Eclipse Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 2)

by Gage Lee

  “And how do I look?” Abi razzed me. He’d grown over the summer and seemed more like a full-grown man than the tall teenager he’d been the last time I’d seen him. His smile lit up his face when he spoke, even though it didn’t reach his probing eyes. His robes were far more utilitarian than Clem’s and didn’t look anything like the gear of the Titan’s of Majestic Stone he usually sported.

  “You’re in the Portal Defense Force?” I asked when I recognized the white and gray uniform as the same style Fezal had worn. “I didn’t know they allowed students to sign up for that duty.”

  “You made things very interesting when you discovered the emissary from the Locust Court,” Abi said. “And the anti-Flame protests have everyone on edge. The school staff and the Empyreal Council decided it was best to have a junior force here on campus until we’re sure there are no other hungry spirits lurking about.”

  My Eclipse nature stirred at his words, and I faked a cough to hide the darkness I knew had flickered across my eyes. I’d defeated the Locust Court spirit by pulling a part of it into my core. A part I still battled every day.

  I was very close to being one of the hungry spirits they were all worried about.

  “Let’s eat,” I said with a forced smile.

  “Finally.” Eric let out a long, melodramatic sigh. He spun on his heel and headed for the stairs.

  Clem snorted with laughter and followed after the Resplendent Sun, while Abi and I took up the rear of our little group.

  The Titan eyed me as we headed back to the dining hall. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Something bothering you?” I asked, more sharply than intended.

  “My friend is unhappy,” he said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “And that bothers me.”

  “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” I said. “Honestly, Abi, I’m doing great.”

  My friend’s dark eyes probed mine as we walked, and I felt the weight of his attention fall across my aura like a damp towel. For a moment, I wondered if his senses had penetrated the veil wrapped around my core.

  “Ah, Jace,” Abi said. He squeezed my shoulder firmly, offering his support. “No man can be truly happy until he is at peace with himself.”

  We’d reached the main hall and were suddenly surrounded by other upperclassmen who’d arrived ahead of the new batch of initiates.

  “I’m good, man,” I said to Abi. “Honest.”

  “You are good,” Abi said, a strange emphasis on the middle word. He tapped his finger against my chest. “You are not, however, at peace. Those two things may be related. Tell the others I had to check in with my squad. I’ll catch you at lunch.”

  He winked and backed away from me, swallowed by the crowd.

  I was glad that Abi seemed to have forgiven me for what had happened last year. But something about his words chilled me, and I wasn’t sure what he meant.

  I shook my head and headed to breakfast, glad to be back at the School and unsure of what the year would bring.

  The Headmaster

  FOOD HELPED KEEP MY Eclipse core’s urges at bay. It was as if a full belly tricked my core into thinking it was full, too. It was a close call between Eric and me to see who loaded up on the most bacon, sausage, eggs, and fluffy waffles.

  “You two won’t be able to walk if you eat all that,” Clem said with a wrinkled nose. “There’s a table over there.”

  We followed her pink hair through the crowd of other upperclassmen. I spotted Rafael at across the room and couldn’t help but smile when he ducked his head and looked away from me. He’d clearly watched my fights and knew that the next time we crossed swords, there’d be a very different ending from what had happened last time.

  “Where’d Abi go?” Eric asked. “I thought he was right behind you.”

  “Portal Defense Force stuff,” I said around a mouthful of bacon. “He’ll catch us at lunch.”

  Several of the other upperclassmen gave me uncertain waves when they passed by. It was hard to get used to all these people who’d shunned me last year being suddenly friendly. On the one hand, I knew they weren’t sincere, they were just sucking up to the School’s champion. On the other hand, the attention really was nice.

  “The trial’s not even going to happen until the end of the school year,” Clem said as she took her seat. Her plate was mostly fresh fruits and berries, with a sprinkling of crispy-skinned fried donut holes covered in a sugar glaze. “Grayson’s convinced the judiciary he needs more time to prepare his case because he’s had so much trouble getting a lawyer to take him on as a client. What with the assassins and the anti-Flame stuff.”

