by Jada Fisher
“Aw,” Yacrist whined, as if someone had kicked one of his family’s many hunting gods. “Do you have to?”
“I’m fairly exhausted myself,” Dille agreed, offering her hand for Eist to haul her onto her feet. “And we still need to go over much of the readings that were handed out at the beginning of our break.”
“By the Three, I forgot about those.” Yacrist stood up as well. “Can I spend the night again, so we can just all do the reading together?”
“You spend the night?” Athar asked, apparently too surprised to even stutter. “In each other’s dorms?!”
“Yeah,” Yacrist said, as if it was the most obvious thing. “Why?”
“Th-that’s not allowed!”
Ain just laughed beside him, casually getting to his own feet. “Come on, my large friend. The day the son of the Lord of the House cares about the rules is the day you actually confess t—”
“Good night,” Athar said, jumping upward. “But I don’t th-th-think that’s very proper.”
“Proper schmoper,” Dille said with a shrug. “And to answer your question, not tonight, Yacrist. I need some peace and quiet.”
“Do you want me to go to Yacrist’s room?” Eist asked.
“Yacrist’s room?” Athar repeated with such quiet dismay that Eist almost didn’t catch it.
Dille seemed to consider it for a moment then nodded. “Actually, if you don’t mind, that would really be great.”
Eist didn’t mind that her friend needed space. Sure, she was concerned as to why, but she had faith that Dille would tell her if it was important. It was sometimes a difficult faith to keep a hold of, but she was doing her best.
“Alright then,” Eist said with a nod. “Looks like I’m all yours tonight.”
Yacrist clapped his hands. “I’ll see if I can go filch some apples from the kitchen and then we can finish those readings.”
“I don’t th-thi-think th-th-that the professors would appro—”
Ain gripped his friend’s arm and tugged a little more insistently. “Losing battle. Let’s go, we have our own work to do.”
Athar looked like he wanted to argue, and Eist had the urge to explain to him what was going on, but she couldn’t exactly say that she and Yacrist were pouring over forbidden tomes filled with forbidden magic, one of which they had stolen from a healer who had been possessed by the Blight and the other from a hidden crypt that had attacked them with malevolent shadows.
So instead she stayed quiet and just watched as Ain hauled his blushing friend away. Why did she even feel the need to explain herself anyway? She did what she did and that was that. She didn’t owe the hulking young man a detailed synopsis of why she did what.
And yet she didn’t want him to think that there was anything going on with her and Yacrist.
Because there wasn’t.
Right?
“You’re going to push him to madness.”
“Who?” Eist asked. “Ain or Athar?”
“Both,” Dille said with a laugh before pulling her into a loose hug with one arm. “See you in the morning?”
“In the morning,” Eist agreed.
“Thank you, I appreciate it.”
“Of course. Whatever you need.”
Dille gave her another little squeeze and Yacrist a nod before walking off toward her dorm. Veralda saw her depart and headed up to the balcony that hung off their dorm.
“You ready?” Yacrist asked, his hand extended.
Eist took it without a word, letting him pull her back toward his place. She still got a very bad feeling about those magic books, but at the moment, they seemed like the closest thing they had to a defense.
She guessed she would just have to take what she could get, even if it made her stomach ache something fierce.
4
Worse than a Nightmare
“You comfortable?”
“You’re about to read to me from a book that belonged to a woman who tried to kill me in multiple, very painful ways,” Eist retorted, tucking his blankets around her. They were much nicer than the standard-issue ones that she and Dille were given, but even their lush comfort wasn’t enough to quiet the feeling that they were up to no good. “What do you think?”
“Fair enough,” Yacrist said, settling back against the wall. “We don’t have to, you know, if you don’t want to.”
“No, I feel like we need to. That man… He’s fighting with so many cards in his hand that we can’t see, and so far, these books have saved our hides twice. I think it would be better to use them than not.”
“Glad that you could finally see my side of things.”
“Yeah, don’t get too cocky about it.”
“I’ll try my hardest to keep my ego in check.” The young man draped an arm over her shoulders, pulling her flush to his side. A strange sort of flutter went through her and she wasn’t sure whether it was uncomfortable or not. Her heart pounding in her chest far too dramatically for such a simple action, she decided to take a risk and rested her head against his shoulder.
If Yacrist thought anything strange of it, he didn’t say. He simply opened the book and paged through it.
“I’m guessing you don’t want to hear any spells, so maybe some…uh, preventative things?”
“That would be nice,” she answered. “I’m guessing that you look at the spells plenty on your own time.”
“Hey, it saved your life, didn’t it?”
“You know, that gets to be a bit tiring when you bring it up every single time we talk about these books.”
He smiled crookedly at that, the expression making his features look a bit dashing. Then again, didn’t he always look a bit dashing? He was a handsome man, after all. He was almost infamous for it. “What can I say? They saved my favorite person. And you saved your grandfather with them too.”
“Oh, so I’m your favorite person now?” Eist teased.
