He was still holding my fists, but when I finally let my fingers uncurl, he relaxed his grip, and his thumbs brushed across the backs of my hands, the touch calming enough to make me wonder if he was manually altering my mood from within. He was definitely draining some of the darkness; enough that it didn’t feel like it would explode in my head. He had done that for me a lot lately, but it always came back a few hours later, and Cale had told me that if he took too much, it had the potential to backfire and cause him a lot of pain.
“You won’t be alone, Nareon won’t let anybody hurt you, and I’ll make sure that you don’t go in unprepared. There is only so much that the Academy is allowed to teach you, but I know someone else who might be able to help.”
“Who?”
“A retired Professor. Cale should be here at any second, and then we’ll take you.”
“You called Cale?” I felt another spark of anger rising, and I stubbornly pushed it back, knowing that I was being unreasonable.
“He has a very calming effect on you.”
The person in question burst through the door of the auditorium then, followed by a breathless Rose. They both paused, looking almost astonished, and I realised that Hazen was still holding my hands. Pulling out of his grasp, perhaps a little too hastily, I bent to retrieve my fallen books, and we walked to where the other two stood waiting.
“Are you okay?” Rose asked me, placing a comforting hand against my arm, “Cale made it sound like an emergency.”
From her expression, I assumed that they all had been waiting for me to blow up, probably for days now.
“I’m fine.” I said, before Hazen could answer, “But…” I looked away for a moment, to Cale, unable to help the imploring expression that must have fallen over my face as I beseeched those familiar, russet-brown eyes, and Hazen’s words echoed about my mind.
He has a very calming effect on you.
“I think I’d like someone to come with me tonight, to Nareon.” I said.
Cale arched a brow, apparently not expecting this, and then he gave a short nod.
“Of course, little synfee. It isn’t my usual Saturday, walking into a kingdom of life-force-suckers, but I don’t think I could refuse you a thing, especially when you look at me all helpless like that.”
I rolled my eyes at him, glad that he wasn’t going to make a big deal of it, and relieved too, that he didn’t seem afraid at the prospect. I gave Rose’s hand a squeeze, but she looked unconvinced, and as we left the empty auditorium, she linked her arm through mine, her grip a little too tight. We followed Hazen out of the building and across to the north-eastern corner of the Academy, a tense silence hanging over all of us, until we reached the giant stone watchtower that stood at the very edge of the Academy grounds. It looked out over the walls of the kingdom, and to the northern forest beyond, and until now, I had thought it abandoned. I noticed Rose staring up at it in apprehension then, and I followed her eyes, my brow furrowing.
“Who exactly is this retired professor?”
“His name is Joseph Harbringer.”
I paused, my hand twitching back from the rough texture of the abraded outer walls.
“What? Like the Joseph Harbringer?”
Cale smirked, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“We went to see him when we were your age, me and Hazen. Fair warning, he’s completely bonkers.”
“Why are we here then?”
“Because you’re completely bonkers as well.” Came Hazen’s dry reply.
I turned to him, my mouth falling open, “did you just make a joke, your High Tacitness?”
He narrowed his eyes a little, and didn’t even crack a smile, but Rose snorted in an almost uncharacteristic loss of composure. Ignoring us both, Hazen moved around to the other side of the watchtower, and pushed aside a heavy coating of vines to get to the door beneath. He tried the handle to no avail, and then placed his hand against the door, his expression as blank as ever, even when there was a rusty groan, followed by a click, and the door opened on his next try. Cale and Rose didn’t appear surprised, and stepped through unto the darkness first, Rose pulling me along behind her.
“How did you do that?” I asked Hazen as I passed him.
“I have a mind bending ability, remember? It’s not all that different.”
“So you read the doors mind?”
“No, smartarse, I triggered the pulse in the mechanism that unlocks the door. It’s just like diving into your mind and activating a false brainwave to cause your leg to jump.”
