Page 69 of Daughter Of The Ninth Line
I froze, the blood in my veins turning to ice. My eyes felt too wide in my face as I waited for the derision, the accusations that I was a murderer, or at least a cursed child. However, Master Proxius’s face didn’t change from the gentle expression.
I cleared my throat. “I, uh, didn’t really get to know her, and we don’t really speak of her.”
Sadness flashed across his face. “Indeed. Fate can be cruel sometimes. Her cousin is an instructor here, if you have questions about her.” He looked down at the woman sitting at the large desk. “I will leave you in the capable hands of Svenna.” He patted her shoulder, and they shared a look I wasn’t even going to try and decipher. “Enjoy your training here, Avalon.” He left quietly, while my eyes lingered on the door.
Svenna stood, grabbing another large ledger from the shelf with her good arm. She flicked it open to the Ninth Line page, and in long columns, written in deceptively neat script, was a list of the conscripts who’d come before me.
Avalon Halhed, Daughter of the Ninth Line,she wrote in the same blocky writing. “Your dorm is the third sublevel. There’s no one in there at the moment. Enjoy the serenity. Don’t be late to your classes, or you won’t like the consequences the instructors will concoct for tardiness.” She pushed a timetable across the desk toward me, then looked back down at her ledger, making it clear that I was dismissed.
Opening the door, I hurried back through the atrium, over to the staircase that I assumed would take me to the subfloors. I could feel eyes on me, but I ignored them as best I could. It didn’t help that someone was screaming, or that the scent of blood and sweat perfumed the air, or that I viscerallyknewitwas Hayle watching me. I wanted to flick my gaze around like a scared rabbit, trying to find an escape route.
Instead, I straightened my spine and walked toward the stairs with my chin up. You didn’t run from a predator. Everyone knew that.
And I refused to be prey.
But once I made it three floors down, I finally let out the breath burning my lungs. How had I managed to catch the ire of two of the most powerful Heirs in the country? My bad luck knew no limits.
Pushing open the door, I found the air smelled stale and empty, the communal space cluttered with discarded furniture. There was still a bowl in the sink, like the conscript who’d been here before me had just gone to class and not been killed in a training accident.
I’d clean when I wasn’t so exhausted. Picking the furthest room from the door, I placed my pack on the bed. It felt so heavy after all the days I’d carried it from my home in Rewill, all the way down here to Boellium.
However, when I flicked open the flap of my bag, I realized that perhaps it wasn’t just exhaustion making my pack heavy. Hiding beneath my clothes and the solitary book was a light purple stolt, the same shade as the epsirialle flowers that had been my favorite in the garden at home.
I shook out my bag, and the stolt fell onto the bed, shaking out its fur. It was odd that it was even inside the college—they were forest dwellers—and I wondered if the Third Line had brought it into the atrium for bloodsport.
“You’re safe now. Off you go. Back to your home,” I murmured, hoping it could find its way back to the surface. There weren’t any windows down here for it to escape from.
I expected the stolt to be terrified, but instead of skittering away, it walked up to my pillow, curled into a ball and went to sleep.
Well. Okay then.
Honestly, I could use the company down here. I briefly wondered if it wasn’t some kind of Third Line sacrifice, and instead an animal companion for one of the beastmasters. It seemed pretty tame, after all. It was either a pet or stupid.
I needed to shower, but my stomach was gnawing at itself. Food first, then hygiene; otherwise, there was a chance that I’d just pass out beneath the water. Then I would rot here in this empty dorm, until I either decomposed and oozed down the drain, or the stolt ate me.
On that depressing thought, I reached out and grabbed the little rodent. “Come on. You must have an owner somewhere. I need to give you back before the Third Line thinks I stole you and feeds me to those hounds.”
The small purple creature looked like it rolled its eyes as it yawned, but it let me pick it up, not even trying to bite me. Definitely not a wild animal. It ran up my shoulders, then wrapped itself around my neck.
I scoffed. “Make yourself home there. Don’t mind me.”
Shutting the door to the dorm, I slowly climbed the stairs, the muscles in my thighs screaming at me. As I willed my legs to lift, I could hear the voices of people climbing the stairs behind me. They were laughing, and I wondered what Line they were from.
I was halfway between the first and second subfloors when my head began to spin from either hunger or exhaustion, or maybe both. I clutched at the neck of my shirt, pulling it away as it began to suddenly feel like a noose. Black dots edged through my vision, and I swallowed back the bile threatening to claw up my throat.
The room spun, making me moan a pitiful sound, as my thighs turned to liquid and I made a grab at empty air.
Fuck.
Well, I guess I was going to go down in the family histories after all—as the conscript with the shortest stay at Boellium War College. Father would probably be happy.
My legs stopped working entirely, and no matter how hard I clutched at the rough stone walls, I couldn’t grip them. I fell backwards, and fortunately, hit my head on the step below, knocking me out so I didn’t have to feel every stone step all the way back down to the bowels of Boellium.
Darkness was a pleasant escape from my reality.
I dreamed of Hayle Taeme. His overheated skin against mine, his strong body between my thighs. He kissed me and called me his Soul Tie, whispering the sweetest things against my lips.
Lights swirled, and then he was Vox Vylan, who held me still with bands of air as he buried his face in my core before grinning up at me with an expression that made my heart pound in my chest.
