by Jade Alters
“The chair seems uncomfortable for a while, like it’s too big or something.” I jump back from the table at the sound of Father’s voice. He steps out from behind the curtain of darkness behind me. Was he here the whole time? I wince right up until he clasps a hand around my shoulder. “Then, all of a sudden, you realize you’re used to it.”
Only then does the entirety of his words begin to sink in. I try to picture him, the giant that he is, at my age. Before gray streaks ran back through his long, proud braid. Before his enormous frame began to hunch, just slightly, with age rather than unsurety. Before deposits of wisdom had etched themselves deep in his sage gaze. I try to picture him trying the chair out before his time, only to find it so uncomfortable. But my mind conjures no image. The man I see before me now could never have been like me.
“Yeah, well, you’ve got plenty of time left in the chair before anyone else has to get used to it,” I shrug. It’s rare we get a moment like this anymore, together, without the prying eyes of others. Without expectations, we can speak honestly, almost like we used to.
“Don’t be so sure of that, son,” Father tells me. “You’re closer than you think. And with the way everything is going…”
“Don’t start with that. The Council… everyone needs you more than ever now,” I stop him. Father gives a single, hearty chuckle and paces over towards the stone table.
“Open your eyes, son. You don’t exist solely to take my place. You’re not on standby until I’m in the ground,” Father tells me. I gulp down any kind of retort. I can tell from the grim lines across his forehead, despite the smirk on his lips, that these are words to heed. Rare are the words from the Chief’s heart without the interference of his mind. “The Council… the Academy… everyone needs you, too. And if you refuse to see it, that isn’t humility. It’s letting them all down.”
I grip the back of Father’s tall-backed chair. I have no idea what to say to him. To that. Like always, when such words leave his lips, I know he’s right before I even know what he means. A few shadows cross the glass panes of the entryway. The rest are here. I have to say something.
“Yes, Father,” I force, as I pull the chair out for him. It’s all I can come up with before Thise, Reynold, and Lily come in. Each of them nods to Father and me, then rounds the table for their own seat at the Counciltable. But the procession doesn’t end with them. I step off to Father’s side and lower myself into a smaller chair that’s been pulled up as the others arrive.
One by one, their faces light up as they arrive and see the odd setup of the Councilchamber. Extra seats are pulled up all around the stony arc of the table, to the point where it’s nearly crowded. Each person who enters is met with a nod from one of the four remaining Councilmembers, and a hand inviting them to a seat. We’re joined by Emery, Serge, Hoster, Helena, Fey Deller, and even Darius Jecks. The Council and the ASTF share the stone table, at which the biggest decisions in Broken Academy history have been made.
“Welcome to the first joint meeting of the Council and the ASTF,” Father takes the lead. He turns back to me and nods, to signal my part, as we discussed. It’s time for me to take an active leadership role, so heads don’t turn when he steps down, according to Father.
“This gathering represents the people who the decisions of Academy diplomacy will affect most directly… so we’ll all be voting. All are welcome to participate in the discussion as well,” I announce. In the space of a breath, Hoster raises his hand, like we’re in class. Like we’re not about to discuss matters of war and truce. “Yes, Hoster?” I ask through my teeth.
“What decisions are we talking about?” he asks. Not the person I expected to help with a segway, but I’ll take it where I can get it. I try to sit up straight, with some semblance of Chiefly poise as I announce, “Whether or not to join forces with the Kyrie.”
I sense Father smile beside me. It was an early lesson, back from when I first started attending Council and tribal meetings with him years ago. Now I have their attention. Now I can get out the rest of what I need to, and be done with this ridiculous show of authority. “We received a message from them yesterday.” I slide the enchanted parchment forward for everyone to see. “It seems they’ve been in flight of the Fiends since they were unleashed. They’ve had about as much success combating them as we have. All attempts end in casualties, then escape.”
“Their message extends an olive branch, to deal with the Fiends together before their rampage reveals all of us to the Normans,” Lily picks up where I leave off. I let out a long breath of relief that my part is done, at least in the briefing. There’s still the vote, of course, and I know where mine will fall.
