20
Wisteria at the Window
Melody
I look around the room Meanara showed me to after Blair stormed off. Beeatrisa vanished soon after with an ugly smile, as if she’d achieved exactly what she’d hoped, and Riven walked her back to the temple.
Such a hateful woman. Why is she like that? What has Blair done to her to earn so much hate? Maybe nothing. Maybe Beeatrisa just despises her the way she despises me and Aris.
Meanara told me a little about the university, but my mind was too full of Blair to really listen.
She left quickly after pressing a sheet into my hand with a list of my classes and a campus map.
Aris left too—he couldn’t wait to shift and hunt, and what would it make me to deny him that only because I needed him nearby?
He hadn’t wanted to leave, but I assured him it would be better if he weren’t walking around me as a tiny dragon on my first day.
I take in my room. It’s bright and airy.
White linen curtains billow like sails in the wind.
Two comfortable armchairs sit before a fireplace sunk into the opposite wall, so you can look at the flames and the city at the same time.
There’s a bookshelf, still empty, and a dresser with a mirror above it. A desk in the other corner.
My gaze lands on the huge bed on the other wall—made for at least two people. When I sink down on it, it’s the softest thing I’ve felt in a long time. The softest bed since my room in Caryan’s fortress. Nothing like the cheap mattresses and moth-eaten sofas I’ve slept on over the last year.
Carpets of fine silk and gold thread drape the walls, depicting a hunt—animals hiding in brush while riders set out with arrows nocked, their winged horses mid-flight. Beautiful—but the bows remind me too much of the Nefarians’ arrows.
I look away quickly. It’s been a year since I last set foot in the fae world.
And as if my body can feel it, my blood sings. I’d forgotten how different the colors look here. How vivid. How even the air tastes different. At the same time, the burning in my veins sharpens. The pent-up magic inside me grows restless, rattling the confines of the cage I locked it in.
It makes me on edge. Restless. Agitated.
I know it’s the omnipresent magic here—my own reacting to it. I know I need to let it out. Instead, I smother it and step to the vast window, its frame a piece of art: filigree ornaments carved into white stone, flowers and leaves twining along vinework.
My…room. This is my room. It feels surreal, even more so after months on the road, hiding in cheap motels.
A knock startles me.
“Yes?”
Riven steps in. He looks as breathtaking as I pictured him every night before I fell asleep.
He’s back to jewelry—golden caps on the points of his ears and heavy rings on each long, strong finger.
Kohl rims his eyes, and gold dust streaks his high cheekbones.
He looks every inch the elven monarch again—and I know that’s the image he wants the world to see.
The mask that hides the warrior underneath. The Nefarian too.
I swallow as his gaze roves over me.
“Do you like it?” he asks, gesturing to the room.
I look down at my feet, suddenly, alone with him, feeling more nervous and uglier than ever. It’s barely believable that this stunning man kissed me once. And then twice.
I’m not even sure that it really happened.
But even if it did—of which most of me is still certain is true—it clearly means nothing to him.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully.
“You’ll feel better once you release some of the magic, Melody,” he says after a moment.
I say nothing, and he comes closer. I glance up at his face—at his mouth—for a second.
Again, I remember painfully how he kissed me.
How I kissed him back. Before I fled Caryan’s fortress. I look away before he can read my mind.
“I won’t be around much, but I’ll try. Maybe once a week,” he says when the silence between us stretches, becoming awkward.
“Don’t do it on my account. You don’t have to,” I retort quickly, not knowing why.
His face hardens with irritation. “I don’t. I have business here. You may see me sometimes, since the palace and the university are one. I came to tell you this—and to see whether you’re alright.”
The foolish part of me falls apart at that. But what did I expect? That he’d come here just to see me? He moved on. We were never anything in the first place. He was always with other women, even after he kissed me.
“See you soon, Melody. Find Shay Yandravel—she’s the tutor for new students. She’ll show you around. And please go to your lessons. Caryan expects you to.”
“Oh, hells, I’m aware,” I growl, my brow furrowing. Hells—not even five minutes alone with him, and he already needs to remind me what my bargain with Caryan includes. He turns and leaves without looking back.
And my heart aches more than should be possible.
***
After he leaves, I go into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face.
