~
After the break, I hardly ever saw Phoenix. He stayed by Eleanora’s side as if she were a life support. Communal meals in the mess hall grew quieter and quieter, until I asked Jett if I could eat alone; I was tired of everyone glancing at me and whispering. I noticed that the whispers seemed to be from the Lotherian mages only.
“Don’t fret about it,” Dena said when I mentioned it. “Just ignore them.”
The whispers came to a head in our first riding class of second term. Professor Alena, impressed with our progress, was letting us have a gymkhana of sorts. We split into two teams, and I managed to end up on the opposing team to Eleanora. My stomach shifted nervously and Echo, sensing my discomfort, shifted anxiously beneath me. I pretended not to see the malevolent looks Eleanora was shooting me, and tried to calm myself.
Since the Du’rangor, I’d been more on edge. I didn’t like the dark, I hated loud noises and when Ispin had surprised me around a corner, I managed to curse him so bad that he couldn’t speak for a few days.
“Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Rain had said, patting me on the shoulder.
But I hadn’t meant to do it. The magic had just burst out of me, and had someone asked me to do it again, I probably couldn’t have.
So already I’d managed to gain a reputation of late. I wasn’t the girl who had killed a Du’rangor with only a knife; I was the girl who jumped at loud noises.
So that hot afternoon, the sun beating down on our shoulders, I knew, I just knew, Eleanora was going to do something. I wasn’t sure what, but I knew it wouldn’t be something I was going to enjoy. As a result, I was even more on edge.
I watched Dena race Petre and win, in the barrel race. Someone had dobbed in Echo and I for the sprint, and my heart sank when I realised I was going up against Phoenix, who’d been pitted against me by his girlfriend. I refused to look at him as we lined up.
“To the marker at the other end,” Professor Alena said, and Phoenix and I peered ahead, to where we could just see a post in the distance. “Ready? And... Go!”
Echo was off before I could do anything. We barrelled down the course at a full gallop and I felt as though I was riding an avalanche down a mountain side. I leant forwards, urging her faster, her hooves flashing beneath us. On our right flank, Phoenix and Validus didn’t even try to pull even.
Hang on? Was he trying to let me win?
Before I could pursue this thought anymore, I caught a glimpse of what looked like a purple ribbon streaking beneath Echo’s hooves. She immediately shied away from it, whinnying. I fought to keep my balance, but then lost it completely as she reared in terror. I felt myself leaving the saddle and quickly kicked my feet free of the stirrups.
I hit the ground hard, on my left side. I felt the air shoot out of my lungs at the same time I felt a sickening crack jolt up my left arm. I curled into a ball as Echo snorted, still prancing, her sharp hooves hitting the ground close to my head.
Oh geez. I was going to be killed by my own horse.
I was dimly aware of Phoenix bringing Validus to a halt as Dena and Professor Alena ran to us. Luckily we hadn’t gotten very far down the course.
Phoenix immediately went to Echo, catching her bridle as she tried to rear again, murmuring to her. She calmed down, her ears flicking forward as she listened to whatever he was saying.
I clutched my arm and gasped at the pain. I knew straight away that it was broken.
Phoenix knelt down next to me, having calmed Echo to a point where she no longer needed his attention.
“Let me see it,” he commanded, reaching for my arm.
“Don’t touch me!” I cried, scooting away from him, the pain making me irrational.
He promptly ignored that and put his arm around my shoulders, helping me sit up better. Dena arrived in a flurry of dust and frantic worrying.
“Let me see it,” she said quickly, seeing me clutch my arm close.
I held it out to her, completely trusting of my best friend. I thought I noticed Phoenix’s shoulders slump as I showed Dena the trust I refused to show him. She’d barely probed it with gentle fingers when I yelped with pain, my arm growing simultaneously hot and cold.
“It’s broken,” she said without a trace of doubt. “We need to get you to the infirmary.”
Phoenix helped me to my feet, pulling me in close to his chest to steady me. I could feel his heart pounding in his chest, his strong fingers gripping my shoulder so I couldn’t fall.
