Page 67 of Daughter Of The Ninth Line
No.
Not again.
“Hayle!” I screamed, the world around me going hazy as I scrambled through the sand to him, my hands buried in the mess of bone and flesh in his chest, trying to hold him together. Trying to hold him here with me.
Blood trickled down his face. “Glad you won’t know…” he gurgled. His eyes were trying to tell me something as they went blank. Lifeless.
My screams echoed around me. A memory flashed into my mind. Hayle charred on the sand.
Not again. Not again. Not again.
Arms wrapped around me, and I knew it was Vox. Knew the feel of his arms like my own. “I’m sorry. I owe him everything. I’m sorry. I love you.” He repeated the words over and over, but it couldn’t matter right now.
I screamed and screamed, hands grabbing at me, but it was too late. Too late for Hayle. Too late for them. For me.
I screamed and screamed as the burning torches flared and spread, as people melted into the darkness, fire and lightswirling around me like a tornado, my hands buried in what remained of Hayle’s chest.
I felt the hands on my arms tighten, and I looked over at the disappearing face of Vox, like he was being erased, like the world around me was being erased. I felt sadness as he disappeared, but there was no universe that existed without Hayle. No universe that could exist without both of them.
I would accept nothing else. I would burn it all to the ground every single time if I had to.
As reality faded, I could hear the soft voice of a woman, so familiar, whispering on the swirling tornado of emotion.
The Ninth. The Ninth. The Ninth.
chapter forty-two
Avalon
conscription day - the first day of spring
There wasblood pooling on the cobblestone entrance of the Boellium War College. I shouldn’t be surprised, given the baying of the crowd jammed into the front courtyard, and the man suspended in the air, bleeding steadily from his nose. The ruby liquid fell in huge drops, splashing on the ground beneath him with a gruesome dripping sound. Once the puddle of blood became too much, someone with water abilities seemed to wash it away.
That would definitely explain the pink stones.
The guy in the air, bound with invisible ropes, looked at me imploringly. “Help me,” he gasped weakly.
I met his eyes, keeping my face shuttered and neutral, then timed my steps to walk under his blood droplets so they didn’t splatter on me.
Someone huffed a laugh, and someone else muttered, “That’s cold.”
My steps faltered. I spun back around. I couldn’t just leave him there, could I?
“Why are you up there?” I asked softly, and the whole courtyard held its breath.
The guy suspended in the air gurgled on his own blood. “I pissed off the wrong person.”
I looked past him, to a pair of ice-blue eyes that I had no trouble identifying. Vox Vylan, Heir to the First Line. I’d seen the portraits, and even if I hadn’t, I could feel his magic swirling around the courtyard even now. There were very few people in all of Ebrus who had that kind of power.
I was a bug to this man, insignificant in every way, but the way he watched me was unnerving. A shiver ran down my spine. I stood up on my toes and looked at the guy suspended upside-down in the eye. “I can’t help you, but even I know you need to watch yourself. We mean nothing to men as powerful as the Vylans. It’s a lesson you need to learn if you want to survive.”
I touched his arm, then leapt back as the guy fell from the air. He landed heavily on the ground, but I kept my eyes on Vox Vylan.Shit, is he going to think I did that?
Fuck him. Let him think I had atalto break his elemental magic. I didn’t, of course, because talismans that powerful would cost more than all the money in the small coffers of my Line.
But I hadn’t come from being beaten down every day of my life to stand by and watch someone else bully those weaker than them. As soon as I’d stepped over the threshold of this college, the unwanted daughter of a heartless Baron, I knew this was my chance to change my fate. I would get what I wanted—my freedom—and if I had to go toe to toe with the Heir of the First Line to do it, I would.
I held his gaze, fully expecting to be the next person to be hung up in the courtyard as an example, but instead, the Heir to the First Line smiled at me. Or maybe he stole my air, because I forgot how to breathe.
