Page 147 of Wings of Destruction

“You’re not going to regret this.” My arms are trembling when I face her.

I spent too long frozen in one position and with the blood flow returning to my fingers, the next few minutes aren’t going to be pretty.

My breath comes hard and fast as a hard stone drops into the bottomless pit in my gut.

Faye scans my face, pocketing the stolen knife into the folds of her gray dress. The movement is swift enough for me to automatically dismiss it as sleight of hand.

“Stay out of trouble, will you?” She stares down the hall over my shoulder. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

I flash her a grin. “It’s much too late for that. Thanks, Faye.”

She grunts out some kind of dismissal before heading back to the sink and whatever it was she’d been tasked to do. I take off in the opposite direction.

I know what’s coming next. A flash of pain bites as I work my wrists in a circle and ignore the pins and needles. They’ll search the school for me. I might not agree to their deal but they aren’t going to let me out of this place without punishment, no matter how delightfully grim my plan is to disappear into the forest.

I won’t make it out the door and I know it. I slap a hand against the wall to steady myself and take the flight of stairs one careful tread at a time. At the top, my knees lock into place. One more flight.

I pump my arms for speed and run up to the final spiral staircase leading up to the world above, away from the subterranean prison they throw all the maids into. I take the stairs quickly and slip on one of the treads, grabbing the railing to keep myself from tumbling backward.

My teeth grind together. Fear is worse than anything else. I should be used to it at this point. It’s been lurking beneath the surface for years. Since my father disappeared, swallowed into the war effort, never to come home again.

Now, fear joins merrily with resentment and displeasure on my frantic dash up to the main hallway and the back door leading to the forest. I don’t want to die.

My heart nearly explodes when I push open the paneling to the main hall and scan the crowd for Kieran. Noxious laughter rings out as the students enjoy their dinner feast. I sneer in their general direction, then sag, losing my fire.

The panel opens up near the rear of the castle overlooking the threadbare forest beyond. The training fields are out there. So are the trails where I lost Kieran and his friends the other night. The tears spring free, burning on their way out, and I swipe them away before they make it past my nose.

Becoming a student, going on with my life like my mother wasn’t murdered by the general, feels like a fate worse than death.

I can’t serve the general and follow the orders of a man who killed my mother and sister. He’s a monster in every sense of the word. He’s a disease spreading across the kingdom and devouring anyone who stands in his way.

I’m not dancing to his tune.

If he wants to step in and try to save face, or play savior, before I beat his girlfriend to a bloody pulp, then it’s a personal problem. That doesn’t mean I’m going down on my knees with gratitude for his overstepping.

I’m not his problem.

And I’ll take the whip. If I survive whatever barbaric beatdown Evie decides to give me, then I’ll take my chances in the mines. End of story.

My back aches like the first phantom ghosts of the whip already scrape against my bare skin. Turning away from the window, from the views of outside where I have no chance of escape, I head to the classroom.

They’ll hunt me through the forest if I try. And maybe that’s where they want me to go, to enjoy the hunt and use it as a training exercise for their students.

I make a split-second decision to go in the opposite direction.

The majority of the noise comes from the dining hall I’d spent most of the day cleaning.

The privileged and pampered nobles will be there gorging themselves and wondering at Evie’s absence, surely. She’s their queen bee. They’ll know it if she isn’t in her usual place on the bench, holding court.

There’s no place for me there.

Me and Evie, in the same room? It’s a recipe for disaster.

And those thoughts feel like a copout.

I thought there might be once. Before everything fell apart. I thought I’d finally have a chance to spread my wings and find my own seat on the bench. But I’m not the same type of person as Evie, or Kieran and his friends. I’ve never been good at playing pretend.

I’m not going to grovel at their feet for a chance to live.