“I have a feeling that you’ll find something. Otherwise, I’ll be sitting on that throne until you’re an old man.”
He smiled then, as if this were all some great joke. As if a directive to love a human was something to scoff at and joke about. Then, he turned grave once more.
“Son, this is a different world now, one where we can no longer pretend that we’re the most powerful beings in the universe. If you are going to rule Velkin, you’ll need to know how to work with your enemies, or even how to turn an enemy into an ally.”
I didn’t trust them. I’d meant what I said about humans being destroyers. And I had the strong suspicion that one of them coming here would be a saboteur in our midst, stealing our secrets and relaying them back to Earth for a possible invasion. My father may have been content to sit back and let their spies roam free around our kingdom, but I was not. I would fight to the death if it meant protecting the people of Velkin.
“There’s always the alternative,” I said, easily as discussing the weather.
“And what’s that?”
“Killing them all.”
The words hadn’t even completely left my mouth when the cold grip of my father’s magic wrapped around my neck, tight enough that I could feel the pinpricks of pain but loose enough that I knew he wouldn’t really hurt me. It certainly got my attention.
“If I ever hear you speak that way again, it will be the end of you.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. One I didn’t intend to let him keep. Once he’d delivered it, he released me. I breathed easily again, but only for a brief moment before he smiled, patted me on the back, and waved for the stewards down below to open the Grand Entrance Hall’s doors.
“Come. Let’s greet your new classmates.”
From our place high over the hall, we had the perfect vantage point from which to watch the infection of humans begin. With their Velkin guides, a group of students who had mostly been roped into magicking the earthlings between worlds, the humans made their way to the bottom of the staircase, where they were corralled with their belongings so my father could make his speech. I felt their eyes on me—some curious, some hungry, some overcome with just how beautiful we all were—but I kept my gaze focused entirely on the great clock at the south end of the hall, just behind all of their heads. I wouldn’t dignify any of them with my attention.
The blowing of Feril-wood trumpets signaled the beginning of the festivities, and the humans dipped into awkward bows and curtsies, as their guides had no doubt instructed them. It all would have been quite funny, their misbalanced attempts at fitting in, if it hadn’t also been proof that I was right. They didn’t belong in Velkin. None of them. My father’s booming voice filled the hall, and warmth danced in his tone. I fought back a wave of sick that threatened to overtake me.
“Welcome, humans of Earth. I am King Meadas, ruler of all Velkin. This is the Royal Academy, our most treasured and storied of institutions. A place of learning, a place of growth, a place where the disparate races of our world—satyr, elf, fairy, pixie, witch, and all the rest—come together as one. We now, with open arms, welcome you all to join that great tradition of unity, and I look forward to knowing that each and everyone one of you has become part of the bridge between our two worlds.”
There was a scattering of light applause from the gallery below, one I did not join. I did, however, scan the crowd now that their attention was firmly on my father. The humans looked a combination of terrified and overwhelmed, and it played out across their pathetic faces.
Good. They were right to be afraid. The minute I was in charge of this place, they’d all know real fear. My father wanted me to play the game and be nice to them? Fine. I could bide my time for now. But I would spend every one of my waking moments working to uncover whatever their true purpose for accepting this offer was, and once I’d revealed the plot, Father would have to agree with me that total war was for the best. I waited for him to give the rest of the prepared speech, the one I’d been banned from helping to write, but instead, he placed a hand on my shoulder and drew me in close.
My father wasn’t the kind of man who veered from a plan. Preparation was one of the keys to success, he always told me. Any time he ever changed course at the last minute usually meant disaster for me.
“Before I release you to meet with your Velkin guides and take your tours of the castle, I first wanted to announce another initiative that my son has recently decided to undertake.”
“What are you doing?” I hissed, turning away from the crowd to speak with him in confidence.
“Making sure that you’ll be a good king one day. To all of the peoples of this universe.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit. My dread only grew with every word he spoke after that.