  Clem rolled her eyes at that last, like it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard.

  After he’d been arrested and hauled off to a holding cell awaiting trial, Grayson Bishop had insisted his life was in danger. He blamed me for upsetting the pact he’d made with the Locust Court and insisted the hungry spirits would kill him before they’d let him testify. That had severely limited the number of lawyers willing and able to defend him in court. If there really were spirit assassins coming for the former headmaster, anyone close to him would be in danger.

  “The hungry spirits won’t kill him,” I said. “Though they’d kill me if they got the chance.”

  My friends looked at me like I’d sprouted a pair of horns.

  “Don’t talk like that!” Clem said. “You’re safe here. They’ve got all the portals on lockdown. No one can come in or out of the school without security knowing about it.”

  I shoveled in a forkful of syrup-drenched waffles and chased it with half a sausage patty. I hid my disagreement with Clem’s thoughts behind an unnecessarily long drink of orange juice.

  Everyone insisted the emissary I’d killed last year was the only member of the Locust Court who’d made it past the Far Horizon portals. Of course, before I’d ripped the core out of that hungry spirit, everyone had insisted there were no members of the Court on this side of the portals at all.

  If the headmaster of the most prestigious Empyreal martial arts school had been in contact with renegade spirits, anything was possible. That’s part of what had sparked the anti-Flame protests and attacks. We’d been promised we were safe after the Utter War. That didn’t seem like much of a guarantee after what I’d uncovered.

  A loud chime rang through the dining hall, saving me from any further conversation on the subject.

  “Oh, man.” Eric groaned and shoved his plate back. “I’m still starving.”

  “Then keep eating,” Clem said as she popped a doughnut hole into her mouth. Sugary crumbs clung to her pink-glossed lips for a moment, and she licked them away with a quick swipe of her tongue. “That wasn’t the end-of-meal chime.”

  We didn’t have to wonder about the bell for long, because the dining hall’s doors flew open a moment later to reveal a flood of new initiates. They rushed in, eyes wide and mouths hanging open as they tried to take in every detail of their surroundings. They were only a year younger than me, but their rambunctious entrance made them seem like children.

  “There are so few of them.” Clem grinned at me. “You did your job too well.”

  Eric laughed, and I grimaced. Beating the School’s champion was a sure way to gain admission, or higher ranks if you were an upperclassman, but no one had gotten past me during the whole Five Dragons Challenge. Even Hank, one of the School’s most famous former champions, had been beaten, and not just by me.

  Of course, he’d also seriously injured dozens of other contenders on Grayson Bishop’s orders.

  I’d only killed one.

  “I was just following the rules,” I said to Clem. “Maybe this year’s contenders just weren’t very good.”

  “What about that one?” Clem asked and speared her fork over my shoulder.

  I twisted in my seat to find an initiate waving at me from across the room. The girl was very short, less than five feet tall, with sharp elfin features and long smooth black hair she wore bra
ided over one shoulder. I remembered her from Dallas. She was one of the contenders I’d beaten most easily. I gave her an offhanded wave and turned my attention back to Clem.

  “That’s Rachel Lu. I’m not sure why she’s here,” I admitted. “I dropped her in the first ten seconds.”

  “Doesn’t look like she has any hard feelings toward you about it,” Clem said and harpooned a raspberry on the tines of her fork. “You really were something out there, Jace.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Eric agreed. He washed his pancakes down with a gulp of milk so cold condensation rolled down the glass like beads. “You’re going to have to teach me some of those moves.”

  I chuckled nervously at the request. To those who’d watched me fight, I’d seemed faster, more agile, and stronger than my opponents. From the audience’s point of view, they saw flashing serpents, careful blocks, and stunning strikes that dismantled my opponents with skill and ease.

  I wondered how they’d feel if they knew the truth.

