“Wonderful! It’s healing much faster than normally. If you can stand, I’d say you could return to classes later today. By the way, how exactly did you get bitten? Were you on patrol or something?”
Chewing the inside of my cheek for a bit, I said, “I can’t really talk about it. You understand. Headmaster’s orders.”
After a moment, she nodded again, as if she understood completely. “Why don’t you put some weight on that leg?”
I scooted to the edge of the bed and carefully put weight on my leg. After I stood—my pain moderately manageable and my muscles only a little stiff—I took a few steps toward the door, then turned around and returned to the bed. The Master Healer nodded. “I’ll alert your guard to escort you back to the dorms. Take lunch and then report to your third period.”
With that, she disappeared out the door, tray in hand, and I was left with a pile of my freshly cleaned clothes. After changing from the hospital gown into my torn leggings and tunic, I picked up the jar of white cream and waited for Maddox. Luckily, she’d spent the night waiting just outside, and within minutes, I was checked out of the care of the hospital’s Master Healer, given fresh bandages (along with gray goop that I swore I would never use), and on my way to the dorm. Maddox and I made small talk all the way back, but I knew what was coming once we got inside my room and closed the door. The latch had no sooner clicked than she turned to me. “What the hell happened last night? Did you go outside the wall? Because those things are really dangerous, Kaya. You could have been killed. You’re lucky you weren’t. But now Trayton’s asking all sorts of questions that I don’t have answers to, and you better believe there’s going to be an inquest with the headmaster after a Healer shows up in the hospital wing with a Graplar bite. This is serious, Kaya. Do you know how much trouble we’re in? What happened?”
I waited until she was done rambling before saying anything. I got the feeling Maddox’s head would have exploded if she’d gone on any further in her complaints. I said, “I went to talk to Darius and while we were in the courtyard, two Graplars attacked us.”
“Inside the wall?” After I nodded, she said, “They don’t get inside the wall. How did that happen? The wall’s huge and heavily guarded. Not to mention several feet thick.”
Shrugging, I offered my only thought on the matter. “Maybe they dropped down from the treetops. I don’t know.”
Maddox folded her arms in front of her, like she was the parent and I was the child—an idea that would have made me laugh if I hadn’t spent the night in a bed in the hospital wing. “Okay, first, Graplars can only get about ten feet up a tree, no matter how high it is. And second, they’re not smart enough to realize that anything could possibly be on the other side of a wall. Not a single Graplar has ever gotten into Shadow Academy in a hundred years. So that’s not possible.”
“Look, I don’t know what to tell you, Maddox, but two giant, ugly Graplars attacked us in the courtyard last night and one of them bit me. Luckily, Darius knew how to treat the wound, but I guess it got infected after I fell asleep.” An image flashed in my mind then—the image of Darius’s shirtless, muscular shoulders. Immediate guilt filled me. “Please don’t tell Trayton I went to see Darius.”
Maddox wrinkled her nose. “Why would it matter? Besides, you went out without me—I have to tell him something about why I wasn’t there.”
Plucking a pillow from my bed, I whapped her in the shoulder, and raised my voice. “I went out without you because you told me to! And I quote…‘I don’t know if you noticed when you got here, but the whole school is surrounded by a big fakkin’ wall.’!”
Maddox’s eyes went wide with guilty realization. Then, her body slumping, she sighed. “Okay. So we won’t mention anything about Darius’s involvement. But what do we tell the headmaster about the Graplar bite?”
“We tell him a variation of the truth. We were on our way back to the dorm when two Graplars attacked us in the courtyard. You killed them, but not before one bit me, and after you hurried me back to the dorms, Darius found the corpses and reported the attack to the guards at the south gate.” Maddox was shaking her head dramatically before I could even finish my sentence, irritating me beyond belief. “What, Maddox? You have a better plan?”
Her words burst out of her so loudly, I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone lurking in the hall could hear. “That won’t work. He’ll never believe I killed a Graplar, let alone two!”
“Why not?”