“An olive branch doesn’t mean much when we haven’t been fighting,” Emery pipes up. I wish I had half her certainty. Well, she is a Dalshak - maybe she’s as good a faker as I am. “The Kyrie’s been off the board for months, and now we’re supposed to jump at the opportunity to make our lack of fighting official?” The contempt in her voice is palpable. I know exactly who she’s thinking of. Who she pictures spouting off demands like that - the very parents she fought against at the Point Arena facility.
“They’re extending a little more than an olive branch,” Magister Reynold tells her. He leans over the table to slide the crinkled slip with the Kyrie’s message to himself. He clears his throat before beginning his abridged translation. “The Kyrie has offered to help us unseal the Forbidden Shelves under our own Grand Library. They believe there may be texts crucial to the defeat of the Fiends there.”
“Sorry- the Forbidden Shelves?” Hoster asks in the vacuum of quiet that swallows all our breaths. Everyone in the room besides him, Darius, and Fey Deller have at least heard of them, after all. Coincidence has brought together descendants of three of the first families that formed the Academy, the ones who sealed ancient knowledge in the Forbidden Shelves in the first place. I’m surprised, however, when Father looks back to me, to urge me to handle it. I clear my dry throat again.
“A collection of the Academy’s most ancient tomes. There is great knowledge and great power, sealed within the Forbidden Shelves, an enchanted labyrinth beneath the Grand Library. Entry hasn’t been permitted since the Academy founders sealed it,” I do my best to explain with such limited resources of time and examples.
“It’s quite feasible that there is a solution to our Fiend problem, or at least some records of them, somewhere in the Forbidden Shelves,” says Dragonlord Thise.
“It’s also quite possible that the Kyrie has more interest in other forbidden knowledge sealed there. Ancient tricks, spells, and other ceremonies that the founders of the Academy deemed better off forgotten,” Sorceress Lily squeezes in.
“But they are offering to enter the heart of the enemy, weakened as they are,” Helena considers aloud. She, too, is right at home contributing her conflicted thoughts amongst the most powerful people in the Academy. I take a deep breath to try and emulate that same transparency.
“Why don’t we just enter the Forbidden Shelves ourselves?” Emery asks. And tell the Kyrie to shove their letter right back up their asses, I can almost hear in the quiet hesitation that hangs on the end of her suggestion.
“Would if we could,” Magister Reynold sighs. “But… your parents took the Magister’s Key with them when they left the Academy.” Emery’s teeth clench behind her lips. He turns his head to the uninitiated three, Darius, Hoster, and Fey Deller. “The Magister, Sorceress, and Chief of the Council each have a key, handed down from one holder of the office to the next, that unlocks the Forbidden Shelves,” he explains. Everyone in the room takes what little time they still need to process the situation. To come to grips with the decision they face.
“Then we all know what the decision is?” Dragonlord Thise prompts. “To accept the Kyrie’s offer… invite them into our halls to find a solution to the Fiend problem at the bottom of the Forbidden Shelves… or deny them.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a question,” an unexpected voice r
ises from the shadows around the round, stony table. Darius. I haven’t seen him since his sentence was apparently suspended several days ago, but… two years in darkness haven’t been kind to him. Even in such poor light, I can tell he’s even paler than he was before. Even thinner. The rest of the Council eyes him with an odd sort of curiosity as an invitation. “Why the fuck do I get a vote? I’m not part of the club now too, am I?” After everything, it’s still him. At least, to some degree. Magister Reynold clears his throat at the obscenity, but Thise seems to have no trouble answering for him.
“You’ve been put under the supervision of Serge and Emery. If both of them are potentially going to be involved with the Forbidden Shelves operation, you will be too. We wouldn’t rob you of a vote on something that directly affects you,” she says.
