We student healers made our way through the main building and along the paths between the houses as if we’d been gone for years and moved mountains in the process—though that metaphor tasted sour in my mouth, since it was what I would have to do if I ever wanted to get back to Dushka again. I just wanted to shower off the dust of travel and the grime of the army camp, then get in my dormitory bed and sleep for a week, but as soon as word spread that those of us who had gone off to Aktau had returned, the rest of the students cornered those of us who had gone in the bathhouse to ask us questions.
“Is it true that everyone is dead?” a gangly young student named Justus asked from the front of a cluster of men who had just entered the course a few weeks ago, after my group had moved up to the intermediary semester.
“I heard the entire army was wiped out,” another lad named Appius said with a hitch in his voice.
That hitch caught me right in the heart, for some reason, but I was too overwrought to think much of it…or the way Appius looked at me like I was a hero.
“The list that was posted sure was long enough for everyone to be dead,” a third student, Virgil, said.
“What the hell?” Darius barked, pulling his head out of the spray of the shower and pushing his ginger hair back. It had grown long in the last few months, without time for a haircut. Leander had kept his a matching length. “Can’t you see we’re showering?”
“They just want to know what happened,” Lucius growled from the shower between me and Darius.
I sent Darius a look that begged him to be considerate, then twisted to rinse the soap out of my hair so I would be in a better state to talk.
“They’re approaching us while we’re naked and wet,” Leander said, his lascivious grin not reaching his eyes. “That must mean they want something other than information.”
He turned to face the younger students, handling his cock as he did.
“Leander,” I said, sending him a flat look and shaking my head. I didn’t wait for him to tell me he was only joking, which I was certain he would, before turning to the younger students and saying, “Not everyone is dead, but there were heavy casualties.”
I found myself addressing Appius in particular, wanting to soothe the handsome young man. He reminded me a little of Lefric, which sent a sharp pang of homesickness through me.
I wanted my friends back, but it was all too possible that I would never see them again.
“The new army shouldn’t have been in the mountains in the first place,” Lucius snapped. “My brother was among the dead. He was only seventeen. He shouldn’t have been sent off on a fool’s errand for a bastard king who killed his own family to take the throne and now wants to kill everyone else to keep it.”
I gasped. Even Leander and Darius sobered up and looked terrified at Lucius’s treasonous statement.
The younger students seemed shocked…but not as shocked as I imagined they might be. Appius looked downright conspiratorial, which just reminded me of the Sons even more.
All I could come up with in response was, “Keep your voice down, Lucius. Saying things like that could get you in trouble.”
The younger students looked suddenly suspicious. Enough so that I wondered what we’d missed in the time we were gone—other than riots and King Julius filling Royersford with sailor-soldiers.
“Why are you looking like that?” Darius asked the new students, evidently thinking the same thing I was.
“You lot look like you’re plotting something,” Leander added.
Justus, Appius, and Virgil looked at each other, then glanced around the bathhouse—which was relatively crowded for that time of night, mostly with those of us who had just gotten back from Aktau, and a few attendants who were hurrying around, supplying us with soap and towels.
“Have you heard about the riots?” Justus asked, moving closer and lowering his voice.
There was a lot of noise, what with so many showers running, but something told me that was to our advantage.
“Jessup just told us what happened when we were gone,” I said.
Justus glanced to Leander and Darius, then to Lucius, then evidently found me the least threatening to talk to. “I don’t know how Jessup told the story, but people are angry.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Virgil said with a frown. He turned to me and said, “No one is really certain what’s going on, and the only thing the king has said is that all traitors will be crushed.”
“Everyone knows he’s talking about people in town and not just General Rufus and the old army,” Appius said.
“And it has everyone on edge,” Justus went on. He inched in closer, and even though Leander, Darius, Lucius, and I were naked and soapy, we leaned in too. “Within a day of the casualty list going up, there was talk of removing King Julius from the throne.”
“There’s been talk of doing away with the monarchy altogether and electing a new slate of leaders, like they do in Andorra,” Virgil said, seemingly anxious just to say that aloud.
With good reason. I’d seen what could happen when cities ignored their king, like the frontier had with the Old Realm, and when a tyrant took control, like Gomez. And I’d seen what could happen when a tyrant was overthrown if people were not organized and humble.