Chapter 3
Three
Hayle
T he Ninth Line conscript had stood out like fleas on my cousin, Lucio. I’d noticed her immediately, first when she walked through the atrium and stared down my hounds, followed by Lucio’s war cat, then she’d been nearly impossible to miss as she stared down Vox Fucking Vylan.
Physically, she was unremarkable. The slightly too pale skin of the Ninth Line, with dark brown hair that was too unkempt to fall smoothly, but was thick and full. The fire in her eyes was something else, even if she was trying hard to stay under the radar like the rest of the Lower Lines.
Not that I blamed them. They could be the greatest warrior this school had ever seen, and the best rank they would ever achieve in our army was somewhere in the upper middle. Maybe Captain. They were here as troop fodder, not to jockey for influence like the rest of us. Because no matter how well you fought, when you were up against someone who had strong Line abilities—like Vox and his damn elemental strength—you may as well be one of the straw dummies we practiced against. I wasn’t saying it was right. It was just how the world worked, so it was best if they didn’t make waves and stayed in their own lane.
However, despite how hard she was trying to blend in, I knew this girl—this nobody —from the Ninth Line was going to stir up trouble, and I was here for it.
I sent my hounds to find her, and they happily went. They had good instincts, and they liked her scent, according to Braxus. They liked that she’d saved the stolt from Elaine, Lucio’s war cat. There was no love lost between the hounds and the war cats. They would fight beside each other when it counted, but they bickered like a bunch of toddlers outside of their duties.
Alucius, Braxus’s mate and my second hound, sent me a snapshot through our connection of the girl in the training arena with the new recruits. She was around my age, not one of the usual fresh faces that the various Lines sent.
I wanted to know her story, and there was one sure source of information. Slipping from my own training exercises, I called down my raven, Quarry. I was one of the strongest beastmasters of our line. The Third Line was known for its affinity with animals; our strong connection with some of the most powerful predators in Ebrus made us a formidable foe for our enemies, thus demanding respect from the other Lines.
However, a Line-wide secret was that the direct members of the Taeme family could shift into animals themselves. Lucio was a wolf, but I was something even more fearsome. Something that hadn’t been seen in so long, our historians had needed to delve into the history books to confirm what they suspected.
Quarry swooped down and landed on my outstretched arm as I walked back toward the main building of Boellium. “Is Svenna in her office?” I asked him, and he made an affirmative grunt. I nodded my thanks as he flew back to whatever tree he was sitting in today, keeping watch on what was happening on the college grounds and even the surrounding island. I stomped through the courtyard, which was much quieter in comparison to yesterday, though there was still blood in the crevices of the stone.
Alucius and Braxus had attacked a new recruit yesterday, permanently maiming him. I hadn’t interfered. The hounds had better instincts than most people, and whatever threat they thought he posed to me or our Line was probably true.
He was still alive, but he wouldn’t fuck with the Third Line again anytime soon.
Striding through the atrium, I entered the administration office, where Svenna was cursing at a ledger like it had personally insulted her grandmother. She’d once been one of the greatest warriors in the Dawn Army, and whatever punishment had led her to be stuck here in these four walls with only ledgers and students as foes was cruel. She was wildly unsuited to being a glorified secretary. It had nothing to do with the fact she only had one arm, and everything to do with the look she was giving me right now, like she wanted to set me on fire with her mind.
“What do you want, Taeme?”
I didn’t know what Line she was originally from, but all the leaders of Boellium War College gave up their Line allegiance to become devoted only to the Dawn Army and the college itself. I couldn’t imagine any role that would make me forsake my Line. They were my family. My life.
I gave her my most charming smile. “Maybe I just wanted to see you, Svenna?” I purred.
Svenna was scarred and had lost her arm in some battle or another, but beneath her constant scowl was what once would have been a fearsome beauty. Her blonde hair was cut shortish, but her blue eyes sparkled with intelligence and a ruthlessness that I found admirable.
“I was in the same class as your mother, and you piss me off more than a boil on my ass cheek. So spit it out, I’m busy.”
I laughed, dropping the pretense. “I want to know about the new girl from the Ninth Line.”
Svenna snorted. “Hardly a girl, Taeme. She’s basically a spinster, by your standards.”
I waved a hand. “You know what I mean. Who is she?”
Rolling her eyes in my direction, she slammed the ledger in front of her shut. “That’s none of your fucking business, Hayle Taeme. You want to know more about the Ninth Line conscript? Go and ask her yourself.”
Huffing, I sat in the chair in front of her desk. “People lie, Svenna. I want my information from a vetted source. I can make it worth your time.”
