Lory couldn’t see all the way to the front tables where therest of the crowd was sitting, but she could swear everyone in the room was holding their breath as Gray Braid waited for the others to sit, then picked up a small golden bell from the center table and rang it once.
Out of the hidden door walked a young man dressed in clothes like the beige rags Lory had left behind in the bathing room, his face set in stone as if he’d heard Frost’s statement and was now pondering his last words, and behind him, sword pointed at the man’s back, prowled Falcrest.
Lory’s heart missed a beat as he did a quick sweep of the room with his piercing gray eyes, his shoulders tight and his mouth pressed into a thin line. She ducked behind Brycon’s tall form, not ready to be judged by that gaze, and Falcrest finished his scan, leading the man in front of him to the front of the dais.
“Pick a student, Captain,” Gray Braid ordered, and she could swear Frost turned slightly green as he cast his eyes to the table as if hoping the captain wouldn’t notice him there at the back of the room. Tabi shifted in her seat while Ricca watched with rapt attention the way Falcrest did a second scan of the crowd that Lory realized had to be the student body of Ashthorn Ward.
Just as his gaze landed on their table, Thal leaned aside as if to avoid his attention, and Falcrest’s eyes found Lory’s.
A whisper of adrenaline jolted beneath Lory’s skin as he held her gaze over the full room, face unreadable, and for a moment, the world became the stillness before a storm. Heat crept up her neck like a caress of a flame, and the awareness of how beautiful he was, even holding a human being at hissword’s end, made her question her sanity.
Not me, not me, not me,she chanted in her mind.Please pick someone else.
She had no idea what would happen to the student Falcrest chose, but judging by the smirk now lifting the side of his mouth, Falcrest was enjoying the anticipation.
“Today, Captain,” Gray Braid prompted, and Lory’s stomach turned into a cluster of rocks, fear rising in her system.
Falcrest blinked, freeing Lory from the momentary jumble of sensations, and gestured at the side of the room. “Thornling Morgan.”
Across the table, Frost exhaled a slow breath while Lory slumped in her seat, relief and terror mingling as a black-haired, stocky young man with a stark tattoo curving along the back of his neck marched up to the dais, then the stairs, coming to a halt next to Falcrest.
Captain Falcrest—he looked too young to be captain, yet he was standing there, on the dais with the rest of what Lory assumed was leadership.
“Thornling Morgan,” Gray Braid said, gesturing at the man at the tip of Falcrest’s sword. “Kill him.”
Lory’s heart dropped into her knees.What?
Thornling Morgan’s face turned ashen as he was handed a dagger, Observant Eye stepping around his table and extending the weapon to him.
No.They couldn’t do that. They couldn’t justkillsomeone.
“What’s his crime?” Lory whispered at Tabi, unable to take her eyes off Thornling Morgan, whose hands seemedto be shaking.
Tabi leaned an inch closer, lowering her voice so much Lory had trouble hearing her over the pounding of her own heart. “He didn’t make it by the second bell.”
Impossible. This was all for show. The student with the blade wouldn’t be killing the man in the beige clothes, and Falcrest wouldn’t be standing there, doing nothing as a person wasmurderedin front of their eyes.
“On the third bell,” Gray Braid prompted, and for a third time, the room trembled as the bell sounded with reverberating force.
When Lory could gather her thoughts again, the man was slumping to the floor, a crimson stain quickly spreading on his tunic, and Thornling Morgan was handing back the blade to Observant Eye, who wiped it on his napkin and sheathed it out of sight behind the table.
“Morgan, Leyen, carry him out,” Gray Braid ordered, and a second student rose from a table at the front, sprinting up the dais to help Morgan drag the twitching body from the room, while Gray Braid rose to her feet and took the spot at the front of the dais, Falcrest stepping aside and sitting down on the last empty chair at the table.
“For the new ones among you, this is what happens when you fail to start your day on time,” Gray Braid commented, gesturing at the two students vanishing through the hidden door with the now-limp body between them.
Lory couldn’t tear her eyes off the limp form dripping blood onto the hard, dark floor. With the bell overpowering any and all sound, she couldn’t even tell if the man hadbegged or screamed when he’d met his end.
“Today marks the beginning of the eight-hundredth cycle at Ashthorn Ward. Over the past weeks, our empty tables have been filled with new ashlings while our old ashlings have risen to thornlings.
“Our new arrivals—” Gray Braid’s gaze rolled over the room, stopping at individual faces, and at Lory’s table, it seemed, longest of all. “Whether you applied for Ashthorn or found your way here in a different manner won’t matter in these halls. You will prove yourselves every day, or you’ll die trying.
“By joining this academy, you gave up your right to speak about what you see here, what you learn, and what you do with this knowledge. If you fail to keep confidentiality, you will die.
“If you change your mind and run, you. Will. Die.
“If you are weak… You get the idea.”
A few chuckles bounced off the gray ceiling while Lory’s mouth went from dry to drier.