“Sky!” Dustin arrived with the rest of the class, and Phoenix stepped away smoothly. He immediately steadied me as Phoenix had done. I’d barely noticed when my soul mate had relinquished me. “Are you alright, are you hurt?”
No, I felt like snapping back. My arm always looks like this.
“Her arm is broken,” Dena told him, saving Dustin from any snappish replies that were coming his way. “We need to take her back to the castle, I can’t treat it out here.”
Dustin helped me back to the castle, Dena and Professor Alena by my side.
“Echo,” I murmured.
“Phoenix has got her,” Dena said. “He’ll look after her.”
The cool castle was a relief when we finally reached it. I could hear Professor Alena taking charge of the class again as Dena and Dustin helped me towards the infirmary. When we got there, Jett was waiting.
“Broken arm, is it?” he asked, strangely informed. “Dena, come here. This is perfect.”
“Perfect?” I asked weakly as I was helped onto one of the stark white beds. “My broken arm is perfect?”
“I was about to teach Dena some advanced healing anyway,” he replied, beginning to cut away my sleeve. I bit my lip to keep from crying out in pain. “Broken bones were next on our list.”
He cut the rest of the sleeve away, and we all examined my arm. Purplish yellow bruising already marked it. This didn’t stop Jett from picking it up and showing it to Dena.
“If you’ve been reading the books I gave you, you should be able to tell me which bone in her arm is broken.”
Dena settled her glasses on her nose, and then peered closer. I felt a little better when she took my arm in her cool fingers, but that feeling immediately vanished when she began prodding my skin. I flinched but refused to show any more pain than that.
“I think it’s her radius,” she said. “Did you land on it, Sky?”
I nodded, nausea beginning to grow in my stomach.
“I think you shattered it,” she said, and for the first time she looked uncertain. “Jett, I can’t fix shattered bones just yet.”
“Yes you can,” he said. “Remember the theory, and put it into practice.”
Dena bit her lip and looked at me.
“Do you trust me, Sky?”
“Yes,” I replied without hesitation.
Dena took a breath, as though she’d been hoping I wouldn’t say that I did. Carefully, she held my elbow and my wrist, closing her eyes.
Over the next half an hour she worked steadily, Jett guiding her when she needed assurance. Dustin watched on in interest for the first ten minutes or so, but then wandered over to the window. I grit my teeth and looked at the ceiling, as much of my arm went through a whole range of feelings. After half an hour, Dena put my arm back on the bed and wiped her sweaty brow.
“There,” she said. “How does it feel?”
I wriggled my fingers, and then gingerly lifted my arm off of the mattress. It felt fine, only a little weak.
“You’ll have to do some exercises in the mornings now,” Dena was saying. “To get the arm back to fully functional, but I think I’ve repaired most of the damage.”
“Wow, thanks,” I said softly. I had a friend who could heal broken bones. “You’re really amazing, Dena.”
“If you could tell me that more often, that’d be great,” she said, grinning widely.
“You did well,” Jett said, clapping her on the shoulder. “I’ll chat to the matrons, see if yo
u could do some weekends in the city hospital in Castor.”
Dena’s eyes shone from behind her glasses.
“I would really like that,” she said finally, excitement making her curls quiver.
I made sure to stay away from Eleanora after that. I knew without a doubt that she had made Echo shy on purpose, in the hopes of injuring me. I wondered why? She was dating my soul mate, I was supposed to be the one who hated her.
“She’s jealous,” Rain said when I mentioned it at dinner one night. “She feels threatened by you.”
“Why?” I was completely clueless, struggling to think what I could have possibly done to make her feel that way.
“You’re one of the best students in the class,” Ispin said, gesturing wildly with his fork, Yasmin ducking hurriedly out of the way. “Because she’s local born, she’s somehow gotten the idea in her head that she’s meant to be the best.”
“But she is,” I protested.
It was true. Eleanora had quickly outpaced us in terms of grades and combat. She was Yu’s star pupil, and Watt would walk to the end of the earth for her if she said she needed something.
