CHAPTER 14
My head throbbed with a fiery vengeance that three glasses of water could not slake.
A soft knocking issued from the door. I groaned, partial memories of the previous day slamming into me with alarming ferocity.
I was alone in my room. The last thing I remembered was Kilian tucking me in and a hazy conversation before sleep caught me.
I wasn’t ready to face him just yet. I wanted to curl up into the fetal position and be left alone forever.
The door cracked open an inch, before I could tell whoever it was to go the fuck away, and Lana stuck her head inside the gap.
“Oh, thank the gods, it’s you,” I said, peeking over the covers at her. “Come inside and lock the door behind you.” I wanted no more uninvited guests.
Lana hurried inside and flopped onto my bed. She gave me a sharp look.
“What?”
“Don’t what me. You’re my closest friend in here.
You’ve been judging me for weeks for wanting to sleep with Septimus, but here you are, clearly shacking up with Kilian.
And don’t even try to deny it. I saw how the two of you were looking at each other yesterday.
Look, I can’t blame you. He’s so hot he makes lava seem cold, but you have got some serious explaining to do. ”
“I’m not shacking up with anyone,” I grumbled. Although, I had to admit she had a point. I had no right ever judging her for having feelings for an elven. The medal for biggest hypocrite and shittiest friend went straight to me.
“Except for Ayden? Moric’s instructor? What is going on with you?”
I sighed. If there was ever a time to come clean to Lana, this was it.
So, despite the pounding in my head, I told her everything.
From the second unofficial challenge when I had confronted Kilian in his bedroom, to our late-night conversation in the mess hall after the first Trial, my training session with Septimus yesterday, when he had revealed the true motive behind the Trials, and Elena.
When I was done, Lana released a breath.
“I don’t know what to think about all of this.
Firstly, the Trials. Septimus hadn’t mentioned anything to me.
” She shook her head in disbelief. “On the one hand I can understand wanting to break their curse, but the cost of thirteen mortal lives every decade doesn’t justify that.
Secondly, this thing with Kilian needs to be addressed.
You can’t keep running around kissing random elven just because you’re hurt that he had feelings for this Elena girl decades ago. ”
I clicked my tongue. “You make it sound like I’m an insecure teenager.
I don’t care if he had feelings for her.
” Although, irrationally, it did bother me.
“I just want to know if he plays this same game with his candidates each time. I don’t want to be another mortal added to his list of conquests. ”
“I can’t answer that. You’re going to have to ask Kilian.”
“I can’t do that,” I muttered. “It’ll sound like I care.”
“But you do care.”
“Yes. But he doesn’t know that I care.”
Lana raised her brows. “Lirah, you removed your protection charm the second Calendula told you it belonged to his ex-lover. Then you proceeded to drink almost the entire day away and make out with a random elven. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he knows you care.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said in a small voice. “It doesn’t change anything. I’m still a pawn in this game, my life reduced to nothing but the hope of some obscure ability to break a curse. He doesn’t care for me beyond that.”
“I don’t know what he feels,” Lana said.
“But I do know that he left Greyhaven the second he found out we were missing. I know he was waiting for you at the archway after the first Trial. I know that he nearly killed Ayden for kissing you. And, if none of that matters to you, I also see the way he looks at you. Maybe you’re right, and it’s all a ploy for the sake of breaking his curse, but then again, he’d have to be one hell of an actor for that.
You told me he said you might like him if the situation were different, right?
If he didn’t care beyond the Trials, why would it bother him whether you liked him or not? ”
I stared at her, processing her words.
Lana patted my knee. “But anyway, moping around isn’t going to get us anywhere. We have two days before the second Trial. I say we gather Moric and head toward Pyxis, because I managed to seduce Septimus into giving me a clue about it. One word: ghouls.”
“I didn’t even know ghouls existed,” Moric said, thumbing through a large tome. He sat in a wingback chair on the fifth level of Pyxis, still looking as tired as he had the other day at lunch.
We had passed Rayna’s group on the way up. Seeing them brought me a wave of nausea – they were the only squad still wholly intact. They hadn’t lost anyone to the Trials yet.
