Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (49 page)

She laughed, and rewarded him with a smile that
almost had him stepping forward with arms outstretched, but she danced away
through the academy gate.

“Thank you, Aedan,” she said, when he caught up.
“It’s nice having someone I can depend on.” She took the baskets, then looked
into his eyes and let the moment linger. As Aedan gazed, the bleak homeward
walk and the rich boy and Lynford were forgotten.

Then she was gone.

If he could have made the morning last forever, he
would have, yet the sigh he breathed was as much one of regret as exhaustion.
It wasn’t just the lack of sleep, though that contributed. He felt utterly
drained. Thoughts of her nagged at his worn-out mind, keeping it from rest,
like the smell of those cabbages was doing for the donkey.

After Ilona was well away, he pulled the annoying
paper lifts from his shoes and took a roundabout route to his dorm. He had planned
to slip in unnoticed, but it was not to be – Murn had prepared something
special.

The dark ruthrek had continued to grow at an alarming rate. Muscle
now coiled through powerful limbs and chest in a way that caused people to
stare. It also kept them at a distance while staring because Murn was not a
horse to gaze back with vacant cow-eyes. He was intelligent and restless and
tended to play with anyone who came within range. It normally resulted in
screams. With his increasing strength, he had discovered, only a few hours
earlier, that he could jump the raised outer fence.

As Aedan made his furtive way behind hedges and
walls, he began to sense that something was amiss. Nobody was lounging on the
lawns. Instead, tight clusters of jabbering students were gathered in and
around the buildings. Taking a corner, Aedan almost ran into one of the
groundsmen who recognised him and delivered a fuming summary of the day.

Apparently, after clearing the fence, Murn had thundered
up from the paddocks and made circuit of the grounds, confiscating and
devouring all manner of interesting meals that would probably give him colic
later. After scattering the students, even sending one or two up the trees, he
made a light lunch of some rare boutique plant that had held tenure within the
forbidden central precinct for two hundred years. When he was chased off, he
left hoof-sized craters in the manicured lawn as a testament to his visit. He
had last been seen rolling in a clover patch – part of a decorative section of
the chancellor’s boulevard.

Aedan snatched the halter from the shaking
groundsman and raced off to find his unruly beast.

When Murn was safely stabled, Aedan was made to
feel the full weight of the various desecrations. He had to labour through the
night to raise the fence yet again. Kian got wind of it and helped. He ensured
that the barrier was not just high but also robust. It would need to withstand experimental
prods from a horse that now looked capable of charging through a stone parapet.
After testing the beams Aedan had nailed in place, Kian pronounced them
useless, pulled them down, and made Aedan hold while he bound and dovetailed with
the precision of an artist.

Long into the night the echoes of the lonely
hammer fluttered through empty acres of darkened lawns and hooded trees,
lingering in the porticos and colonnades now shadow-filled and mysterious. Roosting
doves cocked their heads and puzzled over these odd creatures toiling, talking and
sometimes laughing in the soft glow of their lantern.

By the time the last fence was raised, the eastern
skyline had begun to change moods, and the sleepy boys ambled off to a
well-earned breakfast.

As soon as the meal was over, Dun called Aedan
aside. He wanted the full story. He had seen him running after Murn – he knew
the fever had been a hoax. Aedan hadn’t slept for a while. He was too drained
to construct any story but the truth, and it toppled out.

Dun laughed before assigning three weeks of that
most dreaded latrine duty. It was a cunning punishment. No matter how much Aedan
washed he was unable to rid himself of the smell, real or imagined, that hummed
around him like flies. His friends helped things along by continually sniffing
the air and frowning.

The result was that he kept as far away from Ilona
as possible, but the weeks passed until there was only one sleep left.

Aedan woke long before sunrise. Unable to get back
to sleep, he stared into the darkness and marvelled at how he had found a
glittering diamond where everyone else had seen a stone.

Or maybe not everyone, but most had seen a stone.

Or maybe not most, but at least some had failed to
notice her …

Still, none of that mattered really. What was
important was that the two of them had found each other and they were devoted
to each other – at least, he was. That much was certain.

