Chapter 9: Open Smiles, Hidden Truths (Blake)

For lunch, Blake wanted some time to himself in the quad. He’d managed to find some privacy for breakfast, but it would be harder to avoid sitting with his classmates if they all went out to eat at the same time.

He didn’t have anything against his cohort. He was fine with people like Elly and Ark that didn’t pry into his affairs. But people like Amy wore him out. She was a nice girl, but too friendly. And nosy.

Several students were also eating outside. They were spread out across the large field, some sitting on blankets on the lawn, others at tables in the outdoor patio. He found a table at the edge, nearly around the side of the building. It had a nice view of the large tree in the center of the quad, and more importantly, it afforded him some much-needed privacy.

Maybe next time I’ll invite Elly to sit here, Blake considered. As much as he wanted privacy, he pitied the poor girl, being targeted by Sabine. She needed more places to hide. He set his tray down and prepared to dig into his lunch. It was a roasted slab of meat squeezed between two buns called a “burger”. He heard it was popular in the capital and other notable island cities, but he’d never tried it himself. He began to drool. Everything here smelled so good! But before he could take a bite, darkness clouded his vision.

“Guess who~?” A silky voice purred in his ear, the scent of apples mixing with the burger’s aroma.

“What… huh?”

His world brightened again as the hands were pulled away from his eyes.

“No, it’s me!”

Reed Rivers slid around the table and into the bench across from him. She leaned in and rested her chin on her hands, batting those beautifully colored eyes. Her smile reminded Blake of a particularly playful tabby back on the farm.

“What do you want?” Blake growled, glancing cautiously at his duffel bag. This was the second time in as many days this girl had bothered him while he was eating.

“I smelled you on the wind, and thought I’d say hi,” Reed replied. “Would you mind if I joined you for lunch?”

Blake raised his eyebrow. She didn’t have any food with her.

“I came here to be alone,” he hinted.

“Great!” Reed looked around and gave him a big smile. “No one else is around; we can be as alone as you want!”

Blake sighed. It was clear that whatever this girl wanted, she wasn’t being honest with him.

“Why did you do that yesterday?”

“Say hello? Because you intrigued me.”

“Why did you take my egg?” Blake asked, resisting the urge to shout at her. “And show it to everyone? Do you know how much trouble you caused me? The others were asking all sorts of questions about it, and I was trying to keep it a secret!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Reed said, and the way her face twisted made Blake actually believe that she meant it. “I was just excited, your duffel bag,” she paused and inhaled, “smells of such rich mana.”

“You can smell mana?” Blake asked. He’d never heard of something like that, but he supposed that when it came to magic, anything was possible.

“No?” Reed said, tilting her head to the side. “I don’t think that’s really possible.”

Now he was just confused.

“It’s more like… the way you smell, it gives all sorts of… eh, what are you making me say? Kids these days!” Reed giggled, cradling her chin and fidgeting. Blake just wanted to leave. This girl was odd, and he didn’t really want to spend any more time around her than he had to. He decided to ignore her, and went back to the burger he had been distracted from. It was starting to get cold. He bit down into it, feeling the juices roll down his throat. It was delicious.

“Delicious, right?” Reed’s ringing voice distracted him. He glanced up and took another bite, keeping his eyes on her.

“I prefer the potato slices myself,” Reed said, reaching out and snatching a shard of potato from his plate, popping it into her mouth. “All the food here is so good!”

“Are you done?”

“You’re so cold,” Reed sighed. “I’m trying to be friendly, Blake Harker!”

“I have enough friends,” Blake replied through bites of burger, finishing it off.

“Well I don’t,” Reed grinned. “So what’ya say?”

“Why?” Blake asked, beginning to eat the potato slices. Reed had already made a sizeable dent in them with her snacking. “From what I hear, you’re quite a star here. Why do you need to be eating lunch alone with someone like me, ‘Reed Rivers of the Sky Crest’?”

“Because I wanted to get closer to you and your eggs of course”, Reed automatically replied. Blake nearly choked at her candor.

“Ooh, need some water?” She handed him a cup of water that she had apparently pulled out of nowhere. Blake swallowed it, coughing, looking back at her.

“You can’t have my eggs. They’re mine, they-“

“They’re the last dragon eggs, right?” Reed’s eyes were sparkling brightly with excitement.

She clearly knew they were, so there wasn’t any use denying it. Blake nodded his head reluctantly.

