Page 2 of Tears of Gold

The ground underfoot shakes with a rogue earthquake, and I lose my footing with a squeak. Harper grabs me around the waist, his arm flexing with strength as he steadies me.

“Easy, tiger.” He smiles as I stare into his face, watching his brown curls slide into his eyes.

I clear my throat and take my time rebalancing, the warmth of his touch sinking deeper than my skin.

When the tremor dies away, he points to the school buildings towering over us. “Alright, last one up the hill has to do the other’s laundry!”

“What!?”

He takes off.

“Sneaky bastard!” I cry, plowing up the steep, grassy slope between the oval and the academy buildings.

∞∞∞

I slide into my seat in the qi physics class, trying not to look at the empty desk behind me where Chengan Yu once sat. Him, I remember. Chengan was the first student to make me feel welcome at De Tuan Academy, yet he was responsible for four attempts on my life and my abduction.

The rumors around the school say he also injured Prince Erritt badly. The friendly elemental’s easy-going and lightly flirtatious manner sucked me in since Chengan never seemed to look down on me for being human, like everyone else, so I thought I could trust him.

But I was wrong.

If he could be so dangerously two-faced, what about the guys I can’t remember? Can I trust them? My body reacts strongly to Skye and Erritt, that’s for sure, but I can’t tell if it’s out of fear, attraction, or something else.

And Harper? All I know is that he feels familiar and comfortable. He’s not even asking me to try and remember him.

Jisu Me-oke, an elemental, drops into the seat beside me, flipping his long ponytail of black hair over his shoulder. He gives me a tight-lipped smile before slouching down, and I nod. As Chengan’s best friends, Jisu and Eugene don’t know how to act around me now, and I feel just as awkward.

The counselor calls the room to order and sends the test to our tablets. I have one on loan from the school, and it’s not too different from Earth devices, but all the symbols and program names are in a script that looks like hieroglyphics. It’s a shorthand representation of English, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to learn. I only know enough to get around the device and pick up basic prompts.

There’s not much point in even doing classes, let alone tests. The subjects may as well be in a different language once they start talking about qi, which is the manifestation of cellular energy into magical powers or something like that. History, I can understand, but keeping up is hard when it’s about a world I didn’t know existed until a few months ago.

I fill in the multiple-choice answers and a few short-answer questions, listing bullet points on the long answer when I run out of words, but my heart isn’t in it. The nagging feeling of academic ideas and information existing just out of reach reflects my mental unease.

I submit the test early and collect my things, preparing to leave. Rita hisses at me and jerks a finger for me to sit back down, but I poke my tongue at her and leave anyway. My would-be assassin is dead, and no one bothers me anymore about being a human. In fact, everyone is pretty friendly to me, considering they don’t think highly of humans because we don’t have qi powers. But since I’ve returned, elementals who never used to speak to me come up to say hello, telling me they’re glad I’m back unharmed.

Although I’m not sure if I am unharmed.

Wandering the hallways, I quickly pick up a shadow. I don’t think Skye pays too much attention to classes, either, since he’s often nearby. I check over my shoulder, and our eyes meet.

“Hi,” he says, stepping beside me with a smile that reveals his dimples. Heat and adrenaline flood my core with instinctive alarm, having him so close. Is it because he’s a dragon that my pulse spikes whenever I look at him?

“Hello, Skye.” No matter what I do, I can’t seem to help the cool edge lacing my voice.

“Am I bothering you?” He doesn’t seem put off, but I’ve seen him wince when I speak coldly. He laces his hands behind his head as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. “I wouldn’t want to be the whale in the room.”

I glance at him to see if he’s making a joke, but his dark brown eyes fix on me with a serious intention, making me thaw a little.

A half smile tilts my lips. “I think you mean ‘the elephant in the room.’”

“Blazing Dragon Stars! Elephant was it? Please don’t tell Harper; he won’t let me live it down. But you know, it would help if I knew what an elephant was.” He holds up his hands in a helpless gesture.

The rest of my smile pops without warning. “I’ll draw one for you some time.”

“Sounds great!” Skye glances at me, and his shoulders relax. “How was your test?”

“I could only answer a couple of questions. I don’t see the point.”

“Why’s that?”