23. Leah
Leah
Going to breakfast the next day is like walking into a funeral.
Except instead of caskets to represent the dead, there’s only absence—empty spaces where fledglings should be tucking into their food and laughing with their friends.
I try not to study the crowd too much, not wanting to guess at who’s missing before roll call confirms it.
I’m not ready to mourn anyone I don’t have to.
I don’t have much of an appetite, but I grab my food and sit down beside Rowan.
I can tell he’s trying to do exactly what I’m avoiding—studying the fledglings as they come in, furrows between his brows.
“You’re going to drive yourself crazy, doing that,” I mutter.
“I just didn’t expect so many…” He trails off, straightening up in his seat. “The trials are always hard, but it’s extreme this year.”
“You once said that was a good thing,” I point out, not quite able to keep the sourness from my voice.
“It is,” Rowan says. “It makes us stronger.” I’ve heard him say variations of that countless times, but this time, for the first time, I hear a sliver of doubt.
I wonder if it wasn’t what he expected, going to war.
He was excited beforehand, and now…there’s something different about him.
He seems harder, toughened at the edges.
I notice a line of raw flesh starting at the bottom of his wrist and disappearing beneath his shirt cuff, likely the result of getting splashed with demon blood.
He catches me staring and pulls his sleeve down with a wince, looking ashamed.
“Two down, one to go,” one of our fellow fledglings, Neris, says from across the table, clearly trying to inject some optimism into the mood.
Goddess, this place is fucked up.
I grimace at the thought of the third trial.
Technically, it could come at any time. My only hope is the brutality of the second test means they give us at least a month until the next one.
Because if the third trial is anything as intense as the first two, there’s no way I’m walking away from the oracle unscathed.
“Roll call!” Baxir bellows as Hasteed marches in with a long scroll of paper. She scans the room, eyes alighting on a few faces. Maybe she pretends it doesn’t affect her to lose fledglings every year, but my guess is she can’t help looking for her favorite students, hoping they made it through.
Everyone goes silent, listening out for this next part.
“Answer when I say your name,” Hasteed says solemnly. “Any silences will be viewed as failure in the trials.”
Failures. That’s what the missing fledglings are in the eyes of Aradis. They didn’t die. They didn’t give up their lives for a cause. They failed.
“Adain Aboah,” Hasteed calls out.
“Present,” Adain calls.
“Ariat Aquell.”
“Present.”
The first time Hasteed calls a name and no one answers, everyone stiffens. She calls the name again, and when she’s met only with silence, she lifts a pencil to the scroll and makes a mark.
“May he shine in the Everlight,” she pronounces, and there are murmurs of agreement throughout the dining hall.
Then she continues. On and on it goes, until suddenly we’re at the Is, and I realize Filippa’s name is going to come up, and she won’t be here to answer.
And then everyone will assume she’s dead.
“Esthrin Icalsus,” Hasteed calls.
“Present.”
Should I say something? Explain where she really is? I can’t let people believe she’s been killed, right?
“Fastor Igrasian.”
“Present.”
Would I get kicked out of the trials for breaking the rules? More importantly, would it screw Filippa over? If I stay silent now, will there still be a way back for her?
The rule, so far as I’ve been told, is that you’ve got to get yourself home from the battlefield.
I don’t think it specifies when. If Filippa turns up in a few weeks, alive and healed, maybe she can tell some story we’ll spin together about how she was injured but dragged herself to safety and fought through it.
Then she’s still a brave warrior who didn’t rely on anyone to survive.
“Filippa Illidore.”
Silence.
Several heads turn toward me, and I drop my gaze to my lap, squeezing my fists tightly as I pray for the moment to pass.
Fillipa told me to stop meddling in her life, so I’ll wait until she can speak for herself. Then she can tell me what she wants me to reveal.
“May she shine in the Everlight,” Hasteed intones.
I bite my lip just as a hand lands on my shoulder, and I look up to see Rowan’s sympathetic expression. There must be something on my own face he doesn’t quite expect, because I watch his sympathy give way to confusion, but then Hasteed is moving on.
“Leah Illidore,” she calls.
“Present,” I answer, the word coming out croaky, which probably sells the idea I’m mourning my cousin, but makes me feel like crap.
It at least gives me good reason not to make eye contact with anyone else over the rest of the roll call, until we get to the Os.
“Efram Odais.”
Silence.
