Oaken

by Melody Robinette

  Avery was silent for a few minutes before he finally said, “Okay.”

  Autumn turned to him with wide eyes. “Okay?”

  “If that’s what you promised yourself then you should do it. Help him. I don’t want you breaking any promises to yourself on account of me.”

  “You’re really okay with this?”

  “Not particularly, but I understand why you’re doing it and I,” He hesitated for a moment, frowning. “I can help you.”

  “Really? You would do that?” she said. “But I thought you hated Victor. Why would you want to help him?”

  “It’s the only way you and I can be together. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “Avery, I—” Autumn searched for the right words, but all she could say was, “Thank you.”

  “But once he’s made some friends…”

  “Then he won’t need me anymore.”

  “We aren’t going to pretend anymore now are we?” Avery said after a while. “At least not with each other?”

  “No. No more pretending.” Autumn leaned against him and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer to him. Closing her eyes, she smiled, feeling perfectly content for the first time in a while.

  The pegasus ride back to the castle was a silent one. The Underground sun began to rise in the distance, filling the sky with orange, pink, and yellow. Autumn tried to take in everything that had just transpired. It felt like it had all been a dream.

  The realization that things were about to become especially difficult came crashing over her. She couldn’t stand hurting people in any way, and she knew every time she let Victor kiss her or hold her hand or even hug her, she’d be hurting Avery. And how was she supposed to act natural with Victor, or act like there was nothing between her and Avery? She’d never been known for her acting skills.

  Avery laughed when she voiced these fears to him as Knight began to descend slowly towards the castle. “You’re a plenty good actress, Autumn.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it took me a long time to decide whether you had feelings for me or not. I’m usually really good at reading people, but I just couldn’t figure you out.”

  Knight landed lightly on Autumn’s balcony and Avery jumped down, offering Autumn his hand. They looked intently into each other’s eyes. Things seemed much more real now that they were back at the castle. Back to reality.

  “I’m scared,” whispered Autumn.

  “So am I,” Avery said, leaning his forehead against hers. They stayed like this for a while before Avery pulled back and said, “We should really get some sleep. We have Warrior training this afternoon, after lunch.”

  Autumn looked at the brightening sky behind him and nodded.

  “Everything’s going to work out. I promise.” He leaned in, kissing her softly on the lips, causing her heart to skip a beat before climbing onto Knight’s back.

  Autumn watched him for a second as he flew Knight back to the stables before walking sleepily into her room. Though she was dead tired, she found it increasingly difficult to fall asleep. She kept replaying the night’s events over and over in her head. She was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to act naturally at Warrior training. What if Victor suspected something?

  She shook her head to rid herself of these incessant thoughts, forcing herself to focus on something else. After counting sheep, counting backwards from 100 in her head, and trying to empty her mind completely, she decided to just sing to herself. She hummed a soft lullaby that her dad used to sing to her and Luke at night when they were little. Her Power immediately began to take effect: her nerves began to ease, her body relaxed, and her mind went blissfully blank. Finally, Autumn drifted off into a restless doze full of dreams of Avery and Victor—and herself, singing the echoing song of her betrayal.

  Truce

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  It felt as though Autumn had just gone to sleep when she was awakened by the sound of knocking on her door. She groaned and quite literally rolled out of bed to answer it.

  Opening the door, she found Luke, raising an eyebrow at her appearance. “Did you just now wake up?” he asked. She nodded, yawning. “Why are you wearing clothes?”

  Autumn looked down, realizing that she’d never changed out of her outfit from last night. “What time is it?” she said, hoping Luke wouldn’t realize that she’d dodged his question.

  “A quarter after eleven. We have practice at one.”

  “Oh, right. I’ll get ready and then I’ll meet y’all down in the dining room.”

  Autumn hurriedly took a shower and dressed in her Warrior training clothes. She pulled her damp hair into a ponytail, exposing her pointed ears—which she was still not completely used to—and left her branch.

  Luke, Crystal and a tired looking Avery waited for her at their usual table. Autumn and Avery exchanged a shy smile as she sat beside her brother and poured herself a glass of orange juice.

  “I knew you two would be together,” Luke said, looking from Autumn to Avery.

  Autumn choked on her orange juice. “W—what?” she said after a short coughing fit.

  “I said I knew you and Avery would be partners,” Luke said, looking at her with a quizzical expression.

  “Oh—right. Wait, why?” Autumn said.

  “Lady Carys was looking at you guys really weird. Like she hadn’t seen anything like that before.”

  “That’s what I said,” Crystal added.

  Autumn shrugged, not making eye contact with anyone. “Hmm. Well did y’all not think you would be together?” she said, attempting to move the subject away from Avery and herself.

  Crystal and Luke both shook their heads, smirking at one another.

  “I thought I would be with Forrest,” Crystal said.

  “I figured I would be with you,” he said to Autumn, “Or maybe Cera,” Luke added thoughtfully.

  “Why Cera?” Autumn asked.

