When the Chancellor dismissed them, Rilla noted that the princesses stayed behind. She pulled on her cloak, headed for the staircase, and gazed out of the huge windows. The sun was setting over the East Forest, its pumpkin haze highlighting the trees in silhouette. In the distance, clouds rolled over the mountains, obscuring their peaks with a magenta-tinted mist.
“Seize her,” shouted a faint voice from outside. Rilla rushed to a window and found a dark-haired woman being chased by four cadets. Her heart stuttered. From the fourth floor, she couldn’t tell whether it was Bruna, but whoever it was moved at a rapid pace toward the low branches of the oak tree that grew by the external wall.
Rilla could only watch with glee as the woman scaled the tree with deft movements and walked on a thick branch with her arms out for balance. When she reached the part where the branch hung outside the wall, she jumped.
The male cadets skidded to a halt at the tree but did not follow. Frowning, Rilla descended the stairs. She knew of the chasm between the walled city of Metropole and the Academy, but didn’t know whether it extended around to the east walls.
She reached the external doors on the ground floor and pushed them open. The cool winter air blew through her curls, and she headed toward the tree. By now, the male cadets had gone, and Rilla wondered whether they were beyond the walls, looking for the escaped woman.
Then, suddenly, two bluebirds plucked off her cloak and flew away with it.
“Hey!” She chased after them, keeping her gaze fixed on her garment.
The birds took the cloak toward a section of the campus wall constructed from iron bars instead of stones.
“Give me back my cloak.” She jumped to catch its hem, but the birds carried it out of reach.
Rilla snatched her hand away, not wanting to play a stupid game with the birds, and she walked toward the oak tree with the low branches. From the corner of her eye, she could see the cloak being brought down within her reach. She spun and grabbed for it, but they lifted it higher, making Rilla growl and chase them toward the iron railings.
Beyond the Academy wall, Lord Bluebeard stepped out from behind a tree. “Cendrilla.”
Blood drained from Rilla’s face into her legs, urging her to run.
“Stay,” he said, his expression grave. “I am here to warn you.”
“About?” Rilla tried to keep the fear out of her voice, but it shook.
“This Academy is dangerous. They will kill you the moment you reveal yourself.”
Rilla’s jaws clenched. She glanced from left to right, hoping no one had overheard. “I know, but what’s my alternative?”
“Come with me. My birds can lift you over the wall and away from this wretched place.”
Rilla swallowed and glanced at the main building. Sure, she’d had an awful start, but she’d made friends, and some of the instructors were nice. But did she want to stay in a place where people like Bruna were condemned without evidence? She gazed at Lord Bluebeard, who stiffened at the attention. She didn’t trust him. “If I took up your offer, where would I hide? With you?”
Lord Bluebeard stepped forward, his eyes blazing. “We will wed this very night.”
Horror writhed within Rilla’s belly like a pair of exsanguinating eels. She stepped back. “And have you breed me and kill me? No!”
Lord Bluebeard reached through the bars to grab her, but she jumped out of his reach. His face twisted into the familiar, rage-filled glare.
“Give me back my cloak,” she said.
“A fine garment,” he sneered. “And which of your new friends paid for it? I’ve seen you in the papers, gallivanting with the Prince, accepting favors from the Lord High Steward. What disgraceful conduct.”
“But you’re the fool who wants to marry me,” Rilla spat. She ran off, leaving him shouting. She’d rather not have a cloak than deal with Lord Bluebeard.
As she started up the steps leading to the main building, her cloak fell right on her head. She tripped on the strap of her satchel and smacked her forehead against the door frame. Wrestling with the cloak, she kicked her bag to the side to gain her footing.
A giggle sounded from nearby, and Rilla picked up her cloak and rushed to the dorms, having been humiliated enough for the day.
Anonymous Note
The next morning, Rilla pondered over her encounter with Lord Bluebeard. She couldn’t work him out. One minute, he was protective, then the next, he hated her. Despite this, he was still eager for her to fulfill the betrothal contract. It made little sense to go to such effort to gain the Perrault fortune when he was obviously rich and influential enough to survive without her vault. She stayed in bed, telling her friends to go to breakfast without her.
