Rogue Royalty

by Rebecca Ethington

  I was already trying to devise a plan on getting all the leftovers I had stored out of here and back home on the weekends. Perhaps I could even track down the kitchens and figure out what they did with what was left on the tables. So much food, gone to waste.

  I popped another cube of the delectable watermelon in my mouth, peeking behind my pink curls to the boy who sat three tables over, Sia Demarco slung around him like a scarf.

  "Maybe he's obsessed with the idea of wearing women as clothing and has confused me with a mink coat."

  Eddy spit out the orange juice he had been drinking, spraying the vibrant color over the Undermortals on the other side of the table from us. They all laughed and threw tiny bits of food at him. No one dared spare more than that.

  Kara and Geo were two Undermortals from my community back home. I didn't think anyone else had made it here, but seeing those two on Monday morning was like some kind of serendipity. It was going to make it a helluva lot easier to organize everyone with more than Eddy and me on our side.

  "Don't waste the goods, Ed!" Kara shrieked, throwing a mostly eaten bit of celery at him.

  "Well, if Gem would stop talking about skinning people--"

  "Skinning people!" I shrieked a mouthful of watermelon dripping over my chin. "Who said anything about skinning people?"

  They all looked at me, smiles tugging at the lips as they tried to hold in laughs.

  "At least we aren’t eating them. God, Gem, you look horrifying." Eddy smiled, the others’ laughter breaking into a shriek as he wiped the red juice from my chin with a napkin so white it was nearly blinding.

  "I didn't know it was so juicy!" Everyone was laughing again, including me, including Rowan who was once again staring at me from the other side of the hall.

  The laughter faded immediately.

  "Geeze, what is it with this guy?" I snarled, leaning down enough that Geo's back would hide me from view. I had clearly gone overboard with teasing the guy. I mean, ya, it was fun, because he was clearly scared of me and was always shaking when I came too close, but this look was different. Deeper.

  Like something had changed.

  I restrained the sudden need to throw a fireball at his head.

  "Stop looking like such a beautiful pink coat, Gem," Eddy teased, ruffling my hair. I batted him away, giving him a warning zap that didn't have nearly enough of an effect thanks to Mira’s handiwork.

  "Mink, Ed. Mink coat."

  "I know." He winked and I pushed him away with the palm of my hand, stealing another piece of fruit before going back to doodling monsters on the paper I had found in my bag. I had never drawn before; it was kind of fun.

  An eye, a beard, a million features that I had either seen or imagined when I stared down the dark tunnel as a child. Or when I wandered down the cold stone tunnels where we had found the Vilỳ that had bitten me in hopes of asking the creature to kill me. To show me where the Tarn armies had taken my parents.

  I cringed and scribbled out the monster I had been drawing, stealing a bland piece of bread instead of the fruit that time.

  I only got one bite in before the bell rang, announcing the end of lunch, and the return to the monotony that was school.

  "Is everything in place for tomorrow?" I asked as we all shoved papers, books, and food into our respective bags.

  "Everyone I've talked to is all in," Kara said, putting a second apple in her satchel before throwing it over her shoulder.

  "Me too." Geo gave a nod.

  "Perfect. Keep them in your room until Ed and I come for you." They all nodded, faces grim, smiles pulled into a straight line as the joy of a minute ago was drowned by our real purpose for being here.

  "Yes, ma'am," Kara and Geo said together, knocking their heels as Adrian had trained them all to do nearly a year ago.

  "Great!" I said brightly, raising my voice as a few Goldens moved closer. "Have so much fun guys! I'm so excited to go visit him this weekend."

  The two didn't even flinch, they just beamed, nodded and turned away, prattling about their next class as though I had released them from some spell.

  "Stay in their rooms?" Eddy hissed in my ear as the two ducked out the door, us following not far behind. "Are we conducting espionage now?"

