Oaken (The Underground Series Book 1)

by Melody Robinette

  Kyndel and Victor were the only partners left. Victor covered the Shadow in a blinding light and Autumn assumed Kyndel was trying to find a way to bring the Shadow down, without being blinded herself. After another couple of minutes, the Shadow crashed to the ground.

  Atticus clapped his hands. “Well done, everyone, well done! I must say that I’m quite impressed with your performances. You’ll be allowed a bow and arrow during the Warrior Trial, making it much easier to fight them, though I think it’s safe to say that you won’t be dealing with just one. Now, go get something to eat and get some rest. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

  Autumn saw Victor exiting the field in the direction of the path towards his tree house. She sighed in exasperation and hurried to catch up to him, calling his name a few times before he stopped, looking wary.

  “Hey,” she said, sounding awkward even to herself.

  “Hi.”

  “How was your break?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful.

  “Fine.”

  “Nothing bad happened or anything?”

  “No.”

  “You seem upset,” she said. Victor said nothing so Autumn continued, “Well, I think all of us are going to grab a bite to eat in City Circle if you want to—”

  “No, thanks,” Victor interrupted.

  She looked up at him, taken aback. “Okay…”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Autumn,” he said, not even bothering to kiss her on the forehead like he usually did. He turned and stalked down the path towards his lonely tree house.

  “Ugh!” Autumn exclaimed in frustration.

  “Really now?” Luke said from behind her.

  Crystal and Avery flanked either side of him. Avery wore a concerned expression. Autumn turned and began walking, brows furrowed. They informed her that they were meeting the others at Pasta Café in City Circle. She grunted in acknowledgement.

  “What’s wrong, Autumn?” Crystal asked.

  “Nothing,” she muttered.

  Crystal and Luke decided to drop the subject and began talking enthusiastically about their quick defeat of the Shadow. Autumn and Avery slowed a little so that they were walking a few feet behind the others.

  “What’s wrong with Victor?” Avery asked under his breath.

  “Who knows,” she said angrily. “He won’t tell me anything. I invited him to come eat with us and he said ‘no’ before I even finished my sentence.”

  “Obviously something made him act like this. I wonder what happened during the break,” Avery said.

  “I don’t know, but I’m starting to get really frustrated.”

  “Well, maybe we should—” Avery began, but then stopped when he saw Autumn glaring at him. “Never mind.”

  Rose Returned

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  As the days went by, Autumn and Avery weren’t the only ones who noticed Victor’s altered personality. One day after Warrior training Forrest and Jastin approached Autumn, looking concerned.

  “Hey, Fall, what’s up with your boyfriend?” Forrest asked. “We just asked him to come shoot some arrows with us and he blew us off.”

  “He seems troubled,” Jastin added.

  Autumn shrugged helplessly. “I really don’t know, guys. He’s been like this since the break. Maybe he’ll go back to normal when school starts again.”

  On the first day back to school, though, Victor looked moodier than ever. He continued to walk Autumn to classes, but stayed silent the whole time and only grunted in response to her desperate attempts to start a conversation.

  In Coach Holt’s class, he completed the entire assignment without speaking to Autumn once. When Victor refused to hang out with the rest of the Initiates on Saturday, Autumn decided she’d stayed quiet for too long.

  She waited under a gray, cloud-covered sky for the rest of the Initiates to leave the training field before confronting him.

  “What’s your problem, Victor?” she called after him before he could disappear again.

  “What?” he said, turning around slowly.

  “You leave for winter break and come back a completely different person. You won’t say more than two words to me at a time, you constantly have a scowl on your face, and you refuse to hang out with any of your friends!”

  “They aren’t my friends.”

  Autumn gaped up at him, thunderstruck. “What?”

  “They are not my friends,” Victor said again, enunciating each syllable.

  “They were before you left.”

  Victor said nothing, but looked at her with black eyes, only a thin ring of green visible in them. Autumn took a step back from him.

  “I am no different from the elf you first met,” Victor said.

  “True, but you’re different from the elf you had become…and I liked him much more,” Autumn said, turning on her heel and leaving Victor to stare after her.

  She walked straight back to Arbor Castle, not feeling like meeting up with the others at that moment. Halfway to the castle it started to rain. Big drops fell on her head in splashes and she ran the rest of the way to avoid getting soaked. She made it through the large, double oak doors just as it began to pour. The rain was freezing and Autumn hurried up to her branch to light a fire in the hearth.

  Sighing, she sat back moodily in her oversized armchair near the fire. She couldn’t take much more of this with Victor after putting everything she had into helping him and it hadn’t made any sort of a difference whatsoever. Then a THUMP resounded from her balcony and she grudgingly traveled to her room.

  Avery opened her balcony doors, dripping wet from the deluge. He moved towards Autumn and grabbed her face in his hands, pressing his lips greedily to hers. He pulled away slowly, leaving her gasping for breath.

  “Hi,” she breathed.

  “Hi,” he said as he smiled warmly down at her. When he saw her downcast expression, his face fell. “What’s wrong?”

