Chapter 8 #2
You hide as if you were prey. The voice struck my mind like a bolt of lightning.
I froze.
Are you prey, fledgling?
Slowly, I turned back. Nyxaris turned his head towards where I stood, hiding in the shadows of the rock. Glowing amber eyes locked onto me through the dark.
I feel you. Are you so foolish as to believe I could not sense you standing there in the dark?
I felt my face flush hot. I don’t know what you can and can’t sense.
Yet there you are, he observed. Watching me. Do you have questions for me, fledgling? Why else do you linger?
I took a step back. Then another. No. No questions.
Down beside my ankles, Neville whined. The sound was a plea. Did he want me to run or to stay?
I will not harm you.
I froze again.
The dragon rumbled aloud, a great booming sound that echoed over the cliffs. You think I would choose one I wished to destroy?
You didn’t choose me. My voice sounded small and pitiful even in my own head.
The little one beside you follows you. He visits me, too.
I glanced down. Neville?
Neville, yes. A pause. He’s much more civil than you are.
I beg your pardon?
You ignore me. You would flee even now. Do you know nothing about what offends dragons?
I shivered. I didn’t mean to offend—
Silence, the dragon commanded. You do not listen. Not truly. You do not speak. You do not come. What am I to think of you, a rider who refuses the bond? A girl who would rather hide beneath her mother’s skirts than face me?
Tears stung my eyes. I didn’t ask for this.
A roar filled the air. I stumbled backwards.
None of us ask for this, Nyxaris bellowed in my head. You think I wanted this? We are chosen. You were chosen. You were saved.
Then, maybe you saved the wrong person, I blurted out. Maybe you shouldn’t have saved me at all. Medra is the one who belongs with you. She should be your rider, not me.
Silence. I was breathing hard, my cheeks wet, my eyes blurry. I’m sorry, I whispered.
Sorry? Is that what you are? Nyxaris snarled. She did not tell me you were such a coward.
I turned and ran, boots slipping on the slick snow-covered gravel.
The wind whipped at my face as I scurried up the hillside and back towards the castle.
The ribbon tying my hair back slipped out, flying away in the breeze.
I didn’t even try to turn and look for it.
Behind me, the cliff had become silent once more, but I could still feel him, watching me, listening to me. Judging me.
I blinked away tears as I stumbled back into the warmth of the school. Neville had vanished. I didn’t blame him. He’d probably stayed behind to visit Nyxaris. The dragon was probably much better company than I was.
The door caught in the wind and slammed behind me with a bang.
I picked up my pace again, boots pounding against the stone floors as I turned corner after corner, blindly retracing my steps back towards my mother’s apartment.
I’d passed the refectory and was nearing the library when I heard them—students laughing.
It shouldn’t have been unusual. But the sounds were too loud. Too sharp. Too cruel.
I peeked around the next corner, pressing tightly against the stone wall.
A group of highblood students were gathered around something, laughing and talking.
Some took swigs from flasks in their hands.
I recognized a few of the girls from House Drakharrow.
Quinn Riley was there. And another girl, Gretchen, I thought her name was.
A bunch of boys were with them; they looked older than any students I’d seen.
None of them were familiar to me. All of them wore matching badges with the image of a blood droplet being pierced by a sword on their uniforms. There was writing on the badges, but I couldn’t make out what it said.
The voices were getting louder. The group split up, moving in different directions.
I retreated around the corner, pressing my back to the wall and praying none of them would turn in my direction.
“… really thought she could say no. Can you believe the nerve?”
“The look on his face when Cade told him to pick up the knife …”
“Stupid fucking blightborns.”
Quinn, the other girl, and a boy I didn’t recognize reached the split in the hall. To my relief they turned left instead of right, moving away from me.
I waited, still hugging the wall. Then I looked carefully around the corner again.
That’s when I saw them: two bodies, lying on the stone, a boy and a girl.
They lay sprawled in the center of the corridor, a growing pool of blood around them.
Each one held a dagger in one hand. It looked as if they’d stabbed one another to death.
I pressed my lips together. But maybe they weren’t dead. I couldn’t just leave them like this. I stepped around the corner.
Stay where you are.
I stilled for a moment.
