Refuge(21)

The phone on his desk rang, interrupting us. When I glanced at my watch I was surprised to see that nearly two hours had passed. Tristan stood, wearing an expression of regret. “That would be my reminder that I have a Council call in five minutes. I hate to cut our time short.”

“I understand. We can talk again some other time.”

“I’d like that very much.”

We were walking to the door when my eyes lit on his large bookcase, reminding me of the strange man in the library. “Two nights ago, I went into a small library on the second floor of the east wing and I met a man who was upset about me being there. He didn’t look like a warrior. I mean, there was something different about him. I think he was sick.”

“Did he frighten you?” He didn’t ask what the man looked like, so he obviously knew who I was talking about.

“No, he was pretty agitated though. There was one point where I thought he was going to freak out, but he was mostly rude.”

He looked amused. “His name is Desmund, and he lives in that wing. He has been suffering from illness for a long time, so you’ll have to excuse his bad behavior.”

“Oh, I should have known. I heard there was a sick warrior living in the wing, but I assumed he was on the first floor.” I felt terrible. I’d upset a sick man who probably needed peace and quiet so he could recover. No wonder he’d been so irritable.

Tristan’s chuckle took me off guard. “Desmund has been closed off up there for too long, and it will do him some good to be around other people.” He opened the door for me. “Desmund’s had a very long and interesting life, and he was a different person before he became ill. I think you will like him when you get to know him.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Feel free to use that library whenever you wish. He can be difficult at times, but don’t let him drive you away. I think you will be good for him.”

I made a face. “Great, just what I needed, another difficult warrior.”





Chapter 4





“DO YOU KNOW what this is about?” I asked Olivia, walking beside her around the back of the main building. When we’d arrived at the training wing a few minutes ago, we found a notice telling all trainees to head to the arena. I’d never seen anything here resembling an arena, and I was starting to wonder if this was some kind of joke on the new girl.

Olivia pointed to the left of the menagerie at a square stone building about as big as a small church, with a domed roof like the one on the menagerie. Tall thin windows covered by iron bars shaped like leafy vines lined the side facing us, and I could see an arched doorway framed with the same decoration. Standing in front of the building were the other trainees, Sahir, and the woman who had come into the training room with Tristan several days ago. Everyone but me seemed to know her, and it was obvious from the infatuated stares from the boys that she was very popular among them.

“Who is that?” I asked Olivia, who made a face.

“That’s Celine. She lives in Italy, but she comes here three or four times a year. God, I hope she’s not training us.”

We reached the group before I could ask her what she meant. Celine stopped talking to the assembled trainees when we arrived, and I was taken aback when her frosty green gaze settled on me. “Now that everyone has decided to show up, we’ll get started, shall we?” Her attention shifted back to the others. “Today we are going to add a little practical training, so I hope you studied hard in school.”

An excited murmur rippled through the other trainees, and Sahir stepped forward, his dark eyes sparkling. “Before your imaginations run away with you, you are not going to be facing a vampire or anything that dangerous.”

Celine walked to a cloth-covered cage I had not noticed. “We are going to start you on something less life-threatening.” She pulled the cloth back to reveal a brown rat-like creature the size of a pug with large curved incisors and clawed feet huddled inside the cage. Unlike a rat, it had a short stump of a tail and yellow eyes.

“This is a bazerat, for those of you who are not familiar with them,” Sahir said. “They are found mostly in the Amazon where they live off snakes and birds. They have been known to attack humans if provoked. They are sometimes bred in captivity, and they can be quite dangerous in the wrong hands. One bazerat is not much to look at, a couple of them are a nuisance, but a pack of them is like a school of piranha when they pick up the scent of blood. I have seen a pack of thirty or so bazerats kill and consume a twenty-five foot anaconda in less than an hour.”

Celine smiled as her eyes moved over our group. “Fortunately for you, you will not have to face a whole pack today. You each have to face only a pair of bazerats, a task I’m sure most of you will have no trouble completing.” I couldn’t help but notice that she was looking at me when she said the last part and her smile had become more of a sneer.