I pursed my lips. Then I relented. “I mean, we were told not to leave the castle. But once I did that I wasn’t given any directions.”
There were several suppressed laughs at that. The leader tilted his chin down, keeping his eyes on me.
“So you were told not to leave the castle. Which means you were in essence told not to come up here. You simply chose not to listen,” he translated.
Then he cocked his head as if he were listening, but the only thing I could hear was the wind. When he fixed me with a stare a second time, he appeared thoughtful.
“If you want to look at it in a negative light,” I shrugged.
“I would like to look at it in the kind of light where you get off our land and never come back,” said the woman.
“I meant no harm. I just wanted to get up where the air was fresh,” I said.
“We like the fresh air as well. We particularly like that it’s ours and that we are left alone,” said the man.
“I’ll go,” I said. I stood up and dusted off my rump, taking my time.
“You will go and not return,” said the woman.
I kept my jaw tightly closed. That I wouldn’t promise.
This was as good as I had felt since I arrived at the academy. This place felt like home, despite the fact that these particular mountains were much taller and more barren than the ones that surrounded my former home.
Where I had lived had been, at its highest point, icy desert in rock form. This was different; here there were at least still a few shrubs and bushes hanging on.
“I don’t think she’s going to promise that,” said the young man.
“Yes, that’s my observation as well. I don’t think we needed your input,” the leader said.
The young man went bright red. Clearly he had spoken out of turn one too many times.
The older man leaned forward. “Do you love the mountains? Because nobody would climb up here for fun. They would do it out of love. You got up here fast. We’ve been watching you for a while. You weren’t exactly covering your tracks,” he said.
Of course I loved the mountains. I lived among the mountains and couldn’t get out of the mountains without threat of death.
“There’s nothing but love there,” I said wryly.
Again there was a small round of laughter. But the leader wasn’t amused.
“I’m not going to make you promise not to come back here. But I do expect you to ask permission. I further expect you to not trespass. Otherwise there will be consequences. Do you understand?” he asked.
I nodded. “I understand.”
“We don’t exactly have a good opinion of that academy of yours. All high-and-mighty over there. Think so well of your kind. We’ve made it clear that none of you students are supposed to be up here. It would be best for you to remember that.” That was the woman again. Her voice was starting to grate.
I nodded one last time. There was no sense angering these riders. There were far more dangerous creatures in the world to worry about. But if the woman attacked, I would be forced to defend myself, and I didn’t want to provoke such a fight. I had a good opinion of my fighting skills, but I couldn’t take on this many enemies at once.
I carefully slipped away.
They watched me all the way out of their mountains. Even after I could no longer see them, I could hear the gentle tap, tap, tap of hooves following behind me for a long time.
I never turned back.
Chapter Seventeen
That night I headed for the library, but I didn’t get all the way there. I stopped short on the way, realizing that my trickery about studying was becoming utterly pointless. I was going to be unmasked soon as a fae who barely knew how to read; it was too big a secret too hide, especially at a school like this one. The charade was becoming unworkable.
A familiar voice drawled, “Fancy seeing you here!” said Batham.
Turning around to see the prince and his guards, I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Stalking me,” I accused him.
“I’m actually far more concerned with staying alive. And getting my homework done,” said Reidar with a grin. “Besides, it makes sense that the three of us go to the library together. They have to go, and I wish to achieve maximum knowledge. Would you like to join us in this studious endeavor? We’re all studying away, after all.”
“I was actually thinking I had to go back,” I said.
He ignored what I said and kept coming toward me until he was only a few feet away. He held one hand around his chin while he waved the other thoughtfully.
“I couldn’t help but notice that you weren’t around today,” he said.
I raised my eyebrows. “Would you say that you were looking?” I asked him.
I hadn’t thought anyone would wonder where I was. When Vayvin didn’t see me around, she didn’t care. She was too involved in too many organizations and in getting perfect scores on her homework to worry about my whereabouts.
“I wouldn’t say that,” argued the prince. “I would merely say that when we got a game together, I noticed that you were absent. I’d been looking forward to beating you at it.”
“I highly doubt there are many games you could beat me at,” I informed him.
He grinned. “There’s only one way to find out. And yet you weren’t there to test your theory. I was devastated.”
He put his hand over his heart for emphasis. I rolled my eyes.
“She doesn’t believe you,” Batham felt the need to point out.
“I don’t know why. All I want to do is make her happy. And beat her at games,” the prince said.
Through all this banter, Colly was as silent as usual. In fact, he had wandered over to the window and was now looking out, seemingly oblivious.
“I think you should make it up to me, though,” said Reidar.
“That will probably end poorly. But maybe not for the reason you think,” I told him.
He grinned at me again, and Batham smiled. Colly showed no reaction at all.
