Page 84 of A Curse So Cruel
I snort, but Knox lets out a noise of annoyance.
“Knox is right. We need to get her to safety,” Thane says gruffly, as always, being the voice of reason. He waves his hand, and shadows start to pool in the air beside him. Before the pathway is revealed, a large mass of shadows appears a little further from us, and Queen Krosia steps from a pathway accompanied by two of the originals.
Her eyes immediately land on me between Raith and Galen, and all four of my mates go rigid. Raith and Galen quickly step away from me, but it’s too late.
Kazer paces behind me, but he stops when Raith shoots him a look.
“My, my,” the queen croons, “it looks like our Token is still alive. I suppose this day turned out to be a lucky one for some, though not all of the students fared so well in light of the attack.”
The students?My thoughts go to Kenzie, and everything finally clicks. The weakness in the barrier, my guys covered in blood…The dark entities must have attacked the academy, and it must be worse than I thought.I think of the screams I heard earlier, and my stomach churns.
“Our queen,” Thane growls, dipping his head. “I had thought you and the other originals had returned to the palace.”
I stand awkwardly.Hold on is this why it took the guys a while to find me? Had they been fighting dark entities and waiting for the moment they could get to me? And if they were that worried about the queen finding out about us, what’s going to happen now…
“Well yes, that was the intention, but you all seemed so eager for me to leave that I had to wonder why…” The queen’s gaze drags over me, and she looks utterly pleased with herself. “Is this your new pet? I confess, I had a feeling there was something different about her when I selected her as the Token, and I must say, I have not been disappointed.”
“Merely a distraction,” Galen drawls, but it’s obvious they’ve been caught out. My guys look like they’re one word away from drawing their weapons.
The queen scrutinizes me, and I wonder if she’s trying to understand what’s so special about such an insignificant human. Well, the joke’s on her because I’m not special, I’m cursed. I would have laughed at that thought if I didn’t feel like I’m already close to having the queen kill me for fun.
“Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” Queen Krosia comments. “Perhaps, this distraction is why your boundary magic failed.”
“With respect,” Knox answers, not looking at me. “The magic failed because it has been too long since we fortified the layers of protection. It was an oversight that will be remedied immediately.”
“The dark entities knew you were here,” Thane adds in a growl. “It can’t be a coincidence soldiers of the Xalgrith attacked while you were visiting.”
The queen looks like she’s considering this, and her top lip curls as she flicks a glob of murky white goo from her shoulder. It flies onto the original standing to her left, flinging onto his face and hanging from his nose.
A laugh threatens to burst out of me, but Galen subtly shakes his head, and I press my lips tightly together, even as the glob drops to the ground.
“Well yes, I suppose you might be right,” Queen Krosia concedes. “Which is what I was trying to tell you earlier. For whatever reason, the Xalgrith have increased their forces and are becoming much more brazen. We need more warriors.”
“Without proper training, the students will be as good as useless on a battlefield,” Thane counters.
“More useless than the ones who died at the hands of the Xalgrith today?” the queen drawls.
No one answers.
“That’s what I thought,” Queen Krosia says coldly. “When this academy was built and the graduation proceedings for the students was discussed, the war in the shadow realm was in a different place. We must adapt. We need more warriors with immortality and the power to fight. You must speed up the process.”
“The third years may be able to graduate early,” Thane concedes. “But the rest…they need more training.”
“You’re not hearing me, Thane,” Queen Krosia snaps. “If we don’t get more warriors, we may lose the war we’ve been fighting all these years. Despite our soldiers, we’re struggling to keep the Xalgrith at bay, and something has to change.”
Knox clenches his jaw. “What are you saying?”
Queen Krosia gives him a dark smile. “You have a few weeks to get the new students ready, and thenallmust participate in the graduation games.”
Raith curses under his breath.
“You risk losing more students,” Thane points out.
“Then you’ll have to work harder to teach them the skills to survive,” the queen says. “Maybe if we weed out the weak faster, fate will select more students from the human world ahead of time.” She gestures to me. “You did say she only arrived some time ago, did you not? Already, that’s a good sign.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we will get more students sooner,” Galen says.
“Then we shall have to hope for the best. Either way, I will end up with more warriors in the near future to help us fight this war,” Queen Krosia states. Even I can see she’s being short-sighted about this, but her mind is obviously made up.