Royals of Villain Academy 8: Vicious Arts Read online

  The barons definitely didn’t see any reason to celebrate my arrival with my nine companions. My mother frowned, Nightwood’s expression hardened, and Killbrook pushed right to his feet as if he thought he’d be more intimidating standing up. I found it hard to worry much about the thin, sallow-faced man who’d acted like a coward in every dealing with his son. No, the first two were the ones really calling the shots.

  “Persephone,” Baron Bloodstone said with a faint edge in her voice. “When I asked you to come, I didn’t think I needed to specify that the invitation was for you alone.”

  “I think all of the scions should know about and be able to comment on what the pentacle plans to do next,” I said. “We were all affected by what happened after you tried to take over the town. We don’t want to see our people in a position like that again.”

  Her lips drew into a thin smile. “With the operations we’re planning, that shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve learned from our missteps. And you can be assured the joymancers who attacked us won’t get away with it unscathed.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Are you planning to continue interfering with the Naries—working toward ruling over them like you were in town?”

  “When one strategy doesn’t have the desired outcome, you don’t immediately scrap the entire initiative,” Baron Nightwood said with a hint of a sneer.

  Malcolm stepped up beside me. “Why is this an initiative in the first place? The Naries weren’t causing any problems. We were living our lives just fine. Who the hell is this supposed to be for?”

  “It’s for all of you,” my mother said, her tone turning icier as her gaze slid to the Nightwood scion. “So you and the many families who’ve supported us for so long can have the power and freedom that should always have been ours. It shouldn’t be difficult to see that.”

  “That’s the way you see it,” I said. “Please listen to us. We’re the ones who’ll be ruling in a decade or two from now—or sooner, in a couple cases. We’re not interested in dealing with the stresses and the violence that we’ve already seen will come with that kind of power. That isn’t the world we want to be running.”

  Declan came up at my other side. “I stand with the other scions. I will be baron in just a few months, and I don’t agree with any of this. We have plenty of power and freedom without needing to become some kind of dictators over the Naries.”

  “It seems even my mother didn’t totally agree,” Connar spoke up from just behind us.

  My mother’s gaze slid over all of us. She had to realize how serious we must be to risk defying them to their faces. They hadn’t been prepared for this kind of confrontation. But I didn’t see any sign that our words were getting through—to her or the other two barons.

  “I don’t want us to fight about it,” I said. “We’re just here to talk—to be part of the conversation—to have a say in what’s going to be our future. We’re supposed to be preparing to lead and protect the entire fearmancer community, and we’re practicing that responsibility right now.”

  Baron Killbrook’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think you know your community all that well, then.”

  “Maybe you’re the ones who don’t know it,” Jude tossed out. “There’s a lot more to it than your cronies. The other families count too.”

  The disdainful curl of Nightwood’s lips suggested he didn’t agree. “We are the ones serving the community at the moment. These decisions are ours. And disloyalty isn’t a good look on any of you.”

  “Who should we be loyal to first?” I asked quietly. “The three of you, or the hundreds of fearmancers who’ll be affected by the next steps you take?”

  My mother stood up then with a rasp of her chair legs against the floor. “I think you should assume those are one and the same.”

  I met her fierce gaze, restraining a flinch at the wounded fury it held. “After what I’ve seen with my own eyes, I can’t assume that. I’m sorry. If you’re willing to talk, we’ll keep talking. If you aren’t, and you insist on going forward… we will speak up about our concerns to the rest of the community.”

  “You will not—” my mother snapped, and a crackle of energy shot toward us just with those few words. Thankfully, our Guard had been, well, on guard, and their voices rang out at the same time. Whatever spell she’d cast to try to silence us, it sizzled away against the hasty shield.

  “We’re just asking for an honest conversation,” I said, unwilling to let it go without trying one more time. At the clenching of my mother’s jaw, my stomach sank, even though my hopes hadn’t been that high to begin with. “All right. Then we’ll go. Please, just think about what we’ve said.”

  But as I turned on my heel, my back prickling, I could summon even less hope that they’d really consider any argument we’d made. The battle lines had been drawn, and now all five of us scions stood on the opposite side from the barons.

  Chapter Two

  Declan

  It became clear that something momentous had happened within seconds of leaving my bedroom. When I came out into the common room to grab some breakfast, my few dormmates who were already up glanced at me and then quickly jerked their gazes away—not with the usual wary deference that came with my position, but something that felt much more anxious instead. A couple of them murmured to each other briefly before shooting me another look and vanishing into their rooms.

  I decided the best course of action was pretending I hadn’t even noticed. A soon-to-be baron shouldn’t be fazed by a little gossip, even if their reactions niggled at me more than standard gossip would have. I had taken a fairly momentous stand against the remaining full barons yesterday. Some sort of backlash might have already begun.

