“…It’s not working,” she said in frustration. “Where is your soul?”
I didn’t know what her problem was, but I relished the extra moments to think. Morgan played dirty in sparring practice and wasn’t afraid to leave a bruise. He’d lectured me about ignoring pain. But this? Theory was different from practice, and a lot more painful.
I told myself this was the real thing. Anything goes. Better than to lose my life. I rolled, screaming as the knife in my arm shifted, but I kept rolling as far as I could, the dagger digging in more each time I struck the floor, but I didn’t stop until I hit Hazel’s burned remains and couldn’t go any further.
I lay in the warm ashes suddenly thinking that would be me. I would be next to burn.
“By the Lightbringer! Eva!” It was Karolyne’s voice, and instead of feeling relieved, I was suddenly more terrified. I couldn’t let another friend die. I couldn’t let Madam Jaspar win and keep on winning for more centuries to come.
“Get out of here. Find help!” I pulled a heat-cracked rib bone from the heap that had once been Hazel. I stood and faced Jaspar with the makeshift weapon, my back to the door, hoping Karo would listen to me and get out while she could.
Jaspar’s eyes still glowed with fury. She was really upset that I’d broken her necklace and stopped her plan. I had mixed feelings about it myself, but I was certain I wanted to live.
“You want my soul? Come and get it.” I beckoned.
She charged.
I raised the rib bone to block, but there was suddenly a sword there instead. The shining blade deflected the teacher’s silver dagger and then swung around to rest on Jaspar’s neck.
“Stop,” the guard said. It was the one I’d made blush in the corridor the other night. “You are under arrest for murder and necromancy. By the laws of the Three Crowns, if you do not yield, I will kill you.”
Jaspar snarled, and another guard came up behind her and struck the back of her head. She crumpled.
“Help her,” Karo pleaded, and for a moment I thought she was talking about Jaspar. Then my friend wrapped her jacket around me and put her hand over the wound in my arm. The dagger was still stuck fast, but it had torn more flesh, and I realized I’d lost a lot of blood. A lot. A moment later I was on the floor too, and blackness swallowed my vision.
~
I woke in the infirmary, but I woke, which was the main thing. I was happy to be alive. The nurse, however, didn’t look any happier to see me than the last time. At least she didn’t kick me out. She checked my eyes and pulse and then my bandaged arm. There was some blood, but obviously not enough to induce her to change the dressing.
I had a few visitors over the following days. Guards, real city guardsmen, not school guards, asked me questions. I was too dazed about it all to lie, not that I was sure what I should lie about.
I didn’t know how Jaspar’s chamber of gears and cogs worked, or if it even did. She was a maniacal murderer, so she could be crazy. I think the guards thought so, because they didn’t make many notes during that part of the story. They were more disturbed when I told them about seeing Hazel’s ghost, and I wondered if that was a crime. Or was being Solhan enough to merit all the grilling?
In the end, no one arrested me, and I was released from the infirmary. Students whispered in the halls about Madam Jaspar. She was in prison. The whispers from some indicated she had done well to target Solhans, while others gave me more sympathetic looks. No one dared talk to me, only Karolyne and Gypsum, who hovered around me when I returned to my room, like it was another infirmary.
“They wouldn’t let us in to see you,” Gypsum said. “We were all questioned about Hazel and what happened. I can’t believe it.”
“I’m sorry I turned you in to the guards when I was caught,” Karolyne told me. “I felt so guilty about it at the time, but it turned out for the best. If they hadn’t made me help search for you.... We searched for hours.”
“Hours?” It had felt like only a few minutes to me.
“What if we hadn’t been there? There’s no telling what could have happened,” Karolyne continued.
“I would have died. That’s what could have happened,” I said.
They both quieted at that.
Death wasn’t an unfamiliar sight in the Outskirts, but necromancy chilled everyone to the bone. It was forbidden, a tool of the great enemy.
Everyone knew Solhans had to be watched; if anyone was to break such laws it would be us. It surprised them a dwarf could be just as guilty of dark magic. Maybe that meant Solhans wouldn’t automatically be suspected of every wrong doing? Maybe sentiments could one day turn to tolerance, or even something more? Understanding?
Maybe I was still light-headed from blood loss.
Karo and Gypsum respected my quiet attitude over the following months. I stopped dying my hair, and no one teased me about it. No one dared.
Eventually, the memories faded, and I laughed again.
We decided to hide our bootleg inventory in the old dungeon. It was safer than the woods and easier to get to. No ropes required. Juliette renewed her blood compact, with Gypsum anyway. She refused to mix with me, but we went back to blissfully ignoring one another’s existence, even when working together.
I was glad when Karolyne gave up peddling hard liquor and instead got in on the latest fad of perfumed salts from Faellion. I felt better helping her sell that contraband.
Soon, summer came and with it our first visit home. I steeled myself before opening the coach door. The familiar scents and sounds of Highcrowne carried across the river. Not nice scents, but familiar ones.
I felt very different than I had when I’d left. I was a different person.
I swore I could hear Hazel’s voice whisper against my skin again, telling me I could be who I wanted. I didn’t forget it when I took my first step toward home. It was my choice who I’d be. And I knew I wouldn’t be following orders.
The End
~
If you enjoyed this young Eva tale, check out the new adult version of Eva Thorne in her epic dark fantasy/mystery/steampunk series:
Tangle of Thornes
A Crown for a Thorne
Blood & Thorne
War of Thornes (coming December 2018)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
~
LOREL AND CLAYTON WERE TEEN sweethearts. Clayton has severe dyslexia, but from the moment Lorel read ‘Magician’ aloud to him at age thirteen, they began to share magical worlds and dream of writing novels together one day. Hundreds of books later, and a wedding as well, those shared hours of reading, discussing and laughing, as they embellished their favorite stories, culminated in the completion of their first manuscript in 1996. After many more years of honing their craft, the Eva Thorne series was born. After the main four book series of Eva is complete, they are planning a new series of mysteries, as well as a science fiction series and a young adult fantasy. Stay tuned!
Connect with Lorel Clayton
Website: www.lorelclayton.com
Twitter: @lorelclayton
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