  No, I wouldn’t be teaching Eric any of my tricks.

  “We’ll see,” I said. “Remember, most of my fights were against newbies who didn’t have any training at all. I probably could have—”

  “Greetings, initiates and upperclassmen,” a tall, slender woman with a mane of fiery red hair called out as she entered the dining room behind the flood of initiates. “As I’m sure you’re all aware, Sage Bishop will not be joining us as headmaster this year.”

  She paused for a moment to let the Resplendent Suns clan grumble and the Disciples of Jade Flame cheer before she continued.

  “I will be stepping into Sage Bishop’s shoes for the year.” She nodded and smiled easily at the uncertain applause from the rest of us. “As I’m sure you’re all aware, the circumstances surrounding the School of Swords and Serpents have not been, to put it mildly, well received. As a result, the Adjudicators have assigned me to help restore order to our campus and ensure there are no repeats of last year’s unfortunate events.”

  “So, she’s the one,” Clem said with a frown. “Mother told me they were sending a disciplinarian to crack down. That explains the Portal Defense Force presence.”

  “My name is Morgan Cruzal,” the woman said. “I will be your new headmistress. In order to avoid any further unfortunate events at the school, we have implemented several new rules this year. You will also find curfews posted for initiates, restrictions on techniques, and other safety codes posted in the common areas. Please review and remember them.”

  That drew groans from most of the upperclassmen.

  “But, first,” Headmistress Cruzal said, “I’d like to take a moment to congratulate our champion for his perfect record during the tour of the Five Dragons Challenge.”

  The headmistress crossed the dining room with flowing steps that carried her to me far more quickly than I would’ve thought possible. Her long, thin fingers closed warmly over my left shoulder, and I couldn’t help but return her beaming smile.

  “Initiates, this is Mr. Jace Warin.” She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze and pulled me closer to her side. Her ornate gray robes did nothing to shield me from her warmth. It was like standing too close to a working stove. “Mr. Warin served the school better than any champion in my memory. We would all do well to follow his example this year.”

  She stepped back from me, and I was struck by just how beautiful she really was. When she smiled at me, I felt the first glimmers of something I’d been searching for since the first day I stepped through the school’s front doors.

  Acceptance.

  She put her hands together with vigorous applause. I basked in the warmth of her praise, then felt my cheeks redden as the other students stood from their tables to join her. Everyone was looking at me with what seemed like real pride.

  For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like an outsider.

  The Rooms

  WHILE THE NEW CLASS of students scrambled to grab their food before they were yanked away to get their clan assignments from Mama Weaver, the rest of us finished our breakfast at a much more leisurely pace. We didn’t have classes the first day back, which left my friends and me free to do whatever we wanted.

  What Eric and I wanted to do was eat.

  “Will you two finish stuffing your faces so we can go look at our rooms?” Clem asked. “I’m so excited to see where we’ll be staying this year.”

  “We saw the dorm towers last year,” I said. “They weren’t very exciting.”

  “You saw the initiate dormitory towers,” Clem corrected me. “Rooms for upperclassmen are much nicer.”

  That was news to me. I’d been expecting to return to the same narrow room I’d lived in last school year. Whatever the upperclassmen dorms were like had to be better than that uncomfortable cell.

  “Well, now I’m excited,” I said and pushed back my empty plate.

  “I guess I’ve had enough.” Eric leaned back in his chair and patted his hands on his flat stomach. “Hard to keep my girlish figure eating like a horse.”

  “More like a bull,” Clem teased. She pushed back from the table, and I gathered up the plates.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Eric said.

  “It’s not a big deal,” I said. “The staff has more than enough to worry about with the new initiates and the new security. Dumping our plates into the bus buckets by the door won’t kill me.”

  I headed across the dining room, nodding and waving back at my fellow students. This felt like a dream. For the thousandth time, I wished I could share it with my mother.