If she hadn't needed to give her Assassination thesis to the Chancellor, she wouldn't move an inch, but she forced herself out of bed, dressed and set off toward Professor Engel’s office.
She had just reached the doors of the accommodation wing when a voice sounded from behind. “Rilla!” Millissa ran toward her, brows furrowed. “I’m sorry about Freida and Gwynter. I said nothing to stop them from saying awful things to you.”
Rilla crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “Why are you apologizing now?”
Millissa bowed her head and shrugged. “I didn’t know you and wasn't sure who to trust.” She sighed, shaking her head. “But when Freida and Gwynter laughed about putting your life in danger, I felt sick.”
Rilla opened the door to the main building, and Millissa followed her inside. She didn't know what to think about the other woman. It had hurt to think she'd made a friend, only to have them distance themselves for no valid reason.
“Bruna’s arrest also had me reflecting on my own situation. It made me think I should count my blessings and note who my real friends are.”
Rilla wondered how a Queen could think she faced the same struggles as a commoner.
“You see,” Millissa murmured as they resumed walking toward the Chancellor’s office. “I was born a miller’s daughter.”
Rilla's eyes widened, but she let Millissa continue.
“My father was a strange, stern man, but when he got drunk, he’d tell the most outrageous tales. One time, he told everyone at the tavern I could spin straw into gold. I can’t do that but the story caught the attention of the Tinder King.”
Rilla gasped. “I’ve heard of him. When I was shopping for my school materials, his mercenaries escorted a gossip monger to me. I had no idea he was the King of Autumn.”
“He wasn’t always,” Millissa said. “He staged a coup and married the Crown Princess after he orphaned the poor girl.”
“My goodness,” Rilla shook her head. “I imagine someone in his position found the promise of endless gold to fund his reign very attractive.”
Millissa laughed without mirth. “He locked me in a dungeon and told me to spin every strand of straw into gold or face execution.”
Rilla stopped walking. “How did you end up married to him?”
Millissa paused, as though not knowing what to say. “His wife died about ten years ago, and he never remarried.” She bowed her head. “When I was in that dungeon, an imp found me and promised to spin the straw into gold in exchange for a boon.”
“Aren't those dangerous?”
“They are, but I had no choice. I either spun the gold or lost my head. The next morning, the King barged in with my father. They announced that I’d spun my own dowry and was now the new Queen of Autumn.”
Rilla's stomach twisted. “So, why are you here?”
Millissa scratched her neck and looked away. “If I ever get pregnant, the imp will take both my life and that of my child. My husband is already not respected within the Kingdoms. Announcing that an imp and a miller's daughter had duped him would have been disastrous.”
“Sending you to the Academy is hardly a solution. You’re still married.”
“I’m certain he hopes that I die in combat so he can remarry a proper lady who won’t have to sacrifi
ce herself and her baby to an imp.”
Rilla shook her head, realizing that Millissa was a kindred spirit after all. Perhaps even more so than Dora and the others. Both she and the Queen of Autumn were bound to brutish men who’d more or less bought them to be bred and discarded.
“Enough talk of dreadful things,” said Millissa. “We have only a few minutes before class. Let’s grab something from the dining hall.”
“I’m handing in my—” Rilla halted, remembering she’d forgotten the bag containing her Assassination thesis to hand into the Chancellor. “Sorry. Got to go.” She ran back to the accommodation wing and into the regulation dorms.
She glanced at the pile of clothes on the chair and frowned. Where was her satchel? She couldn't remember bringing it to the bedroom. Her mouth dried up. All her assignments were in that bag. If she didn’t find it, she’d never be able to rewrite everything in time. She would fail everything!
Thinking hard, Rilla got a faint glimmer of hope. She’d dropped the satchel outside, after tripping on the cloak. Setting off in that direction, she sprinted through the corridors.
Rilla rounded a corner and collided with Jacques, who toppled backward several steps from the impact. She couldn’t bring herself to apologize to the man who had stolen someone else’s identity and appropriated their brave deeds, so she dashed towards the doors leading to the lawn.
