Chapter 23

Chapter

Twenty-Three

Vyk

M y hair was still damp on the collar of my shirt as I left my quarters. I’d dressed in a hurry, barely shoving the dark shirt into my uniform pants and jamming my feet into the boots I’d kicked off before stomping down the corridor. The lights in the sconces flickered, sending shadows twisting along the black stone since there was no sunlight peeking in through narrow windows yet.

It was early, but I could not wait. I needed to find Fiona. I needed to talk to her.

I raced down a flight of stairs, my feet barely touching the worn rock, determined to find her and determined to explain myself. Her visit to my quarters—her first night with me—had not gone according to plan. Not that I had planned how it would go, when the female who was forced to spend time with me because she lost a wager arrived. How did you plan that?

I had not even planned on making such an outrageous bet, but I had and then she had lost. Which meant she would be spending more time in my quarters. More time I had no idea how to fill.

I clenched my teeth as I thought about what I’d said to her when she’d asked me where I’d been.

Next time, I will stay in the room, so you do not get jealous.

I had actually accused her of being jealous when she had made it very clear I was the last Drexian she would ever be with. Of course, she had called me arrogant because I sounded every bit the overconfident warrior convinced of my own superiority. I sounded like exactly what she most despised.

I crossed the main hall, grateful that I did not encounter anyone. Not that many staff members would be up so early. Not when there were no classes to teach or cadets to corral. The time between terms was a respite for instructors and staff, although it seemed to be just as fraught and difficult for me.

Did I know how to be a part of a team without ruling with an iron fist? It had been a long time since I had been a Drexian who was not known for being ruthless and deadly. My ferocity was what had given me my reputation in Inferno Force, and it was a reputation I was loathe to abandon. Without it, I would go back to being a no-status Drexian who was rejected by the tribute bride matched to him, and I wanted to forget that version of myself forever.

That Drexian had not been worthy. He had been cast aside. Even now, the memory stung .

“That was the past,” I reminded myself as I took another staircase two steps at a time. “Fiona is not her.”

Not only was the Strategy instructor not the tribute bride who had rejected me, she could not be held responsible for my dislike and distrust of human women that sprung from that rejection. It was no more her fault than it was any female currently at the academy.

Shedding long-held prejudices was not so simple or so easy, but it had to be done. It was those beliefs that had made me an easy target for High Commanders who needed a co-conspirator and scapegoat for their plan of sabotaging the trials, and it was the same backward thinking that had made Fiona despise me. If I wanted her to see me differently, I needed to apologize.

The wind whipping across the open-air bridge between towers cooled the wet tendrils of hair at the nape of my neck and sent a shiver down my spine. I could see the hint of sunlight teasing the horizon, but a chill clung hungrily to the night air, unwilling to release it until the light burned it off in a burst of gold.

Once I’d entered the female tower, I hesitated. I had never entered the domain of the human women. I had never needed to do so, but I felt compelled to speak to Fiona. I needed to explain everything to her so she would not think of me as a monster for one more moment.

With a deep breath, I raced up the stairs to the first landing where I knew her quarters to be, and located her room. I didn’t hesitate to rap on the door, knowing that if I allowed myself to think about it, I would lose my courage. There was no answer, so I rapped again. Nothing .

Frustration surged through me. Where was she? Then fear tickled the base of my spine. Had she not gotten back to her room safely? I cursed myself for letting her run off in the night. The academy was deserted. There should be no danger, but it was the academy. There was always some amount of danger.

My heart pounded as I thundered down the stairs and back across the stone bridge, ignoring the blowing wind and the growing light in the sky. I did not slow my pace to drag in a deep breath of salty air. I did not even glance at the sun touching the Restless Sea.

Where would she have gone if not to her room? I practically ran through the silent hallways, the sound of my boots slapping stone echoing back to me, as I made my way down into the bowels of the main building to the kitchens.

“Has a human been here?” I barked at the cooks who were kneading bread and stirring vats of steaming stew. “A female with gold hair?”

There were startled shakes of heads and mumbled assurances that she had not been there. But Fiona had not been a cadet at the academy. Sneaking food from the kitchens was not something she would have known to do. It was something a Drexian would do, a Drexian like me who had spent years at the academy and had found solace in nabbing extra bread.

“Where would a human go?” I asked myself as I trudged back up the stairs, flicking a glance at a dank corridor leading to the dungeons. She would not go there, especially after her tirade at me about keeping a remaining beast below. “So where?”

From what I knew of Fiona, she worked hard and was devoted to her friends. If she was not in her quarters, she would either be working or she would be with one of the other females, most likely Ariana. But Ariana would have been asleep when Fiona left my quarters. Fiona would not have awakened her, especially if it meant explaining why she was up.

By the time I reached the main hall again, there was movement in the school. One of the inclinators swirled down from the top of the spiraling hall, and a Blade instructor nodded at me as he strode toward the entrance to his school. I did not go up the wide stairs to my own office. Instead, I passed under the stone arch with the emblem of a mask speared with a dagger carved into it, and I walked with determined steps down the wide hallway leading to the School of Strategy.

It was time to come clean with the Assassin.