HAIL
I close my eyes to the sun, letting it wash over my skin. The glare filters through my eyelids with a ruddy glow. My cheeks feel as if they’re baking.
The mortal realm is such a bizarre place. So many aspects of it waver on the line between pleasure and pain.
My essence responds best to the cold rather than heat. If I stand here a few minutes longer, like I sometimes do on the desert plain outside the school, every inch of my skin will start to prickle with the impression of burning.
But then, why shouldn’t I burn?
My instructor on this test clears her throat to get my attention. I open my eyes to the sprawling green of the city park, scattered with looming trees and dotted with mortal figures strolling or lounging on picnic blankets.
A trace of acid creeps up my throat. I resist the urge to curl my lip in disgust.
If I’m ever going to establish myself in this realm the way I want to, I have to be able to at least tolerate humanity.
“Shall we keep walking?” Shanty says pointedly. It isn’t much of a test if I don’t have to come near anyone.
We both know the main reason I’ve failed these trial outings again and again.
I shrug as if unconcerned and start forward along the paved pathway. When I lift a potato chip from the bag of BBQ flavor I bought—without doing the slightest bit of harm to the shopkeeper, I should note—I keep a close eye on the sleeve of my thin linen shirt to ensure the tight cuff doesn’t ride down.
Who knows what the humans would make of the blue veins that wind across my milky forearms all the way to my elbows? They stand out as starkly as if they were painted on.
I pop the chip into my mouth and allow myself a small smile at the crackling flavor that spreads across my tongue. I’ll give humans credit for one thing—they do know how to make good use of spicing.
Nothing in the shadow realm ever offered this delicious kick, like a shock to my system.
I suppose we do need to keep them around, if only for that reason.
I catch a couple of glances from the human women strolling past me, coyly through lowered eyelashes, one with a slight flush to her cheeks. It seems my smile has drawn a familiar sort of attention.
It’s become obvious even in my very short sojourns away from school that mortals find my humanesque form just as appealing as many of my fellow shadowkind do. Not an opening I’m inclined to pursue with these sort of beings, but worth of a wider smirk.
As I amble onward, Shanty drifts back behind me, giving me plenty of room as if I'm out for a walk on my own. But I know she's tracking my every move.
I tune out my awareness of her presence, drawing breath after breath of fresh air into my lungs. Snacking on another chip.
If you ignore the humans draping themselves all over it, the park has plenty to recommend about it. The warm breeze carries the sweet scents of spring growth that are always tainted by dust around the school grounds. Plenty of other, less irritating mortal creatures abound, from the squirrel scampering across the path to the birds chirping out their songs on the tree branches.
This place is much closer to where I'm meant to be—where my shadowkind essence craves to be—than the nearly barren, hard-packed earth of the New Mexico desert, that's for certain.
A child leaps after the squirrel with a high-pitched giggle. Watching the poor animal dart away in a panic, I grit my teeth but keep walking.
I simply have to make it from one end of the park to the other. It's large as city parks go, but I should be able to cross the length of it in twenty minutes or less.
A dog races past me with a tennis ball clutched in its jaws. It drops it at the foot of an elderly woman and bows down in a pose of appeasement that it really should be ashamed of. She doesn't smile at it, doesn't even look at it, too busy blathering on the phone pressed to her ear.
A little farther on, near a cluster of picnic tables, a group gets up from their meal in the midst of raucous chatter. They saunter away, leaving plastic wrappers and soda cans nestled in the grass around the table.
Do they not even see?
No, the problem is that they don't care.
But that’s not my problem. My only problem is finishing this test and getting out of here. None of them need to matter.
I follow a bend in the path past a parking lot about half full of noxious human vehicles. The row of shops beyond the far edge of the patch of wilderness comes into view beyond the last of the trees.
Almost at the end. My goal is no more than a minute or two away.
Even as I think that, a sharp bang reverberates through the air. I jerk to a halt as I register what it was: a car door slamming.
Raised voices burst out alongside it. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"You cut me off, you prick!"
My nerves scatter, and my pulse hitches to a frantic pace. Images flit through my head: red splashed on white, humans bellowing, a lance of pain—
I stiffen my body to stop it from trembling, terror and humiliation over my panicked reaction jolting through me in tandem. My jaw clenches.
But before I can catch it, a spurt of my chilling power shoots out of me.
I glance over in time to see the two men in the parking lot skidding on the slick ice that formed out of nowhere beneath their feet. One topples and smacks his knee hard enough that I hear the impact from where I'm standing. He groans in pain.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
In an instant, Shanty is at my shoulder. "Hail," she hisses in frustration, and yanks me off the path, away from the lot.
My pulse is already slowing, but the tang of adrenaline lingers, turning my thoughts and my tongue sour. "It was only a little ice. No one had any reason to think it had to do with me."
The siren glares at me as we come to a stop in a more isolated grove of trees. "No one had any reason to expect sudden ice in the middle of May. And you hurt that man. He wasn't even near you."
I open my mouth and close it again. I don't have any real defense.
There were other men who did more than hurt. There were others where I didn't do enough.
All I was doing is putting the vermin in their place.
