Chapter Seven
Eli brought Austin breakfast in a garden rich with verdant greens and large blossom flowers.
Trees had been guided to grow overhead, offering dappled shade from the hot morning sun.
Austin managed a few bites of a plain orange-fleshed fruit, but the rest of the food was too strong-smelling to even look at.
He sipped a warm green tea in the hope it would soothe the itch in his throat.
He worried the cuts were infected, the pain worse today than yesterday.
Perched on the edge of his chair, Eli politely triple-checked that Austin wasn’t going to eat anything else before falling on the leftovers like he was starving. He kept checking nobody wandered by and spotted him between bites.
“Dozens send in requests to meet Prince Tristan daily,” Eli explained between mouthfuls.
“Depending on the reason, Char either grants them an audience with Prince Tristan or Captain Inx, redirects them to a more suitable sector in the city, or tells them to petition Prince Hal directly. The requests that Char lets through always involve the need for a guard or physical intervention, like you saw with Eloise last night, and they’re always held over meals.
Prince Tristan doesn’t like to be interrupted when training his men. ”
“Training?”
Eli indicated behind them. “Prince Tristan’s personal Troop trains here, either from scratch or brushing up on skills, and the city guards are sent over to train sometimes too.
Many travel across the continent to join their ranks.
But you either have to be very, very good or very, very determined.
They’re not as strong as they are because they take it easy.
Plus, Prince Hal sends over tutors every month to teach them all about his justice system.
I hear he sometimes even comes over to give lectures in person. ”
Austin looked in the direction Eli had indicated. He couldn’t see much, just the hint of a huge trellis roof propped up between buildings.
The cry of a seagull drew Austin’s eye toward the ocean, to the wide expanse of its impenetrable blue.
An itch under his skin let him know that Connor was on the other side of the Tear in Ireland.
This side of the Tear, Austin could shake off the discomfort.
What he couldn’t shake off was a gnawing worry that something bad might have happened to Liam.
He’d only been going down the road, so he likely would have arrived back to Wilbur at the cottage.
Imagining what might have happened made him itch worse than Connor’s distance.
He needed to go back. But his muscles were seized and sore, despite the cream he’d liberally rubbed everywhere, and there was a weakness in him that felt bone deep.
He wouldn’t make the swim, not without help.
It was too precarious to order the ocean to bring him back.
He’d got lucky washing up here, but if he washed up helpless in front of Wilbur, he might never see daylight again.
There was the other part of his power, of course. The beguiling part. He could talk someone into helping him. This close to the ocean, if he held Tristan’s arm and purposefully drew on it—
No. Austin shoved the thought down. He was never using that part of him ever again. And it wasn’t necessary. There was nothing of interest in Liam to the researchers. Perhaps as an eyewitness, but not as a source of information, especially if they already had files on Austin.
Austin set aside his teacup roughly and stood. He gestured to the training grounds. “I want to interrupt,” he said imperiously.
Eli hesitated. “I can’t promise that Prince Tristan will be happy about it. I’ve heard the only one he doesn’t get annoyed with about that kind of thing is his brother…” A hopeful look crossed his face.
Austin stared, and with an accepting sigh, Eli led the way.
Grey flagstone turned to sand in the training pit, gleaming white between splatters of dark, brownish clumps. Blood or sweat, Austin guessed. A quick survey of the men left him certain it was a mix of both.
Men and women were scattered around the space, the sand divided into circles where two apiece battled with wooden staves. Austin’s delight grew as he saw there wasn’t a single person without some sort of otherness to them. Scales, feathers, horns, extra limbs—there were all sorts.
In the furthest circle, Tristan battled Captain Inx, whose exoskeleton gauntlets gleamed on the outermost points, sharpened like blades. They each held a stave, and even across the pit, Austin heard the whistle of the wood splitting the air. A hit would crush bone.
Austin walked the perimeter, stepping between resting students against the walls and those battling on the sands.
Trainers observed and called out instructions.
Unknown languages translated seamlessly in Austin’s mind: Dodge!
Always dodge, unless you want to forget you’re fighting in the first place and become a ghoul’s next meal.
