by B N Miles
She didn't answer. Instead, she placed four wooden goblets on the table and pulled out a pitcher that Sam didn't realize she was holding before pouring cool water into each goblet. She curtsied and backed away silently. Moments later, two more people arrived at the table bearing baskets of bread and plates of meat and vegetables.
"What on earth is this?" Fletch poked his roast with a fork.
"Buck flank, looks like." Drina tore into her meal and smiled around her food when Fletch made a face.
"Well, the food isn't supposed to be good." Mattie cut into her meat. "Remember that you're training to be in the military. There might be days when you get no food at all, and you'll be lucky to catch a rat to roast over a spit."
Fletch put his fork down and threaded his fingers together, propping his chin on his knuckles. "Rats, you say?"
"Or worse." Sam nodded. "Bugs."
Fletch considered the three of them quietly. Sam dug into his food with abandon. If the food didn't taste good to Fletch, he had to wonder what sorts of decadent meals he was used to at home.
"Well," Fletch spread a linen cloth over his lap, "better not waste this opportunity again. Who knows when I'll be forced to eat rats and bugs."
The table went quiet as they shoveled food in their mouths. They must have looked like complete savages to Fletch, who was carving each piece and eating it slowly, bit by bit. He didn't comment on their table manners at all, and Sam decided that maybe this nobleman was alright by his measure.
Sam polished off his plate rather quickly. He learned to scarf down his meals at an early age to prevent the other kids from nabbing it.
"So, I have a theory." Sam pushed his empty plate away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Fletch scoffed and handed him a napkin. "What? That you're more barbarian than man?"
Sam rolled his eyes but wiped his mouth with the napkin in a show of cooperation. "No. Mattie and I think people are forming crews."
"Really? You think they know to do that?" Drina glanced around doubtfully. "We didn't have any in my village, but I've heard of them in the cities."
"What, pray tell, is a 'crew'? Not literally, but in the context of what you're referring to." Fletch asked.
"You need a crew for hits." Mattie said, counting with her fingers, "One, to watch your back. You can't really be a lookout and nab things at once. Two, for baiting, if anybody catches you, you'll need people to lead the hunt away. Three, to consolidate resources. Four to consolidate skills. My talent is sound manipulation, Sam has shadow magic, and we had three more guys who could do other things. Jobs are much quicker and easier when you have the talents of five people rather than one."
"Teamwork makes the dream work," Drina chirped.
Fletch raised a doubtful eyebrow at them and then flashed a cocky grin, "Oh, I don't know, I've been getting along fine on my own."
Mattie snorted. "Oh? And what did you do before this?"
"That, my dear, is classified information."
"Anyway," Sam placed his palms on the table, "we should start a crew. The four of us."
"Invitation accepted, and just in time. That tool is eyeballing me again," Drina said.
"You should have told him you were messing with him." Mattie said, shaking her head. "Now he's not going to leave you alone."
Drina flicked her thick hair over her shoulder. "While that’s true, you should never throw away an untapped resource. I might need him for something in the future. I could use him as bait. Or he could get me information. Or he could give me money."
"After you sleep with him," Mattie countered.
"Ha." Drina leveled her fork at Mattie with a sly smirk. "No, sleeping with me is the reward for doing my bidding. And you'd be surprised at how long you can lead people by the nose. That is, of course, before you trick them into thinking they slept with you, then they are a tapped resource."
Sam wanted to ask Drina why she'd so thoroughly burst his bubble but not Delcan's. He didn't ask, though. He had more tact than that.
"Fletch, you in?" Sam turned his attention to his roommate, tuning the girls out while they debated the moral implications of leading people on.
Fletch shook his head, "The offer is appreciated, but as I said, I am a lone wolf."
"Seriously?" Drina abruptly dropped her conversation and swiveled her head in Fletch's direction. "What is it? You want to work with nobles or something?"
"Not at all." Fletch shrugged. "I am simply not a good team player. You wouldn't want me on your crew. I don't listen and I think my ideas are the only good ones. But I will gladly help you when you need it—just as a third party, is all."
Drina's upturned nose crinkled and she leaned in a little closer to him. "You're a little brat, aren't you?"
"Entirely."
"I know how to take care of that." She wiggled her eyebrows and Fletch huffed out a laugh.
"Darling, you are entirely barking up the wrong tree."
"Oh, I know. It is so fun to try, though."
Mattie giggled, shoving Drina's shoulder and chastising her for being so shameless.
Sam quietly drank his water and considered that his roommate might be a lunatic. Nobody sane worked alone, and no straight man would say that Drina wasn't his . . . Oh.
"You don't like women?"
All three of them burst into loud, full-bellied laugher at his expense. Sam just pursed his lips. How was he supposed to know without being told? He wasn't psychic, for spirits' sake.
"Har-har." Sam rolled his eyes and the three of them quieted down to minimum chuckling.
"Oh, Sam. You are a precious gem." Fletch said. "I'm sure your crew will do fine without me. However, as I said, I can assist you if you need it."
