“Keep up,” he said over his shoulder.
I hobbled down the stairs, cursing and gritting my teeth with each step. How long did it take this tincture to work?
Once we hit the main floor, he pushed open a heavy wooden door into the courtyard. The chatter was loud and playful. The smell of food made my mouth water, and the sun was out. The heat of it warmed my clothes and seemed to ease the pain in my side.
Groups of people filed in through other doorways on all sides of the keep. The stone tables and benches started to fill up quickly with assassins and their apprentices. It was easy to tell who was who. All the apprentices had battered faces.
“You may go sit wherever you’d like on theleftside.” Without so much as looking at me, Vander strolled ahead.
“I thought apprentices dideverythingwith their trainer,” I muttered to myself. He paused mid-step and glanced back at me. My stomach dropped straight to my dirty boots.
He turned and, taking hold of my arm, backed me up the way we’d come in, stopping us before the door. “You don’t get to sit with fully fledged assassins, you’re an apprentice. You’re barely a step above the peasant you came in as yesterday. Let’s get one thing straight—I’m not your friend, I’m your trainer. You agreed to do everything I said, so start by keeping your mouth shut when I tell you to do something.”
Damn, who spit in his morning tea? I gulped but kept eye contact. “I meant no disrespect, sir. I was just... thinking out loud.”
“Learn to keep your thoughts to yourself then.”
Letting out a slow breath, I nodded. He made his way over to a table and sat across from a woman with sharp shoulders and straight jaw-length bronze hair. I quickly spotted Taewyn and Celine and was relieved to see friendly faces. I tried my best not to limp as I stalked across the courtyard to their table, but felt like I was waddling again. A catcall whistle made me pause to find... Morrow. He wiggled his brows and made kissing noises as I walked by. His table of all male goons snickered. This man was going to be a nightmare. An angry heat rose in my chest, but I stamped it down.
“Hey, loth, how do those ribs feel? You screamed loud enough for the vampires to hear.” Morrow gripped his side and threw himself into the man next to him, pretending to scream in pain.
I was starting to hate him more and more, but I knew he wanted to get a reaction from me. He wouldn’t get one. A few tables over, Taewyn waved and made room for me on the stone bench beside him.
“How was your first night? It’s great being here in Drakthar, right? The spell to get in is pure genius, too. I couldn’t believe the way the rose bushes just rolled to the sides.” He grinned, crinkling the skin around his eyes. “It’s mysterious and gothic. Much different than the scholars’ building.”
The swirls and designs carved into the gray stone walls and along the dramatic archways weren’t like anything I’d ever seen before. It was remarkably beautiful. I was used to small log homes and boarded-up windows.
But I missed my own bed already and my family. I’d never been away from them before. Kayda and Ivarr would have to help our father with the carvings even though they didn’t like it the way I did. Grandma Esha and my mother needed more fabric to make the baby’s clothes and blankets. I hoped selling thegolden nugget in my bedroom drawer would be enough to get them comfortably through winter. My father was a good hunter, so we never starved, but we didn’t have excess either.
I missed Kace and his teasing too. The way he looked at me as I was pulled away, the desperation in his voice, still played in my mind.
“It’s been painful... quiet.” My jerk of a roommate hadn’t made my transition here any easier either. The lack of screaming in the night was the most welcome thing about this place.
Taewyn chuckled. The cut over his eye already looked better with only some minor redness. “Yeah, you took some hard hits, but you’re standing, so that’s good. I didn’t know if you’d make it to breakfast.” He passed me a silver plate from the center and gestured toward the food. Scones, slices of bread, fried eggs, and cubed potatoes waited on large platters. The cut apples looked crisp, too. I immediately went for the bread and bit into it before even getting butter. It was soft and chewy. Food was the second thing I liked about this place. They appeared to have it in abundance.
A bit of guilt gnawed at me. This was probably an everyday breakfast, while my family would only have a feast like this during a holiday like Midsummer. Which would happen tomorrow, and I’d miss the celebration.
Celine turned to me. “So, what’s your trainer’s name? We’re dying to know Viper’s identity.” Celine nudged my side with the broken ribs. A sharp pain shot through me. I let out a low hiss through my teeth. “Sorry, I forgot about the bruises.”
“It’s alright,” I wheezed, taking in a few shallow breaths. “Commander Locke called him ‘Vander’.” I noticed the silver line around Celine’s and Taewyn’s necks that matched mine, but no names on the collar like the assassins had. It had to be the mark of an apprentice.
Her brows shot up. “VanderVierroson?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” I was more interested in the bread than his last name. I grabbed a scone next and a few eggs. Where was the butter? I needed a slab of it smothered on my scone. I was starved after The Sorting Rite, the fighting, and no supper after it all.
“You do realize that Vander Vierroson is practically royalty? His mother is a cousin of King Sigurd. Damn, I should have known Viper was Vander.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out three copper aclets and passed them over to Taewyn.
“No, I did not realize that.” I stared at him across the courtyard through the sea of strangers in all black. Being royalty might explain his callous attitude toward me—the peasant. His table was the farthest from ours on the opposite end. I watched his mouth move as he talked to the woman across from him. Part of me wished I could read lips better. “Why are you giving Taewyn money?”
“We had a bet.” Taewyn put the coins in the pocket on the side of his pants. “I said Viper would be Vander or Rune. They’re from the same year and both were known at Nighthaven Academy for underground fighting.”
“Really? He seems like a rule follower.”
“He’s sexy is what he is.” Celine gazed at him and bit into a crunchy apple. “I don’t usually like red hair, but I want him.”
“It’s not really red. More dark brown-red,” Taewyn mused. “As a ginger, I would know.”
“Are assassins and apprentices supposed to have those sorts of relationships?” I asked. Vander made it very clear there never would be between him and me. And if I had to go everywhere he went, I didn’t want to have to listen while he... found pleasure in a woman’s arms.