  "Weren't we always?" I gave him a smile and took another bite of my bread, wishing I hadn't forsaken the fruit for this bland monstrosity. "Besides, we have to stay one step ahead of someone who can stay three steps ahead of us. I only know one way to do that."

  "Like a rat trap, draw them away and then gorge on their flesh."

  "Ed. That sounds so much worse than me skinning goldens." I meant it as a joke, but two of the glittering brats had overheard, the poor dears yelping and scuttling away before I could say anything. "How bad do you think it will be if word gets out that I am a cannibal?"

  Eddy laughed, "See you in Defense class, Gem." He waved behind him as he turned down his own hall, leaving me to trudge toward Professor Georgio Gregario’s mind-numbing lecture on basic spells.

  Students whipped past me. Blazers and god-awful plaid skirts turning into a blur as everyone tried to make it to class on time. I, however, slowed my pace, taking bite after bite of my bread as I continued my trek of drudgery. I had no plans to ever be to one of my classes on time, seeing the appalled look on the teacher’s face when I blasted my way in ten minutes after the bell was probably never going to get old.

  Bread may not be as sweet as fruit, but this fluffy warm stuff they served us was definitely growing on me, maybe next time I would slather some of the yellow butter on it.

  I walked into my Basic Skills class after Professor Gregario had already given his daily intro and sighed an exaggerated apology that sent all of my people at the back tittering.

  “I didn’t mean to be late,” I muttered as I approached the seat Sia had chosen for herself, the girl’s green eyes narrowed at me as she flipped her hair behind her. “That prince dude stopped me in the hall and I lost track of time.”

  This class happened to be the only class I had without Rowan; the boy locked away with the headmaster on something called ‘royal dispatch’. It was unfortunate, or would have been if this wasn’t one of the only classes I had with Sia.

  All I had to do was mention the word prince and she was sent into a sighing, humphing, hair flipping disaster.

  “Find your seat,” Professor Gregario snapped behind me. I picked up my pace, giving Sia a smile as I sunk into my seat. The girl snapped to face forward as though I had slapped her.

  “Please take out your books and turn to page two hundred and two,” Gregario went on, ignoring Sia’s latent sighs, “there you will find instructions for four spells. One for each branch of magic. Skȓítek, Trpaslík, Vilỳ, and Drak. We will be working towards the attempt and hopeful completion of these spells for the next nine months…”

  “Nine months?” One of the Undermortals to my left shrieked, cutting the old man off and earning himself a glare.

  As if anyone needed a reminder of how long we were to be locked in this endless prison.

  “Yes, these four spells are some of the most important you will learn while in my class. At the end of your second year you will be tested on these four spells. The one which you can perform with the greatest proficiency will be your focus for the remainder of your time at Imdalind Academy.”

  Everyone started buzzing then, Professor Gregario turning and scratching the names of magic into the board as people pointed out the different spells and chattered about which they wanted to be most aligned with. Weirdos, the lot of them.

  I leaned back in my chair, threw my feet on my desk and tried to ignore the list of magic and spells that would be tested. I wanted to blow things up, not ‘fire a ward through a true shield’ whatever that was.

  “In order to be placed as a Skȓíteks,” Gregario went on, chalk squeaking obnoxiously against the board. “You will need to be versed in shields and defenses, which is why a completed shield and a ward is listed as the
skill.”

  He turned around then, eyes glazing over the class before he smiled, the man looking crazed before I felt his magic buzz and he vanished from sight. My feet fell off the desk, eyes wide as I stared at the place he had been. I couldn’t even feel the gentle buzz of his magic from before. It was as though he had vanished.

  “What the fuck?” The girl next to me shrieked, everyone around me gasping in awe. The Goldens in front of us, however, looked about as bored as if they had been all knocked unconscious, one even yawned.

  Blubbering, I tried to keep my shock contained but totally failed when a blast of light ripped from the back of the class, slamming against the blackboard in a million sparks.

