Day 1 | 20 trainees remaining
Cal Avarium eats alone. Our first meal in the program made that clear.
When our instructors released all twenty of us into the dining hall for supper, my pulse raced at the sight of ten round tables, each seating only four. Belladonna Guardian Academy wanted us divided from the start.
Before I could blink, the other fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds started grabbing steel trays and forming little groups of twos, threes, and fours. They gawked at the chandeliers with hundreds of candles, the utensils made of genuine silver, and the way their voices echoed through the vast room.
“Too fancy!” one boy exclaimed. Maybe they felt that way about me too.
I grabbed a cold tray from the serving table and glanced at Avarium. No one had invited her either. She lingered back, tall and lean, her gray eyes hopping from boy to boy.
As soon as I took a step toward her, she darted for the last unclaimed table. Apparently, she hadn’t been searching for someone to join; she’d been waiting to identify the spot where trainees would most likely leave her alone.
Well, fine by me. Avarium wasn’t a good option anyway. To sit together would solidify our standing as the girls, and the eighteen boys in our cycle would dismiss us completely.
I scanned the room for an opening, and one boy sitting alone caught my attention. His hair was choppy—freshly cut, perhaps even yesterday. Clearly, he’d expected his selection for the program and intended to look good on his first day. And he did, though that didn’t deter another boy from creeping behind him and flicking the back of his neck.
His head flinched forward, and a dollop of mashed potatoes fell off his spoon.
“Hey, pretty boy,” said the trainee I called Neck Flicker.
The choppy-haired trainee straightened up and held his gaze. “You think I’m pretty?”
Neck Flicker’s smile faltered.
“My name is Daxel Guppy,” he continued, voice steady.
“Guppy?” Neck Flicker’s smile snapped back into place. “Like the fish?”
Two boys at a nearby table did an awful job of stifling their laughter.
I gripped my tray tighter.
Danger.
Neck Flicker walked off while he had the upper hand, and I tracked him as he joined the two boys who’d been watching. The tall one had round glasses that shimmered in the chandelier light. The short one had more muscle than anyone else in the room. They looked like two goons pulled out of a children’s book illustration.
I almost walked toward them until I recalled how they’d arrived at the Academy together—they were likely from the same school. To take their last empty chair would be bold. Too bold.
Danger.
My heart raced as I surveyed the other tables. I was running out of time.
On the opposite end of the room, by a wall made entirely of glass, two boys sat opposite each other. They smiled as they talked, but I sensed distance in their interactions—pauses between exchanges that lasted longer than those of friends.
Safe.
I nodded to myself and marched toward them.
“Hi!” I called, ensuring Neck Flicker and his friends would hear me and turn my way. Invisible people don’t get what they want. That’s what Mother always said, at least.
The two boys I approached raised their brows as if to ask, Do we know you?
I set my tray down, claiming a chair between them. It’d be stupid to request permission.
“I’m starving.” I grabbed my utensils and started cutting into my steak. “You’d think the guardians would’ve had lunch prepared, considering how long the opening ceremony was. I haven’t eaten since this morning, and look”—I gestured to the glass wall with my knife—“the sun’s already setting.”
The trainee to my left watched the sunset glaze the field and surrounding woods in an orange-pink hue. After a moment, he gave me an awkward smile. By the way he fidgeted with his fork, I couldn’t tell if he was gathering the courage to shoo me off—or ask me on a date.
I swallowed my bite of steak. “Are you okay?”
He nodded.
“A girl, and she’s from the City,” said the boy to my right. He rested his chin on his fist and smiled, revealing his crooked buck teeth. “Quite the regrettable combination.”
“Why do you say that, Big Tooth?”
He grinned even wider at the nickname. “Oh, you know why, Princess.”
I did know why. Trainees from our capital rarely made the final five. People called us too entitled, too delicate. And being one of two girls selected this cycle didn’t help my case either.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Evaris.”
“Evaris what?”
I hesitated. “Starfall.”
“Starfall!” Big Tooth exclaimed. “You’re from that family of fashion designers.”
“I prefer my first name.”
“You know, you can change your family name if you get married. Becoming a guardian won’t do that for you. No need to fight through the program with us commoners.”
