Autumn Rose: A Dark Heroine Novel (21 page)

“Quit it, Gwen. Autumn’s not stupid enough to do that,” Tammy said, coming to my rescue. I extended one side of my mouth in a shy smile of gratitude.

“But c’mon, Autumn, put us out of our misery!” Christy demanded. “What were you doing getting out of the same car as Prince Fallon, then? With someone who looked like Prince Alfred driving?” She added emphasis both times she said the princes’ names.

I looked to Edmund for permission. His face was no longer composed and I could see his lips fighting the urge to smile—I don’t know how he was maintaining control listening to this kind of conversation. Catching my eye, he gave a small nod.

“He is living with the duke and duchess of Victoria because they have property here. As I’m the premier nobleperson in the country, it was my duty to welcome them. So they invited me to stay for the weekend.”

Gwen jumped up in her chair and screamed, then swore, turning the heads of the whole class so they were listening. Mr. Sylaeia made no move to regain order. I think it was his way of telling me he had been right. “You stayed with him?
All
weekend?”

“Yes.”

“You had him all to yourself. I am so, so jel!” She sighed, dropping back into her chair. “He is just so gorgeous, and rich, and—”

“The most famous person on the planet—”

“And intelligent—”

“I can’t believe we spend fifteen minutes of every day with him!”

“And gentlemanly—”

“He surfed in Australia!”

“And rich, and famous—”

“And he had that hottie, Amanda, on his arm for years—”

“And I bet his dick is like nine inches—”

“If you have all finished listing His Highness’s attributes, I think the duchess would like to bask in her admirable dignity,” Edmund interrupted, silencing the room with his steely tones. A few people gasped. Others shrank back down into their seats. Gwen and Christy bit their lips to suppress their giggles, whereas Tammy paled. Even Mr. Sylaeia raised his eyebrows at me when I glanced his way. Unperturbed, however, he picked up his pen and bounced on his heels as he always did when something especially boring was coming our way.

“Good call,” he praised, nodding in Edmund’s direction. “If you ever get sick of kicking anti-Athenean backside, consider a career as a teacher.”

The whole class laughed. Even Edmund cracked a very small smile.

Once the last chuckle had died down, the lesson properly began and I opened my book, finding my page in the very last chapter. I was hoping to return it that day, and so scanned the text quickly, making sparse notes on anything that might help my A-level. I had read two pages when there was a tap on my arm.

It was Tammy. “What did he say to you in Sagean before he left?” she whispered.

“Oh,” I breathed, looking back down at my page to hide my smile. “He said, ‘maple syrup.’ ”

Before she could question the meaning of that, the fire bell rang. Above its continuous, shrill cry, a few students whooped and cheered. Mr. Sylaeia frowned, flipping his teacher planner open. His expression darkened before he began barking instructions.

I had no need to listen to them as I found Edmund at my side, stiff and hoisting me up. I went to grab my books and bag, but he instructed me to leave everything. One look at his face told me to obey.

This was no drill.

Autumn

E
dmund! Edmund, where are you going?” I dug my heels in and attempted to halt him, but it was useless. He had a firm grip on me and I just tripped over my own feet. “Edmund, I have to check in!”

The bell was still ringing, it was all I could hear, and the quad had become eerily empty. The rest of the class had disappeared around the block and onto the tennis courts, which was the rendezvous point where everybody had to be accounted for.

“No, you do not. I have a bad feeling about this. We’re leaving.”

I had other ideas. By hooking my foot around a nearby picnic bench, I was able to wrench free of his grip, very nearly ending up on the ground in the process. He only just caught me, but I quickly broke contact again.

“If I don’t check in they will send out a search party and somebody might get hurt!”

He glared. “When I said ‘gracious lady,’ I wasn’t suggesting that you were canonized! Less saint, more moving, if you will.”

I started moving, but in the opposite direction from him, heading for the earthy red banks to cut through to the tennis courts.

“My lady, you can’t walk away!”

I stuck a hand out and waved him off, continuing. “Yes, I can. My surname isn’t House of Athenea.” As I climbed the worn, makeshift steps, carved out by multiple feet over many years, I heard footsteps behind me.

