by Cora May
She wondered what kind of arguments they had had over her.
“There are seven stone and Blessing pairs, each of which you have been tested for by the head of their respective houses, as has been our tradition from the beginning. You’ve been a special case, indeed, but it is my great honor to gift you with your stone; the Celestite stone.”
Prisanni extended her hands, palms upward, to Chanta. Inside her palms was, indeed, the beautiful blue Celestite stone attached to a long, silver rope.
“You will be part of my house, and I will be taking you under my wing, personally. I will oversee your education, both in the matters of the human world and the matters of your Blessing. It is my promise to you that I will train you and teach you to wield your Blessing for the good of all Realms. Do you, Chanta, accept my promise?”
Stage fright suddenly hit as Chanta’s eyes drifted away from the pretty stone, still in Prisanni’s cupped hands, and up to her eyes. She knew that everyone was waiting for a response as the seconds ticked by, but the words were sticking in her throat. The room suddenly felt hot, and she was becoming lightheaded.
And then she felt a coolness drift over her. It wasn’t cold, it was actually a cloud of soothing warmth, but it took away the heat that was turning her ears red. It was calming and encouraging. Without a doubt, she knew it was coming from an Amber Soother—whether it was Reiter or someone else in the room, she wasn’t sure—but she accepted it gratefully. She had to. It was the only thing that had a chance of breaking through her spell of fright. Seconds continued to tick by as she welcomed the rush and gathered herself once again.
“I accept,” she stated bravely.
With a simple nod, Prisanni acknowledged her statement. She briefly withdrew the stone as she unlatched the hook on the chain. She extended it then, placing it around Chanta’s neck. Chanta kept her head bowed as Prisanni hooked the chain.
“Welcome to the House of Celestite,” the headmistress told her gravely. “We represent the Communicators, the bridge between this world and the Realms of the Anam. We represent the voices of the Province of the Dead. You are now officially a student of Prisanni’s School for the Blessed. You now bear the responsibility of a Communicator. I look forward to training with you.”
Solemnly, Chanta nodded. She wasn’t sure what other way she was supposed to respond. No one else seemed to have a response. The entire room had grown stiff with silence. Chanta dared not look around to see their faces. She kept her eyes trained on Prisanni.
The headmistress removed an envelope she had kept in her loose sleeve and handed it to Chanta.
“This is your new room number, your class schedule, and your oath. Take some time to look over everything. When you are ready, you will be shown to your room.”
Chanta accepted the envelope silently.
“Oh, and Chanta?” she asked.
Chanta looked back up at her.
“Today is your new beginning, remember that. Today is the day you start discovering yourself, the day your story truly begins. Happy New Year.”
PART TWO:
THE EIGHTH STONE
CHAPTER EIGHT: ADDELAI
A ddelai shifted under her blankets in the chill of the morning. She could feel the goosebumps on her skin, as if the blankets had never been there at all. And she was sore. Dear Anam, she was sore! She could feel the bruises forming around her thighs and torso already. She shifted again, regretting every move as she made it. Her elbow landed on something that felt like metal. She froze.
She had done it again.
She sat up slowly, making sure not to wake the other girls, and pulled back the covers. Sitting on her sheets was, indeed, a long bronze dagger that was covered in drying silver blood; the blood of an Anam Solas. She hadn’t meant to do it, but she had killed another one. She was an Anam Hunter, but not on purpose. It was purely an unconscious act and always seemed to happen in the middle of the night, long after she had fallen asleep. But she knew it was her body that had committed the act, even if her brain had not followed the action.
She looked over at her sleeping roommates. Brinziel, her best friend since the day she arrived, was on the top bunk. Her long, brown arm was hanging off the edge of the bed, and Addelai could just barely see her tight curls popping out from her pillow in every direction. She wondered how the girl had never heard anything, even though this had been going on for months. Her new roommate, Chanta, was in the bed below, and she didn’t seem to be any more aware that Addelai had left that night than Brinziel did. Chanta was lightly snoring, all of her blankets kicked down to the foot of her bed. It had been her first night with them, and she definitely seemed far too exhausted to be woken by strange noises in the night.
Good, Addelai thought. Another night where her secret was kept.
She hid the dagger under her pillow and got up to make her bed, covering the silver-stained sheets. She would have to deal with that later when the girls weren’t around to see it. She took her clothes and went to the communal bathroom to shower.
Addelai turned the faucet up as high as she could stand it. The hot water soothed her aching body. She stood under it without washing, allowing her body to relax. The steam began to rise and fill the bathroom. It wasn’t until the entire bathroom was filled that she finally lathered up her hair. She thought that she could wash away her guilt over her accidental crimes.
It wasn’t long, though, until her conscious started accusing her.
“Murderer,” the whisper echoed through the shower.
“Hello?” Addelai started.
She quickly turned off the water, her hair still dripping with soap. She listened closely to the silence of the bathroom. Her eyes were wide, and her heart was pounding. She thought she had been alone in there. With a trembling hand, she pulled back the shower curtain and looked around. Looking back at her, though, was nothing but her own reflection in the vanity mirror on the other side of the wall.
