With one last look at Kyle's remorseful face, she wove her way through the maze of couches to the stairs leading to the girls' dormitories. She didn't stop until she had curled up beneath her thick comforter. She contemplated Kyle and his ever present wish to keep her safe, to keep her out of danger. Jayme would have done the same thing, she thought as she pulled the sheet higher. Both Kyle and Jayme had sheltered her in every way that they could.
Inexplicably, Alayne thought of Daymon. He insisted that his job as her Guardian was to keep her safe, and yet, he was the only one who reminded her that she had the power to stand up and do something about the things that were happening. She frowned as she thought over the last words he had spoken to her today. What's to stop him? she had asked, referring to Malachi. You, he'd said.
In his gaze, she had seen gentle encouragement to fulfill her potential, to accomplish an agenda made possible only because of the Vale.
Kyle wished for her safety. Daymon wanted her effort.
Kyle's teasing, hurtful words washed over her once more. Competing for your affections with someone who's already dead is one thing, but competing with a good-looking reformed bad-boy is something else.
Alayne squeezed her eyes shut, wishing more than anything that she could completely forget the past.
* * *
Alayne's dreams that night began with the normal quirky happenings. She zipped through an ice-hockey game scoring the winning shot, but instead of cheering, the fans roared with laughter. She looked down in horror and realized she'd forgotten to wear pants, so she raced off the ice to the hallway leading to the locker rooms. Instead of the locker room, however, she was suddenly in the middle of a field. Waist-high grass blew in circles around her legs, swishing as she walked through it toward two willow trees. The willows bent with the wind, their branches undulating in slow-motion tempo to Alayne's footsteps. She walked for a long time, but the trees only grew incrementally nearer. Alayne started to sweat, despite the cool night air. She wanted to see it, see him. But she couldn't push through the grass. It held her, tangled around her ankles. Go back. He has nothing for you.”
No. She pulled up tufts of grass by the roots. Determination gave her strength; she could see the marker now between the willows, the carved lettering across the front: Jayme Cross, it read in colorless, bleak stone.
Step, step, another step. She wanted to run, but the grass refused to let her. Stay here. You need never know.
Never know what? Alayne asked in quick anger, but the grass did not answer.
And then, she was there. The trees arched over her, their bare branches weeping over her head, brushing against her arms, her hair, trailing across the open and empty cavity in front of her.
She stared at the yawning black hole, questions churning in her brain. Who had stolen his ashes? Who was responsible for that, and why? Why would anyone want him? It was she they were after, wasn't it? Who was Jayme to them?
She reached into the elements, sifting her fingers through the earth beneath her, finding no trace of ashes or decay. Panic filled her and then hopelessness. What had they done to him?
“Jayme!” she screamed into the wind, and the echo was lost in the wide-open prairie. The only sound was the cold sweep of the wind that blew through the branches of the willows and whistled among the boughs. “Jayme!” Her shriek fell flat into the wind, and the cold pressed in so strongly that she clutched the tops of her arms for warmth.
She woke to the starlit sky, the cold all around her. The willows didn't change once she was awake, though the grave did. There was no gaping cavity in front of the marker, no sign of overturned dirt, no sigh of the grasses as they whispered to her.
But she most definitely stood in the open field without a coat, staring at Jayme's grave.
“When did you become a sleep-walker?” Daymon moved to stand close beside her.
Alayne jumped, her heartbeat tripling. “Skies, Daymon, warn me before you sneak up on me like that!”
“Sorry.”
“How'd you know I was out here?”
“Couldn't sleep. Sneaked past the hall monitors to take a midnight jog, and saw you come out of the spire.”
Alayne shivered against the cold and reached into the elements to grasp some heat. She wrapped it around herself like a blanket.
“Have you ever walked in your sleep before?” Curiosity lit Daymon's eyes.
“Not that I've ever found out.”
“I suppose it's only natural that you would come here.” Daymon nodded at the grave. “You were screaming, though, you know. His name. It was—” he paused, scraping the ground with his toe, “heart-breaking. Just a little, I mean.”
