Page 68 of Daughter Of The Ninth Line
“I’ll be seeing you, little dirt scrabbler.” It sounded like both a threat and a promise. “Run along now.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. As I opened the door of the atrium, my ears were immediately assaulted by a cacophony of animal sounds and the yelling of a rabble of conscripts. Two hounds had a man cornered, and I was watching them so intently, I didn’t even see the man in front of me until I ran straight into his chest.
My heart climbed up my throat as he stared down at me, his wild green eyes and square jaw so familiar to me. I knew his face like my own, even though I’d never met him before in my life.
“Excuse me,” I whispered, my bravado from the courtyard suddenly disappearing. I dipped around him, but he reached out insanely fast and grabbed my arm.
“Who are you?” he breathed, and my mind went blank. I had a name; I knew I did, I just couldn’t remember it right at this particular moment.
He gave me a little shake, and words returned to my brain. “Avalon Halhed of the Ninth Line.”
“You,” he growled.
Oh fuck.I was dead.
Some people are destined to die, no matter how much we wish it weren’t so.
— Ellanora Halhed, First Daughter of the Ninth Line
chapter forty-three
Avalon
Some people are destined to die, no matter how much we wish it weren’t so.
— Ellanora Halhed, First Daughter of the Ninth Line
“Do I know you?”
The guy had a weird expression on his face. “No. You don’t.” One corner of his mouth curled up. “Not yet, but you will.”
Not if I had anything to do with it. His expression was predatory, like he’d scented his prey, and that unfortunate creature was me.
I said nothing, just backed away toward the door that sat off to the side of the atrium. The animals throughout the tall, glassed entryway made it feel more like a zoo than a war college, but I didn’t fool myself that they were normal animals. No, they were tools of battle, just as much as the humans in the room.
One look at those huge hounds told me everything I needed to know. They were watching me with the same careful expression as the man they’d come to stand beside.
No, not a man. An Heir.
Hayle Taeme.
Rumor had it, he was as vicious as the beasts he commanded, and given that they were licking someone’s blood from their muzzles, I should have been terrified.
Yet, I wasn’t. Not really. Carefully cautious and apparently stupid were better adjectives.
As I backed carefully away, never taking my eyes from the Heir to the Third Line, I paused beside the door, almost tripping over the large war cat that was licking its lips and cleaning something—which I didn’t want to think about too hard—from its paws.
I needed to get out of this atriumright now.Slipping through the door, I breathed a sigh of relief. Just down the hall, I found the admissions office and knocked quietly.
“Come in,” a woman’s voice grumbled.
I hesitantly opened the door, surprised to see there were two people in the room. A scarred woman with a shaved head and only one arm, and an older man with a solid jaw and wispy white hair combed straight back. He would’ve been a hell of a looker once upon a time, but now, he was probably a little older than my father, although three times as fit. He was leaning close to the woman, both of them looking down at an old ledger that they snapped closed as I entered.
“Ah, the conscript from the Ninth Line. Avalon Halhed, I believe?” the man asked quietly, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m Master Proxius, the director of this institution. Welcome to Boellium War College.”
Well, that was off-putting. Had Father sent a message ahead, indicating I would be this year’s conscript? Maybe he’d wanted to insist that I be killed in the first training session, so he could kill two birds with one stone: fulfill the Line’s conscription quota and get rid of me at the same time.
As if he could read the question on my face, the man gave me a kind smile. “You look like your mother. We were friends, once upon a time.”
