by C. S. Pacat
The idea of training made him nervous, at the same time that he felt drawn to it, glimmering with promise. It took on a greater weight when he saw how the novitiates reacted to it, as if he was about to embark on something beyond their understanding.
‘I’ve never heard of the Elder Steward taking a student,’ said Beatrix.
‘Not even Justice,’ said Emery.
‘You have been given a great honour.’ Carver broke the spell of reverence with a nod of acknowledgement. ‘Stewards and janissaries alike seek the council of the Elder Steward. She has knowledge that no others possess, and if she is training you, it is for a purpose. She is the wisest and most powerful Steward in the Hall.’
Justice had said that too. Will remembered the way the Elder Steward had looked at him the night he had come to the Hall, as if she was seeing right into his heart. He wanted to make sure he never let her down.
‘Any advice?’ said Will.
‘Don’t be late,’ said Beatrix, as a frowning trainer called out to them with a sharp word, and the three novitiates went hurrying off to their own lessons.
‘To train someone in magic … that has never been done here before.’ The Elder Steward’s eyes were serious. ‘Not by a Steward. Not by anyone since the last of the old cities fell and magic went out of the world.’
Will came into the Tree Chamber, the dead branches of the Tree like cracks, making him shiver. He looked over at the Elder Steward, a figure of snowy white beside the black Tree, holding a single candle.
‘Stewards do magic,’ Will said. The Stewards on the marsh had driven the Remnants back with an invisible shield. He remembered the black hounds fleeing before it, remembered the pale faces of the Remnants cowering back.
But the Elder Steward shook her head. ‘Stewards use artefacts from the old world. We have no magic of our own.’
‘I saw Stewards conjure a light.’ His memory of the white light on the marsh was vivid. ‘On the marsh. A shield of light to drive back the Remnants—’ It had been bright and fierce, and it had seemed to envelop and protect the Stewards, pushing the creatures chasing him back.
‘Stewards who patrol outside the gate carry stones with them,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘We call them ward stones, but in truth they are pieces of the Hall’s outer wall, which has its own power to repel invaders.’
‘Ward stones?’
He thought of the strange, invisible barrier that enclosed the Hall, hiding it from the outside world. Could twelve Stewards riding in formation create a shield by carrying stones from the Hall?
‘The strength of the ward stones fades the further they get from the wall, but they have some power all the way to the banks of the Lea.’ The Remnants and the swarm of dogs driven back across the river … ‘All the Stewards’ magic comes from such artefacts. We use what remains, though artefacts of the old world are few, and we cannot remake or repair what breaks or is lost. There is no one left who remembers those skills.’ The Elder Steward smiled sadly, her eyes on the dead branches of the Tree. Then she looked back at Will. ‘But your power is different … It is part of you, in your blood.’
My blood. Those words still filled him with a sickening unease. It made him even more determined to do this, and even more frustrated that he couldn’t.
But there was one other time that he had seen magic. And it had not been an artefact; it had been raw power, summoned with the glitter of dangerous blue eyes.
‘James can do magic,’ he said, and that stopped her.
‘You’re right. But he is a Reborn. His knowledge is innate. Or perhaps Simon sat with him like this, with old books and rumours, not realising he was training a creature far more powerful than he was himself, taking a deadly chance with what he might unleash.’ She looked at Will, a long, steady look. ‘No Steward would train a Reborn.’
‘Why?’ said Will.
‘Out of fear that they would use their power for evil and not for good,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘And that they would become something that could not be either stopped or controlled.’
The idea of Simon training James made something twist in his stomach. Beginning his own training felt like following James, but starting years late. He wanted to catch up to him, even as the idea of James as a Reborn brought its own disturbing fascination.
‘The books in our libraries have crumbled, and been rewritten, and crumbled again. Nothing remains in the old language, which you might have been able to read. We have only snippets, in Arabic, in Ancient Greek, in Old French.’ The Elder Steward gestured for him to walk with her to the other side of the room, where she carried her candle to a stone table with two chairs. ‘Together, we will walk these ancient paths that have not been trodden in centuries. And today we begin here. In the place where magic once flowed, let magic come again.’
