Chapter 7
Seven
The sun stood at its highest point when Lory learned the location of Ashthorn Academy.
She was filing into a slim hallway a few floors up from where training and classes usually took place, her fellow blue ashlings all brimming with excitement as they were allowed on a long balcony overlooking the royal residence and Dunai at its feet.
On her left, Thal was making a joke about getting his tender skin burned in the baking sun, while on her right, Tabi was whispering with Jarek Grivor, a stocky, young man with harsh, golden features and a scar above his left brow.
Lory inhaled deeply, taking in the view of what used to be her home and hunting grounds. In the far south, she could even spot the lower buildings marking the outskirts of the city, where she’d hoped to sleep not even two weeks ago.
Two long weeks of watching her back and giving away nothing about her past. Thal and Tabi seemed to be fine with her avoidance of that topic, while Brycon was giving her suspicious glances whenever they found each other face-to-face.
Out of the students she’d met on the first day, Ricca was the most suspicious, asking subtle questions about where she’d learned to fight or climb the way she did, as if she suspected her past was shady and was ready to call her out on it as soon as she got proof—perhaps even end her for being a stain on the academy’s name, who knew?
“Tell me what you see,” Captain Falcrest—who turned out to be not only a glorious pain in Lory’s ass but also the Veiled Hand at Ashthorn—prompted from the center of the other side of the group, his gaze on the quiet streets and sun-illuminated houses.
“King Ulder’s palace to the west,” Jarek answered, interrupting his conversation with Tabi only long enough to make an impression by being the first to respond. Points for effort if not for wits.
Lips pressed into a tight line, Lory scanned the grid of streets and alleys closest to the palace hill for movement.
“What else?” Falcrest didn’t fail to look utterly bored as he turned his attention on the group of thirty-three students who were all fidgeting in the heat after a morning in the cool space the school pyramid provided.
Another thing Lory had figured out about Ashthorn, apart from the deadlines: The entire ward was placed in a huge pyramid—the easternmost one of the palace premises, she noted as she let her gaze sweep across the array of courtyards and outbuildings that were part of the king’s residence.
“Limestone and more limestone,” another blue ashling, Eira, said, her dark-brown hair billowing around her head as she leaned forward over the railing like she wanted to do a closer inspection of the slender limestone columns holding the solid handrail.
“The entire city is made of limestone, Ashling Moonfell.” Falcrest propped his hip against the railing, arms folded over his chest and ankles crossed as he gave the group a disapproving look that Lory had learned meant he couldn’t believe no one had anything better to offer.
Today, his sabers were sheathed across his back, his hair dancing in the wind and shimmering in hues of black and bronze.
“Perhaps if Brycon gives him his litany of knowledge, Falcrest will shut it,” Thal murmured to Lory with that half-serious tone he used whenever he made fun of someone, which was basically all the time.
Lory glanced at Brycon, who was playing with the length of his braid, obviously nervous about whether it was time to show off.
“You know it’s not actually his achievement he knows all those things,” Lory whispered. “He has magical aid.”
Thal raised an eyebrow at her, his short, black curls bouncing as he shook his head. “I wish I had an ability like his. That would mean no more side-eye from the other ashlings and actually doing something useful with my bloodline.”
“Your humor is a gift, Thal,” Lory noted with a half-smile, and Thal nudged her arm with his elbow as he directed his gaze back out to the city.
“I really like you, Lory. Too bad I need to beat you up again in combat training.”
Rubbing the new bruise from their last training, Lory chuckled, earning the attention of not only Tabi and Ronan but also the Veiled Hand, who’d snuck up on them like his title as instructor for stealth, stalking, and ghost movement suggested.
“Anything you’d like to add, Vednis?” he asked in that silken tone of his from right behind her, his body miraculously not touching hers in the narrow space that was the balcony.
How he’d gotten over there so fast and without being noticed was beyond Lory’s imagination, but he never failed to make her jump out of her skin, no matter how many times he did it.
Struggling to control her erratic pulse, Lory spun around, hands balled into fists the way Hand Sil had instructed in order to not break her fingers: thumb outside the fist, not tucked beneath the rest of her fingers, the tip covering the middle digit of her index and middle finger, the knuckles of those two fingers aligned with her forearm so they make a straight line.