“Oh stop making a fuss, Sky,” Petre said irritably, sawing at his steak like it had done something to offend him. “You’re the best out of all of us, stop trying to deny it.”
I sat with my mouth hanging open, waiting for a retort to come. My mind went blank as we all watched Petre stuff his mouth in a most undignified manner.
“Is everything alright?” Yasmin asked, laying a hand on her soul mate’s arm.
“No it very well isn’t,” he snapped, bits of steak flying across the table. Theresa, Dena and I held up our textbooks to shield ourselves from the airborne beef. “Father has not been responding to my letters.”
“Maybe he’s busy,” Yasmin suggested calmly. “Your father has a whole estate to run, don’t forget.”
“He said he’d write every week,” Petre said, slightly calmer but still manic by his terms. I cast a glance at Dena, who raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “He hasn’t.”
“Petre, if that’s all you’ve got to worry about, then it’s nothing,” Yasmin gnawed her lip for a second before saying, “Those of us who are from the human world will never hear from our families again.”
My heart went cold, as it always did when I thought about Mum in our house on her own. I’d spent too many nights worrying about her; I needed to accept the fact that this world was my new home.
“I’m worried,” Petre confessed finally. “In his last few letters he mentioned that some of the livestock had been disappearing. In the very last letter I got from him, the latest one to go missing was a small boy.”
We stopped eating, finally giving Petre our undivided attention.
“Did he mention anything else?” I asked quietly.
He looked up, meeting my eyes.
“There was something,” he looked down again. “One of the cows was found in the northern fields. It had died during the night, and parts of it had been eaten by something very large. But Father said that, despite the obvious injuries, they couldn’t figure out how it had died. He said,” he took a deep breath, refusing to meet my eyes, and suddenly goose bumps rippled along my skin. “He said, it was though it had died of fright.”
I knew it. I knew there couldn’t only be one of them around.
“So your estate is being stalked by a Du’rangor,” I said, surprised at how calmly I said the words. “And now you’re worried that something really awful has happened.”
“Something already has, Sky,” Theresa reminded me none so gently. “A little boy has been taken.”
Only I, looking down in shame, noticed Petre’s knuckles turn white as he gripped his fork.
“We should go to your estate,” Dena was saying. “See if there’s anything we can do.”
“What can we do?” Ispin asked. He’d gone very white beneath his freckles.
“Well, one of us in our midst has already killed a Du’rangor,” Dena said, and my belly flipped over. “Maybe she could do it again.”
Say you can’t! My mind begged of me. But I said nothing, only clutched at the table so that the others wouldn’t notice my trembling fingers.
So the following day we went to Jett, asking if we could spend the upcoming long weekend exploring Petre’s estate.
“They want to see Abdoor,” Petre drawled, very convincingly. “Father says it’s alright.”
“Then I have nothing to complain about,” Jett said, quickly scrawling his signature on the note we’d handed him. “I’ll give this to Iain and Netalia. Are you sure you don’t need any of the professors to go with you?”
It almost sounded like he was offering. Petre shook his head.
“I know the road to Riverdoor like the back of my hand,” he said.
As the others filed out of the room, I stayed behind to ask something that would hopefully tip the scales in my favour against this rumoured Du’rangor.
“Could I take my swords, Jett?” I asked, trying not to let too much of my desperation shine through.
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I can practice with them more,” it wasn’t exactly a lie. “Away from the Academy, away from Netalia.”
He hesitated, and I felt almost certain that he wasn’t going to let me. But then he relented.
“Alright. I’ll bring them out to you when you leave on Saturday morning.”
“Thank you,” I breathed.
Friday night rolled around too quickly for my taste. I packed carefully, making sure to take every dagger and every charm I’d managed to collect at the Academy. I lay in bed, trying to convince myself that I needed to sleep, that I wouldn’t be doing myself any good by keeping myself awake thinking about the last time I’d battled a Du’rangor.
