This was the first time I had been stopped at the kingdom gate, but then again, it was also the first time I had ever entered the kingdom without my father. Even so, I would have thought my purpose to be obvious, with the books piled in my arms.
“Bea Harrow, the Academy.”
I looked up when I received no answer to that, and realised that both guards were staring at me.
“I thought the Black Commander’s daughter was supposed to be locked up.” Said one of the guards, talking to his partner, though he still stared at me.
His partner took a step closer, cocking his head at me, and I stood there, looking as unthreatening as I possibly could, something I had learnt to do a long time ago. As they continued to ogle, I felt an odd moodiness well up, and sighed loudly without thinking.
“Are you waiting for me to try and take a chunk out of one of you or something?”
They seemed surprised that I could even talk, even though I had already demonstrated such. I supposed most cannibalistic monsters weren’t often thought of as particularly articulate.
“It jokes. Cute.”
“It is also late for class.” I waved at the gate, the uncharacteristic flare of temper that had momentarily seized me beginning to fade already, to make way for my usual weary timidity.
The second guard snorted on a half-laugh, “You were late before you even got here. The gates closed for students an hour ago.”
“Oh.”
The first guard motioned for the gate to be opened, and jerked his head toward it.
“Don’t be late next time, you’re gonna have to be a lot prettier than even a synfee for me to break the Academy’s cut-off again.”
I quickly skipped through, picking up my pace along the dirt road and throwing a hasty acknowledgement over my shoulder as I went. The guards hadn’t seemed to know who I was until I supplied my name, but as I arrived, I began to feel as if the whole Academy had been waiting for me, and knew exactly who I was the moment their eyes fell upon me. I mostly just kept my head down, my eyes on the path ahead as I followed the map given to me by the fae woman in the Academy office. It turned out I had already missed my first class, so I made my way straight to the second, silently cursing my father. For a man who could kill silently—and without a mess to leave behind—in a matter of seconds, he really was hopeless with the trivial stuff.
My second class was Domestic Manipulation of Common Specialties, and was held in the strangest building on the Academy grounds. On the outside it seemed to be made of brick, but as soon as I stepped inside, I felt a sudden chill settle over me, and I immediately looked around for the source. The walls were silver, and I remember reading somewhere that the Academy had developed a type of metal that was resistant to most of the magical elements. It seemed as if the whole building had been coated in it from the inside. There were several doors along the inside corridor, with numbering above them, and I moved further into the building, looking for the right door, the feel of the smooth metal strange beneath my boots.
I knocked on the door once before pushing it open. In theory, the professor should have admonished me for being late, or assigned me a seat. In reality, she turned to stare at me, and a dumbstruck look passed across her face. I wasn’t sure how the students were acting, as I refused to even look at them, but the silence in the room was painful. She was very tall, and human, it seemed, though I assumed that she must have been a shape-changer, as her hair was a bright, peacock blue. She was wearing a rich black robe, edged in faint, purple satin—which meant that she was a Senior Professor—and her nails were blue to match her hair.
I cleared my throat hesitantly.
“Ah, sorry I’m late Professor…”
“Hectarte,” she quickly supplied, apparently getting over her shock with the sound of my voice, “take any spare seat Miss Harrow, and don’t be late again.”
I nodded and finally turned my gaze to the rest of the class. It was even worse than I had been prepared for. The looks they were throwing at me were more than surprised or curious, they were hostile, and suspicious. A girl in the front row with short dark hair actually flinched away in fear when I accidentally made eye contact. I spotted a spare seat up the back of the room, and hastily made my way to it. It was harder for people to stare at me back here, but somehow they managed, and I was so uncomfortable throughout the first half of the lesson, that I didn’t even realise Hectarte speaking to me until she was staring at me too.
“Umm… sorry Professor… what?”
“Hectarte,” she reiterated, “What is your specialisation Miss Harrow?” She repeated with a slight frown.
I hadn’t expected this question to come up so early, but I supposed I was the only new girl here.
“Which one Professor?” I spoke without thinking, and realised a little too late, just how arrogant that must have sounded.
I ducked my head, staring at my desk as the blush spread along my cheeks, staining my face red to match my hair.
“Hectarte. How many have you specialised in?”
Now I was just confused.
“Specialised?”
“Yes, specialised, are you saying you haven’t even been tested yet?”
“Er, I guess not.”
At the long-suffering sigh, I finally looked up, but the woman was walking back to her desk to scribble something down.
“See me after class, Harrow.”
I looked back down at my desk, flushing deeper, as a few, scattered snickers sounded about the classroom, and the rest of the lesson passed—for me, at least—in a mortified haze. I was lucky that Hectarte didn’t call on me again, because I don’t think I heard a word of what she said the whole morning. Once the class ended, I stayed seated until everybody else had left, though some lingered expectantly, and then I bundled up my books and approached Hectarte.
“What class do you have next?” she asked, without looking up at me.
“Ahh,” I quickly pulled out the timetable and scrolled to the right square, “History.”