Alayne snorted. “Oh good, as long as it was only a little heart-breaking.” She glanced once more at the grave and sighed. “I guess we'd better get in. My pajamas aren't the best for—”
“Hush!” Daymon's voice whipped across Alayne's, and he grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to one of the willows. His head whipped around, searching the surrounding prairie.
“What?” Alayne's heart hammered in her chest. “What did you see?”
“Shh.”
He pressed her gently against the tree before stealing toward the perimeter of weeping branches, his gaze searching the grass and the deep shadows of the spire. The moon painted the scene in a weird, white glow.
Alayne should have been ready for the powerful element bend, but she wasn't.
Daymon dropped into a fissure in the ground. The earth had opened up beneath his feet, and suddenly he wasn't there anymore. Alayne blinked in the darkness, disbelief numbing her brain. She grasped wildly for the earth elements, feeling his body sliding through the roots and sand far, far down. With a will, she hardened the earth beneath him. She sensed his struggle; at least he wasn't unconscious. With a massive pull on the elements, she shot him skyward.
A solid force, though, pushed the earth near her, willing the sod to cover the fissure, to trap Daymon inside.
Alayne called a powerful wind from the heavens. It blew downward, shrieking over the fissure, the force of it keeping the earth from collapsing together again. A moment later, Daymon appeared. He shot upward, but as he did so, one of the willow branches swung sideways and pounded him across the temple. He crumpled to the ground twenty feet away and lay still.
Alayne gasped. As yet, she could see no one. She took a tentative step outward from the tree. “Coward!” she shouted, her voice shaking. “Do you want a fight?” She cleared her throat. “Do you? Come get me then! Do it! Stop hiding behind your fear and face me like a man!” She wondered wildly if Sprynge would step into view, or even Malachi, though she couldn't imagine that he would leave Andova in the middle of the night.
“Face you like a man?” Beatrice Pence's voice shocked Alayne. She stood about fifty yards to the left, a black cape hiding her hair. “Now why would I do that?”
Alayne left the cover of the willow and marched toward the woman, her fists curled into balls at her side. “Fine, I get it. You hate me; you want the Vale,” Alayne shouted. “Tough. I'm not going to give it to you. You'll have to kill me to take it, and if you do that, your career is over. Bye-bye High Court. Hello, prison-for-life.”
“I'm not interested in killing you, Alayne.” Her voice was cold. “But you will come with me. I have someone who wants to ask you some questions.”
“I'm not going anywhere with you,” Alayne snarled.
“I'm afraid you don't have a lot of choice in the matter.”
“What on CommonEarth gives you the idea that any of this is legal? That anything about this situation will be glazed over with the faculty and staff here at Clayborne?”
“Because, little girl, Clayborne now sits in the palm of the High Court, and in case you haven't noticed, the High Court rolls beneath the influence of the Elemental Alliance.”
“So you say,” said Alayne, not willing to believe that the Continent's government had so thoroughly given themselves over to the Elemental Allia
nce, and yet terrified that such a thing was the case. Signs had certainly been pointing that way for months now.
“Yes, so I say.”
“So the Elemental Alliance has sanctioned you to bring me to them? For what?”
Even in the moonlight, Alayne could see the red waves flood Pence's face. “Never mind what the EA sanctions. I have the discretion to carry out my own ideas at times. And my idea at the moment is to bring you to them to get some answers to some of the questions they have. You certainly have no choice in whether or not you accompany me, though you may choose not to answer their questions. In which case, I'm excited to get to use a few more persuasive tactics that they don't normally let me use.”
The grasses around Alayne suddenly turned into barbed wire. They snaked around her ankles and worked their way up her legs.
“No choice?” She snorted. “That's a laugh, that really is, Pence. I appreciate the humor.” She lit a flame ball in her hand and sent the flames licking through the grasses choking her legs. They fell to ash and ember around her feet. “I suggest you don't mess with me, Professor. I can promise it won't end well.”
