Chapter 7
Seven
Avalon
D espite my love for reading, historical battle strategy had never been my topic of choice, which I was regretting now as Instructor Perot glared at me.
“I’m not sure, Instructor,” I said for the eleventh time during this lesson. Why he kept calling on me when I was obviously inept at the subject seemed vindictive in a way I didn’t understand.
“What were you learning up there in the home of the Ninth Line? How to knit?” His tone told me how useless he thought that skill was, but down here in the warmth of Boellium, he didn’t know that being able to fashion warmth from the harsh wool of our mountain sheep was a life-saving skill. Perhaps even more so than being able to swing a sword, and definitely more than being able to recall thousand-year-old blood feuds from memory.
But I didn’t say that. Instead, I apologized once more and wore his mockery like a coat of shame.
I wasn’t sure what I’d done to piss him off, though. Maybe it was the mere existence of my Line. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the ancient blood feuds, because apparently, he was trying to start a new one.
The college wasn’t huge, which meant that we didn’t do separate classes. If it was time for battle strategy, the whole college was doing battle strategy. If it was combat training, the whole college was fighting.
Which meant I got no reprieve from the heavy presence of Hayle Taeme or the sharp looks from Vox Vylan. I wasn’t sure where I’d gone wrong; instead of keeping my head down, I’d attracted the attention of the two most powerful conscripts here.
One of Hayle’s hounds was lying under my chair, and the conscripts around me were either looking at me with curiosity or with concern, like I’d done something terribly wrong and was now under constant guard. It was never the same hound—they seemed to take it in turns—but no matter how many times I told them to leave, they’d sit doggedly at my heels with defiant expressions. Yep, the hounds had expressions. They were obviously not ordinary beasts of burden.
I’d had to come to terms with the fact that if I wasn’t in my dorm, there was a hound beside me. Hayle hadn’t said anything about it. In fact, I hadn’t even spoken to him in a week. Boellium wasn’t that big, so I had the suspicion he was purposefully avoiding me so I couldn’t confront him about his furry shadows.
“Miss Halhed, who was the General for the Fifth Line during the Battle of Cregmire in the year 602?”
Who the heck would even know that? I sifted around in my brain for anything I knew about the Fifth Line, which was pitifully not much. The current family line was Ingmire, so I was just going to have to take a wild stab at it. “Ah, General Ingmire, sir?”
“Is that an answer or a question, Miss Halhed?”
I gritted my back teeth, wishing I had an elemental ability so I could set the churlish instructor’s pants on fire. “An answer, sir.”
“The wrong answer, yet again, Miss Halhed. I’ll thank the Goddess every day that the Ninth Line only ever produces grunts and not ranking officers, because I am fairly sure your ilk would have us walking off the Herelean Cliffs.”
My cheeks flushed red at his derisive words, and the hound at my feet let out a rumbling growl, so low that I felt it more than heard the sound. I buried my fingers in his fur, which was either going to soothe the beast or get my fingers bitten off. I figured if they were ordered to attack me, I would’ve been dog food by now.
The hound looked up at me, disgruntlement in his gaze, and I gave him a quick smile. “It’s okay. His opinion of me doesn’t matter.” I said the words low, so no one could judge me for talking to an animal like I was from the Third Line instead of the Ninth. The hound huffed and put his big blocky head back on his paws.
I took notes and tried to comprehend as much as I could in the class, but Instructor Perot wasn’t wrong—I’d been learning to knit and keep house instead of history and politics. I’d been learning to dodge flying fists instead of memorizing the different alliances and great battles. I hated feeling this inept.
So when the class ended, I waited until everyone left before I stood up and walked down to the instructor. “Sir, if I may have a quick word?”
Instructor Perot looked annoyed, but he cast a quick look at Braxus, the hound guarding me today. Everyone had known their names except for me; they were clearly something of a legend among the Upper Six Lines. Trained to work as a pair, Braxus and his mate Alucius were efficient machines of death. They could take down even the biggest prey, tear apart an enemy in seconds. People looked at them with equal parts awe and fear.
I understood the feeling, really. They were at least six feet long from nose to tail tip and five feet from paw to the fluff at the tips of their ears. Braxus might have been even taller. When we walked, his head was at my shoulder. They were terrifying, but something about them made me feel safe rather than scared.
My own stupidity, probably.
“Yes, Miss Halhed?” Instructor Perot’s tone was clipped and icy.
