by Lynette Noni
Climbing was hard work. The higher she rose, the more entangled she became in the leaves and branches. But eventually she managed to push through and she balanced precariously on the swaying treetop, gripping for dear life.
Squinting into the distance, she was able to recognise the rising hulk of Mount Paedris, confirming that she was in the Ezera Forest and showing which direction she needed to go to reach the academy.
Shimmying back down, Alex halted her descent when she reached a place where the branches thickly overlapped, making them more stable. She began moving through the trees, crawling more often than walking. It was slow going, but with the advantage of height she didn’t fear any more encounters with hairy, snarling beasts. Or Aven, for that matter. She was sure he was long gone, but the last thing she needed was to have another close and personal run-in with him again so soon.
Soon enough Alex’s patience waned and her confidence grew, leading her to trust that the branches would hold her weight as she walked, ran, and often jumped from tree to tree. Holding onto the vines for balance and support, Alex felt like a Tarzan wannabe as she moved stealthily through the forest.
Eventually the trees began to thin, bringing her out of the woodland and to the edge of the academy grounds. Just as she was about to climb down to the ground, something caught her eye a few trees away. Her injured back was screaming in agony after all the climbing and jumping and she was desperate to visit Fletcher for some of his miraculous healing salve, but Alex couldn’t resist investigating the object glinting in the afternoon light.
She leapt the last few branches until she was able to reach up and grab the object from above her head.
“What is this doing out here?” she whispered to herself, turning the shiny necklace over in her hands.
While the unexplainable resting place of the jewellery was a mystery, what surprised Alex the most, was that it was fashioned from Myrox—a stunning but rare Meyarin steel. The chain was a simple strand of the silver-like material, but it was the pendant that was truly enchanting. It was a miniature depiction of a beautifully crafted archer’s bow, with the arrow drawn and ready for release. The detail was incredible, and the glowing Myrox infused the ornament with a lifelike quality.
Alex wondered how such a prized possession could have ended up hidden so high in the trees. It didn’t make any sense.
She shrugged to herself and, unsure what else to do, undid the miniscule clasp on the chain and reattached it around her neck. She felt a little uneasy wearing someone else’s pendant, but at least this way she wouldn’t drop it or lose it in her climb down to the ground.
Branch by branch, Alex slowly lowered herself, wincing as she grappled with the rough bark. Her palms were shredded from all the climbing she’d endured, but that was nothing compared to the throbbing gashes across her back.
When Alex reached the ground she stretched out her cramping arms and legs before setting off through the last of thinning forest. Within a few short steps the academy came into view, and she felt like dropping to her knees in relief. The only reason she didn’t was because she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to get back up again.
It took her a while to walk around the edge of Lake Fee and hike across the massive field, but eventually Alex made it to the campus and she headed straight for the Medical Ward.
The sight that met her inside Fletcher’s domain was not what she’d expected. The Ward was so full of patients that she wondered if she should leave and come back later, but then her back throbbed its disagreement and she grimaced at the pain.
“Alex,” Fletcher greeted her, more frazzled than she’d ever seen him. “I take it you’re here for the same reason as your classmates?”
She frowned in confusion and looked around the room, noting that the patients were all fourth year students.
“What happened?” she asked, feeling a stab of concern as she searched for the familiar faces of her friends. She relaxed slightly when she couldn’t see them anywhere.
“Weren’t you with them?”
“No, I was… elsewhere,” she said meaningfully.
Fletcher’s eyes lit with understanding. “Oh. I see. Well, some of your classmates pushed themselves too far in their pursuit of a position in Hunter’s class. Nothing too serious, mind you, but they certainly weren’t being very careful.”
Alex looked around the room once more and noticed the various injuries. Cuts and bruises seemed to be the most common ailments, but she also saw a number of bandaged limbs.
“Since you weren’t with them, can I assume you’ll live until I’ve herded them all out of here?” Fletcher asked.
Alex swallowed, wondering how long that would take. But she’d already managed on her own while forging through the forest, surely she could wait just a little longer? Her pain spiked again at the thought, but she ignored it and nodded to Fletcher.
The doctor sent her a grateful smile and indicated towards a spare bed in the corner of the room. “I won’t be too long,” he promised, hurrying off to assist his other patients.
Alex stumbled over to the bed, careful to keep her back to the wall and away from curious eyes. She was wearing a black shirt, which helped conceal the bloodstains, but she was certain the material was ripped from the creature’s claws. She sat on the bed with her legs dangling over the edge of the mattress and waited. She couldn’t lie down and she couldn’t lean on anything—not unless she wanted to stain the white bed sheets or walls with her blood.
She was tired, she was hungry and she was in some serious agony now that she wasn’t doing anything to pump her adrenaline and keep her mind off her injury. If only she’d had the foresight to ask Fletcher for some of his pain relief medicine. Then at least she could have been more comfortable while waiting.
It took half an hour for the majority of her classmates to be discharged, but there were still a few left with whom Fletcher was finishing up. She wished they would heal faster.