“Bold words, Miss Worth.” Pence raised a finely-waxed eyebrow. “We'll have to see about that. Meanwhile, I want you to come with me.”
“You don't hear so well, Pence. I'm not going with you, and you're going to let me go.” Anger so strong streaked through her that fire burned in blazing fury from her fingertips, streaking across the darkness toward Pence.
Alayne gasped. She hadn't meant to attack the professor, not unless she absolutely had to, but the fire had taken on an aggression all its own. It hit Professor Pence's cloak, and the woman screamed. Dirt yanked from the earth and plastered against the flames, and then Pence turned furious eyes back to Alayne.
“How dare you attack me!” she whispered. She raised her arm, searching through the earth elements as if she were fingering a harp, but before she could Throw-Cast, and before Alayne could even snatch the elements out of her reach, a roar shook the earth beneath them.
A mountain lion leaped out of the tall grass, the huge, heavy cat flattening Beatrice Pence like a stack of pancakes. Pence shrieked, but the cat wasn't done. With another roar, its jaws opened and then clamped shut around Pence's face.
Alayne screamed, scrambling toward the angry animal at a dead sprint.
* * *
Felycia Hargrave, school nurse, didn't ask any questions at first when the chute doors opened into the infirmary, and Alayne stood in the center between two bodies draped across the floor. The nurse took one look and nodded. “Bring them in here, please.”
Alayne air-lifted both and floated them onto the beds Felycia indicated.
“I think they're okay. But they both seemed to want to sleep.”
“Practicing your healing touch again, I see.” Felycia noted. “The times you've helped me in here, I've noticed that the body's shock from overabundance of pain to sudden nothingness renders it helpless for a while. It seems most patients fall asleep after you heal them.”
Alayne didn't respond. She pulled a blanket up over Daymon. Her fingers lightly brushed the hair away from his temple where the branch had hit him. She caught Felycia's gaze on her movements, and she yanked back her hand, blushing.
Felycia bent over Beatrice Pence's still form, lightly tracing the disfiguring scar that cut across her forehead, down across her crooked nose. Her lips were split in two, and a jagged, moon-shaped crescent ran from her chin, across her throat, and ended at her ear.
“What happened here, Alayne?” She looked closer. “Those are teeth marks!”
Alayne nodded. “A mountain lion.”
Felycia's wide eyes flew up to meet Alayne's. “Surely not.”
“I know.” Alayne shrugged. “But it's true. I saw it with my own eyes; I swear that was what bit the professor.”
Felycia stared at her and then bent back over Pence, inspecting the scar. “I'll have to report it.” She touched the scar. “It must have been horrible. Bad enough that even with the help of your powers, it still left a scar as noticeable as this one.”
“It wasn't pretty.”
“How did you get away?”
“I screamed and ran at the cat. Must have startled it or something. It ran toward the river right away.”
Felycia straightened again. “That was brave but stupid, Alayne. That cat could have killed you.”
“I know. But it didn't.” She thought she knew why. If it was the same creature she'd healed on the mountain ridge the year before, perhaps the animal still recognized Alayne. Still, the cat was far larger than Alayne; it had been a dangerous thing to do, and if the mountain lion still stayed around, it could be a danger for the other students as well.
Alayne blinked at Daymon and rubbed her bleary eyes. “If you like, I'll let Professor Sprynge know about the animal, so you don't have that to do, too.”
“I'd appreciate that.” Felycia ran her finger over Pence's scars, awe inscribing her face. “The cat got her well and truly good. It looks like it tried to take her face off completely.”
Alayne squirmed at the mental picture. She stood and headed for the chute. “Thanks, Felycia.”
The nurse didn't look up. Her attention remained on Professor Pence's face. “No problem.”
Alayne took the chute to the upper floors where most of the professors slept in their apartments. She knocked on Sprynge's door.
When it cracked open, the frown that creased his face softened her voice. “Professor Sprynge, a mountain lion attacked Professor Pence tonight. I thought you should know.”
“What?” Sprynge's eyebrows shot up to his hairline and a hand smoothed his slackened jaw.
