Chapter 21 #2
Over Tabi’s shoulder, Jarek grinned at her.
“Will take some getting used to for sure, but I trust you not to torch me at a whim, so as long as you keep your magic to yourself, I’ll keep mine to myself, too.
” Wringing his hands, he took a step back to make space for Tabi as she peeled Lory away and held her by the arms at a foot distance.
“That’s not a way to talk to the woman who was ready to get her ass handed to her because you and Heener almost threw yourselves off that bridge, Jarek,” she threw over her shoulder, fingers still painfully tight around Lory’s biceps, like she wasn’t ready just yet to let her go.
Thal made a face. “We’re all alive. Isn’t that the only thing that should count here?”
Jarek dipped his chin, running his hand over his scarred left brow.
“Especially since they’ll be targeting all of us now that we’ve welcomed the Flame-born with open arms.” The obvious judgment in his tone came with a defeated half-smile at the impressive woman pinning him with her gold-flecked stare.
Whatever happened since Lory was locked in the dungeons must have led to a new sort of attachment between those two. Even when neither Tabi nor Jarek was showing any other signs they’d gotten closer, Lory could tell by the way Jarek was looking at her beautiful, deep-umber face.
“Attention, ashlings!” Hadrian Bleek shouted from the front of the parcours, where he stood on a small platform where the yellows had gathered in little groups, sending sharp gazes in Lory’s direction.
“You’ll split up into two groups today. Phantom Frier will take half and Phantom Washings the other.
” He shifted his casual stance, the sunlight catching in his dark-blond waves. “Go.”
As the crowd set in motion, Bleek leaped off the platform in a maneuver so effortless it had to be trained to become second nature, his feet landing lightly on the sandy ground. With his right hand, he adjusted the saber behind his shoulder while he marched right for Lory and her friends.
“You are coming with me.” He stopped in front of her, his tall, athletic frame casting a shadow on her.
“All of us?” Thal asked with the familiar, humorous tone of the man who wasn’t bothered by anything.
Bleek just stared down at the ashling as if he was about to tear his tongue out, but then he nodded curtly.
“Bellmont, Heener, Grivor, Ngala, Vednis.” His gaze flicked over them, halting on Lory.
“We need a third woman. Graccia!” he shouted over his shoulder, and Lory’s stomach coiled into a conglomerate of anger and fear at the sight of the pretty, yellow ashling peeling away from the group and sauntering toward them.
“Yes, Phantom Bleek?” Her unusually large, green eyes wandered to Lory, her nose crinkling as if she smelled something bad.
“You’re with us today.” Hadrian Bleek didn’t give any further explanations as he guided the group back into the building and up a set of stairs Lory had never seen before.
Inside her chest, the familiar-by-now sense of her magic rearing its head reminded her of both the danger of the yellow ashling who had wanted her dead before she’d know what unholy power Lory had, and the potential trap Bleek was leading them to.
Thank the Guardians for Aiden and Tabi framing her like a pair of bodyguards as Ricca walked a pace behind the handsome phantom, her chin-length brown hair swinging every time she shot a glare back at Lory as if to check if a mouse was following into a trap.
At the end of the stairs lay a large, light-filled room that reminded Lory of the place she’d first stood trial before the Triad and where she’d first laid eyes on Khayrivven’s painfully handsome face.
A streak of heat flared in her stomach as she noted the three tall windows reaching from marble-tiled floor to azure-painted ceiling.
Potted trees stood spaced out along the limestone walls between, their green leaves taunting everything that was hot and dry to dare imagine a place where plants stood a chance.
In a flash, the last dream Khayrivven had cast her in sprang to her mind: lush forest, exotic plants she’d never seen before, mountain ranges tinted in wafts of mist. A dull pain of loss wormed into her heart at the thought that it had been a mere figment of her imagination, followed by the marvel of Khayrivven’s mind if he could dream up such wondrous places—and take her there in her sleep.
“This,” Bleek announced, spreading his arms and turning on his heels, walking backward into the wide, open space, “is the ballroom.”
“A ballroom,” Lory mumbled. “Why does an academy that kills its ashlings need a ballroom?”
