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We stare at each other. There’s a little smile at the corner of his mouth. I immediately understand why.
Zachary Blackwood’s apology, like his questions, is just another way of testing me. He’s still measuring himself against me, and one thing is clear.
His apology was an attack; my angry response was the blow he landed.
Now, he thinks he knows there’s a chink in my armour—he thinks he knows where he can strike to hit.
But I learn fast. Any chink in my armour Zachary finds once, he won’t find a second time.
That’s my promise to myself and the first rule I set for the long chess game we are going to play over the next few years.
Chapter 2
Sacred Duty
Zachary
TheodoraDorokhovaisgoingto be the most important person I meet in Spearcrest.
I know it the moment I see her take a seat on the blue felt chair across from me, the moment her eyes sweep over me to watch the painting on the wall above my head. Her gaze brushes over me like starlight, like it’s almost too remote for me to feel it.
I watch her intently, sensing her importance.
She’s small and very pale, her skin almost see-through, like white fabric that’s been drenched in water. She’s wearing a blue cardigan with long sleeves, but I already know that the insides of her arms will be a map of blue veins. I don’t need to worry about seeing it—I’ll see it someday.
Her hair is light, too, the palest gold, like sunlight in the winter. It’s long and tied back from her face in neat plaits. Everything about her is delicate and fragile, like a porcelain doll. Her eyes are big and vividly blue. She’s not beautiful yet, she’s barely even pretty, but she’s going to be.
She’s going to be one of the most beautiful girls in the world.
I know all this because she’s special.
I can tell from her eyes when our gazes finally meet, and from the way her voice quivers when she tells me her name. Theodora Dorokhova. Even her name is special. I repeat it in my mind after she says it. When I’m alone later, I’m going to say it out loud, the way I do when I’m reading a book and I find a particularly satisfying sentence. Too satisfying to keep in my head, so I have to speak it, so I can taste the words and feel their weight and texture on my tongue.
We speak, and the more I speak to her, the firmer her voice becomes.
The quiver of her first sentence fades away. She speaks with perfect diction, with a smooth cadence. Her voice is far more expressive than her face. Does she know this?
Our conversation is a test.
There’s a reason I’m seeing this girl right now, a reason she wasn’t at the summer school days when I met the other students who are going to be in my year. There’s a reason we meet like this, today, when I’ve come in on a random day because my father is meeting with the other governors.
There’s a reason I’m the first person in Spearcrest to meet Theodora Dorokhova.
When our conversation transforms from a discussion into an argument, I decide it’s time to relent. I apologise for having offended her, even though I know she’s not offended.
She replies that I’ve not offended her. Her voice is hard and cold. It has the satisfying texture of icicles, sharp but smooth.
I’ve angered her, I think, but it’s hard to tell. I hope I have. I have the feeling handling Theodora Dorokhova isn’t going to be like handling other people our age. Handling her is going to be like handling an adult—like playing chess against a greater opponent, not a lesser one.
She’ll be good at concealing her true feelings, I’m guessing. She’ll wish to fight me without stepping on the battlefield, to gain her victories without appearing to be in the skirmish at all. She’ll want to compete with me without ever acknowledging me as her rival.
She’s going to be difficult and rigid and cold, like a thing of steel.
And that’s why she’s going to be the most important person here. Because I’ll never be able to become the best I possibly can without being properly tested and challenged. Heroes don’t become legends without fighting some great opposing force.
Theodora is going to become that great opposing force.
“What’s your favourite book, then?” I ask her.
