Page 48 of Great Falls Cadet
Summoning the brightest smile the early morning allows, I reach for the boy’s arm. “Can I take a look?”
“It’s nothing. Like Mic said.” Rusty tenses, readying to bolt. His blue eyes have grown even more glazed in the short time we’ve spent with him, darting about wildly.
“Rusty,” Tye drawls, jerking his chin toward me. “Which would ye say rates higher on the cadet—the breasts or backside?”
“What?” Rusty and I say in unison.
Tye’s gaze sharpens on mine for a heartbeat, somehow holding both a warning and an apology, and flicks to Rusty’s arm. By the time the silent order registers, the male is already back to blinking conspiratorially at Rusty. “I’d rank the breasts higher myself, but with those curves, it’s a tough call.”
The boy’s face reddens.
Tuning out discussion I will castrate Tye for later, I peel away Rusty’s sleeve. Patches of bubbled yellow skin cover the boy’s forearm, looking almost like wrong-colored burns. Several of the sores grow before my eyes, the leaking pus carrying a corrupted stench that makes my stomach churn.
“Master Shade warned me to watch for poison oak around these parts,” Tye says, loudly enough to ensure the boy’s partner overhears. “I wouldn’t risk Shade’s wrath myself by keeping this from him, but that’s me.”
“That is no poison oak,” I mutter once the pair of guards departs. “That’s—” I don’t finish my sentence.Thatis exactly the mess I need to be steering clear from until someone who can differentiate his ass from his elbow—magically speaking—can draw me a bloody map. With my track record, I’d trek thethatall over the Academy.
“I’ll pass word to Shade about Rusty,” Tye says, his voice low. “If the lad doesn’t find the infirmary, it will find him. But that’s as far as I go. Challengers have been barred from the Prowess Trials for lesser reasons than meddling in fae craft.”
“The Prowess Trials are—” I catch myself cold, Coal’s agony-filled scream echoing again through my memory. I’d been about to blurt something unamendable, telling Tye that his Prowess Trial track is nothing but a spun illusion.
“Are what?” Tye says.
“Are coming up sometime after Ostera celebrations, right?” Reclaiming my pitchfork, I busy myself with cleaning a stall, breathing deep against sudden panic. This is further proof that I have to be careful—very careful. Perhaps keep clear of the males altogether until I can get my tongue under control. The veil’s magic is no jest. Just as my veil kept memories of Zake alive in Leralynn’s new backstory, Tye’s veil didn’t invent Prowess Trials for him—it built on wounds already there.
Once, before the quint call bonded him to River and the others, Tye was destined for the top athletic title in Lunos. He and his family had given up everything for Tye’s training, including his connection to the tiger that his soul yearned to shift into. Tye was a commoner born into nothing, whose talent and training and sacrifice let him challenge the crown prince himself. Or would have let him, if the night before the final challenge, the prince—in a message left in Tye’s mother’s blood and broken bones—hadn’t forced Tye to forfeit the game forever.
Yes, the Tye standing before me remembers nothing of that, but the wounds went nowhere. The Prowess Trials are the magic’s stand-in, and ripping Tye from them just might tear his soul into bloody strips.
Realizing Tye is waiting me to say something, I clear my throat. “The Prowess Trials are something. I little blame you for doing what you must.”
Tye steps back toward the wall, though he keeps from actually leaning back against it. For a while, neither of us says a word as I return to my work. Scoop manure. Toss it into the wheelbarrows. Hold back the wince of pain the movement evokes. Repeat.
Finally, Tye clears his throat. “I am not bedding Princess Katita, in case you’re wondering.”
My heart skips a beat. “I wasn’t.”
He grins, but I can feel the tension behind the jest. “Of course you were.”
I give Tye a vulgar gesture, which only makes him grin wider and jump right back onto the overhead bar, this time raising and holding his legs at a right angle to the floor. “I’m not going to bed you either,” he adds, his attention on his bar.
My hands tighten on the pitchfork. Instead of mucking Sprite’s stall, I set my sights on one farther away and walk toward it with purpose. There is simply no response to that bit of presumptuousness, especially when it happens to be true. We aren’t going to sleep together—and not just for whatever reasons he’s come up with.
“Lass.” When I look over my shoulder, I find Tye still hanging above the ground, trying and nearly succeeding in holding on to his cocky expression. Almost. I know the male too well to buy the lightness and smiles, not when my own immortal senses let me see the heaviness behind his gaze no matter how far down the stable aisle I am. “It isn’t anything against you,” he says, the reason behind this morning visit suddenly becoming clear. A thank-you. An acknowledgment. And a line drawn in the sand. He clears his throat, his vibrant green eyes suddenly shadowed. “My training and entanglements don’t work. Trust me, I’ve tried. Some things are best said up-front. What we did the other night… That can’t happen again.”
I grit my teeth and force my shoulders into a shrug, ignoring the trickle of acid in my throat. Of course it can’t happen again—I’ve already come to the same conclusion myself. The kissing and more against that tree hadn’t been real, and I let myself enjoy them anyway. I’ve no regrets. But it burns to hear him say it, as if it’s his decision alone. As if I hadn’t been the one who’d warned him not to read anything into the kiss.
And all of a sudden, with a surge of anger that simmers my blood, I realize that I’ve made yet another—more grievous—miscalculation. While wondering whether the males would still care for me without the magic’s bond, I’d overlooked the fact that I might not care for them. And this Tye, who thinks his kiss is a thank-you gift I should savor, I don’t like one bit.
Reaching the other end of the stable, I look at Tye over the thick metal prongs of my pitchfork. “Message received. Now, I’d appreciate you choosing some other place to tempt Shade’s wrath. Unlike Princess Katita and her ladies, I find little amusement in watching you strut about like a cock at sunrise and even less in explaining to River why my work isn’t done.”
5
Lera
Ithink I might actually be moving better by the time I head across the neatly trimmed grass and raked sand of the training yard toward Coal’s morning sparring lesson, groups of gray-clad students and shouting instructors blurring in my side vision. I wonder whether Tye attends morning practice as well, and what the poor human in charge of him makes of the male. Lack of qualification—that is one problemmysparring instructor certainly doesn’t have.
I, on the other hand, do. What I—usually—have in physical prowess, I make up for with a desperate lack of academic preparation. The veil might have convinced the Academy that I’ve had an educated, noble upbringing, but it didn’t condescend to make me read better or do sums without the help of my fingers. I’ve already heard mutters on that score, my too-sharp hearing eagerly picking up hurtful tidbits. I turn my face up, letting the warm sun and clear sky lighten my mood. After the soggy disaster of yesterday, at least the weather seems to be on my side today.
