28. Sage

CHAPTER 28

Sage

I waded up stream, still struggling to catch my breath. My cheek stung and my chest throbbed where Durand had hit me and I couldn’t stop shaking, but I kept pushing forward.

It didn’t matter how far I had to go to find a way out of the ravine, and there was no point in turning back in the hope that one of my fellow novices would offer me a hand up.

They wouldn’t. No one would.

Even after Durand and Mikel and the rest of those guys left, the other novices wouldn’t help me. They’d already made that perfectly clear.

A shudder swept through me and my stomach clenched tight.

Durand had almost killed me and Mikel had watched with a gleeful grin that was far too similar to Pylos’s when Edred had been beating me or Sawyer. But worse were Bramwell and Hamelin. They had at least looked a little uncomfortable, but hadn’t tried to stop him, while Ambrose?—

I had no idea what to make of Ambrose.

He’d saved me, but he hadn’t looked as uneasy as Bramwell or Hamelin had about Durand’s attack. His expression had been hard, and he’d barely given me a second glance after he’d pulled Durand off me, as if it hadn’t been me he’d been trying to save, but Durand. And yet… there was something about Ambrose that I couldn’t quite place, like he wasn’t all that he seemed to be.

Maybe he was one of the men from my vision who was going to kill me.

But the moment I thought that, I just knew he wasn’t.

Except I couldn’t say exactly how I knew. I just did.

Besides, even if he wasn’t responsible for my impending death, I doubted he’d help me. Any aid I got from him would be because he was trying to save his friends from Lord Rider’s wrath.

And really, I just needed to hold on for four and a half, maybe five, more rotations. Just keep my head down and take it. I certainly couldn’t complain about it. Complaining would only make things worse.

But the idea of just taking it made me want to scream, even if I knew that taking whatever they threw at me meant protecting Sawyer.

Except Sawyer wouldn’t be safe if one of them killed me before he was out of the Great Five Kingdoms, and I had to admit, it had been satisfying to watch Bramwell fall into the stream, not to mention the look on Durand’s face when I’d almost landed that punch.

Of course, then I’d seen stars when he’d hit me and not much of anything when he’d shoved my head under water. I hadn’t even thought to draw my weapons… although I had a feeling if I had, Durand wouldn’t have had a problem stabbing me with his and he was the stronger fighter in every way. There was no way I’d win a fight against him, with or without weapons.

I slapped the water and swallowed back a scream. I didn’t think they’d followed me, but I didn’t want them to know how frustrated I was.

Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? Ignore me, give me the cold shoulder, pretend I didn’t exist, and deny me oranges. I could survive that. My disguise could survive that.

But attacking me? Now I was completely soaked and had a bruise on my cheek and it hurt even more when I breathed. How was I going to explain that without Lord Quill or Talon telling me to go to the infirmary? Hell, given how Lord Rider had reacted yesterday when Talon’s shadow had attacked me, he’d probably tell me to go, too.

A shudder of desire teased down my spine at the thought of Talon’s magic. It was a whisper of what it had been yesterday, and I was grateful for my last night with Fantasy Man because I was pretty sure having sex with him had helped, but I still remembered what it felt like. I didn’t think I’d ever forget.

The memory of his magic had swelled inside me and my breath had stalled the minute I’d seen Talon and Lord Quill jogging across the practice yard toward me. I had no idea how I was going to face them — hell, face anyone — once I found a way out of this ravine.

Four and a half rotations. Four and a half damned rotations. That’s all I needed and then I could beg for Lord Rider’s forgiveness.

But only if the vision of my impending death didn’t come to pass first.

I dragged my gaze over the steep bank.

If I stood on my toes, I could probably get my fingers over the rocky edge just like I could with the bank by the log bridge, but there still weren’t any good footholds and I certainly didn’t have the strength to haul myself up even if I jumped and managed to get a better grip.

There are a lot of things I don’t have the strength for, I thought bitterly.

I couldn’t stop looking at Lord Quill or Talon or even Lord Rider, and I didn’t stand a chance in a fight against Durand, Mikel, Bramwell, Hamelin, or Ambrose.

I swore to myself when I’d had the vision of those men standing over my body that I’d become stronger, be a better fighter, but I didn’t have any extra time for training, and it felt like my body was going to hurt forever.

Now, with Kit, Payne, and Lewin on night shift, it was obvious there wasn’t anyone who’d teach me, so even if I did stop hurting and found some free time, I wasn’t going to get additional training.

Of course, from the looks on Durand and Mikel’s faces, they weren’t going to stop with that one attack at the bridge. They were going to come at me hard during sparring and probably ambush me again on the trail.

I was going to get extra fighting experience whether I wanted to or not and — Great Father this was a terrible idea — if I acted more like a haughty lord, they probably wouldn’t wait a few days before their next attempt. I could get extra training every day if I just made them think I wasn’t learning their lesson of humility.

It was an extremely dangerous game, one I didn’t want to play. There was a chance they’d break something and I’d be forced to go to the infirmary, and that would be the end of everything.

But maybe a small lie about how Rider would seriously punish them if they sent someone to the infirmary would be enough for Durand and Mikel to watch how aggressive they were. Or, at the very least, for Bramwell, Hamelin, and Ambrose to stop them before things got out of hand.

I’d have to tell the lie to the other novices. I couldn’t just tell Mikel and his group. They wouldn’t believe me. But if they heard it from the others…

Hell, they already thought I was getting special treatment. I could play that up a bit, make them think I really was getting special treatment. That would increase the likelihood of them attacking me but also make them wary of hurting me too badly.