“They told me you had grown to be milder in your absence and I was beginning to believe it. But you are just as stubborn as I remember you. A true Al-Summers.”

His voice chased my back and I folded my arms across my chest, marching along the path until I decided how to reply. “I don’t remember you.” I didn’t entirely consciously choose to say that, and didn’t mean it to come out so bluntly.

He never replied, and we were soon slipping through a side gate into the enclosed paddock, fenced in on all four sides. There was complete chaos. People were struggling to find their homeroom groups, and judging by the way Tammy, Tee, Gwen, and Christy were all standing together, weren’t making much effort to do so, either.

The prince was easy to spot beside Richard’s bulk. “Dragged Edmund to check in, too, eh?”

I nodded. “What’s going on?”

“Everybody is saying someone hit one of the glass alarms. I don’t sense any fire, and fire is my best element, so I guess they’re right.” He shrugged, wandering to the front of the line as Mr. Sylaeia demanded we get in alphabetical order. I stepped in front of him. Edmund and Richard, despite the statement about the lack of fire, still looked very uneasy.

Mr. Sylaeia scooted down the line and ticked everybody’s name off, handing the register to the secretary, who was moving from one homeroom teacher to another. At the far end, beside the dismantled basketball post, the headmaster was struggling with a megaphone, until it eventually screeched into life.

I stopped listening as soon as I realized he was going to lecture us on how setting the alarms off was unacceptable and dangerous. It had happened more times than I cared to count the previous year, so his choice words clearly had no impact. The rest of the school seemed to have the same thought, as a dull murmur rose to a crescendo right over the top of him as people speculated as to who the culprit could be.

A breeze was beginning to pick up, stirring my hair from behind my ears. But it wasn’t coming from the direction of the river or the sea. It was moving across the gently sloping fields, and somehow penetrating the trees that stood on the banks surrounding us.

I unfolded my arms slowly. “If there is no fire, then what is that?” I muttered.

The prince looked up. “Lords of Earth,” he breathed.

Other people were noticing it, too, and the noise level began to drop.

Floating toward us was what looked like light sea mist, aside from the fact it carried debris from the trees. It clung to the still-dewy ground, barely rising fifteen feet. And with the wind that dragged it along came magic. Cold, moist magic.

I looked at the prince. The prince looked at me. Edmund glared at both of us. Before anybody could say anything, an arm had wrapped itself around my shoulders and was guiding me toward the exit of the paddock. I tried to shake it off, but Edmund anticipated it this time and had a stronger grip. The prince, on the other hand, compliantly trotted along beside Richard.

I threw myself up against his barriers and he didn’t hesitate to let me in. This time there were no scenic hills, just a vast, black space filled with boxes. I focused on shutting down our line of communication so that neither Athan would hear, and then exploded.

“You’re kidding me, right? You’re just going to run away and leave everybody unprotected?”

“What can we do? That is magic, and it’s not any of us. They are in the area, Autumn! It’s not safe!”

“Your Highness, I am a guardian of this school. Are you?”

I tilted my head and examined him across the front of Edmund. I was treated with his wide-eyed communicative expression before he tilted his head and relented.

“Okay, okay, I get it. Just please don’t do anything stupid.”

I wasn’t going to make a promise.
“On three.”

When I got to two, I slumped as though my knees had buckled from beneath me, ducking under Edmund’s arm. He dropped down to try and snatch me, but I was gone and his hand only closed around air. People were screaming now, and I dived between them, knowing it would lessen the chances of either Athan casting a spell. The prince did the same; when we reached the fence, he leaped up and grabbed its top, hoisting himself up and dropping over the other side, out of the paddock. I jumped up and landed on the edge, joining him on the ground. All the gates in and out of the courts had already slammed shut on us—Edmund was trying to trap us inside.

Up until that point, the cloud had moved only as fast as the wind could carry it. I had counted on that to be able to skirt its perimeter, because there was no way I was throwing myself, or the prince, into it—I had no idea what it was, or what kind of magic had created it. Even so, it was what it concealed that I was more worried about. Yet as we stepped onto the grass, it suddenly hurtled toward us, and before I could even scream or scramble back, it had swallowed me up whole.

