Heroes' Reward by Moira J. Moore Read Free Book Online

you?”
    “Told you, you
should have visited me,” an unfamiliar voice complained. “You can’t even
recognize me.”
    “Aryne?” Taro
exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
    “Are you going
to let me in or what?”
    Taro stepped
back while I hastily lit a candle to illuminate the slim young woman who
crawled through the window.
    When she was on
her – bare – feet, I could see she had grown quite tall in the six years since
I’d seen her last. Her posture was better, too: spine straight and shoulders
back. And she was absolutely beautiful, with lovely almond-shaped black eyes,
warm brown skin, fantastic cheekbones, and a fine jaw.
    Taro grinned at
her. “Can I still hug you or are you too grown up for that?”
    She rolled her
eyes at him before throwing her arms around him. I hugged her, too, but I was
much less comfortable about it. She noticed, of course, because she’d never
been an idiot. “You’ve gotten rigid again,” she told me. “Too much northern
influence.”
    I narrowed my
eyes at her. “Your accent has changed. Considerably.”
    “I was told my
original accent and vocabulary would prevent everyone from taking me seriously.
Complete bollocks, but none of the stiffs would listen to me.”
    That last
sentence sounded more like the Aryne I remembered.
    “How did you get
up here?” Taro was looking out the window.
    I joined him,
and I shared his astonishment. There was nothing to assist her to get to the
window, no ladder, nothing to stand on. “Did you climb the wall?” I demanded.
    “It’s easy. Just
takes practise.”
    “Practise?
Practise where?”
    “Everywhere.”
    “But how did you
get out of the Academy grounds?”
    She snickered.
“If you know what to do, the gate practically swings open. And I’m not the only
one to crack it, you know.”
    There had been
those who chose to escape the grounds when I was a student, to fulfil a dare or
to satisfy curiousity. Though most hadn’t suffered for it, one Shield had
spontaneously Bonded with an undiscovered Source, and they’d formed into a
complete mess of a Pair, emotional past all use. That had proved to be an
effective deterrent, at least for a while.
    “How did you
know we were here?” Taro asked.
    “Everyone knows
you’re here.”
    “In the city,
fine, but this building? How did you even know this building exists?”
    She sprawled on
the bed. “We know you came to the Academy – a lot of the staff seem to think
we’re all deaf and stupid – but that they didn’t let you in. So I figured you
were here. And I know about this place because the regulars do. They talk about
it sometimes.”
    “You actually
talked to the regulars during your escapades?” I was appalled. “Aryne, you know
better. You could have Bonded.”
    She smirked.
“No, ‘cause I was already Bonded.”
    Taro and I
stared at her for a long, silent moment.
    “What?” Taro’s
voice broke in the middle of the word.
    “Her name is
Druce Steeler. She’s brilliant.”
    “That’s
impossible,” I declared. “You’re all Sources.”
    “Not me. I’m a
Shield!” She pointed at me. “Ha! Just like I told you!”
    Taro hissed,
“Keep your voice down. People might be walking around.”
    This appeared to
irritate Aryne. She pulled in a deep breath through her nose and let it out,
slowly. Calming herself down.
    “Oy, that’s
familiar,” Taro muttered.
    “How did this
happen?” I demanded.
    “I was at the
Academy, taking all those lessons, including politics and law and trash.”
    I wasn’t sure
why she glared at Taro. Did she know he’d asked the Headmistress to add those lessons
to a curriculum that didn’t normally include those subjects? She seemed to know
a lot she shouldn’t.
    “Anyway, Druce
came back from a training tour. I was coming out of Tausen’s office where she’d
been tearing a strip off for a trivial infraction and Druce was coming to
report about her tour. That was that.”
    “When did this
happen?”
    “Few weeks