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My heart caught, that thunder of panic and fear missing a beat. I tried to see his eyes, the memory of that emerald shade of his eye still so clear. There was nothing, though. Nothing but darkness as that shroud turned back toward me. His hand slid from my mouth, gliding over my cheek until his palm cradled me there, his gloved thumb grazing over my lip.
I could see none of him, nothing but the memory of what I had seen before. It was enough. I was frozen beneath him and the stone wall I could have sworn was on fire as I stared at him. As he stared at me.
“Boy?” By the Goddess how I wished I had something, anything, else to call him.
He exhaled again, the sound ragged before he pulled away, his weight leaving my body in what felt like a longing scream that ripped from me.
His hand, so warm against my cheek, slid down my arm, wrapping around my hand. I half expected him to take off at a run again, but he stood there, staring.
“I wish I knew your name,” I had said that to him before, in the beginning when he and my situation was all new and everything didn’t feel so ominous.
But I didn’t think I wanted to know it as bad as I did right then. His name, his story. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know him like he knew me.
He shook his head, his freehand lifting as though he would cup my cheek again before he stepped back.
There was only one breath, one exhale of both hope and loss before he turned and darted down the corridor again, leaving me to slip and slide behind him once more.
I said nothing as we ran, the corridors and stone walls a blur as we moved deeper into the barracks and the maze of wooden doors that were all placed equidistant from each other. It was all the same, I would have sworn he was lost until he pulled to a stop before a wooden door at the end of the hall.
It was a door like all the others, yet it felt even more ominous after being dragged there. That feeling did not dissipate as he dropped my hand, all those tingles drifting to nothing at the loss of his touch.
Why did I have a feeling there was some kind of monster to conquer on the other side of this door? What I wouldn’t give for him to say one word and prep me for what was about to happen. I liked adventure, but standing there in the dark was sucking the last of the air from my lungs.
He turned to me one last time, no sound whispering from him before he pushed the door open and revealed a space I knew all too well.
Of course, I had always seen it from the high turret that stood in the middle and not from the sand covered yard. But it didn’t matter, this was as familiar to me as everywhere else in Runturin.
The training yard of the accolades.
Chapter 22
Elara
Istood frozen in the doorway even as the Boy rushed into the shadowed space, his cape billowing behind him, hand held on the hilt of his sword.
I don’t know why I hesitated, it wasn’t like it was holy ground, and yet somehow it felt like it. The way the moon shone down and cast everything in lines of silver, the stars winking in the black sky and seeing everything. Everything glittered and glowed as though it was magic, that feeling of stars sparkling over my skin in such a way I swore I could feel it.
It felt like if I stepped in there I would taint it. Or maybe it would be less magical. I didn’t belong there.
I didn’t belong anywhere.
The words my mother had used so often plagued my mind as I stood there, Queen Dalyah’s voice echoing loudly in the shadows that circled the training pit. It rattled in my head, screaming at me.
I took a step back, even as that feeling of starlight rattled me right down to my bones, the strength of it tugging and pulling. As though it wanted me to enter. As though I did belong. Somehow, that strange feeling felt more real than anything else, as though it had been there all along and had just woken up.
I belonged there.
Heart pounding in my chest, I took one step onto the sandy floor near where the Dillynth trained, the tiny particles of sand instantly moving into my socks as I followed the Boy toward the edge of the training ring, and the shadows that lingered there. With every step that feeling wrapped around me, as though it was pulling me in. Everything about this felt sacred, from the aroma of smoke and the lingering magic, to the way the stars sparked and flowed overhead, as if they were watching.
It was a good thing I saw where he went, between his silence and the black that circled us he had vanished into nothing. Aeinya's previous analogy of wraith suddenly fit perfectly.
“Boy,” I hissed into the dark as I stepped into the shadows where the Tyro would train, a line of shelves and cabinets fading into view. He had a tall cabinet open, his frame little more than shadow as he searched for something.
“What are we–”
My voice fell to nothing as he turned to me, a long grungy length of ribbon draped over both hands. My shoulders tensed. I knew what that was, only because I had seen it for the first time less than a fortnight ago.
“Fae hair.” All of that confidence and belonging drained right out of me. A rock of dread, the same as when I had first learned what they were, lodged itself deeper into my gut.
