19. Quill

CHAPTER 19

Quill

I hated it when Ash played the dumb ones, too, but he usually wasn't dumb to the point of endangering someone. And stepping through the ring after dark endangered whoever had ridden out to save him. He had no way of knowing that Rider would be one of his rescuers, so couldn't have counted on Rider coming to his aid. Sure, because the novices arrived tomorrow Rider wouldn't be hunting with one of the elite teams tonight, but he also wouldn't have taken a position on the wall. I suspected it was just luck that Rider had been on the wall when the novice had arrived.

But Talon has said the novice had red hair and was young. I'd delivered a summons to a boy who fit that description that afternoon, which meant he couldn't be Ash, since Ash was out delivering summonses as well.

"I don't think this novice is Ash," I said.

Ash, with his magic to change his appearance, always disguised himself as a human novice for the first of the two seasons of novice training to help identify those who might be a problem once they were part of the regular rotation.

Because the humans didn't join the guard voluntarily like the fae, not everyone had the same skill level and some humans believed that meant their life was already over and attempted to end it, while others thought it gave them the right to make life more difficult for those weaker than themselves. Some fae believed that as well, but most were too afraid of Rider to create serious problems.

The problem was that Ash was damned good at what he did and, as much as we tried, we could never figure out who he was until he revealed himself as a potential target for those looking for someone to intimidate or an intimidator ready to join in. The only advantage we ever had was that Ash took two thirds of the list of summonses and hid himself among them, which meant there was always one third of the novices who I or Talon knew wasn't Ash because we'd delivered those summons ourselves.

"The boy's name is Sawyer Herstind, but I'm surprised he didn't wait until tomorrow to come to the Gray," I added, my mind jumping back to that moment.

It had been strange, unlike so many of the summonses I'd made before. The woman with the same red hair as her brother had assured me there wouldn't be crying. It had almost felt as if she knew her brother's name would be called. But then she'd almost fainted, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw that look on her face when I'd grabbed her arm to steady her.

She'd looked up at me, and her eyes, brown but with a hint of impossible emerald flickering in their depths as if a part of me wanted her to actually be fae, were filled with shock and terror.

And then the Marquis had yelled at her and the terror had deepened for a moment before vanishing behind a mask of blank obedience.

"Sawyer Herstind?" Talon asked, his frown deepening. "As in Herstind March?"

"Yes. Probably a nephew to the Marquis." Which would explain why he'd been standing on that pretentious dais behind the Marquis… but didn't explain why he'd been treating Sawyer's sister like a servant. Even as his niece, the Marquis could solidify his political alliances by marrying her to someone important.

The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth. It was disgusting how humans treated their women, but we'd made an alliance with them. Even with half of our population possessing some form of magic, we still weren't strong enough to defend ourselves if the Shadow Gate opened again. We needed each other and neither of us were going to make demands for cultural changes and turned a blind eye, pretending we didn't notice.

"I didn't think the Marquis had any nephews fostering at Herstind castle," Talon said, his position in the Gold Tower giving him greater knowledge of the humans' political arrangements just like my position in the White Tower made me more knowledgeable on magical developments and research.

"And it doesn't matter," Rider said. "Whatever life he had before is over."

And his sister was now alone.

I didn't know where that thought had come from. I didn't know for certain that she was now alone, but given how the Marquis had treated her, I doubted anyone would stand against him for her sake.

Although given how young her brother was, I doubted he'd been any protection… except if what Rider said was true, the boy had killed a hound. That meant he had to have a spark in his soul. A spark that had probably been repressed by the Marquis.

"We need to test the novices and then split them up for their second rotation," Rider said. "As much as I'd like to hold back those who are more skilled to help bring up the abilities of the others, we can't afford to remain undermanned. All of the elite teams have lost a lieu day each rotation just to keep up with our losses. The men can't keep that up forever."

"We shouldn't wait for the novices to join the rotation," Talon said. "Start the competition for the elite positions and take from the guards who've already proven themselves."

