Home > Wandering Queen(9)

Wandering Queen(9)
Author: May Dawson

“You’ve got this,” I promised him, clapping his shoulder. “No matter what I said this summer, you’re the toughest male I know. They’re going to try to break you, but you’re just going to keep your head down and keep fighting until it’s all over.”

His lips tugged ruefully at the corners, but he didn’t answer. He was always reserved, unexpectedly so for a middle child.

He took off running in the direction of the yelling. I remembered that early hazing well.

“Have fun!” I called after him, knowing that here was the only place my brother couldn’t hurl a few carefully-selected curse words at me. I grinned.

I went back to my room, expecting that my roommate wouldn’t show up until after dawn, bedraggled and shivering and ready to begin a day of fetching-and-carrying.

I hadn’t particularly enjoyed being broken of my own spoiled attitude when I arrived at the academy, but it was hard for me to argue that it wasn’t effective.

I walked into my room, which was lit only by the moonlight that shone off the snowy mountains and reflected into the room. I slung my coat over the back of the chair, kicked my boots off, and began to yank my shirt over my head.

“Well, hello.”

The voice—amused, soft—stopped me dead. I dropped my shirt to the ground and trampled on it as I whirled and drew my sword from where it hung above my desk.

“Easy there, tough guy.” The boy on the bed was a slight figure. His lavender hair was short, but wild and ruffled around a heart-shaped face. He grinned at me as if there was something amusing about how I’d come close to decapitating him.

I dropped my hand to my side, but hung onto the sword. He’d only spoken four words, but something about his tone was so irksome that I wasn’t taking decapitation off the table quite yet.

“What are you doing?”

“I thought I was sleeping.” He yawned. “Until you started your striptease.”

I took a step forward, my jaw clenching. “You’re lost. You’re supposed to be outside with the other first year students.”

“Am I?” He glanced out the window, just in time to see the dark snake of freshman cadets twisting up the mountain path. He frowned. “Are they wet? They’re going to catch a chill.”

“You should be with them,” I warned. “Get up. Get going.”

“I’m where I’m supposed to be,” he promised. He extended his hand for me to shake, although he hadn’t bothered to stand; he sat cross-legged on the bed now. “Faer of the summer court.”

I stared at him, refusing to shake his hand. “Being a prince doesn’t get you out of anything around here.”

“As well it should not,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it. Instructor Tomas told me to report to the barracks. And you are?”

“Why would he do that?” I demanded, irritation in my voice.

He shrugged. “Your name?”

I’d never met anyone who annoyed me so much in so little time.

I grabbed his collar and yanked him off the bed. He was barefoot, his toes dangling off the polished wooden floorboards, and so light and bird-boned that he must be a winged fairy. I was half-tempted to fling him out of the window to see how quick he was with those wings; it would be the fastest way for him to join the other freshmen.

Instead, I set him on the cold wooden floor. He gaped at me slightly, his lips parted as if no one had ever adjusted this brat’s attitude in all his life.

“Get your socks and boots on. You’re joining the others, and I don’t want you too frostbitten to do my laundry in the morning.”

He laughed at that. Then he must have seen something in my face. Suddenly, he sat on the end of the bed, hastily dragging on thick wool socks—two pairs, I noticed—then his boots. His uniform didn’t quite seem to fit, and I frowned as I hastily dressed myself. Perhaps the princeling had annoyed his own servants so badly that they had wanted to embarrass him once he was out of reach.

“This is a misunderstanding,” he said, and since his boots were more-or-less on and he was just trying to tie them, I seized the back of his neck and dragged him down the hall with me like an unruly kitten.

I shoved him through the door to the courtyard, hard enough that he landed on his knees in the snow.

“I’ve heard about you, Faer,” I told him as I followed him out. “You care little about anything but your own pleasure. You’re no warrior, and you’re not fit to rule.”

Anger tightened my chest. I was keenly aware of my own flaws, but I would die to protect my people if I had to. My mother, before she passed, had taken me everywhere with her across the autumn court, teaching me to be a worthy king someday.

“I can’t do anything about that,” I said. “That’s up to you. But you will follow the goddamn rules here, and we’ll see what good that will do you.”

He got to his feet, clapping his hands off on his trousers. “You don’t know me, Autumn.”

It was disrespectful to call Fae by the name of their court, and I shoved him again. He landed on his ass in the snow, glaring up at me. It was that look of pure defiance on his face that caused me to drop on top of him, my thighs on either side of his, my hand catching his throat. I pressed down. Maybe the snow could cool that willful temper of his. The stories of how lazy he was in his training were infamous through the courts, and he was paying for his incompetence now. And would pay, for many months to come.

“Why are you too proud to join your peers?” I demanded. I caught a handful of snow and slapped it across his cheek, the motion dismissive and stinging, and he flushed with anger. “Shouldn’t a prince be willing to lead by example?”

“This is stupid,” he snarled back. “I’m happy to train and fight, but they’re just being tortured.”

“Some of them are your own nobles of the autumn court.” I slapped him across the other cheek with another handful of snow. His cheeks were bright red now in that pale face. “What do you think they’ll make of how you’ve abandoned them?”

“I haven’t abandoned them,” he said, trying to throw me, and my lips parted to laugh at him. He was such a child.

Then he somehow bucked and knocked me sideways. His leg trapped mine, and the two of us jostled for control across the snow.

“Enough.” Professor Vail’s voice was darker than the night itself. “Before someone sees the princes of our courts wrestling like children.”

The two of us separated and scrambled apart. He was breathing hard, and the look he gave me suggested that if I slept in our room again, I might find myself knifed in my sleep.

Vail and I stared at each other.

“Teach him,” he said, then turned and walked back into the house.

I looked at the boy across from me, slight and red-cheeked and still furious.

“Let’s go meet your peers,” I said, my voice deadly calm.

He was still breathing hard and his fury showed on his face. But he nodded once, curtly.

“I’ll run with you,” I said, leading the way. He followed, his feet crunching across the snow.

Someone would have to make sure the prince made it to his intended destination. I wasn’t afraid to be a part of the group winding up and down the mountain, breaking through the icy river and stumbling up the wind-torn peak, then down again. I’d survived it before. I didn’t mind paying the price for my position.

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