He let out a huff and stared at the ceiling. There
was a certain symmetry lacking.

Tomorrow he would have to resolve this, move
things along. This was not a girl to lose, and – the next thought made him grip
the pillow with some violence – there were one or two rivals.

Or maybe not just one or two …

–––

“Are we talking about the same Ilona?” said Peashot as they
ambled across the lawn.

What do you mean?” Aedan asked.

“Kindest and sweetest, you said. Have you seen the
way she treats me? Flat out ignores me if I say anything to her. Kind and sweet
people are kind and sweet to everyone, not just the people they like.”

“Maybe you just haven’t got to know her yet,” said
Aedan.

“Maybe
you
haven’t. You’re too drunk on your
feelings to actually do any real thinking.”

“I’ve been thinking about her for a month and she
is the most wonderful –”

“Yes, yes, I got it all the first time. But tell
me honestly – would you really think she was that wonderful if she wasn’t so
pretty?”

“How can you ask that? People aren’t like tools
you can take apart and study in order to understand them. She’s not the easiest
person to get to know, I’ll admit that. But then gold is not the easiest
treasure to collect. Her mother told me a bit about her painful background, and
maybe that gives her some sharp edges, but I’m looking past all that to the
wonderful person that she really is.”

It was a fine speech. Aedan felt pleased with how
he’d put it across. It had even steadied his own confidence.

“Well I can’t comment on her background, but I can
say that she treats me and Lorrimer like vermin.”

Aedan decided he would have to talk to her about
this some time, but for now it was not too much to accept that she didn’t get
on with everyone. He didn’t. Neither did Peashot. And for someone with a sharp
mind, it was only natural that she should be quick with her tongue. She had
once referred to Lorrimer as a bat-eared pole, but in jest. Everyone had
laughed, even Lorrimer, though he was quiet for a long time afterwards.

They turned down one of the leafy walkways and Aedan’s
eyes fastened onto something under a nearby tree. All thoughts of Peashot – who
was instantly forgiven – and bat-eared poles vanished with a pop, leaving only
a soft vision of flowing golden locks and glittering emerald eyes. He excused
himself and bounded to her like a puppy to its master.

“Hi Ilona,” he began.

She smiled and he immediately forgot what he was
going to say. There were two older boys and several girls in the group. He had
all their attention.

“Nice … um … weather?”

It was one of those days when the curtains were
drawn across the heavens and someone had left all the doors open.

She looked uncomfortable. Everyone else smiled.

Aedan wasn’t exactly sure whether it was him or
her or the crowd, but he wasn’t getting that have-a-seat-why-don’t-you feeling.
He considered sitting anyway, but another look around the group put an end to
the idea, so he made an excuse and went for a long blustery walk, explaining to
himself that this was how things went, and that he couldn’t expect to be at her
side all the time, that she needed her own space too …

He kicked a pile of leaves into the wind, thinking
what rotten weather they were having.

The next day, after class, Ilona called him over and
asked if he would have lunch with her, seeing as her group was split apart for
a while by differing schedules. He leapt at the invitation without even
pretending to consider. Later, he found her waiting for him at a little table
in the shade – and was it little! The table was delightfully small and Aedan
blessed it under his breath as he sat down.

“You’ve been distant for a while,” she said.

“I …” He stopped. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell
her about being punished, it would make him look younger and smaller, and he
certainly didn’t want her knowing what form the punishment had taken. “I had to
do some extra work for Dun, so I …”

“You silly boy! You forget I have a cousin who
doesn’t mind telling me about your reeking punishment duty.”

“Oh … um …”

“He really doesn’t like you,” she said, “or Liru.
Sometimes Malik actually frightens me the way he holds a grudge. But please
don’t think I’m like that. I’ve got lots of other friends, so why would I be
cross with you if you were kept away?”

A slight furrow sank into Aedan’s brow. He wasn’t
sure how being cross came into it. He had hoped that she would speak of missing
him, not being cross with him.

“Don’t be disappointed with yourself,” she said,
“I can’t expect you to be perfect.”

