I was completely shaken by this conversation, feeling sick to my stomach over it, and Eden had to all but drag me to my tele class, as she called it.
I noticed Blair right away, sitting in the back row, but was too stunned by what I’d just learned to even care. This teacher, Mr. Whitlock, had stark white hair that fell to his waist and was showing the class how to float a piece of paper from the ceiling to the floor.
It was cool, but I couldn’t concentrate—all I could see was Ariyon, hunched over my father’s body with his hands on his chest, fighting for his life. All the while…giving away some of his soul’s time so that my father would live on for decades.
I knew in that moment that no matter what Ariyon did to me, no matter how cruel my four years here were with him at The Academy, I would never be able to hate a single hair on his head. I owed him everything.
* * *
Tele class wasa blur and so was weapons. I couldn’t stop thinking about Ariyon’s short life span and that he’d given that to my father.
By the time lunch rolled around I was barely hungry; Eden’s mom’s meat pie sat in my stomach like a stone.
The lunchroom was quite large and fit about two hundred students in all. It was busy and noisy, and since I’d never gone to a real school like this, I wasn’t sure what to think. I spotted Eden standing in line by Ariyon and Ayden and decided now was not a good time to go over.
Except that she frantically waved me over the second she spotted me.
“Fallon!” she shouted across the lunchroom.
Seeing the two brothers, mirror copies of each other except for two inches of bright-blond hair length, made me a little breathless. Hefting the three giant tomes I held, I walked over to stand next to her.
“Hey,” I said.
My gaze flicked over to Ariyon, who was looking straight ahead at the food, and then to Ayden, who smiled sweetly at me.
“Today is pizza day,” Ayden told me with joy.
I frowned. “What’s peet-zah?” I tried to sound out the foreign word.
Eden and Ayden burst into laughter and I frowned.
“You’ve never had pizza?” Eden gasped.
I could feel Ariyon’s eyes on me but I ignored them.
“Pizza was brought to The Gilded City by some fae from a northern realm like a decade ago. It’s amazing,” Ayden informed me. “You have to try it.”
I could feel the heat rise to my cheeks. “Oh, it sounds nice, but I don’t have coin… I’ll just eat a big dinner at home.”
I wanted to die in that moment. At least in Isa everyone was poor, but here, standing before two princes, I felt less than.
Ayden waved me off. “I’ll pay for it. Youhaveto try pizza. It’s decided.”
Ariyon suddenly growled and then tore out of line, brushing past a crowd of students.
Shame washed over me, but before I could say anything, the lunch lady asked for our order.
“Four cheese pizzas. I got you, Eden.” Ayden pushed her outstretched hand, which held a few copper coins, down.
“Thank you,” she told him shyly and repocketed the money. I wondered in that moment how much it cost to go to this school and if my father would be charged. The schooling in the village was free so I was completely out of my element.
I looked over my shoulder, following Ariyon’s back as he walked out of the lunchroom and to a table outside. He sat next to a blonde with a familiar high ponytail.
Blair.
And there was another familiar person: Hayes, the other healer from that night when I came to the student clinic asking for help with my father.
A second later Ayden handed me a plate with flatbread that had melted cheese over red sauce. My mouth instantly watered and I thanked him. Ayden handed Eden her pizza and then carried two for himself. One was for his moody brother, I assumed.