  “She’s the only one I wouldn’t get with out of the other four girls,” he said. “It made the most sense to me.”

  Crystal blushed because this meant that Luke was saying that he would get with her.

  “Why wouldn’t you get with Cera?” asked Autumn.

  “She scares me a little bit,” he said seriously.

  Autumn, Crystal, and Avery burst out laughing.

  They met up with the rest of the Initiates on the dueling grounds. Everyone seemed pleased with his or her partners, except for Kyndel and Victor. Autumn could tell that Kyndel’s pleasure at having the most attractive partner had quickly worn off because of Victor’s stormy mood and overwhelming silence. He continuously glared at Autumn and Avery, so she kept her eyes trained on the ground, feeling extremely guilty.

  Atticus wanted to build the trust between the partners, so he had them go through an obstacle course of sorts, which would’ve been no problem if they weren’t going to be blindfolded, guided only by their partner’s voice. The course was a trek across the entire campus. It began with the pond outside of the Healing tree, which they had to cross by stepping on a number of small, slippery stones.

  Autumn and Avery both did well during their turn, a real feat given their lack of sleep. All of the others accomplished the task fairly quickly, except for Victor and Kyndel. Victor gave Kyndel short and vague directions and she screamed at him to be more specific before stepping the wrong way and falling backwards into the pond. She emerged, fuming, sopping wet, and pulling pelpy out of her hair. Victor didn’t seem to care all that much.

  The next portion of the course involved climbing up one of the many massive oak trees on campus, blindfolds still intact. Nearly everyone had a little trouble on this part because it required a great amount of upper body strength. Autumn slipped a few times, dangling ten feet above the ground, but managed to complete the task without falling.

  When Victor’s turn came to climb the tree, a soaked Kyndel purposefully gave him the wrong directions, telling him to step up with his left foot when
there was nothing there but air. Somehow, though, Victor was able to complete the task without listening to her. This impressed the other Initiates and Autumn was pleased to see that Forrest even gave Victor a quiet compliment as he jumped down from the lowest branch. Atticus looked at Kyndel with a disapproving frown.

  The final portion of the course included sprinting across a particularly uneven stretch of ground full of dips, holes, hanging branches and tree roots. Autumn and Avery both finished in under a minute, pulling their blindfolds off and panting when they reached the end of the course. Victor and Kyndel were the last to go. They were now so angry with one another that neither spoke one word of direction, and literally ran blindly through the course, Kyndel tripping frequently and Victor, somehow managing to miss every obstacle. Atticus glared at them both as they crossed the finish point.

  “Well done, everyone. Great partner work. As long as you are Warriors, your partner is your rock and you have to learn to trust one another. At the end of January you will be participating in the traditional Warrior Trial, which is the final step before you begin officially training and working with the rest of the Warriors. You will be completing the trial with your partner and your partner alone. It will be difficult and extremely dangerous. I need you to take your training with me very seriously,” Atticus looked at Victor and Kyndel as he said this. “That is all for today. Victor, Kyndel, I need a word with you.”

  The two brooding partners shuffled towards Atticus as everyone else left the field. Autumn and Avery lagged behind.

  “I think I should talk to Victor,” Autumn muttered.

  “Not about…?”

  “No! Not about that. He just seems really mad and I can’t help him if he won’t even talk to me.”

  “I think I should talk to him too,” Avery said.

  “Are you sure that’s a good—”

  Just then Victor passed by, ignoring both of them. Autumn made an indignant noise in the back of her throat and called, “Victor!” He kept walking. “Victor! Seriously? Victor Lavigne, stop walking before I give you back your rose!”

  He stopped and turned slowly towards her, a glare on his face and green eyes narrowed. Autumn’s guilt from earlier was gone and now she was just as mad as he appeared to be.

  “What is your problem?” she said, catching up to him.

  “What do you think?” He glanced back at Avery, who was standing awkwardly nearby.

  “Oh, because I was partnered with someone other than you? Something I had absolutely no say in? I’m sorry, I didn’t think that could be it because that would be a completely ridiculous reason to be mad at someone.”

  His glare flickered. “It’s not ridiculous. You two obviously share something that you and I apparently do not.”

  Autumn kept her face blank, even though he was quite correct.

  “Partners aren’t chosen because of anything romantic, Victor. You should know that. You and I probably wouldn’t have been good partners because we care so much about each other and our judgment would be tainted.”

  Autumn hated lying.

  Victor was silent for a second. Then he said, “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I am.”

  “I apologize,” he said after a moment.

  “You’re forgiven.”

  “Victor?” Avery said from behind them. Autumn jumped at the sound of his voice.

  Victor glanced up at Avery, his glare back in place. “Yes?”

  “Could I speak with you?”

  Victor raised an eyebrow and looked at Autumn. She shrugged her shoulders, pretending she had no idea what Avery could possibly want.

  “I suppose so,” Victor said. “I’ll see you later, okay?” he said to Autumn, kissing her on the forehead. She had to tell herself not to flinch or flash Avery a guilty look.