But Yacrist just laughed, reaching over her to pet at Fior’s head as the dragon hogged the bottom half of the cot. “I thought that much would be obvious. I’m not exactly subtle.”
“No, you’re not,” Eist said with a low sigh. “Back when we first started going to market, I remember being a bit overwhelmed by your friendship.”
“Overwhelmed?”
“Well, you come on a bit strong.”
He shrugged at that. “When I care about something, I care about it a lot. I don’t see the need to play coy. Too many people are like that, and it’s one of the things I hate the most about court.”
Eist flushed a bit at his frank words. “I can see how that would be frustrating.”
“Frustrating. That’s an understatement.” He sighed, long and wistful. “I like that when I’m with you that I can be however I want to be. There’s no manners, no etiquette.”
“Maybe a little etiquette would be in order if it meant you stopped trying to steal my food.”
“It was just a pheasant thigh.”
She turned, looking up at him and glaring dramatically. “But it was my pheasant thigh.”
“What?” he asked ruefully, a grin tugging at both corners of his lips. “Are you going to hold it against me.”
Eist pushed herself up onto her knees, which only brought her face to face with her friend. Why was everyone so tall?
“You’d like that too much, wouldn’t you?” she accused, pressing her finger to his chest.
“That depends…” His voice dropped a bit and he leaned into her, casting her in his shadow. His arm that had been around her shoulder slid down so his hand rested at her solid waist, and for some reason, that simple touch burned into her like a brand. “What kind of thighs are we talking about?”
He tilted his head downwards, his lips just a breath away from her. His eyes were half-lidded, and the black of his eyes was blown wide, nearly blotting out the crystal blue she was used to. He whispered something, but it was too quiet for her to catch and she couldn’t concentrate enough on his mouth to figure out the syllabl
es. It was like her whole body had been flooded with panic and heat, and she wasn’t sure what to do with either of those feelings.
His hand at her waist gripped her gently, rooting her to reality, while the other gently stroked up her arm to her face, where his fingers gently traced her chin.
“You really are dangerous,” he breathed, and she caught it that time. “Do you know that?”
“Dangerous how?” she whispered. She felt sick. She felt excited. She’d never really thought much about romance or what could happen between a man and a woman, but this felt like it could be a kiss. Did she even want a kiss? Let alone one from her friend? She didn’t know. It was all too much. She needed to think, but every time his fingers moved, her thoughts skittered in a thousand different directions only to be quickly swamped out by the sensation of him so close to her.
“You make me want things I shouldn’t want. Things that the next Lord of the House should consider below him.”
“And that’s dangerous?” She looked up into his eye, her face flushing as she tried to figure out what she was feeling. She didn’t know. She hadn’t expected this. They were there to read books and figure out if the evil she sensed coming was an imminent threat or something far in the future.
“Very.”
He was moving again, ever so slightly, and if Eist stayed still, his lips were going to touch hers and they would be kissing.
No.
Suddenly it was too much. The deep timbre of his all-too-serious voice, the way his breath fanned over her face. It made her feel far too acutely aware of her own body, like her skin was hugging her skeleton too tightly. She wasn’t ready for that kind of sensation and all of the complications it would bring. She pushed away, and to his credit, Fior wiggled between the two.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Yacrist asked her boy, seemingly ignorant of Eist’s abrupt retreat. Or maybe he was just pretending so she wouldn’t feel bad.
Not that she would ever feel bad for setting boundaries, because she didn’t. No, she just felt a strange sort of confusion in her such that she didn’t know what she wanted or why she did or didn’t want it. Was this what it meant to grow up into an adult? Stumbling into new and terrifying things with absolutely no warning? She was fairly sure she didn’t like becoming an adult then.
“Don’t wanna share your girl, huh?”
Fior let out a warbling chirp then further curled up between them, giving Eist the space she needed. And she loved him for that. The little guy was always looking out for her. She didn’t even want to think of what her life would be like without him. Surely it would be a lonely, pointless existence. She would never forget that day his egg had hatched and changed everything forever.
“Anyway,” she said, a bit breathless. If her friend noticed her trying to collect herself, he was polite enough not to mention it. “About that preventative stuff?”
Yacrist looked up from where he had been giving Fior a thorough head scratch with both hands. Normally, Alynbach would be whining for attention from the balcony, but no doubt the purple pair was off galivanting with Veralda on the roof while Dille enjoyed her alone time.
“Yeah, that sounds good to me.” He opened the book once more and flicked through several pages. “Oh! This is about illusions and how to see through them. That sounds like it could be useful.”
Eist nodded eagerly. “Illusions. Yeah, wouldn’t want to be fooled by those.”
“Nope, definitely not.”
He started reading and this time, Eist sank into Fior’s side, her young dragon’s tongue coming out to occasionally lick at her hair or hand. She was definitely going to need a trip to the baths soon. But for the night, she could just rest and try to learn something.
Beautiful hills stretched out before her, rows of verdant green that rippled slightly in the breeze. The air was crisp and cool across her forehead, and Eist took a deep, refreshing breath.
