Page 10 of Daughter of the Ninth Line: Part One

Avalon Halhed’s words from last night were coming back to haunt me. Not the thing about Hayle Taeme; I was definitely the more dominant Heir both in and out of the bedroom, of that I had no doubt. No, it was what she’d said about me being willfully blind to the suffering of the people we ruled.

My father believed in a hands-off style of leadership. He let the Lines govern themselves, leaving their fates in their own hands, as long as they never attempted to rise against his ultimate rule and they paid their taxes promptly. But last night, while I couldn’t sleep, I wondered if their fates really were in their own hands. The Line with the least amount of power had basically been banished to the farthest outreaches of Ebrus, to a climate with long, harsh summers, followed by dry, cold winters.

When my ancestors had been dishing out land to the other Lines, they’d done it strategically. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And of course, we’d given ourselves the prime real estate, because that was the boon of the victor. So those least able to withstand the harsh environment had beensent to the worst possible land, because they had no power to stand against us, and we’d stood idly by for decades as they starved under the guise of not interfering.

I looked at the Twelfth Line students now, and told myself that I would take more time to get to know the Lower Lines. Not that I would ever rule Ebrus, but I would advise my brother; we could try and make life better for those weaker than us. Maybe set up a taskforce of weather manipulators to go to Eelrood, the seat of power for the Twelfth Line, and aid in the growth of the crops. Any alternative was better than sending whole generations of children to Boellium just to prevent their starvation.

Avalon Halhed’s spine was ramrod straight, like she could feel my eyes on her, and I sent down a tendril of air to wrap around her body, squeezing her tightly. The sound of her gasp echoed around the room, but she swallowed it down before anyone but those directly around her could pinpoint the exact location of the sound.

It was hard to keep the smirk from my face, but as she turned slowly to look at me over her shoulder, the fire in her eyes would have singed me if she’d had any form of elemental power.

I stared back, haughty and unaffected by her disdain. She needed to be reminded of who was the one in a position of power here, and of her place in the hierarchy of not just Boellium, but Ebrus as a whole. She was so far down the Lines of power that she wouldn’t even be allowed to be my mistress, let alone be anyone in a position of authority.

Not that I’d want her as a mistress. She was far too plain. Like a length of coarsely woven cotton in a world filled with bedazzled silk.

The feeling of eyes on me prickled against my awareness, and I acknowledged that I’d spent too long looking at Avalon. Turning toward the glare burning my skin, I was unsurprised tosee the wild eyes of Hayle Taeme on me. If anyone could match me in power, it was Taeme, but even he fell below me. Maybe I should teach him a lesson too, show him that while he might be powerful, he fell short of my own strength.

His eyes held mine, a silent battle of wills with the droning voice of Master Proxius going through the upcoming events of the college. I didn’t care. It would be the same as last year, and probably the year before that. No, this was far more important.

Neither of us would yield, but Taeme tilted his head down to the front of the auditorium. At the girl? Was he actually fucking her?

Whatever was between them, his meaning was clear.Stay the fuck away from Avalon Halhed.I felt the corner of my lip curl. His interest had just made her a thousand times more interesting.

Game on, fucker.

Seven

Avalon

Despite my love for reading, historical battle strategy had never been my topic of choice, which I was regretting now as Instructor Perot glared at me.

“I’m not sure, Instructor,” I said for the eleventh time during this lesson. Why he kept calling on me when I was obviously inept at the subject seemed vindictive in a way I didn’t understand.

“What were you learning up there in the home of the Ninth Line? How to knit?” His tone told me how useless he thought that skill was, but down here in the warmth of Boellium, he didn’t know that being able to fashion warmth from the harsh wool of our mountain sheep was a life-saving skill. Perhaps even more so than being able to swing a sword, and definitely more than being able to recall thousand-year-old blood feuds from memory.

But I didn’t say that. Instead, I apologized once more and wore his mockery like a coat of shame.

I wasn’t sure what I’d done to piss him off, though. Maybe it was the mere existence of my Line. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the ancient blood feuds, because apparently, he was trying to start a new one.

The college wasn’t huge, which meant that we didn’t do separate classes. If it was time for battle strategy, the whole college was doing battle strategy. If it was combat training, the whole college was fighting.

Which meant I got no reprieve from the heavy presence of Hayle Taeme or the sharp looks from Vox Vylan. I wasn’t sure where I’d gone wrong; instead of keeping my head down, I’d attracted the attention of the two most powerful conscripts here.

One of Hayle’s hounds was lying under my chair, and the conscripts around me were either looking at me with curiosity or with concern, like I’d done something terribly wrong and was now under constant guard. It was never the same hound—they seemed to take it in turns—but no matter how many times I told them to leave, they’d sit doggedly at my heels with defiant expressions. Yep, the hounds had expressions. They were obviously not ordinary beasts of burden.

I’d had to come to terms with the fact that if I wasn’t in my dorm, there was a hound beside me. Hayle hadn’t said anything about it. In fact, I hadn’t even spoken to him in a week. Boellium wasn’t that big, so I had the suspicion he was purposefully avoiding me so I couldn’t confront him about his furry shadows.

“Miss Halhed, who was the General for the Fifth Line during the Battle of Cregmire in the year 602?”

Who the heck would even know that?I sifted around in my brain for anything I knew about the Fifth Line, which was pitifully not much. The current family line was Ingmire, so I was just going to have to take a wild stab at it. “Ah, General Ingmire, sir?”

“Is that an answer or a question, Miss Halhed?”

I gritted my back teeth, wishing I had an elemental ability so I could set the churlish instructor’s pants on fire. “An answer, sir.”

“The wrong answer, yet again, Miss Halhed. I’ll thank the Goddess every day that the Ninth Line only ever produces grunts and not ranking officers, because I am fairly sure your ilk would have us walking off the Herelean Cliffs.”

My cheeks flushed red at his derisive words, and the hound at my feet let out a rumbling growl, so low that I felt it more than heard the sound. I buried my fingers in his fur, which was either going to soothe the beast or get my fingers bitten off. I figured if they were ordered to attack me, I would’ve been dog food by now.

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