The bag was nowhere in sight. She scanned the grass from the low-hanging tree to the iron railings where she’d argued with Lord Bluebeard. Her shoulders drooped, and for a moment, she pictured herself being prodded up the aisle by a soldier’s spear towards her grinning betrothed.
Perhaps someone had found the satchel and put it in her official dormitory. She sighed and went back to the accommodation wing, this time entering the royal room. There, she found a note on her bed, which read:
Your bag is in the forest outside the east gate.
It wasn’t signed, but she crumpled the note and threw it on the ground. It could only be from Lord Bluebeard. Would the man stop at nothing to drag her to the altar? With a cold anger simmering in her belly, she strode out of the building, comforted by the feel of the shrunken quarterstaff in her bodice. He would regret ever returning it to her.
At the east gate, a soldier blocked her path. “Shouldn't you be in class, Cadet?”
Still fuming, she said through gritted teeth, “I have errands.”
He frowned, but opened the gate. “Mind how you go.”
Directly outside the Academy was a small wildflower meadow, she traversed that, crossed a bridge and entered the forest. The scent of pine carried in the breeze. A dozen bluebirds tweeted from overhead branches. Snorting at the obvious clue to her letter-writer's identity, she continued down a beaten track.
The birds warbled, some swooped across her path, making her flinch. Rilla withdrew her staff, prepared for Lord Bluebeard to grab her from behind.
Soon, she approached a clearing. Her satchel lay in the middle of it, highlighted by a shaft of sunlight peeking through the canopy. Rilla sighed with relief and stepped forward.
A huge bluebird with a red breast flew in her face, flapping its wings.
Rilla batted it away. “Stop that.”
Another landed on her head and jabbed at her scalp with the intensity of a woodpecker.
“Ouch.” Rilla's hand shot up, but the bird flew away before she could grab it. “I know you're trying to stall me until your master comes, but it won't work.”
She walked forward, her arms shielding her face from the attacking birds. When she caught up with Lord Bluebeard, she would beat him so hard, he'd be sore for weeks. Rilla felt several sharp pulls on her scalp. The birds were holding her golden strands in their beaks. She snatched back her hair and walked forward. “That's enough.”
In a few steps, she’d reach her satchel and be free of the annoying creatures. But the ground gave way beneath her, and she plunged downward, screaming.
Rilla landed with a thud on a thick pile of dead leaves. Pain from the impact shot from palms to elbows. Resting crouched on all fours, she gulped in mouthfuls of hot, coal-scented air. She looked up and gasped. She had fallen into a vast, semi-lit cavern at least four stories high and as large as the dining hall. It was a miracle she hadn’t broken any bones.
Bluebirds perched on the edges of the pit, peering down squawking. Anger, cold as the Frozen Sea, filled Rilla's chest. How could Lord Bluebeard trap her like an animal? The man was despicable!
Perhaps there was a way out. She got to her feet, picked up her satchel, and dusted herself off. The cavern seemed to be a limestone cave with huge stalactites hanging from its ceiling like swords. Some of them were so long, they formed columns that reached the ground. There did not seem to be any boulders or mounds she could use to climb out, but she did notice multiple chambers, and what looked like a passage.
An ear-piercing screech punctured her exploration. A huge blast of fire bloomed from of a chamber on the far side of the cavern.
Stumbling backward, Rilla shrieked. Her cry drowned out the sound of the screeching birds.
To her horror, a huge reptile, about two stories tall, emerged with another shriek. The creature’s scales glinted a sickening shade of viridian in the semi darkness, and the ridges on its face and neck protruded as sharp as daggers. It fixed its gaze on Rilla, stood on its massive hind legs, and stretched its clipped wings. Then, it opened its mouth.
Rilla didn't stop to see whether its fangs were sharp or nonexistent. She launched herself into a smaller chamber in time to miss a plume of flame. A terror tighter than any corset and colder than ice water gripped her chest so tight, she could barely breathe.
