Chapter 7 #4
She had barely finished her thought when a high-pitched scream, followed by a thud and crack, summoned her attention to Eira’s form on the ground.
Brycon was at her side in an instant, checking her vitals, his shoulders visibly sagging with relief when she moved with a whimper.
“Broken arm or broken leg?” Anees asked as the woman scrambled into a sitting position, a grimace defining her features.
“Both?” It sounded like a question, but Eira’s voice was too raw with pain to let on whether she was joking, despite the grin she forced onto her features.
With a few efficient strides, Falcrest was there, probing the side of Eira’s leg where her pants were torn and blood was leaking onto the sand. He took one look at her arm and straightened, waving over another ashling. “Take her to the infirmary.”
Falcrest’s gaze flicked to Lory just for a heartbeat, as if checking she was still there—still alive.
As if he cared. Shuddering, Lory pulled up a sneer.
Perhaps they didn’t let her carry a knife or a sword, but that didn’t mean she had no other weapons in her arsenal.
Her wit and her words, and most of all, the satisfaction of finding Falcrest’s eyes widen for a fraction of a moment—just enough to know he’d noticed the open hostility.
As Brycon and the other ashling helped Eira to her feet, Lory’s eyes didn’t follow them but Ronan and Solen, who had both frozen where they were holding onto the facade for dear life.
“Come on, don’t give up. Climb,” she muttered, even if there was no way they’d hear her. She’d been where they were, stuck in petrification after seeing someone fall—only that person hadn’t gotten away with a few broken bones.
“Next,” Anees ordered, and the initial excitement that had been running through the group seemed to drain.
Lory couldn’t tell how it happened: One moment, she was in the back half of the line; the next, she’d been shoved to the front, Thal, and Jarek beside her.
Anees was already ordering Ronan and Solen to climb all the way to the roof when Lory took a deep breath and stepped up to the sun-bleached wood.
“Don’t fall, Gutter Gem,” Falcrest said as she walked past him, and for a moment, their eyes met, challenge sparking behind those gray disks, his mouth tilting up at the sides as he looked her over like he doubted she would make it even to the balcony.
“If I do, it will be on your head,” she told him with a sickly-sweet smile, and her stomach did a funny flutter when a hint of real amusement crossed his face.
Guardians damn her, how could that make him even more beautiful?
The yard faded around them as he leaned in, whispering, “Then my handsome face will be the last thing you see—lucky you.”
The flutter instantly turned into a lump of searing coals. “No matter how much you want to, don’t catch me.” Storing her grin safely away, Lory continued walking, already reaching for the first board.
She could have sworn Falcrest’s eyes were burning into the back of her skull as she pulled herself up along the left side of the facade, setting one testing foot after the other while her hands found those small gaps between boards where she could safely hang her weight.
To her right, Tabi was climbing around the window, her pace faster than Lory’s but her path more a zig-zag than a clear upward line.
Thal was struggling with a loose board he’d set his foot on a few feet below the balcony and was now dangling from the railing, grunting as he hauled himself up.
Behind them, the next group of people was already making their way toward the roof, and Lory continued, step by slow step, until the roof was within reach, Ronan’s umber face appearing over the edge.
“Almost there,” he cheered her on, and to Lory’s surprise, it didn’t sound like he was mocking her, just a friendly face who knew what it took to make it all the way there.
Setting her foot on a narrow ledge and grabbing the edge of the roof, with a final pull, Lory was there, remaining on her hands and knees for a few moments before standing beside the others and watching her fellow ashlings slip over the edge one by one.
Tabi and Thal were already there, and Ricca followed suit, Frost coming in next.
Just as he dragged himself over the edge, Ricca stepped on his hand, making him howl in pain, but he didn’t let go, knowing the one hand wouldn’t be enough to make it.
“What are you doing?” Tabi demanded, but Ricca stomped on Frost’s fingers once more, her features cold as stone.
“Don’t pretend it would be a loss. He’s a criminal. He chose Ashthorn over the gallows. He doesn’t deserve to be here.”
Her words hit Lory straight in the gut, but it didn’t matter what Ricca would think—it didn’t matter that she knew nothing about Frost other than that his name was Aiden Bellmont and he had ice magic—she couldn’t let him die.
So, when his injured hand started to slip, she threw herself to her stomach, grabbing his wrist, and tugged until, with a grunt and a gasp and a gurgling sound, Frost’s face emerged from beneath the roof.
He scrambled away from the edge, toward the wall the facade was built against, not saying a word in his defense or raising his uninjured hand to fight.
He just stood there, a few feet away from the edge, his blue eyes expressionless and his mouth set in a line that told Lory this wasn’t the first time someone had tried to kill him.
“Do you have a death wish, Vednis?” Jarek hissed as Lory stepped in front of Frost without even spending a thought on the consequences.
“Need a girl to protect you, Frost?” Ricca drawled, stalking closer. None of the others moved, either too close to the edge or wedged in between, where interfering would jeopardize their safe position at the back of the roof.
Frost didn’t respond, merely stepped to Lory’s side, a blank expression on his face.
It happened so fast, Lory couldn’t stop it.
Ricca charged, shoving Lory out of the way to get to Frost. Losing her footing, Lory stumbled and staggered into someone standing close to the edge.
She tried to hold onto them, both arms flailing, blindly grabbing for their shirt, but gravity was a bitch, and the fabric slipped through her fingers the same moment a scream sounded through the yard.
Lory crouched low to peer over the side of the roof and nearly emptied her stomach at the sight of Ronan’s shattered body.
Tears shot to her eyes, her heart hammering violently against her ribs, and nothing could smother the guilt filling every last piece of her.
“Don’t look down, ashlings. Climb!” Falcrest barked at the six more students on the facade, but his eyes were on her, and if the distance and the tears didn’t make her imagine things, the cold mask had been replaced by a shade of fear she hadn’t believed the captain capable of.
They lost three more ashlings that day.