by Mary Fan
“For heaven’s sake!” Mrs. Miller sounded exasperated. “Professor Williams must’ve summoned another specter for that class of his. I told him not to—” She stopped abruptly as a piercing alarm—the kind reserved for monster attacks—filled the auditorium. The mechanical shriek tore through the air with a rhythmic pulse.
Flynn cringed. A blast of icy wind blew past him, accompanied by an eerie whisper that seemed to say, “Quickly! Quickly!”
Definitely a specter—a malevolent spirit of the dead—judging by the ghostly voice and the lack of electricity. Probably Class C, since the instructors rarely summoned anything more serious than that for practice. Class C specters were the least powerful of their kind— but still dangerous. Deadly. And they delighted in tormenting the living.
Flynn shuddered. Though specters weren’t rare, he’d never directly crossed paths with one. He imagined Brax was shrugging at the situation and tried to match that offhand attitude in his own mind. The teachers would recapture or banish the specter soon enough, as they always did.
A bolt of fear shot through his chest as he realized something: It’s the Day of Glory. There are no classes today.
That meant it wasn’t an escaped classroom specter that had flown past him. It was one that had breached the Capital’s perimeter.
A flickering yellow light appeared from the direction of the doors, and footsteps pounded through the hallway outside. Flynn’s nervousness grew as a dozen patrolmen holding flaming torches rushed into the auditorium. Something was definitely up. But patrolmen had no magical abilities and would be useless against a specter. Why had they come? Defenders should have been called.
One of the patrolmen grasped Flynn’s collar, holding him so tightly he felt like he was being strangled. “Up against the wall, kid!”
“Let me go!” Flynn grabbed the patrolman’s wrist and yanked it, freeing himself.
The patrolman pulled a gun from his belt holster. “You gonna cause trouble?”
Flynn widened his eyes and held up his hands. “No, sir. Sorry.”
The patrolman grabbed Flynn’s collar again and dragged him toward the wall. Flynn resisted the urge to fight back. The patrolman could very well shoot him for nothing, and no one would give a damn. The law always sided with the authorities, and Flynn was nobody in the eyes of the government. No justice for nobodies.
The man let go of Flynn’s collar, shoved him forward, and sent him flying into the wall. Flynn turned around and clenched his fists, wishing he could sock the jerk. That kind of treatment at the hands of Triumvirate law enforcement was typical, but he never got used to it. He wanted to shout that it wasn’t okay to push someone around just because you wore a government uniform, but he gritted his teeth to keep from speaking. He’d seen people get arrested for words like those.
The patrolmen spread out through the auditorium. The yellow flames of their torches danced, their illumination barely breaking the shadows. Glancing around, Flynn noticed Brax standing against the backdrop on the stage with an edgy look in his eyes. But there was no visible sign of a specter. While this was technically a good thing, since it meant the spirit wasn’t strong enough to materialize yet, Flynn still wished he could see something that would tell him where it was.
The specter’s eerie voice floated through the air again, repeating the word, “Quickly!”
A sudden flash of gold light filled the auditorium. Three Sentinels, two women and a man, appeared on the stage, their gilded capes glowing. The man flew toward the control room at the back of the auditorium, while the two women rushed into the stage’s wings.
Flynn’s heartbeat quickened. Sentinels only got involved with major supernatural threats—like the draugr attack on the Capital six years ago. His mind flashed back to those horrible moments—the undead giant seeping through the wall… his mom’s scream… her twisted head…
Flynn inhaled sharply and tried to pull his mind out of the past. Somewhere nearby, a specter lurked—an especially dangerous one that required three Sentinels to banish. Its haunting presence surrounded him even though he had no idea where it was. The Sentinels didn’t seem to either because they scattered through the auditorium, holding their glowing wands out in front of them.
“Everyone abort!” A low, resonant voice, amplified by magical means, rang out in the auditorium, cutting through the still-ringing alarm.
Flynn jumped. I know that voice.
He’d only heard it once before, exactly six years earlier, but would have recognized it anywhere. It was the voice of the man who had called to his mother the night she’d died.
“Vivian! This way!” the man had said. Flynn could never forget it—or the fact that the mysterious figure it belonged to was the reason his mom had been out at all, and he still didn’t know why she’d been meeting the man.
Flynn’s previous fear vanished, and a single thought filled his mind: Who is he?
Patrolmen rushed up the aisle between the auditorium’s seats, heading for the control room. Was that where the sound had come from? Flynn hadn’t been able to tell, since it had seemed to emerge from the walls themselves, but maybe the Sentinels had a magical way of detecting its source and ordered them that way. The low-voiced man, the only connection he had to his mother’s secrets, could be up there at that moment. The need to know who the man was overrode anything else that might have been going through Flynn’s head. He rushed forward.
A patrolman—the same one who had threatened him earlier—stepped in front of him, aiming his gun at Flynn’s face. “You wanna get yourself shot? Stay where I left you!”
The sight of the weapon made Flynn stop, but his eyes remained fixed on the control room. “Whose voice was that?”