“Mighty generous,” Darius hums. I worry, much like the rest of the tense gathering, that he’ll finally unleash whatever it is he’s been holding back. Whatever was born in him in that cell, in the darkness. Darius was a loose cannon before imprisonment. Now he carries an air of apprehension with him everywhere he walks. But the twisted soul only folds his hands over his lap, like he’s chairman of us all. “I say fuck the Kyrie. Their olive branch can burn for all I care.”
The unlikeliest of voices is the one to usher in the decision we all have to make. There’s a definitive shift in the atmosphere around the table, once the first vote is cast. Everyone looks to their colleague, their subordinates. Each of us waits to see how the intentions of the others will dictate the fate of us all. More than ever, all encompasses so many more than just the bodies at the stone table.
“I think we should meet with them, at least,” Sorceress Lily posits, wrinkles knotting the skin around her eyes. “We’re getting nowhere in our solo Fiend crusade.” Great. An even split. But there are still plenty of votes left to cast.
“I agree,” Magister Reynold follows. “If there’s any way to actually defeat those Fiends… it’s down in the Forbidden Shelves.”
“No,” says Emery, stern. The way she grimaces and clenches her fists… I can’t help but feel an echo of sympathetic pain in my own chest. I know what she means, long before Reynold repeats,
“No?”
“That’s my vote. No to the meeting. No to a truce,” Emery declares, and I know why. I’ve never been so disappointed in my life, I can still hear her mother saying back at the Point Arena facility. I can still see the illusory spike she meant to kill her daughter with before it struck Darius instead. How do you face someone again after something like that? No. The answer makes sense. You don’t. This makes it no easier for me to swallow. I was already losing her, long before she made known her decisive decision.
“Obviously… I’m with my sister,” Serge follows, just as bitter.
“As am I,” Helena adds. How could she disagree with Emery on that one? After being kidnapped, hijacked, and hooked up as a supernatural battery twice, there’s no one with more reason to despise the Kyrie than Helena Bartos.
“I’m sorry,” Fey Deller prefaces to her roommates, before turning to the stone table. “I think we should meet with them. I see no other way to contain the threat of the Fiends.” In her short time talking about it, I notice the oddest thing about Fey Deller. A hint of emotion in her face, something usually too vague or weak to detect. She looks frightened.
“I think I’m going to have to agree with Fey Deller,” Hoster sighs. It’s no secret that I’m not president of his fan club, but I can’t blame him for his choice. I don’t know exactly what he saw when he pried into that monster’s mind. Nor do I want to. I trust how shaken he gets when anyone brings it up.
“I also think we should meet with the Kyrie,” says Thise. The disappointed heads of those who voted against lower at the sound. “I don’t think we can afford not to meet with such a powerful potential ally, even if a former enemy.” Those against, however, perk their ears up when Father follows her announcement with, “I disagree. I think now is the perfect time for the Kyrie to swoop in for their counterattack and take us out while we’re weakened.” So says the Chief of the Ahwahneechee people. Those against the truce lean forward in their seats, encouraged. But, for the last person in line to vote, his own son, the effect is inverted.
I flatten against the back of my cold chair under the weight of expectant stares all over me. And at such a time… I never expected Father would be so opposed to accepting help. It makes what I have to say even harder. It dries out the words mid-way up my throat, where they stay stuck for a few hesitant seconds. My first Council meeting in any kind of official capacity and Father puts me in this position? Emery, Serge, Helena, Darius, and Father stand against the meeting. Lily, Reynold, Thise, Fey Deller, and Hoster support it. A damned even split. If I do what everyone expects me to do, what I’m supposed to do, I’ll tip the vote against. We’ll be no closer to stopping the Fiends, and another step closer to being exposed by their rampage. Even if it means taking a risk on the Kyrie… even if it means openly defying Father at this meeting, we have to take action. There must be a decision. Now, I just have to spit it out.
“I…” No eyes rest heavier on me than Father’s, turned to eye me sideways from the chair next to mine. “Think we need to prioritize the safety of the supernatural… over the safety of the Academy. This place doesn’t stand for much without its secrecy. We need to meet with them.”