  Autumn walked down the winding path until she was out of sight of Victor, but still within hearing distance. She hid behind a nearby oak tree, listening intently.

  “Listen, Victor,” Avery began, “I know things haven’t been great between us since…well, you know.”

  There was silence from Victor.

  Avery cleared his throat. “Anyway. Since Autumn and I are partners now, I figure you and I should at least be civil to one another for her sake. It will just make everything easier. We’ve been acting childish.”

  Silence.

  “Er, what I guess I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry…for blaming you. I know it wasn’t your fault Avabelle died. I just needed to blame someone other than myself to make it easier.”

  “I see,” Victor said.

  “So, I’ll, er, see you later then?” Avery said.

  Victor said nothing so Autumn assumed that he had just nodded. She peeked around the trunk of the oak tree to see him walking away in the opposite direction as Avery started down the path towards the castle.

  When Autumn thought Victor was a safe distance away, she jogged after Avery.

  “Wait up,” she called ahead. Avery stopped and turned. His eyes seemed clearer and he wore a smile on his face. “Thank you for doing that,” she said. “I know it must have been really hard.”

  Avery shrugged. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought. It actually felt sort of good to let it go.”

  Autumn smiled slyly at him and said, “Oh really? I think I may have told you that.”

  He laughed and said, “I don’t think I recall that.” He grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing it softly. When his lips parted from her skin, he held her hand for a few seconds before reluctantly letting go. Luckily he let go when he did, though, because, when they rounded the corner, they met Crystal and Luke, who had been waiting for them.

  “What took you guys so long?” Luke asked.

  “We were, uh, talking to Victor,” Autumn said.

  “We?” Luke raised an eyebrow at Avery.

  Avery nodded. “I figured that Victor and I should be civil with each other if Autumn and I are going to be partners.”

  “Yeah. They called a truce,” Autumn said.

  “Good for you!” Crystal said as the four of them traveled back to the castle for dinner. “That will make training easier. We need to be as prepared as possible for the Warrior Trial.”

  “So, what do you two know about the Warrior Trial?” Luke asked Crystal and Avery as they climbed the stairs into the castle.

  “Well, Atticus wasn’t lying when he said that it is dangerous. A lot of Initiates have died during the trial,” Avery said.

  “Died?” Autumn said.

  Crystal nodded. “They put the Initiates in war-like situations, to prove that they can handle it with the rest of the Warriors. One year they had to make it through a mountain pass occupied by giants. They lost half of their Initiates that year.”

  “Half?” Luke said. “But there are only four alternates.”

  Avery shook his head as they entered the dining room, “There are more than four. They just announce the four alternates that are next in line, but Atticus and the other judges will have chosen at least twenty alternates.”

  “Holy crap,” Luke said, making Crystal laugh.

  “But the alternates don’t train with us and they don’t go through the Warrior Trial. How can they just take a Warrior’s place?” Autumn said.

  “They don’t train with us, but they do train. The other Powers magister is their trainer, Magister Thorn. He’s the first and second quarter elves’ Powers magister. In the case of the loss of a Warrior, the alternate taking their place will go through a month of intensive training where they practice all day, every day and will have to go through a Warrior Trial of their own,” Avery said.

  “Bet it isn’t as hard as our trial,” Luke said.

  “When do we find out what we’ll be doing for our test?” asked Autumn.

  “We won’t know anything until the day of,” Avery said.

  Autumn gulped. “So…there’s actually a chance that one of us could die?”

  Avery and Crystal exchanged glanc
es before both giving a grave nod.

  Back to the Outside

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Ever since their names were called, the Initiates had become a fairly close-knit group. Given that all of the other elves at their school were either jealous of or intimidated by their newfound fame, they had sort of ganged together. Kyndel had even dumped her little “followers” who she less-than-lightly told that they weren’t good enough to hang out with a Warrior.

  This new development made Autumn and Avery’s job of helping Victor make friends significantly easier. The only problem was that Victor had become increasingly introverted. When he did come to lunch with the others, he usually sat quietly, appearing to be deep in thought and no one—not even Autumn—could bring him out of his reverie.

  “This is going to be impossible,” Avery said to Autumn one afternoon. “How can he make any friends if he won’t even talk to anybody?”

  “He’ll come around. He’s just not used to being around all of these people without being ridiculed and whatnot. Just have to be patient is all.”

  One Sunday in October all of the Initiates met up at Arbor Lake. Sunday was their only day off of Warrior training so they chose to do nothing but lounge in the hovering hammocks all day.

  “I’m so glad we have Sundays off. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to go to Warrior training every day of the week,” Forrest said.

  “Hey! Next Sunday is Halloween,” Autumn said.

  Luke’s face brightened. “Oh yeah!”

  The others, however, made disgusted faces.

  “Halloween,” Kyndel scoffed.

  Autumn was taken aback. “What’s wrong with Halloween?”