But it was no good. Every time I closed mine, the Du’rangor’s eyes gleamed in the darkness behind my lids. A few times I dozed off, only to jerk awake as a large, black paw swiped at me from the darkness. When dawn began to break, I watched it from atop my bed in my pyjamas, one arm hanging outside my window that was yet to be closed since my taking up residence in the castle.
When the bell arrived to wake me up, I swatted at it half-heartedly and then climbed onto my floor to do my push ups, taking special care of my recently healed arm. The bell hovered for a moment as though watching me, and then dropped out of the window.
I was the first one at the stables with my duffel bag. Echo seemed ashamed to see me, but I managed to mollify her with the sugar cube I’d been saving.
“It’s alright,” I murmured, leaning against her and stroking her glossy coat. “I saw what really happened, and I don’t blame you in the slightest,” I showed her my arm. “See? All better.”
She inspected the arm, and then blew warm air over me. The others arrived in various degrees of sleep deprived states. Together we saddled our horses and double checked we’d packed everything. I was starting to think that Jett wasn’t going to show up when he appeared in the doorway of the stable, carrying my two swords wrapped in canvas.
“Don’t put them on until you’re far away from here,” he warned.
He left before I could ask why. Was Netalia really that wound up about it? I tucked the swords behind my saddle and we set off into the sunrise.
It was pretty much the same journey as going to Moon Bay; there was almost no other traffic on the road, even when we passed Keyes. By the time we reached our rest stop for the night, a small camp ground that Petre had marked on his map, we’d been the only ones present on the road that day.
We set up tents and set about cooking some of the dehydrated food we’d brought with us. There was an unspoken tension between all of us, and it did not alleviate when Ispin tried to get a duelling competition going to try to loosen us all up. In the end we just crawled into our separate tents without saying goodnight.
After a mostly restless night the night before, I managed to snag a few hours of sleep on the hard g
round. By the time the sun was rising though, my nerves were beginning to hum again. Today, by this evening, we would be in Petre’s estate, the alleged hunting grounds of another Du’rangor.
“What I want to know is, how are they getting here?” I asked nobody in particular as we rode, breaking the almost twenty four hour silence. “They’re native to Gannameade, and they can’t swim, otherwise the one on the Paw Islands would’ve just paddled over to the mainland and had a banquet.”
Nobody answered; I hadn’t really expected them too.
Everyone was growing sorer and sorer as the sun began to fall. We crossed the state border to Abdoor almost without realising it, though we were beginning to see more traffic on the roads.
“They’re all heading away from Abdoor,” Rain said quietly as we passed a family headed decidedly in the opposite direction to us. The children stared at me as they passed, their eyes round with amazement.
“It’s almost like they’ve never seen students before,” I half joked.
“They haven’t,” Petre answered from up the front. “Once we’re reaped, we almost never return home.”
“Why?” I asked in amazement, but he didn’t reply.
As soon as we crossed the border, I noticed a change in the surroundings. The trees were shorter, sparser, and the few streams we crossed were almost completely dry, the water struggling through mud and leaves. My misgivings increased by the mile, and when we reached Riverdoor, I was proven correct.
The state was in poverty. The city was hunched and dry, as though trying to protect itself. Beggars peered up at us, pleading with their eyes. Ragged mothers hurried to and fro carrying children who cried for their hungry bellies. I set my mouth in a tight line, locking my gaze straight ahead.
We reached Petre’s estate just on the other side of the main city. I was confused to see green lawns, with neat servants hurrying about. They met us at the gates.
“Master,” they said, bowing reverently to Petre over and over. “Your Father is not expecting you.”
“I know,” he replied simply, handing them his horse’s reins. “My friends and I will be staying for a while. Please bring their luggage inside.”
Something hot was beginning to grow under my skin, and I realised that I was furious. A servant tried to take Echo’s reins when I dismounted.
“It’s alright,” I said to him. “I can do it. Where are the stables please?”
He stared in amazement for just a second, and then escorted me to the stables. I untacked Echo and groomed her, then made sure she was fed and watered. I followed the others inside the mansion, and more servants met us in the entrance hall.
