Chapter 5 Roommates #2
He stops, blinking nonplussed. “Weren’t you paying attention?”
“Why are you training us? We’re enemies. I thought we were going to … I don’t know, be enslaved or something?”
“And you volunteered for that?” His head tilts, and it strikes me with painful awareness that he’s not a man at all, but something more.
Something worse. He has the beauty of a god and is nearly as dangerous.
He grins wickedly. “Let me guess. You thought if you got Selected, you’d be let over the Wall and then just …
find a way to elude us? To find your missing family in a totally foreign land?
You really don’t think much of immortals if you thought it’d be that easy. ”
“What choice did you leave me?” I hiss through my teeth, “Everyone I loved was taken by you people.”
He wears the epitome of boredom on his features. Ignoring the emotion blazing in my eyes, he straightens his wrinkleless shirt. “You seem to enjoy lumping us all together. But your scent isn’t anything I recognize. So, tell me, Rune, did the druids ever choose someone you love?”
“The elves and the seraphs—”
“Are not druids,” he finishes for me. He shakes his head. “Humans like to pretend the Selection is random. It makes it easier. But the truth is we all have our own qualifications for who we take. With druids? We pick people with no one in the mortal realm left to mourn them.”
Blood rushes out of my face, leaving me shifting on my feet.
“And those who avoid the Selection? Would they be put here, too?”
“Your mother isn’t here.” His lip curls. “Selection deserters are considered undesirable, untrainable.” His gaze travels my face meticulously. “Be glad no one seemed to realize you deserted, too.”
“Is that a threat?” I don’t take those lightly.
“Observational skills.” The prince releases the door handle, wings spreading wider at his back. “If I were threatening you, there wouldn’t be a question.”
“Where is she?” The words blurt from me in the face of his cold disdain. I want answers. “She avoided Selection, and you took her—”
“I took? I recall doing no such thing.”
I hate the spark that brightens those eyes. He enjoys this, fucking with me. He’s jealous I was chosen for this stupid card, too, I can see it written all over his privileged face, and although I’d bet that he hates me, it’s nowhere close to how I feel about him.
“I spared your brother from another choice on his little conscience. All I ask is where she is. Give me that much.” I clench my jaw in the face of my nemesis and his eyes narrow, lip curling.
“Well, you provided my brother a traitorous kindness, and I did the same for you and your little … trinket. So, I’d say we’re even.” Yet he doesn’t retreat to his room, nor use his magic. Instead, he lingers, gripping that handle, like he can’t quite make himself go.
I push. “Tell me, and you won’t have to watch over your shoulder for more flying vases.” I don’t know what makes me think he’d even listen. Maybe it’s his hesitation.
“Is that a promise?”
“It’s a deal.”
His gaze travels the length of me. Chewing his lip, he comments, “All those who avoid the Selection are sent to the Destarion, the prison of No Realms. Last I’d heard any who survived that abstention were sold to the elves.”
My heart drops. Clenching my eyes and jaw tight, I force myself to take a deep breath and then ask, “What becomes of them?”
The last dregs of hope shred in my chest as he shrugs.
He picks at his cuticles with his thumb.
“Usually nothing pleasant. But I’ll remind you that you’re bound to this realm; you can’t just leave.
” He chews his lip but then adds, “You’d be better off applying yourself to this new life.
A better one, surely, than whatever you left behind. ”
“You have no idea what I’ve left behind,” I growl.
“Enough to beg for something that could’ve been far worse.” His gaze narrows as he looks me over head to toe. “Stop carrying them with you.”
He wouldn’t understand. I can’t believe I came all this way and chose to be Selected … on a fool’s dream. None of them are here, and now I’m stuck in this realm for eternity.
My nails bite into my palms as I search for any lie, any trick in his words. “You said only those unmissed were Selected. What about that child?”
“An orphan. They all were.” He yanks open his door, and I watch, my wretched heart drowning in hopelessness, as he enters but he halts, turning back to me. “Gone by five. Don’t try to kill me,” he reminds me viciously, and snicks the door shut in my face.
I march over to my own, slamming it and locking it tightly.
Not that it’ll matter. With all that magic, I doubt a door would stop him.
But it eases me a little. I cross over to the shared bathroom and lock it, too.
