Page 28 of Taste of Thorns (The Firestone Academy #3)

Chapter Twenty-Five

B riony

“You coming round ours tonight?” Dray asks me hopefully the next day as we leave our final lesson, his arm hooked around my neck and his warm body pressed up close to mine.

“Not tonight.”

He pouts. “Why not? I thought you and Beau had made up. Or has the asshole done something else to upset you?”

I shake my head. “Not yet but give him time.” Dray chuckles. “It’s not that though. They’re holding a memorial for Esme Jones out on the field tonight. Then I’m training with Fox again.”

“Esme Jones?” Dray repeats, clearly not recognizing the name.

“The girl who died in the last trial,” I whisper to him.

Dray isn’t as heartless as I suspect most people think he is.

He cares about the people close to him. Yet, Esme’s death seems to have passed him right by – just like it has all the rest of the shadow weavers.

It reminds me that as important as I may be to Dray, Beaufort, and Thorne, to them ordinaries are of little consequence.

“Ahhh,” Dray says and I half expect him to argue with me. He doesn’t. He simply kisses me on my brow and deposits me at the canteen without another word.

After a rather solemn dinner, I walk out across the field with all the other Iron, Granite, and Slate students, one arm linked through Fly’s, his other linked through Clare’s.

Dusk is descending and the blanket of snow covering the ground and the trees of the forest has morphed to a muted gray – as if the land is mourning too.

A row of candles twinkle in the snow right where the field meets the first few trees of the forest. Several students are already gathered at the makeshift memorial – not something the academy faculty has arranged – they’ve barely acknowledged Esme’s death – an event her friends have cobbled together as best they could.

When we reach the lights, we stop. The candles have been arranged into letters spelling out the name Esme, and wild winter flowers have been scattered across the snow.

I cast my eyes over the crowd of students. Nearly everyone is here – even Odessa’s old crew and Stanley Chandlers. Although the shadow weavers are all absent. I’m not surprised. Why would they care about one more commoner lost?

Esme’s girlfriend steps forward to address the crowd, flanked by two kids from Granite. She’s dressed in a long black coat and her crimson necklace glints in the candle light.

She opens her mouth to speak, then something catches her attention over our heads. Her mouth makes a little surprised shape and then she’s whispering to her friends.

I turn around to see what she’s looking at and find the Princes striding across the field in our direction. Everyone watches them come in silent shock.

The three men weave their way through the crowd, stopping right beside me, Beaufort resting his hand on my shoulder and squeezing it.

Naomi looks at them in bewilderment for several long moments, then blurts out,

“What are you doing here?”

Dray looks around the crowd as if not convinced she’s addressing him, then glances back towards Naomi. “We’re here for the memorial,” he says.

“To pay our respects,” Beaufort adds and I can’t help smiling, my heart warming because these men surprise me all the time and maybe they really are trying to be less assholey.

Naomi still looks pretty shocked, but she shakes herself out of it and begins.

“Thank you all for coming here tonight to remember Esme,” she tells us. Then, she talks about her girlfriend, the friend beside her reads a poem, and the other friend plays a song on their guitar. Darkness falls and soon all we can see are the candles flickering in the snow.

When Naomi asks us all to take a moment in silence to remember Esme, I can’t help thinking of my sister and her funeral, how vastly different it had been. Just me and my dad. No pretty words, no pretty flowers.

But maybe there were people at the academy who mourned her. Maybe her friends held a memorial just like this one. Maybe someone lit a candle for her and another spoke of how wonderful she was.

If they did, I wish I’d been there. I wish I’d had the chance to say goodbye properly. I wish I’d had the opportunity to tell her just how much I loved her.

For a moment, I’m hit by an overwhelming grief that threatens to swallow me whole.

Then Beaufort squeezes my shoulder again and I look up into his solemn face, remembering that I’m not alone anymore.

Once the memorial ends, the Princes go off to talk to Naomi and her friends, leaving me, Clare, and Fly to walk back across the field towards the campus.

When we reach our tower, I turn to the others and say, “I’ll see you both at breakfast tomorrow.”

Fly plants his hands firmly on his hips. “Uh uh. I’ve done the whole being a good friend thing and supported you both in your desperate quests to get laid–”

“Quest?” Clare says confused.

“I was not desperate,” I protest.

“Whatever. But hanging out together yesterday reminded me just how often you two bitches have been ditching me in favor of cock, and while I can appreciate the merits of a good cock, I’m also pretty bored of lying in my cold room and staring at the ceiling.

” He sniffs. “And after that memorial, I don’t feel like being alone. ”

“I’m not ditching you in favor of cock,” I say, “I’ve been having lessons with Fox.”

“Lessons?” Fly snorts.

“Yes, lessons. He’s helping me with my,” I lower my voice, swinging my gaze around the other students pushing past us on their way into the tower, “magic.”

“Sure he is!”

“Cross my heart.”

“How about you, Clare Bear?” Fly says. “I suppose you’re going to claim you and Damian are working on a cure for cancer.”

“Nope,” she says flatly, “I’ve been enjoying the merits of his cock.”