“This way, miss,” one of them, an elderly lady, said to me, gesturing up the stairs. I followed her, reluctantly peeling off from the others.
She showed me to a small, comfortable room on the second floor. She stayed with me as I unwrapped my swords from the canvas to make sure they hadn’t been damaged on the journey.
“You shouldn’t have come here, miss,” the woman spoke suddenly behind me. “There has been strange goings on here.”
“Funny,” I replied, half removing one of my swords from its scabbard to inspect the blade. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Miss, they say an evil lurks here!”
“I know,” I slid the blade back into the sheath with a sharp snap. “We’re here to kill it.”
I continued unpacking as she left me alone with my thoughts. I was slowly coming to the realisation of what was happening in this state, but I wasn’t going to jump to any conclusions without finding proof.
I met the others at the base of the stairs. Petre came back from another part of the mansion and showed us to his father’s office. We entered the majestic room with deep burgundy carpet and mahogany panelled walls. It was the office of a rich man.
One glance at Petre’s father told me that he wasn’t revelling in his wealth. His face was drawn, haggard, as though he hadn’t slept for a long time. He kept rubbing his chin, and from the state of his beard it was obvious that this had become an unconscious habit. I also didn’t miss the fact that he wore a long sword at his side, and I was willing to bet there were more weapons stashed away out of sight.
“You shouldn’t have come to Riverdoor,” he began, standing before us. He was a tall man, over six feet with brown hair greying at his temples. His eyes, though... his eyes were the eyes of a man who was grieving.
I suddenly glanced at Petre who was standing in a far corner. His eyes were far away as he stared out of the window, and suddenly I knew the real reason why we’d come here.
“There is a monster stalking these lands,” Petre’s father went on. “Otherwise I would welcome you all.”
“We knew about the monster,” I told him quietly. “That is the real reason we have come.”
Something like interest flickered in his weary eyes, but it was quickly extinguished.
“What can seven untrained mages do against a beast like the Du’rangor?” he asked, almost whispering.
“I’ve killed one before,” I said. “I can do it again.”
The frown lines between his eyes deepened.
“You’ve killed one before?” he repeated slowly, and I felt myself go red as I nodded. I wasn’t usually one for self promotion. “But where would you find another one? It is strange enough that this one is here, they are not native to this land.”
As Dena explained the story of the Paw Island Du’rangor, I tried to catch Yasmin’s eye. I didn’t need to though; she’d already spotted Petre in the corner and, like me, had drawn to the real conclusion about why we were here.
“We’d like the opportunity to help you,” I said to the man before us. “Please, let us.”
He hesitated for just a moment, but then nodded.
“We have no mages here. Petre was the only one born for years. Any man we’ve sent after it has not come back.”
“Why would you send people after it?” Theresa asked, who had obviously not clued on. “It’s a dangerous creature, wouldn’t you try to avoid it?”
“Because it started stalking the townsfolk, didn’t it, sir?” he nodded once and I went on. “Because it took your son.”
Petre crumpled in the corner, Yasmin’s arms around him as tears flowed down both of their faces. The man in front of me stood steadfast, though he, too, threatened to fold.
“You are quick,” he said hoarsely. “Yes. It took my son. Petre’s little brother. In my desperation I put out a reward for the creature’s death. The townsfolk leapt at the opportunity to earn some money, to put food on the table for their families.”
“But they never came back, did they?” I asked. He shook his head. “And now you’re plagued by a creature that howls in the night and terrifies all that hear it.”
He nodded.
“If you claim that you can kill the beast, then please, do so. My name is Hugh. I am Lord of this estate.”
We took our cue and bowed as we’d been taught. He waved the motion away, though we were well within our rights. He was a Lord of the state; we were untrained mages. In a few years, when we finished our schooling, our status would rank with his.
Lord Hugh took us to another room, one which had been covered with maps of every kind. Books were open on the long table which took up most of the room. I peered at one as we filed around the table; they were books on the native animals of Gannameade, the Du’rangor in particular.
