Page 9 of Rules of Stone
“Shade.” Arisha stumbles as a pair of stunning women in our same drab gray uniforms brush none too gently past her. “And that would be Princess Katita and one of her favored-for-the-day ladies.”
Before I can call Katita and her ilk out, the pair disappears into a sea of uniformed young cadets all flowing from their rooms to the outdoor walkways and steps. The din of conversation and boots clattering on wooden walkways mists the chilled air, my own breath turning to wisps of steam before me. Hurrying after Arisha—who is now explaining something I can’t make myself pay mind to—I keep my gaze moving from face to face. I have to find the males. Quickly. Quietly. Raising no suspicion. Plans order themselves in my mind, solidifying with each step. I’ll see Coal shortly. A feigned injury can take me to Shade. The veil made River a deputy headmaster. Barging into his study might be hard to explain—but hopefully the male will find me. That—
“Leralynn!” Arisha’s warning hits me too late, my distraction having walked me directly into a broad muscular back.
Dressed in the same grays as I, the back’s owner turns slowly, his pine-and-citrus scent filling my nose. Amused emerald eyes look down at me from a height towering over all others, making my breath stop altogether. Thick red hair flips over a perfectly stunning, sharply angled face, one silver earring glinting.
Tye.My chest squeezes, the wave of relief washing over me so strong that I feel light-headed for a moment. I feel my hand close around Tye’s wrist of its own volition. “You are here.”
“Aye, lass,” Tye says, glancing at where I’m still gripping his wrist. “The last I checked, I was in fact here. Are you somewhere else, then?”
Princess Katita and her friend now stop to chuckle, delicate hands covering painted lips.
I little care. Not now that I’ve found Tye. The half a day since I lost sight of the males is the longest we’ve been apart since we mated, and even with the bond itself muted in the mortal realm, the separation has left me breathless. Longing. It is a force of will to stop myself from leaping into Tye’s arms, claiming his mouth before all the watching cadets.
As my eyes brush over Tye hungrily, I find myself unable to focus on his pointed ears and canines no matter how hard I try to look there, as if a great magnetic force repels my gaze. Beneath the loose folds of Tye’s gray uniform, the outline of his lithe muscles are as familiar to me as his scent. As is everything about him—almosteverything.
“Might I have my arm back now?” says Tye, something about his voice making my gaze snap up to meet his. And once I do, I understand what’s off. The lively green eyes I know so well sparkle with no sign of recognition.
8
Lera
My attention sweeps to Tye’s neck, the effort required to focus on where the amulet should be enough to make my head spin. When I finally manage to look, I see only the top of the male’s shirt. No string. No wooden carving. Not even an impression of one beneath the cloth.
“Leralynn,” Arisha hisses, pulling my hand off Tye’s arm and tugging me along. “We’re going to be late. Let’s go.”
I stumble, barely managing to stop myself from taking a nosedive down the steps. My gut clenches, the wrongness of Tye’s unrecognizing gaze, his missing amulet, filling me with a new terror. Something happened in that aspen wood, something more ominous than a missed turn and misinterpreted change of course. Something that made the magic go terribly, terribly wrong.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Leralynn,” Tye calls after me, the amusement in his voice echoing off the now nearly empty dormitory walkways. Grabbing the railing, Tye vaults himself over it, jumping smoothly to the courtyard one story below. Lifting his face, he pitches his voice back up toward me. “I’ve other parts you can grab as well, lass, if you are so inclined.”
My skin blazes, the inferno growing with the chortles of the few stragglers around me. Numb horror spreads through my limbs as I follow Arisha into the vast central square. The pale dawn sky overhead washes everything in shades of blue and gray, and it’s a relief when we cross out of shadow into the slowly warming sun.
“You are insane,” Arisha mutters, releasing my arm.
“Do you know who that was?” I ask, my mind sorting through the fog for possible explanations for Tye’s empty eyes and finding none, except that he’d perhaps been acting. Bluffing for the sake of our cover story. Yes—a convincing act. To avoid suspicion. It has to have been.
“Everyone knows Tyelor.” Arisha sighs. “The man is Great Falls Academy’s top athlete, here by special invitation and preparing for the continent’s Prowess Trials. Swordplay, wrestling, acrobatics—you name it, Tyelor rules it. He rules every female’s attention in the place too.”
“Not every female’s,” I say, finally focusing on Arisha’s annoyed expression. “You don’t like him.”
She shrugs. “I’m more keen on people who can work out a defensive strategy than ones who think their ability to wave about a pointy piece of metal—or other parts—is the stars’ gift to humankind.” Arisha’s pace quickens across the square, her shoulders hunching. “If you think you can manage stairs without killing yourself, we should try to walk faster.”
Crossing under a grand stone archway and entering the training yard, which is larger than anything I’ve seen before, I find the place divided into a dozen grass-covered corrals. Inside each enclosure, students go through the motions of swordplay and archery, wrestling and—in the two larger arenas—horsemanship. Instructors’ calls and students’ grunts of effort and pain fill the morning air.
“Look for the colored flags when you come here,” Arisha says, pointing to the large triangular pennants waving beside each area. “The instructors choose what training area they need for the day and mark it with their flag. We are under Coal, who has the blue flag, which is—”
“There.” My voice comes out in a low whisper as my gaze falls on Coal. With black pants hanging low on his lean hips, the warrior is bare to the waist, his deadly muscles sliding beneath his skin as he demonstrates a takedown. The tattoos spiraling down the groove of Coal’s spine dance as if alive with each shift of his weight. The deadly precision of that beautiful body takes my breath even now—mine, and that of the five other female students who watch the demonstration from the sidelines with similarly still chests. “That is most certainly Coal.”
“You are late,” the male in question calls over his shoulder as Arisha and I approach the corral. Takedown complete, Coal’s attention lingers on the other students as they pair off to practice it themselves. That done, the warrior leans sideways against the fence, his arms crossed over his chest as the morning sun sculpts the hard lines of his face to menacing perfection.
“Good morning,” I say quietly, the sting of Tye’s greeting still shooting down my nerves. My gut clenches as I await Coal’s reaction, the screaming voice in the back of my mind a reminder of how wrong everything has gone.
Coal turns at the sound of my voice and rocks back on his heels, something unreadable in his shockingly blue gaze. “I realize you’re new, but I imagine you did learn to tell time before stepping foot here?”
I tense. Wait. Hold his eyes, my mind pleading for some sign of recognition. Some signal that he knows me. Knows us.
Nothing. If my body responds to the familiar danger that always vibrates inside the warrior, Coal sees nothing before him but a fresh-faced cadet.