He sure hoped so. As it stood, they were only three people strong, while it looked like the other students had four or more to a table. They had to find two more people at a minimum, but there didn't look to be any students left to take in. As Sam quietly raised his hand to ask for seconds, he had to wonder how much time they had before they went into a combat class, and how many people would target them due to their small number.
The servant set another plate in front of him. As he ate, he listened to his roommate and his two crew members chat about their experiences and their families. All the while, though, he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. He seemed to be getting that sensation quite a lot within the past few hours.
As he glanced around, his eyes landed on a table far away from his. That nobleman, Delcan, was staring right at him, and he did not look happy.
5
When Sam awoke for his first day of class, it was just breaking dawn. He'd been handed his schedule the evening before and planned to get up earlier to get some exercise in, but dinner had thoroughly tuckered him out last night. He hadn't ever gone to sleep with such a full stomach, and it dragged him down into the dregs of his dreams like an anchor at sea.
"Fletch," He called to the pile of blankets on the other side of the room. The pile of blankets didn't answer.
Sam sighed and threw his pillow. It bounced off Fletch and the other man groaned. "Leave me be, you beast."
"No, get up. It's time to get ready."
"Five more minutes, Mother."
"Fine. Be late." Sam stood up and stretched his arms high above his head. "And if you get any points deducted right out the gate, don't say I didn't warn you."
"Ugh. Fine." Fletch popped up like a spring daisy, his hair a knotted mess and his eyes heavy.
"Attaboy." Sam pulled his shirt off and grabbed another—the only other shirt he had—out of his pack. He did the same with his pants and smoothed his hair down with his hand. He was already wide awake by the time he strode for the front door.
"Wait a minute, Sam. You aren't seriously going out in that outfit."
"Uh . . ." Sam spun around and looked down at his clothes. They seemed fine to him. He'd even washed them.
"You are so lucky I'm you're roommate." Fletch rolled off
the mattress and lumbered to the green trunk at the foot of his bed. Even half-asleep, he managed to move gracefully. Fletch threw the lid up and rifled through his things for a moment before Sam's face was full of clothing.
"Your clothes don't match and they're old. You're practically begging those talentless swine to target you."
"Gee, thanks," Sam muttered, holding up a shirt in front of him. At least he wasn't a talentless swine, so that was something.
He fingered the material in his hands. It was soft and thin, like muslin but not quite. Maybe cotton, but not like any cotton he'd felt before. It was soft grey, like the color of a far-away storm. Sam hesitantly changed his clothes, handling the shirt as if it were precious.
"These too." Fletch launched more clothes at him and that time, Sam caught them. They were trousers, equally soft and fine, and they were as black as Drina's hair. He carefully exchanged his clothes and they fit perfectly. He looked down at himself and grinned. If the guys at home could see him now, they'd bow and call him 'm'lord' before cackling at his audacity.
"Wow, thank you." He'd never worn anything so fine. Sam walked to the mirror, inspecting his reflection. If he had some good boots and a quality cape, he might even pass as a noble, or a merchant at the very least.
"Keep them, I have plenty."
Three sharp knocks interrupted Sam's admiration, and when he realized that he was ogling himself, he stepped away from the mirror.
"You getting up anytime soon?" Mattie called through the wood.
"I'm coming," Sam called back, glancing up at Fletch to see if he was going to tag along. His roommate waved him away with a sleepy yawn.
"Hurry up. I'm starving," Drina called. His new crewmember was already on their schedule, which was fantastic. Then again, since she'd lived on a farm, she was probably used to getting up before the sun.
"You savages have fun with the dawn. I'm going to take my time."
Savages, right. More like desperate wretches who weren't going to shuck their singular opportunity to not be wretches any longer.
"See you in class." Sam grabbed his schedule from the side table and pulled his ragged footwear on before opening the door and walking into the first morning of the rest of his life.
He and the girls had the right idea to get up so early. While everybody was still asleep, the three of them had gone to the sparsely populated mess hall and had plenty of time to eat and mentally prepare for the day. While everybody else was rolling out of bed, Sam was already walking down the hall to find his first class. Drina and Mattie trailed behind him, talking quietly and giggling about something that he probably didn't want to know about.
They got lost in the corridors a couple of times, but they eventually made it to the appropriate classroom. Well, it wasn't really a room at all, which was why they'd passed it up so many times. Instead, it was a small amphitheater, the entrance of it tucked into a corner and disguised as a nondescript little corridor.
And it was completely empty.
"Helloo?!" Drina called, looking from the left to the right. When nobody answered, she smiled impishly at Sam and darted to the long rack of weapons set to the side of the arena, her feet kicking up sand as she went.
"Looks like the palace arena," Mattie said, looking straight up at the large open circle set in the middle of the ceiling. "If I'd ever seen it, that is. I bet they make people fight when it's raining. Wonder how they get the sand to dry so well . . ."
She kept talking, mostly to herself, one statement following another until she was asking herself questions that had nothing to do with the arena.
Sam anchored his head toward the ceiling as well, though his eyes kept covertly bouncing from the sky to Mattie’s face, not really listening to what she was saying because his damned brain kept flooding with thoughts of her that were both incredibly distracting and incredibly strange. Or maybe they weren't strange and he was just overthinking things. He could ask her, but then if they were strange things to think, then she might think that he was strange.
