Autumn Rose

I didn’t have to wait long. I heard breath behind me; felt another’s magic; heard a voice.

‘Duchess.’

I spun around, lifting the dagger until it rested beneath the defined jaw line of a man not much older than me. But it didn’t get any further.

Half-formed on my lips, a curse that would kill was snatched away by the wind that whipped past, replaced with a sharp intake of breath; then a silence that was only broken by the clatter of my dagger striking the ground. Thrust forward, my hand hung in mid-air, fingers sprawled from where I had let the blade fall.

I wet my lips, shock turning to realization. The seconds fell and neither of us moved. After a minute, it occurred to me to drop into a deep curtsey, onto one knee, aware of how high my skirt was hitching; aware of how the trees whispered treason.

‘Your Highness,’ I managed, eyes fixed firmly on a blossom petal, partly crushed below the edge of my shoe.

‘Duchess,’ he repeated quietly, so only I could hear. I raised my head, risking a glance, but did not allow our gazes to meet.

Always remember your place, Autumn. Etiquette, child, is everything.

My mind fought with itself. He should not be here. He has no reason to be here. But I could ignore neither the leather satchel resting at his side nor the diary in his other hand, the school logo printed on the hard front cover. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but I knew the sixth form didn’t have to. A lump formed in my throat.

‘Do you always greet people like that, or am I the exception?’ His accent, Canadian, rung over the whispers of the students around us – they weren’t stupid. They read the magazines and watched the news. They knew who was standing before them.

‘My apologies, Your Highness, I was not expecting you.’

‘No, forgive me, I didn’t mean to startle you.’

I nodded to the ground, feeling the urge to reach out and snatch up my dagger. I knew better.

The bell sounded, yet nobody moved. The Athenea.Not now. Not here. Movement only began as teachers started to cross the tarmac, late and unhurried as they always were to tutorials. If they were surprised by the scene before them, they didn’t allow it to show.

‘Good, I see you’ve met each other.’

The sound of the headmaster’s voice straightened me up; fingernails buried into my palms to help me keep control.

‘Autumn, this is—’

‘I shouldn’t think either of them needs an introduction, Headmaster,’ a second teacher said – Mr. Sylaeia, my English language and literature teacher, as well as my tutor. ‘They will have met at court.’

Mr. Sylaeia, unlike the other teachers, didn’t hide his surprise, his untrimmed eyebrows arching as they moved from the dagger on the ground, to me, to the tanned arms of the man in front, clad only in faded jeans and a white v-necked t-shirt.

‘I’m afraid the weather here isn’t quite on a par with what you will have experienced in Australia, Your Highness. I would recommend a coat in the future,’ Sylaeia said.

‘Please, call me Fallon,’ the prince replied, his eyes never leaving me as my mind reeled, unable to comprehend what I knew was happening. I stared straight past him to Mr. Sylaeia, mental barriers opening just enough to allow him to speak in my mind – he was half-Sage, and although he did not bear the scars, he possessed many of our abilities.

‘You understand what is happening,’ he said. It was not a question.

‘Why?’ I replied, releasing the dread in my chest which wormed its way between my ribs, slowing my breathing.

‘His parents desired for him to spend a year as a guardian within the British education system. He requested a state school.’

‘There are thousands of state schools. Hundreds without any guardian at all.’

He held my gaze and his silence told me there was more, but that I wasn’t going to be privy to it.

‘Autumn: Fallon will be spending a year here studying his A2 levels. I would like you to mentor him in his first few weeks and make him feel welcome here at Kable,’ said the headmaster.

I can’t do that, I thought. But I nodded, just once, keeping my lips pursed to prevent myself from revealing the wrong answer.

‘Well, if you’ll excuse us, Headmaster, I believe my tutor group is waiting for morning registration. Autumn, Fallon; after you.’ Mr. Sylaeia motioned towards the two-storey block that housed English and I sped in front of them both, feeling my expression crumple into one of despair when I entered the dimly lit stairwell that led up to my tutor room. I moved as though in a dream, climbing the staircase without noticing where I placed my feet, unable to believe that what was happening was anything but a nightmare.