I turned back to the book on my lap, trying not to think about how different things had been the last time we had all come together for research.
“There’s surprisingly little knowledge on them.” Lana chucked the book she had been reading onto the pile we had declared useless and pulled another one onto her lap.
Septimus had told me the second Trial would be ‘one of wit and quick thinking’. Were we supposed to outwit our way from being ghoul fodder? And if so, how?
“They’re mentioned briefly in this one.” I gestured to my current read. “The first record of one popped up in the fourteenth century, from a man named Vlad Kobinsky who found one in his attic.”
“I saw that as well,” Lana said. “They’ve got a really spotty record throughout history, showing up in the strangest locations. Look at this one, found in a barn. A barn, of all places.”
“What do they even eat?” Moric asked.
“Human flesh,” Lana responded, without looking up. “Seems about on par for the second challenge, doesn’t it?”
“Gods above,” Moric breathed. He took another book from the pile and began frantically reading.
I perused an old newspaper article that had been copied and superimposed onto a page of the textbook before me.
The entire town gathers in the square to mourn the loss of thirteen-year-old Abby Bayfield. Bayfield was found dead in the early hours of the morning, by her fifteen-year-old brother, Samuel, who claims to have seen a large creature prowling in the area just days prior.
“It was late at night, a few days before I found Abby,” Samuel said, in an interview with this author.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d take a walk outside and see the chickens in the coop ‘round back. I was returning to the house when I passed by the well, and I saw this large hand – I don’t think I can even call it a hand; it was more like a claw, with six scaled fingers and long black nails – coming out.
It scared the [redacted] out of me, so I hid.
I should have told someone sooner. If I had, Abby might still be alive. ”
The injuries found on Bayfield are consistent with a six-fingered creature.
Residents are being advised to lock their doors and keep all windows closed until we have further information.
I shut the book.
“Find anything?” Lana asked.
“Just this.” I pushed the textbook toward them. The article had left me feeling ill. “I need some air.”
Moric and Lana looked up at me as I stood.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes. I just need a walk around the block to clear my head.”
“Should we come with you?” Lana asked.
“No. I’ll be fine.”
Moric nodded, returning to the pages of his book, and Lana gave me a soft smile.
I followed the winding staircase back down to the ground floor, passing the scholar in the front as I exited.
Cool air greeted me, much to my relief, and I sucked in a few breaths.
A few stalls had been set up in the square today, but I wasn’t interested in viewing the items on display.
I turned left, leaving behind the scent of freshly baked pastries and fragrant spices, strolling toward what appeared to be an apothecary.
The jars and tinctures that were displayed on the window ledges drew my attention.
Objects floated within the containers, suspended in green fluid and, on a shelf beneath them, a row of what looked to be curved teeth were arranged from smallest to largest. I was so engrossed in examining the items that I did not register the shift in energy beside me, until the elven stepped into my field of vision.
Echon.
The gruesome scar that ran along his jawbone was even more prominent up close. The afternoon light cast the planes of his face into harsh angles. Goosebumps rose along my neck.
“What’s a fragile thing like you doing so far from Valhan House?” the elven mocked. “Fallen out your nest and gotten lost?”
I resisted the urge to take a step back. It would only prove how much he unsettled me. “I’m here to do some research before the second challenge.”
“What research are you doing out here, little bird?”
“I’m not a fucking bird. And I’m obviously not researching out here. I just stepped outside Pyxis for some air. What business is it of yours, anyway? I am free to roam Lomask as I please.”
The corners of Echon’s lips curled with barely constrained indignation, his fingers twitching at his sides. “You dare talk to an elven like that? How you mortals have grown in courage. There was once a time you worshipped us, like gods.”
“Things change when gods turn on you. When they sacrifice you in a ruthless game of survival. When they silence you.”
Echon’s eyes flashed. “You mortals succeeded in the first challenge through mere luck. Well, most of you, of course. Pity your little friend didn’t make it.”
Rage bottled in my throat, and I stepped toward him, fingers clenched at my side.