by Alex Lidell
Only chattering birds answer, and the ghostly whispering of bright-green leaves.
Sprite whinnies, stomping one foot with a loose shoe. Damn it. Bending down, I pull the shoe the rest of the way off and toss it away. I’ll be walking the horse from here on out. But walking her to where?
Holding Sprite by her reins, I slowly retrace the path we galloped, through slants of golden evening light. The tracks curve downhill, turning sharply toward the narrow trail Sprite and I had run. Here, several sets of diverging hoofprints lead in all directions. As if some riders had followed the trail to the right—where I’d gone left—and others turned their horses around completely, heading back to a wider road. Or perhaps the mounts had spooked and run.
I shake my head, instantly regretting the motion as pain slices down the back of my skull. Think, Lera. What exactly happened? Forcing my breathing to steady, I think back. I recall cantering. No, galloping. The males giving me space, but not staying far back. Then the trail went right. But I didn’t. I turned off the trail and headed sharply left. Sprite broke into a gallop over bad terrain. She tripped. I fell, hitting my head. Losing consciousness. With the thick green foliage and sharp turn, the males might not have seen me take the turn and fall, but surely they should have found me by now.
Except they didn’t.
By the looks of the horse tracks, they went the other way entirely. I sigh, pulling myself together. I’ve no notion how long I was unconscious, but from the sun’s movement, it was some time. Whatever the reason the males left, they are now either too far to hear me yell or not in a position to answer. Perhaps, with the mating bond muted by their amulets, they don’t feel me—or their fear for me—as fiercely as they normally would. I don’t feel them at all, though my fear is perfectly intact. The reality of existence without the bond’s pull sends a chill down my spine, despite knowing it would happen. Bracing a hand against a tree, I take a deep breath and force my mind to function. Plan. I’ve two choices now by my reckoning: either stay here in the middle of the woods, hoping to be rescued before the predators decide I’m dinner, or continue to the Academy as planned and work things through there.
My hands tremble as I take up Sprite’s reins, leading the mare down the path. I slip on my veil amulet lest I cross paths with anyone, shivering at the feelings that pass over me—the deadening of deafened mating bonds, the faint vertigo that comes from pulling an alternate identity over me like a cloak.
To my relief, the amulet remained intact during the fall, along with my saddlebags. I try to focus on that. On anything except why no one is here. There is an explanation for this. There has to be. This is but a hiccup, I promise myself, refusing to let the thickening woods and lengthening shadows, the rising hoot of an owl, the crunching step of an unseen animal, close around me.
With the Academy clearly visible atop high ground, I keep my course set on its flapping standard. Winding trails come and go along steep hills, but I keep straight and move quickly, talking to Sprite softly as we walk unwaveringly between trees. “We are Sprite and Lera,” I tell Sprite, who nickers in agreement. “I am a fae female of a warrior quint. And we are here to discover what’s letting magic leak into the human world. We are here to save people. We aren’t afraid.”
It’s well past sunset by the time Sprite and I finally make it to the Academy wall, dark-gray stone rising into the blackness above me, topped with flickering torches. A heavy wooden gate with iron spikes the width of my thigh rises on creaking pulleys to let me into a vestibule, the secondary gate remaining closed.
The uniformed guard who let me in frowns, lowering the spiked gate back down behind Sprite and me. Trapping us between the two exits. “It is past curfew,” he says, his black brows narrowing. He’s the first human I’ve seen up close in months, and I instantly notice the differences—the blunter features, as if seen through a foggy lens, the shorter stature and softer frame.
I lick my dry lips. “I’m…” The amulet warms against my sternum, phantom memories shimmering in my mind, changing my history.
The estate that I grew up in as Zake’s indentured servant becomes a mansion with high vaulted ceilings and plush rugs. My old clothes shift from a stable hand’s ill-fitting rags to a too-tight tailored dress embroidered with a coat of arms. The belt that beat me raw still remains in my memories, though the lord wielding it now presses me against an upholstered wall instead of a stable’s rough wood for the lashings.