I stabbed my fork into his fruit bowl and stole a grape.
Big Tooth squinted at me, shaking his head as I chewed. “What…”
To my left, the nervous one was tracing his steak knife along the tablecloth in some kind of pattern. He scowled at Big Tooth. “Oh, come on…”
While his intentions were in the right place, treating me as too delicate to handle a little taunting was offensive in its own right.
“Relax. He’s right to assume I don’t belong here. Even my family hates that I made the cut.” I forced a smile. “So please, it’s Evaris, not Starfall.”
He smiled back, just barely.
“And you are?” I offered my palm.
It took him a second to unwrap his fingers from the knife he’d been playing with.
“I’m what?” he asked, his clammy hand meeting mine.
“Your name,” I clarified, shaking his limp hand. Perhaps he thought I just wanted to hold it, which made me laugh.
“It’s Boa.”
“Hi, Boa.” I let go, and he lowered his head, cringing.
I discreetly wiped my hand against my vest. Big Tooth chuckled at the sight.
“I’m Silver. Went to school with that guy, though I’m a grade older.” He pointed at Daxel Guppy, the only other trainee sitting alone like Avarium.
“He doesn’t seem like selection material,” I muttered.
“You and him both, Princess.” He stole a grape from my bowl this time.
I dug a spoon into my mashed potatoes, biting back a smile.
“Well, you’re not a grade older than him anymore,” Boa corrected. “We’re all classmates now.”
His comment made me pause mid-bite. Memories from the past few years flashed through my mind. Late nights studying by candlelight. Morning runs in the cold, the heat, rain or shine. Lectures from my parents, through shouts and tears alike. Shoves from classmates who wanted to prove I wasn’t the fighting type.
The Academy instructors had selected us from across the Vakoi Empire, never more than three students from any one town. I was the best our capital had to offer, and I’d strutted in wearing the fanciest uniform.
But now we wore the same white button-ups, dark vests, blue ties, and annoyingly heavy boots. There were no grades anymore. No report cards. No class ranks. Being the best was just the entry fee.
Only five of us would graduate. The rest would go home.
And I can’t go home.
I imagined my parents waiting for me on the steps to our grand estate. Is it out of your system now? Are you finally ready to take your life seriously?
I imagined walking back into Vakoi City Secondary, my classmates grinning as I took my old seat. You’re not strong after all.
Silver’s voice reeled me out of my spiral. “Did you talk to your roommate yet, Evaris?”
Boa dropped his fork, his eyes widening as it clattered against his tray.
I tilted my head, but he said nothing. Only picked up his fork and kept eating.
“Uh… briefly,” I answered.
“What’d you talk about?” Silver asked, oddly curious.
“Nothing.” Well, nothing of substance. I had asked Avarium exactly one question earlier, as we changed into our new uniforms: Where are you from? She had replied with a single word—Sitra—and hadn’t bothered to ask me anything in return.
“Don’t be coy.” Silver set his utensils down, hungry for gossip instead of steak. “You must have talked about that.”
“Huh?”
“You know, that.”
I blinked. Either I’d missed something, or he was making a weird joke.
“Oh,” Boa said. “You haven’t heard.”
Silver leaned toward me. “You really haven’t?”
I gestured between them. “Just tell me already.”
Silver smiled deviously with those big buck teeth of his. “Your roommate is a murderer.”
“No she isn’t.” It came out like a reflex.
“Is too. She killed a boy in the woods. And the guardians only locked her up for four months before sending her here with the rest of us.”
“Didn’t you read the article?” Boa asked.
I shook my head. I rarely read Capital Weekly. If the news were important, it’d find its way to me, I always told myself.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “The guardians wouldn’t select a criminal.”
“Apparently, they already had their eyes on her before it happened,” Boa explained.
“And honestly, why waste her?” Silver shrugged. “She had the highest scores in her class, and I heard she can run a five-minute mile.”
It was borderline believable. I couldn’t break seven minutes myself.
Boa shuddered. “I heard someone tried to drown her, and she crawled out of the lake twenty minutes later.”
My throat tightened. I looked over at my roommate’s table, where she chewed on a bite of steak, knife in hand. Her porcelain skin and silky black hair were almost doll-like.
