Chapter 8 #2
I twisted the knob that read “hot” and watched in amazement as clear, clean water rushed out of the tap.
Even if I missed home, this alone might be worth staying for.
After leaving my clothes in a pile next to the tub, I lowered myself in.
With a pleased sigh, I rested my head on the copper rim and closed my eyes.
The steam curled around me. The hot water soothed my aches, and my eyelids grew heavy.
This was exactly what I needed after getting beaten at The Sorting Rite and after running who knew how many miles today.
I didn’t have blood on my hands from killing that vampire, but the water seemed to wash away the death.
I felt myself slipping into a light sleep, then a door opening and closing startled me awake.
The water was still warm but had cooled and my fingers were pruny.
“Aesira?” Vander called.
I glanced at the door, I’d forgotten to lock it. I quickly dunked under, scrubbing at my scalp, then popped back up and reached for the soap. I lathered it in my hands and rubbed it into my hair.
Vander’s footsteps moved quickly in the bedroom. The front door opened and closed again. Maybe he had something else to do.
I rinsed my hair and found a glass bottle on a table next to the soap bottle and pulled the cork. It was an oil and smelled like the woods. We used this type of thing to soften hair at home.
I poured it onto the ends of my hair and worked it through. I hummed an upbeat tune that the band played in the longhouse most weekends.
The washroom door suddenly flew open. I squeaked and found Vander lumbering in the doorway.
“Oh.” His breath whooshed out and his eyes blew wide. “You’re... bathing.”
“Yes!” I sunk further into the water, peering over the lip of the tub. “Do you mind giving me privacy?”
He quickly shut the door. “Sorry,” he said from the other side. “I couldn’t find you, and I worried you... left.”
“Left? To where?”
“Home. Then I was going to have to find you and bring you back before anyone knew.”
“The sun has already set. I wouldn’t leave now.
” The light from the silver moon reflected off the bath water.
I laid back to rinse my hair and stared out marveling at the crescent shape.
I’d never been able to leave my windows unshuttered at night.
“What would happen if I did leave to go home?” I wondered if it would surprise him that I hadn’t even thought about it.
I wouldn’t put my family at risk. There were old stories of the guilds punishing entire families for ducai who refused to join. Everyone knew it wasn’t a choice.
The crickets and the hoot of an owl outside grew loud in the silence.
I watched a star streak across the sky..
. I didn’t know they moved like that. “You’d be brought back whether you wanted to or not and punished in front of everyone.
It would leave a permanent mark on your reputation.
They would call you a coward behind your back or to your face.
If you did it again, they would punish your family. ”
“You wouldn’t report me to Commander Locke if I did run away?”
“No.”
I smiled despite myself. “Why?” I sat up and squeezed the moisture from my hair.
“For one, it would make me look like a fool, and I’d be punished, and two, I’ve seen it happen to apprentices before. I wouldn’t wish that public humiliation on you or anyone.”
“Is that why apprentices are supposed to be with their trainer all the time?”
“In part.”
“I was surprised you left to go speak with the Commander without me.”
“It’s not a hard rule, and it is up to the trainer how strictly it’s followed.
Trainers are solely responsible for their apprentices and anything that happens.
If an apprentice causes a problem or breaks a rule and their trainer isn’t there, it’s on the trainer.
If something bad happens to you and I’m not present, it’s my fault. ”
Indigo’s insinuation that something had gone awry with Vander’s other apprentices came to mind.
“Were your other apprentices not good at following rules?” I stepped out of the tub and grabbed a linen from the nearby shelf.
I dried off and stepped in front of the mirror.
My face was completely healed now. I glanced at the door when he didn’t answer.
My stomach slowly sank. Maybe something worse had happened to one of them.
“Why would you ask that?” He finally spoke, his voice lower than before.
“Something Indigo said.”
“They followed the rules for the most part.” His voice was clipped, and I didn’t dare ask more. Which of the assassins were his former apprentices? I’d only seen him talk to Falcon and Commander Locke.
