by Alex Lidell
Copyright © 2019 by Alex Lidell
Danger Bearing Press
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Credits:
Edited by Mollie Traver and Linda Ingmanson
Cover Design by Deranged Doctor Design
Clock Strikes Midnight
Great Falls Academy, Book 4
Alex Lidell
Danger Bearing Press
Contents
Also by Alex Lidell
1. Lera
2. Lera
3. River
4. Lera
5. Lera
6. Lera
7. Lera
8. Lera
9. Lera
10. Shade
11. Lera
12. Lera
13. Lera
14. Owalin
Also by Alex Lidell
About the Author
Also by Alex Lidell
New Adult Fantasy Romance
POWER OF FIVE (Reverse Harem Fantasy)
POWER OF FIVE
MISTAKE OF MAGIC
TRIAL OF THREE
LERA OF LUNOS
GREAT FALLS ACADEMY (Power of Five world)
RULES OF STONE
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
SCENT OF A WOLF
CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT
DUNGEONS AND DREAMERS
HIDE AND SEEK
Young Adult Fantasy Novels
TIDES
FIRST COMMAND (Prequel Novella)
AIR AND ASH
WAR AND WIND
SEA AND SAND
SCOUT
TRACING SHADOWS
UNRAVELING DARKNESS
TILDOR
THE CADET OF TILDOR
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1
Lera
My sword whistles as it cuts the night air, putting down a salivating sclice. I jump back, panting as the hog beast makes a final swipe at me before stilling. Sword high, I survey the forest over my weapon’s tip, my heart drumming a strong steady beat against my chest. With my amulet off, everything inside me feels lighter. More alive. More tuned in to sound and touch and air.
More able to appreciate the dead sclice’s stench.
I wrinkle my nose. This night’s sclice is the third one I’ve put down this week—the tenth since I started these amulet-free nightly excursions a month ago. The spill of Mors’s rodents and other magical refuse is increasing with the approach of the spring equinox—Ostera—the change no more pleasant for being expected. Like the other sclices I’ve seen here, this beast is distorted, its mottled skin revealing a pattern of warts, including one in that odd snowflake-like shape that Gavriel thinks serves as a crude rune of sorts, making the thing invisible to humans and veil-wearing fae.
My body’s energy still singing from a good fight, I feel the forest come back into focus around me—the soft cracks of nocturnal animals, the heavy scent of damp pine. And with a deep breath, I force myself to get on with the true goal of today’s outing: collecting another sample from a Yocklol tree to help Gavriel and Arisha develop something to neutralize the damn things. I know that we are but containing the damage, that more horrors will keep coming until I can find and mend the tear in the fabric keeping the mortal realms magic-free, but that makes the Yocklols no less of a problem.
Despite appearing to have a trunk and vine-like branches, Yocklols aren’t true trees but rather mixes of creature and vegetation—just the latest delight leaking in from the dark realms. Yocklols also breed. And move. I’ve marked five since that young guardsman lost his arm to one last month.
On the bright side, the increased number makes them easier to find. Leaving the sclice, I follow the trail uphill to where I last saw one of the yellow blights and find the thing tucked between a cluster of aspen trees. Piercing the night’s darkness with my fae vision, I can see the yellow slime covering the Yocklol limbs. It shimmers slightly but calls little attention to itself otherwise. Unfortunately for anything that likes staying alive, one touch of the slime to flesh, and there is no stopping the resulting pus-ridden corruption.
“Let’s get this over with,” I mutter, glaring at the Yocklol, with its one eye—closed for now—and shivering deadly branches. Drawing a glass vial out of my satchel, I slide the wide mouth slowly onto a tentacle-like tip. Slowly lifting my blade, I do a quick final survey of my gear. Leather gloves. Soft leather padded suit. Boots well tied and ready to run. Good. Taking a deep breath, I bring the edge of the blade down on the sleeping limb, scraping the tiniest bit of yellow bark into my vial.
The Yocklol’s eye snaps open, the tentacled branches shifting like snakes.
Fighting the urge to bolt, which carries too great a tripping risk, I retreat one step at a time. My pulse quickens, my blood coursing through my tingling legs. It’s odd how something that so wishes to kill you can also make you feel alive. Around me, the forest’s night sounds are a familiar backdrop, the shifting branches and insistently hooting owl seeming to cheer me on. Another step, my foot checking the ground before taking weight, my gaze trained on the swaying tentacle-like limbs. Yocklol trees aren’t fast, but with the damage a single tentacle touch does, they don’t need to be.
Feeling a root beneath my foot, I adjust my balance. Three tentacles now slither along the ground, leaving no place to fall safely. My breath stills. Step. Step. Step. Inside me, Tye’s fire-calling magic flails against its mortal shackles. Before I became fae, my weaver gift required proximity to my males to tap into magic. I echoed their power but had none of my own. Now, although being beside the males magnifies our strength manyfold, the cords of magic coiling inside me are my own. Shadows of Tye’s fire, and River’s earth, and Shade’s healing, and Coal’s strange inward-turned magic, all quiver within my blood.
