I knew she responded to me. Had taken note of her attention over the months, but she was just as good as a warrior at hiding her expressions. That was something I needed to remember in future.
When she snapped her fingers in my face, I just blinked at her as she hissed, “Eyes are up here, fairy.”
I didn’t let the insult hit me hard in the ego, just shrugged a shoulder. “Was looking at your eyebrows actually. Wrong direction.”
She reached up and rubbed one of her brows, and I knew she wanted to ask what was wrong with her eyebrows, but pride had her glowering at me instead.
“Whatever,” she said with a sniff, then she cut a look behind me where Daniel and Seph had gathered.
As head of our troupe, they stood behind me in a triangular stance, which was their correct positioning. When our fourth finally deigned to join us—i.e. her—we’d stand in an isosceles trapezium—two of us at the front, two of us at the back, just offset, not directly behind.
Troupe leaders were elected by its members. It wasn’t about Alpha bullshit or anything like that. Just pure democracy—something only the Fae seemed capable of in this realm.
“What’s going on?” she asked uneasily when we just loomed over her. I admired her determination in not taking a step back.
“I want to know why you did that.”
Her brow puckered. “Did what?”
“Purposely injured the instructor.”
Eyes flaring wide, she stammered, “I-I didn’t.”
“You did. You were pleased he was in pain.”
“Unless you’re a sadist,” Dan inserted, ever helpful. “I know a lot of humans are.”
“And Fae aren’t?” she snapped.
“We’re held to different ideals than strollers,” Seph sneered disdainfully.
She huffed. “What kind of ‘different?’ As in, your instructors don’t try to feel you up? Because that’s BS. What kind of ideal is that if you’re okay with him behaving that way?”
“So, that’s what Leopold did,” I mused, twisting around to look at Leopold’s retreating back. Anger flushed through me, surprising me with its strength.
I was controlled in most things, had been raised that way since I was little so it was second nature, thus the snap of temper definitely took me aback.
Gabriella hitched her shoulder. “Not the first time, won’t be the last. For creatures with such lofty morals, you’re all big perverts.”
Irritation flashed through me, but I didn’t argue. If this had happened to her before, then I couldn’t do anything to change it. But I could stop it from happening again.
“You’re in our troupe now. You will inform us if this happens and we will see to it that you’re safe,” I intoned gruffly, the notion that Leopold had taken advantage of his position with her more than pissed me off.
I wanted to ask her how far his assault had gone but wasn’t sure if she’d answer. Though she was good at hiding her expression, she didn’t seem traumatized. If anything, her malicious satisfaction in maiming Leopold spoke of someone who could more than take care of herself—by hook or by crook.
I didn’t need to feel Seph and Dan’s tension to know my words would irritate them. Troupes selected one another as strength flowed to strength. By adding Gabriella to our troupe, we were ignoring our most natural instincts. But she was a hybrid, and she was young. Those kinds of powers required time to develop. She’d make our name for us before we ever could, and the three of us had reasons to want to make a splash with our troupe.
She grunted at my reply, and her lack of gratitude stung. “Did you ever think I didn’t want to be in a damn troupe?”
“Ours or in general?” Seph questioned warily.
“In general. This isn’t my world. I don’t want to be here.”
“Sucks to be you then,” Dan responded drily. “You should have tried to flunk the exams.”
She snorted. “I did try. I failed at failing.”
My eyes widened. “You tried to fail and still got in?” That was some feat.
There were three semesters at Eight Wings Academy. At the end of the second, there was a set of exams that allotted each of the students to a future path.
There were those who were assigned to troupe duty, another who was allocated for instructor duty, another for administrative duty, and finally, those who were hopeless and were tossed out.
That Gabriella wanted to return to her other life didn’t come as a surprise.
She hadn’t exactly been made welcome here. By myself included. Not intentionally, but because I wasn’t here to make friends. I was here to restore the family honor. Seph and Dan were more acquaintances than friends too. I hadn’t discriminated against Gabriella because she was human born. I’d just made a decision to avoid friendships until the time came to form a troupe. Now that I was the leader of one, I could relax my guard some.
Seph and Dan would become like brothers eventually, and Gabriella? Sol, she’d be like a sister at some point… Well, kind of. My attraction for her was anything but sisterly. That might make things awkward at some point, but I wasn’t going to borrow trouble.
“Now I’m stuck at this godforsaken place,” she grumbled, after nodding at my question. “I wanted to go home, and—”
“Now you’re on guard duty,” Seph interjected, but there was no apology in his tone. No commiseration. If anything, there was scorn.
It made sense.
To our kind, there was no greater honor than to serve in a troupe. What she’d just admitted? It was like spitting on everything we held dear.
I cleared my throat and shot Seph a look over my shoulder. He didn’t back down, nor did he wade into the fray—he wasn’t looking for a fight. Seph just wanted to take a stand.
“Just because it’s an honor to you doesn’t mean it is for me. I had to leave my life behind, and I haven’t been able to see my family in months.” She pulled a face. “Not that they want to talk to me all that much anyway.”
I could imagine.