Bleek stopped at the center of the light gray marble-tiled room, his arms loosely at his side, and his posture straight and elegant, unlike the casual stance he usually assumed on the training grounds.
“You’d be surprised.” With a bow, he shucked the saber from his back, placing it on the polished floor and shoving it to the side of the room with a strong, elegant kick of his toes, where it lay, in the brutal sunlight breaching the space through high windows, its reflection glimmering in the marble beneath. “Get rid of your weapons and pair up.”
The way he eyed them made Lory’s question whether he was serious dry up in her mouth, and before she could consider if she was more scared of the lack of her own weapons or what they were going to do, all of them unarmed in a throne-room like space like this, Frost stepped to her side, folding his arms over his chest in a clear display that no one else was going to pair up with her.
Thal shrugged, turning to Tabi, who had just nodded at Jarek’s silent question about whether the two of them would form a team.
“That leaves the two of us, then,” he said to Ricca with the enthusiasm of a dog who’d been left out in the heat too long.
Ricca threw him a malicious smirk. “Come if you dare.”
Adjusting the sleeves of his shirt like he was wearing a dinner jacket, Hadrian Bleek observed them from his position at the center of the room.
“Good. Now stand across from each other. Men on one side, women on the other.” He gestured at a darker pattern in the marble where Lory and Aiden were shifting on their feet.
“Men over there.” And on a long, bright rectangle where the middle window allowed the light of the murderous star into the room.
“Women over there. Leave ten paces between each couple.”
The ashlings got into position so fast, Lory’s vision blurred for a beat while Bleek stalked between them, assessing each of them like they were livestock for sale. “At attention, ashlings.”
Their heels snapped, and their backs straightened, but Bleek didn’t stop his stroll to assess if they’d made any mistakes, if their positions were flawed and their expressions not neutral.
He stopped in front of Ricca, indicating a bow and holding out his hand.
While Lory and Tabi shared a confused look, Ricca’s face lit up.
“Today, ashlings, we practice the art of Gilded,” Hadrian Bleek announced, moving his fingers in a motion Lory had never noticed before, and a carpet of delicate music filled the air.
Lory choked on a breath, and Thal grinned from his position across from Ricca, grimacing over Bleek’s shoulder at Tabi, whose spot between Lory and Riccalyn served as a welcome buffer for the venomous glares the hostile yellow was shooting her.
“Dance…” Jarek was the first to get out the word.
It wasn’t like they’d never had Gilded classes. They’d even admired Ricca’s grace in some of them, but never like this. They’d never been paired up for a dance or been pulled out of other training sessions to partake in Gilded practice.
“The art of Gilded, Grivor, is subtle. You might believe social protocols and dances to be beneath you, but I assure you, some ashlings haven’t had the chance to learn all of them in their fancy homes.
Some of them still need to be shaped into gems, while a lot of you know how to sit, eat, speak, and move without embarrassing yourselves.
” He didn’t need to turn his head toward Lory, then Aiden, in order for all of them to know he meant them.
“Now, don’t think; that’s not what you’re here to learn.
Listen to the music and follow our lead. ”
Naturally, Ricca knew exactly what to do when Bleek tugged on her hand, leading her into a slow circle around him, changing his hand as she stepped behind his back, and guiding her back to her place.
“I’d be worried she’d ram a knife between my shoulders,” Jarek hissed at Aiden under his breath, and from the end of the boys’ line, Thal snickered.
None of this was funny, but it wasn’t half as bad as Lory had expected. No weapons meant no immediate danger of dying from a sharp object in her throat or between her ribs.
“Everyone, copy.” Bleek stood next to Thal, taking over his part while Thal awkwardly mimicked Bleek’s gracious paces and elegant hand movements.
On the women’s side, Ricca seemed to know by heart the counterpart of the dance, her steps not in the slightest unsure despite her boots as she set one foot after the other until Bleek and she met in the middle.
Lory did her best to focus on following Bleek’s instructions as he explained what direction to turn or what leg to shift their weight to, but a part of her kept shooting back to Riccalyn Graccia and her hatred of Lory.
Bleek led Ricca in the same circle, Lory’s hand landing in Aiden’s in an exact copy of their movements, the ice wielder struggling to choose which side was the right one.
