Dilyn snickered from his perch on the back of a nearby chair. "I doubt you'd want the perks Perry's hoping for."
"Oh, he would," Perry said, throwing a wink at Asrea, who chuckled as if to brush off the comment, but blushed and averted her eyes.
Asrea was taken by his good natured playfulness, and special attention. But Ariana had a feeling the girl would soon grow accustomed to it. Once Asrea began classes in Ruekridge, especially as the first cross-world transfer student in its history, she'd be like Tehya, loads of boys competing for her attention.
"It's not like I'll be in your way for long, Perry," Hunter said. "I'll be starting my apprenticeship next quarter."
"This is true," Perry went on. "But then again, even with you there, I have to remember: these looks," he shook his golden curls off his forehead, "and this magnetizing charm," he gave Asrea another wink, "how could they not notice me?"
It was safe to say Perry's ego hadn't been injured in the fight.
"Hunter could always take a spot in the Aeriel tower instead," Dilyn suggested, laughing, "if you need the attention that badly."
The Aeriel tower. Where her room would have been… if not for Harold.
She thumbed the already worn edge of her mother's letter, replaying the words in her head for the hundredth time.
Ariana,
I've been visited by a man named Harold Stratton. The stories he told me have left me speechless. The Onyx Vial? I knew you were your father's daughter. But I had no idea just how like him you really were. Escaping prison cells, garnering the favor of your captors, snooping, stealing. Risking your life for a boy you barely knew.
You cannot be contained, I'm afraid.
Which is why I've given my permission to reinstate you into Ruekridge—under the terms Harold has offered. It will be difficult. But this is what you wanted. So don't write me complaining.
Harold had handed her the letter, and without ceremony, without letting her read it first, he told her: "You're enrolled in a Shadow Elite Training program. Headed by George and myself. Killian, Asrea, and a select few others will join you."
"What about Hunter?" She'd asked.
Harold deadpanned, staring at her.
George had stepped in. "He has other training," he said. "With Mustangs, I hear."
"You will take on two independent studies, outside of your regular courses and those sessions for Elite Training, in which you will work toward Mastery of portal books and their language, and you will partner with Madame Dae to test, study, and document the behavior, powers, life cycle, and so on, of your new pet. You will train to be Master of the creature, able to control it and yourself in the heat of battle. You will live in specially dedicated Elite quarters with the other trainees. You will get along." It was the most she had ever heard him speak.
Do this, her mother wrote, and you will have surpassed even what your father accomplished. He would be proud.
"They'll train nightly." George's voice caught her ear.
She looked over at him.
"With the right schedule and the progress we expect to see them make, they'll be ready for Ops in a few short seasons," VanDaren added.
"Ops?" Maiza was not pleased. "They're children, VanDaren."
George nodded. "Yes. Children who have grown up under the sword-tip of a brutal, relentless tyrant, and proven themselves in adversity"
Ariana glanced at Killian. He absentmindedly rubbed a fingertip across the Fyrennian symbol on his forearm.
Not as pretty a marking as the one on the back of her hand. The fluid white lines scrawled across her sun-kissed skin. Her race mark, brought out early by the magic of the Daeixs.
"They've proven themselves capable, Maiza."
"What kind of Ops can they possibly be used for? The boys, at least, are terribly recognizable."
A wordless answer passed between the group. Ariana frowned.
"Lockden?" Maiza asked in an incredulous half-whisper. "You cannot be serious."
George's face fell grim. "We placed that Vial in the care of children and sent them out there, defenseless. Ducklings to be hunted by wolves. It's our responsibility to right any wrongs we can."
Ariana's stomach dropped. They were talking about Finn.
It was one of only two subjects she, Dilyn, Perry, and Hunter had come to a silent agreement not to speak of. Right now, it was too much to bear. The sad truth was that Finn was, in one form or another, as lost to them as Tehya's mother—her death confirmed now—the other subject to which they said nothing, though it was hard not to think about.
Tehya had been little more than a shadow since they escaped the courtyard. She spent most of her days sleeping fitfully—or staring lifelessly out windows—and her nights disappearing into the streets of Bolengard, leaving and returning without a word.
Nothing Ariana said or did could rouse her from the grief of her father's betrayal and the news of her mother's death. She watched the grief eat at her Tehya hour by hour. It manifested itself in her haggard face, her slumped shoulders, her inability to unfurl herself from the window-seat just an arm's reach away. Even now, as Ariana scooted closer to comfort her, Tehya's body didn't react. Her best friend's hand on her shoulder could just as easily have been a tired firefly. She could do nothing to comfort her. But Hunter and Killian were a different matter.