The lights came back on, and the alarm cut out. Flynn blinked against the sudden brightness. He couldn’t see anything unusual, other than the presence of the patrolmen and the Sentinels, but something had to be going on. Why was that low-voiced man here? Did he have something to do with the specter attack? How had he known Vivian Nightsider? What was being aborted?
On the other side of the auditorium, one of the patrolmen headed down the stairs and gestured for the others to follow him. “All clear!”
The man holding Flynn released him and strode to the auditorium door, where two other patrolmen waited. Flynn rushed toward the stairs to the control room but stopped when he realized “all clear” must have meant the low-voiced man was already gone.
One of the Sentinels, a thin woman with brown hair, descended the steps leading from the stage, and Flynn ran up to her. “Hey!”
The Sentinel barely glanced at him as she pushed past. “Out of my way, kid!”
“Who was that?”
That low-voiced man was the only thread Flynn could follow to his mom’s secrets—secrets that had caused her to go out the night the draugr attacked, secrets that had, in a way, led to her death.
He rushed after the Sentinel, the hunger for knowledge consuming him with an intensity he hadn’t known since that night six years ago, when he’d gone out alone in the dark, hoping to discover the truth.
The last of the Scholars took their seats near the front of the auditorium. From his place at the back, Flynn scowled, furious that the Academy forced him to be here. All he could think about was finding the truth, yet he was trapped, pretending to celebrate a holiday he didn’t even believe in.
Floating gold, white, and blue lanterns adorned with intricate silver swirls illuminated the space in place of the electric lights, which had been switched off. They swayed and bounced in the air as if blown by a breeze. Although enchanted lanterns were used to light the Scholars’ Wing, they were only brought into the auditorium on special occasions. The flag of the Triumvirate, which had a blue upper half, a white lower half, and the Triumvirate’s gold, star-shaped insignia in the center, waved in a magical wind against the theater’s backdrop, where the image of t
he Palace of Concord, now enchanted, flashed in a prism of brilliant colors. Instrumentalists clad in black-and-white uniforms sat in the orchestra pit before the ebony stage, and the air hummed with the excited voices of students and teachers.
Flynn glared at the display, unwilling to take part in the festive atmosphere. To him, it all looked gaudy and overblown. Meanwhile, the low-voiced man had disappeared and with him, the answers Flynn so desperately sought. Despite his pleas, no one would tell him who that man was or what he’d been doing. Instead, a patrolman had dragged Flynn to the detention hall and locked him there for “harassing” a Sentinel. If Brax hadn’t somehow sweet-talked Mrs. Miller into letting him out, Flynn would probably still be stuck in that windowless cinderblock room. He wondered what the agents of the Triumvirate were hiding.
The orchestra struck up a bright fanfare, but Flynn, still lost in thought, hardly noticed.
Brax elbowed him. “Flynn!”
Seeing that everyone else was standing, Flynn jumped to his feet. Along with the other students, he clapped his right fist over his heart and stuck it out in a firm salute as Gold Triumvir Salvator strode onto the stage, his gilded ceremonial robes billowing behind him. His Chinese and Italian heritage had given him ultra-dark hair and even darker eyes. His soul, Flynn was sure, was darker still. The puffed-up way in which the Triumvir held his broad, barrel-chested figure seemed to scream, “I am important!”
Though Flynn chanted, “Hail to the Gold Triumvir!” along with the others, he allowed his words to drop into a sarcastic lilt. Brax flashed him a grin.
The fanfare came to an end. Salvator, whose round, golden-beige face seemed frozen in an eternal frown, stopped at the podium. His stern demeanor coupled with his younger-than-his-years appearance reminded Flynn of an overgrown brat who took himself too seriously. Although Salvator appeared to be no more than fifty, Flynn knew that the man had ruled as one of the three Triumvirs for almost twice that amount of time. Using magic to clean things was a frivolous waste, but apparently, preserving youth wasn’t—at least for certain individuals.
Granted, saving the world was a good reason to be given special treatment. Ninety-three years ago, on this day, Salvator, fighting alongside his fellow Sentinels, Wotan Moreau and George Everett, had ended the Lord of the Underworld’s decade-long reign of horror—but not before the world had been shattered beyond recognition. Millions of deaths across the globe, entire nations destroyed by supernaturals… With North America’s previous governments decimated, the people had turned to their saviors for leadership. Salvator, Moreau, and Everett had used their power and popularity to set up the Triumvirate, with themselves as Triumvirs. Everett had died decades ago and had been replaced by the current White Triumvir, Crispin Janik, but it seemed the other two would rule forever.
Flynn didn’t think anyone deserved eternal, absolute authority—not even heroes. And while he’d heard plenty about Salvator’s noble deeds, all he’d experienced himself was the misery of living under the Gold Triumvir’s rule.
He sat down, along with everyone else, at Salvator’s cue, wishing he didn’t have to sit through a speech by the man responsible for his bleak world.
Salvator turned his gaze to the Eye Stone, which looked like an apple-sized opal sphere floating in a cloud of white mist at the front of the stage. Flecks of colors flashed beneath the stone’s smooth, snowy surface, dazzling even from Flynn’s place at the back.
