Storm of Shadows, page 6
I’m at the edge of the campus, the oldest part, where the towers are solid but crumbling, the stonework basic but strong, when I hear the sound of more footsteps – hurried footsteps. I turn looking for a different way and then there she is.
The girl herself.
The girl whose name we don’t even know but who Beaufort says should be ours.
Our thrall.
She spots me further along the pathway and freezes. Her eyes widen.
In horror? Fascination? Admiration? I don’t know. The tall towers cast the pathways in shadows and it’s hard to make out the expression on her face.
She is small. Her head barely reaches my chest. And like so many from the Slate Quarter, she is slim. Too slim. I bet she’s all jutting hip bones and exposed ribs. Her hair is yanked back from her face so tightly it’s impossible to discern its color and it stretches the skin of her face, making her look startled and cross.
I realize it disguises how pretty she is. Her features symmetrical. Her skin smooth. Her lashes thick and long. Her lips plump and soft.
This pretty little thing belongs to us.
I’ve never owned anything so pretty. So delicate. So fragile.
It makes me want to touch her. To destroy her. Nothing so beautiful deserves to exist in a world like ours.
I ball my gloved hands into tight fists, the leather stretching across my knuckles.
She spies the movement and flinches.
A sickness swims through my stomach and I take a hurried step away from her. Then another.
“I’m g-g-going to be late,” she stutters, rocking on her toes as if she wants to be going. “For dinner.”
Late?
She points up towards the clock tower – visible from any point on the campus.
“They stop serving soon.”
She doesn’t know who I am.
It’s clear.
I take another step away from her.
And then another.
It doesn’t matter.
She’ll know soon enough.
Chapter Ten
Briony
Luckily, a bell rings out at seven o’clock in the morning the next day, rousing all the academy students from their beds, otherwise I think I would have slept right through breakfast and the morning’s lessons. Although frustration about not finding that room last night kept me awake at first, the exhaustion of the last few days soon overtook me.
I haven’t slept that well for as long as I can remember. I’m guessing it was on account of the full belly – that constant gnawing sensation in my stomach – the one that keeps me awake – sedated for once.
Even though I’d quite happily lie here for the rest of the day, I somehow find the strength to drag my tired body out of my bed and to the wardrobe, where I climb into a gray tracksuit that only needs a set of stripes to have it looking like a prison uniform, comb and tie my hair back and go to knock on Fly’s door.
“Come in,” he mutters and I find him still buried under the rotten blankets.
“Are you getting up?” I ask him.
“Do I have to?”
“I mean,” I say with a shrug, “you could see what happens if you don’t.”
He throws back the covers and I squeal and avert my eyes – although, it’s fine, he’s wearing a striped pair of pajamas that look comfortable and warm – nothing like the ratty old t-shirt I wore to bed.
“We can both guess it wouldn’t be pleasant.” He yawns and stretches his arms over his bed. “How long do we have?”
“About forty-five minutes I think. But I’m not missing breakfast.”
“Good,” he says, rolling up onto his feet. “It’s my mission to fatten you up. Now give a man some privacy.” He ushers me towards the door. “I’ll only be five minutes.”
He actually takes fifteen and when he emerges, I can see why. Once again, he’s somehow managed to make the horrible tracksuit look stylish.
“How do you do that?” I say, shaking my head in admiration as we descend the stairs.
“It’s a talent I was born with.” He grins. “It’s not something you can teach. Although,” he examines me with a rather hopeless look on his face, “I’m sure we could do something with you. Your hair for starters–” He reaches his hand towards my head.
I duck away. “No,” I say.
“It doesn’t suit you like that.”
“I like it like this.”
“Like a sixty-year-old nun.”
“Yes,” I say stubbornly.
“Oh-kay,” he says, probably wondering why he bothered befriending me in the first place.
Luckily, Fly doesn’t seem to hold a grudge and soon he’s talking me through all the breakfast choices in the canteen – encouraging me to choose the ones that will fatten me up.
“Take some more sausages,” he says, pointing to them, “and eggs. And lots of bread.”
“The sausages look like they’re the ones from last night,” I say, picking one up with suspicion.
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“You’re right,” I say, dropping it onto my plate. “Besides, being unable to attend lessons because I have food poisoning probably wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
“Although, not fun for those of us who have to share a bathroom with you!” he says. We take a seat and Fly stirs his spoon through his bowl of porridge. “So, are you telling me you aren’t looking forward to lessons this morning, Cupcake?”
“I don’t know,” I say, braving a piece of the cold sausage and glancing around the full canteen. “I’m a little nervous they’ve got us wearing these tracksuits. It can only mean one thing–”
“Yeah,” Fly agrees, “physical torture.”
“Now, listen up,” one of the gruesome twins says as we line up along the academy field, all of us shivering against the icy wind, “because Madame Bardin has your instructions.”
He steps back and she, once again, hobbles forward in her perfectly impractical heeled boots.