“Yeah, sounds awfully similar.”
He ignored my sarcastic remark and brushed past me, as the other two had stopped at the base of the wooden staircase leading up to the top of the tower. He took the lead, apparently not disliking the task as much as the others, and we followed, passing a number of unmarked doors, all closed and probably locked, and having to even jump over a few missing steps. When we reached the top, I was faced with one of the strangest sights that I had ever seen. A large wooden door was set into the wall right before us, except that the floor we were on seemed to be some kind of greenhouse, with a musty roof of glass tiles arching above us, minus a few missing panes. There was a ladder going up one more floor, ending in a trapdoor set into the ceiling, and some of the vines had almost completely overgrown it.
All around us flew little, mechanical birds, the likes of which I had seen all of the professors use to carry messages around to each other. Except that these birds all seemed to have something wrong with them. Chipped bronze armour, a missing scroll-case, or in one case—only one wing. They twitched and jerked, some hopping around the ground, getting tangled up in the foliage completely covering the floor, some accidentally flying into the glass roof in their bids for freedom.
“Completely bonkers.” Cale muttered again, staring at the door.
The door that we had all crowded around was painted blue, with a large, garish red stripe running straight down the middle. On top of that, was an awkwardly oversized, nautical steering helm, battered and weatherworn, with a few notches missing, attached to the door at eye-level.
Hazen strode right up to the door, kicking a little bird out of his way, and knocked sharply. The reply was instant, and the voice nothing like I had expected. It sounded as if it were coming through the helm before us, and when I narrowed my eyes on the centre of it, I could make-out a tiny peephole. He had probably been watching us since he heard us on the stairs.
“Go away.”
The retired professor was indeed a man, though he didn’t sound anywhere near old enough to be retired. There was a pleasant cadence to the way the two spoken words had rolled into each other, and his accent was a little stuffy, but not all unpleasant. The person behind the door sounded like a younger version of my uppity history professor, Barlow. Perhaps Harbringer had been brought up in one of the Tiered or River cities.
“We need to talk to you.”
Silence met Hazen’s words, but then a few moments later the door swung inwards, and I found my mouth dropping open a little. He was huge, a little older than Cale and Hazen, and a fair bit older than me, but still, he was barely old enough to be considered a seasoned teacher let alone a retired professor. His hair was messy and too long, hanging about his shoulders in silky disarray, the colour a shade similar to the rich burgundy that my mother’s had been. Perhaps too similar. His eyes were cold and dark, inky black and set into a viciously beautiful face, and the large frame that now crowded the open doorway was almost vibrating with power, the sinewy twist of muscle evident beneath his plain clothing.
“You’re a synfee.” I spluttered rudely, sensing no fae shimmer to his skin, nothing that could attribute to the physical pull that this kind of savage beauty compelled.
His gaze swung to mine, and narrowed. I could sense his surprise and annoyance, but then his eyes touched upon my own features and he fell back a step.
“This isn’t funny,” he said, turning back to Hazen and fixing him with
a stare that sent chills down my spine, making me glad that he had looked away and spared me the direct contact of that frigid displeasure.
“I’m not a damn Academy councillor. Whatever problem she has, I can’t do anything for her.”
“Give her some credit,” Hazen replied, apparently unfazed, “she’s lasted this long without anyone coddling her. This is about something else. She needs to learn to fight.”
The annoyance melted out of his face, and I got the feeling that people didn’t often manage to shock him. He turned his stare on Cale and Rose, examining them slowly, and then finally looked back to me before holding his door wider and stepping back.
“Come on in, don’t mind the mess.”
The others went first, and Rose had to pull me along again, because in that moment, I was undergoing a serious re-evaluation of everything that I knew of my mother’s race.
Did I really know so little? Had every conclusion that I had ever come to, concerning the synfee population been coloured by years of myth, fear and prejudice?
