Chapter 18
Eighteen
Lory
They headed down the stairs into the main hallway, where a constant stream of Ashthorn students with colorful squares on their shoulders was pushing toward the blackened door that would be locked soon.
Some thornlings and tested with brown and silver squares on their shoulders walked between them, their features relaxed as they wove through the crowd.
“This way.” Halfway down the hall, Anees pulled Lory to the side by her sleeve, guiding her away from the ashlings and into a dark corridor that Lory had never noticed to continue behind the alcove.
She’d always thought the older students standing guard there were to make sure none of the ashlings tried to bail.
The voices and thudding of boots ebbed away after the first turn, leaving only the soft footfalls of the few thornlings and tested that had taken the same route.
“Ashlings don’t know about this shortcut,” Anees said as they turned a steep corner, filing into a narrow corridor that couldn’t have been wider than the limestone walls separating the rooms.
Lory’s shoulders didn’t brush the smooth rock, but in front of Anees, Hadrian Bleek’s familiar form came into view, and he had to angle his torso in order to keep his broad shoulders from bumping into the walls.
“Even when they lock the main mess hall door, we can always get in unnoticed,” Anees narrated. “Now that you’re officially a thornling, this privilege belongs to you, too.”
Lory didn’t respond, already pondering how she could use that knowledge to help her friends survive until the day of their last trials as ashlings.
“And don’t even consider telling anyone.” Anees’s eyes flashed with warning as she threw the words over her shoulder. “Leadership is paying attention to the ashlings. They notice who of their colors is missing when the door is locked.”
There goes hope, Lory thought to herself, her gaze ahead on the bright spot at the end of the tunnel and her frustration building with every new secret unveiled.
“Did you say something?” Anees didn’t turn her head this time, but her shoulders had tensed as if she was ready to fight.
A glance at the two short swords hanging at the woman’s hips told Lory Anees was ready for battle.
Before Lory could let Anees know she hadn’t uttered a word, the end of the tunnel spat them out into an antechamber of the mess hall, on the same side as the exit the dead bodies took after the daily stabbing.
Lory had never noticed this small room either, it’s entrance expertly hidden between the columns on the side of the room, and the gigantic stained glass window panels, displaying war scenes and leonthors, allowed light into the room only in one direction, which veiled the gap in the wall in shadows.
She’d need to pay more attention to details in this pyramid, Lory decided. Perhaps answers were hidden in plain sight—just like the leonthors on the window and the scribbled notes in Aiden’s old book.
As they walked into the room, Hadrian stopped and inclined his head first at Anees, then at Lory, in the same manner the gentlemen at the dance had, and a roguish grin lit up the phantom’s face.
“You’re sitting with us today,” Anees informed Lory as she was steering for her usual table, spotting the three faces she’d been looking for.
Thal, Tabi, and Jarek were already sitting there, whispering among themselves, and Lory’s chest ached to join them. “Why can’t I sit with them?”
Anees rolled her eyes. “Because you’re no longer a blue. Thornlings are brown and sit with other thornlings. Wait a few more days, and you’ll have them back—if they all make it through their trials.”
Lory’s stomach tightened. “Are they being sent to the mountains, too?”
At that, Anees shook her head. “Only those the Triad don’t trust are sent there as ashlings. The rest undergo more humane tests.” Anees gestured at a table closer to the front of the room, where Bleek was already taking a seat next to Perredin Washings, another phantom.
Lory glanced between the table so close to the scrutiny of leadership and the one hosting her friends. As her eyes landed on Tabi, the woman’s eyes snapped up, and a smile spread on her lips as she waved.
I wish I could join you, Lory thought, already turning away when she noticed Tabi’s eyes widen and her smile slip.
“Not in the best mood, are they?” Bleek noted as he pulled the bench back half a foot and climbed over it, settling in across from Anees and next to Washings. When Lory gave him a doubtful look, he amended, “Your former fellow blues. They know their trials are coming up, and it won’t be pretty.”
“Still better than being slaughtered before breakfast.” Lory didn’t turn away from Tabi as she sat next to Anees, holding her friend’s gaze with a silent prayer to the Guardians on her lips.
Now that she knew how the ashlings who’d die were chosen, Lory could no longer rely on her friends’ impeccable punctuality.
If the Triad decided they were suspicious, their timely arrival would be sabotaged to make them late.