“Can I… can I see them? I saw one, but do you have more? Ooh, how many?” The restrained, mature air around her had disappeared. She was a big bundle of energy now.

“What? No, you can’t see them!” Blake snapped, looking around to make sure no one else had heard what she just said.

“What? But why not?” Reed asked. She clasped her hands together, begging him.

“Because they’re… they’re private!” Blake cried. He reached down and grabbed the duffel bag, holding it tightly to his chest. “I can’t just take them out, certainly not around you! You might, I don’t know…”

“I don’t want to steal them,” Reed pouted. “I would never do that!”

“I don’t trust you,” Blake replied, eyeing her suspiciously. He knew he should have stormed off already, he felt uncomfortable just being around her. But for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to leave. “You’re a stranger. Maybe you wouldn’t take them from me. Or maybe you’re just trying to get a closer look at them, so that you’ll be able to get closer to me and eventually steal them from me.”

Reed blinked. She looked honestly surprised. Maybe she didn’t have bad intentions. But she could also be a skilled actor.

“I only wanted to learn more about them!” She was still pouting. “Dragons are amazing!”

“Sorry, but I don’t know you,” he repeated. “Maybe you mean everything you say. But these children are my responsibility. I’m not going to just take them out around strangers. And I certainly won’t show them off to you after last night.”

“…I see,” Reed’s eyes looked sad, even behind that smiling face of hers, but Blake didn’t let her get under his skin. He didn’t trust the sadness of a smiling face.

“Then if we’re done here, do you mind if I leave?” He stood up, not waiting for a reply.

Blake reached down and slung the duffel over his shoulder, picking up his tray. He went to go put it away in the cafeteria, leaving Reed behind.

She was waiting for him outside the cafeteria.

“What… how-?”

Reed snapped her fingers and the space under her feet twisted, and she slipped from his sight into a black pit in the floor, which quickly snapped back into place. The ceiling twisted open and she fell through the hole, landing on her feet.

Blake had nearly forgotten about her bizarre transportation magic.

“Leave me alone,” he grumbled, walking around her. His next class was Physical Training, and he wanted to conserve his energy, not spend it on this girl. He couldn’t think clearly with her around.

“But you see? If I wanted to take your eggs, then I could just, well, you know!” She snapped her fingers again to prove her point. “So you can trust me! Just let me see them! Even just the blue one again, that one was soooo pretty!”

“I have to get to class.”

“Oh, no need!” Reed’s voice rang out behind him. “First year class for the Stars Cohort, right?”

Blake felt a sinking feeling in his gut, realizing what she was doing a second before she-

The ground beneath his feet disappeared and he tumbled into the darkness. He fell flat on his face in the front of classroom an instant later. Reed landed next to him.

“Don’t DO that!” Blake hissed, picking himself up. He looked around. About half the students had made it back to the classroom, and they were all staring at them.

“What? It’s not like the dragon eggs would break or anything, right?”

“That isn’t the point.”

He stormed back to his desk, his face hot and his head down, annoyed at once again being the center of attention when he just wanted to be left alone. He could hear the clack of Reed’s shoes as she followed him down the aisle.

“So this is your cohort, huh?” She asked. “They look pretty cool, I gotta say. Hey, Blake-“

“Actually,” a stern voice interrupted her, “this is my cohort.”

Blake saw Professor Darkflame had grabbed Reed by the shoulder.

“Professor Darkflame!” Reed’s greeting was a little shaky.

“Ms. Rivers, I believe you’ve been spoken to about transportations on campus?” The professor’s tone carried a threat to it that made Blake wince.

“Yeah, sorry, sorry,” she laughed, scratching her head sheepishly. “I was kinda excited and forgot!”

“Don’t you have your own classroom to get back to?”

Reed nodded and winked, skipping out of the classroom. She actually used the door this time. Blake sighed and slumped down into his seat.

“Let’s talk about dragons later, Blake!” Reed called, sticking her head back into the room. Blake sighed again. The girl just wouldn’t leave him alone! She was even worse than his classmates.

…

Once everyone had returned, the professor informed them that their Physical Training class would be taking place out on the athletics field. There were a few questions raised about why they had come back to the classroom after lunch in the first place then, and the professor shrugged his shoulders and asked them why they thought they needed to. That caused more grumbling.