  Autumn looked at the ground and said, “Nothing.”

  Placing two fingers under her chin, he lifted her face until she met his gaze. “What is it?”

  “Victor.”

  Avery shook his head. “Of course it is.”

  “I just don’t know what to do anymore,” she said.

  “Why do you even have to do anything?” Avery stated, closing her balcony doors.

  She shot him an irritated glare. “I’ve already told you—”

  “Yes, I know. You want to help him because he’s all alone,” he said. “But have you ever thought that maybe he wants to be alone? That maybe he doesn’t want any friends?”

  “Why would anyone want that?”

  “It’s in his blood, Autumn. Atrums don’t keep friends. They like being alone.”

  Autumn shook her head at him in exasperation. “I don’t care if he’s an Atrum. No one deserves to be alone.”

  Avery raised his hands in surrender. “I can’t do this right now.” He threw the balcony doors open again and stormed back out into the rain.

  Autumn followed him, the rain immediately soaking her. “So, you’re just going to give up?”

  “Yes! I can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. You can’t help everyone.”

  “I can try,” Autumn said.

  “You drive me crazy sometimes!” Avery proclaimed.

  “If I drive you so crazy then why the hell are you with me? Why don’t you just give up on me too?” demanded Autumn.

  “Because I love you too damn much!” he shouted over the rain.

  She froze and stared at him open mouthed. He looked at the ground.

  “What did you just say?”

  “I said I love you too much,” Avery repeated looking up at her through his wet lashes.

  Autumn took a deep, shaky breath and strode up to him, grasping his face in her hands and pulling his lips to hers. They were warm compared to the freezing rain that was still pouring relentlessly down. He kissed her hungrily, not seeming to care about the fact that they were both shaking from t
he cold. As Avery caressed Autumn’s lips with his she had a revelation. This was what she wanted. All that she wanted. How could she stay with Victor when Avery was the one who loved her. The one she loved.

  She couldn’t. She couldn’t stay with Victor.

  Autumn pulled back slowly. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said. Avery stepped back, with a hurt look on his face. “I mean with Victor,” Autumn said, causing Avery to sigh in relief. “I can’t be with him, not when I’m in love with someone else.”

  “I hope you’re talking about me,” Avery said, smiling that crooked smile that made Autumn’s heart skip a beat.

  “I just wanted to help him,” she said, feeling warm tears fill her eyes and spill hotly down her frozen cheeks. Avery pulled her back inside, closing the balcony doors behind him.

  “Some people are beyond help,” he said, wiping her tears away with his thumbs. Autumn nodded, knowing he was right. “We’re soaking your floor,” he noted, looking at the rug on which they were standing, now covered in water. Autumn retrieved a couple of towels from her bathroom and moved to her living room to dry in front of the fire. She stared blankly at the flickering flames with feelings of elation and failure battling against one another.

  “What’re you going to do?” Avery asked.

  “I’m going to return his rose.”

  Autumn woke the next morning with a light feeling in her chest. Avery had told her he loved her last night. She smiled widely as she rolled out of bed and then her face fell as her eyes landed on the vanity sitting against the wall. Approaching it slowly, she carefully pulled one of the drawers open. Autumn lifted Victor’s red rose from its hiding place and rolled it between her index finger and thumb, spinning the bud slowly. Somehow it was still perfectly fresh and whole. She supposed binding roses had some sort of magic within them that kept them whole as long as the relationship was intact. She wondered what would happen once she handed it back to him and shuddered at the idea.

  She couldn’t help but think that she was going to be hurting Victor, then she thought back on the previous week. Maybe she wouldn’t be hurting him. He didn’t seem all that concerned with talking to her. Perhaps he would even be relieved to be rid of her so he could climb back into his comfortable hole of solitude.

  Approaching the miniature red Message Tree in her living room, Autumn picked up one of the acorns from its branches. With shaking hands, she opened the top of the acorn and spoke into the empty shell.

  “Victor, it’s Autumn. Meet me in the clearing in the woods, east of Arbor Castle at 5:00pm today.” She then recited his address and popped the acorn into the hollow tree. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, hoping he got the message.

  When she met the others in the dining room for breakfast they immediately sensed that something was wrong, casting worried looks her way.

  “What is it, Rose?” Luke asked gently, something extremely out of character for him.

  Autumn raised an eyebrow at him. “Do I really look that bad?”

  “You’re very pale,” Crystal noted, looking concerned.

  Autumn hesitated and glanced over at Avery, wondering if she should tell them about Victor. They would find out eventually, so she figured she might as well.

  “I’m, um, returning Victor’s rose today,” Autumn said, looking at her lap.

  Crystal’s eyes widened and Luke’s brow furrowed.

  “Why?” Luke asked, glancing suspiciously at Avery, who was pretending to be hearing this for the first time as well.

  “Have you not seen how he’s been acting lately?” Autumn said.

  “Yeah.” Crystal nodded. “He’s back to how he was before, all quiet and everything, but now he also looks angry all of the time too.”

  “I haven’t noticed,” Luke admitted.

