Soulbound (21 page)

O
nce the last rosebushes had been mulched, I hurried back to the dorms with Maddox, made myself presentable, and headed to the dining hall to grab some dinner before they closed down for the evening. I hadn’t seen Trayton since this morning at breakfast and was hoping to see him at dinner, but when my eyes swept the hall, all I found was disappointment.

Maddox filled a tray with food, and I took my now usual seat at the corner table. To my surprise, I had company. Company that I’d not been expecting.

Melanie forced a smile. “Well, well, if it’s not the walking bandage. I heard your encounter with a Graplar went as expected, ending with you cowering in a corner.”

My defenses went up in a flash, and I opened my mouth to tell her just what had happened—that not only had there been two Graplars, but that I’d not only
assisted in taking them out, I’d also beheaded one entirely on my own. Even with my bumbling, that was an impressive feat. But then I remembered the story that we’d told everyone, and closed my mouth again. But only for a second. “What do you want, Melanie?”

Her smile struck me as somewhat sadistic and absolutely surreptitious. She crossed her long legs and I could sense several pairs of eyes falling on them all around me. There was no doubting Melanie was beautiful. But skin could only get you so far. “I came to ask a favor of you.”

Everything inside of me, every cell of my being screamed “NO!” before I parted my lips to speak, but curiosity got the best of me. “A favor? What favor?”

She seemed to gauge me for a moment before speaking. “There are changes coming to Shadow Academy. To all the schools, really. And I want your assistance to make those changes a bit easier on my Healer. You do want to help a fellow Healer, right?”

“Why should I make things easier on your Healer, and exactly what are you talking about?” Maddox had mentioned certain changes that had apparently been set in motion, but was that what Melanie talking about? Putting guards on the battlefield would hardly affect her Healer. Or were the changes she was talking about something completely separate from that?

“I’d like you to tell the headmaster that you’ve made a terrible mistake and that you believe that my Healer,
David, would make a far better Healer to Trayton than you. Then I’d like you to request to be my Healer.”

It only took me a second to hear what she’d said, and a second more for my laughter to come pouring out of me. Melanie? My Barron? I didn’t think so. “Why on Tril would you think I’d be even remotely interested in the idea of switching, especially considering that no Bound Healer and Barron have ever switched before?”

“That’s not true. Two have switched throughout history, though it’s nothing that the Elder Barrons will discuss. Mistakes are made on occasion. And with the right assurance and insistence, it can be done. As for why…well, let’s just say that a little bird witnessed a certain Healer limping into a certain teacher’s quarters the other night. And how would that look to the headmaster?”

My heart froze solid. I didn’t know what to say, what to do, to deter Melanie from her path of thinking. The truth was that seeing me waltz into Darius’s cabin, limping and bleeding or not, wouldn’t look harmless at all to any of the authoritative figures on campus. Darius could be fired, or worse. And whatever punishment they doled out for me couldn’t possibly compare to the threat that the headmaster had given me when I’d first learned of his existence: my parents could be made to suffer for my insubordination. Would they be killed because I’d entered a teacher’s quarters unchaperoned? Maybe. I doubted it, but not enough to laugh off Melanie’s threat. “Who told you that?”

“David did. He was on his way back to the dorms and saw you limping up the steps to Darius’s quarters. Curious, isn’t it, that you’d choose a teacher’s bedroom over the hospital wing.”

“It’s not what it looked like.” It wasn’t, but I knew that even if Melanie believed me, she wouldn’t admit it. Not when she thought she could get something out of it. Regarding her smirk, I said, “Besides, you can’t prove it.”

Her smile turned sinister and dark. “I don’t need to prove it. I just need to whisper it in Trayton’s ear.”

For a moment, my heart stopped. Would Trayton really believe her over me? Maybe. The very notion that she would tell him about where I’d been that night was enough to raise the alarms inside of me, at any rate. “Why would you want me as your Healer?”

“I don’t. But I do want David as Trayton’s Healer. We have an…understanding, shall we say.”