Each day, I think a fraction of my power might break free. But not today. Not now.
A yellow tentacle suddenly whips toward me, fast as a striking snake.
My arm moves on reflex, the sword’s honed edge severing the vine in midair. Falling to the ground with a soft thunk, the pace-long tip continues thrashing.
I curse. Separated from the trunk, the severed tentacle will continue flailing about, killing anything that might touch it. Forever. I’ll have to come back and clean up before we have blight-struck animals running about with boils, making the humans realize the extent to which things are going wrong.
Step. Step. Step. Reaching back with my foot, I take the final stride to escape the Yocklol’s reach. The thing continues stretching toward me, but the trunk moves much more slowly than the tentacles. In other words, I’m finally safe to run like hell.
Corking the sample vial, I tuck it securely into my satchel and lope through the now-familiar forest, my immortal eyes seeing the dirt trail and shivering pine branches plainly under the starlit sky. With the tall stone wall looming before me, I locate the covered exit of the escape passage leading back into the Academy and lower myself inside. A pool of ink-black darkness greets me, the ground invisible even in daylight. Hanging off the ledge with my feet dangling over the blackness, I take a breath, brace myself, and let go.
“You look feral.” Arisha’s voice greets me as I climb out of the passage amidst a thick cluster of trees and hedges lining the inside of the Academy walls. The fresh scent of evergreens and budding oaks fills my lungs, washing away the mol
d and stench.
“Is that a compliment?” I brace my hands on my thighs, looking at the brilliant girl whose frizzy brown hair and inability to braid it would no doubt make a scarecrow jealous. Behind her, torches on the tops of the towering Academy walls cast strange shadows on the silent stone, a stern reminder of where we should be right now.
“It’s a fact.” She taps her ears, then sneezes into her sleeve.
“Oh, right.” Suppressing a groan, I snap my veil amulet quickly around my neck. A tightness settles over my skin at once, the pressure of the veil amulet’s magic battling against my body’s desire for freedom. Each time, it seems to become a little more difficult to make the transition, the veil’s magic fighting harder for control against my body’s rebellion. The pendant heats against my skin, insisting that I’m human, an Academy cadet, nothing more.
“Stars,” Arisha mutters. “I know you’ve not moved, but I swear I saw a fae female leave and a human Lera walk over. It’s unsettling every damn time. Do you have my new toy?”
“And you called me feral?” Surrendering the sample vial, I retrieve a cloak I stashed beneath the bushes and throw it over my leathers. If I’m caught now, I’m just a student breaking curfew with a stroll through the woods, not a renegade ready to bring down River’s wrath. “I took down another sclice, by the way.”
“That isn’t a by the way, Lera.” Arisha blocks my path. Planting her hands on her hips, she glares like a schoolmarm—her puffy red eyes and nose somewhat spoiling the image. She wears an all-black outfit similar to mine—because “black is the color of espionage”—that makes her pale face seem to float in the moonlight. “This is getting out of hand—and don’t you tell me that you ran into the thing by sheer accident, because you lie as well as I do handstands. What if there had been more of them? You can’t be romping about by your—”
“Gavriel thinks I can,” I say quickly.
“Good try, but Uncle Gavriel thinks the sun will change direction if a book says so.” Arisha adjusts her glasses, her voice stuffy as it has been ever since the flowers began to bloom. “I’m not saying stop fighting. I’m saying stop doing it alone. Moving the dead sclice to where River’s patrols are likely to find it is a simple enough thing and will get the other fae involved.”
“No.”
“River wouldn’t know it’s you who put the beast down, but he’ll certainly go out with Coal and Shade to do some cleanup,” Arisha continues as if I’d not spoken, acting more like her uncle than she would care to admit. “It would take the pressure off. And eventually, you can work up to going out together without needing to say anything that would trigger their veil magic.”
“No,” I repeat. “First, the sclices have wart patterns that make them near invisible to humans—I can take off my amulet and see the rodents, but the males can’t. They shouldn’t be fighting what they can’t see. And second…” I adjust my cloak, buying a heartbeat to gather myself. “Second, you were right when you said I should accept them as the personas they are now—and the personas they are now don’t know me. Might not even like me if they did. When I go out, I need to take off my amulet and be myself, not some pretense of a noble lady I’m not.”
“What happened to team, and quint, and mates?”
“A cracked rune tablet.” After a month, the words have almost stopped stinging. Even after I laid out the virtues of joining forces against magic’s threat so plainly that even Princess Katita bent the knee, the males still see me as nothing but a first-year cadet. River cares for little beyond my obeying rules and curfew; Coal goes out of his way to avoid physical contact with me even during training; Shade is too busy with all the girls lining up for sick call to even notice my existence; and Tye… Tye wants to talk. To reconcile the intensity of our unintended coupling against his Prowess training commitment. I’ve nothing to say to that. After serving in Zake’s stable, one would think I’d have learned the dangers of relying on men—but apparently, I’d needed a sharp reminder.