“Because I was never trained to fight, Kaya.” Her words, though soft, pierced my heart. We were fakked. Absolutely fakked. Shrugging, she continued. “Sure, I supposedly have skills ingrained in my DNA that will help me naturally on the battlefield, but I grew up away from all the fighting and monsters, Kaya. I have no idea what to do with a katana or how to kill a Graplar. Why do you think I’m your guard and not standing out at one of the gates? They can’t expect me to be able to handle something like that, and they have every right to stick me in a cushy Healer guard position. I’d just fak things up for everyone out there. Guarding you is…well…it’s easier than fighting.”
My heart deflated then, and sank like a stone in a pond. Not only wouldn’t our lie work, but it was the least of my problems. Now I was left with no one to train me to fight, to defend myself against a Graplar, should another one or two or twelve happen to find their way through the gate again—or worse, should I face the battlefield at Trayton’s side. And without that training, I was as good as dead. Something else— without learning how to stand on my own, the headmaster would win, and I just couldn’t stomach the idea of it, and couldn’t stop picturing his pudgy, smug face shaking his head over my corpse. “Fak.”
Maddox seemed to mull it over for a minute, searching for a bright side. “Look, it’s not so bad. We’ll just tell the headmaster that Darius rescued us. Besides, I’m sure Darius will want all the glory anyway.”
“It’s not that.” Sinking back into my pillows, I sighed, lowering my voice. “I was really hoping you would train me.”
Maddox raised an eyebrow at me. “In the art of escorting Healers from class to class?”
“No,” I sighed, feeling the dream die before it ever crossed my lips. “In the art of fighting. I want to train, Maddox.”
“But Healers aren’t allowed to train.”
“Which is exactly why I want to do it.” I set my jaw, determined. “Why should I be stuck on the sidelines playing damsel-in-distress, when I could be on the battlefield, kicking Graplar butt and taking care of myself?”
I didn’t give voice to the other reason—that I needed to protect the villagers that I loved so much, the way I hadn’t been able to protect Avery. In fact, I couldn’t bring myself to tell Maddox anything about Avery at all. That was another life, one just for me.
A proud smile danced on her lips.
“But without you…” the words caught in my throat for a moment. “No one will train me. It’s not exactly something I can post on the dining hall board. HEALER SEEKING BARRON TO TRAIN IN THE ART OF COMBAT: MUST BE SKILLED, PUNCTUAL, AND KEEP COMPLETE SECRET FROM THE HEADMASTER. PUNCH AND PIE WILL BE SERVED.”
Maddox cracked a smile. “You never mentioned punch and pie.”
Groaning, I hit her with my pillow again. “Focus, Maddox. What am I going to do now?”
She grew quiet for a long time, and after a while, she moved to the door, opening it an inch just to make sure that no one was listening in. Satisfied, she closed the door again and looked at me. “I do know someone who might be willing to train you in secret. He’s good. Really good. And I know for a fact he gets a bit of a thrill over bending the rules, so it might work. Only…”
“Only what?”
“Only you might not want to work with him.”
“With who?”
“Darius.”
Several foul words raced through my mind. Of course it was Darius. It had to be Darius. It couldn’t be any of the rest of the thousand or so Barrons on campus. That woul
d be too easy. Mulling over what I knew of Darius—his attitude, his hatred of me, his strange secret—I sighed, totally uncertain that being trained by Darius was the right choice for me, even though it seemed to be the only option available if I wanted to learn how to defend myself. “Let me think about it.”
After changing into leggings without holes, my stomach rumbled loudly and so Maddox escorted me to the dining hall for lunch. Miraculously, I’d only missed two classes due to my late-night outing, but even that tiny blip hadn’t been missed on the social radar. All around me as I entered the dining hall, there were whispers and curious glances, and I knew that Maddox was right. There were going to be questions, and we had better have some good answers to offer.