I’m a noble-born orphan, my new memories tell me. Taken in by Lord Zake of Osprey and raised as his ward. I have no friends.
I clear my throat and try again. “I’m—”
“Leralynn of Osprey,” the guard finishes for me. “I’m aware of who you are. But not why you are late. Great Falls Academy, you will discover, does not tolerate tardiness. Nor do we tolerate students roaming the wilderness. In fact, Commander River—that’s the Academy’s deputy headmaster who took up the late Commander Jun’s vacant post five months ago—has ordered that anyone found in violation of curfew be sent directly to him.”
“River?” My breath catches, relief and anxiety filling my chest. The amulets are working, and my males—at least one of them—is here. It’s all right. Whatever the reason River never circled back to get me, I’ll discover it shortly. I am not alone. “River is here?” I repeat, not realizing I’ve grabbed the guard’s wrist until he cocks a thick brow at me.
“Take a breath, girl.” The man softens his voice, apparently taking my behavior as a sign that the appropriate level of terror has been instilled. “I won’t report you, just this once. Though if I were you, I’d endeavor to know as little of the captain as you do now.” He motions for the inner doors to be opened and leads me into the Academy’s sleeping campus, while one of the other guards takes charge of Sprite.
A quick mental analysis confirms I have no choice but to follow him, to play along with my disguise until I can gather more information. No matter how much I long to run through the Academy shouting River’s name, I’m here for a mission—one that I can’t risk because I’m too frightened to spend a night alone. Plus, the danger of being discovered as fae in these parts is not lost on me either—I little need a farmer or hunter trying to plant an axe between my shoulder blades. Avoiding the desire to finger my amulet, I follow the guard meekly.
Even in the night’s darkness, my immortal eyes mark the Academy’s grand sprawl. Stone buildings rising several stories into the air on all sides of us, the distant neigh of stabled horses, cobblestone passages, and quietly burbling fountains.
“The physical training and maneuvers take place in the yard on the east side of the Academy.” The guard points as we walk across the broad central square, our footsteps echoing hollowly in the silence. “The dormitories are in the southwest. Academic lessons take place in the keep, to the northwest.” It’s obvious which building he means—an immense castle with pointed spires blocking the stars directly behind us. The fortress on the hill that can be seen for miles, its flapping red standard my earlier guide.
Leading me into a square building with a small stone courtyard in its center, the guard takes the external whitewashed walkways to bring me up to the second story.
“Bedchamber 241,” the guard says, unaware that my fae eyes let me read the lettering for myself. He hands me a key. “You share it with Arisha of Tallie. Tomorrow, you may collect your issued supplies and your allowance from the quartermaster. Most of our new students find the adjustment to the Academy’s discipline difficult. For your sake, I suggest you adapt quickly. Treat the guards and instructors with the reverence you would offer your elders at home, and you will do well. You may be my superior in a ballroom, but here, at Great Falls, you are a student.”
The last is said with no malice, and I thank the male—the man—demurely before ducking into the darkened room, a girl’s soft snores the only sound to counter my pounding head. River, at least, has made it. As the bloody deputy headmaster. I rub my temple. It does fit, given his overprotectiv
e and in-constant-charge personality. The others I’ll have to find in the morning. Along with the reason they all left me behind.
7
Lera
“Leralynn, wake up.” A female voice urges me from sleep.
Blinking my eyes open, I find myself staring at a comely girl about my age, with frizzy brown hair and large eyes. For a few seconds, all I can do is stare at her rounded ear tips. Arisha of Tallie, my memory of the guard’s words last night tells me. My roommate. I lift my still-aching head, the warming amulet reminding me that I’m a new student. A lady. Leralynn of Osprey, sent here to study with other prominent youths. For a moment, the story is so persuasive that my heart skips a beat as I scramble out of bed. I was late coming in last night, and if I am late again this morning—
Lera. I am Leralynn, a warrior of a fae quint on a crucial mission. And I need to find my mates.
