“She passed out,” Wynter tells me, her heavily accented voice strange to my ears. “It was too much to bear. The winged...it was a kindred.”
I’m reeling in confusion. “A kindred?”
“The wingeds. We can speak to them. With our minds.” Silent tears begin to streak down Wynter’s pale face. “Ariel loved this one,” she says, crying now. “Elloren Gardner...why did you do this?”
My throat goes dry. “I...I never meant for this to happen.”
“This could break her. Make her turn.”
My head is spinning. “Make her turn?”
Ariel suddenly convulses in Wynter’s arms, her body writhing, her face contorted with misery. Then Ariel’s eyes fly open, and she swivels to face me. She recoils at the sight of me at first, but quickly recovers, her eyes taking on a frightening glow. She slowly pushes herself away from Wynter, her gaze fixed tight on mine as Wynter frantically murmurs to her in Elvish.
Wings slowly unfurling, Ariel rises.
My heart pounds as I back away.
“I. Will. Kill. You!” She pushes Wynter aside and leaps at me.
My world descends into chaos as Ariel slams me to the ground. Her fists, her nails, her kicking feet are everywhere all at once, punching me, scratching me, beating me as I frantically try to fight her off. The metallic taste of blood fills my mouth as fear courses through my system. Wynter frantically yells something at Ariel as she tries, unsuccessfully, to pry Ariel off me. But Ariel is strong and scrappy. My flailing, grasping arms are only able to slightly lessen her blows, not stop even one of them.
And then, as she kneels on top of me, my hands tight around her wrists, Ariel abruptly weakens. Her lips curl back into a terrifying hiss as her green eyes mist over like frost forming on water, until they’re nothing but opaque windows into nothing. Her eyes flash back to green, then white, back and forth as I watch, horrified.
And then Wynter’s arms are around Ariel, struggling to haul her backward, dragging her across the cold stone floor, away from me. Ariel’s body stiffens and her eyes roll back into her head. She seems to be unconscious again, lost in some private hell. As Wynter pulls her past the door, Ariel’s eyes snap open.
“Get her down!” she screams as her butchered kindred comes into view. She wrenches herself away from Wynter and hurls herself at the door. She slides to her knees, her hands clawing at the trails of blood streaking the wood.
“My sweet one!” she shrieks. “What have they done to you?”
Wynter moves toward me, her eyes wide. “You should leave, Elloren Gardner.”
I teeter from side to side as I rise, dizzy from so many blows to the head. Wynter reaches out to steady me.
The minute her hand makes contact with my arm, Wynter’s mouth flies open, her eyes roll back in her head and she falls backward onto the floor, grasping at her hand as if it’s been burned.
“What’s the matter?” I cry.
“When I touch people...” Her thin voice trails off, her eyes fixed on me with an expression of sheer terror.
I gasp. “You’re an Empath, aren’t you?” I remember the Icaral in Valgard, the one who could read people’s minds just by touching them.
So that’s why Wynter’s brother was so angered when Rafe touched her.
She nods slowly, her expression one of awful shock.
Why is she so scared of me? What did she see?
Wynter’s horrified daze is broken by the sound of Ariel screaming. “You need to leave,” she pleads as she forces herself up.
I find my bearings and flee.
I stumble blindly down the staircase, my heart beating wildly. I steady myself against the wall, legs quivering, my vision blurry. I slide down the cold stone to the floor, dazed. I can feel my eye beginning to swell where Ariel repeatedly punched me. I reach up to touch the wound. When I lower my hand, there’s blood all over it.
This is my chance. The one I asked Lukas for.
If I go to the High Chancellor’s office now, Ariel will be removed from the University, sent back to the Valgard asylum and stripped of her wings. People will thank me for getting rid of her, and the North Tower will become a much more pleasant place to live.
I’m distracted from this train of thought by the soft rustling of wings and give a start when I look up.
A Watcher.
On the sill of the arching window.
It’s like falling into a crystal clear pool, staring into the serene, sad eyes of the Watcher. Memories come rushing in, visions of things I’ve tried to ignore.
Ariel singing to her kindred at night, petting it lovingly. Ariel being laughed at and ridiculed wherever she goes. People everywhere turning their heads away, refusing to look at her.
In a month’s time, unlike me and even unlike Wynter, Ariel has never received a letter or a visit from a family member, never heard a kind word from anyone save Wynter and Professor Kristian.
She’s an Evil One, a voice inside me insists shrilly. There is nothing good in her.
But the way she cared for her bird, the bird that’s now dead and staked to the door. She was so tender with it; so loving.
The question forces itself to the surface, even as I struggle to keep it down.
Is she really completely evil?
I realize I don’t know the answer, and staring into the sad, soulful eyes of the Watcher, it suddenly seems vitally important to find that answer before sealing Ariel’s fate.
*
“How could you torture her pet like that?”
I find Lukas in the dining hall supping with some other Gardnerian soldiers. I try to ignore the gasps and shocked murmuring of the soldiers and other scholars as they take in my battered appearance. The murmuring grows as kitchen laborers begin to notice me, as professors look up from their long table by the windows to see what all the commotion is about.
A slow grin forms on Lukas’s face as he gets up and looks me up and down. “Worked, didn’t it?”
“It was cruel!”
I can see by his expression that he’s thrown by my reaction. He takes my arm and roughly pulls me off to the side.
“You asked for my help,” he reminds me.
I jerk my arm away from him. “It was too much!”
He leans in close. “You told me you wanted her out,” he says. “Now look at you. Here’s your chance. Go to the professor of your choice. Tell them who attacked you. Get her out. No one here will miss her.”
I don’t even need to seek out a professor. To my dismay, a number of them have already risen from where they’re sitting and are making their way toward us, Vice Chancellor Quillen among them.
“Holy Ancient One!” Priest Simitri exclaims, his black robes flapping behind him. “Elloren...who did this to you?”
I glance around wildly. Yvan, Fernyllia, Iris, Bleddyn and several other kitchen laborers have streamed out of the kitchen to gawk at the beat-up Gardnerian.
“Who attacked you, Mage Gardner?” Vice Chancellor Quillen asks.
I look into her unflinching green eyes and bite at the inside of my cheek to steady myself, feeling as if the room is closing in on me. Everyone grows silent as they wait for my answer. I have to say something. Anything, before Lukas does.
“I tripped.”
Priest Simitri’s face screws up in confusion. “You...tripped?”
I nod. “Down the North Tower’s staircase. I’m terribly clumsy. I even tripped here my first day.” I motion toward the kitchen staff and narrow my eyes in their direction. “Ask them.”
Yvan’s eyes fly open with surprise. Iris and Bleddyn both gape at me in confusion.
“You need a healer.” Priest Simitri steps forward to gently take my arm. “I’ll bring you there.”
As the priest leads me away, I turn to face Lukas.
Something irretrievable has broken between us. It was too much, what he did. I don’t think I can ever forgive him.
As if reading my thoughts, Lukas shoots me a look of disgust and strides off.
*
Late that evening I’m out by the chicken shed, fumbling in the darkness to find the latch on one of the cages, a burlap sack in hand. Even after a healer’s care, my left eye is still slightly swollen, and it throbs along with my head.
“What are you doing?”