Page 26 of Kingmakers, Year Four

Ares has a deep and resonating voice. It vibrates across my skin, like a bass speaker set too close.

His eyes, as beautiful a color as they may be, are not pacific in any sense of the word. They’re fixed on me with frightful intensity. I’m becoming too used to this to care, but I get the sense that he loathes me. That he hates me on sight, when I’ve only spoken three words to him.

After we’ve all filled our trays at the dining hall, I’m surprised that Ares voluntarily sits next to me on the long wooden bench. Sabrina drops down on my other side, Hedeon Gray directly across from her, and Anna Wilk and Leo next to Hedeon.

Cara Wilk arrives a few minutes later, squeezing in beside Anna.

The sisters are a fascinating lesson in genetics: their coloring completely different, but their features almost identical. As if they were formed from the same mold but painted in alternate shades. If they were fairies, Anna would be the ice queen, and Cara the woodland sprite. Cara’s dark hair and hazel eyes were made for the green of the school uniforms.

“How are you doing, Nix?” Cara says to me cheerfully.

I haven’t seen much of her since the ship ride over. The Accountants and the Heirs only share a few classes.

“I’m great,” I say. And then, more honestly, “Pretty good, at least.”

“Kingmakers is an adjustment,” Anna Wilk says in her low, clear voice.

She’s watching me without the same level of friendliness as her sister. Hedeon likewise seems to find my presence unpleasant. Only Sabrina seems completely relaxed—I guess she figures if I were gonna shank her in her sleep, I would have done it already.

I hate this pariah feeling. It makes me anxious and aggressive, when usually I’m cheerful and aggressive.

How am I supposed to prove I’m a decent person when I feel ready to snap at any moment?

The more I try to act “normal,” the more unnatural everything feels. I hardly remember how to hold my fork.

“Have you met everybody?” Sabrina says, looking around the table.

“I think so,” I say.

Even as she’s asking, a tall blond boy, a petite girl, and a black-haired guy with a scar across his right eye all crowd onto our table.

“We’re running out of seats!” the blond boy complains.

“I’m not sitting back over there with Valon,” the black-haired one says, jerking his head toward a table on the opposite side of the room. “He chews so fucking loud.”

“That’s Dean Yenin, Cat Romero, and Bram Van Der Berg,” Sabrina helpfully informs me.

Her introduction draws three pairs of eyes in my direction. Bram scowls until the scar across his eye forms one solid line.

“What the fuck isshedoing here?” he says.

“She’s my guest,” Sabrina informs him icily.

I’ve had enough of this shit.

“What do you care where I sit?” I snap. “I don’t even fucking know you.”

Bram’s face fills with blood, his skin flushing red and the scar turning white. He leans across the table, his nails digging into the wood.

“Oh, you don’t know me?” he says softly. “You’ve never heard the name Bram Van Der Berg before?”

“No,” I say, frowning.

“What about Frans Van Der Berg? He was my uncle. He taught me how to fight and how to drive. Then he made a deal with your father. And somehow he ended up upside down in a vat of acid, with all his fuckin’ teeth pulled out. Does that soundfamiliarto you?”

My stomach feels like it had a rock shoved down inside of it. I can feel everyone at the table watching me.

“I don’t know what happened to your uncle,” I say stiffly. “And I don’t think you know the whole story, either.”

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