“My wife, Queen Freia and I met here at school nearly three hundred years ago. And in the spirit of unity between the people of Earth and the people of Velkin, my son has agreed that at this year’s end, he will select one of you as his bride. Son, would you like to say a few words?”
A million emotions warred within me, but there was one that rose above all the rest: rage. I had always known that I would marry for political purposes. I had always known that my life wasn’t entirely my own, that I would give it for the wellbeing and good fortune of my people. It was because of that, and not in spite of that, that my father’s words filled me with unbridled, bruising, blinding anger.
Marrying a human? I would rather die.
The eyes of two worlds rested upon me, waiting for me to say something, anything, that would give the humans any reason to believe that I was the foolish man that my father was. But I was no fool. And I wouldn’t give them any comfort that they didn’t deserve. I glanced at the gallery below, really taking in the individual faces of The Twenty, the students who had been selected by some kind of magical process devised by my mother to attend The Royal Academy. Their faces were like everything else about them: completely and totally unremarkable. They stared up at me with dropped jaws and nervous eyes.
All except one. A girl in the back, standing next to Kyra the pixie, stared up at me as though I were a puzzle piece she’d yet to place on the board, like a thing to be understood. She looked average for a human in just about every way—long, brown hair tied back in what they called a ponied-tail, soft, warm features knotted up in a piercing gaze, hazel eyes waiting for my next move. Completely ordinary, and yet, I found that I couldn’t look away. There was something about her, something that drew me in and held me without her even trying.
I would not be drawn in. Not by a human.
“Son?” My father shot me a pointed glance, and it was enough to knock me out of the girl’s spell. Without another word, I turned on my heel and left the room, and the humans, behind.
But no matter how many times I told myself that I wasn’t fleeing the human girl who’d caught my eye, that I was making a tactical exit designed to intimidate them all, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was lying to myself.
Chapter Three
Carolyn
They’d told me that there would be some side-effects from the magical travel. Dizziness. General discomfort. Equilibrium-tipping and vomiting. Apparently, in the worst cases, some humans even developed mild cases of blood poisoning that infected them with all sorts of weird, but temporary, magical powers, like the ability to make ducks talk.
Traveling alongside Kyra hadn’t gotten me the ability to converse with waterfowl (at least, not yet), but I was definitely feeling some discomfort. The only problem was that I wasn’t sure my symptoms were from the magical, inter-universe travel or from the way that the prince of Velkin stared at me. I didn’t exactly have a ton of experience where guys were concerned, but even I knew what eye-sex looked like, and he’d been basically nailing me to the back wall of the castle with his ice-blue stare.
It was so strange. At first, there was nothing but rage in those frozen depths, but then, when I refused to flinch from
him, he melted into something that I was sure looked like want.
No one else seemed to notice. The moment flashed between us like a lightning strike, then disappeared forever, living on only in my memory as he coldly walked away from the balcony edge and stormed out of the chamber entirely. It may have lasted only a fraction of a second, a blink of an eye to the time of an immortal like him, but to me…the moment echoed around in my body, shaking me to my very core. What was that? And why, out of the stunning and perfect creatures in this room, ethereal and mortal alike, had he singled me out?
After he stormed out, the King tried to recover the mood in the room, but even in the face of the ruler of the entire land of Velkin, people couldn’t resist the urge to gossip. Even Kyra’s sweet, porcelain doll face contorted in concern.
“Oh, dear,” she muttered, twisting her perfectly manicured hands. I’d already spotted Kyra as someone who seemed absolutely dead-set on being the bubbly embodiment of every stereotype associated with blondes and pixies, so every time even a sliver of a shadow crossed her dainty features, a new washing wave of nerves infested my stomach.
“What is it?” I asked, lowering my voice to a whisper, unlike the rest of the humans who spoke at full, annoying volume.
“Prince Anatole doesn’t like humans. Not at all. I can’t imagine what his father must have done to convince him to take one of you as a wife.”