Sucking in a deep breath, I swallowed down my pride. “You’re correct in thinking that I am lacking in this facet of my training, and I was wondering if you had any reading materials that I could work through to catch up on what I assume is basic knowledge.” It was bullshit. I’d seen the glazed looks on the faces of the rest of the new conscripts; this wasn’t common knowledge, despite the derision of the instructor toward me. Still, I didn’t want to spend two years being his chew toy for this class.
He eyed me, silent for a long moment. “Your mother was from my Line, did you know that?”
I pulled back in shock. I hadn’t known that. I knew almost nothing about my mother; only the soft memories of Kian, and they were the memories of a boy who missed his mother. I remembered a soft scent, like lilacs, and sometimes I thought perhaps that was just my own delusions.
Sadness swamped me. Anger. Hurt. Regret. “I didn’t, no. I’m sorry.”
The apology was automatic; they were words that always followed mentions of my mother. I'm sorry she’s dead. I’m sorry I killed her. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, don’t hurt me again.
I shook the panic from my limbs, and Braxus huffed, stepping closer to me, his teeth baring at the instructor.
Instructor Perot wasn’t perturbed by Braxus’s rising aggression, or perhaps he couldn’t feel the tension in the hound’s body the way I could. “My cousin. She married your father and was never allowed to return home. She died within a decade of marrying him. He didn’t even tell her parents she’d passed.”
My mouth felt dry, and I licked my lips nervously. I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do. The instructor’s obvious hatred of my family was palpable between us. So I just went with the truth.
“He wiped her from our lives. I don’t remember her, or know anything about her, only her name and the stories my older brother could tell me. That she was kind and beautiful. That she grew flowers and loved the water. That my father was devoted to her, and he became a monster after she died. He doesn’t ever talk about her, but he made sure we all felt the pain of her death.” Mostly emotionally, but sometimes physically. “I don’t even know what Line she came from, or you, for that matter.”
Grief flashed briefly in Instructor Perot’s eyes. “The Fifth Line. She was from Cyne, third cousin to the Ingmire line. She downgraded considerably, marrying Halhed, but she loved him, she said.” The pain in his voice made my heart constrict in my chest. He’d obviously loved my mother, if the pain of her loss still put that look on his face after nearly two decades. Would he turn into my father if he knew that it was my fault she died? “You look like her.”
Shock had me stepping back. No one had ever told me that before—not the staff who’d been in the manor when she died, not my brothers, and definitely not my father. I’d never seen a portrait. She had always been a ghost to me, or maybe a spectre that haunted me through no fault of her own. When I was younger, I’d hated her. She was the reason I was hurt, or hungry, or despised.
No one had ever said I looked like her.
“I… I didn’t know.”
Instructor Perot turned away, his shoulders stiff. He scribbled on a piece of paper, which he handed to me. “These are books available in the library to get you caught up on your severe lack of education.” All vulnerability was gone from his face now, and he turned and walked out of the classroom. Away from me and the open wound he’d just inflicted on my soul.
Braxus whined, nudging me toward the door, and then I ran. I ran out the door, through the hallway. Past the other conscripts and instructors. Past the mess hall and the open gate in the fortress wall. I ran through the village around the outer rims of the college and down the sand dunes until my feet were in the ocean. I didn’t even care that my shoes were getting wet, or that soft, sucking waves were pulling me further and further out into the ocean.
Braxus was right there; he took my wrist gently in his mouth, the waves splashing up on his midnight fur, holding me so I didn’t walk any further into the ocean. I collapsed down to my knees in the waves and allowed my salty tears to be dragged away by the sea. Braxus whined, but didn’t release my hand. I realized I was sobbing, and he came around, putting his body between the ocean and me. Burying my face in his stiff fur, I cried even harder.
I don’t know how long I cried. Minutes. Hours, maybe. But suddenly, strong arms were picking me up out of the water and walking me back to the shore. I wasn’t surprised to see Hayle, even though I hated that he would see me like this. I scrubbed my eyes and wriggled in his arms, but he just tightened them around my body.
“Be still,” he ordered, and I didn’t want to fight the command. When he sat on a rock, instead of putting me down beside him, he rearranged me in his lap. I turned my face into his chest, trying to wipe the tears from my face and hoping he’d just think they were ocean water. “What’s wrong, Avalon? Why are you crying like your heart’s breaking?” he asked softly into my hair, and any control I had over my tears disappeared.
“I’m cursed.” My voice was shaky and weak, but I couldn’t even find it in me to care. “I murdered my mother, and now I’m cursed.”