  “That’s because you only notice female elves. Victor isn’t in that category,” Autumn said.

  Luke chuckled, saying, “I guess you aren’t too upset if you still have it in you to scold me for being the ladies’ man I am.”

  Autumn snorted at this, rolling her eyes.

  “How do you think he’s going to take it?” Crystal asked.

  “I doubt he’ll be too crushed or anything. He’s barely spoken to me all week.”

  “He should be happy to be a free man,” Luke said through a mouthful of eggs. “What kind of a Warrior would want to be tied down to just one girl when he has the chance to be with a new one every day?”

  Avery laughed at this, winking at Autumn when the other two weren’t looking.

  Autumn stood on her balcony, leaning against the railing as she waited for 5:00pm to arrive. Looking out at the thick green forest she was reminded of Victor’s perfect, emerald eyes. Many would call her crazy to break up with someone so unbelievably beautiful, but Victor was the prime example of the phrase “looks aren’t everything.”

  Without warning, Avery leapt over his balcony railing, landing loudly behind Autumn, causing her to jump. She punched him on the arm in frustration and he laughed heartily.

  “You have to warn me before you do that,” she scolded. He wrapped his arms around her waist.

  “Sorry,” he said, kissing her softly. She breathed him in, smelling that familiar woodsy smell that she associated with him.

  “You’re forgiven,” Autumn said as she turned back to face the forest.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked.

  “Sort of.”

  “Do you want me to wait for you here?” he asked.

  “If you want to,” Autumn said, not wanting him to think that she couldn’t handle something like this.

  “You don’t have to be so strong all of the time, Autumn,” he whispered in her ear.

  “I know, but I don’t know how else to be,” Autumn said. Ever since her parents’ deaths, she’d had her guard up towards everyone, feigning strength. The alternative was to simply fall apart.

  Avery wrapped her in a tight hug and she sank into him.

  “I don’t want to hurt him,” Autumn muttered into his chest.

  “I know,” he said soothingly. “But you’ve done everything you could for him. It’s time for you to be happy. Think about yourself for once.”

  “Can I just think about you?” Autumn said with a small smile.

  Avery chuckled. “That works too. As long as it makes you happy.”

  “It does.” She smiled, leaning up and kissing him deeply. “I better go.” Avery sighed, but released her. “I’ll be back soon.”

  He followed her through her room and into the living area.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he said. Autumn turned to him, arching an eyebrow in question. “The rose…”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, smacking herself in the forehead before traveling back into her room, snatching the rose out of the vanity.

  “Good luck,” Avery said.

  She blew him a quick kiss and hurried out the door, nerves beginning to overtake her as she rushed down the spiral staircase of the castle and out the double oak doors. She placed the rose in the inside pocket of her coat so that it wasn’t the first thing Victor would see. Autumn wanted him to hear her out first. As she approached the designated clearing in the forest, she shoved her hands into her pockets to keep them from shaking.

  She ran through her rehearsed speech in her head again as she ambled through the thick trees and jumped when she saw that Victor was already waiting for her. It was clear he was upset about something as he paced back and forth, muttering under his breath, hands clenched in fists by his side.

  “Um, Victor?” Autumn said.

  He stopped pacing abruptly and looked at her with black eyes. She’d never seen him look so angry before. He was practically shaking with rage.

  Victor said nothing as Autumn cleared her throat to begin speaking. She walked past him so that they weren’t face to face. She knew it was cowardly, but she didn’t want to see his expression. “Well, first of all I just wanted to say that—”

  “Yo
u’re cheating on me,” Victor spat out from behind her.

  Autumn stopped mid-sentence, her eyes wide and mouth agape. She gave herself time to regain composure before turning around slowly to face him.

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” he growled.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Are you cheating on me with Avery Burke or not?” Victor asked with a dark expression.

  “Avery?” Autumn said, trying to keep her expression clear.

  “Yes.”

  “We—we’re just friends,” she said.

  “Do not lie to me, Autumn,” Victor said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m not lying,” she said. Victor snorted in disgust. “Listen, Victor, I—”

  “Don’t even try to defend yourself. Of all the elves you could’ve picked, you choose Avery Burke.”

  “I didn’t choose anyone.”

  “I saw you on your balcony!” Victor bellowed. Autumn’s mouth dropped open slightly and her pulse quickened. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. “Are you telling me that you weren’t just kissing him? That you weren’t just pressing yourself tightly against him, looking into his eyes, in a way that you’ve never looked at me.”

  Autumn swallowed and attempted to speak again. “My balcony is very high up. Perhaps you were seeing things.”

  “Oh, I assure you I saw everything quite clearly,” he said and then added, “How long?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How long have you been seeing him?” he said each word slowly.

  “I haven’t—”

  “Liar!” Victor shouted, causing Autumn to stumble backwards. She felt the red rose slip from her coat pocket and fall to the ground.

  Victor stared at the fallen rose.

  “What is that,” Victor said quietly.

  Autumn looked up at him through narrowed eyes and said, “Your rose.”

  “And why did you bring it here?”