CHAPTER 7
Through half-lidded eyes, I could vaguely make out a metal rack. I blinked, my vision clearing.
Moric lay slumped on the ground. His eyes were shut but his breathing was even and regular; he was fast asleep.
Lana leaned against the wall of the sparring room, her eyes fixed threateningly on the male pacing before her.
“Drugging us was not necessary,” she hissed. “We would have come willingly.”
“Wrath really brings out the blue in your eyes, sunshine,” Septimus cooed.
I propped myself up on one elbow and Lana immediately dropped to a crouch before me, her hand outstretched.
I took it, allowing her to help me up. I felt groggy and irritable.
I brushed the dust from the floor off my back and scrubbed my face.
Pieces of hair had come loose from the braid I had so carefully entwined this morning.
I shoved the strands away from my cheeks, annoyance bleeding into anger as I surveyed Moric and Anama still sleeping on the ground.
A few feet away, the other survival squads also slept.
“What the actual fuck just happened?” I asked.
Lana ground her teeth, looking just as upset as I was. “Septimus and his cronies thought it would be entertaining to drug and haul us back to Valhan House for another one of their unofficial challenges.”
“They’re designed to help you face the real challenges. You can thank me later, sunshine,” Septimus said. He was the only elven in the room, and looked exceptionally impatient. He strode back and forth while the others began to rise.
“Stop fucking calling me that,” Lana seethed.
“What vicious words for such a pretty mouth.” Septimus stared at her dead on, unfazed. “I wonder what else it can do.”
The blush that tinged Lana’s cheeks had nothing to do with the rouge staining her skin. I noted it with curiosity, wondering if there had been some truth to Moric’s teasing earlier.
The raised voices, it seemed, had woken Anama and Moric. They both stirred, blinking blearily as they looked up at us.
“What’s going on?” Anama asked as I helped her to her feet.
There was no need to explain though; everyone was now awake.
Septimus crossed to the center of the room, eyes alight with amusement.
“I hope you all had a good rest. The second unofficial challenge begins now. The good news is that it’s highly unlikely one of you will die during this challenge.
Unless you manage to royally piss off your instructor.
” He flashed a set of even, white teeth at us.
“Your task this challenge is to steal something – anything, really – from your instructor. The bad news is that each of your instructors has been made aware of this challenge, and they’ll be on the guard. You have one hour.”
Septimus sauntered toward our group, his golden eyes fixed on Lana. “I’m afraid you won’t manage to steal anything from me, sunshine, but I’d love to see you try.”
The look Lana gave him was positively murderous, but Septimus had already walked off, exiting the sparring room without a backward glance.
“Fucking elven.” She scowled.
I vehemently agreed. How was I supposed to steal something from my instructor when I didn’t even know where he was?
The last time I had seen him, he had nearly hurled a bolt of lightning at me.
Frustration sizzled in me. I didn’t realize my hands were clenched at my sides, nails biting into my palms, until Anama gently touched my shoulder.
“Are you okay, Lirah?” she asked.
I exhaled a calming breath through my nose, though it did little to soothe my frazzled nerves. “Yeah. No. I don’t know. I just feel so… angry. At everything. And all the time.”
“Hmm. Have you ever felt like this before?”
“I’ve been angry, sure. But–” I shook my head, “– never this kind of… fury. It’s like a constant ache in my chest that never fully goes away. It feels like I’m a hairsbreadth from snapping all the time.” I rolled my shoulders, but they were still tense springs.
“You know,” Anama hedged. “When you take the sacred oath, it’s not only your feelings that are shared. The link is… reciprocal.”
I froze.
Was she saying what I thought she was saying? Fuck, no.
“Anama, I need you to be perfectly clear with me. Are you telling me that this rage, this eternal battle not to scream every single second of every single day, is not even mine?”
She winced. “If it’s a new feeling, it’s most likely stemming from the link.”
From Kilian.
I was going to fucking kill him.
“How do I find him?” I asked her, my gaze skipping across the other survival squads who were in conversation, most likely trying to figure out the best plan to win. I didn’t care about the challenge. I wanted to make him bleed.
“I suppose you could use the link. As if you were tugging on it,” Anama said. “Follow the feeling. The angrier you get, the closer you are.”
Excellent.