And I had to keep Darius’s secret. I didn’t know why I wanted to keep his secret, only that it seemed important to do so. It was important enough to him, after all. I wondered if anyone else knew his secret, or if I was the only one. Why would he choose to hide the fact that he was a Barron, anyway? It wasn’t like Barrons had a hard life. They were revered in Skilled society, and rewarded at every turn if they followed Protocol to the letter. It was a strange thing to run from, but I was willing to hold my tongue. He had to have his reasons, and it wasn’t my place to expose his secret.
We had barely stepped through the doors when Trayton was at my side. “I’m so sorry I haven’t been to see you. I was overseeing repairs on the north gate this morning and, for some reason, wasn’t alerted to your injuries. But the moment I heard I came running. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but you’re sweet to ask.” I smiled at him, his eyes so full of concern. There was no doubting his anger toward Maddox for failing to watch over me. He wouldn’t even look at her, wouldn’t acknowledge her in any way. The air around us was full of an unspoken tension. One that made my skin jump.
Maddox disappeared to the food line and once she did, Trayton seemed to relax. He led me to a table in the corner and I took a seat, ready for the question I knew he was going to ask. He met my eyes and kept his tone hushed, wanting this conversation to be a bit more private than it was. “What happened last night, Kaya? People are saying you were bitten by a Graplar. Are you okay?”
Nodding, I stretched my hand across the table and covered his with mine, hoping to comfort his obvious concern. “I insisted on going for a walk, so Maddox came with me, even though she said it was a bad idea to be out after hours. And on our way back, two Graplars attacked. We only just managed to escape. Luckily, Darius heard the noise from his cottage and took care of them. If he hadn’t come along, Maddox and I might not be around this morning.”
It was a lie, yes. But a necessary one. I only hoped that Darius would go along with my ruse. Glancing over Trayton’s shoulder, I spied Darius’s silver hair across the room. He moved to an empty table, tray of food in hand, and sat, not looking at me even once. Not that I’d expected him to. I had, however, expected his demeanor to be a bit different. Maybe somewhat softer, gentler, but I had no real reason to expect that sort of change in him. So he’d shown some semblance of kindness to me once. So he’d had a moment of gentleness in stark contrast to his usual attitude. That was no reason at all for me to expect him to be forever changed. So why did I?
Trayton’s eyebrows came together and he turned around, trying to glimpse whatever it was that had me momentarily distracted. I squeezed his hand, bringing his attention back to me, not wanting him to realize that I had been looking at Darius. Not wanting to admit to him or to myself that I had been hoping that Darius would notice me.
My stomach shrank, cramping slightly with nerves. Why was I feeling differently about Darius at all anyway? He was still the same person that had given me grief from the moment I reached academy grounds. He was still the same teacher that had given me extra duties for no discernible reason. A couple of bandages and a softer tone (not to mention an amazingly perfect chest, my memory reminded me) wasn’t going to change who he was. Besides, I had no business thinking anything at all about any boy who wasn’t Trayton. We were Bound. And that meant dedication. To each other. To the cause against King Darrek. To everything that wasn’t about me peeking in on Darius and his lean, shirtless frame.
I focused my eyes on Trayton, taking in his lovely eyes, and the slender lines of his cheeks. He was gorgeous, and so thoughtful and sweet. How could I even think about another guy when the one I had—with the headmaster’s blessing, at that—was utterly perfect? Selfish. That’s what I was being. And maybe a bit rebellious too. Was I thinking about Darius because the headmaster approved of Trayton and I wanted to thumb my nose at the leader of our school? Maybe. But then I thought of the way that Darius had looked at me in his cabin the night before. There had been an electricity in the room—something I couldn’t quite identify or explain. It hung in my thoughts now the way it had hung in the air between us then. I couldn’t help but wonder why.
But I had no business thinking about Darius and the spark that I’d swore I felt. Only Trayton was my business now.
Taking my hand squeeze as a show of affection rather than distraction, Trayton relaxed visibly, a small smile appearing on his lips. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you, but I’m glad that Darius was.”
I could feel my lips pressing harder together in tension. It wasn’t Trayton’s fault—he’d been raised in a world where Healers were supposed to be protected by their Barrons. But the fact that he’d implied that I couldn’t have taken care of myself sent an angry chill up my spine.
