Page 27 of Daughter of the Ninth Line: Part One

She’d told me once she did like the stilettos beneath the ballgowns, though—all the better to stab a man with.

No, it wasn’t that Shay was a psycho, despite the rumors.

Shay just didn’t want to be some diplomat’s wife, because she had no interest in men. Shay was only interested in women, and that didn’t fit with our family’s agenda. So when I left for Boellium, I’d convinced my family that I trusted no one else to have my back, and gave her a reprieve from her family duty. It wasn’t untrue; I didn’t trust anyone with my back the way I trusted Shay.

I couldn’t help her forever, though. Eventually, my father would put his foot down, and she would be forced into a political marriage, unless I could keep her out of his reach until one of my brothers took the mantle of Baron. They were more sympathetic to her predicament than Father.

Shay twirled her favorite dagger over her fingers. “What are you thinking?”

“A battle of strength, no powers. Just a nice fair fight where people remember why I sit on top of this fucking shit heap, and that my word is law.”

“A tournament?” She looked at me imperiously. “You know, you could always just fight Taeme for the girl, if you want to fuck her so bad. Or maybe you can just ask nicely. He’s an animal; they’ve been known to share.”

I glared at her as we headed toward the stairs that led to our penthouse dorm. “It’s got nothing to do with Taeme, or Avalon Halhed. It has everything to do with the fact I’m not sure I like the unrest and the boldness of the conscripts this year. They need to respect their betters, and what more perfect way is there than handing them their asses without my superior magic?”

I was highly trained, as was Shay, and I’d been learning the art of war since I could hold a sword. I could comfortably beat any man, or woman, in this college, including most of the instructors. It was time they remembered.

“Let me guess, you want to be paired in the first battle with Taeme?”

I snorted. “No, cousin. I want you to pair Eugene and Taeme in the first fight.”

Shay quirked an eyebrow at me, but shook her head. “Eugene’s funeral, I guess.”

It would be bad if the Lower Lines rose up, but honestly, they could only do it through full-scale revolution, and even then, it would be hit or miss. With the current drought, they had neither the manpower nor the resources for such actions.

No, the real threat to the current status quo weren’t the Lower Lines, but the ones with just enough power to think they could stand with the big boys. Eugene had been getting a little too cocky, a little too power-hungry, and it was certainly time for him to remember he was the Fourth Line for a reason.

And Taeme would eat that slimy fucker for lunch without ever having to lift a finger, especially if what Shay had said regarding Taeme and the Ninth conscript was correct.

That was the reason I wanted them paired. It had nothing to do with Avalon Halhed.

She shook her head at me. “Sometimes I wonder if you missed that Vylan cruelty gene, then you do shit like this, and I remember that you’re still your father’s son.”

The words were meant to be a slap in the face, and Shay was the only person I’d allow to deliver these verbal barbs.

“I might not respect the man, but not all his notions are incorrect.” A flash of hurt in her eyes told me she thought I meant the sexuality thing. I didn’t. So I squeezed her arm gently. “Most of them are bullshit, though.” Straightening before weboth became uncomfortable with the contact, I added, “Arrange the tournament for the weekend. Tell them I’ll give fifty gold coins to the winner.”

Shay whistled low, striding off. I put my bags on my bed and didn’t think too hard about what the fuck I was doing this for.

Seventeen

Avalon

Four days after Hayle returned home, we emerged from my dorm. Lucio had covered for us both, and none of the teachers would contradict the Third Line’s claim that we’d both gotten food poisoning from bad clams.

The Third Line had also been bringing us food and leaving it in my dorm’s kitchen, though more often than not, by the time we dragged ourselves from the bedroom, either one of the hounds or Epsy had nibbled at the edges.

It was blissful, this connection to Hayle. He worshipped me for hours on end, until I thought I’d go insane from the pleasure of it all. A little voice in the back of my head told me that he’d get bored of me eventually, that I was just new, and he was a predator who enjoyed the chase. That eventually he’d get bored, and I’d be back to being alone, only it would be worse. I would know what it was like to be as close as humanly possible to another person, and the loneliness would be unfathomable. Unbearable.

When those thoughts entered my brain—usually late at night while I was awake and Hayle was snoring softly beside me—I tried to remember his face when he’d burst into my room. Thatpanic wasn’t the response of a man who was merely playing with his food before he moved onto something more tasty.

I didn’t understand it, but I knew deep in my gut that what was happening between us meant something.

Grabbing my hand, he pulled me closer on the stairwell. “You’re thinking awfully hard over there. World domination plans? Because I can help.”

I snorted a laugh, and didn’t even try to resist the urge to stand up on my toes and brush my lips over his. “Not today. You just focus on your battle.”

Lucio had brought word that Vox Vylan had returned and was bored enough to set up a tournament for the conscripts. The prize was fifty gold coins, basically a generational wealth to the Lower Lines, and had made the rules of battle magicless. Everyone would fight with the same amount of magic as the Twelfth Line, evening the playing field. The buzz around the tournament had found us, even though we’d been buried deep in the haze of lust.

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