“Now,” Madison said, waving the guards off. “How many of you are there?”
The female spit at Madison, but it fell at her feet.
Madison nodded toward the guards and one cracked the vampire on the head with the hilt of a sword. She screamed and her skin split; blood leaked down into her eye, but this time the cut didn’t heal. Perhaps they grew weak after so much harm.
“Will there be another attack?” Madison asked.
Silence.
“My, my,” Madison cooed. “We haven’t even cut out your tongues yet and you seem to have lost the ability to talk.”
I tried to hold back my smile. I wondered what it said about me that I admired Madison for this.
“Maybe a little magic will do the trick.” With a wave of her hand all three of them convulsed as if being hit over and over by lightning. Foam dripped from their mouths and they all groaned in pain but could not seem to scream. After a horrifying thirty seconds, she stopped the spell.
The three of them heaved long breaths, gasping for air.
“Where are your friends and how many do you have?” Madison asked again.
Still, they kept silent. After being questioned, beaten, burned, jolted, and threatened within a breath of their lives, I thought they’d never crack. It wasn’t until Madison found a weakness that I had hope.
Madison grabbed the female by her hair and wrenched her head back. “I will tie you onto the roof and laugh when the sun rises if one of you doesn’t tell me where the others are. Your boyfriends can watch as you wither into ash.”
A young male finally choked out. “No, don’t!”
“Ah,” Madison purred, her eyes glowing as if she enjoyed this. She probably did. “Is this your little girlfriend?”
“If you let her go, I’ll tell you,” he said.
“Shut up!” the female hissed. “Don’t you say a word.”
Madison took out one of her swords and the young male thrashed in his chair, she laughed. “I can always just cut her head off now.”
Zyacus leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Madison is… merciless, isn’t she?”
I couldn’t tell if he admired that about her or was put off by it, but I nodded. I’d heard stories. I think Madison was the type of person most appreciated for her skills but she had a lot of inner demons.
With the blade pressed against the female’s neck, Madison said, “Talk.”
“They’re in a cave. Twenty miles west of here.”
The female vampire glared at him. “I can’t believe you broke, you idiot. They’ll kill us anyway.”
Madison smirked. “Yes, kill them. We got what we needed.”
I knew they needed to die but they looked so human. In the fight outside the walls it was life or death but here, restrained to the chair, the vampires were helpless to defend themselves. I looked away as the guards closed in and followed her command.
Papa, who’d stood beside us during the interrogation, leaned over to me. “Go to your rooms.”
On our way, Zyacus was unusually quiet. I didn’t think he would be disturbed by what happened but perhaps he was. I felt a little ill myself. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “I’m puzzled by this attack. It’s almost like it was a test. Ten vampires to storm a place with a hundred guards and a thousand warrior students?”
“Maybe they were desperate for blood.”
He didn’t seem convinced. “Maybe.”
Chapter 32
Walking into our class the next day, Professor Tessam immediately called Zyacus and me to her. From the lack of her usual smile, I didn’t think it would be good. Had something happened overnight?
Her silvery-gray eyes looked from a piece of paper on her desk, to us standing before her. “You two are being reassigned desk partners for the remainder of the year.”
“Why?” Zyacus’s voice was calm and even but had an underlying edge. “Under whose direction? Yours?”
Was it because of the fight in the dining hall that they wanted to separate us? My magic flared with my outrage. I thought sending Jennika away would end the problem.
“Well, this is my classroom,” Tessam said and stood from her chair.
Suspecting someone else had sent the order, I looked down at that paper again, but she stuffed it in the drawer before I could read anything. “Let me see that letter,” I demanded.
Tessam shot me a surprised but stern look. “No.”
Shoving my shoulders back, I clenched my fists. “I order you to give me that letter. Now.” I’d never used my authority as a princess on a professor but I guess I’d see how far my power went. She was Delhoon so she was my charge.
The tension grew, I felt her magic wafting out like smoke, testing mine. She was probably wondering what the consequences would be if she didn’t follow my order. She broke our staring contest and opened the drawer. I snapped my fingers and it was in my hand before she could retrieve it. Zyacus leaned over my shoulder and I read:
Professor Tessam,
The Prince of Hesstia and the Princess of Delhoon need to be separated.
Headmaster Jace
That was it. That was all it said, and I couldn’t understand why the headmaster would care if Zyacus and I were together or not. Could he have gone to my parents? To the King and Queen of Hesstia? Would they even order this?
I tossed the letter onto Professor Tessam’s desk and without even speaking to one another, both Zyacus and I walked out of the classroom.
Once the hallways cleared, Zyacus turned to me. “You’d think the Headmaster would have better things to worry about with a vampire attack yesterday.”
I was fuming. “I didn’t expect this at all,” I said, wondering who I wanted to go see first, the headmaster or Madison. She would probably know what this was about and she wouldn’t lie to me either. I couldn’t believe it was all over the fight. They couldn’t separate us at mealtimes so why bother? Bindy might know too so I looked up and down