“That’s not actually what I had in mind,” the prince said. “What I had in mind was that I think you should come with us to the library.”
My heart fluttered in my chest. Then I noticed that Colly’s eyes flickered toward me. Why did he find that curious? I wondered.
“I’m tired,” I said.
“I believe that, given that you were away from the castle all day,” observed the prince with a twinkle in his eyes. “Still, I would like it if you came. I’ll insist if I have to.”
I swallowed.
This was one of the kingdom’s ranking princes. It really wouldn’t do for me to refuse him, although since we did work together in the kitchen, maybe I did have that right?
“I suppose I could come,” I scowled. “I did want to look over some of the homework for tomorrow.”
Once we reached the library, the men seemed to know where they were going. Not surprisingly, they headed straight for their usual table in the corner, where the prince could have his back to the wall and his guards could see anybody coming.
The four of us sat down and pulled out our notebooks. I pulled out my books and pretended to read. I waited a beat to see what pages they turned to, then turned to the same pages.
At least some of the books, like the one for Clouda’s boring philosophy class, had some pictures. I liked the pictures. They were intricate and detailed. It was also clear that they were old.
But soon we’d start having tests, and I dreaded them. Even the outdoor classes I wouldn’t be able to pass, since that sparkling ball inside me was not something I wanted to go near, much less actually use. Somehow all it said to me was pain and suffering.
Reidar, Colly, and Batham started discussing the homework and a whole list of questions of historical significance. I could see that they often diverged onto strange tangents while they pretended to be studying, topics that didn’t have anything to do with the homework at hand.
As usual, Colly barely spoke at all.
“If King Deffy chooses his heir, that might offer Whessellond a glimpse of the future. Greenleaf might realize that Whessellond is strong, and that being our ally is better than being our enemy,” Reidar said.
“That would go a long way toward stabilizing the three nations that once made up the Trifecta,” Batham agreed. “Not Anemone has ever been unstable, given the reign and power of the old queen.”
“Greenleaf itself is unstable?” I asked.
“Greenleaf had a rebellion. There’s no clear ruler anymore. Those rebels are the ones attacking Whessellond,” Reidar explained.
“What happened to Anemone?” I asked. I had heard snippets about this over the past few weeks, but not the whole story. Since Anemone was the strongest of the nations, it was certainly something I should know.
“Well, nothing and everything,” said Reidar. “The queen had a daughter. When the daughter was twenty she was murdered by the queen’s advisors. Nobody knows why except the queen herself. And the queen won’t say.”
“Why do you think she was murdered?” I asked the prince.
Rather than respond, he swallowed hard and looked around.
Batham leaned into me and almost whispered. “This is really something the princes aren’t supposed to speculate on. But speculation happens regardless, and in this case it’s that the queen’s daughter had a child of her own, out of wedlock, a child she wasn’t supposed to have. She was supposed to marry the man she was betrothed to, but she hated him, so instead she had a baby with someone else. She wouldn’t tell the advisors where the baby was, so in a fit of anger they killed her. She had hidden the baby because she knew they’d kill the child if they could.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said. “Why would they kill a princess? Surely they’d know that the queen would kill them in return,” I said.
“Oh, yes. And she did. A slow slaughter. Not just the advisors but their families too, their extended families and any friend of theirs she could get her hands on. Her daughter was her pride and joy.”
“And where’s the baby?”
“That’s the interesting bit. Everyone thinks that the queen knows where the baby is. Blood can sense blood, after all, if you have the slightest clue where to look. The queen and the baby are each other’s only living relatives, but the queen won’t say anything about it. She’s old now. At some point she’s going to have to tell the secret,” said Batham.
“Yeah, but not in time to save the kingdom,” I said. “Maybe she won’t say because the baby didn’t survive.”
“You can’t think like that. The baby must have survived. She must rule Anemone,” said the prince. “Otherwise all is lost.”
I stayed silent for a long time, until Batham prodded me. “What do you think, Eddi?”
I glared at him. “I don’t care about the affairs of old queens. I’m pretty certain we all have bigger problems. Like a murderer on campus.”
Prince Reidar put his face in his hands and laughed until he was nearly crying. “It’s so easy to enrage you,” he mumbled. “So easy.”
I rolled my eyes and went back to thinking about the killer at the academy.
In recent days I had been hearing students talk optimistically. Maybe the killer was gone, they said. Maybe he had given up. Maybe he and the Shadow weren’t the same bloodthirsty individual. There had been no murder on campus so far this year, so maybe the fresh blood had turned him off. Or maybe he had already achieved his goal, so he wasn’t bothering.
Speculation swirled constantly. Nobody liked to live in fear.
We studied for the rest of the evening. At one point the prince’s leg brushed against mine, sending shock waves down my spine. But he didn’t appear to notice what he’d done.
