Chapter 13
DAVID
The next morning, David jolted awake from a chaotic dream of firelight and bloodred lips. He sat up, blinking at his surroundings as the dream faded to nothing. Still, it left a bitter taste in his mouth, like a bad memory half-forgotten.
With hundreds of books lining the shelves, his new bedroom smelled of parchment and vellum, a fragrance he didn’t know spoke to his soul until just now. David pushed himself out of bed and traipsed to the door, pausing to listen. He heard nothing, but they might still be out there.
With a sigh, he flipped the lock and left the relative safety of his bedroom. In the dining area, Sean sat at the table, hands around a mug of steaming liquid. His black hair was rumpled and the purple smudges beneath his eyes clashed with the sharp blue.
“Morning, honey,” David said, falsely chipper.
The fantastic glare Sean sent his way raised his hackles, but David merely smirked and slipped into the chair opposite him.
Sean took a sip of his concoction. “Do you pride yourself in being annoying?”
“I pride myself in being clever. That it’s annoying to you is a fun little extra.”
With a sigh, Sean rubbed his tired eyes.
Still in a nightgown, red hair knotted atop her head, Autumn flopped into the chair beside David. “Still hate each other?”
He threw a raised eyebrow in her direction. “If I say no, will you stop bugging us about it?”
The tinkling bells of her laughter had become familiar. Autumn’s happiness was like the gold that highlighted her edges or the freckles that formed constellations across her nose—a permanent and unchangeable part of her.
Slightly unfair, really. He’d never suffered through such innocent emotions. He wasn’t sure what to do with them.
As her laughter faded, Isobel stepped into the room, fully dressed and stunningly beautiful. Her gaze darted to his, striking an arrow somewhere in the vicinity of his aorta.
That beauty of hers didn’t reach far past the surface. Inside, Bel was a roiling mess of distrust and resentment, especially when she looked at him. David had done nothing to her, but guilt still pricked his conscience. It couldn’t be easy to have those memories in her head.
“It wasn’t you,” Autumn whispered, then directed a warning look at Bel.
“Those memories are only going to get more vivid now that you’re together.
You have to remember to separate yourself from them.
He never did those things to you.” She turned to David.
“And you shouldn’t feel guilty over actions you never took. ”
Clearly unimpressed, Isobel snorted. “You should feel guilty for the ones you have though. Sean told me what you’ve done.”
David stood, casting a lopsided smile her way. “Sean doesn’t know the half of it.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“And you’re pure honey, aren’t you?” An urn sat steaming on the countertop, so David took his chances and poured a mug. “Those emotions you’re hiding are a cesspool.”
The fire in her eyes was a fascinating new trait. In his memories, Meléan wasn’t so feisty.
The drink was minty and herbal, some sort of tea with a tart kick. He leaned back against the counter.
Bel crossed her arms. “I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to keep you from hurting him again.”
Autumn had filled David in yesterday about the blood oath that connected Isobel to Sean.
Stupid bit of recklessness on Meléan’s part, but it gave Bel phenomenal power, apparently.
Still, David would take being the heir of a tyrant over suffering a love connection to this psycho bitch.
He suspected Isobel Faywood was the kind of woman who could smile while she shoved a knife deep into someone’s stomach.
He toasted her. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
“Get it out now,” Autumn said, “because when we walk out that door, we’ll present a united front.”
With a spike of rage flashing from Sean, his cup landed on the table with a thud. “Why don’t we just execute him now and save ourselves the trouble?”
A familiar band wrapped David’s chest—the anxiety of a nearby threat. As he had many times in the past, he doused the fire flickering through his nerves with ice water, letting a smirk hide it all. “You think you have it in you to kill a man in cold blood?”
Sean paled. “Maybe if that man was you.”
“You’ve had the chance before and didn’t,” he said with a casual shrug.
“Things change.”
David took a quick dive into Sean’s core, through a veneer of anxiety and disbelief, past layers of fear and dread, straight to the bloody center, where a powerful sense of isolation steered his every action.
“Things change, but you don’t,” he said.
“You’re still the orphaned little boy, alone in a sea of disciples, wishing you felt like you belonged.
You’re too much of a good boy to break the rules.
So make your threats, Lhynion’s heir, because we both know you won’t follow through. ”
A muscle in Sean’s jaw ticked as he glared David’s way. “You’re a sociopath.”
