Her fingers found his face, earning a gasp from him. She felt the hot blood under his nose, all swollen and crooked. He winced from her touch and pulled her hands down.
“Nyx … they mean to hurt you.”
“Who—？”
But even she could guess the answer. A scuffle of leather on stone sounded from all around her. She heard a hard snicker behind her.
“Run,” Jace urged, and pushed her up.
She hesitated in a crouch, frozen by fear.
“Don’t let her get away!” Kindjal shouted.
The words broke her panic. Nyx searched for a way to escape. She extended all her senses, reflexively filling the world around her with each rasp, whisper, and scuff. She shied from a shift of shadows to her right and fled the pall of sweat and breath swelling behind her. As she headed away, she sought succor from the school, from any sister or brother who might be nearby.
With her heart hammering in her throat, the reach of her ears stretched. They piqued and fixed to the familiar tones of Sister Reed around the next corner.
“… proper place. She’ll wish she was merely switched.”
Another responded, his voice a high-pitched grate. It was Hieromonk Plakk, who led the latterday studies. “And the prioress?”
“What happens between bells, especially between vexed students, cannot be laid at my feet. I shall claim—”
The second Summoning Bell clanged across the tiers, cutting off her words.
Gasping, heart pounding, Nyx felt herself near to fainting with terror, almost lifting out of her body. For a moment, a strange new sense overwhelmed her. The echoing of the bells shredded through the shadows, pushing them back, revealing with greater clarity the walls, stairs, and paths around her. She could even make out shapes closing upon her.
One neared, and she spun away from it. Fingers snatched at her sleeve, but she kept free.
A curse blurted out behind her.
Byrd.
She followed the path revealed by the ringing echoes, leaning upon this newfound sense to make her escape. Still, as she fled, she confirmed this new sense with her cane as best she could. The hunters quickly fell behind her, but they did not give up their pursuit, gathering like a storm at her back.
She reached the stairway that led up to the eighth tier. As a seventhyear, she did not know that level all that well. Still, she swept up the steps, leading with her cane. Her awareness strangely split as she climbed. Her chest burned, her heart pounded, but she also felt as if a part of her were floating above, looking down at herself. But she had no time to dwell on the strangeness.
At the top of the steps, she dashed across the tier. With the bells fading, the world closed around her again. She sank back into her body.
“There she is!” Kindjal shouted behind her.
Nyx fled in terror from the approaching slap of sandals on stone. With the eighthyears already ensconced in their classes, there was no one else about. Panicked, she tried to go faster. Her shoulder struck a corner and spun her a full circle. Still, fear kept her upright and moving.
But where could she go?
Having lost that momentary new sense of the world, she headed along the only path she knew well. Every student eventually crept up to this level and made a secret pilgrimage. The journey ended where their hopes were either dashed to the ground or lifted high.
Nyx was no exception. She had crossed the eighth tier several times each year to reach this spot. She sped toward that goal. It was the only route she had memorized.
The hunters followed, laughing darkly, chasing her with threats.
She finally reached another set of steps. These were no steeper or longer than the ones she had climbed to reach this height, but she skidded to a stop at their base. This set of stairs led up to the ninth and final tier. Only those deemed worthy of Ascension were allowed to traipse these steps. It was a path forbidden to all others. Its mysteries were for those chosen few. To trespass meant immediate expulsion from the school.
She trembled at the bottom. She had spent her first seven years in Brayk, the next seven here at the Cloistery. At this moment, her life teetered between a bright future and a shameful fall. Though she could not know her final fate, she had always strived for her best and hoped for the same.
But now …
Behind her, the others closed in. Byrd noted her hesitation. He guffawed, but there was no amusement, only threat. He punctuated it with his next words. “She’s trapped. Just you watch. I’m gonna take her cane and whip her arse good. Till she can’t sit down for a fortnight.”
Laughter burst out as the others closed off any escape.
Her cane was suddenly ripped from her grip. She tried to snatch it back but was shoved away.
Another voice, maybe Rymal, urged Byrd to greater harm. “Crack it across her hands instead. Good’n hard. Shatter ’em both. Like she broke the orrery. Only fitting, I tell ya.”
Nyx clenched her fists, her heart pounding in her ears. Over the years, she had broken a bone or two from the occasional misstep and bad fall. Pain did not scare her, but her hands contributed as much to her vision as her clouded eyes. Her palms knew every vibration in her cane. Her fingertips revealed details that her eyes could not. What was threatened here wasn’t just the snap of a few bones, but a crippling that would leave her all the more blind.
Still, there were even worse fates.
Kindjal found her brother’s ear. “You should go ahead and ruin her instead,” she said with menacing glee. “Make sure she’s cast out of the school forever.”
This earned more laughter, only now veined with nervousness. They all knew the menace behind this new threat. For a girl to reach Ascension, she had to be a virgin, untouched and pure. For some reason, this did not seem to apply to the boys. Not that there weren’t fervent trysts in the dormitories, involving everything but the final act. To cross that last line meant exile—not just from the school, but from Brayk itself. Such was the shame.
“I think a beating is good enough,” Byrd said, his voice struggling to sound firm. “That’ll put this swamper in her proper place.”
His sister scoffed. “She deserves worse. She doesn’t belong here. We all know it. You’re just scared.”
Nyx heard the acid in Kindjal’s voice. The highmayor’s daughter had always struggled in her lessons. It was whispered that her father paid for her climb up the tiers with chests of silver eyries and gold marches. No one dared say such in her presence. For some reason, Nyx had always drawn her ire, perhaps because of the high marks Nyx had earned in their classes.
Byrd sputtered against his sister’s aspersions of cowardice. His voice strained with fury and embarrassment. “Ansel, Merkle, grab her. Lackwiddle, help them, too.”
He intended to involve as many as possible to ensure no one spoke. Afterward they could easily blame her violation on some random tryst in the village.
Nyx backed away, her heels striking the first step behind her. With that touch, anger erupted inside her, driving back her terror. A coldness snuffed the heat from her body.
If I’m to be cast out, let it be by my own action.
She lifted her leg and backed onto the first stair. This small act drew shocked gasps. She ignored them and took another step, then another. She refused to give Byrd or Kindjal the satisfaction of ruining her.
Byrd must have recognized the same and growled his fury.