Chapter Eight #3
“I’ve heard what they’re calling me,” I say, emotion clogging my throat. “I never thought you’d think that about me, though.” Shadows press against my fingernails. How many times today have they begged to be set free? This must be a new record.
Her next words are vicious, each laced with poison and the bitterness of a thousand injustices. “The nobles have spent the last eighteen years getting fat and happy while the rest of us waste away in the caverns. And that—that family—his family is the worst of them all. They’re pigs—you know that.”
“I know what they are,” I whisper. “I’m still the same person I’ve always been, Cerise.”
“The person I know, my best friend, wouldn’t be marrying into a family like that.
Not when she knows I lost my own”—her voice chokes now, and to my horror, angry tears start to slip over Cerise’s cheeks, and she looks away—“I lost my own dad because of the stupid medicine rations the Roquelarts instituted to keep themselves and those like them comfortable while the rest of us suffer.”
The blood drains from my face. “I—”
“No,” she says. “There is nothing you can say to make this better. If you become a Roquelart, you and I cannot be friends.” She sniffs and stands. With a final glare, she says to me, “And if there’s ever a crown on that brilliant head of yours, don’t expect me to bow to it.” And then she’s gone.
My stomach bottoms out. I feel hollow, unmoored.
I’m lost in bleak thought for just a moment. Then Kole appears, dropping his bag like a sack of rocks at the table, and he falls into the seat beside me—Roze’s seat.
“Afternoon,” he says. “Vi, I wondered if you still had your Rhetoric notes from last semester— Saints, what’s wrong?”
I blink and look away. This is the second time today that Kole has caught me on the brink of a breakdown. “I’m fine. Sorry,” I say, blinking away the sting in my eyes. With a deep breath, I feel the shadows in my veins receding, calming, the thrashing seas inside me finally settling.
But Kole’s brow is still knit with concern. He reaches out and grabs my hand where it sits in my lap. “This isn’t like you,” he says. “Listen, if Roze isn’t treating you right …”
My heart clenches. “No, it’s really—”
“What’s that?” Kole points to the book that rests on my lap beneath our joined hands.
“Oh. It’s … just a book that Professor Borges gave me,” I say, deciding to offer at least some of the truth.
“Viola,” Kole says, his face grave as he looks up at me, “is that the dragon of Castelle? You know anything with that symbol is illegal. What’s Professor Borges thinking, giving something like that to a student?”
“It’s purely academic,” I reassure him, covering the seal protectively. “She thinks this could have something to do with the Book of Odds. Look, Hivernian runes.” I show him the cover of the book.
He frowns. “Well, I’ll admit that’s peculiar. The dragon of Castelle with the lion of Aragoa? And what would these runes be doing on a book with the Castellian dragon? Runes hadn’t been used in centuries by the time Castelle existed.”
“There’s some unknown link between the two,” I say, the familiar thrill of discovery quickening my pulse. And maybe because our hands are still clasped in my lap. “This book is proof of it—I just need to find it.”
Kole nods. “You know, the war is fascinating, but people who fought in it never want to talk about it. My father was an engineer in the garrison here, and he’s told me a few stories, but very little.”
“Oh? What stories?”
“Well,” he says, sweeping a hand through his hair.
“For example, he told me that before the Mists came, they thought the war was almost over. They were so hopeful that he wrote to my mom that he was coming home. There was an armistice, and it looked like there might be a treaty signed, but it didn’t last.”
“Why not?”
A clearing of a throat.
Kole drops my hand like it’s burned him, and we both turn in our seats.
Roze is holding a cup of tea, staring down at Kole, and the way he’s looking at him …
Objectively, there is no expression there.
Every muscle in his face is utterly relaxed.
But there is something lethal behind his eyes that makes me infinitely glad I am not on the receiving end of that look.
Roze’s un-expression falters. He smiles congenially. “So sorry,” he says, his tone absolutely dripping with condescension, “but it seems you’re sitting in my seat.”
“Roze,” I say. “Don’t—”
Kole looks taken aback. “It’s just a seat.”
“It’s my seat,” Roze fumes. “Get up, Belcamp.” His voice is louder than necessary, and several students eating nearby turn to watch.
Kole doesn’t hesitate now.
He shoulders his bag and stands, sparing me one final glance. “I’ll see you later, Viola.” He hurries from the dining hall, apparently preferring to forgo eating entirely rather than endure whatever Roze might do to him next.
I groan and let my head fall to my hands.
Roze acts none the wiser, taking Kole’s seat in what can only be described as a merry manner—at least, merry by Roze’s standards. He sets the cup of tea before me and pulls an apple from his bag. I fully expect him to bite into the fruit in front of me, flaunting his status with it as always.
But then, to my utter shock, he holds the apple out to me. I stare at the bloodred fruit in his gloved hand. I have never in my life tasted an apple, and surely he knows this, surely he knows the significance of what he’s offering.
And then I realize—of course he does. This is his answer to what just happened with Kole, when Roze walked up on his fiancée holding hands with another in public.
This is a statement to everyone in the room …
and possibly a reminder to me as well. The moment feels weightier than when he gave me his ring.
I look up into his eyes, and he raises an eyebrow at me. I take the fruit from his hand, feeling the firm texture beneath my fingertips, lift it to my lips, and bite.
Oh Saints.
My eyes flutter shut, and I barely stifle a groan. When I open my eyes, Roze is staring at me, frozen.
“What?”
He closes his lips and lifts a hand. Now it’s my turn to freeze as his gloved thumb wipes a fleck of apple flesh from the corner of my mouth … and then he lifts it to his own lips and sucks the spare fruit from his thumb.
“Waste not,” he mutters.
I think my whole face is on fire.
He takes that infernal apple from my hand and bites right over my own bite mark, juice coating his lips.
I will burn to death before this is over.