The Ritual of Blood and Bone

Chapter Thirty-Four

Seraphina is horribly, acutely aware of Fay's presence. Fay's strength and power radiates off her. Seraphina can feel the weight of it pressing against her. Never has her body been more alert. The hairs on the back of her arms stand and chills shudder down her spine. It takes all her strength not to just stare at Fay out of the corner of her eye the whole time.

She doesn't hear anything the professor says. When she tries to write her notes, her hands tremble, making her writing scruffy.

Fay looks over at Seraphina's book and smirks. Seraphina doesn't dare react. Not happy with her lack of attention from Seraphina, Fay leans into her.

Seraphina nearly whimpers as she feels Fay's hot breath in her ear.

"You know," she begins, "if you need help catching up with your basic skills, I have a few friends who would happily tutor you."

Seraphina gulps and forces on a smile. "That is very kind of you," she replies and quickly averts her gaze from Fay's cold blue eyes.

Fay giggles to herself and leans back in her chair.

"Your hair is just so pretty," she says and she reaches out, curling a strand of Seraphina's pale silver-blonde locks between her fingers. It takes all of Seraphina's strength not to rip the strand out of Fay's hand. Instead, she smiles awkwardly.

"Thank you. So is yours," she replies.

Fay's smile tightens and she drops Seraphina's hair as though it's disgusting.

"Who did you inherit it from?" she asks casually. 

Seraphina gulps and licks her lips. "I didn't know my parents, so I couldn't say," she replies, the lie coming out easily as technically, she didn't know her parents.

"Fay, Seraphina, did I say it was time for group discussion?" Professor Fallows asks, his voice sharp.

"No Sir, sorry Sir," Seraphina replies.

"I apologise, Sir, Seraphina was just asking me a question and I was helping her."

The professor narrows his eyes at Fay, who smiles very sweetly. Then, he looks at Seraphina.

"Save questions until I say you can ask them," he tells her.

"Yes, Sir," Seraphina replies. He nods his head and then turns back to the blackboard. In chalk, he continues to annotate an image he's drawn based on a siege that happened over one hundred years ago.

Fay and Seraphina sit in silence for a while as he discusses starvation and disease suffered by those within the walls of an 'impenetrable' keep during a siege.

"Seraphina," he says, calling upon her. She sits up quickly and feels heat rise in her cheeks as the rest of the class looks at her.

"Yes, Sir?" she asks.

"Based on what you've learned today, what strategy would you use if you were trying to lay siege to a city and you were the leader of that operation?"

"Well," she begins and clears her throat. She licks her dry lips and plays with her sweating hands awkwardly as she tries to think.

"First, I..." she gulps. She can feel the Ethereal's eyes on her and worse, she can hear their giggles at her expense.

"Well, it depends on the infrastructure of the city," she finally says.

"As this is one of your first classes, I'll keep it simple. The city is surrounded by a large wall which is heavily guarded. Any entrance into the city has extremely thick and durable doors or gates protecting them, also heavily guarded."