  More of those odd looks flicked my way as I descended the stairs and crossed the green. Even my professor for my Illusion seminar seemed to hesitate when I first came into the classroom. No one said anything directly to me, though, and I wasn’t going to go begging for scraps of information—revealing that I was out of the loop. As soon as class was over, I’d see if any of my fellow scions were better informed.

  In the end, I didn’t need to reach out. I’d just taken out my phone as I left Killbrook Tower, meaning to text them, when my brother came jogging across the green with a family acquaintance I’d also invited into the Scions’ Guard tagging at his heels. Noah’s expression was tight enough to tell me he’d figured out what was up, and it definitely wasn’t good.

  “We’ll go to the Guard room?” I suggested before he had to say anything.

  He nodded. I didn’t need to tell him it was better to keep a fraught conversation out of the public eye.

  The three of us headed down to the basement room we’d set up for our meetings with the Guard. Noah held his calm well enough, but the second we passed through the doorway, he let out a frustrated huff of breath and spun around. “Show him, Anthony.”

  The other guy took a tablet out of his shoulder bag. He tapped on the screen and shot me an apologetic grimace, as if he thought I’d be angry at him for sharing the news. “A couple hours ago, your aunt sent around a video to, I guess, everyone whose contact information the barons could give her. Except for Noah, and we figured you too.”

  “Probably she skipped all of the scions, since she knows they’d support Declan,” Noah muttered.

  My heart was already sinking. “Let me see it.”

  Anthony handed me the tablet, and I started the video playing. It was Aunt Ambrosia, all right, standing haughtily at the Ashgrave point on the table of the pentacle where the barons held their meetings. She’d joined me there often enough over the years when she’d served as regent, but now she had an even more possessive air, her hands braced against the dark, polished wood.

  “The time has come for me to step up and do what is right,” she said in a sharply clipped voice. “I’ve served as regent to the Ashgrave barony since my sister’s tragic death nearly two decades ago, and I’ve always supported my nephew in every way I can.”

&
nbsp; I had to restrain a harsh guffaw at the thought of all the ways she’d tried to undermine me—and occasionally outright murder me—in her bids for the barony over the years.

  “Yesterday, Declan Ashgrave proved that he is a traitor to the pentacle and to all of us in the fearmancer community,” my aunt went on. “He has set himself against the barons who are working so diligently to pave the way to a new era for you. We cannot let this treason stand unchallenged. So with heavy heart but great determination, I declare myself, Ambrosia Ashgrave, as the official Ashgrave baron.”

  I couldn’t say I’d ever truly loved the idea of being baron. It’d been more of a burden than a boon for as long as I could remember. All the same, I flinched at those last words.

  That was my spot at the table. That was my role she was claiming. A role I might not have been overjoyed about, but that I’d worked my ass off to prepare for my entire life. And she thought she could just walk in and take my place like—

  Maybe she could. The three remaining full barons joined her on the screen with solemn nods.

  “We’ll move forward with all the strength and commitment we owe you,” Baron Nightwood said, and then the recording cut out.

  I stared at it for several seconds longer, my hands tensed around the tablet. Noah muttered something obscene under his breath. Anthony shifted his weight nervously until I handed the tablet back to him.

  Hell. No wonder people had been staring at me. They’d been gawking—yet afraid to openly gawk—at a supposedly displaced baron.

  I drew in a breath and found I didn’t know what to say. My innards had constricted from my throat down to my gut. What could I say if the barons were standing with Aunt Ambrosia? They had most of the blacksuits in their pocket. Who would give me a trial if I demanded one? Who would judge it fairly?

  Nothing had really changed anyway, had it? The barons had been shutting me out of their decisions in every way they could for weeks. Now they were just making that separation official.

  I’d spoken against them yesterday because it was time to—because someone needed to before they turned the community I meant to serve into something I hated. It didn’t matter what my official title was. I could worry about reclaiming it later. For now, we still needed to fight in every possible way before they thrust us into a situation we couldn’t return from.

  “She can say whatever she wants,” I said firmly. “It doesn’t change what matters. We need to bring the rest of the Guard in, make our own plans for going forward, and when we’ve dealt with the most immediate problems, then I’ll take her to task.”

  Noah gave me a sharp nod. “Do you want me to start rounding up the other members?”

  “Let me check with the other scions first. They’ll want to be a part of this discussion.”

  I sent a text to the whole group. We’d been waiting to see how the barons responded before we took any definite action—this was an awfully clear response.

  I just heard, Malcolm said, with an angry emoji that expressed the fury I could imagine in his voice. Definitely time to rally the troops. I’ll be right down.

  I can be there in ten, Connar texted a moment later.

  Rory’s reply came shortly after. What’s going on? Jude and I are already on our way to talk to his uncle—we won’t be back until the afternoon.

  She didn’t know yet. I wavered and then wrote, You don’t need to worry about that right now. It’s nothing urgent. We can hold off the rallying until you two are back.

  Forget that, she replied immediately. You three know what you’re doing. We don’t want to give the barons any more chances to make headway than they’ve already had.