I take my chance to glance down the line of students. Once again, the shadow weavers are at the far end. I should have known. No fucking potato sacks for the shadow weavers. Their academy tracksuits are made from a dark black material soft enough to stroke, with a deep crimson stitching and the academy crest.
“And so, let us start.” She sweeps her arm to the left, her cape swooshing through the air. “You are all required to complete the assault course behind me. We are looking for speed, agility, strength and, most importantly, perseverance.”
Fly groans quietly beside me.
The twin with the whistle steps forward again. “You heard Madame, get to it!”
And now I understand why the shadow weavers were so determined to beat the crap out of everyone else on the first night. If we’re all barely able to stand, it gives them an advantage when it comes to our time at the academy. Not that they need it. They have their powers – several of the shadow weavers racing off across the field at speeds that are not human.
“Come on,” Fly says, setting off at a jog. “The sooner we get this started, the sooner it’ll be over.”
“Yeah, but maybe we’re better off–”
The blast of a whistle cuts through my next words.
“Get your butts moving!” one of the twins roars. I glance towards the retreating flanks of the shadow weavers and decide then and there the ogre twins are way more terrifying.
I chase after Fly, but despite his early declaration that he was trash at all physical activity, he proves to be a lot better at it than me.
I manage to keep up with him during the sprint across the field, but as soon as we reach the first obstacle – crawling on our bellies under a tightly pinned net – he leaves me for dust. In fact, the shadow weavers are nowhere to be seen, and those from Iron Quarter are soon out of sight too. Leaving us weaklings from Slate and Granite Quarters to struggle through the course.
I crash through a moat of freezing cold water, swing over a ditch on a rope, scrabble through a tunnel and then meet my match. Monkey bars. At least, that’s what the other kids around me are calling them. I’ve never seen any before. A ladder slung across another ditch of mud. The kids in front of me grip the rungs with their hands and swing from one rung to the next, moving along the ladder until they reach the bank at the other side of the ditch.
I roll my shoulders. I can do this. I pulled myself up into that tree the night before last. I’m not a complete weakling.
And maybe I could if my ribs weren’t so damaged. I jump, grip the first rung, reach for the next with my right hand, and pain radiates through my side. I lose my grip and land straight in the mud below me. For a moment, I consider wading through the mud like I did the water and skipping the monkey bars all together, but then I spy a spike concealed in the mud, obviously placed there to stop any smart-asses from attempting that.
I climb up the bank and watch the next two kids make their way across. One succeeds, the other falls and I note the difference in their techniques.
Then it’s my time again. This time I’m ready for the pain, and gritting my teeth, my eyes smarting, I swing across that ladder, every movement sending more agony through my ribs. I scream out, but I keep going. Being skewered by one of those spikes would be much much worse.
The other side, I step off the path and heave straight into a bush.
“Eww,” two girls screech as they race past me. “That’s so pathetic. The course isn’t even that hard.”
“She must be seriously unfit,” the other girl replies.
“Isn’t she the one …”
I don’t hear any more, their voices lost in the undergrowth.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, spit twice onto the ground, wishing I had water to wash out my mouth. Then, wiping the tears and sweat from my eyes with my right hand, clutch my sore ribs with my left and keep on running.
I can’t show any weakness. The weak will be picked apart like prey in the academy and I want to make it through the next twelve months with the least harm possible. It’s the best chance I have of discovering the truth about my sister.
The best way to survive is to do the thing I’ve always done. Don’t stand out – for good or bad reasons. Become invisible. Disappear.
If they can’t see you, they can’t hurt you.
Problem is, whatever the hell that was outside the Great Hall yesterday seems to have drawn attention my way. Attention I don’t want and don’t need.
Attention, I can’t help but think, is going to bite my ass.
I keep running, although I’m much slower now, my aching ribs impeding every step, and reach the next obstacle. A cargo net reaching high into the sky. There are other students already climbing up this side and down the other.
I smile.
At least this is an obstacle I can do. Even if I know it’s much harder than it looks. You just need to know the right technique.
I find a clear spot on the net, and gripping one of the ropes that run vertically, use it to haul myself upwards as I use the horizontal ropes as stepping stones. It still hurts, but it’s more effective this way and soon I’m nearing the top of the net.
It’s here I find I was right. My cards have been marked already. There’s a girl straddling the top of the net, dressed in her gray tracksuit. I jerk when I peer up and find her scowling at me.
It’s the brunette from yesterday.
Despite the scowl, she’s really damn beautiful: olive skin, big green eyes and thick glossy brown hair, braided down her back.
“You slut!” she says, and before I can respond, she spits at me, a large glob of her saliva landing right in my face. “You spread your legs already. When was it? In the forest on the first night? Is that why they chose you? Did you suck their cocks and let them fuck you in the ass?”
“What the hell?” I say, wiping spit from my eyes. How can all those vile words come flying out of such a pretty mouth? She looks like an actual angel.
“You’re not going to have them! Do you hear me, Slate scum? You fucked them one time and one time only. Eat dirt, you slut!”