A wave of magic surges without warning, and I clutch the porcelain basin so I don’t fall while I push it down. I imagine a prison. Then I let that unholy power pour into it and close the door before I throw away the key.
The trapped power snarls and hisses, but this time the door stays locked. For a while.
I glance up at my reflection and regret it instantly. Pale. Sharp angles. Haunted. Sweat beads on my forehead. I lean my head against the cool tiles. No wonder he’s moved on….
I tear my eyes away and step back into my room. As beautiful as it is, I can’t help feeling trapped. Even with the large windows. Even with the sun flooding the room with light. Somehow, it’s worse after my time in the human world. I can barely stand closed spaces and wonder if I ever will.
If what Lyrian did to me will haunt me forever. Define me.
When I reach for the window, my hand closes on nothing but air.
I stretch my fingers again and realize there’s no glass, only an illusion, and I gasp.
No glass. Maybe the climate here doesn’t need it.
But it helps; the knot in my stomach eases a little, knowing that I could climb out anytime.
I lean out, my short hair dancing in the breeze.
I’m on the first floor, and an old wisteria vine winds up to my window, its teardrop flowers almost hanging into the room, sweet scent thick in the air.
With the view over the city, the hill with the temple and the springs to my right, it’s nothing short of beautiful.
Something I’d like to paint.
A bell chimes somewhere in the building, and a moment later, students stream out of the huge arched doors below. They settle under trees and on the grass, chatting and laughing as if they have no care in the world.
It’s so different from Caryan’s fortress, the silence there laden with awe and obedience. I watch them and, for a second, I feel even more alien and misplaced here than I did in the human world. Or at Caryan’s fortress, for that matter.
My heart squeezes. I will never be like them. I could never sit relaxed on that grass, not without tension in every muscle, not without fighting my inner demons. I wonder how anyone can feel so unburdened.
The dark force in me hums again, searing every nerve in my body. Fuck.
I am a ticking time bomb.
I reach for the roster Meanara handed me, trying to busy my mind, when there’s another knock. “Come in,” I say—sure it’s not Riven, but who else?
A girl with braided silver hair, bright gray eyes, and bark-colored skin flashes me a smile that makes me like her instantly. “Hello! I’m Shay Yandravel. Meanara said I should find you and help you settle in.”
“I’m Melody,” I say, a little surprised.
Shay grins like she’s just been handed a secret. “The half-mortal.” Her eyes drift down my body, snagging on my trousers. “Is that human-world fashion?” she asks, bright with fascination.
I can’t help snorting a laugh. “Yeah. They’re jeans.”
“Jeans,” she repeats, eyes wide. “They’re gorgeous.”
“If you like them so much, I can give them to you—once I get other clothes,” I offer.
She beams, which makes me laugh. “Really? Well, there should be clothes in abundance,” she says, crossing to a wardrobe. When she opens it, an array of garments hangs inside. She blows out a breath. “Phew. I thought they’d missed something.”
“Where did these come from?” I ask, eyeing a set of beautiful dresses.
“Oh, students usually bring their own. But for those who come from…a poor background, the university provides them.”
“The university?” By which she means…who?
“Yeah. It’s hard to explain. This building has magic and a will of its own.
Basically, no one knows exactly how it works, but the campus—or whatever magic is in it—provides them.
It even chooses your outfits sometimes. I warn you, it can be hard to argue with the campus when it wants you to wear something specific. ”
“What?” I’m not sure I fully understand. “So the building is sentient?”
She smiles and shrugs. She looks…so normal.
I’ve only met fae at Caryan’s fortress, where everyone looked my age but wasn’t.
The weirdest thing with fae: They look twenty-something and then you find out they’re decades old, or a century.
Or two. This girl doesn’t feel that way.
I could be wrong, but older fae always feel different.
Shay seems unburdened and young. Maybe it’s her bright aura. Or the soft look in her eyes. Or maybe Caryan’s court and his iron-fist rule made everyone there more vigilant.
“Kind of,” Shay agrees. “You’ll see. Sometimes you want to go to a class and a door is suddenly locked because it wants you somewhere else. Or it throws a book at you.”
“It throws books?” My eyes flick to the bookshelf, and suddenly I’m glad it’s empty.