Saying that will only frustrate her more. My hand tightens around the near-empty chip bag.
I try aiming one of my charming grins at Shanty—the type that sets of giggles among half the female shadowkind in my dorm and a couple of the men too. “I was almost there. Can’t you find the goodness in your heart to give me a few points for that?”
She sighs and folds her arms over her chest. “It’s not a point system. It’s pass/fail. And that was a definite failure.”
I cock my head, flexing my muscles subtly beneath my button-up tee. “You really are something to look at when you’re annoyed. I could make it up to you.”
She sputters a laugh. “Are you trying to seduce me now? You’re really something, Hail, and I don’t mean that in a good way. You're never going to make it even to level three if you can't control yourself on a half hour's outing. I've got to knock you back down to level one now. If you aren't even going to try, you might as well go on back to the shadow realm. The Academy’s spots are for shadowkind who actually want to change."
A different sort of chill sweeps through me with a rush of denial. No. This is where I'm meant to be, with the trees and the grass and the open sky. To go back to the suffocating darkness, alone...
"I am trying," I say with forced evenness. "My powers lashed out in an automatic reaction. I didn't decide to throw ice at them."
"Well, then I guess you'd better keep working on those knee-jerk impulses in class, huh? Come on, let's get you back to school."
#
When I walk through the arched front entrance of the reform building, Gloss is standing just inside the front hall, eyeing the bonus assignments posted on the bulletin board as if she'd ever actually consider taking them on. They aren't even for voluntary students like her.
She's waiting for me, of course. She’s very good at not letting on, flicking her sleek black hair over her shoulder and then lifting her eyebrows slightly as if she didn’t expect to see me coming in. But her interest in me, whatever it’s worth, has been obvious enough.
And she deeply wants me to move up in the levels so she can finally show me off over on her side of the school whenever I feel like wandering over there. I won’t be allowed to cross between buildings until I’m at least level three.
My gaze travels over her svelte body. It’s appealing enough, and I think she’d let me take her to bed if I offered the invitation now. But she’s intense enough when we haven’t exchanged more than a few flirty touches. Easier to play around with the beings who don’t want anything more from me than that.
I’m not sure I have any interest in playing a significant role in her life. I’ve seen the excitement shimmer in her eyes when she’s just come back from a stint in the human world, where she always seems to be hobnobbing with some elite group.
She wants to blend in. I want to build something just for shadowkind, a part of this realm that humans can’t touch. There’s not much overlap between our dreams.
Still, shame pricks at the back of my neck when her gaze drops to my badge and she takes in the 1 marked on the new one.
To give the snow demon credit, she hides her brief flicker of disappointment with a cool to match my own and tsks her tongue teasingly. “You just don’t know how to play nice, do you, Hail?”
I could say something about how she likes me better when I’m being bad, but today’s expedition hasn’t left me with much of a stomach for further flirtation. I stride past her. “I never learn my lessons well enough, apparently.”
I keep my tone flippant, and Gloss laughs as if that was a fantastic joke, although it isn’t really one at all. When I head deeper into the school, she sidles after me. “You could burn off some frustration on the morphball court. Make sure you keep that top spot.”
I wave her off, letting an edge creep into my voice. “I’ve had enough games for today. Feel free to find someone else to play with.”
After that brush-off, Gloss doesn’t follow me. She’s got far too much dignity for that.
I stalk the rest of the way to the dorm, letting a wintry chill course out of my body. Reminding everyone who passes me that I’m the most powerful fae here at the Academy, and they’d better respect that.
Fucking school and their ridiculous tests. I could have done ten times worse to those humans, and they’d still have deserved it.
I’m not going to let them get the better of me. I’m sure as shit not going to let the administration chase me back to the shadow realm.
I’ll ace every class and shoot right back to level 2, and then I’ll waltz around the human world pretending they don’t even exist, even if I have to numb my entire brain to manage it.
It shouldn’t be that hard. I just haven’t been trying quite hard enough.
That’s all. No big deal.
I push into the dorm, and my gaze lands on the only other being currently in the common room: the short-and-curvy, teal-haired new arrival who thinks she can wield her perkiness like a weapon.
Periwinkle. Such a ridiculous name.
She’s standing at the far end of the hall by the kitchen area, clinking a spoon in a glass. She glances over at the squeak of the door, and one of those absurdly sunny smiles darts across her face. “Oh, hi! It’s Hail, right? I was just making iced tea. Do you want some?”
Is that supposed to be some kind of jab about my powers? Does she think if she sucks up to me, I’ll get Gloss off her back?
I stare down my nose at her and pitch my voice to be both languid and cold enough to burn. “If you want to drink stuff that tastes like sugared piss, it’s all yours.”
Most shadowkind would wince at the caustic words. The wimpiest of them would scuttle away.
Periwinkle the whatever-the-fuck-she-is just keeps smiling at me like I complimented her taste in beverages. “Just let me know if you change your mind!”
I scoff and stride into my room, yanking the door shut behind me. Does the dimwit not have two braincells to rub together?
How can she not find me even a little bit intimidating? There’s definitely something wrong with that one.