And although the thought of her thinking he was strange had never bothered him before, he also had never kissed her before. Nor had she ever shoved her hand down his pants. That changed things.
Or at least he thought it did. She'd been acting so normal, though, like nothing had ever happened. It almost felt like he imagined it, but he didn't. If he imagined fooling around with her, then he imagined the trip here, and he was here now, so he had to have gotten here somehow; ergo, they actually did travel to the campus, they really did bunk on the hillside, and he and Mattie really did touch each other in ways that he never imagined they would.
Yesterday, he understood why she didn't act any differently. Too much was happening, and she hadn't been focused on him at all. He’d thought it a little odd when she hadn't even so much as looked at him outside of normal conversation, but again, maybe it wasn't so odd for her. She had never been the sort of person to split her attention on more than one objective at a time, so why would she start now, just because Sam was the second objective?
No, that wasn't right. That was assuming that she thought he was something worth focusing on to begin with, and he didn't know if he was, not to her at least. But she'd said she'd been wanting to kiss him for years, so what did that mean?
Was she just curious for years, and now her curiosity was sated, or did she decide that she didn't want him like that after all? Yesterday, she'd said she supposed he was her beau...was she simply deflecting Fletch?
He wouldn't have worried about it normally. It had only been a day and she was still trying to find her sea legs, so to speak. Even if she wasn't, Sam had been with girls before, and when they acted as if they didn't have any interest in him, he just left rather than stick around where he wasn't wanted. But he couldn't really do that with Mattie. Maybe he shouldn't have kissed her back, maybe it had all been a mistake, maybe he wanted her more than she wanted him.
Spirits be damned, why did that bother him so bloody much?
"—if it was a bird, I would understand, but not a pig, don't you think?" Mattie was no longer looking at the ground, but right at him.
Sam blinked. He had been far away and hadn't caught a word of what she'd said.
"Oh, yeah." But he was good at pretending, he supposed.
"I thought as much." Mattie shrugged. "But I suppose there's nothing to be done about it but practice. Which I suppose I can do now, since we have plenty of time before anybody gets in."
She nodded to herself and turned on her heel, her face pulled down into a concentrated expression, a reflection of her sharp mind that was too busy churning thoughts of pigs and birds to leave any room for Sam.
He frowned at her retreating form. This shouldn't bother him, he shouldn't even be thinking about it right now. He was right in the middle of an impossible dream. The reality that he had the power to truly change the course of his future should have been enough to draw his focus to the task at hand. He should have been as focused as Mattie, his mind so concentrated that he forgot about the brief moment they shared.
So why wasn't he?
More importantly, what should he do about it? Silently pining after her, waiting for her to realize he was standing there in the first place was what stopped them from having any moment for years. If she was just distracted, he would get that, but if she felt the same about him as he did her, there should have at least been a look, a smile, a sign that things had changed.
He should ask her. Even if it made him seem desperate or single-minded or however the hell it would make him seem, he should ask. He was not about to live through another decade of wanting her without her wanting him.
"Somebody's in loovvee." Drina's voice flowed through his ear like honey. She was standing behind him, probably on her tiptoes given how short she was compared to him.
Gooseflesh prickled his arms. He was glad for the long sleeves. He'd quite hoped that she would drop the 'enticing coquette' bit once she was in the crew, but apparently not.
/> "Head over heels," he said, rolling his eyes as if he wasn't.
Before he could so much as step away, Drina had him by the belt, pulling his back flush to her front. It probably looked ridiculous, being pushed around by a woman, but it didn't feel that ridiculous when the tips of her fingers traced tiny patterns into the small of his back.
"You know, your defense mechanisms are very transparent."
Her fingers danced across the small of his back, around his waist, to his lower abdomen, and her body followed until she was standing right in front of him. The lopsided smirk dimpling her cheeks was one that he was beginning to associate with trouble.
"It's alright, you know." Her hands kept making those little electric circles on his skin and he had to hold back a shudder. Sam should have taken a step back so that she couldn't tease him, but when he thought about it, a large portion of his brain roared at him to stay right where he was.
It had been a while since he'd been with a girl. The quell section was hardly teaming with healthy bachelorettes.
"I think she loves you too."
"Really?" He blurted. His mouth clamped shut and he had the urge to kick himself in the ass.
Drina's eyebrows bounced high on her forehead and her smile got slicker. "Really, truly. When I asked about you two last night, she got the cutest little smile on her face. She told me that you two had something of a spark on the journey here, and she was worried that she might have scared you off."
Oh. That was why she was acting so normal? She thought he wasn't interested. Sam looked up and caught Mattie's big blue eyes all the way across the arena. She was staring at the two of them, but when Sam met her gaze, she quickly looked away.
He took an instinctive step back to distance himself from the other girl. If what Drina said was true, then he didn't want to make Mattie think that he was uninterested and looking for other girls to fool around with.
"Not so fast, lover boy."
Drina snatched him by the belt again and yanked him to her like a doll. He didn't stop her when she did that. He didn't stop her when she reached up and grasped the back of his neck. He didn't stop her when she forced his head down so that she could whisper in his ear.