“I’ll send a message to Barlow and let him know you won’t be attending. You should have been tested as soon as you started developing, really this is a substantial oversight.”
“I’m sorry.”
She flicked a look up, and I realised her eyes were the same peacock-blue as her nails and hair.
“It’s not your fault, Miss Harrow.”
She finished scrawling a note and then turned to a cage behind her desk, which housed a mechanical bird—perhaps a sparrow—that twitched around just as any real bird might, tilting its head at me and blinking blank, bronze eyes. It had a small wooden scroll-case already clenched in its metal talons, complete with a latch, which Hectarte flipped to slide in her rolled-up note.
“Gerald Barlow.” She said to the mechanical bird, which clicked a few times in nonsensical, mechanical bird-speak and then flew out the window.
“Now,” she turned back to me, and gestured to one of the recently-vacated desks in front of her, “take a seat.”
I did as I was told, and watched as she rummaged around in the cupboard behind her desk. When she moved back to me, her arms were piled high with random objects, which she spilt onto her desk. She shifted through the paraphernalia, shoving some things off to the side, and placing others at the edge of her desk, before finally extracting a small, metal cube. She placed it on the scratched, wooden surface before me, and poked the cube, as if awaking it.
“Touch the top, if you please. These objects have all been enchanted to draw magic, if you have a specialisation, they will know.”
I reached forward and put my index finger on the cube, expecting it to be as hard as it looked. To my surprise, it was soft and spongy, and when I drew my hand away, my finger had left an indent, creased with the impression of my fingerprint. Hectarte made a note and took away the cube, replacing it with what looked like a dead rat. I gave the thing a horrified look, but when she gestured impatiently, I gingerly poked it with my finger. It stayed dead, an
d she made another note, replacing it with a small ball of crumbling clay, which also gave no response. The next was an empty bamboo bowl, which filled with a dismal puddle of water on my touch, and a wax-less candlewick, which sizzled with brief flame before spluttering out. After I managed to cause a small, wooden spinning top, to jolt into dizzying life, Hectarte actually seemed to be impressed, and muttered something incomprehensible as she scribbled away. The next object was a glittering pebble, and when I reached out to touch it, she waved me off.
“Let it come to you.”
Feeling a little silly, I pulled back my hand and sat there, watching it, until it slowly began to glow and move toward me, as if being dragged by an invisible string.
“Very powerful, your compulsion.” She muttered as she snatched up the stone, and replaced it with a propped-up mirror.
“See anything?” she prodded, as I peered into it.
I stared at the fuzzy outline of myself and frowned, until eventually, she leaned over the desk to see for herself.
“You’re wearing a glamor.”
My gaze snapped from the fuzzy image to her own surprised expression, and I shook my head mutely.
“A glamor,” she repeated, pulling the mirror back and replacing it with a rusty thermometer, “if you don’t even know about it, I’d say you unconsciously did it over time, it’s not exactly a shape-shifting ability, but it’s a natural fae ability, like a shield or a mask.”
I didn’t get a chance to argue my innocence, as in that moment, I had reached out for the thermometer, and it had exploded.
“Oh, oh… oh dear.” Hectarte exclaimed, jumping up and scraping the mess into the bin with a ruler, before sitting down at her desk to make a few more distracted notes.
I waited for her to reprimand me, but when she finally finished writing, she only turned to me consideringly.
“I can see why they had so much trouble with you. You’ve specialised in bender abilities, very strong ones at that, and you have three of the elven elemental powers, which is almost unheard of, even for them. Usually they only specialise in one, or two at the most. Do you know which you have?”
“Wind, fire and water.”
“Correct, your fire and water and mediocre, but the wind is quite strong, and combined with the bender abilities, it’s almost ferocious. I supposed that’s what set the poor thermometer over the top. It’s not used to such strange combinations.”
“What about the other one?”
“What other one? You didn’t specialise in anything else.” She looked down sharply, as if she may have forgotten to record something.
I thought about my last tutor—how he had laughed and called me crazy when I tried to describe my unusual infinity with the plants around me—and then suddenly realised that I would be enough of an outsider around here without that to add to it.
“Nothing, sorry, my mistake.” I quickly amended.
She looked at me a moment longer, her gaze steady and searching, and then she gave a short nod and waved her hand absently in the direction of the door.
“You may be on your way now; if you choose not to attend History for the remainder of the lesson then I advise staying out of sight until it’s over. I’ll draw up your specialisation card and have it sent to your other teachers, I’m sure some of your classes will also be changed after this. Better check back at the office at the end of the day for a new timetable.”
“Thank you,” I muttered quickly, grabbing my books up again and shuffling out of the classroom.
I was glad that she wasn’t going to make me go to History, as I was fairly sure that I never wanted to walk in late to a class again, and so I wandered around the Academy until I found a wooden bench beneath a flourishing cherry-blossom tree. Spilling my books onto the bench, I sat atop it and held my hand out, waiting until—from somewhere above me—a flower detached itself and drifted down to rest on my open palm, the petals curving slightly to embrace my hand. I closed my eyes and sighed, the familiar buzzing feeling quickly spreading through me.