She frowned, the ridged scar on her face pulling tightly at the skin of her cheek. “You have nothing I want.”
That was untrue. Reaching into one of the many pockets of my pants, I pulled out a small jar. “The scar cream you wanted from the village, the one they said was no longer being made.”
Svenna eyed the cream, and something flashed in her eyes. Desperation. “You’re very annoying, you know that? Fuck the Third Line and their spying eyes. I’m using a more accessible tincture now, so you can take that cream and shove it up your own puckered assh?—”
I held up a hand to stop her tirade. Normally, I’d have had the hounds take a chunk out of someone for disrespecting my Line with so little care, but this was Svenna. She hated everyone , and that kind of removed a little of the sting.
Pulling out a piece of paper, I slid it across the desk so it sat next to the jar of cream. “And the recipe to make it yourself.” I was playing my hand a little early, but I was motivated. Besides, I liked Svenna. I didn’t want to extort her any more than necessary.
She muttered something under her breath. “Fine, but get your little furry minions to stop spying on me, or I’ll start making winter coats out of them.”
Yeah, my father wasn’t going to go for that. Svenna was a key figure in Boellium, and he liked to have his finger on the pulse of every major institution in this country. “I can’t do that. But I can give you a week?”
She made a rude gesture. “A year. The Third Line does know how invasive that shit is, right?”
I grinned. “We are all well aware, and don’t worry, we aren’t immune from it either. A dormouse told my brothers when I jerked off into a sock.” I smirked at the memory of the shit I’d gotten for months after that. Even now, I checked for little spies before I jerked off. “I can give you a month, but that’s it.” Reaching toward the cream and the recipe like I was going to take them back, I wasn’t surprised when she slapped her hand over them and dragged them back to her side of the desk.
“Fine. Dick.” She stood and grabbed a different ledger. This one, I recognised as the admissions ledger. She pulled it from the shelf with her one remaining hand, and despite the fact it was huge and heavy, I didn’t offer to help. I liked my balls where they were. She had incredible strength in her remaining hand and arm, and hardly struggled as she walked it back to the desk. “I’m going to leave this here, open to a certain page. Do not turn the page. In fact, don’t even touch it. You get two minutes.”
She swept out of the room, and I chuckled. Surly. Walking around her desk, I looked at the page, open to the section for admissions for the Ninth Line.
Avalon Halhed. So nobility then, not that you’d know it from the way she dressed. You could definitely tell from the way she held herself, though. Youngest daughter of Baron Halhed, unmarried and twenty-three. A spinster. Interesting. Normally, daughters were married off in their teen years up there in the Northern perma-frost, to keep the Line varied and to share around the mouths to feed during the long, cold winters.
She had three older brothers, none of whom had ever come to Boellium War College, I noted, along with one elder sister, who’d been married off to some other lordling of their backwater fiefdom. A description of her physicality—identifying features such as the birthmark at the base of her spine and the small scar she had on her chest—was listed on her page to help identify her body, should she be killed in training in a way that made her face unrecognizable.
A note was included under Psychological Fitness about the death of the Baroness Halhed. Just a brief line about Avalon being present at the death of her mother when she was a toddler. I guess growing up motherless could be a cause of some kind of psychological stress, but half of Boellium had lost a parent, either to infighting between the Lines, starvation, disease, or one of a multitude of other ways you could die in Ebrus. It was probably only listed because she was nobility. It was noted that she was the first female conscripted from her Line, however.
Other than that, her file was completely unremarkable, and I was a little pissed that I’d given up so much of my leverage for very little reward. It was the gamble you made sometimes in the information business.
Svenna stomped back into the room what felt like seconds later. “Time’s up, Taeme. Get the fuck out of my office.”
Giving her a cocky grin, I moved back around the desk toward the door. “A pleasure as always, Svenna.”
She flipped me a rude gesture. “Shut the damn door on your way out.”
Braxus was waiting for me outside the administration door when I stepped out. “Aren’t you meant to be watching the girl?” I asked him, quirking a brow.
He yawned and sent me a mental picture of Alucius lying in the shade of a tree, watching the new conscripts fumble with their swords, including Avalon Halhed.
Huffing a laugh, I tilted my head. “Fair. I guess it doesn’t take both of you to watch one girl.” I paused at the stairs. One set went up to my floor, with another set going down into the bowels of Boellium. “Actually, I have another job for you, and I think you’ll enjoy this one a little more. I know how much you love playing hide and seek.”
Braxus gave me a toothy grin, his tongue lolling out as I described what I needed. Maybe I had a better source of information after all.