I faced the boys again. “Do you know how she killed him?”
“The article didn’t mention that,” Silver said. “For a reason, I assume.”
Boa cleared his throat. “But everyone’s saying that—”
Silver clapped his hands over his ears. “I don’t want to hear it again.”
Boa leaned in to whisper, “Log.”
I frowned. “Huh?”
“She struck him over and over, on the head, with a log.”
* * *
I scaled the spiral staircase alone that night, with nothing but the Academy’s wall-mounted torches to guide me. I had spent the last couple of hours socializing with Boa, Silver, and a handful of other boys in the common room on the first floor. I downplayed my posh background and smiled at the right times—it was almost too easy to get along. There was plenty of laughter among us while the sky darkened.
I stepped off the landing onto the second-floor lobby. It was cozy and cluttered, unlike most of the rooms in this monster of a building. Sofas. Chessboards. Bookshelves with novels. There were darts propped up in tin cans, but not the kind used for combat—these were playful with feathered tips, and some already pierced the dozens of cork targets on the walls.
Ten numbered doors lined the walls of the lobby, each leading to a trainee living quarter. There were two of us per room, but at some point, there would be one each, and even later, there would be five vacant and five occupied by the winners. The filtrations would decide, with time, which of us deserved to stay.
I stopped at the door to Room 4.
“…killed a boy in the woods…”
“…struck him over and over…”
I gripped the doorknob firmly, and with a quick twist, stepped inside.
A warm, howling breeze brushed my cheeks.
The only sign of Avarium was the balcony door, which she had left ajar. The curtains breathed with the nightly wind.
I struck a match and lit the handheld lantern on my nightstand.
I scanned our narrow balcony. Empty.
I checked our private restroom. Empty.
Weird.
I stood in the space between our beds, lantern in hand, spinning in a slow circle as though Avarium might materialize behind me.
“…killed a boy…”
“…struck him…”
I stopped and took a deep breath. I hadn’t read the article myself—perhaps Boa and Silver were exaggerating. Maybe Avarium had her reasons.
I grabbed the pajamas from my bed and headed to the restroom for my first shower at the Academy. There were more lanterns in my room back home, so it was eerie to wash off without much light. This would be an adjustment for sure. I’d never shared a living space with a stranger before, and certainly not a room this small. I didn’t even have my book collection and my favorite quilts to comfort me.
But at least the soap was peppermint and smelled nice.
I dried off. My golden pajamas were smooth and draped like a second skin. Normally, silk repulsed me, but I appreciated the simple elegance of this piece—monochromatic with matching buttons, not noisy like typical Starfall attire. It was the first luxury that didn’t remind me of my family.
A few years back, when I was thirteen, I had spent every gifted coin on casual, dark clothes my parents wouldn’t approve of, just to spite them. In the face of their rage, something clicked. If I could defy them in something small, I could defy them in something bigger.
This was it—guardianship.
Finally, a path of my own.
I stepped out of the restroom and froze in my tracks.
Avarium was sitting on her bed, staring as though she’d been waiting. Her long, black hair—parted straight down the middle—draped over her shoulders symmetrically. It took her several seconds to blink.
I broke eye contact and started re-arranging the pillows on my bed.
“I didn’t see you earlier,” I said, grabbing the only novel I’d brought from home.
“What book is that?” Her voice was deeper than I’d expected.
I moved my fingers so she could read the title.
Avarium leaned and squinted, but had nothing to say.
I got into bed, novel in hand. It took all I had to resist the urge to look over the pages. I couldn’t tell if she was still sitting there, watching me.
She was a murderer. She had killed a boy, had struck him over and over, with a log.
According to Boa and Silver, at least. They hadn’t sounded like they were making it up, but perhaps it was an elaborate joke to rattle me. If only someone else had spoken during recreation time to confirm the rumor. I knew better than to ask and risk looking like either a coward or a fool.
Had Avarium really slept in a cell last night—the same night before sharing a room with me?
She shuffled into bed. “Goodnight, Evaris.”
I frowned at the pages. I hadn’t told her my name.
“Goodnight, Avarium,” I replied.
She hadn’t told me hers either.
You have reached the end of this free sample.
Publisher
