Page 51 of A Taste of Torment
I head into the Minor Hall common room. The happy chattering dims the moment I enter, but I don’t have the heart to care today. I keep my gaze focused on the dry scrambled eggs and pile them onto my plate.
My emotions are all over the place these days, but I need to make sure I take care of myself. I refuse to let this place have that much power over me. I refuse to let my sister’s murderer kill me too, even if it’s just through depression.
I won’t do it.
Sometimes, that stubbornness is the only thing that pulls me out of bed in the mornings. The anger in my gut is my fuel.
Here, there are too many people stronger than me. Even in Minor Hall, nearly every student I come across has more magic or physical strength than I do. Little Lola could sprinkle a bit of dust on my head and put me to sleep in a moment. Janet is short but has superhuman strength in those limbs and could crush my skull if she really wanted.
Those wizard boys chuckling at me in the corner could cast a spell to make me kill myself with very little chance I could resist.
Of course, those are the sorts of things the enchantment archways are supposed to stop. Any student who uses that kind of magic on another would be expelled, and possibly charged in the interdimensional court system, depending on who they harmed and how badly. Someone from Elite Hall harming someone in Minor Hall would almost certainly be swept under the rug. They’d be expelled, but they’d get into another supernatural school on another continent or world, and all would be well for them.
True justice has no hold on this place.
“You okay?”
I blink and register Janet watching me with a worried expression. I force a smile as we sit in our usual spot.
“Yeah, you look off,” Lola says quietly.
I pull in a long breath through my nose. “Bad night, I guess.”
“Anything you wanna talk about?”
“Have you ever heard about the Akrasia Games?”
Janet chokes on her bite of bacon. Lola’s wings stop fluttering, and she drops gently onto her butt. “You’re not thinking about…”
The glare I give her must be impressively horrible because she jerks back like I’ve smacked her. I soften my expression. “I don’t even know what they are,” I say quickly. “But I, well, there’s someone that suspects my sister may have been involved.”
Janet and Lola are quiet for a few minutes. Then, Lola hops up and lands on my shoulder, leaning in to whisper.“The games are forbidden to talk about in Minor Hall because it’s almost always Minor students that join. The winners are promised power by some icky supernaturals; no one knows who, though. But in order to win, they have to kill the other contestants. There are said to be spectators, and bets are made. It’s a source of entertainment.”
I bite my lip, letting her words settle in my mind. Was my sister in these games? How? Why?
Lola flutters back to her perch, but neither of my friends touch their food again until several minutes later when I force my own fork up to my mouth. Stubbornness wins over my anxiety-filled stomach.
“Why do people enter?” I could guess, but I want more clarity.
“Weak students are sometimes bullied into it. Most seek it out because they don’t want to be weak anymore. Or there is something they desperately want but can’t get without magic.”
“Some say the magic is a false promise. Some say the winner gets a single wish granted.”
I frown. “Like, from a genie?”
Lola shrugs. “That would make sense. There’s no real proof they even exist, but lots believe they do.”
Janet gives me a pitying look. “If your sister was… It’s hard to say what her motives could have been.”
I force another few bites down my throat, and then I toss the rest. It’s enough to live on, I tell myself. “Did you know that Jarron dated Auren?” I blurt out. The other day, they started telling me a little bit of the drama, but they conveniently missed this part.
Lola gasps, a tiny sound.
Janet nods. “It wasn’t very long, but she’s the only female he’s been known to be with. Until you.”
“I really don’t like her,” I admit. “Tell me all the things.”
They seem excited about this new subject and wiggle in to spill what they know.