“I’ve my hands full enough trying to stanch magic bleeding into the mortal world without also chasing cocks, Arisha.” I give her a smile. “Besides, I’ve you and Gavriel and, err, Ruffle. And I did get you that beautiful snot-yellow Yocklol sample to play with, didn’t I?”
Arisha sighs—not in acquiescence, but in a we’ll talk about this later way. “You are exhausted. I took the liberty of writing up your essay on Ckridel’s role in the Continental Alliance.”
My shoulders tense. “Arisha—”
“If someone told me a year ago that my role in helping keep the mortal realm from doom would be through doing extra homework, I would have sent the messenger to the asylum. But reality is that there is no physical way you can fight evil by night, attend classes, muck stalls for three hours, and do homework. Once your stall duties finally finish tomorrow, the work is all yours.” She pats my shoulder. “But for tonight—copy the paper before bed. Neatly. It doesn’t do anyone any good if my brilliant words are all lost beneath smudges that make it seem like Rabbit wrote them. And truly, don’t worry. With Ostera holidays coming up, we’ll all be able to catch up on rest and studying soon enough. A week of liberty is going to feel like the stars’ own gift by then.”
I force a smile, thanking the stars Arisha can’t hear my heart’s sudden thundering. My friend still thinks it’s only the lack of time that’s keeping me back in class, and I can’t bear to tell my genius friend—who thinks the teachers slow of mind—that I can barely read.
Slipping inside the room, I shed my leathers, stashing them beneath the bed, and fall into my cot. The cot groans, sharp lupine claws expressing their dissatisfaction with having their space encroached upon by some interloper. No wonder Arisha was so eager to sneak out of the room to meet me. I poke Shade. Push him. Brace against his sizable bulk and shove with all my might. The wolf twitches one ear, his eyes piously closed. Feigning deep sleep, the bastard. Fine. Carving out a spot against Shade’s side, I curl up against his fur and capture the last few hours of sleep.
2
Lera
“Leralynn of Osprey proposes that Ckridel’s role in the Continental Alliance was defined by self-preservation.” Master Daniel’s voice from the front of the room breaks through my haze of fatigue.
A moment later, Arisha’s foot hits my shin. Hard. Then she sneezes.
Blinking my eyes open, I force my mind into a rapid survey of the battlefield. The individual wooden desks, each with a well for ink, stand in a semicircle of rows around a high-ceilinged classroom. The scent of someone too fond of rose perfume fills the thick air, mixing with the dust on the thick red curtains. Despite the pleasantly cool weather outside, the room is as stuffy as the bald master at the front of it—tall stained-glass windows let in streams of tinted light, but no air to speak of. The formal court attire we wear to academic classes little helps the cause either. Sitting at the back of the classroom, I’ve the protection of three dozen heads separating me from the instructor’s dais—usually enough to guard against extra attention. Today, however, that fortune seems to have run out.
At the front of the room, Daniel is now pacing in front of a large chalk slate. “Princess Katita, on the other hand, asserts that Ckridel’s role came from benevolence. Leralynn, could you summarize your thoughts for the class?”
Heads turn toward me as I rise to my feet, my face blazing. Despite what Arisha thinks, I can’t even understand most of what she writes for me.
“This should be entertaining,” Katita whispers to the girl beside her, my immortal hearing picking up the snicker without fail. Her silky sheaf of white-blond hair is clipped back behind her ears, an innocent look that clashes with the shrewdness in her turquoise eyes.
I clear my throat, my gaze darting to the window to check the sun’s position. At least half an hour of the class still left.
“We are all here, Lady Leralynn,” Daniel prompts.
Chuckles echo through the room. Even the two girls who were busy sketching outfit ideas for
the upcoming Ostera ball put aside their side whispers to enjoy the new entertainment. Bloody Ostera. While the Academy readies to celebrate spring and fertility, all I can think of is the surge of magic the moon will bring that night.
“Could you repeat the question, please, sir?” I ask.
Daniel’s lips press together, the sun’s rays reflecting off his polished head. “Please tell us why you believe self-preservation was the driving force behind Grendel’s actions in the establishment of the Continental Alliance.”
On my left, I can feel Arisha’s expectant stare. Here goes nothing. “Because, self-preservation is the force behind all decisions,” I say. Nice and philosophical and—most importantly—can be argued based on common sense instead of the reading.
Daniel rocks back on his heels. I think he is waiting for me to continue.
I go to sit down instead.
“What about moral high ground, benevolence, love?” Daniel prompts, his glare enough to keep me on my feet.
“What about them, sir?”
Flashes of smirks and smiles ripple through the room, the public support swaying momentarily to my side.
Arisha covers her eyes. I’m sure she wrote something painstakingly brilliant on the topic and expects me to share it instead of antagonizing the teacher. Which I’d love to be doing as well, if not for reality getting in the way.
“I’m not finding your word games amusing, Lady Leralynn.” Daniel’s face colors, splotches of red nearly as bright as the trim on his black robes creeping up his bald scalp. When he speaks again, his words seem forced, as if he’s battling for self-control. “Please explain to us how you believe these factors influence decisions and actions.”