“Don’t tell me you fell out of a tree, too?”
Alex looked up and found herself face to face with Kaiden. She sent him a baffled look. “Why would I have fallen out of a tree?”
Really, considering everything else, it was a miracle she hadn’t fallen out of a tree. But how could he have known about that?
“Isn’t that what happened to most of your classmates?” he said, leaning against the bed. She turned towards him, attempting to keep her shredded flesh out of sight.
“I’m not sure what happened to them,” Alex admitted. “Fletcher said they went a bit crazy in the SAS trial.”
Kaiden’s eyes flickered briefly over her body, as if examining her for injury. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“How did you go in the trial?”
She blinked at him. “I didn’t do it.”
He looked surprised. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” Alex huffed. Why was it so hard for people to believe she didn’t want any part of Hunter’s class?
“How… unexpected.” His lips curled into a secretive smile. “I’ve never heard of anyone not trying out for SAS.”
Alex floundered for a response and settled on a lame, “Well, now you have.”
He peered intently at her and then chuckled quietly, but she wasn’t sure what was so funny. “You’re different, Alex, you know that?”
Her tone was wry when she replied, “You have no idea.”
He grinned in response and thankfully didn’t ask any more questions.
“What are you in here for?” she asked conversationally, shifting her position and barely hiding a wince. “You don’t look hurt. Or sick.”
“Healthy as a horse,” Kaiden confirmed.
“So…?”
“I came to report to Fletcher that everyone is accounted for,” he said.
“Accounted for?”
“Hunter had all the current SAS students out on patrol to keep an eye on the potential initiates,” Kaiden explained, waving his hand towards the students
still left in the Medical Ward. “We weren’t allowed to interfere with the exercise, only to report our observations. He asked me to come and tell Fletcher that everyone is now out of the forest.”
“You’re in SAS?” Alex was curious despite herself. “What’s it like?”
His eyes lit up but all he said was, “It’s something you definitely have to experience for yourself.”
“Vague, much?” Alex said with a teasing grin. Then she asked, “What was the exercise?”
“I can’t tell you that,” he said, with an apologetic shake of his head. “Even your classmates weren’t told beforehand.”
Alex frowned. “How were they supposed to complete the exercise if they didn’t know what they had to do?”
“They were given brief instructions that were meant to be interpreted as clues.”
Alex looked at him. “Exactly how ‘brief’ were those instructions?”
Kaiden held his hands up. “Easy, now. Remember, I’m not Hunter. And besides, I had to do the same thing last year. Or something similar, anyway.”
“Did you end up in the Med Ward afterwards?”
“Broken collarbone,” he admitted, almost proudly. “But it was worth it, since I got a place in the class.”
“You’re insane,” she said. “I honestly don’t understand the appeal.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out soon enough.”
That wasn’t going to happen, not unless one of her friends made it into the class and regaled her with stories of their stealthy and subterfuge-y adventures. But if they did, then they’d probably be too cool to use words like ‘subterfuge-y’.
Alex chuckled at the thought and then grimaced from pain. This time, she failed to hide her reaction.
Kaiden stiffened and Alex thought she caught a flash of concern in his eyes as he looked her over. “Are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing,” she told him quickly.
“I don’t believe you,” he said, his gaze probing her face. “I told you why I’m here, what’s your reason?”
“Really, it’s nothing,” she repeated, looking away and hoping he would let it drop. “You should give Fletcher your message and go. It’s probably dinner time by now.”
“Hey,” he said, reaching out to gently grasp her shoulder and turn her back to him.
The movement surprised her and she hissed when her torn flesh spasmed painfully.
Kaiden dropped his hand at her reaction, but then his face hardened with determination and, before she could stop him, he leaned around to look behind her.
She flinched away from him, but the damage was done.
“What happened?” he demanded, his tone both concerned and unexpectedly protective.
“It’s—”
“If you say it’s nothing one more time…” he interrupted, leaving his sentence hanging with the threat.
He wasn’t going to let it go, she knew. But before she could decide what to tell him, Fletcher arrived.
“Now that everything is sorted, what can I do for you, Alex?”
She looked from the smiling doctor to the narrow-eyed Kaiden and sighed in defeat. “I was attacked by an animal out in the forest.”
There. Done. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid.
Fletcher sent her a look, clearly knowing that she was downplaying the situation. “Where are you hurt?”
She carefully eased herself off the bed and turned around. She hadn’t had a chance to look at her injury and Kaiden had barely glanced at the wound, but from both his and Fletcher’s sharp inhalations, she could guess it wasn’t a pretty sight.
“Alex…” Fletcher breathed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were this badly injured when you arrived?”
She turned to face him again but kept her gaze averted and shuffled her feet. “You were busy. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
He tsked quietly and ordered her to get back on the bed while he went to get medical supplies. When he returned, he instructed her to lie down on her stomach and he lifted the hem of her shirt. The wound was on her lower back so it wasn’t too awkward, but she was very aware that Kaiden was still standing by her bed.