And that’s when the pieces clicked neatly into place. With David as Trayton’s Healer, it would still be a challenge to get Trayton to break the rules of no Barrons coupling, but with me as Trayton’s Healer, it would be impossible. All this because she wanted my Barron to be her boyfriend, despite the fact that Trayton would never agree to go against Protocol like that. Melanie would destroy lives to acquire anything that she couldn’t rightfully have. She was completely delusional. I shook my head. “The headmaster will never agree to it.”

“See to it that he does. Or I’ll tell Trayton what David saw…with a few added details of my imagination, of course.” She winked at me and left the table. My stomach turned over, sour and full of tension. By the time Maddox returned with a tray full of food, I wasn’t the least bit hungry anymore.

I debriefed Maddox over some spicy chicken and a salad, and as I spoke, she looked more and more furious with every word that crossed my lips. By the time I’d caught her up on all things Melanie, I thought her head was going to explode.

“That girl is insane! You aren’t actually considering it, are you?”

Flashing Maddox my best what-are-you-stupid look, I said, “Of course not. But what am I going to do? It’s not like it sounds innocent, even without Melanie’s imaginary details about what happened.”

After I was finished eating, Maddox dropped off my tray and started walking me back to the dorms for the night. As we moved out the door, she said, “What
did
happen, anyway? You’ve been kinda quiet about the details. I mean, I’m not saying that any of it is my business, but…what happened that night between you and Darius? Because it’s clear that something did.”

Stopping just outside my door, I considered exactly how much to tell Maddox. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. It was that I wasn’t exactly comfortable revealing what had transpired that night. I turned to Maddox.
“Darius saved my life. We talked—just talked—and I learned something about him. Something I’ll never tell anyone else. So this is the last time I’ll speak of it. He helped me, Maddox, and I owe him my silence for that.”

She eyed me for a bit, and I could tell that she was itching to know what secret I was keeping. But to her credit, she didn’t ask. She merely shrugged. “Good enough for me. Now what are we going to do about Melanie?”

Biting my bottom lip, I shook my head. I had no idea what to do and was completely out of options. One way or another, Melanie was going to get her way. Unless I thought of something fast. But nothing came to mind.

A light filled Maddox’s eyes and my heart lifted for a moment. “Of course there’s the obvious. You could always tell Trayton yourself. That would take the wind out of her sails.”

My heart’s upward journey didn’t last. I couldn’t tell Trayton. He’d be furious. I looked at Maddox and was about to give voice to my doubts, but she shoved me inside the suite and whispered, “Better he hears the truth from you rather than lies from someone else.”

As I walked into my bedroom and caught a glimpse of the fresh roses that Trayton had sent over that morning, I knew that Maddox was right. I had to tell Trayton what had happened the night I was bitten. But I didn’t have to tell him everything.

After a long, hot bath and a lot of silent personal
debate, I dressed in a fresh uniform. Maddox knocked on my door and we headed out to the armory. We were barely out the door when she grabbed me by the sleeve. “Listen. If I disappear for a while, just carry on like I’m right there, okay?”

I shot her a questioning glance. “Why? Where will you be?”

“I’m going to talk to Darius, see if he’s heard anything more about the rule change.” She looked at me as she opened the door to the outside and winced, as if expecting me to smack her—which I was totally debating doing as she spoke her next words. “And ask him if he’ll train you.”

A sigh escaped me. “Maddox, I told you, I’m going to ask Trayton to train me.”

The look in her eye said that she already knew what Trayton’s response would be. But even so, I was still asking him. Trayton liked me, and I had an idea that Maddox didn’t know how much. But I did. Every time Trayton looked at me, I could feel how much he liked me, how much I liked him. Every time he touched me, no matter how brief or casual, an electric charge passed between us. Trayton cared about me. Of course he would want to help me.

She shook her head as we crossed the cobblestone of the courtyard. “Don’t ask him, Kaya. If you ask him to teach you how to fight, he’ll go to the headmaster. It’s Protocol whenever someone tries to engage in rule
breaking. Let alone conspiracy. Trayton will inform the headmaster and you’ll be punished, maybe even assigned a new Guard. I’m telling you—it’s a bad idea.”