  I might have shrieked, not that anyone noticed. Everyone else yelled too. A few Goldens even jumped at the impact, everyone shrieking when Professor Gregario reemerged with little more than a pop. The guy standing right on top of the desk to my left. He was lucky I didn’t attack him.

  I had never seen anything like that.

  “All branches of magic can perform shields, but it is the usage of shields in relation to the attack that Skȓíteks do exceptionally well.”

  “Remind me never to get in a fight with them,” I said, a few people nodding in agreement. “Well, until I learn to do it better.”

  The laughter died down, Gregario fuming as he tapped his toe, the action enough to regain control of the class.

  “Trpaslíks,” he continued, back to scratching chalk against the blackboard. “Can manipulate rock, and in some rare cases fire. They are the builders and their destructive power can be quite intense.”

  Gregario smiled, flicking his finger as a giant rock on the table under the window cracked into two solid pieces.

  “The spell is much more impressive when done by a true Trpaslík, trust me.” He gained a few snickers from the Goldens, as if they knew what he was talking about, but I couldn’t look away from the stone, from the perfect line that ran right down the middle. Just like Wynifred’s attack when Adrian had tried to attack her in Last Pyre.

  A perfectly managed explosion, hardly any damage. Yet Adrian had been thrown across the massive cave and into a wall. There had even been fire. Much more impressive, and a tad bit freaky. I shifted in my seat. Starting to realize where this was going.

  “The Vilỳ are traditionally peacemakers. Not many possess these powers despite all of you bearing the bite of the tiny creature.” Gregorio wasn’t writing on the board anymore, he extended his hand, palm down over the desk as a wind ran through the room, the invisible force lifting and spinning different items in turn. “The power of wind, of water. All of you will possess this in its lowest form, but to possess the power of a Vilỳ, is to fly.”

  “Dude. If Vilỳ’s are the ones that get to fly, count me in,” one of the Undermortals said, even earning themselves a few nods from the Goldens.

  “I can guarantee you, it is a skill that many are jealous of,” Gregario said with a smile. Clearly, he had hoped for that skill once upon a time as well. Guess we weren’t getting a demonstration. “Years ago, the skill of flight was possessed by all magic wielders, before the mad king brutalized the poor things and all pure Vilỳ’s were removed from our world. Without the bite from a true Vilỳ, or being born with the pure magic of a Trpaslík or Skȓítek, flight is now only available to those blessed with the magic of a Vilỳ in their bite.”

  Everyone looked disappointed, the sighs and longing in their faces clear.

  I was struggling to stay in my chair.

  This douche canoe was lying between the gleaming white teeth of his smile.

  The true Vilỳ’s, the ones that weren’t turned into snarling brown monsters by the mad king weren’t removed from this world. There was one left.

  Rinax.

  He had bitten Eddy less than three weeks ago.

  My spine straightened as a pain radiated through my chest, iron barbs spreading through my chest from where Mira had put the Štít.

  “Ouch,” I hissed, slamming a fist into my chest like she had when she placed the thing, right after she explained how we could never tell anyone exactly which Vilỳ had been the one to give Eddy his mark.

  Okay, okay. Point taken.

  “The Drak,” Gregario said, everyone shifting forward, eagerness dripping from eyes and tongues as the air grew heavier. “Drak’s are the rarest of them all, as you know there is only one living Drak. Only five that can perform the Stutter that is used to test for the power. All of which are in the royal family.”

  Smiles and whispers rumbled through the room, the sound echoing in my head as the Queen’s words buzzed against my skull. I could have sworn I felt that same dark pressure of the Queen’s magic seeping in from under the door.

  “I know you are hopeful of testing correctly in this skill, but in my seventy years of teaching, not one student has mastered the stutter required.”

  “A stutter?” someone cut in, this time a Golden. Oddly, they looked as confused as we did.

  “Yes, the movement between time and space. Imagine being in Imdalind Academy one moment, and then back at home the next, with nothing more than a thought. That is the power of a stutter. That is the power of the Drak.”