Fletcher pressed something wet against the wound and she had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out at the stinging pain. The doctor tried to take her mind off what he was doing by launching into his interrogation.
“What sort of animal did this?”
“I don’t know what it was,” she said, trying—and failing— to keep her breathing steady as she focused on his question and not the burning of her flesh. “It was big and black and hairy, with creepy red and black eyes, and claws on its front feet. Its teeth were as long as my hands. And its blood was a strange brown colour.”
Fletcher’s voice was contemplative when he said, “It sounds like a Hyroa. But they’re practically extinct. And there certainly shouldn’t be any of them left near these parts. What do you think, Kaiden?”
His face troubled, Kaiden responded, “That was my first thought, too, given the description. But like you said, Fletch, they’re supposed to be nearly extinct. And definitely not roaming free in the Ezera Forest.”
“If that’s the case,” Fletcher said, turning back to Alex, “how did you manage to get away from it? I’ve never encountered one, but rumours claim that they’re extremely bloodthirsty and move much faster than the average human can run. They’re very dangerous, Alex.”
Gee, you think? she thought, only just managing to keep her sarcasm internal.
“It didn’t look like the type of animal that could climb very well, not with different front and back feet,” she said. “I decided to use that to my advantage and I climbed up into the trees. But it caught me before I was high enough and swiped me with its claws.”
“That must have been intensely painful,” Fletcher murmured.
“I’ve felt worse,” Alex said quietly, remembering with vivid clarity the feeling of Aven’s ice-like dagger slicing through her back and into her lungs. She shuddered at the memory and turned her head, only to find Kaiden’s curious eyes on her. Why was he still here, anyway?
“Nevertheless, this likely caused you no small amount of discomfort,” Fletcher pressed. “How much time has passed since you were attacked?”
Alex tried to calculate it in her head. She’d left to visit her parents after lunch and stayed with them for about an hour before she was unceremoniously dumped in the forest. So that meant…
“I think it happened around two-thirty.”
There was a weighty silence after the words left her mouth.
“What?” she asked, feeling self-conscious.
“Alex, it’s six o’clock,” Fletcher said. “You only arrived here about half an hour ago. What were you doing all that time?”
“Making my way back,” she answered. Obviously.
Kaiden sent her a probing look. “Back from where?”
Oh. Oops.
“Uh, I was kind of lost in the forest,” she said. Until she’d found her bearings, that was definitely true.
“Why were you out there if you weren’t applying for SAS?” Kaiden pressed.
“That’s an excellent question,” Alex said. She then closed her mouth and turned her head to look in the opposite direction, having no intention of answering. The last thing she needed was for Kaiden to learn about the murderous Meyarin hell-bent on using her for his own nefarious purposes. Uh-uh, no way.
She heard him exhale in frustration and she felt a little guilty. But come on. She hardly knew the guy. She didn’t owe him an explanation.
“All right, how about this one?” he said, moving around to the other side of the bed so she could see him again. “How do you know the colour of the Hyroa’s blood?”
Alex blanched at the new line of interrogation. She absolutely couldn’t answer, not without talking about Aven.
Upon seeing her startled reaction, Kaiden leaned in further. He didn’t say anything but continued looking at her, waiting for her answer.
/> “I—I—Uh—” she stuttered.
Fletcher chose that moment to apply some kind of paste to her back, and she couldn’t supress the whimper that escaped her lips.
“Perhaps it’s best if you leave, Kaiden,” the doctor said gently but firmly. “It sounds like Alex has been through quite an ordeal and she could do with some rest.”
Alex saw Kaiden hesitate and she braced herself for his response, but he then he relaxed and nodded at Fletcher.
“Thank you for reporting back to me,” Fletcher told him. “And for everything else you’ve done to help as well.”
“No problem,” Kaiden said, stepping back. He caught Alex’s gaze once more, his eyes telling her so much more than any words could express. He was asking her to trust him.
But she couldn’t. Too much was at stake. She closed her eyes and turned her head away.
A quiet sigh reached her ears, and then he whispered, “Feel better, Alex.”
For some reason, his kind words made her feel worse.
“And then what happened?”
It was the next afternoon and Alex was sitting with her friends under her favourite tree by the lake, telling them about the events that had transpired over the past twenty-four hours. Fletcher had made her stay in the Medical Ward overnight and well into the morning, ignoring her protests that ‘it was just a scratch’. He’d been worried about infection after seeing the depth of the claw wounds, and because of that he hadn’t been willing to seal her injury closed until he was certain his Regenevators had run their full course of healing from the inside out—which had taken all night.
The only visitor she’d been allowed was the headmaster, who had come after Alex had mentioned to Fletcher that there was more to the story, and that Darrius needed to hear it. Both of them had listened intently when she’d detailed what happened to the Hyroa, but neither had known why Aven wanted its blood. Like her, they were relieved that the Meyarin hadn’t known she was so close.
Darrius had again reminded her to be on her guard, but he hadn’t pressed her further about visiting Meya. He was giving her time to think, just like she’d asked, and she was grateful for his patience.