Over the rush of blood in my ears, other sounds came into focus. What was first just a jumble of noise separated into distinct voices.
“It’s not over!” Clio shouted.
“Come on, Eden!” called Bridger.
Thor chanted, “Get up!”
But when I met Nate’s eyes, it was as if everything else faded away. “You can do this, Eden. I believe in you.”
Ignoring the pulsing pain in my thigh, I pressed myself to my feet. For as long as I could remember, the adults in my life repeated the same mantra. We always find a way. Meeting in back alleys to hand off life-saving medicine, breaking into buildings to steal medical supplies. We helped people, but it was never enough. It could never be enough. But being here, surrounded by angels and accepted as one of them—celebrated, even—gave me the potential to help my people on a scale I never could have imagined.
I had found my way, and I wasn’t about to give it up without a fight.
I limped as fast as my injured leg would carry me, disregarding the agony ripping through me and threatening to turn my stomach. Shonda was already halfway to her goal, but I was gaining on her. As the Keepers’ shouts of encouragement changed to whoops of celebration, Shonda waved all the more, accepting the praise that wasn’t meant for her.
I was barely a foot behind her when she finally noticed my approach. Snarling over her shoulder, she broke into a run.
A cry escaped from my lips as I gave chase. Every step sent a wave of agony tearing through me, but I didn’t let up.
Shonda reached the stand first. As her fingers closed around the grip, the blade flashed gold and she let out a triumphant shout.
As I approached, I tried to skid to a stop, but my bad leg gave out. I toppled forward, crashing into her. She knocked into the stand, and it toppled over along with the two of us.
“You’re too late!” she shouted, the Aether Blade clutched in her outstretched hand. “It’s mine now!”
My moment of clarity from seconds ago began slipping away, replaced by the reality I’d sketched out before the fight began. I’d go back to the bunker, and the next time there was a raid on the clinic or a safe house or Liza’s operation, we wouldn’t have a clue it was coming. And Shonda would rise to the position of Keeper and use her status to help only herself.
“No!”
A pulse of pure energy started in my gut and shot outward, concentrating in my right palm. Tingling warmth gathered there, but instead of the darkness that accompanied the burning sensation during the fight, this prickling brought light.
Shonda released a feral scream as a cool weight settled against my palm.
“Is everyone okay?” Headmaster Kemp’s voice was tight and breathless as she and the other spectators encircled the two of us.
“She’s bleeding,” Lydia said, dropping to a crouch by my leg. “We need a tourniquet.”
A wave of dizziness overtook me and I squeezed my eyes closed. Feet scuffled the ground, and when I opened my eyes again, I spotted Shonda on her feet, standing slightly behind an ashen Professor Danson. Both her hands were empty.
Panic shot through me. “Where’s the…”
My right hand clamped instinctively around something hard. Holding tight, I dragged my arm down to get a better look at the item.
The Aether Blade’s grip rested against my palm. The length of the metal itself glimmered with a whitish glow.
Hands jostled my left leg, and I hissed.
“Sorry,” Lydia said. “I just have to…” She passed a black piece of material that looked suspiciously like a cadet uniform under my thigh before looping it around to tie it tight above my wound.
Nate, sporting a white undershirt, crouched beside me and nodded toward the weapon in my hand. “Looks like the Blade chose its loyalty.”
“It was mine,” Shonda snapped.
“We should really get that onto its pedestal and back to the reliquary,” Headmaster Kemp said.
Danson gestured to Thor, and the two of them moved to set the stand upright.
Shonda turned to the headmaster. “Something went wrong,” she said, her voice pleading. “I had it in my hand. I was holding it. That shouldn’t be possible if I’m not the Keeper.”
I glanced down at the Blade. Energy thrummed through it, the pulse combating the pressure of the tourniquet around my thigh. I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but the truth was clear: the Aether Blade chose me. What happened at the trial wasn’t a fluke—it was fate.
I held the sword up toward Shonda. “Want to try it again?”
Nate sucked in a breath. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
Before I could respond, Shonda lunged forward and grabbed the handle. Her eyes widened with something like desire as she lifted it from my hands.
She exhaled a shaky breath, turning toward the headmaster. “See? I told—”
The Blade flickered and disappeared from her hand and snapped back into view atop its stand.
Kemp exhaled, her nostrils flaring. “We need to get Miss Jensen to the infirmary. Miss Hailwood, I’d like to speak to you in my office.”
A beam of sunlight finally broke through the layer of clouds overhead, shining down like a spotlight on the Aether Blade. My Blade.
Peace swelled in my chest. Demon or not, I belonged here.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nurse Nichols, a slim woman whose dark brown hair hung in an angular bob, finished with the bandage on my right arm. “Any other injuries I need to know about?”
I took stock of myself. She had already stitched up the puncture on my thigh and tended to the slices on both arms. I had to fight to keep from staring open-mouthed the whole time. She had medicine to inject into my skin before suturing the wound. The sewing needle came from a sterile package, not out of a pot where it had boiled in water. There were real butterfly bandages on my arms. She’d given me a bottle of pain relievers in case my leg started hurting later.