Beyond Arisha, my gaze takes in the small white-walled room with high ceilings, as if the architect attempted to balance the tiny floor space by making the walls taller. Two narrow beds, two plain wooden dressers, and two tiny desks built to fold down from the wall make up the entirety of the furniture. The thick drapes covering the one tall window might have once been bright, but now are a heavy faded olive. Beside my bed, the contents of my saddlebags spill like wine over the floor, making it difficult to find a place to step. On Arisha’s side of the room, pens, paper, and books are arranged in such perfect rows, I wonder if the young woman didn’t use a ruler to place them.
“You may borrow one of my uniforms for the morning exercise if you’d like.” Arisha shifts her feet impatiently, chewing on her lower lip. Freckles cross her sharp cheekbones, and, beneath her round glasses, the deep bags under her eyes speak to sleeplessness or stress—or both. She is already dressed in a pair of gray pants and a matching tunic with a red insignia that must be the school’s crest, both a bit small on her. Her hands shake slightly as she wrestles her long hair into two uneven braids. “It will be a little loose on your thin frame, but better than…” She waves her hand at my travel clothes, which I’d not bothered removing before bed. “Whatever you decide, you should do so quickly. Master Coal and I have an understanding that I would rather not test.”
I freeze, my fingers tightening over the gray tunic Arisha extends. “Coal?” I make myself move, changing into the offered clothes. Coal. Coal. Coal. “What understanding do you have with him exactly?”
“That I’m a waste of space and air that he should ignore when possible.” Arisha frowns at one of her already unraveling braids. “I would like to give him every opportunity possible to continue ignoring me. Being late little helps.”
Stars, Arisha truly thinks she met Coal months ago and has a whole history with the male. Autumn wasn’t jesting about the power of the amulets. The complexity of magic required to build an entire intricate backstory in so many minds is enough to send a shiver down my spine.
I pull on Arisha’s spare pants, using a cloth belt to keep them from falling.
She tosses me a stale roll, which I just manage to catch before it drops to the floor. “The instructors think training on an empty stomach teaches our bodies to burn fat instead of muscle and prepares us better for the ‘trials of leadership.’ So this is it until the midmorning meal.”
“How long has, er, Master Coal, been teaching here?” I ask, shoving the roll into a pocket and hopping on one foot to get my boots back on as I follow Arisha out the door.
“Four or five months,” Arisha says over her shoulder. “He came about the same time the deputy headmaster and one of the head medics did. The three of them served together on the far coast. No one in their right mind gets in Master Coal’s or Commander River’s way, but their medic friend is…attractive and kind, which has tripled the sick-call volume.” I notice a faint blush going up Arisha’s cheeks and have to swallow a curse. My males haven’t just arrived—they’ve made an entrance.
“Is the—” I catch myself, tweaking my question before I can reveal more than I wish. “What’s the medic’s name?”
“Shade.” Arisha stumbles as a pair of stunning women in our same drab gray uniforms brush none too gently past her. “And that would be Princess Katita and one of her favored-for-the-day ladies.”
Before I can call Katita and her ilk out, the pair disappears into a sea of uniformed young cadets all flowing from their rooms to the outdoor walkways and steps. The din of conversation and boots clattering on wooden walkways mists the chilled air, my own breath turning to wisps of steam before me. Hurrying after Arisha—who is now explaining something I can’t make myself pay mind to—I keep my gaze moving from face to face. I have to find the males. Quickly. Quietly. Raising no suspicion. Plans order themselves in my mind, solidifying with each step. I’ll see Coal shortly. A feigned injury can take me to Shade. The veil made River a deputy headmaster. Barging into his study might be hard to explain—but hopefully the male will find me. That—
“Leralynn!” Arisha’s warning hits me too late, my distraction having walked me directly into a broad muscular back.
Dressed in the same grays as I, the back’s owner turns slowly, his pine-and-citrus scent filling my nose. Amused emerald eyes look down at me from a height towering over all others, making my breath stop altogether. Thick red hair flips over a perfectly stunning, sharply angled face, one silver earring glinting.