  I balked at the idea automatically. Rory had spearheaded this cause—Rory had been the first of us to really defy the barons, to stand up for the Naries on campus. The Scions’ Guard had been her idea. She should be here to have a say in directing them.

  But I already knew how she wanted to handle the situation, didn’t I? We’d hashed out our thoughts on pushing back against the barons an awful lot over the last few weeks. I was the one who’d been nearly baron for years; if anyone should be leading the charge, it was me. Rory deserved a break from that responsibility.

  You’re right, I said. We’ll fill you in as soon as you’re back. Good luck with Mr. Killbrook.

  Let’s hope we don’t need luck.

  Malcolm came through the door with his eyes flashing. “Assholes,” he said without preamble. “Fuck them if they think they can screw you over like this.”

  “They won’t,” I said with all the confidence I could summon. “But first we’ve got to pull enough support to force the barons to back down. At least we’ve already got a start on that.” I shot Anthony a genuine, if tight, smile.

  Noah had a contact list of all our current recruits to the Guard. He paced the room as he reached out to each of them. A handful had already arrived, along with Connar, when my brother returned to me with an update. “There are a couple people in class right now, but they said they’ll get down here as soon as possible. Everyone else is heading over.”

  “Perfect.” I gave his shoulder a quick squeeze of gratitude. “We’ll wait until everyone’s here before we get started.”

  Malcolm and Connar had fallen into hushed conversation in the corner. From the tensing of Connar’s stance, the Nightwood scion was filling him in on my aunt’s machinations. One of the guys Malcolm had asked to come with us yesterday nodded to me on his way in and ambled over.

  “This whole ‘traitor’ thing is about our talk with the barons, I’m guessing?”

  “As far as I know, I haven’t done anything else to offend them,” I said dryly. The only small mystery was whether the barons had gone straight to Aunt Ambrosia or she’d found out about the confrontation and offered to jump in. Either seemed equally likely at this point.

  The last few members hustled in, faces flushed as if they’d run straight from class. The video announcement must have given us all a greater sense of urgency. Malcolm and Connar joined me as I stepped into the middle of the rug to face our nearly twenty assembled classmates, but they looked to me, giving me the floor.

  In a funny way, my aunt’s declaration had set the stage for what felt like my first real act as a baron.

  “We picked all of you because we trusted you to stand with us,” I said to our Guard. “But now we’re going to ask you to do more than just protect our well-being. The full barons are attempting to throw our community in an entirely new direction that, if they take things far enough, there’ll be no coming back from. And as I’m sure most if not all of you have seen, they’re also attempting to discredit and replace me as baron.”

  “What are the barons planning now?” a guy near the back of the bunch asked. “I thought they were backing off on the whole ‘ruling the Naries’ thing after what happened in town.”

  I shook my head. “We don’t know the exact details of their plans, but we know they aren’t giving up on that goal. They’re absolutely set on revealing ourselves to the Naries and using our powers to control them—across the whole country, if they can manage that. All of the scions agree that a course of action like that will create far more problems than it’s worth. We’re hoping that you and people close to you feel the same way.”

  Cressida Warbury, who must have been in an awkward position with the way her parents had been fawning over the barons recently, stood up straighter, her arms folded over her chest. “Sure, I don’t like it. But what can we do about it?”

  I dragged in a breath. “First, I have to say that anything we decide to do will mean going against the will of the barons. It’s not going to be easy, and you’ll be putting yourselves and your families at risk. We don’t want to be tyrants. If you don’t feel ready to push back against the barons, you can leave the Guard, no hard feelings, no sanctions from us. I totally understand the need to protect yourself and the people you care about.”

  I paused, checking to make sure neither of my fellow scions were
glowering in a way that might have suggested my words were a lie. Neither of them looked happy, but they waited for the response calmly enough. While a few of our classmates stirred on their feet, no one moved toward the door.

  “We’ve got to do something,” Victory piped up where she was standing next to Cressida. “We’re fearmancers, for fuck’s sake. We shouldn’t be cowering away from a conflict, even if it’s with our own barons. They’re supposed to support us, not throw us into some epic mess that we don’t even want.”

  I couldn’t say I’d ever enjoyed Victory’s company all that much, but her haughtiness served us well right now. At her words, other eyes in the crowd glinted with renewed defiance. Jaws firmed, and shoulders squared. No one so much as glanced toward the door after that.

  “All right,” I said, clasping my hands together. “Our first step is simple. We all reach out to people we know—family members, friends, teachers, whoever—that we’ve seen reason to believe disagree with these new policies. Spread the word that the scions are concerned that the barons may continue with similar plans against the Naries, and that the barons have refused to talk the issue through with us. If we see clear evidence that the barons are going through with those plans, we’ll appreciate them being ready to make their own concerns known, as openly and clearly as they’re comfortable doing. The more of us who speak out, the more obvious it’ll become that this decision isn’t for the good of the entire community, and the more likely others will reconsider their position too.”