Lips pressed into a tight line, Lory scanned the grid of streets and alleys closest to the palace hill for movement.
“What else?” Falcrest didn’t fail to look utterly bored as he turned his attention on the group of thirty-three students who were all fidgeting in the heat after a morning in the cool space the school pyramid provided.
Another thing Lory had figured out about Ashthorn, apart from the deadlines: The entire ward was placed in ahuge pyramid—the easternmost one of the palace premises, she noted as she let her gaze sweep across the array of courtyards and outbuildings that were part of the king’s residence.
“Limestone and more limestone,” another blue ashling, Eira, said, her dark-brown hair billowing around her head as she leaned forward over the railing like she wanted to do a closer inspection of the slender limestone columns holding the solid handrail.
“The entire city is made of limestone, Ashling Moonfell.” Falcrest propped his hip against the railing, arms folded over his chest and ankles crossed as he gave the group a disapproving look that Lory had learned meant he couldn’t believe no one had anything better to offer.
Today, his sabers were sheathed across his back, his hair dancing in the wind and shimmering in hues of black and bronze.
“Perhaps if Brycon gives him his litany of knowledge, Falcrest will shut it,” Thal murmured to Lory with that half-serious tone he used whenever he made fun of someone, which was basically all the time.
Lory glanced at Brycon, who was playing with the length of his braid, obviously nervous about whether it was time to show off.
“You know it’s not actually his achievement he knows all those things,” Lory whispered. “He has magical aid.”
Thal raised an eyebrow at her, his short, black curls bouncing as he shook his head. “I wish I had an ability like his. That would mean no more side-eye from the other ashlings and actually doing something useful with my bloodline.”
“Your humor is a gift, Thal,” Lory noted with a half-smile, and Thal nudged her arm with his elbow as he directed his gaze back out to the city.
“I really like you, Lory. Too bad I need to beat you up again in combat training.”
Rubbing the new bruise from their last training, Lory chuckled, earning the attention of not only Tabi and Ronan but also the Veiled Hand, who’d snuck up on them like his title as instructor for stealth, stalking, and ghost movement suggested.
“Anything you’d like to add, Vednis?” he asked in that silken tone of his from right behind her, his body miraculously not touching hers in the narrow space that was the balcony. How he’d gotten over there so fast and without being noticed was beyond Lory’s imagination, but he never failed to make her jump out of her skin, no matter how many times he did it.
Struggling to control her erratic pulse, Lory spun around, hands balled into fists the way Hand Sil had instructed in order to not break her fingers: thumb outside the fist, not tucked beneath the rest of her fingers, the tip covering the middle digit of her index and middle finger, the knuckles of those two fingers aligned with her forearm so they make a straight line.
Falcrest’s eyes snapped to her hands, a delighted surprise flashing there before he cocked his head, the bored captain incarnate. “Let me rephrase: This wasn’t a question, Vednis. Tell me what you see?”
About a million thoughts of how she could get into even worse graces with him if she described what a pretty, pretty boy he was shot through her head.
Lory smothered them with common sense and lowered her fists, half-turning toward the railing, but she didn’t need to look at the city to know what was there.
“Seven districts. Two of them—the closest to the palace hill—consist mainly of mansions and villas, all of them with their own little parks and fountains.” That was, Lory supposed, where a good portion of the students at Ashthorn had grown up. “Three districts, right south of them, filled with well-situated Dunaii, and two more districts south of that, where the poor population of the city lives. Not to forget the outskirts where those not lucky enough to afford education try to survive.” She tried not to give Tabi or Thal a sideways glance. It wasn’t their fault they’d been lucky with the families they’d been born into. Their fathers hadn’t turned them away at the doorstep, and their mothers had been alive to care for them.
Closing her eyes, Lory visualized the web of alleys that used to be her entries and exits to a chance at a meal.
Falcrest’s gaze lingered on her—she didn’t need to look to know—and the rest of the students waited for his verdict if her description had been of any use. But Lory wasn’t done.
“It’s not the houses or the streets that are important,” she said, keeping her voice stable as she ignored that Falcrest or any of her fellow ashlings could attack her.
“What is important, Vednis?” Falcrest’s voice was a brush of shadows over velvet, but the command in it held her in a steel grasp.
“The walls, the drainpipes, the gutters, and the roofs. The cobblestones and gravel of the roads. The sparse trees,the columns and pillars marking the edges of the districts, the barrels and carts parked along the streets. The doorways and shady corners.”
Lory opened her eyes to find Falcrest still staring, a war in his eyes that reminded her of butcher’s blocks and gallows.
“Why, Vednis?” He cleared his throat.
Beside her, Thal shifted as the muscles in Falcrest’s jaw worked.
“Because, without knowing the terrain, it’s impossible to … sneak up on a target,” she corrected before she could say what she’d meant to say:when you’re on the run.
It was bad enough that Thal, Tabi, Brycon, Frost, and Ricca knew she wasn’t a willing addition to Ashthorn. She didn’t need to remind them she came from the streets. At least, none of them knew she’d chosen this over losing her head.
They didn’t know, but Falcrest did, and thank the Guardians, he’d kept his silence, even when he was watching her every step as if waiting for her to finally fail.
