Autumn Rose (The Dark Heroine Sequel)

Autumn Rose (6)

Dropping into a crouch I steadied myself as I made a less-than-graceful landing in the school car park. I straightened up, brushing myself down, gazing towards the entrance. I must have made good time; the school seemed to be quiet. Deciding I had better go examine the damage done to my hair I set off in the direction of the girl’s toilets. Astounded stares followed me, from a few of the new students – judging by their height and white socks, still adorned with frills, hair pulled back into regulation buns. They gawked as I walked past, shuffling back as though I carried an infectious disease, but I knew better: if they weren’t local, this could be the first time they had seen a Sage, let alone seen one fly.

Bless their oversize school jumpers.

Yet as I skirted the edge of the school, I began to feel uneasy. Pent up nerves I had stifled all summer began to surface, reminding me of just what I was returning to. I was also drawing more unwanted attention. Girls, almost always girls, were watching me with disdain as I passed by, their lips curled until they turned and muttered furiously to their friends, glancing at me when they thought I was not looking.

Feeling self-conscious and a little sick I wrapped my arms around my middle, knowing that the sword balanced on my hip and the barriers around my mind and the magic in my blood couldn’t protect me from the words that would come.

Spotting the toilets I dived into them, noticing that for once they did not smell like an ash-tray. Neither did they smell of blood, although only a Sage would ever be able to detect that scent. Instead, they reeked of bleach, an aroma that was not much more pleasant.

I gripped the sink tightly, staring into the mirror, endlessly analyzing my hair and make-up. If it wasn’t perfect, they would notice. They always noticed. They would not notice the spots on Christy’s forehead, or the sunburn across Gwen’s collar, but they would notice my fallen eyelash, or the chipped nail polish on my right thumb, or the scent of the cheap perfume I was now using because I had spent the money I had saved up from work in London.

I sighed. I had to get a grip, and fast. The new school year was beginning and it was my duty to protect all the humans in this school, even if the dislike was mutual.

I needed to be vigilant: I had heard the whispered rumours while I was in London. We all had. The Extermino were getting larger and bolder, and their attack on my town had proved it . . . why else would they bother with a tiny rural outpost?

And then what of the rumour about the dark-beings of the second dimension: people were saying the Vamperic Kingdom had kidnapped a human girl. The second dimension was the only one where the existence of dark-beings was kept secret from the humans . . . keeping a human hostage threatened to reveal us all, and then what? Even in the other eight dimensions, the dark-beings lived uneasily. The Damned had lived through years of genocide by the humans just because they used blood magic and there were hardly any of them left; the elven fae suffered because of the climate change the humans were creating; and we, the Sage, were constantly having to negotiate other dark-beings out of difficult situations because a diplomat had said something stupid.

Yet at the moment unrest gripped the dark-beings in a way I had never known in my short life.

I sighed once again, pressing my forehead to the mirror that on this rare occasion was not covered in lipstick graffiti. Things were changing; any dark-being could feel that. We were losing ourselves, drowning in velveteen tradition and microchip technology, caught between one world and another – figuratively, of course, because each kind of being firmly belonged in their own dimension, whether the humans liked sharing or not.

Change was brewing, and I feared this was just the calm before the storm. If things did get bad, no amount of treaties could protect us from our enemies . . . ourselves, the Extermino . . . the humans.

*

What do you all think of Autumn so far? Do you like her, or not? Let me know in the comments - I love hearing your feedback! And there's another important character about to enter very soon (guess who?)... excited about that!

And Happy Holidays if you have/will be celebrating this season :)

A x