“Well that’s nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
I snapped my eyes open, and turned stiffly to see the stranger who had apparently been standing on the other side of the tree.
“You’ve never seen someone catch a falling flower before?” I asked, quickly throwing the blossom to the ground.
It seemed to wilt a little as soon as it left my palm. He shrugged at my answer, strolling over to sit on the table next to me.
“Hey, I won’t tell anyone.”
Frowning, I scooted a few inches away from him, wondering if he were here on some cruel mission from his classmates. I may not have gone to the Academy before, but I had more than enough experience with the young people in the kingdom from my own childhood to know better than to accept a friendly face for just what it appeared to be. Though, he did have a very nice face, I admitted. He was tall, and broad about the shoulders, leading me to think he was one of the older students that sometimes get picked to stay on for commissioned training. His hair was chocolate-brown, and his skin was lightly tanned, suiting his athletic build. His eyes, when he turned to look at me, where an attractive shade of russet-brown.
“Why are you here?” I eventually asked, “Did someone dare you to try and provoke me, or did you just want to see the freak show up-close?”
I watched as the understanding slowly dawned in his eyes, and for a moment, I wondered if he really was just trying to be friendly, and then he laughed.
“Aren’t synfees supposed to be notorious charmers? You’re a little stunted in that department, just from my own observation.”
“I’m not a synfee.”
“You have their blood, don’t you Harrow?”
I shot him a dark look, which somehow only made his smile widen.
“How does everyone here know who I am?”
“You’re infamous. Apparently you have hair the colour of a desert sunset, and eyes that flash like a desert storm, nobody told me that your personality was like a desert cactus as well.”
To my surprise, a laugh bubbled from my lips. Usually when people commented on my beauty, it was to mock me, but the way this boy spoke, it was as if he were completely unaffected by both my beauty and my blood, which made me warm to him, if only a little.
“Bea,” I looked away from him, to the blossom that I had thrown to the ground earlier, “call me Bea.”
He held out his hand, much to my surprise.
“Nice to meet you Bea, I’m Cale, Cale Sekron.”
I stared at him, my eyes moving from his hand to his mischievous expression, until the name finally clicked something in my mind. I jumped off the bench, and he let his hand drop, something in his eyes telling me that he had expected this. My first reaction was to walk off haughtily, to regain some of my dignity, but Cale was the first person who had been nice to me, and was likely the only person who would be nice to me today, if not all year. Was it really his fault that his father lived to make my own father’s life hell?
“Nice to meet you, too.” I finally said, flashing him a hesitant smile.
He seemed surprised.
Just then, the deserted courtyard that had been my temporary sanctuary began to fill with people, and I assumed that class must have finished. I turned from Cale to survey the people now congregating into groups and sneaking off to their own respective corners, with only a few milling about the grass in the open.
“If I were you, I’d clear out right about now.” I heard Cale whisper.
Unfortunately, the group heading for the table beneath the cherry-blossom tree had already locked onto me, and I found myself momentarily arrested by the sight of them. They were a mix of elven and human, with only one fae girl that I could see. She was, naturally, the most beautiful of them all, though the male leading them could certainly have given her a run for her money. She was average height, but willowy, and walked with the looping grace of a trained court dancer. It took me a moment to recognise the short dark hair a
nd dark eyes from my first lesson, but as soon as she saw me and once again flinched away from my gaze, I remembered her. The leading male had similar colouring to her, with the pale skin of the fae, dark hair, and fathomless dark eyes, though he was a human. He was very tall for his own age, and while he did have a certain willowy quality to his limbs, he didn’t look weak by any means. Flanked either side of him were two other humans, both male, and both looking angry at my presence, and behind them, walking arm-in-arm with the dark-haired girl, where two blond, elven girls.
When they reached me, Cale jumped off the bench and put his arm lightly about my shoulders, a touch that took the others momentarily aback, and me along with them. I froze, not sure how to react to another person touching me, and wondering how he had even gartered the courage to do it in the first place. The only people who had ever dared to touch me before were my parents. Even the court Healers refused to come near me, which were the only times that I was thankful for my synfee immune system.
“You do realise who she is, don’t you Cale?”
This came from one of the elven girls, who had come to the front of the group and touched the arm of their dark-haired leader. He was the only one of them who didn’t seem to be highly disturbed by my presence, and in fact, if his dark gaze hadn’t travelled briefly over me, I would have assumed that he didn’t see me there at all.
“Isn’t your mother part of the King’s Harem, Kaylee? You don’t see me calling you a whore now, do you?” Returned Cale.
Kaylee’s eyes flashed, and she made to take a threatening step forward, but the dark-haired boy stopped her, turning his bored expression to Cale. Once again, he hadn’t seemed at all bothered by Cale’s behaviour, though I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.
“What’s she doing here?”
I quickly stepped out from under Cale’s arm, before they could keep talking about me as though I didn’t possess the ability to speak for myself.
“She was just leaving.” I said softly, turning on my heel and quickly heading back to the shade of the nearest building.
Hereditary Page 2
