And I wished I could have seen Lefric enjoying himself at the part of the festival I now found myself in. Because outside of the palace, the harvest festival was everything that I enjoyed about faires in the frontier and around the cities. Lefric would have loved the games that Mara and I played, the food and drink we sampled, and the way we danced along with everyone else, even though I had to be taught the different Old Realm dances.
What started out as one of the worst days I’d experienced in a long time ended up turning into pure delight, once Mara and I escaped from the palace. There were bad things about the Old Realm and there were good things, but I supposed that was just how things were.
The festival outside of the palace was all games and merriment, good food and even better drinks. Mara and I stayed together, and I was surprised at how much Mara could drink before she started to turn fuzzy. She probably felt the same about me.
By the end of the evening, we managed to slosh our way back to the college and our house. We were drunk enough that we fell into my bed together, kissing and groping each other clumsily, but far too inebriated to do more than that. We couldn’t even manage the coordination to take our clothes off and ended up falling asleep in a messy pile…then waking up an hour or so later to puke our guts out before falling asleep again.
But all the time, in the back of my head, the things that I’d seen and heard in the palace stuck with me. There was more to General Rufus’s defection than met the eye, I was certain. And there would be deeper consequences to it, I knew. All I had to do was wait, and I was certain another shoe would drop.
ChapterSeven
Iwish I could have said that everything from the harvest festival was quickly forgotten and we all moved on to more important things. We might have, if it wasn’t for the fact that the news about General Rufus’s defection became public knowledge by the end of the week.
“I suppose you’re laughing at us all,” Lucius said with a sneer as our group of housemates sat together, studying for our end of the first semester exams a week after the festival.
It took me a moment to realize that he was talking to me.
“No!” I said sitting straighter and gaping at him. “Why would I laugh? There’s an army in my homeland, and King Julius is about to force another one over the mountains to go after him.”
“And I bet that makes you happy,” Lucius snapped, shifting restlessly in his seat. “I bet you’re just roaring on the inside because my little brother was taken as an army recruit yesterday. He’s only seventeen!”
That had me sitting up even straighter.
“The king has already started drafting soldiers into a new army?” I asked.
Lucius looked a tiny bit mollified that I seemed horrified rather than amused by his misfortune.
“The order went out two days ago,” Mara said, ever the font of knowledge about the inner workings of the palace. I had the feeling she spent more time in the palace than any of us knew about.
Which made me nervous, if I was being honest. Our friendship had grown since the day of the festival. We’d had a good laugh about waking up in bed together. And about taking turns holding the bucket while we vomited up all the alcohol we’d consumed. We never did end up fucking, and honestly, I wasn’t attracted to her that way. But everyone in the house felt that things had shifted between us and that we were close friends now. I actually thought Leander and Darius were a little jealous, in a good-humored way.
“I’m surprised the recruiters haven’t come for us yet,” Darius said, exchanging a glance with Leander. “We’re the only boys in the family. The other three are girls.”
“Not that our family wants anything to do with us anymore,” Leander added in a gloomy undertone that had my brow shooting up.
“It’s their loss,” Darius said with a shrug.
“Either way, the king’s declaration is that every family must send a son to the army or have one chosen to serve for them,” Leander finished the thought.
“Not if they’re healers or studying to be healers,” Lucius said, both cross and miserable. He threw down his pencil and hunched back in his chair, arms crossed. “I can’t believe they took Augustus. He’s not old enough.”
“Everyone over the age of sixteen,” Mara said with a sigh.
It wasn’t lost on me that healers were considered more important than soldiers, even with a rogue army rampaging through the frontier.
It also wasn’t lost on me that I hadn’t received a single letter from anyone in the frontier since arriving in Royersford. I’d written to Dushka every week, and I’d written to all of the other Sons at least once too. But I hadn’t heard anything back from any of them. One or two, and I would chalk it up to laziness on my friends’ parts. Nothing at all from anyone was a certain sign that the mail wasn’t getting through.
I didn’t have any idea whether any of my letters had been delivered. I had no clue what my loved ones were experiencing as autumn grew deeper and the chill winds of winter hinted that the snows would soon set in. I didn’t even really know whether the people I cared about were alive or if General Rufus and his army had started a war and killed everyone.
The scandal of the frontier, the new army, and the methods that the king used to build it were all anyone could talk about for the next month. Because healers were exempt from recruitment demands, the new order affected us as well. A slew of new students joined the healer’s course, many of them from the countryside, where it was whispered a higher number of young men would be drafted into the new army.
In addition to our usual classes and rounds at the infirmary—and once we made it through exams, those of us who passed, which included everyone in our house, moved on to actually treating patients—we were given additional instruction in treating battle wounds.
On the one hand, I already knew how to treat sword wounds and burns from flaming arrows. Not only had I helped Galina treat Magnus after the assassination attempt, I’d spent days after the Battle of the Coronation, patching up friends and enemies who had taken part in the battle.
As soon as the magister teaching the class recognized that I knew as much as he did, he set me up as his class aide. I was taken off kitchen duty for a while and tasked with tutoring fellow students in the art of wrapping bandages and assessing whether a wound was dire or if it could wait while others were treated.
I didn’t like it. Anything I did that brought extra attention to myself wasn’t good. And anything at all that hinted to people I was from the frontier immediately brought scrutiny down on me that I didn’t want.