I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt too tight. I didn’t want to kill vampires. I stared at Kace, wondering when or if I’d ever see him again.Marry me, Aesira. It hit me that maybe he’d been afraid to kiss me because he always knew I was different, he always wondered if he’d lose me to the guilds and the wall that separated our worlds.
“Kace, it’s alright,” I said again. “I’ll be fine. Tell my family I love them.”
“Aesira,” his voice was a plea, his brown eyes full of sorrow.
One of the mages whispered, “Interesting eyes. A sign of magic?” A middle-aged scholar woman with silver spectacles raised her brows in surprise as I passed.
“Sira.” Kace’s expression hardened, and he was the chieftain’s son at this moment, not my friend. “I’ll talk to my father. We’ll get you home soon.”
All I could manage was a nod. With Kace backing away, the white-haired man finally released me, and I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Focused on blocking out all the new sounds, and the fear of the unknown. I felt like I was wading through water, my body heavy and strange. Was it the drink or the fact that this didn’t feel real?
“Forget about him,” murmured one of the male assassins. “You won’t be seeing him anymore.”
I turned my head, gaze flicking between each of them, trying to figure out who spoke. None of them gave any signs. Forget about him? He was my best friend. He was... home. But they didn’t know that. They wouldn’t care either. Even as a chieftain’s son, they would see him as a peasant, someone to be forgotten and discarded... the feed.
It disgusted me to even look at everyone here and how they cheered to be chosen. I no longer found Nighthaven fascinating, I no longer wanted to be inside these high walls. I’d rather live in my tiny village and hide in the dark than become like them.
I bumped into the back of the freckled boy. He turned and grinned. His eyes were now almost luminescent, like crushed diamonds were scattered inside the green irises. They hadn’t been that way before. “So, you are ducai after all. Welcome. Now we see what guild we belong to.”
“We don’t get to choose?” On the opposite side of the platform and down the steps to the massive tapestry, initiates funneled through an archway. I looked for my father once again but could no longer find him in the crowd. If I knew him, he wasgoing to talk to Kace and our chieftain. They would make a plan to get me home.
“No, you will be selected for a guild.”
My mind whirled at what that could mean. “I have no say at all? I want to be a scholar.”
He grimaced but I didn’t understand why. “You will see in a moment. Now that you get to stay, tell me your name?”
“No, tell me why you looked at me like that first.”
“Well, from what I know, most ducai from outside are put into the warriors’ guild. They have the highest recruitment numbers.”
“So I can go die?” I rasped. Because they still didn’t see us as anything but expendable. My father warned me women had to fight, but we didn’t even take night watch in my village. There was no expectation for us to do so. I was woefully ill-prepared for this.
He held up his palms like he was trying to stave off a wild animal. “Calm down, you’ll be trained. They aren’t going to just send you out to battle with a weapon you don’t know how to use. Maybe you could be an archer or the like. They don’t want you to die.” He dropped his hands and cleared his throat. “I’m Taewyn.”
“Aesira,” I muttered, dazed. My father specifically saidnotto become a warrior. I was going to be sick.
“Single file line for magic testing!” A bald, purple-robed mage called, walking past us. His long, black beard was forked into two braids.
“Hey, maybe you’ll get to be a mage,” Taewyn said cheerfully, stepping behind me rather than beside me. “I wish I had magic. It’s rare, though.”
One could only hope, but I’d never felt the spark of magic in me. I would know by now, wouldn’t I?
“Do my eyes sparkle like yours? Is it forever?”
“That won’t last. It’s from the drink. It interacts with your blood and shows in the eyes if you’re ducai. It fades after an hour or so.”
My hearing still felt much too sensitive, almost chaotic. It took me a moment to realize that the steady thumping sound I heard was Taewyn’s heart beating. The chatter of the girls ahead of me, the birds chirping from the top of the tapestry, and the old crone yelling out “ducai!”
A deafening cheer erupted from the crowd. I twisted around to see who was worthy of such applause. It was a strong-looking man with chestnut hair. He was slender but had an athletic build. He threw a fist into the air, and the crowd cheered again. I almost put my hands over my ears to block the loudness. “And the other intense senses?”
“Will go back to normal. Mine is already fading.”
The two other boys behind Taewyn and me greeted the newest ducai to join with fist-bumping and roughly patted him on the back. “Do you know him?” I asked quietly.
Taewyn rolled his eyes and let out an irritated groan. “Unfortunately. That’s Morrow. Thinks he’s a gift from the gods. I’d do your best not to draw his attention.”
I almost asked why, but I didn’t need to.