I wasn’t just going to make him bleed. I wanted to make him suffer first.
I muttered a thanks and, ignoring Lana and Moric’s protests that it was a really bad idea, charged for the stairwell. They couldn’t possibly understand how agonizing it had been, going to sleep each night absolutely livid and waking with a desire to incinerate the entire world.
“What’s happening?” Calendula, who it seemed had slept her fill and had chosen that ripe moment to wake up, fluttered out from my pocket, easily keeping pace with me as I stalked upstairs.
“I am going to find Kilian,” I ground out, passing the mess hall floor and continuing upstairs to a part of the house I had never explored.
“You look mad.”
“Do I?”
A look of pure glee crossed the shadow sprite’s face and dark embers sparked along her wings. “You found out about the link.”
I paused my death march to glare at her. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“Oh, it’s so much more fun with you finding out this way.”
I didn’t respond, the anger a palpable storm creeping closer with every step I took toward Kilian.
Fury swelled in my chest, and I barely felt the burn in my calves from the flights of stairs.
I stomped along the landing of the fifth floor, hurtling past several doors until I stood before the one that made my vision darken with splotches of red.
A keypad was fixed to the side of the door, labeled once more in the elven alphabet.
I looked at Calendula expectantly.
She sighed. “He’ll exile me to the other side of the Shadow Soil if he finds out I helped you sneak into his bedroom.”
His bedroom.
“Then I won’t tell him it was you. Give me the code and disappear. He thinks you’re still mad at me.”
“I am still mad at you.” Calendula rolled her silver eyes but floated daintily to the keypad. I watched as she palmed each symbol: seven in total. Darkness enveloped the sprite and she whispered, “I hope he doesn’t kill you,” before slipping away, leaving me with just my rage for company.
I toed open the door, grateful that the hinges did not squeak, and crossed the threshold.
The first thing I noticed was the sheer size of the room.
High ceilings met dark gray walls, accented by mahogany furniture, with panels of glass windows stretching from floor to ceiling across the length of an entire wall.
A bookshelf lined another, filled with tomes haphazardly stacked and strewn across its shelves.
The opposite wall housed a rack with an assortment of weapons, from swords to bows to onyx-hilted daggers.
A large bed bedecked in black sheets claimed the right half of the room, close to the windows that overlooked the jagged peaks and icy summits.
Snow drifted outside and a chill skittered across my spine.
A desk stood beside the door. Papers littered its surface, held down with metal paperweights that were tiny replicas of the daggers on the wall.
I picked one up, gingerly examining it, and weighed it in my hand.
I quickly pocketed it for the unofficial challenge and turned to survey the rest of the room.
If Kilian wasn’t here, why did the anger seem to be reaching its crescendo?
There was nowhere else to go. No one else to expend this energy on.
And so I did the only thing I could think of.
I placed my palms on the desk, on top of the pages, and in one sweeping motion, shoved.
Papers flew into the air, drifting for a millisecond before floating and skidding along the hardwood floor.
The paperweights scattered across the ground.
I hoped he stepped barefoot on one of them.
Hands on my hips, I viewed the wreckage. It was a cute attempt at destruction, but not my best work.
For all the irreparable damage he had caused to my life, I could do better than that.
Rolling the sleeves of my tunic, I stomped to the bookshelf.
I placed both hands against the side of the shelf, bracing my feet against the floor.
Tensing my shoulder muscles for strength, I heaved.
The godsdamned thing didn’t so much as budge.
I tried again. I managed to move it an inch forward, but it wasn’t enough to tip it over, and the case simply rocked back against the wall.
Frustrated, I let loose a breath as I wedged one boot against the corner of the bookshelf and used my knee as leverage.
I grunted at the effort, but with the added purchase of my knee pushing from the back, the bookshelf wobbled.
Once. Twice. And then it was falling, tipping to the ground.
Books scattered in every direction. But the most pleasing sound was that of the heavy mahogany case clattering with resounding finality.
I did that, I noted proudly.
I moved on to the bed next. I yanked the duvet and sheet off, tossing them toward the window in a plume of black.
With every piece of destruction wrought, I felt that anger in my chest ease.
This was the happiest I had been in days, trashing the room – the personal belongings – of the elven who had uprooted my life as easily as it was to breathe.