I had no doubt the other novices would tell each other. Half the Guard had known I was the one who’d come through the fae ring after dark by breakfast the next day. I doubted the novices gossiped less than the rest of the Guard.

The real question was who did I say it to? Tyon maybe? He was around my age — my real age — and the shyest among the novices. He also could use a hand up.

If I suggested he make friends with Talon or Lord Quill and that they’d talk to Rider about treating him better than everyone else, he might mention that to his friends. I didn’t know if he had friends at the Black Tower, but he wasn’t me, so the other novices probably weren’t ignoring him like they were me.

With my new terrible plan firmly in mind, I pushed through the waist-high water until the bank on my right was lower than my shoulders.

There still weren’t any good places to get a foothold, but the bank’s height remained level as far as I could see and I couldn’t afford to waste any more time. I might want to piss off the other novices into inadvertently giving me more fighting experience, but I didn’t want to piss off Lord Rider, or at least piss him off any more than I already was— alright fine, any more than my ‘special treatment’ lie would.

Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the edge of the bank and jumped as high as I could. The top half of my chest hit the hard edge, sending agony screaming through me, and I fought through the pain, my toes uselessly scrabbling against the sheer rock wall, and somehow managed to haul myself up onto the bank.

Darkness flickered across my vision, and I rolled onto my back to catch my breath, each rapid inhalation shooting more pain through me.

Above me, mist curled through the scraggly tree branches as if a cloud had sunk and skimmed the earth, and a hint of a shadow lazily drifted through the mist overhead like a bird circling its prey.

The sight sent a shiver through me, chilling my wet skin. I knew next to nothing about the shadow monsters that inhabited the Gray, hadn’t really thought of them since being attacked my first night here, but there was a chance I was going to have to face them before my four and a half rotations were up.

That thought just added to the worries weighing inside me: protect Sawyer, avoid being murdered, try not to get beaten up too badly, and fight the monsters hiding in the mist.

Sure. No problem.

The shadow circled closer, getting bigger and bigger and bigger, until its large claws — claws that were bigger than my head — skimmed the top of the scraggly trees above me.

My pulse stuttered. It was enormous, twice the size of a horse, and looked like the drawing of the dragon in the book of legendary creatures Sawyer had found in the castle library. The only thing that made it different from the dragon in the book were the whisps of black miasma undulating around its body.

With a screech, it folded its massive leathery wings back and dove for me.

Oh, shadows! It was a dragon!

I scrambled to my feet and bolted along the bank back to the running trail. The trail was magically protected from the shadows during the daytime — but not at night, since the shadows were too strong after sunset — but it looked like not all of the area around the trail was covered.

The shadow dragon’s claws scraped against the hard ground where I’d been lying, and it swung its large, reptilian head toward me and snapped at me with teeth that were as big and long as Payne’s enormous broadswords.

With a grunt, I jerked out of the way, feeling the wind of its movement at my back. I ran away from the bank before I fell back into the ravine, crashing into the underbrush where the trees were closer together and hoping that would make it harder to get me.

The dragon screeched and a blast of frozen breath gusted over me, partially freezing the water in my clothes and hair.

Oh shadows oh shadows oh shadows.

I jerked around another tree trunk, slammed my shin against a protruding rock, stumbled, but managed to keep my balance and kept going while the monster crashed through the underbrush after me.

I forced myself to move faster, my arms up in front of my face to protect it against the tree branches, then something cracked sharply behind me.

A large tree tumbled to the ground with a heavy thud , narrowly missing me, then another and another as the monster barreled toward me, the trees no longer an obstacle.

Oh, fuck. So much for hoping that would slow it down.

I leaped over a fallen log, wrenched to the side before doing more damage to my shins against another rock, and drew my sword .

The best plan was to find a hole small enough to hide in where it couldn’t reach me, but I couldn’t see anything like that.

I really didn’t want to fight it. I didn’t stand a chance against it, but I had no idea how far away I was from the trail or if the trail would even protect me from it.

With a snarl, it snapped its jaws at me. Its teeth grazed the back of my head as its breath turned the water in my hair into a heavy chunk of ice, and my pulse stuttered.

Please, Father save me!

I swung wildly behind me. The tip of my blade nicked the inside edge of one of its nostrils, but that only pissed it off.

It roared another blast of frozen breath over me that stiffened my clothes and made me stumble. My toe hit a bump in the ground, and I fell, my momentum tumbling me forward, head over heels, until I crashed into another tree.

The world spun around me, speckled with flashes of light and darkness. The monster screeched and started to snap at me again but jerked back as if stung. It hissed and tried to eat me again, but always pulled back before reaching me as if something was stopping it.

No, not something. The magical protection on the trail.

I crawled farther away, not wanting to test the protection against the shadow monster’s determination, until my shaky limbs couldn’t hold me, and I collapsed, gasping and trembling from fear and cold, and curled into a ball.

Tears pricked my eyes, and I fought them but couldn’t stop them. The emotion roaring inside me needed to come out somehow, and I hurt and couldn’t breathe and was exhausted and almost died twice in the last hour… hell, probably the last thirty minutes.

I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t fight shadow monsters and horrible men and everything else. I was just a girl. I wasn’t a swordsman and I was never going to be a swordmaiden.

Except I’d already learned there wasn’t anything just about being a girl. I was a better swordsman than half the novices here, I’d already killed a shadow monster — even if it had been by accident — and I knew I could get even better.

I was strong, not just because I needed to protect my brother, but because I was strong in spirit, plain and simple. I had a plan to become a better swordsman— swords woman and I’d be damned if I would give up now.

I was in this until I was found out. And maybe by the time that happened, I’d know enough to defend myself against Edred and any other man who wanted to put me in my place.