Before I can respond, before I know what the hell is going on, she drives her hands right towards my shoulders. Hard and violently. So hard, so violently, I lose my balance.
I scream. The netting slips from my grasp.
I fall, hurtling towards the distant ground.
Chapter Eleven
Briony
I screw my eyes shut.
I’m going to split my skull or snap my spine. Either way, I’m going to die. I only made it to the second day.
Except rather than hit the floor, my body stops flying through the air, and instead, it’s yanked violently. And then I’m hanging upside down by the ankle, my left foot caught in the netting.
I hang there, swaying slightly, other students clinging to the net and staring right at me.
Realizing hanging around like this so that some other fucker can come at me and try to kill me, I grit my teeth and pull myself upward, free my foot and start climbing again. Only it’s even harder than it was before, because now, as well as the pain in my ribs, my ankle is throbbing too. When I try to bear weight on it, I have to chomp down hard on my lip to stop myself from crying out.
I climb the rest of the net on my knees, the measly tracksuit doing nothing to protect my skin from the harsh rope, my legs and hands sore with burns by the time I reach the top.
The brunette is long gone – obviously not bothered about watching me die.
I straddle the top of the net and catch my breath. From up here, I can see the end of the course, people crossing the line and collapsing in heaps, the gruesome twosome making a note of their times.
If I peer back in the other direction, the one I’ve come from, I realize I’m right at the back of the group now. Only a few stragglers behind me.
I swing my leg over the top of the net and start my slow descent. There isn’t any point in hurrying and anyway it hurts too much. Then I limp the final four hundred meters, towards the finish line.
The two twins watch me come, making no effort to help me and grunting my time at me as I finally stumble over the line.
“If you’re injured, get yourself to the infirmary,” one of them yells at me as I collapse down on the cold ground. “You need to be ready for this afternoon’s assignment.”
I don’t move. I can’t, not yet anyway.
“Did you hear me?!”
“Yes, I heard you,” I mumble. “I’m going.”
“Sir!” he yells. “Yes, I heard you, Sir!”
I roll my head to the side and stare over at him. He’s glowering at me, his two beady eyes bulging. “Yes, I heard you, Sir,” I mumble, as I roll up onto my feet and hobble away.
I don’t have that map with me so I have no idea where the infirmary would be. Instead, I limp in the direction of my room. I can bandage my ankle myself with one of my shirts and run my injured fingers under the tap; I don’t need any help.
I’m halfway across a courtyard with an ancient oak towering in its center, its heavy boughs sprawling over the cobbled stones, when someone calls out my name.
“Briony!” Fly comes jogging towards me. He’s already changed out of the tracksuit and into the actual academy uniform.
“What happened to you, Cupcake? I waited ages. They sent me away in the end. I was just coming to find you.”
I point to my leg, pulling up my pants to show him a now purple and swollen ankle. We both wince.
“Ouch! Did you trip over?”
“Nope,” I say, “some girl tried to push me to my death.”
“Ahhh,” he says, eyes flicking from side to side in their sockets. “Figures.”
“It does?” I say. “I know this place is meant to be brutal. But … I don’t know … I didn’t figure …”
“They’d come for you?” Fly wraps my arm around his shoulder, encouraging me to lean my weight against him before we start walking together. It’s a little awkward. He’s way taller than I am and is forced to crouch low to make this work, but I appreciate the help.
“Well, yeah.”
“They come for everyone, Cupcake.”
He’s right. They came for Amelia, didn’t they?
Maybe it’s inevitable they’d come for me too. I just didn’t expect it to happen quite so quickly. I need to be a hell of a lot smarter, especially about the people I trust.
“Plus,” he adds, “you’ve given them more reasons than others.”
“I have?” I say, racking my brains to understand what those reasons could be. Sure, there’s Amelia but that girl couldn’t know about that. I was last back to the academy yesterday morning. And I missed out on a beating by hiding out in a tree. Can that really be the reason?
“Beaufort Lincoln.”
“Huh?”
“The hot shadow weaver who picked you to be his and his brothers’ thrall yesterday.”
I dig my good heel into the cobbles and lean all my weight on Fly, forcing him to stop.
“Could you speak English, please?”
“Seriously, Cupcake?” he says, examining my face. “You telling me you don’t know about this stuff? You knew about the first night.”
“I know some stuff,” I say cryptically, “not all of it, obviously.”
“Obviously,” he says, rolling his eyes, then starts up the walking again. “The most powerful shadow weaver siblings are given the privilege of picking a thrall for their time at the academy.”
“And what is a thrall exactly?” I ask, my stomach churning. I have a bad feeling about this. I already knew this place was trouble. Perhaps I had no idea just how much.
“A thrall is like a servant, I guess. Someone who serves and obeys those who have chosen them.”
“What the hell?” I snap. “Then why did that girl nearly kill me?”
“Because in return for your …” his eyes dart my way, “service, the siblings will offer you protection. If you’re a thrall, no one else at the academy can touch you. You’re safe.”
“Siblings?” I ask. “That shadow weaver has brothers and sisters here?”