My back ached from where I slammed against the ground, but I wasn’t sure if there was anything she could do for that. If it was still bothering me later, I could take one of the painkillers she gave me. “I think I’m good.”
“You’re most certainly not good,” she said, moving to the exam room’s small sink to wash her hands. “What was the headmaster thinking, letting the two of you spar with relics? I’m going to have to have a serious talk with her.”
“I don’t think it’ll happen again, if that’s any consolation.”
Nurse Nichols shot me a sour look as she turned off the water. “You’re excused from training for at least the next five days. I’ll need you back here then so I can check how you’re healing.”
“Anders isn’t going to like that,” I warned.
She pursed her lips. “Then he can take it up with the headmaster. Relics,” she muttered, shaking her head. “There’s a fresh uniform on the chair. Once you’re changed, you’re free to go.”
With effort, I heaved myself off the exam table. It was slow going, but I changed out of the remnants of my uniform—which Nurse Nichols had literally cut into strips—and into the fresh one. Although the ache in my leg had dialed back to a dull thrum, I still couldn’t walk without limping.
There was no one in the infirmary’s small waiting area, but I still expected someone to stop me as I headed for the door. While Doc accepted a variety of forms of payment at her underground clinic, she still expected compensation for her work. But I supposed things worked differently here at the academy’s infirmary.
I took my time through Kalmin Hall’s ornate foyer. As I reached the door, I squinted at the pills the nurse had given me, wondering if they were small enough to swallow without water. The ache in my thigh was already growing, and I wasn’t sure I could make it all the way to my dorm without some kind of intervention.
Pushing open the door, I shuffled out onto the hall’s sweeping stairs. During my time in the infirmary, the sun chased off most of the clouds, leaving me to squint against th
e midmorning glare.
Two high beeps cut through the air. “Hey! Need a lift?”
Laughter bubbled up in my chest. At the base of the stairs sat a motorized cart whose white paint winked in the sunlight. Nate sat behind the wheel. “Where did that come from?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I have my ways. Here.” In a flash he was out of the cart and dashing up the stairs. When he reached me, he held out his left hand. “May I?”
“Um. Sure?”
He smiled, revealing his dimple. My stomach fluttered as he took my left hand in his own and slipped his right around my waist.
Although I didn’t think I needed the help to make it down the stairs, I didn’t shake him off as we descended. His earthy, citrus-y scent enveloped me as we made our way to the cart.
“You’ll be happy to know,” he said as he helped me into the small vehicle, “that the headmaster excused you from all your classes today.”
Disappointment surged in my chest, taking me by surprise. If someone had given me a day off even forty-eight hours ago, I would have jumped at it. But now that I knew that my presence here wasn’t a mistake, I wanted to be around the Keepers.
I forced a smile as Nate jogged around the cart to the driver’s side. “Ah, well. I guess that’s too bad for you. Enjoy physics.”
He grinned again as he slipped into his spot and started the engine. “I was actually planning on hanging out in the student center with you. And the other Keepers. I convinced the headmaster that after the stress of today, our newest teammate would need her friends nearby.”
An unexpected wave of pleasure jolted through my chest. “Are we friends?”
His brow knit as the cart jerked forward. “Aren’t we?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer. In the days since my arrival, I’d been so focused on making sure no one found out I was here by accident that I didn’t give much thought to the relationships I was forming with the other Keepers.
Nate spun the wheel, taking us up onto the sidewalk that led through the quad. “If not yet, soon. The others are already at the student center. Be warned: Bridger will ask you to play pool with him. Repeatedly. Even though we’ve all told him you won’t want to because you’ve been stabbed.”
I laughed, the sound echoing off the wall of the dining hall. “I can stand up for myself.”
“Oh, I know you can.” Nate sped along the walkway until we came to the building opposite Kalmin Hall. He pulled the cart onto the grass before cutting the engine. But instead of slipping off his bench, he twisted to face me, his knee bumping mine. “You do realize how awesome you were today, right?”
I scoffed, gesturing to my left leg. “I think some might argue you on that point.”
He shook his head before I even finished speaking. “That’s not what I mean. In battle, there are injuries. It’s to be expected. What matters is what you do after you’re hurt. You could’ve stayed down. But you didn’t. I can’t imagine how much pain you were in chasing Shonda down. But you did it. Strength isn’t measured by what you do when the fight is going your way—it’s about what you do when everything is stacked against you. It’s perseverance. You showed that today.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “I guess it’s no wonder the Aether Blade chose you.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. My instinct was to downplay his praise, but I stopped short. The Aether Blade had chosen me. It had to see something, even if I didn’t.
And Nate saw it, too.
The breeze picked up, blowing my hair over my face. I lifted my hand to brush it back, but Nate was quicker. With featherlight fingertips, he tucked the errant locks back, setting off a series of fireworks across my cheek.
The corner of his mouth quirked. “We should probably get in there.”
