AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thank you, Morgan,” he said, wishing there were stronger words for his gratitude. “Really, I don’t know where I’d be without your insights.”
“You did the same for me last year,” Morgan said with a shrug. “It’s good to get an outside perspective. Love is stupid.” He laughed, grateful for the momentary relief of it. There was a touch of worry in Morgan’s smile, though. “You’re in a more dangerous situation than I ever was, though, Callan. You know you don’t have to meet her alone, right? It wouldn’t be wrong to talk to the Dean, get some backup…”
“I can’t talk to the Dean,” he said, shaking his head. “Not without putting Kaya in danger.”
“According to her, anyway,” Morgan said quietly. Callan felt an uneasy thrill run through him.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “If you promise you won’t tell anyone about any of this.”
She nodded agreement, though her expression was cryptic. “I won’t. Just… take your own good advice, alright?”
He left the party not long after that, grateful to have been able to talk it all out, even if the conversation had stirred up new worries. Was it really possible that Kaya could be a danger to him? She’d certainly blindsided him a few times now, it wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility. But what good would it do? What reason could she have to hurt her soulmate? He had to believe that she had good reasons to want to meet up. He wanted so badly to trust her… but what Morgan had said about his magic haunted him all week. And his intuition was telling him that something was very, very wrong.
Still, when the time of their meeting came around, he was waiting on the rocks. He’d been there for some time, in fact, so frightened of being late and missing her that he’d ended up arriving a full hour earlier than he needed to. It was a blustery night, the wind whipping at his light coat, and there were occasional touches of rain that never seemed to quite evolve into a proper downpour. And with the clouds covering the sky, the beach was very dark indeed. Nobody in their right mind would be down here at this time of night, especially at the end of an exhausting exam week. Just about the whole school was fast asleep by now, or at least in bed, tossing and turning with the anxiety of the impending announcement of results.
Callan envied them, standing there on the beach. He wished his exam results were the only thing he had to worry about right now. But nothing could have been further from his mind when he saw a shadow detach itself from the tree line and come down the beach towards him. Even in the near pitch-darkness of the uneasy night, something deep inside him recognized that figure, knew that when it was close enough he’d see the shine of her white-blonde hair and those gray eyes, almost the exact color of the turbulent ocean beyond them.
“Callan,” came the voice he loved, full of a breathless hope that made his heart skip a beat. “I’m so relieved you came.”
“Of course I did.” He stepped closer, reaching out to take her hands. Her skin was cold and she was trembling a little, the dark cloak she was wearing flapping around her face, but he still felt the spark between them when their hands touched. “Where did you go? How did you get off the island?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “Listen, Callan—I want to explain everything, really, but we don’t have time. We have to go. I can get us to the Fog, but I need you to come with me. The only other insula without a Mage’s Guild chapter is yours. It’s the only place I’ll be safe.”
He had so many questions that he didn’t know where to start. Leave the island? Leave the university, hiding a wanted fugitive from them? He’d never be allowed back. Callan looked into her eyes, desperately wanting to trust her, knowing in his heart that he couldn’t. She could clearly read the hesitation on his face, and he saw her expression shift, something like hurt flickering behind her fading smile.
“You don’t trust me,” she said softly, and he felt his heart ache with the urge to correct her, to go with her right then and there. He’d follow her to the ends of the earth if she asked him to, he knew that. That was the conclusion he’d come to over the last few days. And that was why he’d done what he’d done… even though it felt like the worst betrayal of his life.
“I’m sorry, Kaya,” he said softly. And as he spoke, he felt her pull her hands out of his grasp, her face already twisting with recognition as half a dozen great, dark shapes emerged from the choppy water beside them. Dragons, seawater dripping from their outstretched wings. Three of them shifted back to their humanoid shapes as they moved up the beach towards Kaya. She whirled towards the forest, then he heard her utter a low, defeated growl as she saw another three guards emerging from the trees. They were surrounded.
Shift, some rebellious part of him whispered. Why wasn’t she shifting? With a decent turn of speed, she could get into the air before they reached her, and she’d said she knew how to navigate the Fog. But she remained on the sand, silent as the night air, as the guards surrounded her and took her into custody. She didn’t look at Callan as the group began to walk back up to the school in silence.
He was grateful for that much, at least. He had a feeling that if she looked at him now, he might just crumble into dust.
Chapter 18 - Inota
Inota felt like everything around her was reaching her through a thick, dense fog of grief. It surprised her a little, how bad this felt. She’d been captured dozens of times before, and everyone involved this time was surprisingly polite. The guards had barely touched her when it had become clear she wasn’t going to try to make a break for it, though she did notice a couple of them stayed in their winged shapes, hovering above the trees as they walked up towards the university. They still hadn’t figured out that she wasn’t a dragon, then. Fascinating.