“Before I begin, I want to address the issue undoubtedly weighing on everyone’s mind.” Salvator’s powerful voice boomed through the auditorium. “Earlier today, there was an incident in this auditorium, one that required the attention of the Sentinels.”
Eager to learn anything more about the specter attack and the low-voiced man, Flynn bolted forward in his seat. Go on…
“There are those who believe that the dangers of the Underworld are fading into the past, and the Triumvirate’s firm policies are no longer necessary.” Salvator narrowed his eyes. He paused for a beat then continued in a low growl. “Make no mistake. The decline in attacks is due to the efforts of the Sentinels and the Defenders who work for them, without whom our world would swiftly descend into darkness. And the specter that assaulted this school is a sign of that. Yes, we are safer now than we’ve ever been before, but that’s only because our brave Sentinels work tirelessly to destroy supernatural threats before they attack. They maintain our impenetrable perimeters. We are living on the edge of evil, and you, my children, are the future protectors of our great nation.”
The edge of evil—that’s one way to put it. As far as Flynn could tell, the Triumvirate used the never-ending war against the supernatural as an excuse to keep the people in line. As long as people were afraid of monsters, they would obey the government that protected them—no matter what that government put them through. Flynn recalled his mother telling him that once, and he wondered if her clandestine activities had anything to do with her not-so-friendly views toward the Triumvirate.
Salvator stood in silence, as if giving his words time to sink in. After a moment, he continued. “As you know, a misguided few think the Triumvirate’s efforts to maintain order are… wrong. Shortly before I arrived at the Academy, a group of these violent anarchists used illegal dark magic to infiltrate the school and attempted to steal the Eye Stone in an effort to broadcast their own treasonous message. Fortunately, the Sentinels responded quickly, and the attack was stopped. The anarchists’ actions—and at a school—prove that more security measures are needed to ensure the safety of the people. They are enemies of the state, and we will not rest until we have hunted down and eliminated every single one of them.”
The anarchists—so that’s who they were. Flynn had suspected as much, since only they would have the nerve to unleash a specter within the Capital’s borders. While he’d heard people talk about anarchists for as long as he could remember, he didn’t know anything specific about them. No one ever referred to them by name, and the officials only spoke of them when they unleashed another monster in part of the Triumvirate. As much as he resented the Triumvirate, he didn’t believe such meaningless violence counted as “fighting for freedom.”
They must have sent the specter to mess with the school’s security so they could get to the Eye Stone. And the man with the low voice had been one of them, someone with the authority to call off the mission. So that means Mom was meeting an anarchist leader… because she was one of them?
He balked at the thought. She had died because of the anarchists’ crimes, so she couldn’t have been involved. Also, she would never have hurt anyone, let alone terrorized people by letting monsters into the Triumvirate’s cities.
Salvator segued into a speech about the history of the Triumvirate’s founding. Flynn knew the story all too well. The Sentinels had secretly protected the non-magical for generations until supernatural beasts opened the Portal to the Underworld, releasing their Lord and swarms of other monsters. The Sentinels had made their presence known to the Norms in order to fight the beasts, and Salvator and the other two Triumvirs ultimately led the Sentinels to victory, destroying the Lord, closing the Portal, bringing peace to the land, and the other usual crap.
But Flynn wasn’t listening anymore. What did it mean if his mom was meeting with an anarchist leader the night she’d died? Had Low Voice even been an anarchist six years ago? And if she had been involved, how had she ended up a victim of the undead giant they’d unleashed? Unless… Could the Triumvirate have been lying about the anarchists being in control of the draugr?
He suddenly realized something so obvious, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. What if her death hadn’t been a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? What if someone had sent the draugr after her? What if Vivian Nightsider hadn’t been an accidental victim—but a target?
But why would anyone want to kill her? His mind raced, craving the truth with fresh hunger. It would tell
him why she’d put herself in danger, night after night, knowing that she’d leave behind a ten-year-old kid if she were caught. What had been so important to her? What had, in the end, led to her death?
He had to find the answers. He didn’t care how many rules he had to break or what the consequences would be. That he knew so little about his own mother had gnawed at his heart for too long. Maybe if he discovered the missing pieces to the story of her life, her death wouldn’t haunt him so much. And maybe if he knew what she’d been fighting for, he could continue her mission, and she wouldn’t have died in vain.
Now, I know where to start. Discovering Low Voice’s identity might not uncover the answers, but it was the only clue he had, and he was determined to follow it, no matter where it led.
In the center of the rectangular, black-framed Procul Mirror, the image of Salvator hammered his fist on the podium for emphasis. The Lord, watching from his distant hideaway, let out a harsh laugh. The Gold Triumvir could tell everyone that he and the other Triumvirs had destroyed the Lord of the Underworld as many times as he wanted. It was only a matter of time before the Lord showed the people of the Triumvirate precisely how wrong they were.
You defeated me once, Salvator. But soon, I will take back what was stolen from me, and I’ll be more powerful than you could ever imagine.
On the Procul Mirror, Salvator lifted his chin. “Without our actions, we would all be living under the rule of an evil being who derives his power from the souls of his worshippers.”
You and I aren’t so different, Salvator. You call me evil because I sought absolute power. But aren’t you doing the same?