My memory flashed with that moment we shared. He hadn’t seemed to hate me in that moment, but hey. What did I know? I was just a stupid human. Besides, I’d probably just imagined the whole thing. A sudden romantic delusion of grandeur brought on by the traveling between universes thing, just another side effect that they hadn’t listed in our welcome packets. “Maybe he wasn’t convinced. Maybe he didn’t know his father was going to make that announcement. It’s easier to back someone into a corner after something like that goes public.”
“Maybe. In any case, it might be safer if you stick close to me, alright?”
Kyra offered me her arm, like we were about to loop elbows and go skipping down the yellow brick road. Like most of the intricacies of this magic stuff, I didn’t quite understand what the big deal was. He could hate humans all he wanted; that didn’t mean he would hurt one…right? A seed of doubt blossomed in my mind and I took Kyra’s arm, just to be safe. “Sure. But…why? It’s not like Anatole’s going to kill me. Or anyone for that matter. It would be a bad look for a prince to kill one of the human students they promised to welcome.”
Just at that moment, King Meadas called for everyone’s attention and finished the rest of his speech about unity and togetherness and peace and…stuff. There was definitely more to it than flowery language about our responsibilities to our peoples, but he lost me after the first or second sentence. I was too busy thinking about the prince—Anatole—and what kind of danger I was in being near him. I’d certainly felt afraid when our eyes met, and the strong muscles and contours of his body promised that he could be a terrifying force to go up against. I would rather be on his side of a war than against him, anyway. But I just couldn’t imagine him jeopardising the peace between the magical folk and the humans. Not after the way his stare had melted into something much more carnal and yearning once our eyes had met. The spell of these thoughts lasted until we were dismissed and Kyra dipped her head to address me once again. Her flouncy sleeved-arm clutched onto mine for dear life, as though I was the one protecting her instead of the other way around.
“Anatole wouldn’t kill you. He couldn’t risk the political incident that would cause. His pack of…Oh, what’s that word? For girls who are obsessed with something to the point of derangement?”
“…Fangirls?”
“Yes, Anatole wouldn’t kill you, but all of the fan-girls who were convinced he’d pick them as the next queen might just do it.”
I resented the idea that fairies and magic folk thought that fangirls were deranged—I, for one, was a proud fangirl of a lot of stuff—but then Kyra subtly nodded across the marble chamber from us, where a gaggle of what looked like elven supermodels were staring down the assembled humans as if they were planning for war…or planning to skip the war altogether and just murder us so the prince wouldn’t have any choice but to marry one of them. There was something so chilling about such inhumanly beautiful creatures contorting their faces into ugly masks of hatred. I clung to Kyra and shivered.
“Yeah. I think I’ll definitely stick close to you until this whole thing blows over.”
But even as I said that, the eyes of the impossibly tall redhead, the leader of the little pack of elven beauties, settled her intense hatred directly upon my shoulders. I wanted to call out to her, to tell her I wasn’t a threat. I didn’t want their stupid prince anyway. All I wanted to do was survive this year and find some unassuming, warm college where I could find and build a life of my own; I had no interest in a human-hating prince or in becoming someone’s queen someday.
Unfortunately, she didn’t seem like the kind of person who would listen to reason. She seemed more like the kind of girl who would bite and pull hair in a fistfight over some stupid guy, so I kept my mouth shut.
…I could hope that the whole thing would eventually blow over all I wanted. But one look in her direction and I knew the truth. Until the prince settled his attentions on someone that wasn’t me, stares from the pretty elf posse were going to be my new normal.
I’d never before, in my entire life, wanted a hot guy to pick someone else over me. But if it meant that I’d never have to endure the fire-shooting stare of the demonic supermodels of Velkin again, then so be it.