She tried to see past the steam in the mirror, to catch any other moving thing in the reflection. She studied the mirror until she started shivering from the air as the steam around her moved away. There was never any movement in the mirror. Nothing was there.
Nothing was there.
“Hello?” she called again, just to be sure. Her voice echoed and bounced off of the clean white tiled walls, and came right back to her, unanswered.
She was alone. She was sure of it.
At least, that’s what she tried to tell herself as she pulled the shower curtain closed again and tentatively turned the water back on. Listening very closely to the sounds of the bathroom, she stepped back under the water and finished rinsing her hair.
She kept her eyes opened, trained on the curtain that separated her from anyone else that was in there. She watched, waiting for a twitch, waiting for someone to yank the curtain away. It only moved steadily in response to the water that pushed the air around.
Addelai clenched her teeth and told herself to relax—an oxymoron at best, but a command she tried to force herself to accept. She tilted her head all the way into the water and closed her eyes again. She let the water fall over her ears, distorting any sounds around her. She focused on her breathing as she picked up her body wash.
“Murderer,” she heard again.
She clenched the body wash so hard that bubbles came out of the top. She was hearing things, she decided. That was all. Keeping her eyes closed, she poured what she hoped was an ample amount of the wash into her hands and began scrubbing her body. She focused on the darkness behind her lids and the steady breathing—in through her nose, careful not to inhale the water, and out through her mouth.
Relaxing never came easy to her, even when nothing strange was going on. She definitely didn’t feel relaxed now.
“Murderer.”
“This isn’t funny!” she called out as her eyes flew open. Her voice had jumped an octave, and she almost slipped in the shower as her feet matched the movement. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Who
ever you are, come out now.”
But there was no answer.
Addelai was suddenly aware of how naked she was. She quickly finished rinsing the soap away from her body and turned off the water again. She reached for her towel outside of the shower and wrapped it around her body as tight as she could. She grabbed her clothes and went straight back to her room. She’d rather dress in front of her roommates than continue to be creeped out by whoever was playing a trick on her.
She ran to her room, throwing the door open and closed behind her. She turned to face her roommates, who were just waking up. Chanta was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she took in the dripping girl in front of her.
“What’s wrong with you?” Brin asked her. “You look pale. Are you feeling alright?”
Could she feign an illness? She certainly wasn’t feeling alright. But the question is, could she pull it off? And what illness would pass?
“You look like you’ve seen the dead,” Brin added.
Okay, so feigning an illness was probably out, Addelai reasoned. She must have looked more terrified than infected. So what, then, could she say that would make her sound reasonably sane still?
“Please don’t tell me there are bugs in this place,” Chanta moaned drowsily.
Bugs! Yes, perhaps she had seen a spider, and that was all the reason for the fright. She could say it was a really big spider. Surely other girls would accept that as her reason for terror.
“Yeah, right,” Brin said. “Addy collects bugs. See that glass box over there? Don’t get too close. That’s where her tarantula lives.”
“What?” Chanta said, her voice screeching a little bit as she jumped in the opposite direction of where Brin had pointed.
Right, of course. She couldn’t get away with that lie when Brin knew her well enough, nor when she slept right next to Stella every day. So what could she say?
“It’s nothing,” Addelai said. “I thought I heard something. I just got creeped out. It’s not a big deal.”
“Oh, yeah,” Brin said, yawning as she fell back into her pillow. “This castle is pretty old, Chanta. Don’t get too worried about every creak you hear. Sometimes it’s just the wind running through these old castle walls. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly sturdy. It’s just been here for, like, a million years.”
Addelai let Brin babble on. She was wrong—the castle wasn’t that old. The students had all been given the same history lessons. The castle had been erected by Headmistress Prisanni herself in the late sixties. It wasn’t even a century old yet. It did make sounds, though, every now and then, so Addelai allowed the explanation to calm any suspicion the girls might have. In fact, she allowed it to calm herself as well. Perhaps she could make herself believe it was just a simple creak in the wind.
Except that she distinctly heard the word ‘murderer.’ What trick of the wind could have produced that sound in the bathroom?
She quickly donned her training suit and left the room before the girls could question her alibi and before she herself began to think about it too much.
It was chilly, which always made Saturday mornings the hardest for the Jasper Warriors. Still, they knew their place and the importance of training, so each of them came down to the field at their scheduled times to train. Addelai had trained under Professor Naimie Nessi since she had arrived at the school three years prior. Aside from the cold air, she truly did have an interest in her training. Junior year was all about finding the weapon that truly fit the individual’s skill set, as well as learning to cope with whatever was around you in any given moment. As Addelai arrived on the field, she gathered immediately that they would begin training in archery.
Addelai meandered down to the general area that students had begun to gather and stretch. She joined the stretching, though ignoring most of the people there. She truly enjoyed her time with Professor Nessi, a fit middle-aged woman with a plain yet kind face and a dull brown braid always tied behind her back. She was a wonderful woman in Addelai’s opinion, but most of the students her own age she never bothered to associate with. Very few had ever managed to stick around long enough to call themselves friends.