She needed to warn them not to put their noses into the rebels’ business, or they wouldn’t live to enter their final trials.
After all, Jarek’s sister Maes had been friends with the girl who’d shouted pamphlets about Ashthorn from that dais at the front of that very room.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” she casually asked Anees, hoping whatever was planned for her own training would keep her head busy so she wouldn’t spiral.
The phantom shrugged. “Khay is heading out to a mission this afternoon, so I guess it will fall to Bleek and me to oversee your training.”
Lory wasn’t sure whether she should be excited or terrified. If Hadrian Bleek was going to attempt to educate her in Gilded once more, she just might scream.
“Don’t worry,” the latter said with a wink, his easy smile making Lory wish she could read people better.
Everyone seemed to wear a mask within these walls; only some chose to smile while others kept emotions wiped from their faces. Lory wasn’t sure what terrified her more. Especially since Princeton Nahrit had caught her attention from his table on the dais, his face kind and collected as always.
He had given her the tonic to better handle her exhaustion, a gift to help out a student, and he was probably the only one on that dais who’d ever done something nice for a student.
Her gaze skipped from Nahrit Princeton to Hand Sil, to Dunveil, to Ycken and Brunn, finally lingering on the empty seat that was Khayrivven’s.
“He’ll be there in a moment,” Anees reassured her. Only, it wasn’t in the slightest reassuring, knowing that he’d enter the room from the side door, a student at the tip of his blade, and executing the verdict of the Triad.
Now she knew that the Triad was hunting rebels and sympathizers and that Khayrivven was putting his own life at risk by trying to save them.
Maybe not all of the Triad was as ruthless as Lenya, doing the king’s bidding not out of duty, but out of what seemed like genuine delight. Thank the Guardians, the Master of Whispers wasn’t there that morning.
“Lenya is out on a mission of his own,” Bleek provided, shoving his dark-blond waves back with a quick hand as he leaned across the table and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Falcrest gave him the details of your findings from last night’s mission.”
In Lory’s head, her thoughts swirled like a kaleidoscope of horrors. Her father… Elina… The bargain Ulder had offered…
“The magic wielders who set off the explosions,” Bleek supplied when Lory didn’t react with more than a few rapid blinks.
“Right.” Lory remembered every last word of her conversation with Lord Brady Niely. No names had been mentioned, so whatever trails Khayrivven had handed over to the Triad must have been his own findings.
How she felt about not knowing, she wasn’t ready to explore—not after Khayrivven’s last words to her before they’d returned to the constraints of Ashthorn Ward.
I heard you earlier, Lory. As if to mock her, the bell rang, almost lifting her out of her seat.
Two ashlings darted through the closing doors, their eyes wild with terror at the close call, as the lock clicked behind them.
Her blood chilled, and all she could do was focus on those words Khayrivven had spoken to keep the nausea that came with the daily ritual at bay.
She had tried not to waste a thought on what he’d said because it could have meant anything between he was wildly in love and he’d never felt more than the undeniable attraction falling between them whenever they laid eyes on each other.
As if summoned by her thoughts, Khayrivven entered the room through the side door, one single ashling at the tip of his saber, and his face hewn from stone.
Atop the dais, Brunn got to her feet, her eyes on the students sitting along the tables in the mess hall, searching, searching—until they landed on Lory.
Her mouth twitched in a bitter grimace as she turned to Khayrivven, prompting him once more to pick someone to lead the knife or do it himself.
That day, Lory paid attention to every detail: The young woman at the tip of Khayrivven’s knife, Andromeda Behuli, was a red. She’d never talked to her, but she’d noticed the short halo of black curls and piercing blue eyes set in a golden face before, during training.
Another red. Just like Narica had been a red.
“Captain, I’m waiting,” Brunn reminded Khayrivven, and Lory could no longer tell who held the power in that situation—Brunn, who was forcing his hand, or Khayrivven, who was ready to stab his own to control the damage done, and hopefully get them to the crematorium alive.
That day, Khayrivven didn’t choose another student to kill the ashling. He wordlessly pulled a ten-inch blade from his boot and rammed it into Andromeda’s stomach.
The woman curled in on herself with a scream, her knees buckling and her shoulder hitting the ground hard as she toppled sideways, but Lory noticed a tiny detail that she hadn’t thought to look for before.