He sat on the edge of the bed, his shoulders sagging. After a moment, I joined him. He looked at me, all anger gone, and said, “When I saw you on the battlefield, covered in blood, not knowing if any of it was yours or not, my heart shattered. You shouldn’t have been there without telling me. And learning you’ve been sneaking off with Darius to train in secret…”
Suddenly my throat felt incredibly dry. “I wanted you to train me, remember? But you said no.”
“So you run to my best friend to get training? That’s how you handle ‘no’? By sneaking around behind my back with someone that I trust? That’s fakked up, Kaya.” He turned his head as if to look at me then, but his eyes didn’t quite make the journey. “That’s really fakked up. How are we supposed to have a relationship if you can’t trust me? If I can’t trust you?”
I shrugged. “Who else was I supposed to ask? Maddox doesn’t know how to fight, and Darius is the best. Besides, he said yes. The choice seemed pretty obvious at the time. All I care about now is that my Barron can’t trust me to take care of myself, and that you refuse to support my decisions or support my deepest desire. It hurts me, Trayton.”
He dropped his gaze to the ground between our feet, looking so sad and defeated that I very nearly felt bad for him. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to be more understanding. But you have to promise me that you’ll fulfill these urges in a way that won’t endanger lives. Namely, yours. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Kaya. My world would be shattered if I lost you. Please be careful.”
Toeing my way into delicate territory, I kept my voice low, hoping that my accusation wouldn’t destroy the quiet manner in which he was sitting. “Are you sure you even want to be in a relationship with me? It seems you’re spending a lot of time with Melanie.”
He didn’t move at first, didn’t speak. Then he pushed himself back and lay down on the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes tight. “Do you love him, Kaya?”
Groaning, I resisted the urge to smack some sense into Trayton with a pillow. “Who, Darius? No! It wasn’t about sneaking around or cheating on you, Trayton. It was about learning how to defend myself. How could you think that?”
He reached over and ran his hand over my hair, his fingers gently intertwining with it. His eyes moved to mine in the near darkness. “Do you love me?”
I swallowed hard. It would have been easy to say yes, but I wasn’t certain that that was what Trayton wanted. It seemed he’d be more satisfied with the truth. “I don’t know. I think so. Maybe.”
His eyes searched mine for a moment, perhaps for a small flame of hope. In that moment, I wished very much that I had been able to say yes.
“I love you so much it hurts.” His hand slipped from my hair to my cheek. He loved me. Trayton loved me. And he’d said it like he’d been saying it his entire life. It came easily, like a breath.
Before nervousness or fear could whisper in my ear, I leaned closer to Trayton, feeling his breath on my skin. Our lips melted in a kiss that made my heart race. A heat began at my core and washed through me, cooled only by the light dance of his fingertips across my skin. His hands moved up my arms, over my shoulders, and tangled in my hair, and my breath was stolen away. I wanted more of this, this feeling, and I never wanted it to end. I kissed him harder and he pulled me to him, down with him onto the bed. Our bodies were touching from head to toe, and we were melting into one another, into the mattress. His right hand slid slowly back down my body, pausing at my waist to pull me into him. The shock and thrill of his action pulled me out of the moment and back into reality. It took every ounce of will that I possessed to pull back away from that kiss and look into his eyes, to tell him silently that I wasn’t ready for things to go any further. Disappointment filled his features, and for a moment, neither of us moved. I rolled over and he snuggled up behind me, arms around me.
As we drifted off to sleep together, three things occupied my mind. One, I was going to have to sneak out of Trayton’s room before breakfast unless I wanted to catch hell from Edmond. Two, I still hadn’t forgiven Trayton for exposing me on the battlefield and turning me in to Headmaster Quill, endangering my parents’ lives. And three, I was going to do everything I could to steer clear of Darius after he returned.
If he returned.