Go back to your mother’s apartment. That’s where a fledgling like you belongs.
I can’t, I hissed. Go away. Why are you watching me?
Whatever you’re about to do, stop and do the opposite, little fledgling.
I’m not your fledgling, I said furiously. If they aren’t dead, I have to help them.
I moved around the corner as quickly as I could. Reaching the girl, I dropped to my knees, stretching out two fingers to feel for a pulse at her throat. Her skin was cold. There was no rise and fall to her chest. Stomach twisting, I moved over to the boy, checking him in the same way. Nothing.
They were gone.
I could have tried to fetch a professor, a healer. Someone, anyone. But if I went searching, who would I encounter? A highblood or a blightborn? I thought of Professor Sankara, Professor Allenvale. I thought of Headmaster Kim. Highbloods had done this; highbloods didn’t care if blightborn died.
I saw it then, written on the wall behind where the boy and girl lay—their own blood had been used as ink. The school motto was scrawled like a taunt: Sanguis et Flamma Floreant. Beneath it, in sloppier letters, words even more cruel. Never refuse a highblood.
My hand flew to my mouth. I choked back a cry, looking around.
I was alone; there were no teachers coming to rescue me.
Medra wasn’t there to save me. Shakily, I got to my feet, looking down at the boy and girl.
I didn’t even know their names. Would their parents ever learn the truth about what had happened here?
Would I? But then, I already knew what must have happened.
The boy and girl had been walking down the hallway, probably hand in hand.
They’d been talking and laughing. They’d looked just a little too safe, a little too happy—for blightborn, that was.
They’d made a fatal misstep without even knowing it.
They’d turned a corner and encountered Quinn and her friends.
One of the highbloods had probably wanted to feed.
The blightborn girl had refused. The boy had tried to protect her.
Or maybe they’d wanted to feed from the boy first. Either way, someone had dared to refuse.
Cease your dawdling and return to the safety of your home, Nyxaris growled impatiently.
My legs moved on their own, somehow pushing me forward, forcing me to stumble away.
There was blood on my hands from where I’d knelt in the puddle.
I wiped it off on my skirt as best I could.
Then I ran. I forced myself to stop at every junction, checking around each corner before dashing on.
Finally, I reached my mother’s suite, unlocked the door, and slammed it shut behind me.
The lights were low: I knew she’d gone to sleep.
I fell onto the sofa where I’d been sleeping each night, curled into a ball and let the sobs come. My whole body shook.
Thrallweave.
I paused my sobs. What?
That is how the tale ends. Thrallweave.
They … used it on them? They made them hurt each other? I hadn’t been there on the first day of school, but my mother had returned at the end of the day looking tired and somber. She’d told me what Regan had done to the blightborn woman on the balcony.
Highbloods do what brings them pleasure—they always have and always will. They delight in cruelty. It is their nature. Nyxaris sounded both repulsed and resigned.
My skin crawled. I knew exactly what thrallweave was. It had been used on me my very first year at Bloodwing. I’d nearly died because of it.
Do you know how to defend yourself against it?
I shook my head in the dark. No. Of course I don’t. I’m blightborn.
You’re more than that now. You must be. You need to learn.
There was a long pause. I could almost feel Nyxaris pondering. You did not listen to me, back in the hall. You did not stay put.
I couldn’t! I had to see if they were …
Hmm. Another weighty silence. Perhaps you are not as hopeless as we both believe you are. If you are willing, I can teach you.
Oh, I don’t think I could … The words rushed out.
Silence! Nyxaris said with the force of a roar. It was the second time he’d told me to shut up that night—not that I really blamed him. For one supposedly quite clever, you do not give nearly enough consideration to your words before they leave your mouth.
I closed my eyes, wondering if that might be true. I’d never had that problem before, but I supposed there was a first time for everything.
I cannot teach someone who believes themselves unworthy, Nyxaris said coldly.
Who recoils not just from me but from her own essence.
Another silence. You must choose, fledgling.
Continue to fall to pieces and hide away in the safety of your mother’s home if that is what you wish.
I could hear the derision in his voice. The weight of the challenge. Or …
He was silent so long I thought he’d disappeared.
Or? I ventured.
His voice came out of the darkness like a shadowy blade. Or you rise.