Page 82 of The Verdant Cage
Leonidas brings down the staff, not on Eero’s head, like I expected, but between his ankles. A minor twist of the staff, and Eero’s off his feet. With one quick jab, Leo sends him flying.
Toward the Wall.
The vines above rustle.The monster.
I launch myself off the stage, charging around the edge of the crowd and screaming a warning. I move fast, the pain of my new stitches a distant memory. I don’t know if Leonidas attacking Eero was an accident, or spite, or something else, but I have to stop him so Eero has a chance to get away.
I hit Leo like a brick arrow, knocking him off his feet. He fights back, even on the ground, moving to sweep my legs out from underneath me, but I’m ready. I jump to avoid his sweep, and when I come down, I manage to tug his knife from his belt. I’d never have been able to best him if he wasn’t worn from fighting the vines today.
I stand over Leonidas, one foot on each side of his chest, clutching the knife over his heart. I’m searching for Eero—praying his absence means escape, rather than capture by the leafy beast—when a blade whistles through the air, slicing my shoulder.
Leonidas’s knife falls harmlessly to the ground.
I look up to see who’s attacked me.
Gryphon.
50
Guardians descend on me before I can react. Blood trickles from my shoulder, and at least one of my stitches has ripped. My only relief is that Eero is hauled past me, unharmed except for whatever bruises spiteful Leonidas gave him. No one speaks out—not that I can hear—as Eero, Sal, Meryl, and Oscar are cinched to the whipping posts rather than brought to the chapel undercroft. Eero’s escape attempt must be the reason.
I’m led toward them, thesnap crackof fresh leather ringing out across the square. Did the Leatherworkers craft new ones alongside the sashes and suspenders they lovingly make for every villager who turns sixteen? My friends cry out in pain, and I fall down a well of shock, disconnecting from the outside world. It barely registers as I’m suddenly led away from the posts, to what fate I do not know.
Throughout, I have only one thought: Gryphon betrayed me.
Twice.
What have I done, tipping my hand to him? He is and always has been loyal to Jarek, even while hating the man. A Guardian to the bone, not to mention madly in love with my childhood bully. I’ve been an idiot. He must have planted those sketches to soften me, kissed me to amplify the devastation when I realized who really owned his heart. All his kindness has been a ruse. And it’s worked, hasn’t it? I was starting to trust him, opening up so he had a chance to…what? Humiliate me?
He and Marina are probably laughing about it now. Amazed someone can be as gullible—as desperate for companionship—as Rose Allgood.
A part of me tries to argue that Gryphon is neither so callous nor does he have the free time to waste rehashing tired, schoolyard bullying at our age. I desperately want to believe this was all some gut-wrenching but ultimately benign misunderstanding. But the only information I can count on is what I see with my own eyes.
My chest tightens. On top of everything else, my existence has gotten my friends in trouble. They’d been training without incident until I joined.
But why had Gryphon started training them at all, if he was only interested in serving his parents? I chew at the inside of my cheek as the Guardians drag me into the chapel undercroft. Nothing makes sense. Everything feels slippery, the complete picture just out of reach. I don’t know what to do with the anger and confusion flowing like glass shards in my bloodstream.
I’m dumped on the cellar floor. The usual tables and chairs are stacked to the side, the space looking vast without them. Then the door scrapes closed—I didn’t even know itcouldclose—and the room falls to darkness.
All alone, I begin to weep.
.
A half an hour or so later, the door reopens, and my four bloody friends are shoved inside.
Meryl sees me in a corner and immediately hobbles over. “How’s the shoulder?” she asks. She was just whipped, but it’s my dagger wound she’s worried about.
I try to scramble backward, but the wall is right behind me. Tender, true Meryl doesn’t understand yet that I’m the reason they’re all in trouble. ThatI’mthe one Leonidas caught. I can’t bear witnessing the birth of her hatred toward me.
“Let us look at you,” Sal says, shuffling to stand beside her. Oscar and Eero follow. All four of them are hunched in pain, dried tear tracks muddying their faces, blood dripping down their backs.
“No!” Panic squats on my throat. “This is all my fault!”
Meryl shakes her head, the movement slow and wretched. “No, it’s not. It’s Jarek’s.”
My chest is heaving with a familiar guilt, one I inherited from my mother. “None of us would be in trouble if I hadn’t started training with you! You were fine until then.” I’m beginning to hyperventilate, my breath coming in great whoops.
Sal bends at the knees and slaps me,hard, across the cheek. Then she stands, wincing. “Been waiting years to do that,” she says. “Didn’t think I could get away with it in front of your betrothed, though.” Smiling darkly, she continues, “We were neverfine. We were always taking a risk by training. Don’t borrow blame that’s not yours. It’ll only slow us down.”
