Fantasy novel | gay romance sub-plot| poc main character.
An heir to a monarchy threatened by a popular revolution forges an alliance with an amnesiac man who could have forgotten links to the rebellion.
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Her...
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Luicon Herioni | 77th day of Sprout season
One explosion could be the sign of an airhandler poorly managing combustion. But four of them were the sign that something was terribly wrong.
The blasts had sounded from the lower floors, from the western part of the academy.
Quickly Lucion ran over his mind what could have been lost: on the second floor, no library on that side of the academy, just the boys' bathing rooms; on the first floor, there were classes with airhandlers and hybrids mattergraspers, but it was the tenth day of the week and no one had classes that day; in the undergrounds, the beasts— "Darkness Great," he exclaimed.
Seated at her desk, and completing the assignment Lucion had trusted her with, Una seemed unperturbed despite it all. The emergency alarm sounded: a low honk, three successive times, beckoning them all to the main hall of the academy.
Lucion thudded her book shut. "Something's wrong," he said. "We should go."
"I haven't finished yet, Lu," she protested.
"You'll finish later." He took her hand. "Come on." As soon as the words were out, strident screams sounded from the main hall. Lucion rushed outside, and things only appeared to get worse from there.
A dark-eyed horse, leaving a smoky trail in his passage, came bolting toward him at full speed. In front of the beast, three students about Una's age fled desperately. They were not fast enough and we're struck and thrown to the floor, stomped over, or sent crashing against the wall as the horse hit them.
Lucion got out of the way quickly, flattening both himself and Una against the wall, and the horse galloped past.
Summoning shadows, Lucion rushed to the injured students and healed them. "Find somewhere safe, quickly," he ordered them gravely. He was still trying to make sense if what was happening. He wasn't sure where somewhere safe would be. The rules said they should go to the main hall when the emergency alarm sounded, but they would admittedly have been safer in their chambers. That's where Lucion sent them.
As he entered the main hall, Una followed at his heels. A crowd of students was already clustered there with the body of teachers and Mistress Anya in the center. All among a mass of tables and chairs. Lucion spotted Mirela, strolling lazily towards the gathering as if she was skeptical of the danger that had been announced. He addressed himself to her, "What is happening?"
"The beasts have escaped."
That much Lucion knew. "All of them?"
Mirela shrugged. "I hope enough for Mister Fanou to finally realize they are useless."
Lucion wanted to ask how that happened, but as if to show how little importance his question had, a black panther, as tall as him bolted inside the room, roaring.