Falcrest’s eyes snapped to her hands, a delighted surprise flashing there before he cocked his head, the bored captain incarnate. “Let me rephrase: This wasn’t a question, Vednis. Tell me what you see?”
About a million thoughts of how she could get into even worse graces with him if she described what a pretty, pretty boy he was shot through her head.
Lory smothered them with common sense and lowered her fists, half-turning toward the railing, but she didn’t need to look at the city to know what was there.
“Seven districts. Two of them—the closest to the palace hill—consist mainly of mansions and villas, all of them with their own little parks and fountains.” That was, Lory supposed, where a good portion of the students at Ashthorn had grown up.
“Three districts, right south of them, filled with well-situated Dunaii, and two more districts south of that, where the poor population of the city lives. Not to forget the outskirts where those not lucky enough to afford education try to survive.” She tried not to give Tabi or Thal a sideways glance.
It wasn’t their fault they’d been lucky with the families they’d been born into.
Their fathers hadn’t turned them away at the doorstep, and their mothers had been alive to care for them.
Closing her eyes, Lory visualized the web of alleys that used to be her entries and exits to a chance at a meal.
Falcrest’s gaze lingered on her—she didn’t need to look to know—and the rest of the students waited for his verdict if her description had been of any use. But Lory wasn’t done.
“It’s not the houses or the streets that are important,” she said, keeping her voice stable as she ignored that Falcrest or any of her fellow ashlings could attack her.
“What is important, Vednis?” Falcrest’s voice was a brush of shadows over velvet, but the command in it held her in a steel grasp.
“The walls, the drainpipes, the gutters, and the roofs. The cobblestones and gravel of the roads. The sparse trees, the columns and pillars marking the edges of the districts, the barrels and carts parked along the streets. The doorways and shady corners.”
Lory opened her eyes to find Falcrest still staring, a war in his eyes that reminded her of butcher’s blocks and gallows.
“Why, Vednis?” He cleared his throat.
Beside her, Thal shifted as the muscles in Falcrest’s jaw worked.
“Because, without knowing the terrain, it’s impossible to … sneak up on a target,” she corrected before she could say what she’d meant to say: when you’re on the run.
It was bad enough that Thal, Tabi, Brycon, Frost, and Ricca knew she wasn’t a willing addition to Ashthorn. She didn’t need to remind them she came from the streets. At least, none of them knew she’d chosen this over losing her head.
They didn’t know, but Falcrest did, and thank the Guardians, he’d kept his silence, even when he was watching her every step as if waiting for her to finally fail.
“Very good, Vednis.” Falcrest gave one of his rare praises, earning Lory a sideways glance from Eira Moonfell, who seemed to hang on the captain’s every word.
With wide eyes, they all stared as the captain turned toward the wall behind them, wedging his fingers into the cracks between the sand-colored stone it was built from, and hauled himself up before pushing off the wall in a leap powerful enough to transport him all the way to the handrail Lory had been leaning on a minute ago.
Silent like a cat, he landed on the carved stone in a crouch, hands on either side to balance his weight, and more than half of the group held their breath as they waited for him to topple over the edge and break his neck on the limestone-tiled courtyard fifty feet below.
While Tabi and Jarek stepped back, Lory remained frozen a few inches from Falcrest, who didn’t as much as flinch at the prospect of someone pushing him to his death.
Instead, he pointed at the roof of a broad outbuilding ten feet and two stories away.
“Pay close attention, ashlings. In a few weeks’ time, you’ll be following my lead, and we’ll see how skilled blue really is. ”
He didn’t wait for his words to register as he ran along the handrail, still in a half crouch as if not to draw attention with his height.
At the end of the handrail, he swung his arms forward, throwing himself off the edge and pulling his legs in tight as he shot across the deadly gap below.
Lory’s stomach dipped as he vanished from sight, and she wasn’t proud of how her heart seemed suspended mid-air until she leaned across the handrail, watching Falcrest land on the flat roof below with an elegant roll that would have broken Lory’s neck.
Yes, she’d spent her entire life climbing drainpipes and jumping from roof to roof, but that had been on the low buildings of the outer districts of Dunai. The height and distance Falcrest had just covered equaled over three times what she’d done so far.