Fuck. Not Efram. A sweet, sunny guy who got a little too enthusiastic when talking about his war heroes.
I can’t stop the tear that trickles down my cheek, though I try to wipe it away discreetly.
I catch Rowan watching me again. His own face is drawn tight with sadness, but I wonder if he’s asking himself why I’d shed a tear for Efram but not my own cousin.
I hope he writes it off as grief being a strange, erratic emotion.
I admit I start to detach after a while, letting the endless names wash over me like some kind of mournful chant. Until one name in particular punctuates the fog of sadness:
“Keros Perichor.”
Silence.
I whip my head up, searching the crowd, not quite believing it. Did something good actually come out of this trial?
“That’s strange,” Rowan murmurs. “I could’ve sworn he made it back through the rift.”
“He did,” whispers Neris as I watch Baxir lean in to Hasteed and speak quietly to her. “But he had an accident last night.”
Hasteed looks puzzled, then nods at Baxir and makes a note on her scroll. She moves on to the next name without saying a word about the Everlight.
“So he didn’t die?” Rowan asks at the same time as I say, “What kind of accident?”
Neris gives her head a little shake. “I’ll tell you after.”
It comes out when we’re sitting on the grass by the training field. “So apparently he was sleepwalking, and he went out his window,” Neris explains.
“What?” Rowan looks incredulous. “But surely even if he didn’t wake up, his instincts would’ve kicked in. I mean, his wings—”
“Nope,” Neris says. “I heard he was in too deep a sleep. He didn’t open his wings, and they were both broken on impact. Completely shattered, along with his legs. He’s lucky to be alive.”
But perhaps not so lucky to live in a realm where healers are few and far between.
I don’t feel bad for Keros—not after he tried to murder me—but I do feel a strange twinge of something.
What was his name? Syrus asked me last night, and I answered without thinking, practically signing his execution order.
I have to admit, there’s a certain poetic justice to it.
The punishment certainly fits the crime, and I have to appreciate how much everyone will think Keros is an idiot for doing it to himself.
No one will have the slightest reason to suspect Syrus, since there’s no known reason for him—or his best friend who can make people fall into the deepest of sleeps—to have a grudge against Keros.
I shouldn’t like it, knowing that Syrus did this for me.
But I do. And if that isn’t a testament to how twisted up we’ve become together, I don’t know what is.
Still, I don’t reject the feeling, not yet.
I just let it sit with me, storing it away in the same place I’m keeping my feelings about that kiss.
When I get back to my room, I find an envelope under my door.
It’s a message from Garion, inviting me to a dinner in the city tonight with a group of important people I apparently have to meet.
Of course, it’s not so much an invitation as an order.
I wonder if there was an invitation intended for Filippa too.
Then I wonder if he and her mom even know she’s missing yet.
The academy probably notifies them, but I don’t know when. And whether they do it before this dinner or not, someone needs to explain to Filippa’s family that she’s actually okay.
It’s only when I’m getting ready to leave that evening that I get a knock on my door. I open it to see Rowan looking polished in his fledgling uniform. I suppress a groan.
“You got invited too?” I guess.
“Yes.” He ducks his head. “My brother’s going to be there. And I thought you might want the company after…”
Right. After my cousin “died” yesterday.
“Is that what we’re meant to be wearing?” I ask, gesturing to his uniform. I was going to just shove on the neatest pair of black pants and shirt I own, but that might earn me Garion’s ire if there’s a dress code we’re supposed to follow.
Rowan blinks, not expecting this question.
“Er, yes. Apart from the ball, this is the customary attire for fledglings at events.”
“Okay, let me change then.”
It at least gives me a moment to collect my thoughts. I don’t know if I can tell Rowan about Filippa without getting myself in serious trouble, and I definitely shouldn’t tell him before her family knows, but it’s so awkward, having to pretend to him like I’m devastated.
As I pull on my shoes, I decide the best strategy is just to stay quiet and withdrawn. He’ll understand that, and it at least means I won’t feel like I’m lying to him.
We fly in relative silence to the dinner hosted by one of Garion’s friends—a wealthy, politically significant friend, if the size of his house is anything to go by.
We’re shown into a reception room, and the host—a tall, jocular man called Ustarne—is soon dragging us around for introductions.
From the ball, I recognize a pale, thin woman named Daela who’s part of the Worlal bloodline, and her cousin, Serlas, an ephilium with an impressive mustache.