As I finished drying my hair, it hit me that I didn’t bring clean clothes to change into. I stood in front of the door with the towel wrapped around me. I was blushing just thinking about having to walk out there like this. “Um, Viper, will you pass me some clean clothes to wear? I forgot them.”
“Yeah.” His footsteps pattered lightly. I heard my trunk squeal open. “We missed supper, but I brought you back something to eat. Do you want your sleeping clothes?”
It was dark now and in summertime that meant the hour was late. “Yes, please.”
“Do you want a corset or...?”
Even if I was going to wear one, it wouldn’t be to sleep in. I didn’t know why I was smiling and said, “No.”
A moment later, a quiet tap on the door came.
I reached through a small opening, and my warm fingers brushed his cool ones.
The touch sent a small shock up my arm. I realized I’d reached with my scarred hand.
Panicked, I pulled the bundle in and shut the door.
“Thank you.” I dressed quickly in a long purple tunic that reached mid-thigh and a pair of undergarments.
I braided my hair into a single plait from the nape of my neck to the ends.
When I emerged, Vander was lying on top of his bed, tossing a small white ball and catching it over and over. “Your supper is on your bed.”
“Thank you.” I sat and lifted the tray onto my lap. The curtain between us blocked him from view, but I heard the ball hitting his hand in steady repetition. “Did you already eat?”
“I did, with Commander Locke.”
I wondered if he was reporting on how our first couple of days went.
Maybe he told him I killed my first vampire.
I tore into the soft round bread roll and dipped it into the butter.
I wished he had something better to report than what happened.
If I’d struck her right when he told me to, she wouldn’t have been able to shadow walk and slip out of her binds.
I shuddered at the way she flew at me and how she’d instantly halted before hitting sunlight.
She would have taken me down if the sun hadn’t behaved like an invisible wall.
It still bothered me how... human she looked at first, struggling and begging me not to kill her.
“There’s a ball on your side table. Tossing it like I am will help with your hand-eye coordination. And the beanbag I want you to pulse-squeeze every night before bed to strengthen your grip.”
“Alright. When will I learn to use a weapon properly?”
“When you can climb a rope properly.” He cleared his throat. “Can you write?”
I half smiled. He was probably nervous to ask me that after our last argument about my education. “I can.”
“I will explain a lot about LOA, vampires, and Nighthaven over the next year, and I recommend you take notes in a journal at the end of the day so you don’t forget things.
There is a new journal in your nightstand.
At the end of your apprenticeship year, there will be a written exam.
Most of the questions will be scenarios and what you should do in them, but others are facts about the League and the guilds, rules and laws, the vampires, and history. ”
“Alright, I will do that. Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t the ducai have the humans fight with them in this war? Why not involve those in Lothleton?”
“There was a time we did, but humans aren’t as fast or strong as vampires and ducai. The vampires turned men on the battlefield too quickly. Unfortunately, they became more of a hindrance than a help. It’s for humans’ own good they hide at night.”
I didn’t like it, but I understood. I finished eating and lay staring up at the dark stone ceiling, squeezing the small bean-filled bag in my crippled hand.
It ached after a few minutes, but I knew it would help me.
I also worked on trying to stretch my fingers open fully, though the skin and muscles had healed in a way that made it nearly impossible.
We’d both gone quiet, and when the sound of the ball stopped, I suspected he’d gone to sleep.
Some small part of me wished the curtain wasn’t there so I could see him—admire him was more like it.
But I doubted he wanted me to watch him and I didn’t want him to watch me.
The next week we spent wandering the woods to search out hiding places for vampires.
We hadn’t found another one since the first day, but I became more familiar with the land and my sense of direction improved.
While we wandered, he told me of the leadership hierarchy in LOA.
At the top were Commanders, Ace and Locke.
Commander Ace had been the head of LOA for twelve years.
She was the most lethal and cunning to come through LOA in a decade, and the only person in LOA who had killed more vampires than Vander.
Her father was a high-ranking officer among the warriors, and her mother was a scholar and the lead professor at Nighthaven Academy-North for twenty-five years.
I made a note to never get on her bad side.