“You’re a god with the sword,” Lory said, counting in her head with the beat of the music. “How come you can’t tell left from right when you’re dancing?”
Aiden chuckled darkly, deciding for his left hand and guiding her in the wrong direction. “Just like Bleek pointed out—I’m one of those who didn’t have the right upbringing.”
Lory gave him a grin—“Old news.”—and as she walked around him, changing direction and grabbing for his other hand, a tiny splinter of the constant fear residing inside of her fell away, replaced by a figment of lightheartedness. “No excuse to dance like a camel.”
Next to them, Jarek laughed, and Thal shot them a helpless look while the lutes, neys, and cymbals continued their melodious cacophony in the background.
“Again,” Bleek shouted over the music, and they went back to their initial positions, repeating the maneuver until Aiden chose the right hand and Thal no longer stumbled over his own feet.
Lory couldn’t tell how long they practiced, with new moves added every time they mastered something, and they were thrown back to the beginning. Ricca seemed to be the only one who didn’t struggle to keep perfect balance.
After the initial few rounds, Bleek withdrew to an observation position a bit farther back in the room, occasionally strolling around the dancers to correct postures or criticize their movements.
Only when they were sweating, and the sun had heated the room to near-outside-at-noon temperatures, did he allow them to finish.
“Return to your colors, ashlings,” he instructed, picking his saber up from the side of the room. “You’ll be summoned for practice again soon.”
“I still don’t know why they allow scum like them into the academy,” Ricca’s voice carried across three tables to where Lory was taking dinner with Aiden, Thal, Tabi, and Jarek that night.
She’d made it through the Gilded class in one piece, a few sideways glances from Bleek the worst scolding she got when she nearly stumbled over her own feet in a spot turn.
Ricca’s disdainful comments, however, had followed her all afternoon.
“I understand why they’d keep the ice wielder. He’s a machine. But the fire spitter…” another yellow noted, his freckled face full of hatred as he assessed Lory like a piece of scrap metal no one wanted.
“At least, his powers are useful to suffocate hers when she loses control the next time.” Ricca shrugged, giving Lory a smug look before turning back to her meal.
“Don’t listen to them,” Aiden murmured without pausing as he buttered his bread. Then it was back to Ricca and the group of yellows still rambling on about what a monster she was just because she’d been gifted with fire magic.
The fact that no one was sitting at the tables closest to hers didn’t help either. She’d expected people to avoid her, to be afraid of her, yes, but this was a new level of humiliating. Not even as a street rat had she been treated like this.
“They aren’t the only ones who think like that.” Lory took a bite of her fruit pie, chewing thoughtfully as she scanned the crowd. Too many heads were turned in her direction, and not one of them seemed pleased to see her as they whispered.
“They can all go to the darkest corners behind Eroth’s Veil for all that I care,” Thal grumbled, plopping a slice of fig into his mouth. “They have no right to judge you.”
Lory gave him a grateful smile, the confidence Khayrivven’s words had installed in her—that he’d never seen anyone climb like her—coming back to her mind.
She had a power they feared, yes, but that didn’t make her any less capable of learning and surviving.
If anything, she was stronger now, the one magic that was a sure death sentence having put her in a special position.
Her power was relevant to Ulder himself if she became an assassin killing in his name.
Instinctively, her eyes found the front of the room, where Khayrivven was sipping from a cup, his shoulders turned toward an animatedly talking General Ycken.
“What does the schedule for tomorrow say?” she asked instead of allowing herself to acknowledge the ache in her chest at the sight of the captain. As if called by her thoughts, his head jerked in her direction, eyes locking on hers.
A zing of the electricity charging the air before lightning strikes ran through her body, and at the back of her mind, a low murmur lulled her into a sleep-like daze.
“Not now,” she hissed under her breath, earning a sideways glance from Tabi, who had been listing the next day’s activities.
“I need to focus.” Her words were for Khayrivven, though, and the hint of a grin on his features when she managed to pull out of his dream-grasp was almost as rewarding as when Tabi finished her list with, “Veiled training is with Falcrest tomorrow.”