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I hadn’t heard any rumors of hazing during the battle, but that didn’t mean the cadets I’d been teamed with weren’t doing it on their own. Or maybe the third-year thought ditching me was funny or it was part of the adventure. Whatever the reason, I had a sinking feeling that I was on my own.
Then a branch snapped behind me, and hands gripped my shoulders from behind.
Chapter
Fifty-Five
Torq
Ikept my distance from the four Assassins as they tramped across the bridge leading to the maze. I had to wait until they’d almost skirted the gulch to hurry across the bridge and sidestep between the black stone wall of the maze and the sheer drop below.
Do not look down, I told myself. Do not look down.
The Assassins were so busy studying the ground that they didn’t notice me shadowing them, but I couldn’t hold that against them. There would be no reason to think anyone would be following them. Each school had its own stone to find, so there was no point in sending scouts to follow the other schools. Unless sabotage was your purpose.
That gave me pause. Would the Assassins be sending teams out to find the other stones? Had the other schools decided to find the stone for the School of Battle before our cadets were even allowed to search? I almost laughed to myself. It was obvious that I’d spent a lot of time with Jess. I was starting to think like an Assassin.
Even as the foursome started to tramp along the stream that led into the mountains, I was brimming with impatience. How could I know that this group would lead me to Jess? I couldn’t. I did not even know their mission, or why they were searching so close to the academy, when the Blades had been preparing to climb high to the ice-capped peaks.
I flattened myself to the back of a tree trunk when the Strategy cadets stopped before following the stream to the left and away from the Gilded Peaks. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly.
This was foolish. I had no better chance of finding Jess by following the cadets than I did if I just ran into the mountains. She had a significant head start on me, and I was sure Dom did, too, which made my gut clench. I instinctively touched a hand to the handle of my blade, the chill of the steel comforting.
There was not a doubt in my mind what I would do to the Blade if he hurt Jess. I would not hesitate to cut him down. I would not even take a breath before slicing him open.
“Come on, you remember what the riddle said.” The Assassin’s words drifted to me on the cool breeze.
I stiffened, holding my breath to hear what else he might say.
“The stream will guide you to a divide. This is a divide in the stream.”
“But where are the tracks?” Another cadet asked, his voice deeper and easier to hear. “It said to chase the tracks to find the prize. I see nothing that looks like tracks.”
“Then we need to keep going.”
“I say we take the path that leads away from the mountains for a while. It is the least obvious choice, which makes it a good possibility.”
The other cadets made noises of agreement, and I guessed that the last speaker had been the eldest. I snuck a peek around the tree to watch them head off along the far side of the stream. That path might be the least obvious choice, but the Drexians who hid the stones might not have been Assassins and prone to devising the most complicated solution. In fact, I was willing to bet that the instructors made it a point for members of opposing schools to hide the schools’ stones.
I eyed the side of the stream that led into the woods abutting the mountains. My gut told me that the rest of the Assassin teams would have searched there, so I ran to the narrowest place in the stream and leaped across.
Voices that did not belong to the Assassin team I’d been following made me dart my gaze to the right. A large group of what I thought were Wings ran laughing toward the mountains without a glance toward the stream. Luckily, I was only steps from the woods, and I ran toward the cover of the trees before any of the cadets thought to look to the side.
As I was enveloped by the trees, I realized that I hadn’t looked at the Wings with longing. There had been no part of me that mourned the school I’d been told was my birthright. There was no regret.
Despite my current disgrace and position on the outskirts of the Blades, there was no school that fit me better. I was a Blade.
“A Blade hunting down another Blade,” I said to myself, my words swallowed by the quiet of the forest.
I was only hunting him to save Jess, and Jess was innocent in all of it. She had nothing to do with my brother’s crime, and the only reason she would pay any price for his cruelty was me. I had pulled her into my sordid clan disgrace with my desire. I had to have her. I had to be around her. I had been unable to resist her. And now she would be punished for my sins.
Not if I could stop it.
I took determined steps forward, finally catching sight of a muddy footprint on the grass. I’d been so busy barreling forward that I hadn’t thought to look for tracks. I shook my head at my impetuous nature. “Typical Blade.”
I knelt and eyed the footprint. It was smaller than a Drexian’s, which meant there was a good chance it was hers. But there was only one, which told me that she was walking around with a single muddy boot. I continued forward, keeping my gaze to the ground and trailing the muddy outline until it vanished in the grass.
Grek grek grek. I stopped and scoured the woods around me. There was no sight of her, and there was actually no proof that the single boot print was hers. I could be following another human entirely.
