“Sherin always was a stupid little tart,” said Ging bluntly. “We all told her not to marry Bilgrest.”
“Stupid little tart or not, your honored mother wants her back.”
“I told you—”
Ringil grinned wolfishly. “Shame she had to work her way down all three brothers before she found one with the balls to do what she asked.”
Gingren Junior surged forward. Ringil went to meet him. He was still shaken up from the events at the gate, would welcome the chance to hit something.
“Ging! Ringil!”
At the sound of their father’s voice, both brothers stopped, arm’s reach apart in the center of the lounge, gazes locked. Ringil watched his brother’s furious face, distantly aware that there was nothing in his own expression to match, nothing there at all but a faint smile and the blank promise of violence.
“Well?” he asked gently.
Ging looked away. “She never asked me.”
“I wonder why.”
“Hey
“You can’t help me, Ging, you never could. You were always
A LONG CORRIDOR IN THE ACADEMY DORMITORY WING, AND COLD winter-afternoon light slanting down through the row of side windows. Dark reek of the waxed wood floor he was pinned to, stinging in his bloodied nose. The reflection of the windows shimmered up out of the polished surface for him, made a receding line of pale pools in the wood, down the corridor to the unattainable door at the end. There was weight on his back from the little knot of seniors holding him down. They were too many to fight, and they were dragging him back from the doorway he’d made a break for, back into the gloom and seclusion of the dormitory. He remembered the chill around his thighs and arse as they forced his breeches down.
He remembered his brother, stopped dead in the corridor coming the other way and staring, just staring.
Most of all, he remembered the look on Ging’s face, queasy and weak, as if he’d just eaten something that was going to make him sick. Ringil knew, looking at that expression, that he’d get no help.
The seniors knew it, too.
“Fuck are you doing here, Gingren?” Mershist, the pledge guardian and ringleader, breathing heavily, climbing up off Ringil’s neck and squaring up in the corridor. He got his breath back, seemed almost amused. “This isn’t your affair. Get the fuck back to drill where you belong. Before I put you on report.”
Gingren said nothing, didn’t move. He had no weapon—outside of the training yards and salons, the Academy didn’t permit the cadets to go armed—but he had some of his father’s build about him, was bulkier than Ringil would ever be, and three years into the Academy program was getting a reputation as a canny fighter.
The moment hovered for heartbeats, like a crow on beating wings the instant before it lands. Even Ringil paused in his attempts to thrash free, eyes suddenly on Gingren’s face. Hope quavered up in him like small, newly kindled flames.
Then another of the seniors came and stood at Mershist’s shoulder, and something indefinable changed about the setting. Even with his face pressed hard to the floor, Ringil felt it. Perhaps Ging might have faced Mershist down alone. But not this. The balance tipped, the moment sideslipped, skidded, and landed on its black-feathered arse. Mershist glanced sideways at his supporting companion, then back to Gingren and grinned. His tone turned conversational, reasonable.
“Look, mate. Little Gil here’s getting initiated, whether he fancies it or not. What did you think, your little brother’d get a pass for some reason? You know that’s not going to happen. You know how this place works.”
Ging’s mouth twitched. He was going to try for talk. “It doesn’t—”
“I’m doing him a fucking favor, Ging.” Mershist let a tinge of exasperated warning seep into his voice. “Gil hasn’t exactly made a lot of friends since he matriculated. There’s seniors over in Dolmen House want to do him with a fucking
Ging swallowed. It made an audible click. “Kerril shouldn’t have—”
“Kerril was doing what needed to be done.” Now the reasonable tone was shredding thin and through. Playtime was coming to an end. Mershist stabbed a finger at Ringil where he lay on the floor. “Your little brother here thinks he’s something special, and he fucking isn’t. We all go through this, Ging, and we’re all stronger for it. You know that. It binds us together, it makes us what we are. Hoiran’s fucking balls, it’s not like you didn’t have old man Reshin’s prick up your arse three years ago, just like the rest of us.”