Fly pouts. “So you’re both going to dump me again?”

“We can hang out,” Clare tells him, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it.

“I’m not really in the mood for having sex tonight anyway,” Clare says bluntly and Fly rolls his eyes and mutters something I don’t hear.

“Plus, it’s probably a good thing to have a little space from Damian. Distance makes the heart grow fonder.”

“And the cock harder,” Fly adds.

The two of them turn to me expectantly.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t miss a lesson. This is really important to me.”

“Then can we come and watch?” Clare says, sliding her glasses up her nose. “I think it would help take our minds off things.”

“Errr,” I say, “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

Fly rolls his eyes and turns to Clare. “Because there’s canoodling involved.”

“There is not!”

“Good. Then that’s decided. We’ll come watch.”

I open my mouth to give another reason why the two of them can’t come but I don’t have one.

The truth is, I’ve been enjoying my one-on-one time with Fox and I’m not keen to have that interrupted, but I realize that makes me a shitty friend, especially when they’re both feeling so sad, so I bite my tongue and decide to lump it.

Half an hour later, as we trudge through the forest, I’m regretting my life choices because Fly is once again moaning about the cold and Clare is monologuing about the facts she learned in Professor Cornelius’ lesson that day.

I can feel a headache brewing behind my eyeballs, a feeling that lifts miraculously as we step out of the trees and into the clearing. Fox is already there, lingering in the shadows, his eyes glowing. He glances at my two friends, then back to me, lifting an eyebrow.

“We have a couple of spectators,” I say, then whisper silently, “sorry.”

I half expect him to order them away, or to descend into a grump.

Instead, he nods, swiping his cloak off his shoulders and rolling up his sleeves.

“As long as they are silent spectators who don’t interrupt, that’s fine.”

Right on cue, Clare screams her lungs out and when I spin to see what’s wrong, I find Blaze has appeared out of nowhere and is once again pawing all over her, his long tongue slurping up her cheeks.

“Oh my goodness,” Fly cries, “this dragon is totally in love with you!”

“Blaze stop that!” I tell him.

It doesn’t work. The dragon acts like he hasn’t heard me at all.

I march over to them both and with my arms wrapped around his neck, attempt to pull him away. He whines and struggles in my arms.

“Sheesh,” Fly shakes his head, “he must have a thing for smart girls.”

“Trust me,” Clare wipes the slobber from her cheeks, grimacing as she does. “That is not a quality the male species is searching for. In fact, most boys run in the other direction when they find out you’re smarter than they are.”

“Boys might do,” Fox says, eyes locked on me. “Men do not.”

“Oh,” Clare says, flushing so hard it’s visible even in the darkness.

“I’ve always found smart women incredibly attractive,” Fox says in his deep growl of a voice causing Clare to erupt into a fit of uncontrollable giggles.

Fly looks at her cautiously like she might have become possessed.

“You all right there, Clare Bear?”

“Yes,” she finally manages to squeak, but she continues to hiccup, unable to look the professor in the eye.

Blaze makes an attempt to escape my hold and launch himself at her again.

If I’m meant to have a connection with this dragon, it definitely isn’t working. He ignores my instructions to leave Clare alone and in the end my friend settles on a log and beckons him over.

“You can come here for strokes and tummy rubs,” she warns him, “but no getting overexcited.”

Blaze’s tail thumps the ground but he does as he’s told and settles at Clare’s feet.

“I don’t know how you do that,” I say.

“Consequences,” she says, patting the dragon on the head. “He knows that if he doesn’t behave, he’s not going to get his tummy rubs.”

“Right,” the professor says, recapturing all our attention. “If you’re done, can we begin?”

I nod.

“I’m so excited to see this,” Fly squeals, joining Clare on the log.

The professor glares at him, and he lifts his hand in apology and makes a thing of smacking his lips together.

“Briony,” Fox instructs me, “find the light in your blood and call it forth.”

I glance at my friends. Doing this is becoming easier each time I try, but I’ve never tried to do it in front of an audience before and I can’t help feeling self-conscious.

But if this magic is actually going to be of use to me, I’m going to need to be able to call it forth whenever I want – audience or no audience.

I close my eyes, try to block out the noise of Blaze purring and Fly fidgeting on his seat.

I find that sensation flickering all around my body, vibrant and strong. I reach for it and it comes gliding into the palm of my hand, illuminating the clearing in a bright light.

“Oh my goodness,” I hear Fly gasp and when I open my eyes, I find both my friends standing on their feet and gazing at me in wonder. Blaze is watching me too, his golden eyes reflecting the light radiating from my palms.

It takes me completely by surprise and I lose the connection, the light disappearing like a candle snuffed out, plunging us all back in darkness.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Fly says, sounding spell-bound and making me blush nearly as hard as Clare did earlier.

“Me neither, that was so pretty,” Clare adds.

“Beautiful but also powerful,” Fox states.

“More powerful than shadow weaving?” Clare asks.

“Potentially. If she keeps practicing,” Fox faces me, “I believe she’ll be a force to be reckoned with.”