It took several seconds to find my voice. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”
Nate slipped out of the cart and zipped around to my side to offer his hand. As the two of us shuffled into the student center, it struck me that I should probably head back to my room. When I spoke to Marco about today’s challenge, I didn’t have any details. He and Liza were probably waiting to hear from me.
But I was safe, and the call could wait. I had awoken this morning fearful about the outcome of the challenge. I was terrified that the Shonda would expose my lie and I’d have to escape or be imprisoned. But as Nate and I stepped into the student center, one certainty washed over me: absurd though it seemed, I, Eden Jensen Everdell, was the true Keeper of the Aether Blade. I belonged here at Blakethorne. And now I could begin exploring exactly what that meant.
###
Eden may be the Aether Blade’s Keeper, but is she really safe at Blakethorne? Continue Eden’s adventure in Flickers of Flame. Or turn the page to read an excerpt!
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Flickers of Flame
Chapter One
The musty air clogged my nostrils and clung to my throat. Dust motes hung in shafts of light streaming through the spaces between the dark, heavy curtain panels. I peeked through the gap, studying the surrounding tree line for any hint they were coming.
“It’s only a matter of time before they know we’re here.” Nate Kouri stood near the shack’s front door, corded arms folded over his muscular chest. He surveyed the group crammed inside the cramped space, his jaw set with concentration.
Good gates, he was handsome.
I shook the thought from my head. Now was so not the time.
“We can’t all stay here,” Clio Brooks said. Although she was usually all smiles, the situation at hand pressed her lips into a grim line. With her reddish-blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail, she looked fierce and determined. “If they surround us, we’re done for.”
“We should split up,” suggested Thor Rocha from his spot at the window opposite mine. While it never escaped me how tall he was, he looked positively enormous now with the shack’s roof scant inches above his head.
“Split up?” asked Kassie Bell, her voice a half octave higher than I remembered it. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Thor’s right,” I said. Butterflies kicked up in my stomach when Nate aimed a smile in my direction. “The mission is to protect the package. If that means drawing off suspicion from this location, then that’s what we need to do.”
Kassie turned to her other teammates—Elisha MacBrier, Opalina Stanton, and Rina Tivey—but the fourth member of her group took a half step forward.
“They’re right,” said Maisie Moran. Blakethorne’s self-appointed school journalist scanned her team with her piercing hazel eyes. “We can fan out. Some of us can hide in the woods. Maybe another pair can hole up in the other cabin. We need to confuse them so they don’t know where to look.”
“And apprehend them when they think they’ve got the upper hand,” added Bridger Ross as he combed his fingers through his meticulously tousled chestnut brown hair. “Easy peasy.”
Nate clapped his hands together. “We’ve got to move fast. Look around and see if you can find anything you might carry the package in. Like a box or something.”
Opalina tossed her long, black braid over her shoulder. “I’m sure this place has got tons of boxes just sitting around.”
Clio edged past her and reached for the pull on the nearest cupboard. “Won’t know unless you look.”
As the others began poking around, I kept watch out the window. They would be here any minute. We needed to make our play soon or they would know exactly where we were keeping the package.
Maisie located a stack of musty towels, and Bridger found a roll of duct tape and two half-melted pillar candles. With deft fingers, Nate folded up each object into its own towel and handed out the bundles—one to Clio, one to Opalina, and one to Maisie.
“No time to lose,” Nate said. “Grab a partner and head out in different directions.”
“And if someone comes after us?” Kassie as
ked.
“Engage and detain.” Nate nodded. “Good luck.”
Clio and Thor were the first to move. I looked out my window as they approached the door. “No contact over here.”
“None here, either,” Nate said from the other side of the room.
Thor twisted the doorknob and he and Clio darted out of the structure. Maisie and Elisha went next, followed closely by Kassie, Rina, and Opalina.
Bridger closed the door behind them. “All right. What’s our play?”
I raised my chin at the box on the rectangular table along the wall. “We lie low and protect the package.”
“And if they show up here?”
The corner of Nate’s mouth quirked upward. “We improvise.”
Silence descended over the shack, interrupted only by the infrequent calls of birds in the trees beyond the walls.
Minutes passed before the first shouts rose up. I did my best to peer out my window without moving the drapes. But when someone stepped in close behind me, I couldn’t suppress a shiver.
Without turning, I knew Nate had joined me at the window. The bright citrus scent that always accompanied him cut above the cabin’s musty aroma. “Can you see anything?”
With Nate standing so close I could feel the heat radiating off his body, it was almost impossible to focus on anything but his presence. I was about to tell him I still didn’t have a visual when movement between two trees caught my eye. I recognized the black braid immediately.
“It’s Opalina,” I said, pointing.
He leaned closer still. “Looks like they’re finally here.”
The rustle of cardboard flaps pulled my attention from the window. Bridger stood at the table, wrapping something in one of the remaining towels.
“What are you doing?” Nate asked.
He held the bundle out to him. “Take this and get out of here. It’s only a matter of time before they show up. Bury it in the woods or something. I’ll stay here with the box so they think I have the package. After you’ve got that tucked away, come back and we can take them on together.”
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