C H A P T E R
Thirty
Edmond trailed behind me, content to follow as I moved along the wall, searching for any signs of distress. But no stones were loose that I could see or reach, and no sign that Graplars had somehow managed to climb their way inside. It baffled me that no one seemed able to discover exactly how the damn things were getting inside the wall. There were no holes, no signs of entry at all. Maybe the Graplars were changing, acting in a way that they hadn’t before. Maybe they’d somehow learned how to climb giant stone walls. There had to be answers somewhere. The question was, where?
My stomach rumbled, but I hoped that Edmond couldn’t hear it, or he’d make me break for lunch. It was bad enough that he’d forced me to stop for breakfast on my way out the door. Between classes, I planned to search the inside perimeter of the wall. So long as Edmond didn’t keep bothering me with pesky things like the need for food.
As if he’d heard my stomach’s complaints, Edmond said, “We should head to the dining hall and get you some lunch. And since you forgot your Botanical Medicine book, we should stop by and pick that up too.”
I strode forward along the wall, scanning it for any sign of weakness. “I’m not hungry, and I’ll grab the book later. Besides, I’m not done searching yet.”
Edmond’s hand closed over my shoulder, and he turned me toward him. “You need to eat and you have a test tomorrow.”
Wrenching my shoulder away, completely irritated by his interruption, I said, “I don’t feel like eating, Edmond. What I really feel like doing is figuring out how Graplars keep getting inside. But if it’ll shut you up for an hour, then take me to get the stupid book and I’ll grab a quick lunch afterward. But then I’m searching this wall, and you have to promise to help me. Deal?”
After a long, silent consideration—in which I was sure he was weighing the outcome of my untimely death by starvation—Edmond nodded.
We crossed campus, heading west without another word. Once we reached Instructor Harnett’s class, I moved inside alone, as always. Sitting on my chair was the rogue schoolbook. I plucked it up and turned back to the door, my thoughts still very much focused on the Graplars’ point of entry.
Then something heavy smacked hard against my head, sending a jolt of pain through my body. I tumbled away into a darkness without end.
C H A P T E R
Thirty-one
My head was throbbing and something warm was lying on the back of my neck. I suspected it was blood, but when I attempted to touch it, my wrist caught, bound behind my back with something that felt like twine. When I opened my eyes, my vision wavered. It took a moment to focus. But when it did, I realized that I was outside, lying on the edges of the rose gardens. Instructor Baak was standing over me, madness lighting up her eyes. Light glinted off the jagged blade of the dagger in her hand. At first, confusion filled me, but then that confusion mingled with my upset and I pulled at my hands, trying to wrench them free from their binds. The twine tore into my skin, burning me, bruising me, but I couldn’t break free.
Instructor Baak shook her head, her grin spreading across the lower half of her face. “There’s no use, Kaya. That twine, if you’d paid attention in class, is made of knotbush and virtually unbreakable without a sharp blade.”
“Let me go.”
“I won’t set you free, child, can never set you free. Because with you, I can lure him here, and without you, my heart goes on breaking forever.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but it sounded like she was in love with someone—someone that I had access to. Trayton? Darius? “You think tying me up will bring him here?”
“I know it will.” She pulled back the top of
her shirt, revealing a large amber pendant on a silver chain around her neck. She ran a hand lovingly over the stone, and something inside of it glinted in a strange, luminescent blue. The blue dimmed as Instructor Baak withdrew her fingers, and I couldn’t help but think that the thing inside the stone was alive somehow. “The Graplar King gifted me with this a year ago today. Do you know where this amulet was mined, Kaya? Of course not. No one does. None but the most loyal. The amulet—all of Darrek’s Graplar-controlling amulets—were mined in the caves beneath his fortress, in the place where he first discovered the creatures’ existence. Sound reverberates through the stones, making it possible to communicate and command the creatures. It’s quite fascinating, really.”
I said nothing. The utter shock that Instructor Baak had been at all involved with King Darrek’s mysterious motives coiled around me, making it difficult to breath easily.