David drained the last of the minty drink and pushed off the counter, standing straight. “I’m a cynic and a pragmatist. You’re the one casually threatening murder at the breakfast table.”
“Okay.” Autumn smacked her palms flat on the table. “That’s enough. We can finish this argument later. David, meet me down on the training grounds, okay?”
With a noncommittal sigh, David locked himself in the washroom until the voices on the other side of the door disappeared.
A sunny morning greeted him when he made it outside, forcing himself not to match any of the gazes directed his way.
He zigzagged through the trees toward the training grounds while he prodded at memories floating piecemeal to the surface.
David tried to put the puzzle together, but the story remained blurry, and he questioned his own sanity in searching for it.
Why would he want to watch the descent of a man from good to evil, wondering when he’d stumble past the point of no return?
He needed more information. Galadaine wasn’t always a lunatic, and David needed to understand what happened to turn him. It couldn’t have been losing Meléan. There was more to it, surely.
He crossed the bridge onto the training grounds with only slight doubt. If nothing else, he’d find Autumn here, and if worse came to worst, he’d simply leave. The library could teach him far more than this would.
Beyond the check-in tent—where every pixie within pretended they couldn’t see him—the path veered in two directions.
The right was clearly where the more advanced courses were taught.
Expert archers with crack shot aim hit bullseyes again and again.
Stone rings were encircled by spectators cheering for the elite fighters inside.
Dexterous individuals threw knives square into the hearts of target dummies.
David veered left, where people were gathered in group tutorials.
From a distance, the spark of rose red hair caught his eye, and he swung that way.
Autumn smiled when he drew near, then nodded toward the grassy field where Sean fought another pixie.
The swarm of observers around them had eyes only for Sean.
Not a single one of them glanced David’s way.
Well, none except Isobel, standing on the other side of Autumn. She spared a few seconds to spear him with a cold look before returning her attention to Sean.
“It took him a bit to get out of his head,” Autumn said, “but look at him now.”
With little effort, Sean threw a punch that landed on his trainer’s jaw, then brought the guy to his knees.
David had been on the receiving end of that brutality enough times to know how much it hurt, but the pixie just laughed and motioned for Sean to do the same to the pixie girl training with them.
Poor thing. She didn’t have a chance. Sean would knock her out cold. Didn’t quite seem fair.
“Anna has five years of training on him,” Autumn said. “And she’s far more agile than Sean. He has raw talent, but—”
“He needs to work on his speed,” Isobel said. She continued on, but David grew distracted by Sean’s sparring partner. It was the hair that snagged him, like a starling—black from afar, but when the sun struck the braid just right, an oil slick of color sparked.
Something about the way she moved, the delicate curve of her jaw, the fragile line of her throat.
He knew that girl. She was in the memories, the hazy ones he could barely access.
“You said her name was Anna?” he asked Autumn. “Who is she?”
“Besides Sean and Kywyn, she’s the only other pixie in this realm who possesses mortal blood. A pixie lavanié. She’s near the end of her Apprenticeship, I think. She’ll join the Honor Guard soon.”
David studied the grace of her movement as she maneuvered around Sean, pinning him to the ground.
“She showed up here a few years ago,” Autumn said. “Strange, really. She just arrived one day. Kind of like you.”
He had attempted to shove the memory of that pain deep below the surface so he never had to relive it, but it sprang up fresh now, and he shuddered.
“I spoke with Kywyn,” Autumn said. “He thinks you should train with them. If you’re seen fighting at Sean’s side, it will support the narrative we want. Generally we all keep to our own people when training since we have similar strengths, but sylphs don’t take part in this.”
That information was enough to jerk his attention away from the girl. “They don’t? Why not?”
“Sylphs are pacifists by nature,” Autumn said.
Huh. Maybe that was why David had always hated violence. Too bad he was so drenched in it. He’d never fit in among a crowd of peace lovers, no matter how nice it might be to join them.
Bel snorted. “And also, their blood is toxic.”
David blinked at her. Toxic?
Autumn shot him a sheepish smile. “It’s the most lethal poison in the realm.”
“My blood is poisonous?”
“No,” Autumn said. “Only full-blooded sylphs are poisonous. Remember yesterday when I said sylphs are pure? They don’t fight. Their poisonous blood is their only defense mechanism.”