Mira,
You’re a Sorrengail, so you will survive. Perhaps not as spectacularly as I have, but we all can’t live up to my standards, can we? All kidding aside, this is everything I’ve learned. Keep it safe. Keep it hidden. You have to live, because Violet is watching. You can’t let her see you fall.
Brennan.
Tears prick my eyes, but I blink them back. “It’s just his journal,” I lie, thumbing through the pages. I can hear his quippy, sarcastic tone as I skim over his words, as though he’s standing here, making light of every danger with a wink and a grin. Damn, I miss him. “He died five years ago.”
“Oh, that’s…” Rhiannon leans in, her eyes heavy with sympathy. “We don’t always burn everything, either. Sometimes it’s nice to have something, you know?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. It’s everything to have this, and yet I know Mom will toss it in the fire if she ever finds it.
Rhiannon sits back on her bed, opening her history book, and I fall back into Brennan’s history, starting on the third page.
You survived Parapet. Good. Be observant the next few days, and don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself. I’ve sketched a map that shows you not only where the classrooms are but where the instructors meet, too. I know you’re nervous about challenges, but you shouldn’t be, not with that right hook of yours. The matches might seem random, but they’re not. What the instructors don’t tell you is that they decide challenges the week before, Mira. Any cadet can request a challenge, yes, but instructors will assign your matches based on weeding out the weakest. That means once the real hand-to-hand starts, the instructors already know who you’ll be up against that day. Here’s the secret—if you know where to look and can get out without being seen, you’ll know who you’re fighting so you can prepare.
I suck in a breath and devour the rest of the entry, hope blossoming in my chest. If I know who I’m fighting, then I can begin the battle before we even step on the mat. My mind spins, a plan taking shape.
Two weeks, that’s how long I have to get everything I’ll need before challenges begin, and no one knows the grounds of Basgiath like I do. It’s all here.
A slow smile spreads across my face. I know how to survive.
In the best interest of preserving peace within Navarre, no more than three cadets carrying rebellion relics may be assigned to any squad of any quadrant.
—Addendum 5.2, Basgiath War College Code of Conduct
In addition to last year’s changes, marked ones assembling in groups of three or more will now be considered an act of seditious conspiracy and is hereby a capital offense.
—Addendum 5.3, Basgiath War College Code of Conduct
CHAPTER
SEVEN
“Damn it,” I mutter as my toe catches a rock, and I stumble in the waist-high grass that grows alongside the river beneath the citadel. The moon is nice and full, illuminating my way, but it means I’m sweating to death in this cloak to keep hidden, just in case anyone else is out here wandering after curfew.
The Iakobos River rushes with summer runoff from the peaks above, and the currents are fast and deadly this time of year, especially coming out of the steep drop of the ravine. No wonder that first-year died when he fell in yesterday during our downtime. Since Parapet, our squad is the only one in the quadrant not to lose anyone, but I know that’s unlikely to last much longer in this ruthless school.
Tightening my heavy satchel over my sling, I move closer to the river, along the ancient line of oaks where I know one vine of fonilee berries will be coming into season soon. Ripe, the purple berries are tart and barely edible but, picked prematurely and left to dry, will make an excellent weapon in the growing arsenal that nine nights of sneaking out has given me. This was exactly the reason I brought the book of poisons with me.
Challenges start next week, and I need every possible advantage.
Spotting the boulder I’ve used as a landmark for the past five years, I count the trees on the riverbank. “One, two, three,” I whisper, spotting the exact oak I’ll need. Its branches spread wide and high, some even daring to reach out over the river. Lucky for me, the lowest is easily climbable, even more so with the grass oddly trampled underneath.
A twinge of pain shoots up through my shoulder as I slip my right arm out of the sling and begin to climb by moonlight and memory. The pain quickly fades to an ache, just like it has every evening while Rhiannon has been kicking my ass on the mat. Hopefully tomorrow Nolon will let me out of the annoying sling for good.
The fonilee vine looks deceptively like ivy as it winds up the trunk, but I’ve scaled this particular tree enough times to know this is the one. I’ve just never had to climb the damn thing in a cloak before. It’s a pain in my ass. The fabric catches on almost every branch as I move upward, slowly and steadily, climbing past the wide branch where I used to spend hours reading.
“Shit!” My foot slips on the bark and my heart stutters for a heartbeat while my feet find better holds. This would be so much easier during the day, but I can’t risk being caught.
Bark scrapes my palms as I climb higher. The tips of the vine leaves are white at this height, barely visible in the mottled moonlight through the canopy, but I grin as I find exactly what I’ve been searching for.
“There you are.” The purple berries are a gorgeous, unripe lavender. Perfect. Digging my fingernails into the branch above me, I manage to keep from wobbling long enough to retrieve an empty vial in my satchel and uncork it with my teeth. Then I pluck just enough berries off the vine to fill the glass and shove the stopper back in. Between these, the mushrooms I’ve already hunted tonight, and the other items I’ve collected, I should be able to make it through the next month of challenges.
I’m almost down the tree, only a handful of branches to go, when I spot movement beneath me and pause. Hopefully it’s just a deer.
But it’s not.
Two figures in black cloaks—apparently tonight’s disguise of choice—walk under the protection of the tree. The smaller one leans back against the lowest limb, removing her hood to reveal a half-shaved head of pink hair I know all too well.
Imogen, the squadmate who nearly ripped off my arm ten days ago.
My stomach tightens, then knots as the second rider slips off his own hood.
Xaden Riorson.
Oh shit.
There’s maybe fifteen feet between us and nothing—and no one—out here to stop him from killing me. Fear clenches my throat and holds tight as I white-knuckle the branches around me, debating the merits of holding my breath so he can’t hear me versus falling out of the tree if I faint from lack of oxygen.
They begin speaking, but I can’t hear what they’re saying, not with the river rushing by. Relief fills my lungs. If I can’t hear them, they can’t hear me, either, as long as I sit tight. But all it takes is for him to look up, and I’ll be toast, literally if he decides to feed me to that Blue Daggertail of his. The moonlight I was thankful for a few minutes ago has now become my biggest liability.
Slowly, carefully, quietly, I move out of the patchy moonlight to the next branch over, cloaking myself in shadow. What is he doing out here with Imogen? Are they lovers? Friends? It’s absolutely none of my business, and yet I can’t help but wonder if she’s the kind of woman he goes for—one whose beauty is only outmatched by her brutality. They fucking deserve each other.
Xaden turns away from the river, as though he’s looking for someone, and sure enough, more riders arrive, gathering under the tree. They’re all dressed in black cloaks as they shake hands. And they all have rebellion relics.
My eyes widen as I count. There are almost two dozen of them, a few third-years and a couple of seconds, but the rest are all firsts. I know the rules. Marked ones can’t gather in groups larger than three. They’re committing a capital offense simply by being together. It’s obviously a meeting of some sort, and I feel like a cat clinging to the leaf-tipped limbs of this tree while the wolves circle below.