The only other point of any note was when Batham suggested that we each read a homework passage aloud. He thought it might help the rest of us to understand what it said if we heard it out loud. I flatly refused to involve myself, and that was the end of that.
I returned to my room that night thinking about the fact that I had been close to joining a couple of organizations, but hadn’t done so yet. That was part of my assignment in coming here, after all: be the kind of fae that the killer would see as a desirable target.
I would have thought that going after the Shadow would be enough to make me a target, but so far it didn’t seem to be. I needed to do more.
I’ll find something, I told myself, but the question now was what to choose. The paper? Theater? The band? Vayvin really wanted me to join the band. It didn’t appear to concern her that I couldn’t play an instrument. She kept insisting that it would be fine, but I didn’t exactly believe her.
When I crawled into bed at last, my mind wandered back to my night in the library. It had been fun. I had almost forgotten who I was and what I was doing there. I was doing that more and more these days.
And once I realized it, it felt dangerous.
All I should care about was who I was, since to forget could be deadly. As I slipped off to sleep I thought I saw a figure come into the dorm. Since that didn’t make sense, I let myself drift off to sleep.
Chapter Eighteen
In the middle of the night I woke with a start. I sat up in my bunk and tried to see into the thick night, barely managing to figure out that there were mounds in the beds to my left and right, each signifying a sleeping fae.
I tried to figure out what had woken me up, but when I couldn’t, I lay back on my pillows with my heart hammering. The sound of rain slashing at the windows often caused me distress in the night, but it wasn’t raining at the moment, so that couldn’t have been what roused me.
I looked toward the foot of the bed. At first I saw nothing, then something shifted into focus and I could just make out a piece of paper sitting lightly on top of the covers. I sat up and grabbed the paper, but there was nothing written on either side.
My touch made something happen, however, like a shot directly to my brain. What I got from it was an instruction: “Go to the Eastern Tower.”
I rubbed the paper between my fingers and told myself that of course it would be beyond stupid to go somewhere alone at night on the instruction of some unknown person or persons. I was the only one awake, and I was sure the note wasn’t from Lewis, the prince, or his guards.
Therefore, I told myself again, it would be stupid to go.
I looked around the dorm at all the sleeping figures. Was I supposed to go now? Who had left the little piece of paper?
I gently pulled back the covers, trying to land as silently as possible on the cold floor. It wouldn’t do to alert the others that I was on the move.
I grabbed a sweater and threw it over my shoulders to ward off the night cold. It was starting to be chilly all the time, in fact, with a crisp sharpness to the air.
Silently I slipped out of the dorm room, reminding myself that it strictly against the rules and was a good way to get myself killed.
And not listening to myself.
I hurried down the empty corridors knowing that there weren’t enough staff members or guards to patrol everywhere, trying to go softly so that I could hear anyone approaching.
The assassin had proved himself to be incredibly competent in terms of murder. They knew they were no match for him. In that case, they reasoned, why risk your life? Might as well just stick to the kitchen and make a good hearty breakfast while others fought.
There was no point in
blaming anyone for that sort of logic.
I had never been inside the tower before. When I reached the base, I found a thick door. Before I tried to open it, I asked myself again who would want to meet me. If it was the assassin, I had to take my chance to kill him. But maybe it was someone not from the castle, someone who had snuck in for who knew what reason.
I took a deep breath and went ahead, trying to prepare myself for anything.
My fingers wrapped around the handle and I twisted. It wasn’t locked, and I slipped right through. I kept telling myself that this was foolish, that I should retreat and run away, but I just couldn’t. I had to keep going.
With hurried footsteps I climbed the stairs as quickly as I could, my feet padding silently on the stone floor. I was in good shape and could move fast, but my legs still felt tired by the time I reached the top.
It was a long climb. Good thing I wasn’t afraid of heights. At least I didn’t think I was. That was one of the things I considered when I was tempted to jump off the waterfall. Heights didn’t scare me; in fact, the idea of soaring through the air was one of my great daydreams.
What did scare me was this question: Could I survive the fall?
But I told myself now was not the time to worry about that. There was plenty else to worry about on this little midnight jaunt I was taking.
At the top of the tower was another door. This one better not be locked either, I thought.
Gently I eased it open. I had moved it about a foot when it a gust of wind slammed it open all the way, making me stumble backward and crash into the wall.
When I righted myself I felt the harsh and biting wind, strong enough to yank me right off the edge of the tower. I told myself to be wary, for that and other reasons.
I stepped carefully out onto the floor at the top of the tower, glad that I had brought my sweater. I pulled it more closely around my shoulders and torso as the wind kept whipping at me. My hair was soon pulled into a frenzy, but I could fix that later.
I tried to look around. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but there was no dark figure waiting for me up there. The tower was empty.
Noble Fae Academy: Year One Page 12