  Unfortunately, she was still in hiding, worried about what the Disciples would do after I’d defied Tycho Reyes. I was sure that danger was behind us, thanks to Adjudicator Hark, but my mother had no way of knowing that. Even with the School’s help, I hadn’t been able to get word to her during the Five Dragons Challenge.

  I considered asking Clem if her family could help me find mine. As a member of the judiciary, her mother had resources I could only imagine. That seemed a little greedy, though. Her mother had already kept me out of prison and had me named School Champion. Asking for more might be pushing it.

  I dumped the plates in the bus buckets next to the door, then turned to follow Clem and Eric out of the dining hall.

  And almost ran into Rafael on his way back from the buffet line.

  The Disciple dodged around me, eyes averted, and crashed into Rachel Lu, who’d been headed in my direction with a big smile on her face.

  “Watch where you’re going!” Rafael boomed at the initiate.

  The scrawny girl bounced off the Disciple, who gave her a hard shove. Her feet slipped out from under her, sending her crashing toward the floor with her black braid whipping through the air.

  I dropped to one knee and caught the girl’s shoulders before she could hit the tiled floor. I helped her back to her feet, then lunged after Rafael as he tried to escape into the crowd. My fingers closed around his collar and dragged him back to the girl with me.

  “Apologize for that,” I demanded of him as I gave the girl a quick glance to make sure she wasn’t badly injured. “You should treat members of your own clan better than that.”

  “I’m not apologizing to her...” Rafael started, but the rest of his sentence died on his lips when he saw my dark glare.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  “For what?” I said.

  “For knocking you over.” Rafael forced the words through gritted teeth and glowered at the new student.

  “Thank you,” I said, and patted him on the shoulder. I leaned in close so only he could hear the rest of my words. “I catch you doing anything like that again, and it’s a duel. Understand?”

  He nodded, and I squeezed his shoulder to make sure he got the point. I didn’t let up until Rafael winced and nodded.

  “Thanks!” the girl I’d saved said as she vanished into the dining hall’s crowd.

  I waved over my shoulder and hustled to catch up to
my friends. I wasn’t in the mood to fight Rafael, but I also wasn’t going to let him bully younger students. I’d suffered with that enough, and no one else would have to while I was around.

  “Oh, there you are,” Clem said as I stepped up beside her on the stairs from the main hall. “Like I was telling Eric, the quarters are still divided by clan. We all share a common area, though. They used it for duels a lot, but that’s been banned this year. Along with the challenges.”

  “Seriously?” Eric asked. “No duels or class rankings?”

  “Nope,” Clem confirmed. “Mom says the sages decided we weren’t doing any of that this year. I guess the big focus is on working together in harmony, not competition.”

  That made sense to me. The clans were all in an uproar after what had happened last year. The anti-Flame protests hadn’t helped matters, either. The sages needed to pull the Empyreals back together, not push us further apart with competitions.

  “That sucks,” Eric said. “This was going to be my year to be the top-ranked student.”

  “Sure it was,” I teased. “Did you forget I was here?”

  Clem laughed at that, and Eric snorted.

  We walked in silence until the school finally took pity on us and dumped us out into an open chamber the size of our exercise yard. Eight hallways led off it, like spokes from a wheel. Other students had gathered in small knots all over the room, friends renewing their acquaintances, rivals sizing one another up. I didn’t recognize most of the students and realized just how many more upperclassmen there were compared to the initiates. We had to outnumber them at least a hundred to one.

  My eyes drifted across the students that surrounded me, searching for potential threats. The dark urge wanted me to find Deacon and let him know I hadn’t forgotten or forgiven that he’d tried to murder me last year. He needed to know—

  “Hey, Warin,” a harsh voice called out.

  “Oh, no,” Clem said.

  Hagar stomped across the room toward me. She wore the same tight-fitting black robes as the rest of the Shadow Phoenixes, a stark contrast to her shocking red hair. Hagar had shaved the sides of her skull down to the skin over the summer, transforming her once long, curly mane into a wavy Mohawk down the center of her skull.