I felt skin brush my hand and heard somebody yell my name, but that was it. All I could feel was dampness and all I could see was white. I did a half-turn and looked back; I should not have been more than a few meters from the courts and took a few steps in that direction. After twenty, it was evident I was going the wrong way.

I went left. I went right. I tried straight on, sure I must be headed in the direction of the school, or the banks, or something solid and recognizable, but hit nothing. The inevitable pounding of panic in my chest began. I started running but only succeeded in stirring the mist around my feet, which left me unsure of whether I was even treading on grass any longer. When I went to crouch to see, I felt dizzy and couldn’t understand why my hand wasn’t hitting the ground.

There were no consciousnesses, not even those of the humans, within my reach, and a dull, faraway thought in the mist somewhere considered the possibility that the prince had left the dimension, or was dead, because consciousnesses did not just go that quickly. They did not just snuff out. They faded.

“Your Highness?” I whispered. The sound was completely lost. “Edmund?” I whirled around, grabbing fistfuls of moist air, which mingled with the tears that were now falling down my face. “Fallon?” There was still no answer.

“Fallon!” I screamed out of desperation, closing my eyes because the dark was better than the blankness. “Fallon!”

Then came a reply. But it wasn’t in Sagean. It wasn’t even in a Canadian accent. It was stunted and artificial. And it made my blood run cold.

“She is here. Find her.”

Fire sprang to life in the palms of my hands, and I briefly put up a shield around myself but then let it fade again as the mist around me steamed and evaporated away because of the heat. Abruptly, my dull thoughts sharpened and my heart rate slowed as grass behind and in front of me came into view. I quenched the fire and didn’t attempt to shield again, shocked at how foolishly close I had come to being found—igniting that sort of energy was like turning myself into a beacon.

“And how do you suggest we do that? Your damn hex is affecting us, too!” That accent was a regional one from the southwest of England. I tried to place the direction the sounds were coming from, but they came from everywhere.

There was no reply, and I wondered if they had moved away from me; either way, I stood stock-still, hardly daring to move in case I made a sound. In contrast, my mind was attempting to scour away the haze to find something, anything, from my lessons on hexes, because I knew what this cloud was, I just couldn’t name it and I couldn’t defend against it, because my mind was still too sluggish.

“Giles!”

“Abria?”

“Giles, where are you?”

“I don’t know! I’m injured, the Athan are here!”

The accents were mingling into one now, though I thought I heard something Eastern European. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t think. The mist was seeping into the air I was inhaling again, and though I filled my lungs with shallow breaths, I could feel my heartbeat pulsing erratically and my eyes falling shut.

“Fallon! Where are you?” The cry was out of my mouth though I had never chosen to say anything, because my mouth was working independently of my head. The mist had spoken for me, because it drew them closer to where I was frozen.

“Autumn! Are you hurt?”

“Fallon! It’s the Extermino! They’re near me!”

“Autumn? Are you there? Say something!”

He couldn’t hear me, yet I could continue to hear his yelps for me, or Edmund, or Richard. None were returned.

“Galdur! I hear the girl. She must be near. Galdur?”

“Edmund!” The accent was Canadian, and I finally opened my eyes to the mist with the hope the sound brought.

“Alya, we can’t fight it! Alya, do you understand? Don’t fight it!” It was Edmund, speaking in Sagean, and it gave me the strength to light a fire, no more than the size of a flame on the end of a matchstick, to hold in front of my nose and mouth. I let it burn for a few seconds, took a long gulp of clean air, and then extinguished it.

“Edmund, I can’t hear you!” said the same woman, and it was shortly followed by Richard, as calm and controlled as his counterpart, repeating the other man’s instructions. The Athan’s message must have spread, because before I was even close to needing another mouthful of air, there were several screams.

“Galdur’s dead!” the man with the local accent yelled. “Sif, Tomas, help me out here! Abria, stay with Giles!”