Bloodline Legacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 4), стр. 29
“Woo,” Diana said, “you should see the death glare Chanelle is giving you.”
“Screw her,” I said.
Jordan clapped his hands. “The elite guard have manufactured trials that will test the contestants to their limits. In previous years, only those students at the top of their Houses have been chosen to participate. This year we make an exception. A human student will be competing in the Unity Games as a representative of the low-magic users.”
“You mean she’ll be trying to claw her way up supernatural society,” one of the girls sitting close to Chanelle called out. That elicited more clapping.
Jordan stared them down. I was beginning to like him. Then he made a preposterous suggestion. “Let’s welcome this year’s contestants to the stage.”
He started reading out the names of the four Dominion Academy students. They were all mages. Talk about your stereotypes. All four of them were thin, studious types. They walked up to the stage in an orderly fashion.
Then Headmistress Carmichael read out the names of the Pantheon students. I didn’t hear the first two. They were both Fae. “Barbara Whitley and Chanelle Laurent.”
The Pantheon students cheered and whistled. Diana booed. If she could get away with it, she would have thrown something. Everyone around us did the same on principle. I wished for the ground to open up and swallow me whole. Why did that never happen when I wanted it to?
Headmaster Stan of Nightblood Academy was next. He read out the names of two necromancers. Unlike the mages of the Dominion, these two were tall and well-built. A vampire was next on the roster. And then, because the universe loved tormenting me, “…Andrei Popescu.”
Nightblood were the only ones who clapped as Andrei bounded down towards the stage. He had his hands clasped behind his back. Having reached the bottom of the amphitheatre, he leaped onto the stage without using its short steps. Andrei flashed a grin at me.
I glued my attention to Jacqueline. She read out the names of the Bloodline contestants. “Bradley Webb.” The Nephilim cheered. Even the ones who went to Pantheon. Jerks united. “Evan McKinnon.” Evan stood but didn’t move towards the stage.
“Maximus Thompson.”
All the shifters lost their minds. Max didn’t move either. I cocked my head to the side.
“Alessia Hastings.”
The whole assembly turned silent. For a single beat, all their eyes fixed on me. I could feel the heat clawing up my neck. Diana nudged me. I sat perfectly still. “Get up,” Diana hissed out of the corner of her mouth. She might as well have been speaking Alacanthean.
My body was weighted down. Kai turned in his seat. He gripped the back of his chair like he was using it as leverage to get up. I snapped out of it. Though my bones felt like they were made of marshmallows, I weaved my way to the aisle and started walking to the stage. The stadium erupted into a wave of sound. Most of it was booing and whispering.
As I stepped past, Max and Evan flanked me on either side. They had waited for me. The needles that had hooked into my throat eased. I pinned my gaze to Max’s back as we stepped up on stage. A sea of supernaturals inspected me. Contempt was the only word I could have used to describe the way the other contestants regarded me.
How did I get myself into these situations?
Only then did it really hit me that I had agreed to join a supernatural contest where all but two of the other contestants were out to kill me.
“Students,” Jordan said, “meet this year’s contestants.”
The student bodies got to their feet and cheered. I couldn’t help feeling that they were cheering for my death.
13
The rest of the assembly passed by in a blur. When it ended, Diana pushed our way out of the amphitheatre. If one more person accidentally on purpose ran into me, I was going to scream. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder.
“The headmistress wants to see you,” Alex said. He pointed at Sophie. “You too.”
“Why?”
In answer, Alex showed us his back and disappeared into the crowd.
“We’ll meet you for lunch,” Sophie told Diana.
“This is so weird,” Sophie said. Last night’s construction had fused the four Academies into one. The huge front lawn of the main Bloodline Academy building was now intersected with four other buildings in a circular fashion. The buildings shared a main quad. It was positively bursting with students.
I dropped into the Ley dimension. It was like a unicorn had thrown up all over the place. A great deal of work had gone into joining the Academies as seamlessly as possibly. But as I knew firsthand from stitching up Basil all those times, no patch job was ever without flaws. Tiny slivers of darkness ran along some of the seams. They glowed the same blue as my hedge magic. Worse still, my aura had grown once more.
“How lost are we right now?” I asked Sophie. Her voice dragged me back to reality.
“It’s just this section here where they’ve moved the bloody kitchen garden!”
She and I were both highly incensed by the decision. “I think we should give up and ask for directions.”
Her nose scrunched. She craned her neck to the sky and then towards where the dining hall still mercifully existed. “Okay.” Moving to the side of the walkway, Sophie slapped her hand on the stone birdbath and announced that we needed to get to Jacqueline’s office.
In front of our very eyes, golden arrows appeared. I couldn’t help feeling slightly nostalgic. Just last year I’d had to rely on these same arrows to get around.
We arrived at the new location of Jacqueline’s office to find it occupied with Sophie’s parents and the former members of the Soul Sisterhood.