Page 101 of Daughter Of The Ninth Line
His face grew serious. “However, as with any age of both economic and societal growth, there is always eventual unrest. It’s a slow, insidious thing. The idea that someone else has more than you, even though you deserve it. The idea that more power, more magic, should come with more boons. As if by not subjugating those around you entitles you to some kind of reward for your restraint. These ill feelings festered between the Lines, until one event changed the shape of Ebrus again forever. Does anyone know what it was?”
Eugene raised his hand. I fucking hated Eugene on sight, though I didn’t know why. We’d barely exchanged a single word, but there was something about his slimy, reptilian eyes that put me on edge.
“The First Line uprising.”
Master Proxius nodded. I wonder if he’d chosen to have this lesson today because Vox wasn’t here. Shay was sitting in hersection, surrounded by the other First Line conscripts, looking bored.
“Indeed. The First Line uprising. It was two nights of carnage, but eventually, the First Line emerged victorious, and they have led this country since. But an uprising of this brutality doesn’t just come from nowhere. Much like the love between Hopus and Aurelia created an era of peace, it was love—or perhaps obsession—that brought low what they’d created, hundreds of years later. Does anyone know what I’m speaking of?”
Shay raised her hand. “I assume you’re speaking of Ivan Vylan and Oris Hanovan. They both wanted the same woman as a wife.”
Master Proxius nodded his head. “Correct, Miss Vylan. They had both requested the hand of Ellanora Halhed, of the Ninth Line. Despite being rebuffed by the lady herself, they both believed that it was due to the other man, and not that they personally lacked the charms to woo her. She was quite the beauty, though,” Master Proxius said softly, his eyes on me. “Unfortunately, her life was cut short, and she disappeared, believed to have been murdered quite soon after their rejection. Both men believed the other had stolen Ellanora, or had her killed so no one could have her. They blamed each other. Tensions festered, first between the men and then between the Lines, until a few months after Ellanora’s death, it bubbled over into violence. The First Line uprising happened.”
Ephily snickered quietly. “Poor Ninth. You missed out on the magicandthe looks from your ancestors, apparently. Ugly, talentless bitch.” Fortunately, no one else could hear her words as everyone was engrossed in the lecture.
Silence fell, and Master Proxius spent a moment looking at all the faces in the room. “At the end of the uprising, every last person from the Second Line was eradicated. Whole villageswere burned to the ground. Mass graves were dug all through the Second Line Barony. When it came time for the Conclave to come together, the Barony borders were redrawn and whole Lines found themselves uprooted and moved to somewhere else, especially those who were seen to be aligned with the Second Line or deemed not strong enough to protest.”
So the Eleventh and Twelfth Lines, then.
Master Proxius moved on, and I sat back in my chair, turning over his words. I was glad Ellanora hadn’t lived to see the fact that her rejection had caused the death of so many. I couldn’t even imagine the guilt that would’ve come from that.
I thought about the note that Hayle had found, addressed to the library at the Hall of Ebrus. Had she seen what would happen and killed herself in an attempt to stop the bloodshed?
There were so many answers lost to history. There was nothing any of us could do about it now; we were stuck in a reality that two men who couldn’t take no for an answer had created.
The class was eventually dismissed, and Quarry hopped from my desk to my shoulder. I scratched his head, and he made a soft cooing sound by my ear. Hayle’s animal companions had accepted me wholeheartedly, which made me feel, well, special.
I missed Hayle, though. And Vox.
Stepping out of the classroom, I smiled. It was a beautiful day, clear with only light winds. If I were a raven, it would be the perfect day for flying. “Go and stretch your wings. Leviat will be here soon to walk me to dinner.”
Cawing, Quarry launched himself into the sky, but I saw him circling around. He wouldn’t go far.
The Twelfth Line had some kind of religious festival today, so they’d been excused from all their classes, and I missed them. In such a short amount of time, I’d become accustomed to not being alone anymore.
Someone grabbed me from behind, and clearly, I’d also become complacent because I smiled as I turned, thinking it was Viana or Acacia. But when I spun, it was Eugene Rovan.
His grip on my arm was almost painful. “Can I help you?” I hissed, and he swung me against the wall, pressing his forearm to my throat.
“No. You can’t help me, or anyone.” He was looking down at me with such barely contained venom, I wondered if I’d accidentally pissed in his eggs this morning. “I just wanted to see what had turned Hayle Taeme into a pussy, but quite frankly, I don’t understand it.” He leaned closer, his hand going from where it was clenched around my bicep to being wrapped painfully in my hair. “You’re ugly, fat, and magicless. You must have a fucking amazing vagina to make him go all starry-eyed. Master Proxius was eye-fucking you too. Are you spreading those legs for the Headmaster, Ninth?”
His face was briefly overlaid by my father’s, and my knees turned to water. Old fear made my body numb, paralysed by wounds that were deeply entrenched in my soul.
“Weak and useless. It makes no sense,” the person above me said, not with my father’s deep baritone, but with a nasal whine.
This man wasn’t my father. He wasnothing.It was enough to shake me from the fear that had a hold on me.
“Get the fuck off me,” I hissed, pushing at his chest. Quarry was suddenly there, his huge claws aiming right at the side of Eugene’s face, scoring deep cuts as if he was trying to fly off with the flesh of Eugene’s cheek.
The man in question screamed, not just at Quarry slicing open skin, but the fact that Leviat had arrived and was tearing flesh from his ass muscle. The giant war cat snarled as she swung her head, ripping him away from me and onto the ground.
Clouds quickly formed over the school.Fuck.He was going to use his weather abilities. No one knew the perils of bad weatherlike someone raised in the North, and I didn’t want to see what Eugene would conjure if he feared for his life.
Leaping toward Leviat, I trusted that she wouldn’t take my arm off as I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck. “Leviat, stop! He isn’t worth eating. Goddess knows where he’s been,” I said cajolingly. “Come on, drop him now. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
To my surprise, Leviat dropped him.Huh.I’d thought it would be harder to get her to give up her prey. Maybe he tasted as vile physically as he was mentally.
A low growl behind me made my heart pound in my chest. “Oh, the trouble has already arrived,” a familiar voice purred, and I spun to launch myself straight into Hayle’s arms. He’d returned.