“Darrek may be no better than the monsters he commands, Kaya, but who’s to say that Barrons are any better than him? With this amulet, I can control Graplars. They won’t harm anyone who holds it—Darrek promised me that and he was true to his word. Unlike the Elder Barrons, who promised me that my daughter would be fine on the Outer Rim.” Her expression darkened and her knuckles paled as she gripped the handle of the dagger tighter. She was no longer the bothersome teacher that I faced every day in Healing 101, but a madwoman. Her face set permanently in a horrifying grin.
“They lied. Oh, how the lies spewed from their lips. Then the second battle at Wood’s Cross happened, and my daughter was killed.” Her grin, at last, relented. “She should have been protected. Her Barron should have saved her. But he was selfish, like all Barrons. He let her die and went unpunished. But his time for punishment has come. Do you know anything at all about fogmoss, Kaya? Of course not. I’d bet you’re a terrible Botanical Medicine student.” That jibe stung, as I actually really enjoyed my Botanical Medicine class. But try as I might, I couldn’t recall having learned anything at all about something called fogmoss from Instructor Harnett, but I lay silent, pulling at the knotbush, trying to wiggle free. “Fogmoss is a forbidden herb here on campus—on any campus, really—because it brews a tea that renders the drinker your willing servant. They will do anything that you ask and remember only what you tell them to remember. Which is precisely how I’ve been letting Graplars inside the wall.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re sick. People have been hurt, have died! Those things are so awful. How could you?”
She smiled, her eyes dazed. “It was easy enough to get the gate guards to drink the potion. Guards are frequently gifted with drink and food while on night duty, and I am a trusted instructor. So I gave them the tea to drink, instructed them to assist me, and then blurred their memories about how the Graplars ever got in. It took practice, to make certain I had the potion right. Fortunately, I did. And why not take out a few people while I’m at it, and maybe infect the school with a little healthy fear? Maybe he’d be afraid they were coming for him. And I definitely want him to know what fear is.”
Clearly, this was about vengeance. Vengeance against the boy who’d let her daughter perish in that horrible battle. She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, all that remained of the Instructor Baak I knew withered away into dust. “I let hundreds of Graplars inside the gates just a few minutes ago. And I instructed the creatures to kill them all. Darrek was right. It’s the only way to stop this terrible war. Every Healer, every Barron that fights against him must die. Let’s end it. Let’s just end it, and be done with this pain.”
At last I had my answer at how the Graplars were getting in. But how was I supposed to warn anyone, when I was tied up? I pulled at my binds to no avail, and pushed myself backward, scooting along the ground until my shoulders met with the log that Mr. Gareth had placed near the gardens as a bench. In the distance, the screams began.
Everyone at Shadow Academy was going to die. No amount of Barron skill could possibly hold the monsters at bay. No amount of healing could fix the wounds that they would cause. Everyone was going to die, and it was at the hand of a woman whose loyalties had shifted, all because she felt that her daughter had been wronged.
Ever so casually, Instructor Baak approached the log and sat down, running her fingers over my hair, as if she was petting me. I don’t know where she was at that moment, but it wasn’t with me in the rose gardens. Instructor Baak was somewhere else, long ago. “You’re such a pretty girl, Katelyn. You deserve better than this, better than what Darius has given you.”
Pulling away from her touch, I shook my head. “It was an accident, Instructor Baak. Darius was just trying to take down King Darrek. He didn’t mean for anything to happen to your daughter.”
Her eyes turned toward me, but she wasn’t seeing me. She was seeing Katelyn. She was speaking to her dead child, and stroking her dead child’s hair. “Fourteen was too young to go to battle, Katelyn. Too young, and not experienced enough. I told you not to go. Mother knows best. You could have hidden away, but you insisted on going. Not your fault. I raised you right. But you couldn’t protect that boy. And he wouldn’t protect you. I was right all along about him. He chose glory over duty. And look how they rewarded him.”
