Dragon Fire Academy 1 First Term an RH academy romance - Rachel Jonas Page 0,38

scale of him, knowing the others matched his size. It seemed hard enough to believe there was one this big, but four seemed uncanny.

“Yo, Rayen! What’s up, man?” One spoke out when a group of local kids, dressed in the same getup as me, passed by.

The big, cheeky grin Rayen put on when he greeted them made me look away when the sight of it gave me strange feels on the inside. I was irritated, yes, but also hated that I liked his big, stupid face so much. While he wasn’t paying attention, I glanced around, watching as others from the island stared at him, but not in the startled, confused way the rest of us did.

These students were always in awe, idolizing the ones I called my guardians.

“You some kind of celebrity or something?” I asked, noting how annoyed I sounded when those words left my mouth. But I had every right to be, considering he’d, literally, crashed into my life tonight.

“A celebrity?” he asked with a broadening smile. “Not hardly. People just know us for the work we do.”

Hating that I wanted to know more, I sighed as my smile faded a bit, crossing both arms over my chest. “Work?”

“Yeah, just guard duty.”

“As in, guarding the border between the island’s hemispheres?”

Without turning, I felt his eyes on me. The silence that followed felt loaded, which made me want to press him for answers.

“All you need to know is that certain areas are sacred, which means guests are encouraged to respect our wishes and stay away.”

Sacred.

I wondered if he’d chosen that word because it was easier than stating the truth. Was there sacred ground here? Yes. However, I was certain those places weren’t the ones he and the others were guarding.

I lapsed into a memory of the lagoon, that corpse-like hand that rested on my shoulder, that grim prophecy it whispered in my ear.

Stop thinking about it. It’s over. That whole situation is behind you.

To focus my mind on something else, I posed a question. “Let’s say I got curious one day and trespassed. Would you and your guard buddies kill me?” There was a smile that lingered on my lips after asking, but it faded when Rayen stared expressionless.

“Is that a … yes?” I dared to ask.

He finally blinked, shifting his gaze up toward the moon. “Just make sure you follow instructions. No more sneaking off to the Weeping Stone. The least I can do after you helped my brother is stress how important it is that you don’t get too curious.”

My brow quirked. “Wait, two quick questions. First, Kai’s your brother?”

Rayen’s eyes found mine again, and I noted how they had softened toward me a bit. “Not in the traditional sense,” he answered, “but brotherhood doesn’t always refer to blood relation.”

There was truth to that.

“I get it. My family lives by a similar motto,” I shared. “I’ve got a ton of aunts and uncles I don’t share blood with, and I know I couldn’t love them more if we did.”

Rayen didn’t break his gaze, seemingly deep in thought until be blinked.

“Then I don’t have to explain it to you,” he concluded.

“Nope. I understand.” Remembering there was something else, I perked up again. “And what’s a Weeping Stone?”

When I peered up at him, he seemed thoughtful. “It’s a stone where guards like us write the names of those who’ve fallen victim to—”

He stopped there, leaving me to wonder what the rest of that statement would be.

“Victim to what?” I asked.

Rayen had seemingly run out of words, or he’d simply realized he shouldn’t have said so much.

“It’s just a memorial stone,” he amended, leaving it at that. “You ended up there the day we followed you into the forest.”

Generally speaking, when any of them decided they’d said enough, there was no chance of pulling more info from them. So, I was certain we had just reached a dead end on that leg of our conversation. There wasn’t much distance separating us from the main building now anyway.

With any luck, he wouldn’t follow me inside.

“So, tonight’s the night, huh?”

Confused, I glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’re about to find out who you really are.”

His wording made me laugh, although I was certain he hadn’t meant it to be funny. “I like to think I’m already pretty in touch with who I am.”

“You know what I mean,” he grumbled with a smile ghosting on his lips.

Nodding, I smiled a little too. “Well, if you mean that I’ll be finding