Was it Callan’s involvement that was making her feel so awful? That surprised her, too. As betrayals went, this one barely qualified as a surprise. What had she expected? She’d been lying to him since day one, and then she’d disappeared without so much as a backwards glance. Then she’d asked him to drop everything he was doing and abandon the school he loved, probably permanently, to take a woman he barely knew back to his home. A home which had very recently been attacked, she might add—although he didn’t know about her own involvement in that particular event. Add that to the long list of facts that would break his heart if he found them out.
She should have just left, she knew that now. Of course he’d turned her in. Stupid, to make contact the way she had, just wanting to see his face again. Even more stupid to turn up to the meeting wearing the old face, the face he’d fallen in love with. Reckless, and stupid, and sentimental, and now she was paying the price for it. And she hated the part of her that was still thinking about how it had felt when he held her hands, the treacherous part of her that was whispering that all of this was worth it to be by his side again.
He was talking to her, of course. Speaking in a low voice, apologizing over and over, promising that they could work this out, that he would talk to the Dean on her behalf, advocate for her. There was something so sweetly noble and naive about his utter conviction that there was a way out of this that didn’t end with her in a prison cell for the rest of her life, or dead. She knew which one she’d choose, if given the opportunity. She’d been in a kind of prison for long enough to know that absolutely nothing was worse than that.
The Dean was angrier than she’d ever seen him. His face was calm, but she could see the glint in his eye, feel the palpable force of his magic vibrating in the air. Dwarfed by his enormous desk, his little glasses perched on his nose… she wondered idly how many of his students he’d fooled with that mild, unassuming mask he wore. He was one of the most powerful dragons in the school, by her reckoning. Certainly one of the oldest, which tended to correlate with power. And when he looked at her, he saw a threat to the university he presided over, the school he clearly saw as an extension of himself. A threat to Brisant was a threat to the Dean, and Inota could tell that even his guards were uneasy in the presence of his fury.
Every dragon was the same, at the end of the day. They could mask their natures with pretty words and affectations, but when you got down to it, all they cared about was what they possessed and what they controlled. Woe betide the soul who got between a dragon and his hoard. Was that how Callan thought of her? Was that what he meant, when he said she was his soulmate, when he claimed that he loved her? She felt a cold chill run down her spine at the thought. And though both Callan and the Dean tried everything they could to get her to speak, she kept her mouth firmly shut.
They gave up a few hours before dawn. She could feel the Dean’s gaze burning into her back as the guards escorted her out of the room, and though Callan tried to follow her, she heard the Dean bark his name and he stopped in the doorway, his tired face full of regret and a terrible confusion that made her heart twist. He mouthed yet another apology to her, but she couldn’t hear the words, couldn’t face the prospect of listening to him make more promises about how everything would be alright. There were just some things that couldn’t be fixed.
The room they took her to didn’t look like a cell, but there were no windows and guards on the door. Inota recognized a prison when she saw one. A comfortable prison, at least. There was even a jug of water and a bowl of fruit sitting on the bedside table. For a moment, she was reminded of the hotel she and Callan had stayed in back in Margrav, and the comparison struck her as so funny she had to stuff a fist into her mouth to stop the hysterical sound from reaching the guards at her door. She didn’t want to show them that kind of weakness.
But when she climbed into the bed, there was nothing she could do about the sobs that shook her body until sleep finally, blessedly, rose up to claim her.
It was midmorning when she awoke again, and Inota lay for a long moment with her eyes closed, the previous night’s horrible memories rushing back. She seemed to have gotten control of the worst of the emotions overnight, which was a relief. Now she could make a plan. She lay still for a long moment, listening hard. She could feel that the school was awake, hear the distant sound of hundreds of voices. Of course. Today was the day they were getting their exam results back. Then they’d all be leaving for the semester break, leaving the school with a skeleton staff.
She didn’t know what they were planning on doing with her during that time, and she had no intention of hanging around long enough to find out. The Dean had asked a lot of questions last night, and though she’d refused to answer any of them, she’d heard enough to know that all he was concerned about was whether she’d done any harm to his university. She could have told him there were few things she cared less about than stuffy draconic academic secrets. Besides, they’d have gone through all her notebooks by now, and they’d searched her person thoroughly too. If she could get out of here, she knew they wouldn’t pursue her for long.
But to really get out, she needed Callan’s help. She only hoped that her refusal to participate in last night’s interrogation hadn’t been enough to put him off for good.