“We are trying to figure out how the cursed beast got here,” Lord Hugh said when he saw me looking at the books. “Its presence is not normal, nor is the circumstance in which we find ourselves.”
We gathered around the map of Abdoor. Yasmin and Petre were still missing from our number. I suddenly realised that Petre had been dealing with this on his own, for a week. My insides writhed with guilt, but I knew that no matter how bad I felt, it couldn’t be anything compared to what Yasmin was feeling. As his soul mate, she could practically read his mind. He must’ve buried
this matter deep for her not to know.
“The first time we started noticing livestock getting attacked and going missing was here,” Lord Hugh tapped a small patch of land on the map. We examined it closely; there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary with it. “And then the deaths began to move closer to the township, to the estate. We didn’t notice anything at first; we thought it was just wolves or carrier birds. But then we began to notice the prints.”
“Paw prints?”
“Yes. Larger than any carnivore we have around here. And when it took Sammy, we knew that wolves would not be brazen enough to enter the estate grounds. We knew we were dealing with something much more worrying.”
The weather had grown steadily worse since we had begun to talk. The few scattered clouds that had escorted us into the state had worked themselves up in thunderclouds. They rolled through the sky, threatening rain at any second. Outside, the trees lining the drive were thrashing about, as though trying to tear themselves free of the earth.
“One of the local boys, himself from Gannameade, recognized the prints and told us what they belonged to. We scoffed at him, of course; how could a creature only found in Gannameade be here in Lotheria? But after a few more days of losing livestock and hearing the howls for ourselves, we had to concede that he’d been right after all.”
“Where do you think it has been hiding?” Theresa asked, pouring over the map.
Lord Hugh pointed out what appeared to be a small swamp on the map.
“Here, in the marshlands. It is where we’ve heard the howls every night; it is where the tracks lead back to.”
Marshlands. No tall trees grew in the marshland. I wouldn’t be able to out climb the Du’rangor if it began to overpower me. I would have to face it, on level ground.
There was some consolation; instead of a small dagger, I had two full length swords that I could enchant, as well as a series of charms that I’d be able to set off if the danger became too much.
Too much. The stakes were already too high. The Du’rangor I’d fought and killed on Paw Island had been the most dangerous creature I’d ever met. When I was little, my mother would take me to the zoo and show me the large cats. I’d press my hands and face against the glass as every other kid did and watch them, but never did I think that I’d be fighting and killing some distant relation of theirs.
And the large cats in the zoo seemed quite content to laze about all day; I remember them draped over warm rocks, soaking up the sun, occasionally flicking an ear to keep the humans entertained. But nothing could have prepared me for the ferocity of their attack, the way they moved like molten metal, an unstoppable force, a veritable whirlwind of claws and fangs.
Also, Du’rangors could kill simply by howling. One nick of a claw or a tooth and we would be paralysed as our blood boiled in our veins.
At least, I thought morbidly, we can’t be eaten if that happens.
We spoke with Lord Hugh for another hour before night began to fall and our stomachs began to rumble. He rang for his servants and told them to begin dinner. I couldn’t help but notice the look of relief on their faces, and I realised that maybe our visit, even if we didn’t succeed in killing the Du’rangor, would boost the Lord’s spirits. From the look of relief on the kitchen staff’s faces, I guessed that he hadn’t been eating of late, and they were worried they were going to find themselves out of a job.
“There is a lot we could do here,” I murmured to Dena as we headed back to our rooms to clean up for dinner. “The entire state seems miserable. I want to help.”
She nodded.
“I was thinking much the same,” she admitted, and then her shoulders slumped. “Poor Petre.”
A pit grew in my stomach with every step as I remembered the way Petre had broken down in the office.
I’d never had siblings. I didn’t even have little cousins. It had always just been me and Mum, so I’d never been around kids really, except for when I was one. But nevertheless I felt Petre’s pain, definitely not to the same degree, but at the same time I was filled with a newfound desire to ram a sword into the eyes of this child-killing beast.