Maddox returned with a full tray of food—enough for me and Trayton and several small armies—and as soon as she sat the tray down, she threw me a questioning glance, as if to ask if everything was okay between Trayton and me. I shook it off, promising her with a look that we’d discuss it later, and reached for a slice of crispy bacon.
“You look well. Better than I thought you would after such a rough night.”
Darius’s voice stopped the bacon halfway to my open mouth. I froze with panic. Maddox and I hadn’t yet had a chance to discuss with him the details of our plan, and here he was, blabbing to me about what had happened the night before. And besides that, he was being nice!
I turned my head to give him a look of what-do-you-think-you’re-doing-exactly, but when my eyes found him, he wasn’t looking at me at all. He was looking at Trayton. Mentally smacking myself—something that was becoming the norm for me lately—I relaxed in my seat, realizing that Darius was, of course, referring to the repairs at the north gate. Of course he wasn’t talking to me. Why would he? I was no one. Just a stupid Healer who’d gotten mixed up with a monster in front of his living quarters.
Trayton pulled his hand back from mine as he spoke, as if it weren’t manly to hold a girl’s hand when speaking to one’s instructor. It didn’t bother me. Not really. Okay, not a lot. But some. “At least I got out of it without bruises.”
The smirk on his face said that Darius hadn’t escaped the task completely unharmed. Not that there was any evidence of that now that I could see. Darius grinned, and I bet that no one but Trayton would be allowed to taunt Darius in this way. Not without Darius taking them to task, anyway. “I imagine it’s hard to get bruised when you’re busy watching other people doing all the actual work, Barron. Or should I call you Supervisor?”
Trayton’s laughter was loud and real. It was obvious that he and Darius enjoyed each other’s company. I could tell the two shared more than a few inside jokes, and even though I was sitting directly between them, I couldn’t help but feel distinctly apart from the conversation. I wondered if it was because I was a Healer. Or maybe because I was a girl.
“It appears I owe you my deepest gratitude, Darius. Kaya said that you came to her rescue last night.” With every word that left Trayton’s lips, I sank down another inch in my seat. This was it: the moment where Trayton would discover that I had lied to him, and the moment where Darius would learn that I had entangled him in my lies.
To my immense surprise, Darius didn’t m
iss a beat. He smiled kindly at Trayton and offered a nod. “My pleasure. Still can’t figure out how the damn beasts got inside the wall. Any theories?”
His pleasure? He was going along with my ruse, and even being pleasant about it. But why? At the moment, I didn’t care why. I only cared that my moment of terror had passed in a single blink.
Trayton shook his head. “Not a clue. The wall’s solid. We did a perimeter sweep before coming back inside this morning. Unless they somehow managed to get over the wall.”
Darius shook his head too. “We keep the trees cut back enough that even if they could manage the height, they couldn’t cross the distance. No way are they coming over the wall.”
“Maybe someone let them in through one of the gates.” My softly spoken words immediately drew the bemused attention of both Trayton and Darius.
Trayton bit into some buttered toast to hide his smirk, but Darius propped his foot up on the chair next to me and met my eyes. “That would mean a lack of loyalty on the part of forty Barrons at the same exact moment, Kaya. It’s not an impossible idea, but extremely unlikely. Forty Barrons—skilled men and women—stand guard every night, watching the north and south gates. Ten stand inside each gate, and ten more guard each gate from outside. These Barrons are our best and brightest, our most skilled. I know. I personally chose them for their duties. If they banded together and decided to let two Graplars inside…well, I would be amazed by such blatant betrayal, yes, but also surprised by their immense stupidity.”
“Stupidity?”
He nodded. “Why let in just two? When you could let in an entire army, thousands of Graplars, tens of thousands of soldiers? Why just send in two beasts? It makes no sense. Not to me.”
It didn’t make much sense to me either. But then, not very much did these days. Like the way that Darius was acting.
Maddox piped up, “Darius, can I talk to you for a second?”