  Everyone was back to whispering, but I was rigid in my chair, staring straight forward, even as my mind was pulling me right back to the room after the Gauntlet. Right to the hollow voice of the Queen.

  “Come now, Professor,” Sia said from the middle of the room, the shrill tone of her voice pulling me away from the memory. “That is not the only power of the Drak. They also possess sight.”

  “Ah yes,” Gregario mused, turning back to his board and scraping the chalk over the surface, drawing what looked like a bumpy mug on the surface.

  “Draks’ power comes from the Black Water which they can conjure from a single mug, formed from the mud around the pools they use to harness their power. They can see into the future, and into the past with this water. Some say that to touch the water gives the Drak access to your soul, to everything that lies before you.” I nearly jumped, my heart was pounding on the outside of my body with how loud it was pulsing, with how much it was banging against my bones. “Black Water is the source of all magic. Some say the scar on the King’s hand comes from the powerful stuff, and that it is that water in his veins that has made his power so much stronger than his brother’s.”

  “In his veins? You mean it’s still there? It never goes away?” I asked without thinking, my fist clenched into a tight little ball.

  “Well, no one knows for sure. This is all rumor, of course, no one outside of the royal family has seen the Queen give sight in over a century. No one has even seen Black Water in as long. Both the queen and the source of her power is as secretive as it is dangerous.”

  A buzz of noise exploded around me, the hive of questions blending with the hollow echo of the Queen’s sight, with the images of me in the water she had held in her palm, or the burn that now graced my finger, right where I had touched the water.

  Where that water, that super-powered magic water had burned me.

  This time I didn’t need the radiating pain over my chest to remind me to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t want word of that getting out. Because I didn’t want anyone else to know what I had seen.

  What I had done.

  And what I was going to do.

  4

  Sia

  “I swear, if I see Gemma sidle up to Rowan between classes one more time with that ass hanging out of her tiny jeans, I am going to lose it.” My snarl ripped through the small sitting room of my dorm, but Miko and Tasha didn’t even look up from where they sat in the overstuffed armchairs, tapping and giggling at their phones, elbowing each other as they shared who knows what.

  “Hello? I said Gemma is a whore and I’m going to rip her heart out.” I stared at them, waiting. Still nothing. “Look at me when I am talking to you!”

  I slapped the palm of my hand against the coffee table, the impact sloshin
g the amber liquid that Miko had brought out of the glass tumblers, leaving it to spread over the mahogany surface in slow snaking lines. The two jumped, dropping their phones to their laps as they glared at me.

  “Holy hell, Sia,” Miko rumbled with that low tenor of his. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “You aren’t listening to me,” I snarled grabbing one of the overfilled glasses and letting the liquid burn my throat as I chugged it. “I’m talking to you about something important.”

  “Which important thing is it now, Sia?” Tasha asked with a sigh, already going back to her phone. “Is it that the Drain girl looked at Rowan? That she talked to Rowan? That Rowan talked to her? That Rowan didn’t kiss you fifty times today. Or, my personal favorite--”

  “Her ass is hanging out of her jeans.” The two spoke together and I almost lost it.

  My temper had boiled deeper with each of her snotty responses, my fingers clenching against the glass I still held, magic and fury boiling until the tumbler cracked in a web.

  “We’ve heard it all, Sia. It hasn't even been a week since school began, and we’ve heard it all,” Tasha snapped, Miko chuckling as they both went back to their phones.

  Fecking whores!

  “No, you haven’t.” I snapped the thing out of her hand. I would have crushed it, maybe I still would. I was in the mood for a fight,

  “Hey!” She yelled, jumping to grab the phone back from where I was holding it above my head. She looked like a cat with a string.

  “This is important, Tasha, sit your ass back down or I’ll snap the thing in two.” I narrowed my eyes at her, lifting my finger and letting two carefully constructed sparks lift from the tip.

  Tasha sat, sinking into one of the deep green armchairs.