries or carpets. I wasn’t totally sure where I was, because the place was still so new to me. But I thought I was going in the general direction of the atrium where we ate our meals. It would make sense if the kitchen were underneath the dining hall.
I wondered if there was anything underneath the kitchen. We were so high up in the mountains that in theory I could probably have climbed downward for miles.
Finally I felt the blast of heat as I made my way down a flight of stone steps that might have been carved out of the mountain itself, I couldn’t tell for sure. On the outside edges they were jagged and not uniform, but in the center they had been smoothed over from centuries of footsteps.
A blast of noise assaulted me when I opened the door to the kitchen itself, which was staffed by at least ten hardworking men and women.
They barely looked up when I entered and stood there awestruck. Each of them moved with a sureness that I wasn’t used to seeing. Both women and men wore aprons, and what hair they had was tied back. The men’s muscles bulged as they lifted huge cauldrons of food.
The place smelled like fragrant herbs, and sauces, and baking. But it also smelled of smoke, and metal, and hard work.
“Are you going to stand around staring or are you going to move?” a man’s dry voice asked from behind me.
I spun around, and there was the prince from yesterday. And of course, his large and well-muscled bodyguards.
The prince gave me a crooked grin. “See, I can talk to you because you just got here, so I know you’re not one of the ones trying to kill me,” he said, his eyes sparkling. Then he glared over his shoulder as if he’d been having an argument about that very topic with one of his guards.
The smaller guard gave me a grin at that point, but the larger one, the one with the epic shoulders, didn’t so much as look my way.
Did I seriously have kitchen duty with these three?
“Wait for me,” another voice called out as a large and baby-faced man came hurtling down the stairs. He wasn’t out of shape, but he was softer than the others, and a giant of a man. He had curly hair and blue eyes.
When he reached me he stumbled to a halt.
“Hello. I think we’re in the same year. I’m Lewis,” he said. He extended a hand. I took it. It was a little clammy, and I tried not to flinch, but he noticed anyhow. “Sorry about that. I tend to sweat a lot.”
He searched my face for any reaction, and when he got none he said, in a jolly tone, “This is going to be fun.”
The other three students watched us, then the one wearing the royal insignia stepped forward. “Prince Reidar, of the Jade Crown province. These are my two bodyguards, Batham and Colly.”
He didn’t appear to be speaking to me, but rather to the fae who had just coming tumbling in. Lewis must have been used to dealing with royalty, because he said, “I thought you were studying on another continent.”
“Came back,” said Prince Reidar with an easy smile.
“Why?” Lewis scoffed. He nodded to one of the others as if he’d met him before.
Prince Reidar only continued to smile. I murmured a quick whisper of my name and then turned away. It was strange, but of the three of them I thought the most commanding was not the prince, but the dark-haired guard.
“Hey, Lewis,” said Batham, the one who had grinned at me. “I wasn’t sure whether you’d make the cut for the academy. I’m sure your parents are proud.”
Lewis didn’t react, and my thoughts turned to the fact that there appeared to be five of us who’d be working in the kitchen at breakfast time.
It sort of felt like a punishment, except that I was glad there were no other girls there. Girls were annoying, always worried about breaking their nails and other stuff that didn’t matter. Without even realizing what I was doing, that thought prompted me to examine my own nails. They were chipped and broken.
I couldn’t help but notice, as Prince Reidar flashed his hand in the air expressively, that he was wearing several gold rings. What’s more, his nails were perfectly manicured.
Meanwhile, the guard who hadn’t spoken noticed me looking at Prince Reidar. I wanted to tell him not to look at me, but I knew that wouldn’t achieve the desired result, so instead I schooled my features into indifference and turned my attention to the kitchen staff.
So far we had all just stood there, waiting for someone to notice us. But I knew they already had, and I assumed they were just waiting for the right moment to come over. Between boiling temperatures and adding the right ingredients at the right time, it was never good to mess up a recipe.
Batham was less patient, and after a very few minutes he started glaring at the kitchen staff.
“Let’s get this show on the road. Who are you again?” he asked, turning to me.
The prince glanced at me as well. “I don’t care who she is,” he said. “All I care about is that she’s not trying to kill me.”
“That’s just because she doesn’t know you. You haven’t properly introduced yourself to her,” said Batham.
“We covered that. Maybe not well enough. I’m Prince Reidar,” said the prince, looking at me as if I might not understand the words he spoke. “Now she knows me,” he added, looking at Batham.
“Now she’s going to try,” muttered Batham. He was the one with very light hair, while the other two were dark.
“On to my bodyguards,” said the prince, continuing the introductions. “This is Batham, he always has something to say. This here is Colly. He’s not a big talker.”
Colly finally looked at me, revealing that his eyes were a bright violet color the likes of which I had never seen, with small circl
es of green in the center. like bursts of light. I found myself unable to look away from them.
“Don’t feel bad. He has that effect on everyone,” said Prince Reidar with a wink.
“I have an effect on fae too,” offered Lewis.
“Yeah, but what kind of effect?” asked the prince. Now that he knew his bodyguard was a friend of Lewis’s, he was much warmer to him.
When Lewis didn’t answer what was obviously a rhetorical question, the prince turned to me and said, “We still don’t know your name.”
I told them. None of them reacted, except that I thought Colly might have given a little twitch. Since Colly wasn’t the speaking variety of student, I intended not to worry about it too much.
“When will we get this show on the road?” asked Lewis. “The longer it takes to do this work, the longer it’s going to be until I can have breakfast.”
“So you’re it, huh?” said a woman, striding up to us at last.
She was as wide as she was tall, which is to say not very tall, but still very wide. Her hair was pulled up against and under a handkerchief, but from what little I could see it seemed to be white with streaks of red. There were lines around her eyes as she took the five of us in.
“Not much to speak of, I don’t suppose. Every year I tell them I don’t want this detail. I tell them to find somebody else to torture, but they always seem to find me. Just for the record, I don’t care who your parents are. I don’t care who your mom is and I don’t care who your dad is and I don’t care if you’re a prince. You better do the work and not make the food terrible and we’ll get along just fine until the end of the year.” As she finished up, she was glaring at Prince Reidar.
“I’m fine with that,” said the prince. “I’m just looking to stay alive. I’m hoping that my low standards meet with success.”
“Well I don’t intend on killing you unless you burn the eggs,” said the woman.
“You can’t talk that way to a prince,” muttered Batham.
The woman chuckled. “I’m Penny. I run this kitchen. I’ll talk to him however I want.”
Noble Fae Academy: Year One Page 8