Beyond the hills was sand, and beyond that were waves of absolute blue cresting into white peaks. It was the ocean, something that she had read about but never seen in person. Even from where she was, she could smell the salt in the air. It was…nice.
And then she was rushing across the landscape, moving too fast to be possible, until a massive city stood before her.
It was as big as Rothaiche M’or, if not more so, but other than that, it was entirely different. Whereas Eist’s home was built into a mountainside, growing higher and higher with the rocky spires, the city before her was built on a flat plain of land. Instead of being mostly comprised of stone and gray, vibrant colors were everywhere.
Margaid.
There was no mistaking the colorful flags and stained glass of the many open-style buildings. Built for life close to the water, for heat rather than cold, she remembered seeing a few drawings of the distinct Margaidian architecture throughout her life.
It was pretty, and Eist wanted to study it further, to see what it looked like up close. But she couldn’t move, she was just a fixed point witnessing the beautiful display.
It wouldn’t be so bad to just enjoy the peace for once, wouldn’t it? To just stand there and take in the beauty for what it was? Moments like those seemed so few and far between. Even with all the time she spent reading with Yacrist, or eating with her friends, her life still felt like a constant rush toward one great and terrible thing or another.
But just when she felt ready to settle into the moment, the ground shook below her. She stumbled a bit, and her stomach felt like it dropped out of her body.
Eist regained her footing, but only barely, as sand began to rush across the landscape in a distinctive pattern. An overwhelming feeling of dread whipped through her and was quickly confirmed as the sand began to form now hauntingly familiar shapes.
It rippled out from her in a nightmarish wave, with beasts and creatures and bandits rising from the ground, the sable grains that formed them solidifying then filling with color like dye to wool. Within moments, there were hundreds of thousands of beings forming a circle around Margaid.
No.
That wasn’t possible.
Eist watched with huge eyes as the last of the creatures formed, but the ground still did not settle. There was more shaking, more rumbling, and then she felt the prickle of apprehension behind her.
Turning, her eyes flew open as she saw all sorts of war machinery trundling toward her. She had learned about most of them in classes. Catapults, ballista, far too many spikes and rams and sickly-looking things.
It wasn’t just an attack.
It was a siege.
Thunder cracked overhead. Looking up, she saw the sky swirling with dark and roiling clouds. She could feel the power of it from even where she was sitting, and it made her skin crawl.
Then lightning struck, right in the center of the city, and pandemonium broke loose.
Fire shot up to the sky, shining eerily against the underside of the dark clouds, while screams slammed into Eist’s ears. But wait… She shouldn’t be able to hear that so clearly, especially from this distance.
The screams didn’t seem to care, however, and grew, and grew, until they filled up every one of her senses. Eist clapped her hands over her ears, something that she rarely ever had to do, but they didn’t relent.
The decrepit army moved forward, methodical and foreboding in their march. It was only then that she caught a sound just underneath the screaming. It started low at first, before slowly picking up in volume. And then, finally, she knew what it was.
Laughter.
Loud, malevolent, and utterly gleeful, the peals of mirth felt like it moved through her entire body. It only took her a few moments to recognize it, and when she did, it was like someone dumped cold water over her.
The sorcerer.
She sat up with a jolt, her stomach heaving. Looking around in a panic, she tried to get her bearings, her whole body telling her that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.
Fior let out a concerned warble, lifting hi
s head from where he was sandwiched beside her. That calmed her enough to gather herself, and she realized that she had fallen asleep in Yacrist’s bed—as usual when she visited—and he had pushed the extra cot in his room up beside her.
His arm was sitting in her lap, obviously having been draped across her body. Eist tossed it to the side and scrambled to put on the shoes that she had left by the door.
“Hmm?” Yacrist asked sleepily, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “What’s… What’s going on?”
“I have to go to the headmaster.”
“The headmaster?” Yacrist asked. That certainly seemed to wake him up. “Why do you need to see the headmaster before dawn?”
“I’m going to confess.”
He was out of bed and catching her arm then, definitely awake now. “What?! Why?!”
But Eist just ripped her arm from his hold and affixed him with one of her looks. “Because Margaid is going to be attacked, and I have to tell them.”
5
Just an Average Interrogation Between Friends
“Repeat what you told me in my office.”
Eist licked her lips, looking nervously at the group of dragon riders surrounding her. She had never seen so many in one place, and their various gazes were so incredibly heavy.
When she had confessed to the headmaster that maybe she had withheld a couple of details about how she saved the prisoners during the excursion, she had certainly expected to need to talk to some important people. What she hadn’t expected was to be nearly dragged to the very west wing of the academy, a place she never went, and be plopped right smackdab in the middle of a circular room with seating not unlike the amphitheater the tournaments were held in.
Elspeth sat before her, naturally. And then there was Fjorin and Ale’a. The former looked angered to even be there while the latter just seemed concerned. There was Keyln, who had spoken to them during their first year. There was Valifar, Dryss, and a couple dozen more that Eist wasn’t familiar with.