“Tsk, tsk,” said one such voice now. Ashby Nicolai. Addelai loved Brin, but Ash was her very best friend. Somehow, having classes together bonded the two better than rooming with another girl. “Your form is all wrong, Ms. Kindred. Perhaps you’re better suited for another earth stone… Perhaps something a little softer. Maybe Amber?”
“Oh, hush now,” Addelai scolded him. Her earlier troubles seemed forgotten in that moment. “You don’t want to make a Jasper Warrior mad.”
“Ah, but if you were an Amber Soother, you could always soothe away the anger of a true Jasper Warrior like myself,” he joked with her.
Addelai growled at him, biting the air as if to make for an attack.
“Now, you see, that’s not very Warrior-like of you at all,” he chimed. “I suppose you’re all out of witty words. I think that means I win.”
“In your wildest dreams, idiot,” she said with a laugh. “Now shut up, the professor is coming.”
“Oh, right, I can’t ruin the star student’s perfect reputation,” he teased.
“I said hush!”
“Good morning, class,” said Professor Nessi, calling to focus all of the chatting students as she approached.
“Good morning, Professor Nessi,” fifty students chimed at once.
“If you haven’t already gathered, today we will begin our segment with archery.”
There were more groans than there were cheers. Addelai glared at a few of the students that seemed to obstinately stick to a negative attitude.
“There are several bows to choose from on this side of the field,” Professor Nessi continued, “but as per usual, let’s begin with a jog to warm up.”
There were even more groans—and no cheers whatsoever—at this news. But Addelai wasn’t one of the participants. On the contrary, she quite liked her morning jog. It helped her to clear her mind and gave her a chance to think on what the day held for her. But today, the jog did neither. She was jogging the long mile with Ashby at her side, keeping pace despite his much longer legs.
“You seem a bit shaken up this morning,” Ash told her between breaths.
Addelai glared at him. It wasn’t out of anger toward him but to herself. She had hoped it wasn’t so obvious. But she sighed and cleared her face.
“I suppose I am,” she confessed. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Hm,” Ash said thoughtfully. “I think you should. It’s just going to eat at you, and that’s not a very good predicament to be in when you learn archery.”
“I already know archery,” Addelai snapped at him. She instantly regretted it, though—she had learned as many skills as she could over the summer so that she could impress Nessi. It had worked, too—she was far ahead of her entire class and had been given the extra attention because of how quickly she seemed to pick up new skills. She hadn’t told anyone that these skills weren’t entirely new to her—she liked the boost it gave to her ego when everyone believed she was a natural.
“Oh, do you now?” Ash asked.
“I’ve shot once or twice. But anyway, it’s none of your concern. I’ll do just fine, thank you.”
“I know you better than that, Addy. Just tell me what’s going on.”
His voice had fallen, both in volume and in tone. He had dropped the teasing and horseplay and adopted a tone of soft-spoken sweetness. Addy sighed. She couldn’t keep her defenses up when he used that voice on her. All of her qualms with the matter seemed to melt away.
“It really is stupid,” she said flatly. “And boring. I probably made the whole thing up anyway.”
“That’s just fine. Sometimes it’s best to talk about it anyway. Get it out of your mind so that it won’t grow there.”
“I suppose so…” Addy trailed off, biting her lower lip. When she decided to speak again, everything came out in a rush. “It�
�s just, I heard this… this voice in the bathroom. In the girl’s bathroom. And I’m fairly certain it was the voice of a man. It was far too deep to be a woman, but what would a man be doing in the girl’s bathroom? And why would he just whisper a few words and leave? I tried to get him to talk to me, but…”
“What was he saying?” Ash asked her.
His tone changed again, but this time it switched to pure, undivided concern—concern for her physical safety and not for her mental state, Addelai quickly and gratefully assessed. It seemed he was going to believe her, as crazy as it was.
Even still, she did not want to tell him the word she had heard. She bit her lip again.
“I don’t know,” she finally lied. “It was loud, I had the shower on. It could have been anything, I suppose—I didn’t listen close enough. He only whispered twice, and then he was gone. He wasn’t clear enough for me to make out a meaning.”
“No man should be in the girl’s powder room,” Ash said.
Addy couldn’t hide her small chuckle. She liked it when he referred to the bathroom as a “powder room.” It somehow felt to be too stuffy a word for someone like Ash to use, and she always liked to tease him for his insistent use.
“This is serious, Addy,” he rebuked her. “I’m not messing around right now. It’s not okay. If it was another student, that’s ground for expulsion, and if it was faculty, I’m sure Headmistress Prisanni would have whoever it was thrown out of the school immediately, sans pay. That’s a serious violation of your privacy, and what if he wasn’t just there to tease you with whispering? What if his intents were far more foul?”
Addy’s laughter quickly died off. He certainly had been there for a much fouler reason. She was sure, though, that it was even worse than anything Ash had in mind.
“Thank you for looking out for me,” she told him, “and for letting me talk about this without calling me crazy. But really, I think I had just made it all up. It’s the only logical thing, really. You’re right, Prisanni would throw anyone out who did something like that. And no one here is so simple as to do it in the first place. We’re all here to learn our Blessings and to help the human world. I’m sure it was in my head.”