I change into a simple silk set of pajamas and crawl into bed.
A lamp takes up most of the space on the bedside table, not lit by oil or candlelight.
It’s bright and warm, lighting cascades from a strange, orb-like object inside it. More magic.
It’s comforting, even if it’s the only thing that is.
So, I leave the light on, hoping it keeps out the darkness and the prince who commands it.
TRUE TO HIS WORD, Prince Draven is already gone by the time I wake up, my overwhelmed body sleeping heavily until the sun peeks through the curtains.
I get ready quickly, annoyed by the frizz-free hair, its silkiness that feels so unfamiliar.
When I return to the living room it’s to find my schedule pinned to the noticeboard.
Beneath a copy of my bounty poster.
I rip it down, clutching the note clipped to it in tight, neat writing.
I didn’t know I was in the presence of a celebrity.
What a fucking prick. I crumple Draven’s words and toss them and the bounty against his open door. Clasping the schedule, I take a hard look at it, wondering what the hells I’ve gotten myself into.
8–9
Introduction to Tarot and Culture
9:30–11
Major Arcana
11:30–1
Minor Arcana
1:30–3
History of Arcadia
3:30–5
Divination and Readings
5:30
Sparring
I notice sparring doesn’t have an end, but I have little time to focus on what it will entail, as my first class will start soon.
The classes have general building and room numbers beside them, and a small, printed map pinned to the back.
Packing a plain black side bag with a notebook and pen, I swing it over my shoulder and head off to the first class, swearing about Prince Draven under my breath.
The map takes me a bit to understand but the Hearths and the grassy Oval are a good reference point, and I’m soon headed the right way.
Introduction to Tarot is in a large stone tower with a circular roofline.
My pace has been dragging this morning, weighed down by Draven’s assurance my mother isn’t here.
I’ve learned a lot of tells in my time as a Wraith, and he didn’t seem to be lying.
But now I feel directionless, knowing only that I need to survive long enough to figure out my next steps.
The lecture hall is bustling with changelings, the sound of shuffling and whispered conversations overwhelming.
I stand in awe at the precipice. Balconies ascend above me; the domed ceiling is made up entirely of windows, and light shines through it, illuminating the grand space.
I’ve seen marvels designed by mortal hands, but nothing like this.
Carvings of the same tarot card figures and imagery I’ve seen outside each of the Hearths are chiseled into the columns around the room.
Living trees line the edges, their branches holding small reading lamps with live bats and birds roosting in the limbs and leaves.
It’s too magnificent of a scale for mortal engineering, and I back against the sidewall, clutching my note bag tightly.
“Oh, thank gods, you’re here!” Ember’s warm smile envelops me, and I relax a fraction.
Scooping her hand around my arm, she leads me up into the audience, decidedly aiming for an empty section of seats beside Morgan.
Everyone here appears to be from the Selection.
She sits, and I take the seat beside her.
Morgan leans over her to talk to me. “I heard it’s just you and the prince in that last Hearth. You don’t have to … sleep in the same room, do you?” His hands grip his notebook, knuckles whitening.
“No. It’s a big house.”
“I don’t trust him,” Morgan hisses.
I don’t trust anyone. I shift the subject. “Do you have to share rooms?”
Morgan shakes his head and Ember whispers, “No, but I overheard that anyone in a house lower than Justice has at least one roommate.”
“Lower?”
“In power. The Fool I guess is the lowest on the might scale, whereas the World is considered the highest.” Ember looks to me meaningfully, but I don’t feel any more powerful than I did last night.
This body might have changed to something stronger, built faster, but no sudden gifts like what Draven showcased sift in my veins.
Ember rattles off, “The lower on the scale, the more common the Arcana, too, which is why most are put in those categories, druid-born or changeling.”
“How’d you find out all this?” I raise a brow, and she laughs.
“Turns out the Star Arcana are a pretty chatty group.”
An older druid steps onto a platform in front of the black chalkboard.
Despite his silver hair, and the gentle twinkle to his eyes, he’s built lithe and strong, his movements not stiff but swift enough that I believe he could hold his own in a fight.
He slides one chalkboard over, revealing another with prewritten notes beneath it.
He announces, “I am Professor Atum, and this is the only class in which all of you, my students, are changelings. I, myself, was once one, too.”