Attention fell to Austin as he went, causing two of the battles to end in cracked shoulders when one of the participants cast him a look and their sparring partner took advantage of the lapse in attention.
A body flew from a training circle directly into Austin’s path.
A man with large bat wings struggled to his knees, but his opponent leapt on top.
Large fingers seized his nape and buried the winged man’s face in the sand.
Wings beat hard in a desperate struggle, and the man with the upper hand seized and twisted the joint.
Austin’s lungs ached, the disobedient wave that had almost drowned him simmering in his mind.
“Get out of my way,” Austin ordered.
The man’s entire body flinched, black spines snapping wide from beneath his jaw.
Black eyes flashed towards Austin as he scrambled back, into his own circle.
The winged man struggled to his hands and knees, coughing up sand and gasping for air.
Twitching, he retreated back inside the circle too and fixed a furious look on his opponent.
Austin continued on, hearing a mean, “Avians are shit fighters.”
A furious reply, “We’re meant to be practising non-contact!”
Eli leaned in close to Austin. “That’s Oran. He’s from the fighting pits up north. Those spines under his jaw are all filled with poison—it hurts for hours to get prodded by even one. He’s a dirty fighter. I can’t believe they let him in here.”
“And the one next to him?”
“I’ll find out for you. It’s rare to see an avian in a place like this. They’re light-boned, and they don’t exactly do well in close combat.”
Finally, Austin reached Tristan’s circle.
Tristan’s dark eyes cut towards him. Inx sprang, as if he’d predicted the lapse in concentration. Too late to dodge, Tristan caught the stave barehanded. Its momentum died against his palm, his outstretched hand as immovable as stone.
The power shuddered back into Inx, his wrists and arms jolting. His chitin creaked. He dropped the stave and shook out his arms, cursing as he fixed a toothy grin on Tristan. “That’s my win. We’re dodging, remember?”
Tristan tossed the stave back to him and approached Austin, who looked for evidence that Tristan was annoyed by the interruption.
All he gleaned was that Tristan thought Austin’s shirt interesting.
He was studying it with a particularly piercing intensity.
It was dark blue, a plaited silver thread strap held up the shoulders, and a matching plait circled his wrist, holding decorative, billowy sleeves in place.
“I’m going to watch.”
Tristan nodded. A single glance sent Eli running, returning with a bench and refreshments. Ignoring curious looks, Austin draped himself across the cushioned bench. The training resumed, Tristan rejoining his sparring partner without another word.
It was a punishing training session. Blows were not softened, weaknesses were exploited, blood did not end a duel—cries of submission did.
Tristan was without equal, no matter how many opponents he cycled through.
On the rare occasion someone outmanoeuvred him, raw strength protected him.
He faced men his own size and larger, those with extra limbs in the fray, but despite being a merman on land, his was an indomitable power.
Eli joined Austin again, and though he brought him a cool drink, Austin’s discomfort grew. The midday sun heated the pit despite the shade, and between the humidity and kicked-up sand, a haze lingered in the air. The gritty feeling in his throat grew worse, demanding more than sips of cool juice.
“Is the monarch stronger than Prince Tristan?” Eli murmured just as a cough Austin couldn’t bury caught in his throat.
Austin rose suddenly and took the direct route to his room, right through the middle of the pit. Spars paused to let him through, but Austin didn’t return anyone’s gaze. It wasn’t until he was opening the door to his bedroom that he whirled on a closely following Eli, scowling.
“I asked for a mirror,” he hissed.
Eli recoiled, startled. “Yes,” he managed meekly, and took off.
Austin slammed the door and made straight for the bath.
He dropped to his knees, bending to get his neck under the spout as the coughing fit overtook him.
Grit, sand, and dirt—they had worked into the cuts, burrowed down into his neck, and now tore through tender flesh with every breath.
Austin blasted the water directly into the wounds, the water flowing down his neck and jaw, over his face and then into his hair.
It took Austin several minutes to hear the knocking, his coughing and the water in his ears blocking out the sound. Austin leaned back, turning off the bath. He stopped coughing, but the overpowering urge to do so remained.
He stormed to the door, ripping it open, only pausing a beat when he found Tristan standing there and not Eli. A metal disc was in his hands, Austin’s reflection warped across its silver face.