Now
he
was starting to get cross.

“Oh, there’s something else I should tell you,”
she continued. “It’s not really a good idea for you to join my usual group. I
don’t think you’ll fit in very well. Let’s just spend time together like this,
when it’s only you and me. What do you say?”

As she leaned forward on her elbows and raised one
of those arched eyebrows at him, the wild churning that took hold of his
insides displaced whatever else he was feeling and everything he was thinking.
For the remainder of lunch they talked, perhaps not easily, but at least
amicably, and with frequent lingering looks, eyes locking and darting away to
the music of deep sighs.

She loved him.

Boys could not pass the table without turning and gaping.
They simply bled envy. And how could they not? Ilona was one who leapt from a
crowd.

It was the most exciting meal Aedan had ever
eaten, and he didn’t taste a single mouthful. That was perhaps what enabled him
to swallow the waxy rind of the cheese and a charcoal crust of burned-rye. Now
that he considered it, he could recall some uninspiring flavours that had
reminded him strongly of Harriet’s cooking, and which had been accompanied by
quizzical looks from Ilona.

For a week they met and shared lunches. To Aedan,
the rest of the world was forgotten – a pale, unexciting thing out there on the
edges of this numbing, exhausting perfection. They talked in the way toddlers
might throw playthings around the room. There was seldom any catching of an
idea and sharing it. When the lunches were over, individual opinions lay
scattered about in a delicious jumble only ever one layer deep.

If Aedan had allowed himself to be searchingly
honest, which he did not, he would have realised that there was a voice,
somewhere between his belly and his brain, that was telling him the most absurd
thing – he was lonely in her company. No matter how small the table, or how she
leaned forward and drowned him with her smile, they were far, far apart. But
this, indeed, was absurd.

Then her friends returned and Aedan tried to join
their group. He had somehow thought that what Ilona had said about staying away
from the group had been a passing thought, obliterated by their closeness. Apparently
it was not.

She greeted him with a flicker of a frown and
turned away to resume her conversation when he sat. From then on he may as well
have been a dead log quietly rotting beside her. It was as if she hadn’t even
noticed his arrival. In order to cover his awkwardness, he tried to join the
conversations of the others in the group, and they certainly noticed him. They made
him feel like a horsefly. He could not remember being so uncomfortable or
unwelcome since that evening at the marshals trials. His hand kept going to the
hair over his left ear, pulling it down, covering that patch in which others
found such interest. Afterwards he stamped his way back to class, kicking
leaves again like someone visiting vengeance on a sworn foe.

It was a lonely week that followed. He avoided
Peashot’s I-told-you-so presence and spent a lot of time hanging on the paddock
fences, watching Murn go through his restless antics, wishing he could have
been a horse without the cares and woes of the broken-hearted.

“You come here often, don’t you?”

Aedan jumped. It was Ilona. She placed her elbows
and chin on the rail, only inches from Aedan, then turned and gave him a long,
tender look.

Surely she adored him.

How could anyone that beautiful who made him feel
like this not imply devotion when she looked at him?

“I like it here,” he said. “Always feel welcome.”
It was a risk, but he wanted to see what she would say.

She turned to the paddock where Murn cropped,
tossed and stomped a few yards away, glistening in the sun. “I like this
horse,” she said. “What’s its name?”

Aedan sighed. “Murn. Short for Midnight Hurricane.
Liru helped me name him.”

Ilona pulled a face. “That will have to change,”
she said, half to herself. “Can you ride him yet?”

“No. Won’t be riding him for a long time. He’s
still too difficult to handle.”

“So shouldn’t you sell him?”

“I’d like to train him. We’re covering ground
slowly.”

“I think you are wasting your time,” she said. “That
horse is going to need an experienced trainer. You’ll never manage to tame such
a huge animal. Maybe we can make a deal that’s better for both of us. I have a
friend who wants to buy me a horse. If you sell this Murn, you can visit when Denly’s
not training him for me. He won’t mind. We can go often. We’ll get to be
together lots.” She turned on a gleaming smile and Aedan’s chest shuddered.