Chapter 48
Damien
I knocked on Lukhan’s door and waited. The corridor outside his apartment was empty. I knew the other second-year students were at the library or downstairs in the common room, which was why I’d chosen this time.
I didn’t want anyone to interrupt the difficult conversation I was about to have with the person I considered my best friend.
No answer. But I sensed he was in there. I made a fist and pounded on the door.
“Go away, damn it!” Lukhan’s voice was muffled through the thick oak.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
His sitting room was dark; the heavy velvet curtains drawn against the afternoon sun.
A single mage-lamp set to low burned on his writing desk, its glow barely reaching the corners where shadows pooled like ink.
The air smelled of willow-bark tea and the acrid odor of the hair dye Lukhan used every fortnight—a smell I’d learned to associate with his unique brand of misery.
He sat at his desk with his back to me, one elbow propped on the arm of his chair, his fingers massaging his left temple in slow, deliberate circles.
Even from behind, I could read the tension in the set of his shoulders, the rigid line of his spine beneath his velvet dressing gown. His black hair, still damp from his evening bath, fell in loose waves around his collar. The lamplight glowed on the strands and turned them to polished jet.
“We need to talk,” I said.
I’d rehearsed what I needed to say to him over and over since the midday meal, and dreaded what might be the end of our friendship. But there were things that needed to be said, and Father had taught me never to shy away from hard conversations, painful though they might be.
“Let me guess.” Lukhan didn’t turn around. “If you’re here to berate me about the theft of Miss Fishwife and the merchant boy’s trinkets, save your breath.”
I closed the door behind me and took a deep breath. This was going to be every bit as unpleasant as I’d feared. “I just need to know: did you do it, Luk?”
He went very still. His fingers stopped moving against his temple.
Then he scoffed.
“Are you seriously asking me whether I set foot inside Miss Fishwife’s squalid lodgings to steal her things?” He shuddered dramatically and swiveled his chair to face me at last.
The lamplight gilded his pale features, and the shadows sharpened them to something carved from bone. His green eyes were bloodshot at the corners, the pupils contracted to pinpoints.
Another one of his migraines, then. I wondered if Lukhan’s father had replied to his letter. I could only imagine what it had contained to trigger the blinding headache.
Lukhan continued, “Do you honestly think I would risk my place here—and Father’s standing—for a petty crime like that?”
“I think,” I said carefully, “that you’ve been stewing with rage since we lost to Miss Bernswick and Mr. Ferraro in the semi-finals. I think that resentment at our loss has been eating you from the inside. And if you didn’t do it, I think someone in our circle took those awards to appease you.”
His mouth thinned. “Miss Bernswick and Mr. Ferraro, is it now? Changed your tune, have you?”
“I don’t feel right referring to her as ‘Miss Fishwife,’ anymore, not when I—we—owe her a life-debt.” I pushed off from the door and crossed the room to stand in front of him.
As I’d thought, a letter sat on the edge of his desk, sealed with wax imprinted with Baron Demirkalé’s seal. But it was still unopened.
I didn’t blame Lukhan. In his place, I wouldn’t want to open it, either.
Something flickered across his face—a flash of genuine panic quickly buried beneath contempt. “So, you actually agree with Chatelaine Lirelle’s outrageous ruling that Miss Fishwife’s interference was aid rather than sabotage?”
“Of course. Because I remember what happened.” My voice came out harder than I’d intended. “If Miss Bernswick hadn’t stepped in when she did, that banner would have killed us, Luk. Along with the Divine Mother only knows how many others. She saved our lives.”
I hardly ever argued with him. Now, I watched my words strike him like a physical blow. His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. His fingers curled around the arm of his chair until they looked bloodless.
“And now we owe her?” He sounded incredulous. “Is that what you’re telling me?” His voice rose. “You actually think that dirt-poor, ugly little peasant has a claim on us? On me?”
“I’m telling you that honor demands we leave her and her friends in peace from now on. It’s the least we can do.”
“Honor.” Lukhan spat it out as if the word tasted foul. “You speak to me of honor while standing here, defending someone who wants to destroy me? And not only that, accusing me of theft?”
“I’m not accusing you.” I fought to keep my tone mild. I’d learned that shouting at Lukhan only made him close his ears and withdraw. I dared to reach out and put my hand on his shoulder. “Luk, I’m asking you to be better than this.”
