Brightly Burning by Mercedes Lackey Read Free Book Online Page A

had begun to warm up to him, since he had never once called him by the hated name of “Owly”—and since the one piece of cleverness he had managed was to come up with names of his own for their tormentors. “Loathsome” for Loman Strecker, “Tyrant” for Tyron Jelnack (that was really too easy), “Dimwit” for Derwit, and so forth. It gave the younger students a crumb of comfort to have contemptuous titles for their persecutors, though they took care that the Sixth Formers never heard those names.
    Owyn nodded solemnly. “You went purple, almost, and your eyes had a funny look to them, like you weren’t there anymore.”
    Lan didn’t have to reply to that, because just then the teacher entered the room and all discussion stopped. That was just as well, because he realized that he didn’t actually remember Owyn getting between him and his tormentor. He just didn’t remember anything from the time that Loathsome had started shoving him repeatedly into the wall, and then to his partner, Dimwit—only that someone had taken his arm and was pulling him out of harm’s way while Owyn distracted the Sixth Former with some questions about the work he’d been ordered to do. Between the moment that Loathsome and Dimwit began shoving him back and forth between them and the moment that he found his feet on the stair, there was a blank.
    Or, not precisely a blank, but a passage of time filled with such fiery rage that he couldn’t even see or hear, much less think. Whatever had come over him, had turned him briefly into something less than an animal, into pure anger and hatred.
    Not that it made any difference, except that he suffered for it for half the morning with an aching head and irritated eyes, though the sensitivity of his skin faded as the morning passed.
    And for once at lunch the attention of the Sixth Form was off him. One of the Fifth Formers had failed to obtain Golden Beauty apples for Tyron’s luncheon pleasure as he’d been ordered; this wasn’t a trivial task, as Golden Beauty apples were just going out of season. Tyron wouldn’t hear any excuses, nor was he placated by the offer of a basket of Complin apples instead. Two of his henchmen seized the unfortunate by his arms and hustled him away.
    Lan was now welcome to sit with Owyn and his friends, and he turned his head just enough that he could whisper to the younger boy, “Where are they going with him?”
    Owyn’s eyes were as big and round as those of his namesake, and his face was pale. “They’re going to flog him.”
    Lan felt his own face and hands grow cold. When Tyron threatened him with flogging that first day, he hadn’t really thought they would actually do such a thing! It was one thing for the teachers to flog a disobedient pupil, but this!
    â€œThey can’t do that, can they?” he whispered back desperately, hoping that something or someone might intervene.
    Owyn just shook his head. “You ought to know by now they can do anything they want.”
    Lan lost his appetite, all at once, and as soon as he thought he could slip away unnoticed, he retreated to the classroom and buried his nose in his book. He stared at the same page without bothering to turn it, since there was no one there to see him.
    What he wanted, with the purest desperation he had ever yet felt, was to be out of this place, to walk out now and never return. But that was an impossibility . . . his mother had made it even clearer than Master Keileth that this year’s tuition had cost a very great deal, and it would be forfeit if he left. If I were to run off, I’d better run all the way to Hardorn; if Mother ever caught up with me, I would be turning a spit in the kitchen of the worst inn in Haven for the rest of my life. And that would be if she was feeling generous.
    His head began to throb again, the headache growing worse with every passing heartbeat.