The roar of blood pounding in her eardrums blocked out the frantic tweeting from above, but every twig the dragon cracked underfoot echoed like thunder.
She scrambled into an adjoining chamber, looking around for escape. All she found was a tiny alcove. Trying to calm her rasping breaths, she stepped inside and crouched. Her legs shook, and she could barely stay upright. The birds had been warning her, and in her fury she hadn’t listened. Lord Bluebeard always signed his missives, and he wasn't the type to allow a dragon to do the dirty work of killing her. No, he’d squeeze a few sons out of her, as he’d so crudely admitted, then kill Rilla himself.
The dragon entered her chamber, turned its head in her direction and inhaled. Her heart exploded, and she dove into another dark corridor, getting her hair and clothes singed.
Her hand itched toward her staff, but she wouldn't risk getting it burned. Instead, she got to her feet and sprinted, dodging bursts of fire, into a narrow chamber. It was a dead end.
And if she rushed out, she would run straight into the dragon.
“No,” the words came out a shaky whisper, and she backed toward the wall. It radiated heat like a furnace. Of all the deaths she had imagined for herself, none of them included being flambéed like a tarte au volcan.
Her feet floundered over a pile of loose rocks, and she clutched her satchel. A hysterical laugh escaped her throat. It seemed ridiculous to still cling to her assignments, given that her inevitable immolation was mere seconds away.
But an idea sprang into her mind. She emptied the bag, placed a rock inside and swung it like a sling. As soon the dragon stepped into the corridor, she launched the rocks at its eyes.
The dragon's screech filled the corridor, shaking Rilla to the bones. The creature clutched at its face with its taloned hands.
With a warrior cry, Rilla charged past the beast and jumped on its tail. She dug her nails into its scales and climbed its spine. It tried to buck her off, but she clung to the ridges on its back, climbing her way to the neck.
It flailed and thrashed, jostling her hold. Rilla clamped her thighs around its collar and groped around for vulnerabilities. Where ears might have been, she felt a soft membrane. The dragon smashed into the wall, bringing her along for the collision. Rilla felt her arm wrench out of its socket. Her face crumpled from th
e pain, but she reached into her bodice for her shrunken staff. With a cry of anguish, she plunged it through the beast’s ear membrane.
The dragon roared and blew out a wide burst of flame. Heat radiated against her skin, and she shut her eyes. Her staff expanded, sending hot liquid oozing from the puncture and scalding her hand.
“Grow more!” Rilla screamed at her staff and gasped when it obeyed her command. It pierced straight through the other side of the dragon’s head.
The creature shuddered, and crumpled to the ground, dead.
The staff shrank back to its storage size, and Rilla scrambled off the carcass, shaking. Bluebirds swooped into the cavern and at the sight of them, tears ran down her cheeks. They flew over the dead dragon and landed around her, singing with beautiful, soothing chirps.
She shook her head, sobbing and choking on the sulfurous air. “Sorry. I was so awful when you were trying to warn me.”
The birds tweeted back at her without judgment.
Once she’d caught her breath, Rilla staggered to the opening of the pit and looked up. She wondered how she was going to get out. Soon, several bluebirds appeared at the edges, looking down at her and twittering. Remembering Lord Bluebeard's words about the birds being able to lift her, she spread her arms in a silent plea.
The birds flew down and grabbed the edges of her clothes in their beaks and lifted her up and out. She smiled as fresh tears flowed on her cheeks. Outside, the air was cool and fresh. Sunlight streaming through the canopy seared her eyes, and she found herself a fallen pine on which to sit.
A few bluebirds appeared, offering her berries, and she ate them, their warm juice a balm on her dry throat. Another bird brought her a soft handkerchief, which she used to wipe her tears.
The bird with the red breast brought up her satchel, followed by others who fetched her assignments.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Who could have done this? Not Lord Bluebeard, since his bluebirds had rescued her. Yet someone had gone to great lengths to frame him. Madam Florian? Rilla shook her head. The woman had a sharp tongue and she would have had access to her bag, but killing a student was going too far.
The Academy (Perrault Chronicles Book 2) Page 11