Everyone else left their things behind in the classroom, but Blake wasn’t about to leave his bag where anyone could steal it.

Prince Lancelus stopped him in the hall. They hadn’t spoken since their confrontation on the train. For once, he was without the Malkin and the blonde, accosting Blake alone.

“So your name is Harker,” the prince said.

“That matters to you, does it?” Blake asked. The prince nodded.

“I can understand why you were so private before. With what happened to your family… I can forgive a little hostility.”

How condescending. Blake kept his face even. “How generous of you.”

“I realized that we got off on the wrong foot. Your family and mine have been allies since the time of Roland the Great Unifier.” The prince held his hand out to Blake. “I’m Lancelus. You don’t need to call me ‘prince’, just Lancelus. Or Lance, if you prefer.”

Blake stared at the boy’s hand. It seemed odd, now, to be offered friendship by someone who had been so hostile. He met the prince’s gaze, studying him. His blue eyes were clear and fierce. They reminded Blake of his Uncle Norand’s eyes, an honest and diligent. His uncle was a hard worker, and Blake found it surprising to see eyes like his on a prince.

But even so.

“I’m not interested in making friends.”

Nothing he wanted to accomplish at this school required him to make nice with the prince and his entourage. The fewer people who were close to him, the fewer opportunities they would have to steal his eggs.

“…Well then,” the prince murmured, withdrawing his hand, his voice turning colder, “that works out fine as well. If you want to mind your business, then be my guest. I’ll ask you to please leave Elly alone, then. I don’t want you speaking with her.”

Curious. Blake had spent the morning quite with Elly, and though she hid her face behind her bangs, he had gotten a good look or two. He hadn’t noticed it before, but this close to the prince’s eyes, seeing the bright blue with distinct golden sparkles, and he knew.

“You want me to leave her alone?” Blake whispered. “Your sister?”

The way the prince’s expression hardened and his shoulders stiffened, the pallor spreading across his face, it answered Blake’s question far better than words ever could have.

Lancelus lunged forward and grabbed Blake by the collar, his face flushed with rage. “If you say that again-!”

Blake was having none of it. It didn’t matter that the boy was a prince. Blake’s fist hit his jaw the same as it would any farm boy, knocking him to the floor.

Lancelus picked himself up off the ground, his earnest looks tainted with fury. He wiped blood from his lip and curled his hands into fists. The two stared at each other for another few moments. Blake prepared to retaliate if the prince came at him, but no punch was thrown. Lancelus didn’t want to fight.

“If you don’t want people bothering your sister,” Blake growled out, the irritation on the prince’s face goading him on further, “then I suggest you start with those girls bullying her. Better be careful though, Sabine throws a meaner punch than I do.”

The prince growled at his taunts but didn’t reply, storming past Blake and shoving him aside.

Blake and Lancelus entered the changing room and traded their uniforms for shirts and shorts. When they walked out onto the training field, the other students had already assembled into a line in front of their one-armed teacher.

“What took you two so long, huh?” Miss Esterwind’s loud voice rang out across the grass as they approached the rest of their cohort. “Is it that the young prince doesn’t see fit to arrive at the same time as the common folk? Or was Lord Harker more concerned with his luggage than my class schedule?”

The two boys gave terse apologies and stood at the end of the line in silence.

“Hey, what happened to your face, Lance?” Rafe asked. Lancelus’s cheek was starting to bruise.

“Nothing,” was his only reply. He glared at Blake.

“Now that the prince and his bag boy have deigned to grace us with their presence,” Miss Esterwind began, her lack of royal piety not going unappreciated by Blake, “we’ll start with our schedule for the day. Unlike your professors and their droning lessons and complicated books, I think you’ll find that this class will be refreshingly simple.”

A smile spread across her tanned face and her eyes laughed at something no one could see.

…

Miss Esterwind was honest with them; their day of Physical Training was simple.

Running.

A lot of running. This had raised complaints from some of the other students, not surprising considering how many of them were nobles who had spent more time running their mouths than they had running on their legs.

“What does running have to do with being a mage?” Sabine whined, other students nodding in agreement. Blake smirked in spite of himself. In his memories, Sabine had always been a girl with a personality as fiery as her hair. They had wrestled and raced up and down the courtyard of Silverscale, and tried to climb the high stone walls, falling and getting scraped up more than once. The redhead was now unrecognizable, all priss and pompousness. A suggestion to go digging around in the mud would probably be met with outrage and scorn rather than the childlike eagerness he remembered. He was half-tempted to shove her into the dirt just to see if she would actually scream.