Joseph Harbringer. It was a name that I had grown very familiar with in my childhood, a name that I had known even better than the names of the current royal family. Over a decade ago, during the biggest revolt that the tainted creatures had ever staged, Joseph Harbringer had been the one to rise up and send them into exile. His powers were supposed to be legendary, though, looking around his circular room of broken machinery, I was struggling to see any evidence of it. There were more plants crowding beneath the few scattered windows, vines scattered with purple flowers sneaking up to escape the pushed-open panes and breathe the air beyond.
A large, antique, bench seat sprawled against the far wall, and set into it was a mattress barely big enough to accommodate Harbringer’s large frame. There were several work benches set up around the room, harbouring a staggering weight of twisted metal and machine parts, and what space remained around us was crowded with towering stacks of dusty books.
Stepping lightly around one such stack that had fallen over and spilled across our paths, I followed the others to a set of light-green couches that had been invisible to me behind one of the workbenches. Harbringer skirted the couches and sat on a nearby stool, sliding a twisted miniature of a person from the nearby bench and spinning it around his fingers as he watched us restlessly. Hazen and Cale took one couch while Rose and I took the other, and tried to pretend that we weren’t out of our depth as we clutched at each other’s hands.
“So,” Harbringer said, mostly to Cale and Hazen, “why the sudden need for self-defence? Not that I’m complaining, you know I love a good fight. Especially with the stronger powers.”
“Did you know about a new synfee king?” Cale asked, instead of directly answering Harbringer’s question.
Harbringer frowned, and the little person in his hand stopped spinning for a moment.
“Who are you talking about?”
“His name is Nareon Soulstoy.” I answered for Hazen.
Harbringer flinched as if I had slapped him, and his eyes suddenly became unfocussed. Hazen jumped up, a string of expletives flying out of his mouth as he shot his hands into his dark hair and started pacing around, causing me to stare at them both in astonishment. Cale’s eyebrows shot up, and Rose’s hand tightened on mine.
“That’s not the new king,” Harbringer muttered, his eyes refocusing and watching Hazen fume with what appeared to be a mix of amusement and sympathy, “There is no new king. Nareon has been in power for hundreds of years now.”
The darkness flashed up then, with surprising intensity, catching both me—and apparently Hazen—by surprise. It was a little unnerving, to know that he was now so in-tuned with my mind that he could sense the subtle changes in me even when he was preoccupied with someone else.
“Calm down,” he said to me, “it doesn’t undermine his intentions. This doesn’t mean that he lied to you, necessarily.”
“He made contact with you?” Asked Harbringer, rising from his stool and throwing the little mechanical person to the bench.
“Yes, a few months ago.”
“Why?” He didn’t even look at me as he bit out the question, and began pacing.
Hazen stopped his own pacing and returned to his seat, apparently calm again, though Cale was staring off at nothing, his expression uncharacteristically bleak.
I shrugged a little, because Nareon’s motives seemed to be ever ambiguous.
“He wanted to help me come into my inheritance power.”
“You’re a Force user?”
“Yes.”
He frowned deeper, his steps quickening to the point where I started to realise that he had the ranger’s abilities. No human should be able to move that fast, and that effortlessly.
“It still doesn’t make sense. Force is rare, but not rare enough to drag him into our world, though you surely shouldn’t have survived the transition without him. Force kills most of the people it inhabits within the first year, if not the first day.”
“All the other Force users in his own kingdom have disappeared,” I said, choosing to ignore the last part of his comment, “and he thinks that they are being used to destroy the land. I’ve seen it, we only travelled half a day to the far western border, I haven’t seen the north or the south, but it’s horrible.”
His pacing faltered then, and I had gotten so used to trying to focus on the lurching blur of his movements that I flinched back a little as he became abruptly still.
“He took you over into his kingdom?”
I nodded, and he fell back to his stool, looking utterly astonished.
“This can’t be good.”
“You think he’s lying?” Cale asked, his tone implying that he was leaning toward that impression himself.