“He wouldn’t do that.” Even as I spoke the words, I didn’t know them to be true. What Maddox was saying was very possible. After all, there was a reason that the headmaster viewed Trayton as his golden boy. But as much as the idea frightened me, angered me, I had to take my chances, and trust that Trayton would keep my confidence. “I’m asking him, Maddox. If I don’t ask him, I’m saying that I don’t trust him. And I do.”

“I’m still asking Darius.” She glanced my way. “Just in case.”

I followed Maddox across the cobblestone of the courtyard toward Darius’s cottage. Just as I was about to ask where the armory was—it hadn’t been part of my initial tour of the campus or my wanderings up until now—she led me around to the back of the building and gestured to a plank wood door with large rusted metal hinges. Balling up her fist, Maddox pounded on the wood twice, eliciting Trayton’s response from inside. “Enter and be known.”

Maddox wordlessly tugged open the door and gestured for me to go inside. Everything about her posture, the look on her face, everything, said that she was absolutely convinced that I was making a huge mistake. I was only hoping she was wrong.

The room beyond the well-worn door had a dirt floor
and walls made of the same plank wood as the door, lined with several hundred wooden-peg racks, which were completely filled with hundreds of sheathed katana swords. At the far end of the room, sitting perched atop a wooden stool, oiling a blade, was Trayton. He looked up as we entered, and though I thought I spied some of that uncertainty from earlier in his gaze, his smile blossomed and erased all signs of doubt. “I was just preparing this for storage. You’re timing couldn’t be better.”

He flicked his eyes to Maddox, and it seemed a question was poised on his tongue, but Maddox beat him to the punch. “Remember when I said you’d owe me for that little alone time stunt at the library, Trayton? Well, you’re about to pay up. I need you to keep an eye on Kaya for me for a while. I have an errand to run, and she can’t come with me.”

Trayton looked surprised, but nodded happily. “Of course.”

Maddox paused at the door, as if doubt were creeping its way into her thoughts. She was about to leave my Barron and me completely alone together. Was she making the right decision? It was like I could read her thoughts scribbled out across her forehead.

Her wordless pause proved fruitless, and Maddox moved back out the door, closing it behind her. Trayton and I were left to fend for ourselves. Alone.

“So…why do you want to learn about katanas?” His
voice was hushed, almost gruff sounding in the small room.

The oil lamps around the room cast a low, warm light, giving an even more intimate feeling to the moment, and I stepped closer, my eyes on the sword in his hand, yes, but more on his hands themselves. His skin was smooth, tan, and supple, and though I knew why I was here—to convince him to teach me how to fight—all I wanted to do at the moment was run my fingertips along the back of his hand. Resisting the urge, just for the moment, I said, “I’m curious. There’s no crime in that, right?”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “No. No harm at all.”

Slipping the blade into the leather sheath, he stood and held the katana out in front of him, chest height, between us. “Your parents are Barrons, so I won’t bore you with the details of sword care. I’m betting you know about oiling a blade and storing them properly. But what else did they teach you, I wonder?”

Shrugging, my eyes fell to the katana, an anxious feeling fluttering in my chest. It was an invitation, although a subtle one. Maybe asking Trayton to train me would be the smartest decision I could make. Maybe Maddox was wrong. “Surprisingly little. I can oil a blade, even hold a katana correctly, but I was never taught the specifics. I never learned the parts of a katana, and certainly never learned how to wield a blade in proper battle form. My
father sparred with me, but I think it was more to amuse himself than to teach me how to fight.”

For a moment, I thought that maybe hearing this would change Trayton’s mind completely about our evening together, but instead, he breathed his next words, and hearing his tone sent a hot shiver through my core. “Then let’s start with the basics, shall we?”

“The sheath that a katana is stored in is referred to as a saya. It serves two purposes. One, to protect the blade from damage. And two, to protect the flesh from injury. The blade…” He withdrew the sword from its sheath again, slowly. The metal gleamed in the low light. As he continued his description, his voice quieted, as if in respect for the weapon in his hands. “…is incredibly sharp. The metal is forged from the black sands of Kaito, where it’s believed that Graplars originate from. Because of that, this metal can slice through the beasts with ease—both soft tissue and bone—unlike any other metal on Tril. A katana created at Starlight Academy can easily be deadly to anyone, including the one who wields it, so it must be treated with immense respect.”