✽✽✽
As the duos of human and Velkin split apart and went their separate ways, Kyra led me away from the Grand Entrance Hall or whatever she’d called it through the body of the castle. With every step I took, I couldn’t believe that it was actually a school. To my eyes, it looked more like an illustration right out of a classic Disney princess film instead. As we walked, Kyra prattled on and on about the history of the school and gave me directions to everything from something called a venderology hot house to an astronomy observatory. The tour was a sweet gesture. The warmth of her voice combined with the sweet way she held close to me as we made our way up the winding staircases and past rows of supposedly enchanted armor made me feel less like a damsel trapped in an old storybook. But guilt nestled inside of me as I realized that, for all of her hard work, I wasn’t going to remember a damn word of what she’d said. I was in a magical castle, after all. No matter how great the tour was, I was always going to get distracted by ceilings magicked so the constellations painted up there danced with each other and tiny dragon statues that breathed out smoke as we passed under the awnings they were guarding.
Eventually, our wandering took us to a spindly little tower that grew out of the main Eastern tower. A great wooden door awaited us, its carved face depicting a lush dance scene where elves and satyrs and fairies and all kinds of fantasy creatures were locked in a gorgeous evening revel. Kyra withdrew a long, brass key from her dress pocket, slipped it into the lock, and opened it, revealing…
…Easily the most beautiful bedroom I’d ever seen. It wasn’t big by any stretch of the imagination, but it was cosy, and…well, as someone who’d spent most of her life crashing on her own living room couch because her mother couldn’t be bothered to get her a bed or a room of her own…the sight of a bedroom—my own bedroom!—shot through me like an arrow straight to the heart. A lush four-poster bed done in rich reds and golds was pushed against the room’s far wall, and every bit of spare room that wasn’t covered in windows was covered in book cases—empty bookcases, ready for me to fill.
It was like someone had ripped my dream bedroom out of my head and planted it in this castle. Tears welled in my eyes. My breath caught. Kyra noticed, and rushed to my side, words flooding out of her in a blustering rush.
“I’m sorry about the room. Do you not like it? It’s the worst room in the castle. Everyone says so.
That’s why they put me up here. No one really likes me. They think I’m…odd.” Her hands flew to her face, covering it as she sniffled. “You don’t deserve to be stuck here, too. Oh, why did they give the best human to the worst student in the school?”
I couldn’t imagine that anyone didn’t like Kyra. Sure, she was a little bit…much. Like that super-sugary pink bubble gum you eat as a kid, she was an absolute delight and also kind of a headache with her sweetness. But how could anyone prefer the ice-cold bitchiness of the supermodel elf clique to someone as genuine and good as Kyra?
And the room…the room was perfect. I wasn’t crying because something was wrong with it. I was crying because everything was so right about it. Including my new roommate.
“I love the room.” Tentatively, a placed a hand on her shoulder. I wasn’t so good with physical contact, but hey. This was a day of firsts for everyone, wasn’t it? Might as well go for broke where stretching my comfort zone is concerned. “And I am so glad that I got you as my roommate. And my friend.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
I was surprised to find that the words were true. I hadn’t really… It’s just that friends had never been my specialty. Because of the situation with my mom, friends were a liability at best and a direct threat at worst. But now, here, away from Earth and everything that had held me down back there, I could finally at least try to be free.
And that started with a friend. Kyra. Kyra who sniffled and wiped tears off of her porcelain cheeks and presented the room with her usual flair despite the fact that we’d both been on the verge of turning into crying messes just a minute ago.
“Anyway, here we are. As you humans say, house sweet house.”
“I think you mean home sweet home.”
Musing over the new expression, she led me through another, less intricate wooden door, which led to a marble bathtub straight out of a high-fashion magazine. A claw-foot bathtub deep enough to swim in rested beneath an ovular window, while twin sinks and a vanity laden with every beauty product and devices imaginable. Woah. No wonder Kyra was so beautiful. If this bathroom was anything to go on, she was practically a one-woman Sephora beauty counter.
Magic Exchange: A Supernatural Academy Romance (The Velkin Royal Academy Series Book 1) Page 2