“I was sleepwalking outside,” Alayne explained, not sure how much detail she should divulge, “and Professor Pence came out after me. A mountain lion attacked her, but she's safe in the common care ward now. The nurse said I needed to let you know.”
Alayne turned and walked down the hall, her lips twisting in wry amusement as Sprynge's gasp of disbelief trailed behind her. The chute doors closed behind her with a satisfying thump.
Chapter 15
Rampant rumors flew the next day at school. Daymon wasn't mentioned in any of them, but apparently one student had seen Professor Pence's scarred visage, and suddenly, the whole school was speculating on what could have happened to her.
“I heard it was a bear attack,” Rachyl said, her startling eyes a vivid green over her coffee mug in the morning. “I didn't even know there were bears in the area.”
Alayne picked at her scrambled eggs she had smothered in ketchup. She nibbled on a forkful as Marysa swallowed a bite of bacon and shook her head. “There weren't any until around the beginning of last year's school term. I heard some of the gardener's talking about it. Suddenly, the animals started showing up randomly, and not just bears. All sorts of wild creatures. One of the gardeners even reported seeing a great ape over near the arboretum.” Marysa chased her bacon down with a mouthful of juice. “It's so strange. Clayborne's not what I would consider anything close to these animals' habitats.”
Daymon shot a look at Alayne from his seat next to Rachyl. Alayne ignored him as she swallowed her eggs.
“At least you'll have a few days of peace from Pence then, if she was so badly torn up,” Rachyl commented.
Kyle had been playing with his own food, his face pensive as the conversation swirled around him. Now, he shook his head. “Nope. She's furious about what happened and fully intends to have class today, scar or no scar.”
“What's she so mad about?” Marysa asked. “It's not like she can take the class to go hunt the animal that did it.”
Kyle didn't answer, but he didn't need to. It was written across everyone's face, and Alayne felt the truth of it. Beatrice Pence blamed her, Alayne, for the attack. Never mind that she had been following Alayne in the middle of the night; no matter that she had been about to take Alayne against her will to talk to someone from the EA. All that
aside, Alayne was the reason Pence's face was disfigured, and Alayne would pay for it.
She sighed, dread circling in her stomach as she thought of her upcoming class that morning.
* * *
When Alayne entered the Throw-Casting classroom, she was a little peeved at Daymon and Kyle, because both boys insisted on crowding her between them. Even walking down the steps was a cumbersome ordeal with Alayne's arms wedged tightly against her sides.
“Back off,” she hissed at them. With a glance at each other over her head, they gave her another fraction of an inch.
Alayne finally slid into her seat. “I'm fine.” Irritation sharpened her voice. Daymon collapsed into the seat on her other side, making Marysa and Rachyl scoot down a chair from their regular spots. “Your mom can be mad all she wants. She's not going to attack me in class.”
Neither Kyle nor Daymon said anything, but she could tell they weren't convinced by her argument.
Apparently, they weren't the only ones nervous about Professor Pence's intentions. The whole room started shuffling feet and nudging one another when the back doors opened and Chairman Sprynge walked down the stairs. He pulled the chair from behind the teacher's desk to one side of the room and sat down, glancing up at the stage expectantly.
The door opened, and Alayne jerked her attention back to the front. Professor Pence entered, walking briskly onto the stage, and deathly silence blanketed the room.
The scar from the night before was even more lurid; the red had deepened to a crimson. The teeth marks were plainly visible and her nose looked almost horizontal, the bad break obviously healing horribly.
Alayne was puzzled. She had been excited to find out that she could heal with a touch; it seemed that such a gift could be put to good use. But how had her touch left such a horrible scar behind?
Pence was visibly nervous. Her eyes darted several times to the corner where Sprynge sat, and each time, the color across her marred cheeks rose. Before she could begin class, however, Sprynge stood up and crossed to the center of the platform. His gaze roved over the class, resting momentarily on Alayne before skipping on to other parts of the room.
Shadows of Uprising (Guardian of the Vale Book 2) Page 17