Her fingers tangled in my hair as she ran them through, yanking at my roots painfully. I wriggled away, but she refused to let go, lost in her delusion. “Your soul will soon be free, my love. Darrek’s Graplars can punish those that praised Darius for his failings. He returned to Shadow Academy just an hour ago. And now he’ll come for you, to save you as he should have saved you then. And when he does, I’ll pierce his heart and set you free.”
In the distance, the sounds of war filled the campus. Shrill screams reached my ears, sending gooseflesh over my entire body. Graplars’ growls echoed throughout Shadow Academy. Death was in the air.
I laid helpless on the ground, my hands bound, my back against a log, a madwoman’s hands tangled in my hair. All I could do was listen as Instructor Baak’s terrible plan unfolded before me. No one would rescue me, no one could. And I prayed that Instructor Baak was wrong and that Darius would stay far away from Shadow Academy, or else his life would be forfeit as well. I struggled against my bonds, but they were too tight, too strong. I just hoped that Instructor Baak would kill me before the Graplars could. I couldn’t imagine a more painful death.
“Kaya!” Trayton hurried closer, the look on his face one of immense relief.
As he drew closer, one of Instructor Baak’s hands closed over my mouth. “Shh,” she whispered. “There now. It’ll all be over soon, Katelyn.”
Trayton’s chest rose and fell in heavy breaths, as if he’d been running for quite some time. “I’ve been searching the grounds for you. Figures I’d find you here. Are you all right? Graplars have overrun the—”
His eyes fell on Instructor Baak’s hand in my hair, and confusion washed over him. When his attention dropped to her hand on my mouth, he reached back, his fingers lightly grasping the handle of the katana on his back, his eyes dark and mistrusting. “Instructor Baak?”
Her hand loosened on my hair then, and the hand over my mouth retreated. For a moment, the woman that I’d come to know seemed to reappear. She stood slowly, carefully, as if she’d found herself again. Relief filled me, settling my heart’s rhythm. Shaking her head, she said, “Trayton. My word. I don’t know what came over me. Kaya, I am so sorry. I never meant to—”
Then she lunged forward, raising the jagged blade high into the air. I stared in disbelief as time slowed, her dagger shining in the moonlight, Trayton’s katana almost glowing as he withdrew it from its saya. He didn’t bring the sword forward. It was as if he was frozen in disbelief. The dagger came down, plunging into his neck. I wrenched forward, but there was nothing I could do. Blood spurted from the wound as she pulled the dagger out again, several droplets spattering my cheek. The katana tumbled to the ground, landing softly in the grass at Trayton’s feet. Trayton clutched his neck and crumpled soundlessly to the g
round.
C H A P T E R
Thirty-two
Time rolled forward, picking up speed as it went, until everything was moving the way that it was supposed to once more. Trayton lay on the ground, coughing against the pain of his injury, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth and pouring from between his fingers. Scrambling forward, I rolled, hoping to heal him, to save him, but Instructor Baak pointed her bloodied dagger at my eye. “Back, girl. There will be no healing this boy. They all have to die. It’s the only way to put Katelyn to rest and bring this war to an end.”
My hand was inches from Trayton’s neck, but it might as well have been miles. There was no doubt in my mind that if I edged so much as a millimeter closer, she was going to stab me. She was going to kill us both, and then kill everyone else on campus. “You’re a monster! This war is Darrek’s doing! And Katelyn’s death was a tragedy, but she died doing what Healers do, supporting her Barron. You preach about that duty every day in class.”
“It’s a duty that was above my daughter!” Her eyes glossed over again, as if she were having a difficult time staying in the present. “You should have been a Barron, Katelyn. I wish you had been a Barron.”
“Killing innocent people won’t lay Katelyn’s soul to rest, Instructor Baak. And what makes you think it’s at unrest, anyway? Katelyn is dead, and I’m sure she wouldn’t want her mother murdering people.” Slowly, I scooted backward, back to the log, an idea fixed firmly in my mind. To my great relief, she didn’t seem to care if I moved away, only if I moved toward Trayton, who was paling fast, his grip on his bleeding neck weakening. “Killing people isn’t going to bring your daughter back.”
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