"There's a Bond, a Mannerly, and a Wild in this year's list of novices," I said.

They were three of almost a dozen human families that didn't see going to the Gray as a punishment and trained their sons accordingly. There were other families that were scattered throughout the Five Great Human Kingdoms, but the Bond and Wild families were in Addur, the capital of Erellod, and were trained and treated like nobility even if they weren't — most likely because if a nobleman's son's name was drawn, someone from one of those families would take his place — while the Mannerly family was their equivalent in the capital of Irialas, one of the Five Great Kingdoms that bordered Erellod.

"A Bond, Mannerly, and a Wild?" Talon asked, surprising me since he usually looked at the list of names before the novices arrived even if it wasn't his year to hand out the summons.

Rider raised an eyebrow. "You haven't looked at the list?"

"I was going to look at it in the morning," Talon shot back. "Ash swamped me with reports about the human machinations going on in the Gold Tower during the kings' meeting, and I've been juggling that and security for Princess Edelina's betrothal party."

"That party is months away," Rider replied.

"And yet nobles are already arriving." Talon rolled his eyes.

A human betrothal was a chance to make political alliances, not just between the families getting married but between those who'd been invited. And while many nobles had their own security, it was the Guard's gold elites that were responsible for ensuring everyone's safety.

Which meant the sooner Talon's unit was back to their full compliment, the easier it would be to juggle security at the Gold Tower. That said?—

"It would be a mistake to make highly trained novices wait for who-knows-how-many years to take an elite position," I said. "And two of them are from Addur. They'll likely have experience fighting together and be an asset on anyone's elite unit."

"Then we open it up to the novices as well," Talon suggested. "I need a full compliment for the princess's party. Extra men if you can spare them. And you need hunters."

Rider gave a tight nod. "Agreed. We'll divide the novices between skill level at the end of the first rotation, give them a chance to get their bearings. Then after a few rotations of getting them into shape we'll open up the training rotation for the competition to the regular grunts as well as the novices."

"And that training has to be two rotations not five before we start the competition," Talon added, which was great for him and Rider but terrible for me.

Sure, I only needed two men, but I needed men with more training than they did. Rider's hunters needed exceptional fighting abilities since they actively hunted the shadows, and Talon's men needed to know how to behave properly among human nobles. I needed men who could read and speak both human and fae at least at a basic level and understood the foundations of magic so they could properly protect — and not disrupt — the scholars researching and experimenting in the White Tower.

"I reserve the right to withhold judgement and demand extra training before selecting my men," I said. "I can't risk someone blowing up half of the White Tower because they couldn't read the label on a door." And I also couldn't have men who didn't respect a woman's authority. Unlike the humans, our women held positions of power greater than any man, and almost a quarter of the fae scholars at the White Tower were women. We even had a few female human scholars.

Which made me think of Sawyer's sister, alone in a place where I knew in my heart she was terrified and powerless.

She'd been demure, but there'd been a keenness in the way she looked at me, as if she could see more than just the Guardsman that I was. Perhaps if I took her to the White Tower, she'd have what it took to be a scholar's assistant or even a scholar. Then she wouldn't have to live in Herstind castle. She'd even be able to see her brother on his lieu days.

And why was I thinking about her? It couldn't be because I was desperate for a mate that I'd take a human. That would be ridiculous and wasn't fair to her. Women wanted children and a fae man couldn't give a human woman a child. We could barely give a fae woman a child. That and we lived hundreds of years longer than humans. We'd be childless and far-too-quickly I'd be alone again.

No, I was better off as I was with my brothers-in-arms: Rider, Ash, and Talon. And if I wanted sex, I could visit the brothel in the human realm that catered to the Guard, or be with Talon, who was always up for sex, be it with me or a human, or with me and a human.

Except that only made me think of me with Talon and Sawyer's sister, turning that look of fear in her eyes to one of pure pleasure.