Page 2 of Daughter of the Ninth Line: Part One

They were elusive, and avoided people, so I knew someone must have brought it here purely to feed to the war cat, for whatever reason. The big cat had it cornered in front of the door, and the stolt looked terrified, standing up on its hind legs, slapping at the air like it was ferocious and not ten inches from nose to tail.

Something twisted in my gut, but again, I kept it from my face. I had to go through that door, the one blocked by the war cat. That was the only reason I stepped between the big cat and the stolt. The fact you didn’t cower in front of a predator was the only reason I stared down the enraged feline, baring my ownteeth. I was just being stoic when I didn’t react to the tiny stolt running up the fabric of my long skirt, like it knew I was its one chance at survival. I put my hand on the door once it made it to my hip, and the soft scratch of its claws probably broke the skin.

Feeling eyes on me, I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder at the crowd. A set of golden orbs met mine across the room, and I knew enough about public affairs to know that it was Hayle Taeme, the third-born son of the current Baron of the Third Line. I held his gaze for long enough to convey that I wasn’t scared of him, but not so long that it was a challenge. Turning away, I stepped through the door into a hallway.

The silence inside was almost as grating as the noise of the atrium. Only the clock ticking above the administration office door broke the sound vacuum. Checking there was no one around, I reached under my skirt and pulled out the stolt.

It scrambled against my hand, its whole body rigid with fear, and I looked at it dispassionately. I should just let it go here and be done with it. I’d given it a chance; the rest was up to nature. But for a reason I didn’t really understand, I found myself opening one of the wide, deep pockets of my skirt and allowing it to scurry in, hiding deep in the fabric like a burrow.

I’d take it out to the woods later and release it.

Straightening my shoulders, I hefted my bag back onto my back and knocked on the office door. Someone barked to enter, and I did so with my chin raised high. Boellium wasn’t a place to cower or show weakness. It gave you the respect you demanded. At least, that’s what the journal of Hildor Halhed had said.

I stepped through the door and met the eyes of a woman with a shaved head and a wicked scar curling her lip, the effects of which made her look like she was scowling. She only had one arm and wore modified battle leathers.

“This frog shit never balances.” Okay, maybe the expression on her face had less to do with her scar and more to do with thecursing she was throwing at the ledger in front of her. Slamming it shut, she looked at me and opened a different ledger on her desk with a heavy thump. “Name?” she snapped.

“Avalon Halhed, fifth child of the Baron of the Ninth Line.”

Flicking through the book in front of her, she reached the desired page and wrote down my name. I leaned over a little and saw name after name of people from my Line. Some were my kin. Some were people who fell within our Line’s fiefdom.

The administrator didn’t look impressed by my pedigree, and I wasn’t surprised. “Take this. It’s your classes. If you’re on time, you’re late.” She flicked her fingers at me, a clear dismissal. “Go down to the third subfloor. Surprisingly, you seem to be the only person from the Ninth Line in the college at the moment, so you might find it a little quiet.” Thedon’t complainwas written so clearly on her face that she didn’t even need to say it out loud.

I knew that last year’s Ninth Line conscript had died in war games before he’d even graduated. It had upset the families in the fiefdom, which was why Father had promised to send his darling daughter this year as the conscript.Yeah, right.It had a double boon for Father; he appeased the fiefdom and got rid of me in one move.

If I played this right, I wouldn’t have to go back to the house I grew up in, the one that held nothing but bad memories. He’d promised that if I survived and wasn’t called up to fight in some imaginary war, he’d give me land on the very outer edge of Ebrus, right where our fiefdom turned into the wilds of the north. That’s all I had to do. Survive two years here and go home. I just had to hope that nothing went wrong.

I shuddered at the echo of an old memory.

Lifting my chin in acknowledgement of the woman behind the desk, I turned and left the administration office. Looking left and right, I searched for the stairs that would lead down to the Lower Line dorms. I knew from the journals in Father’s librarythat the Lines after the Sixth Line were housed in subterranean housing. The dorms went six floors below my feet, and the very idea made my skin itch. At least I wasn’t of the Twelfth Line, stuck down in the pits of hell.

To the left, there was a large sweeping staircase that went up to what I would assumed were the other six dorms. To the right was an archway, with stairs down. That would be my path then. Straightening my shoulders, I walked toward the curling stairs, but not before catching a glimpse of what was going on in the atrium.

Some other poor soul—who’d probably been forced to join Boellium too—was being confronted by the hounds. Instead of holding eye contact and standing tall like I had, this fool turned and ran.

You don’t run from a predator.That was the first thing they taught you where I came from. A predator will chase you down and tear you to pieces, just for the sport of it.

Which was exactly what those hounds did to the guy, dragging him to the ground before he’d even made it back to the door. Clearly, I was wrong—the collegewouldallow them to tear apart new students.

Pushing down the kernel of pity that formed in my chest, I descended the stairs to my new home, and ignored the man’s screams as he was eaten alive.

Two

Avalon

The administrator hadn’t been wrong about my floor being empty. It was covered in dust and looked like someone had used it for storage for the last few months, with large boxes and stacks of chairs piled up in the communal area. Moving around the boxes and assorted crap, I picked out a bedroom. There were six on this floor, all shooting off the main communal room. They didn’t separate us by gender, only by Line, so maybe on some of the more populous levels, it was just one big orgy all the time.

I wouldn’t have that problem, thank the Goddess.

Deciding on a room that was the furthest from the staircase landing, I put my bag down on the bed and scooped the stolt out of my pocket, placing it on the rough-hewn desk that made up the only furniture in the room, besides a skinny wardrobe.

Theoretically, I could fill out every single other wardrobe on this level too. There wouldn’t be anyone else until next year. The Ninth Line weren’t desperate to send their sons off to die as some of the other Lines. The area around our lands was tough and rugged—to eke out a living in the wilds took all the strong hands our fiefdom could muster.

That was why I’d been sent, not one of my brothers. That, and Father hated me. Some part of me even understood it.

I’d murdered my mother, and it was hard to love even your own child after that.

The stolt sat cautiously on the desk, sniffing around, before leaping down and scurrying beneath the bed. Well, clearly I wasn’t setting it free in the forest anymore. It would make its own way back to wherever it needed to be.

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