Tye. My chest squeezes, the wave of relief washing over me so strong that I feel light-headed for a moment. I feel my hand close around Tye’s wrist of its own volition. “You are here.”
“Aye, lass,” Tye says, glancing at where I’m still gripping his wrist. “The last I checked, I was in fact here. Are you somewhere else, then?”
Princess Katita and her friend now stop to chuckle, delicate hands covering painted lips.
I little care. Not now that I’ve found Tye. The half a day since I lost sight of the males is the longest we’ve been apart since we mated, and even with the bond itself muted in the mortal realm, the separation has left me breathless. Longing. It is a force of will to stop myself from leaping into Tye’s arms, claiming his mouth before all the watching cadets.
As my eyes brush over Tye hungrily, I find myself unable to focus on his pointed ears and canines no matter how hard I try to look there, as if a great magnetic force repels my gaze. Beneath the loose folds of Tye’s gray uniform, the outline of his lithe muscles are as familiar to me as his scent. As is everything about him—almost everything.
“Might I have my arm back now?” says Tye, something about his voice making my gaze snap up to meet his. And once I do, I understand what’s off. The lively green eyes I know so well sparkle with no sign of recognition.
8
Lera
My attention sweeps to Tye’s neck, the effort required to focus on where the amulet should be enough to make my head spin. When I finally manage to look, I see only the top of the male’s shirt. No string. No wooden carving. Not even an impression of one beneath the cloth.
“Leralynn,” Arisha hisses, pulling my hand off Tye’s arm and tugging me along. “We’re going to be late. Let’s go.”
I stumble, barely managing to stop myself from taking a nosedive down the steps. My gut clenches, the wrongness of Tye’s unrecognizing gaze, his missing amulet, filling me with a new terror. Something happened in that aspen wood, something more ominous than a missed turn and misinterpreted change of course. Something that made the magic go terribly, terribly wrong.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Leralynn,” Tye calls after me, the amusement in his voice echoing off the now nearly empty dormitory walkways. Grabbing the railing, Tye vaults himself over it, jumping smoothly to the courtyard one story below. Lifting his face, he pitches his voice back up toward me. “I’ve other parts you can grab as well, lass, if you are so inclined.”
My skin blazes, the inferno growing with the chortles of the few stragglers around me. Numb horror spreads through my limbs as I follow Arisha into the vast centra
l square. The pale dawn sky overhead washes everything in shades of blue and gray, and it’s a relief when we cross out of shadow into the slowly warming sun.
“You are insane,” Arisha mutters, releasing my arm.
“Do you know who that was?” I ask, my mind sorting through the fog for possible explanations for Tye’s empty eyes and finding none, except that he’d perhaps been acting. Bluffing for the sake of our cover story. Yes—a convincing act. To avoid suspicion. It has to have been.
“Everyone knows Tyelor.” Arisha sighs. “The man is Great Falls Academy’s top athlete, here by special invitation and preparing for the continent’s Prowess Trials. Swordplay, wrestling, acrobatics—you name it, Tyelor rules it. He rules every female’s attention in the place too.”
“Not every female’s,” I say, finally focusing on Arisha’s annoyed expression. “You don’t like him.”
She shrugs. “I’m more keen on people who can work out a defensive strategy than ones who think their ability to wave about a pointy piece of metal—or other parts—is the stars’ gift to humankind.” Arisha’s pace quickens across the square, her shoulders hunching. “If you think you can manage stairs without killing yourself, we should try to walk faster.”
Crossing under a grand stone archway and entering the training yard, which is larger than anything I’ve seen before, I find the place divided into a dozen grass-covered corrals. Inside each enclosure, students go through the motions of swordplay and archery, wrestling and—in the two larger arenas—horsemanship. Instructors’ calls and students’ grunts of effort and pain fill the morning air.
“Look for the colored flags when you come here,” Arisha says, pointing to the large triangular pennants waving beside each area. “The instructors choose what training area they need for the day and mark it with their flag. We are under Coal, who has the blue flag, which is—”