When Killian touched Tehya, she responded. When he talked, she listened. Ariana didn't know what he'd said to her, but she was as comforted by the sight of him as Ariana was by Asrea.
And then Hunter. Ariana wondered if perhaps Tehya had been meeting up with him during her nightly escapes into the city, though he hadn't mentioned anything to anyone. But she couldn't help her suspicions. The last time Tehya had made any effort at anything at all was the morning following the ambush, after the arrowhead was extracted from Hunter's chest. Tehya had fashioned him a necklace using her own bootlace and given it to him when he woke up, calling it his "badge of survival." Perry had joked that he should get one as well, eyeing her other boot, but the moment the necklace was out of her hand, the brightness left her eyes.
"Those are our wrongs, not theirs," Maiza pressed on.
"They agreed to this," George said.
"It's not like they had a choice," she sighed. Then, under her breath, "It's a curse they have such powerful fathers."
Ariana and Killian looked at each other, but Ariana caught Maiza's glance at her daughter.
She was right on all three of the new Elite Trainees' accounts.
Asrea had learned too early how operations ran. She'd fought many times to defend the secret city, and she was no stranger to dealing death.
Ariana was the Wordmaster's daughter, whose talent promised to exceed her father's. It made her an asset too precious to squander.
And Killian. He was the son of a tyrant—clever, calculating, powerful—trained as a Watcher in the Fyrennian Guard.
If only she could trust him.
She wanted to. They had too many commonalities to ignore. After all, they were going to be spending a lot of time together at Ruekridge, and they needed to get along.
But Asrea had caught whispers, and shared them with Ariana: Killian had his father frozen at his feet in that courtyard, ripe for the kill—and yet, the man was still alive.
Killian may have saved them out there, bravely facing the very thing he'd turned his back on. But it didn't change the fact that Falken Fyrenn was still out there, destroying people's lives.
For every two steps forward, she took one back and three sideways. It was ironic that to be a force of change to the Fyrennian world she'd have to partner and train with the Fyrennian Prince; and, when Hunter returned from his apprenticeship with the Mustangs, she had no doubt, him as well.
At least she and Hunter were on better terms. Witnessing him break down at the realization that he was not related to the man he had called grandpa had snuffed out any lingering doubts about his motivations. Later, in the quiet of the healing ward, she had found the courage
to admit she'd been wrong about him and apologize.
And somehow, without letting that new partnership affect her, she would have to find a way to maintain her current level of study of the portal books, as well as learn to care for a creature she knew very little about.
All she knew was that she could hardly bear to let it out of her sight, and, in the few times she had, its cries had proved to everyone that the feeling was mutual. They were bonded.
But she could imagine it grown—the trouble it might cause her if she let that behavior continue for either of them. Inky bird footprints across fresh portal book pages… A predatory swooping to defend her during training, resulting in injury…
She lifted the Daeixs to her face. The baby bird squirmed and fumbled to its feet, then blinked and gazed at her with wide, indigo eyes. It made a soft, contented, chortle-squeak—a much nicer sound than the blinding, deafening squawk from the courtyard. Its head bobbled as it stretched its neck to get closer to her.
"We have a lot of work ahead of us," she muttered, touching her nose delicately to its beak. "Don't we, Petrichor?"
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am so grateful to everyone who has been a part of this writing journey with me. Thank you to my mom, Kim Beard and my sister, Andrea Twaddle, for being nothing but encouraging the day I proclaimed, "I could write a book," on our road trip, and proceeded to spend the rest of the trip laying the groundwork for this story, bouncing ideas off of you as we went. I don't even remember where we were going. Just that I was with you, and it was perfect.
Thank you to my dad, Kevin Beard, for being so supportive the day I finally got the courage to tell you I wanted to write books, not become a professional golfer. {I think it's fair to say, I was always a little too dramatic for that}. You made it possible for me to change majors and dive into my dream without fear.
Thank you to Carolyn Haines, for being the most awesome Creative Writing teacher I could ever have found. Your encouragement and your wonderful personality came to me at the right time.
Thank you to Michelle Ladner and Jeannie Holmes for being the best writing friends ever. We have been through so much together. Without you, this book would not be what it is today. Neither would I.
Thank you to my husband, Josh Lampley, for sticking with me, for being the catalyst for this publication date, and for picking up the slack as I barreled headfirst into this deadline. You are awesome. I am so grateful for you. I promise I'll clean the house now.
Thank you to all my beta readers for helping me make this deadline. I have seven minutes to upload this, so I will have to add your names later. Just know that you were instrumental in making this not look like a mess, and I hope you enjoy what things I named after each of you!
And of course, thank you, newest reader, for taking a shot on this story and reading it till the end. You are awesome. And you are helping make my dreams come true.
The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) Page 36