But this was reality: one of the Sagean royal family, a prince of Athenea, was here, at Kable, to study.

From the bottom step there came a burst of giggling as Christy, Gwen, Tammy and Tee followed us up. It didn’t take much brainpower to work out what the source of their amusement was. There was a reason this particular member of the Athenea was continually featured in magazines.

I swept into the classroom, ignoring the startled year sevens, whose frightened eyes moved from me to the prince, causing one tiny girl, who simply didn’t look old enough to be in secondary education, to actually pick up her seat and move around the desk, settling back down right beside her friend.

The older girls reacted in the complete opposite way. I saw their eyes graze over his scars, burgundy red, and his shirt, short sleeves clinging to muscular arms, and then to me as I slipped into a chair at my usual desk, indicating for the prince to take a seat too. He sat down opposite, facing me. Seeing an opportunity, Christy snatched the seat beside him and Tammy sat down next to me; not to be outdone, Gwen stole a chair from another desk and placed it at the side of the table and within a minute, Tee had invited her best friend over so that our little table designed to seat four was accommodating seven. I was a little shocked, and bitter … they didn’t usually make this much of an effort to be around me.

Their interest, along with that of the rest of the class, was subtle at first, as they buzzed about their summer holidays to one another before they started introducing themselves, chatting over each other to ask him questions.

‘So you’re from Canada, right?’ Christy asked. ‘Your Highness,’ she added.

‘Please, just Fallon. Not quite. Athenea, my country, is part of Vancouver Island but we are a nation of our own, separate from Canada.’

‘So, do you, like, speak Canadian?’ Gwen asked, twiddling with a strand of her dark, dyed hair. His eyes widened and I couldn’t prevent a smile from creeping onto my lips – to hide it, I began fiddling with the ring of keys attached to a loop in my pocket, searching for my locker key.

‘Er, no, we speak Sagean, and English. Some of those born further east speak French,’ I heard him say as I got up and weaved my way between the tables to the stack of square lockers in the corner of the room.

It is important in life that you are patient with those not blessed with your intellect.

But Grandmother, they ask such simple questions! I am quite sure I will die of boredom if they do not stop it.

‘I’ve never heard Sagean,’ Gwen continued, her voice meek and devoid of the flirtatious tone it had possessed before.

‘So’yea tol ton shir yeari mother ithan entha, Duchess?’

I froze, hearing my language spoken for the first time in months. Pulling the locker door open, I glanced at him. He stared at my back, his finger curled and pressed to his lips, as though pondering.

Why is he asking that? Does he not know the nature of the area? I do not speak my mother tongue because there is no one to speak it to.

I turned again to my locker. ‘Arna ar faw hla shir arn mother ithan entha, Your Highness.’

I finished, knowing I spoke in staccato and that my words did not roll from one into another like they should; Sagean felt strange to my mouth, like a second tongue was trying to grow from beneath the first.

‘Of course,’ he replied as I retrieved my bag and clicked the padlock shut. When I turned back, his cool eyes – cobalt blue – hadn’t left me. Placing my bag onto my chair, I met his gaze, raising the walls around my mind even higher to ensure he would not know what I was thinking.

I know you know, I thought. I know you know about her. And I hate you for it.

Responding to Mr. Sylaeia’s request for help handing out the new timetables, I retreated from where the girls twirled their hair and requested translations into Sagean. They giggled and commented on his accent; the fact he was a Sage, and that they feared the Sage, was forgotten.

I handed around the sheets and friends squealed or groaned as they compared schedules, exclamations of disgust erupting from those who had drawn the less popular teachers. Two year ten boys cheered, celebrating that they no longer had to study history and the three girls in the year above, year twelve, compared their free lessons, excitedly discussing how once the eldest learnt to drive they would go into town instead of studying.