If they knew what we did… it was a wonder they’d allowed her to come here, that they hadn’t spelled her somehow to evade the Academy’s reach.
“What’s done is done,” Seph stated gruffly. “You were allotted to a troupe, which means even when you tried to fail, you still somehow placed in the highest tier.” He grunted. “You’re with us now, and you must make the best of it.”
She sniffed. “Says who?”
“Says us,” Daniel rumbled. “You may not wish to be here, but we do. We consider it a sacred honor—”
“To police the witches?” she scoffed. “Why? They don’t need policing. You just like sticking your nose in things that don’t belong to you.”
I shook my head, amazed by her bite. “You speak of things you don’t understand,” I cautioned. “The Assembly monitors for the Conclave’s good.”
Another sniff, which made me want to ask her if she had some sort of damn cold or something.
“The Conclave doesn’t need the Assembly meddling all the damn time.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. Of course, from her perspective—a perspective that was supposed to be unknown to me—her protection of the witches made sense. But… “You do know that’s foolish talk, correct?” I attempted to reason.
“How is it?” she ground out, eyes flashing. And when I said flashing, I meant it. The dark chocolate orbs glowed a little, and a distinctly pink power seemed to be leaking out around her, giving her a magenta-colored aura, clearly showing how enraged she was where this topic was concerned—I just didn’t understand why her magic was behaving in such a volatile way.
Now that I thought about it, the magic that had seen the book float across the library that day had a distinct pink tinge to it. That was how I recognized what was happening now. I’d never seen magic like this before. Witches didn’t leak power. Nor was it colored.
I raised my hands in surrender. The fact was, I wished to press the matter further, but that her control was rupture
d to the point she was leaking magic? The last thing I, or my troupe, needed was for anyone to discern the truth of what she was.
Not yet, at any rate.
Not before we could make magic together.
If the Assembly recognized the verity of her heritage? She’d be whirled out of here faster than I could take off.
“There’s no need for us to raise our voices,” I crooned instead, using my own powers to soothe.
I watched as her feathers ceased their rustling, her wings stopped shifting with her irritation, and she lowered her arms to her sides—fists open and no longer balled.
That had worked far easier than anticipated.
In fact, too easily.
What the Sol was that about?
Her jaw tensed a second before she muttered, “What are we even doing out here? Can’t we go in now Leopold’s gone?”
“He’ll be back,” Daniel said. “He only went to the infirmary.”
“He won’t be back when they realize how deep I sent that sword. The boot compacted the wound.” She grinned at us, baring her teeth in the process. “It will require deep healing once he takes it off.”
I shook my head—both at her bloodthirsty satisfaction and her earlier question. “We need to practice still.” I said ‘we’ when I meant ‘her.’ Her flying was atrocious, and her strength, though far better than it had been back in the early days—most of us remembered her exploits. She had been a source of amusement to most students at the time—wasn’t nearly good enough for the upcoming semester.
She gritted her teeth. “I’ve been flying for twenty minutes straight with that stupid sword. More than that, I’ve had Leopold groping me in a misguided attempt to improve my form. I need a break.”
With that, she raised her nose and retreated to the edge of the field where the bench we’d been seated on, watching her practice, rested. She flung herself down onto it without another word and picked up her cell phone from a pocket in the jacket she’d dumped there earlier.
“She’s tired so soon?” Daniel queried. “Or is she just trying to get out of more practice?”
Seph hummed. “I think she’ll be tired. Toward the end of the semester, they didn’t force her to work out much in the sky. It was clear she was going to fail.”
I snorted. “Something went wrong then.”
“Apparently.” He stared at her. “She’s irritating, isn’t she?”
“Surprisingly,” Daniel agreed. “I’ve barely spoken to her in all the time we’ve been here, and yet, I didn’t picture her being this annoying.”
My lips twitched. “You heard her yourself. She doesn’t want to be here, thought she’d be escaping soon. Can you blame her for being unhappy?”
Sol, unhappy was an understatement. I could sense her misery from over here, and I had to figure that what I’d just seen with her magic was tied up with her sorrow.
“You’re being remarkably patient,” Daniel remarked, folding his arms across his chest as he did so.
We didn’t know each other well, but over the past two semesters, we’d teamed up several times in group exercises. We knew how the other worked, and that was how I’d selected them for my troupe. Seph, Dan, and I had an affinity for fighting, shared the same goals—to be better than anyone else in our families—and had similar attitudes to work. We were going to make a great team, even if we couldn’t get the weakest link up to scratch.
“I’m not a monster.” I rubbed my chin. “We need to court her, guys. Remember that. She needs to admit the truth to us. We can’t force it out of her, and she’s hidden her past for this long, she might think she can hide it forever. That suits none of our purposes.”
“True,” Seph said with a grunt.
“Come on,” I chivvied, deciding to switch train of thoughts. Gabriella was already taking up way too much of my time. “Just because she wants a break doesn’t mean we do. We’ve wasted enough time watching her form.”
This was our first private lesson as a troupe with an instructor guiding us in advanced techniques. Thus far, most of it had been a bust as Leopold spent it trying to bring her up to par.
