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“Another full mark!”
Dammit.
“If I may say so, it is a true pleasure to have two remarkable students in one class,” our teacher gushes. “I’ve never had so many perfect scores in one term. There must be something in the Ravelyn water.”
I can sense the gazes of the entire class focusing on me, most of them resentful.
I should have a chat with Heffur, ask him to leave me out of such effusive praise in the future, if only to avoid getting stabbed in the back.
“Like that tramp’s spawn ever tasted Ravelyn water,” one short-haired, sophisticated brunette seethes.
She’s taller than most, slender and dressed with care. I envy the sleek bob cut at her chin, if only because the style must take far less maintenance than my own stupid hair. Her sleeveless silver blouse, cut out under the breasts, would look downright lewd on most women, but her willow silhouette allows it. Her leather skirt is short, but paired with thick, form-fitting pants and knee-high boots. If she didn’t look like she’d love nothing more than to scratch my eyes out, I’d ask where she shops.
I’m taken aback by the level of spite in her voice.
It’s not the first insult I’ve heard—not even the first this week—but it’s delivered with disproportionate hostility. Maybe because her potion looks like something out of the wrong end of a dog—and smells like it, too.
The teacher clears his throat. “That was uncalled for, Lady Gyrth.”
The name rings a bell, though I couldn’t say where she’s from, or anything else about her. Since the start of the year, my focus has been fixed on my schoolwork and nothing else.
I haven’t tried to make friends. The school is filled with spoiled brats born with silver spoons in their mouths. How am I supposed to even communicate with the like of them? They dislike me because Zale Devar decreed they should.
“It’s true,” the woman insists, lips tight. “She’s a common girl, born in the sewers of Magnapolis, no matter how many times you call her a lady.”
Well, I suppose the duke did warn me that some might take umbrage to my heritage. Still, her tone’s too resentful for someone I’ve never done anything to. I can’t quite understand the extent of her animosity.
“Adelaid.” That’s all the king says, just her first name, but she immediately pinches her mouth shut, though she shoots me a deadly stare. “No need to engage the rabble.”
She grins at the slight, expecting the words to wound me, I think.
They don’t. I am part of the rabble, and I don’t care. I won’t have it any other way. Better a common girl with values and determination than a child riding on my family’s fortune.
I feel no shame as to what I am. By the hells, I’m proud of it. Scientists say the brains of commons work slower, less efficiently than those of demis, and yet, in classes filled with their kind, I am the first.
Done organizing my bag, so as to avoid breaking any of the fragile utensils, I prepare to stand just as the king gets to his feet.
I immediately decide to plant my ass at my desk, to avoid moving in the same direction as him.
He drags his high-collared black jacket up his shoulders and shoves his hands in his pocket before sauntering toward the door.
He doesn’t bother to gather his stuff or clean up the mess on his work counter, arrogant bastard that he is.
I tense as his steps take him to the front of the room, but he walks past my desk this time, so I breathe out in relief.
Then, he stops.
“Come to think of it, Gyrth makes a fair point.”
It takes me a while to realize he’s talking to me while he’s staring at the door, but he slowly turns and pins me with that unsettling and now familiar cold stare of his piercing blue eyes.
My heart starts to gallop in my chest. That can’t be good. He doesn’t interact with me directly, and I prefer it that way.
“You’ve yet to see your new country and pay your respects at court, Lady Rhodes.” Irony drips from the two last words.
I’ve never hated a person before.
I despise the system designed to only serve the ruling minority, and I loathe the upper society as a whole for their utter contempt toward my kind, but individuals? I like or dislike someone depending on their behavior towards me. Hatred is extreme and personal. And yet I hate Zale Devar. I detest him because of his casual cruelty, because he thinks himself above me due to an accident of birth, and because he was given so many blessings and chose to become a toxic ass, rather than using them to help others.
