Chapter 17 #2
“Where the fuck am I?” High-up window, a bookcase at the side of the room, a desk, and a chair with Anees grinning at her from behind it.
“Don’t worry. Brunn had you transferred here after Khayrivven reported the news of your findings at the dance.”
Lory gathered her nightgown and swung her legs out of bed, feet landing on the cool stone floor of the bedroom—the double bedroom. Lory hadn’t noticed the second bed positioned against the wall on the other side of the stone-tiled space.
“Naturally, Khayrivven suggested these particular rooms would be the best option if Brunn wanted to get you out of the common quarters to not have you interfering with the other students’ schedules when you come and go for late-night missions.
” What exactly amused Anees about this, Lory had yet to find out.
“Whose bedroom is this?” Lory took in the plain gray sheets and the dressers with two rows of drawers next to the bed.
Anees beamed at her. “Ours. And don’t look at me like that.” She gave Lory a mock-accusatory glance that once more highlighted the acting gift Anees possessed. “I wasn’t in the least amused when Khayrivven carried you in here in the early morning. At first, I thought you were dead.”
Lory tried to remember, but after the conversation with the Master of Veils, Lory had fallen straight into her old bed and dreamed of people in Ashthorn uniforms dancing the dondura while Ulder and Lenya watched from the dais, Lory’s father and Khayrivven’s sister to their left and right, as they decided the fates of hundreds of students. She hadn’t felt a single thing.
“He kept you asleep,” Anees explained as if it was nothing special. “It’s another one of his annoying gifts, just like his brooding.”
Lory was still processing when Anees pushed away from the chair to extract a fresh set of clothes from the top right drawer of the dresser, a grin on her face. “Chop, chop, Lory. Breakfast is in ten minutes, and we don’t want to be late.”
Adrenaline flooded Lory’s veins the moment she heard the word breakfast.
“You’re a thornling now, so you won’t be executed if you’re late, but the Triad won’t be happy anyway.”
“About that…” Lory caught the bundle of fabrics Anees tossed at her. “Khayrivven said you knew…”
The grin vanished from Anees’s pretty face, her emerald eyes flashing with warning. “Not to talk details, but yes. I know pretty much everything there is to know.”
Why that fact hurt deep down in Lory’s chest was something to be examined on another day.
“Now get ready. You’re Khay’s responsibility now, and as far as the Triad is concerned, everything you do reflects on him, and he’s already in enough trouble for insisting they let you live, no offense.”
“None taken.” With a sigh, Lory grabbed the clothes and started peeling her nightgown off while Anees pulled a stack of books from the second drawer. “These are yours, too,” she announced, setting down the leather-bound tomes on the desk.
Glad to be back in her uniform, Lory ran her fingers over the brown square on her bicep.
Thornling, she mouthed, her inner clock telling her to run to the mess hall and check if Tabi, Thal, and Jarek had made it on time.
If that morning would be one of bloodshed and horror once more, or if, for once, no one would need to die on the dais.
Maybe Jarek had managed to get more information from his sister about who else might have been sympathizing with the rebels.
Khayrivven’s words of how the Triad didn’t truly care about people’s tardiness as long as they weren’t rebels or sympathizers hadn’t left her since those dark moments in the crematorium beneath the academy.
“How does he choose?”
Anees lifted her gaze from where she’d been studying the book she’d kept in her hands—a familiar tome that Lory had last seen in Aiden’s hands. “Who?”
Lory swallowed the lump in her throat. “Khayrivven. How does he choose who kills those ashlings each morning?”
With a sad expression on her face, Anees set down the book, resting it atop the stack, right where Lory had been studying the intricate embossing on the leather. “He chooses people he trusts when he believes there’s something to save.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then he randomly picks a thornling or tested to divert attention from the ones working with him.”
How Anees could so easily speak about matters of life and death when Khayrivven barely dared open his mouth inside Ashthorn’s walls was beyond her.
“He said the Triad has eyes everywhere—”
As if reading the thoughts right from Lory’s head, Anees smiled with understanding.
“I’ve known Khay for a few years now, and many missions together have allowed us time to communicate.
While Khayrivven always needs to worry about Lenya’s spies waiting for him, Hadrian and I don’t.
Neither did Aiden. As far as it concerned leadership, Aiden was a done deal for the academy. ”
“What do you mean?”
Anees merely pointed at a familiar paragraph in the book that had once belonged to the ice wielder.
The Great Purge is a great lie.
Lory remembered reading the words scribbled under the printed text the day Dunveil had explained why fire magic wasn’t considered nature magic or matter manipulation. She hadn’t given it another thought with the Knowledge Hand’s attention.
“You have never read the whole history of Brestolya, have you?”
Lory wasn’t sure she imagined the pity in Anees’s emerald eyes as she shook her head in answer.
“Perhaps you should start. I promised Khay I wouldn’t repeat what I learned to anyone, but you’re smart, Lory.
Despite your lack of early education, you’re quick at tying information together.
You’ll figure it out.” With those words, Anees closed the tome, waving Lory along as she walked toward the door.
“Time for breakfast. “We don’t want to draw any attention to us, do we?”