The collective breath that escapes everyone around the table creates a cool breeze for a moment. Then it’s gone. The decision is settled, but the tension of disagreement remains. Still, Councilmembers and the ASTF are left with no choice but to pick their heads up and carry on. We must, if any of us are going to survive. I just hope I’ve saved us, not doomed us.
“Then the Council will compose a reply to set a meeting time and location,” Thise announces at last. This relieves no stress from the situation, only urges it in the inevitable direction forward. She does, at least, have the wisdom to unbind us from one another to unwind. Thise stands and pushes her chair out. “Well, that was the sole purpose of our meeting today.”
Chairs scrape out from all around the table, none faster than my own. Since Emery cast her vote, I’ve had a single, underlying focus. It welled deeper within me, even more than preparations to cast my own vote. There’s only one thing I really wanted to do since hearing that Emery and I stood on opposite sides of a line in the sand. I want to cross that line, and wrap her in my arms. I want to squeeze her to me before I can’t anymore. Before disagreements push her from my arms right into Hoster’s. I try to round the table towards her, but she’s already on her feet. To my surprise, she seems to have bigger concerns than fleeing the room.
“Wait,” Emery says while the divided Council and ASTF shuffle to their feet all around the room. No one has made it to the door yet, but Magister Reynold and Serge are close. They turn around to face Emery, like the rest of us. “There’s something else… I should tell you all, while we’re gathered.”
“What is it?” Reynold asks when he hears the same thing in Emery’s voice that I do. Something so otherworldly unusual for her that it captivates every one of us.
“Helena, Fey Deller, and I went into San Francisco yesterday, recreationally,” Emery prefaces, “But… we had to flee back to the Academy. We were… I don’t want to say attacked, but… targeted.”
“By whom?” Dragonlord Thise asks, grim.
“Or what?” Magister Reynold follows up when he sees the perplexity bunching Emery’s face up.
“I... have no idea. Not even which it was, a who or what. I know I looked straight at it, but I can hardly remember anything about it… a body - a human figure in a strange robe. It was dark purple, with burgundy accents, I think. But I remember what it did, which might be why I can’t remember much else,” Emery says. I’m surprised to see the owner of the hand that catches her arm.
“What happened?” asks Darius, more intensely than I’ve seen him do much else. It strikes me, to watch him transform from
aloof to passionate so quickly.
“It had this… machine, I think. It looked like an orb-shaped speaker. It made this sound…” Emery tries to describe it. I can see from the confusion in her face, though, that even this is a struggle to recall. “It stunned me. Disabled the trick I put on Fey Deller’s appearance and stopped me from doing another one, while it was on.” At each phrase, the Council turns their heads to one another. I join right in, to see if anyone else knows what the hell Emery is talking about.
“Did either of you get a better look at this robed person?” Father asks Fey Deller and Helena. Their heads give a troubled shake.
“Hardly a glimpse,” says Helena. Again, the Council confers with silent glances.
“I’m not thrilled about inviting the Kyrie into our halls, but perhaps it is prudent we visit the Forbidden Shelves.” I hardly believe my ears when Father says it.
“You know what it was?” I ask, when I hear the uneasy edge to his voice.
“Son, I haven’t the faintest idea,” he admits, striking his fear into me.
“I don’t think any of us do,” Reynold adds. Thise and Lily confirm this shared truth with a nod. “But it’s emerged at the same time as the Fiends… there may well be a connection.”
“I’ll see if I can find anything on this robed anti-Magician in my records, however unfamiliar it sounds. For now, let’s institute an emergency-only leave of campus rule,” Thise suggests, to resounding agreement from the Council and the ASTF alike. Even Emery. Whatever that robed bastard did to her, it sunk in deep.
With that, the group finally disbands. The Councilmembers return to their respective offices. Serge walks Darius back to their room. Hoster goes off on his own, while Emery, Fey Deller, and Helena group up for the walk back to B-22.