“What form?” Daniel mumbled.
Seph smacked him in the shoulder. “Don’t be a dick.”
“Takes one to know one,” Dan joked, shoving him back.
“Less fighting down here and more up there,” I retorted, pointing up at the sky. “Let’s get this shit on the road.”
And with a flutter of wings, and a dash of magic, our swords were in our hands and we were in the sky—where we were born to be.
❖
Daniel
With Gabriella and Matthew watching on, and Leopold still not having returned to monitor us, I thrust the sword into Seph’s belly and grinned at him. He grunted in pain, then clasped his hands to his abdomen. The blood that poured liberally from the wound I’d caused spilled over his palms, staining his fingers a royal blue.
When he glowered at me, my grin widened. “Should have been concentrating,” I chided him, as I let my wings flutter to the ground.
Seph staggered as he dropped, only just catching himself at the last moment from tipping face forward into an epic face-plant. Instead, he saved himself but fell to his knees anyway.
After Leopold had left, a medic had shown up ten minutes later to ensure we didn’t injure ourselves—like we were five-year-olds or something, I thought irritably.
“Indeed you should,” Medic Angelique reprimanded, as she scurried our way, ducked to her knees, and pressed a hand to Seph’s stomach.
Within seconds, he was straightening up, but his skin was still pale. A healthy Fae? Our skin gleamed with a hint of gold. It tinged our eyelashes, and even the ends of our hair had a sheen of gold to it. When we were unhealthy? We turned silver.
Never a good sign.
That Seph was tinged silver made me even prouder I’d caught him off guard. Seph came from a warrior line, one that had spawned famous troupes with war stories that inspired all ages. Even before he’d stepped foot on Academy soil, he’d been highly trained in the art of war, and little old me?
I’d just stabbed him clean through the belly.
A hand slapped my shoulder, and I almost flew forward a few feet before I managed to catch myself. “Good parry, Dan,” Matt congratulated me.
Seph flipped him the bird as he leaned over, propped his hands on his knees, and tried to get his bearings.
“Thanks, Matt,” I told him brightly. “Appreciate that.”
“You did the work,” he replied with a snort. “But I think you put Seph out of the game for a few hours.”
Another bird was flipped his way.
“You tired or fancy another round?”
Though it wasn’t meant as an honor, just an offer to train further, inside I was doing frigging somersaults.
I didn’t give a fuck what people said about Matthew and his family. Every line spawned bad eggs from time to time, and I didn’t see why they should all be condemned for one whacky uncle. But Matt was good people, and he was going to be one of the best soldiers the Academy had seen in a long while.
That he’d picked me for his troupe?
Yeah, it still bewildered me.
I was a nobody. A nothing. I came from a family of administrative nonentities and somehow had made the grade to fight in a troupe.
It was a dream come true. Something I’d never dared hope for. But that dream? I was living it.
And Matthew vil der Soe wanted to parry with me.
When had this massive turnabout happened?
Luck was pouring my way from all corners, and with glee, I spelled my sword to be clean once more, and took up the stance.
Matt took Seph’s place after he shuffled off the courtyard, and with his sword in hand, he called out, “On the count of one, two, three!”
Surging into the air, we both met in the middle of the arena, about twenty feet above the ground. Our swords clashed as we lunged at one another, making us stagger from the for
ce of the move, and our wings beat furiously to stop ourselves from retreating across the court.
Matt’s injured wing made itself more pronounced when I recovered faster, dove forward, and thrust my saber toward him. He connected with it over both our heads, then used the force of his right hand to urge both swords down to meet below our waist. In a lightning fast move, he released the pressure of holding the position, then jabbed at me, surging forward in a succession of attacks where, not once, did he withdraw his arm.
I was forced to retreat, saved only from his attack when he slashed at my shirt and flung himself back across the arena—damaged wing be damned.
Fucker.
He was either playing us where that was concerned, or the pain came in fits and starts.
With a grunt, I eyed my tunic. Had this been a real assault, I’d undoubtedly have suffered a gut wound like Joseph had.
With a roar, I spun in the air, sword overhead, and swooped at him. We clashed, and I moved into the rotation like we were dancing. It was a dangerous move because I exposed my wings to him, but I used the danger for my gain—feinting left and then right in such close quarters, before slashing at his thigh as I released my saber then dropped ten feet below him to escape his attack.
Blood instantly dripped down from his wound now I was beneath him, coating my wings, but I surged upward, then stabbed my saber straight at him. With three slashing moves, I forced him to dance for me, his wings fluttering as he dove back in a retreat, before he raised his arm and held my jab from over his shoulder.
We moved in a circle, our swords connected once more, before sliding down into a twist that saw him releasing the tension to jab at my chest. I used his aim to clash my saber with his, gliding the edge against the other, making the metal sing, before parrying forward and slamming my sword into his belly.
When he hissed, his stance forgotten, I knew I’d hit him well.
“Use that move enough,” Seph called up his warning, “and we’ll know to watch for it.”
The Ascended: The Eight Wings Collection Page 7