“He would have just killed her, and taken her power. It makes no sense that he didn’t. No sense at all.”
“Maybe he likes her?” Said Rose, causing every head—including mine—to snap in her direction.
“That’s absurd.” I scoffed, feeling ridiculous heat pool my cheeks.
“Not really,” muttered Hazen, looking away, “I’ve seen into his mind. He is drawn to you.”
I slapped my hand to my head. “You realise that’s what I do, right? I’m a synfee, I draw people to me.”
“Wrong.” Countered Harbringer, now examining me as if he could see right through me, “your glamor blocks the compulsion, with it up, you’re not doing anything. But either way, I’m not buying it. Drawn he might be, but Nareon is a monster, if he liked her, it would only make killing her more pleasurable.”
“That’s disgusting.” I said, realising a little too late that I was talking to a synfee myself, and snapped a hand over my mouth.
“I’m not one of them, Harrow.” He said, answering my thoughts as if I had spoken them, “I just caught their power.”
“Caught?” I asked, brow furrowing.
“I was brought up a ranger. But by the time I was five, I had already specialised in every element, as well as the general race-specific abilities. Eleven years later, I had a nice collection of the rarities as well. I inherited Force when I was fighting against Nareon.”
“How is that all possible?”
“As soon as I touch a person, I gain their abilities. Not steal—” he said, holding up his hand, “—only copy. My gloves slipped off when I was grappling with one of Nareon’s soldiers, we were so close to losing the war by that stage, the synfees, as you can imagine, are no easy enemy to defeat, and they were leading the tainted creatures against us. I had actively avoided taking their powers, because I didn’t want to be tainted by the urges that drove them, but I suppose it was inevitable. I inherited the powers of the guard who I fought with, and he was a Force user. That was how I won the war.”
“If Nareon really is the old king, and the rumours about the old king are true, why didn’t he just sacrifice one of his own people to get the Force power himself?” Asked Cale.
“An interesting question, one
that I assume has something to do with your Miss Harrow here.”
“There must be some kind of drawback,” muttered Hazen, “one that outweighs the benefits of the power. Have you noticed anything?” he asked Harbringer.
“There is always the push.”
I looked at the others, to see if they understood any better than me, but they all appeared confused.
“Push?” I asked.
“Yes,” He picked up his mechanical person again, “it pushes your most powerful ability to act, without your consent. Usually when you’re upset. I assumed you knew about it, since it happened to you only a few minutes ago.”
“The darkness?” I looked to Hazen, who shrugged, and then back to Harbringer, who had suddenly gone blank, an expression that I had seen so often on Hazen, that there was no doubt in my mind that he was currently digging through my memories.
Deliberating over whether I should wipe my mind blank or help him out with his invasive search, I eventually gave a frustrated sigh and pulled up a memory of Kaylee insulting me outside the greenhouse. I felt the familiar stirrings of darkness, though they were thankfully muted enough that I was able to console myself that it wasn’t happening again. After a few short seconds, Joseph snapped back to attention, though his face remained blank, this time purposefully so. He stood up calmly, and strode over to the door, shoving it upon and motioning the jungle beyond.
“Out.” He said calmly, “all of you.”
None of us spoke until we had reached the gates of the Academy, and in that time, the angry cloud in my mind had blown back up to a dangerous size.
“Well, he was certainly helpful.” I snapped, shoving my book bag further up my shoulder as I made to go the opposite direction to the others, back toward Sparrow’s Settlement.
Rose grabbed my arm before I could take so much as a step.
“You’re coming home with me.” She sounded serene, apparently not perturbed by the completely unreasonable, black wrath broiling at the base of my skull.
Cale stepped up to my other side before I had the chance to protest however, and slipped his arm through my free one, trapping me between them as they started to walk toward the castle. Hazen had remained deep in thought since Joseph’s strange outburst, and didn’t even really seem to notice.
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