He stood up so suddenly his chair scraped backward across the floor. To my shock, he put his hands on my chest and tried to shove me away. “You have no idea what you’re asking! No fucking idea what’s at stake.”
I held my ground against the force of his push, though I staggered a little. Then I wrapped my hands around his and held them against my heart. “So tell me.”
For one heartbeat, I thought he would. I saw the struggle race across his mobile features, words gathering behind his teeth like a building storm. His lips parted.
“Father—” Lukhan began, and then stopped. His throat worked. He looked at the still-sealed letter, and flinched. “I had to tell him I—we—lost to a pair of commoners… first-year commoners, at that!”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.
I remembered what happened when past letters had arrived from Demirkalé—the silences that stretched for days, the migraines that left Lukhan curled on his bed, refusing food, refusing comfort, refusing everything except the endless pots of willow tea and headache powders I fetched from the infirmary and brought to him.
I pulled him into my arms and held him close. He clung to me like a child, and groaned softly as he pressed his face into my shoulder.
My chest ached. I finally understood exactly what our failure in the arena cost him. His fear was genuine. The consequences would be real.
Lord Murad, Baron Demirkalé, did not forgive failures, especially public ones, and most especially any he perceived as undermining the reputation he was trying so desperately to restore.
But understanding Lukhan’s plight did not excuse his refusal to obey the dictates of honorable behavior.
“I understand you’re only trying to protect yourself,” I said as gently as I could. “You and I have done our best to drive Miss Bernswick out of the academy. We’ve made her life miserable. But think about it: despite all we’ve done to her, she’s still kept your secret.”
He stiffened and wrenched himself out of my embrace. His mask slammed back into place, harder and colder than before.
“Get out,” he snarled.
“Luk—”
“Get out of my rooms.” His voice was level, each word sharp as a blade.
“I see you’ve convinced yourself that Miss Fishwife is a wronged paragon of virtue whose feet I should be washing in gratitude.
Why don’t you go join her pathetic tea-drinking club, then?
But don’t you dare presume to lecture me about honor while she’s still holding a sword over my head and only waiting for the best moment to strike. ”
I stood my ground. But my heart was breaking. “This isn’t about her. This is about who you are.”
The person I thought you were.
“And who is that, exactly?” He smiled coldly. When he spoke again, venomous contempt dripped from every word. “The sensitive first-year boy who needed protecting? The wounded soul you wanted to fix with your big, generous heart? Is that who you think I am, Damien? How disappointing for you.”
His words landed like punches to my solar plexus. I actually took a staggering step backwards.
He saw it. His smile sharpened.
“Why don’t you go and become her knight?” he asked in the same poisonous tone. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate the protection. The gods know she’ll need it. I’ve made new friends, Corvellan. And they’re already doing what needs to be done.”
The Custodes Sanguinis. Of course.
Lukhan was doing the equivalent of drawing on Fire to cast spells and trusting it wouldn’t burn him to a crisp.
If they ever find out his mother is Fae, they’ll eat him alive.
But I couldn’t help him. Not anymore.
Fumbling blindly, I yanked open his door and stumbled out. The corridor outside was still mercifully deserted. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I’m disappointed in you,” I said over my shoulder. In a haze of pain, it was the only thing I could think to say.
He laughed, and it sounded like breaking glass. “Join the club, Corvellan. I’ve been disappointing my family my entire life.”
I slammed the door shut behind me. Then I stood there with my heart hammering against my ribs and the taste of ashes on my tongue.
I wanted to believe my friend was still in there somewhere, but buried too deeply to reach beneath layers of fear and rage and his desperate, clawing need to survive.
Before Talisa of Bernswick arrived to tear our world apart, I’d seen Luk perform acts of kindness he tried to pretend later had never happened.
But the Lukhan who’d just looked at me with cold eyes and told me I’d been a fool to believe in him… that Lukhan was a stranger.
And the worst part was, I wasn’t sure which of the two Lukhans was the real one.
∞∞∞
The commoners gathered in the dining hall were being loud tonight.
And it didn’t sound like the usual mealtime chatter, but something sharper, something angry.
I stood in the arched doorway and ignored the resentful looks thrown my way as I looked for Talisa of Bernswick.
And there she was, seated at her usual table, surrounded by commoner students on all sides.
Elio Ferraro was beside her, one arm slung casually around her shoulders, holding her close with easy intimacy.