LITMIR.BIZ

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sorry if the way I live offends you, Your Highness. I’m sorry if you don’t think I’m entitled to be upset over your stupid orders. But I’m afraid I do not have much choice in it.’ He turned to me so sharply that I felt my weight fall against the door, away from him. His expression was completely puzzled, but something in his eyes bordered upon recognition as they widened ever so slightly. ‘Thank you for the lift,’ I finished and got out as quickly as I could, scuttling around the car to the pavement and under the shelter of the tree. As I closed the garden gate behind me, he turned around and pulled away. I watched the car disappear around the corner, recalling his outburst in my mind.

      A smile appeared, bigger than the one I had worn earlier. It was a bitter smile, displaying itself only in triumph.

       So you know. You know why she’s dead. And I’ll get it out of you; and I’ll never like you until I have!

      Behind me, light pooled across the garden from the glass panels on either side of the front door. The cars were parked in the driveway. My parents were back. I groaned and prepared myself.

      The door was unlocked and I tried to open it as quietly as possible. I slipped my shoes off and had one foot on the stairs when my mother appeared from the living room, where curtains had no doubt been twitching.

      ‘And where have you been? It’s almost nine o’clock!’

      ‘I was asked to tutor a student by Mr. Sylaeia.’ I hung my bag on the rack above the radiator for the morning and turned back to her, hoping she would vent quickly so I could get changed into something dry.

      ‘And I suppose if I rung the school he would verify that?’ she replied, rather testily.

      ‘Yes.’ I knew he wouldn’t mention the detention; he had punished me enough.

      She huffed, pointing out the closed front door. ‘And who was that driving you home?’

      ‘A friend.’

      She wasn’t falling for that one. ‘None of your friends are old enough to drive.’

      ‘A friend in the sixth form,’ I rephrased. Yet she still wasn’t buying it as she moved to stand in front of the mirror to remove her earrings – they had clearly only just got back, as she still wore her business suit and her hair hadn’t re-curled, still resembling the short sleek bob she maintained for meetings.

      ‘I don’t know many sixth formers who can afford the insurance for a Mercedes, Autumn.’

      My eyes rolled towards the ceiling and I took a long, slow breath. ‘Fine. A new Sage has started at school.’

      She smiled in a motherly, patronizing way that was reserved for moments when she knew she had beaten me. ‘Ah, we settle upon the truth.’

      I returned the smile and was about to make my way upstairs when my father’s voice sounded from the kitchen.

      ‘What are my two lovely ladies arguing about this time?’ He appeared from behind the staircase, a glass tumbler and tea towel in his hand.

      I clutched my tongue between my back teeth, wishing they would let me go and get changed before my soaked clothes flooded the hallway.

      ‘A new Sage has started at school,’ I repeated.

      He looked mildly interested and continued rubbing the inside of the glass. ‘That’s nice for you then, isn’t it? What family?’

      This time I really did hesitate, chewing my tongue frantically. But there was no putting off the inevitable. I looked from one parent to another. ‘The Athenea.’

      The glass shattered on the floor and the tea towel fluttered after it, covering the shards. My father’s mouth fell open and closed again as he tried and failed to mask his emotions.

      ‘My God,’ he breathed, clutching his chest. My mother moved to his side, rubbing circles in his back but looking just as shocked as he was. ‘Which one?’

      ‘Fallon.’

      ‘Their seventeen year-old?’ my mother asked, her eyes widening.

      I nodded.

      ‘But he’s second in line to the throne. What on earth is he doing here?’

      I shrugged, but having already embarked on the truth, knew it would be as good a time as any to reveal the rest.

      ‘He said he wants to avoid the press. He’s staying with the duke and duchess of Victoria.’ I took a deep breath. ‘And they have bought a property on Dartmoor.’

      The two of them exchanged worried looks, before turning to me. I didn’t have much in common with my parents, but this was something we were united in: we didn’t want the Athenea anywhere near.

      ‘And I asked him not to, but he also revealed at school that we’re the duchy of England.’ That wasn’t strictly true. Only I was the duchy, but as I was underage and my father managed my finances, he was able to use it as a courtesy title.

      This was all too much for him. He slumped against the banister, burying his face in his hands. My mother guided him towards a sofa in the living room and I took the chance to escape. I didn’t feel much pity for them. They didn’t want the Athenea here either, but they didn’t have to deal with them like I did.

      When I got to my room I stripped out of my clothes and found my longest nightie, pairing it with a pair of thick socks. Despite the warm clothes and the hot radiator, I was still cold.

      ‘Inceandia,’ I murmured, and an oval flame sprang to life in my palms. Removing them, I let it float and grow into an orb in mid-air, warming my room in seconds.

      I watched its solid, unflickering mass as Fallon’s words came back to me. Impulsively, I waved my hand and the flame was snuffed out. Hearing a curse in Sagean escape my lips I threw myself face down on the bed, pummelling the mattress until the tears began to seep across the pillow.

       CHAPTER TEN

       Autumn

      It was the sound of grunts that first reached my ears: rhythmic, unbroken and oblivious to the whimpers that began to emerge as an echo.

      It’s just a dream, I told myself as the scene gradually came into a blurry focus, pillars disappearing into the darkness as I moved towards the source of sound, though really I wished to get as far away as possible.

      Two trees stood close together like prison bars, and between them I could see the outline of a figure, grotesque and hunch-backed with the hair and skirts of a woman; it was from this creature, thrusting itself against the tree, attacking it, that the sounds came.

      Shards of bark floated to the ground like sawdust as its pale skin met with the trunk, drops of blood joining them from a set of fingertips drooping towards the forest floor.

      But as I slipped between the two trees, I realized the horrible truth that the gloom had concealed.

      It was not one figure, but two: a man with his back to me, hunched over the collapsing form of a woman, her torn skirts bunched up around her thighs; it was onto her, and not the tree, that he forced himself.

      I circled them, trying to move closer but never managing to close the distance. Instead, she came into sharper focus, and I could see how her hair was so dark it neared black, and how her eyes shone a disturbingly familiar colour: violet, glossy because she sobbed.

      The rest of her face was in shadow. But I could hear her pain. I closed my own eyes, wishing to blot away their forms with darkness, but their outlines were burned onto the back of my eyelids. Only then did it occur to me to scream. And I did. A horrific, dreadful, spine-chilling scream that was not my own as it chased around empty hallways,

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