Miss Esterwind ignored their objections, telling them to bring it up with the Chancellor and the School Council if they had any problems. That shut Sabine up.

After going through their stretches, they found themselves running circles across a dirt ring laid out in the center of the athletic field.

Having spent most of his life working on a farm, Blake found himself with endurance that many others didn’t. But he was far from the head of the pack. The Malkin Rafe was faster than he was, and so was Jasmine, the tall brunette that hung around Sabine. Some other boys were keeping pace with him as well, but the athletic ball of energy named Amy ran so far ahead of them all that it had to be seen to be believed. She was half a lap ahead of everyone else without even looking winded, and when she passed Blake for a second time she even gave him a hearty “hello!”

Blake turned his eyes ahead to see the stragglers.

Sabine’s hair was flapping behind her, shining red with sweat. Elly’s frail body was barely even running, more like walking. She was still wearing that heavy hood for some reason, which must have made this feel like a nightmare. And at the very end, barely moving forward, was Chloe Bellajean. As he passed her, he saw, shockingly, that her eyes were closed and her head was bobbing in time with her slow pace. Was she jogging in her sleep?

How long had they been running now? He’d lost count of how many laps they’d taken, starting to get tired. Elly and Sabine were practically neck and neck ahead of him, and neither one seemed like they could keep this pace much longer. They were moving at a jog that was probably slower than if they were just walking.

“What’s the matter, Sabine?” Blake taunted her as he passed. “You seem to have slowed down a lot since you were a kid.”

“Shut… shut up!” She panted. “This… unbelievable!”

Sabine was slowing down and Elly soon pulled ahead of her. Just as Blake turned to look ahead, he heard a squeal and he whirled back around. Sabine had tripped when she lunged forward and had grabbed onto Elly’s cloak, bringing both girls into the dirt.

“Ugh, fucking clumsy little… My fucking hair is dirty, that fucking-!”

Sabine was cursing and fuming as she got up, looming over the other girl.

“What the hell was that?!” She shouted, as though it hadn’t been her fault they’d fallen in the first place, “dragging me down into the dirt like a commoner, you little-?!”

Her tirade ended in a gasp, and Blake saw what it was that had finally shut her up. What a surprise, it wasn’t concern for Elly’s heat-flushed face, or her breathless gasping. No, when Elly had fallen, her hood had come loose, and now her brown hair strewed out, revealing two long, pointed ears. A defining trait of elves, recognizable at a glance.

“She’s a-!”

“Sabine!” Blake’s growl was so fierce the redhead actually listened, obediently shutting her mouth. Blake didn’t give her another moment’s thought and knelt beside Elly, pulling her hood back in place. He shook her and tried to coax her awake, but she wasn’t responding. Other students had stopped to look at what was happening.

“What’s going on here?!” Miss Esterwind bellowed, crossing the grass in quick strides, pushing through the students.

“Elly collapsed,” a girl named Wendy explained.

“Of course she did, the fuck was she thinking running in a cloak like that?” Miss Esterwind fumed. “I told her to take the damn thing off, and now look what happened!”

“It’s heatstroke,” Blake informed her.

“Heat… huh?” Elly’s voice was tired, her eyes fluttering up at them.

“She’s conscious,” Blake sighed in relief. “How are you feeling?”

Elly turned her head and threw up in the dirt. Sabine and some other girls shouted out “ew”s and backed away from her, the crowd scattering.

“She’s not in bad shape; I can take her to the infirmary,” Blake offered.

The teacher paused at this, before nodding her head. Blake helped the woozy Elly up, draping her arm over his shoulder. For a moment he was surprised at how light she was, but then he remembered that she was an elf.

“Let me help.”

Blake turned to see a mountain of a boy with dark skin and a shaved head break through the crowd. It was the guy who sat next to Elly.

“No, that’s fine,” Blake said. In spite of his insistence, the boy took Elly’s other arm anyway.

“You don’t want to leave that bag of yours behind, right?” He whispered into Blake’s ear. Blake had nearly forgotten. Letting the other boy take some of Elly’s weight, he was able to grab his duffel bag as they took the girl to the infirmary.

“What are you standing around for? Back to running!” Miss Esterwind’s voice and the groans of the other students echoed behind him.