Will looked up at the dead Tree. It was so large that its branches stretched over them, like black cracks in the sky. It seemed like a testament to everything that he couldn’t do: a piece of the dead world that he couldn’t bring back to life. He had touched it and felt no spark in it, or in himself.
‘Ignore the Tree.’ The Elder Steward brought the candle forward and put it on the small table. ‘We begin where light already exists. With a flame.’ She sat at one end of the table and nodded for him to sit at the other.
Slowly, he sat. The candle lay between them, but he was still too aware of the spreading branches of the dead Tree overhead.
‘The power to stop the Dark King lies within you, Will,’ she said. ‘But you are right about James. If you want to fight the Dark King, you will have to first fight him.’
She was so certain, when he felt nothing but churning doubt. James hadn’t seemed to need anything more than concentration to make the air crackle. But if Will had magic, it lay beyond his reach.
What if I can’t? he thought. He remembered James with his hand outflung, the crate hanging in the air above him. What if I don’t have that power?
He drew in a breath. ‘How?’
‘With light,’ she said. ‘Look at the candle, and try to move the candle flame.’
He sat in front of the candle. It was smooth and cream-coloured, made of beeswax, not tallow. The flame was an upright lozenge, bright and steady. Will looked at it and thought, Move. Nothing happened, no matter how much he wanted it to. Once or twice, he felt a wild stab of hope. Did I do it? But the candle’s few shifts and flickers were due to air currents, not because of him.
‘As you did with the Tree Stone,’ said the Elder Steward, ‘reach beneath the surface. Look for a place deep inside.’
Deep inside. He kept his eyes on the candle flame, willing it to move. It was a foolish feeling, like trying to look more intensely out of his eyes, or tense up the back of his head.
He had failed to light the Tree. But this was just a single spark. A flame. He closed his eyes. He tried to picture the flame in his mind, to make it not just an image but a true embodiment of the flame. Distantly, he was aware that he was shaking. If he could just—
Will opened his eyes, gasping. Nothing. The candle was steady. Not a single flicker.
The Elder Steward was gazing at him. ‘There was a sword on the ship. A weapon that spewed black fire. Justice said you called it to your hand. What happened?’ she said softly.
‘I didn’t want those people to die.’
‘And so you summoned the Corrupted Blade.’
He didn’t want to talk about that. ‘I wasn’t trying to do it. It just seemed to come to me.’
‘The sword had words in the old language carved into its sheath. Do you remember what they said?’
He remembered the faint markings on the sheath, carvings that he’d felt under his hands, but—
‘I couldn’t read the inscription. It was worn away.’ A jet-black sheath with markings worn by time and the touch of a hundred hands.
‘The Blade was not always corrupted,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘It was once the Sword of the Champion.’
‘The Ch
ampion?’ said Will.
The Elder Steward’s face was warm in the candlelight, turning the white of her hair and her tunic to soft gold.
‘Called Ekthalion, it was forged by the blacksmith Than Rema as a weapon to kill the Dark King. It’s said that a great Champion of the Light rode out with it to fight him … but could do no more than draw a single drop of the Dark King’s blood. That’s all it took to corrupt the Blade. You’ve seen its black flame. That is the power contained in a single drop of blood from the Dark King.’
She leaned forward as she spoke, and Will almost felt as if the Tree and the stones in the room were listening.
‘But there is another story,’ she said, ‘that one with the heart of a champion will be able to wield Ekthalion, and even cleanse it of its dark flame. If you had been able to read the inscription, you would have seen the words that once shone silver before the blade turned black. The Sword of the Champion bestows the power of the Champion.’
‘I’m no champion,’ said Will. ‘I didn’t cleanse the blade.’
‘And yet it came to you.’
‘And now Simon has it.’
The Elder Steward sat back, and to his surprise she gave a small smile.
‘But you do not need Ekthalion to defeat the dark,’ she said. ‘Even those who think themselves powerless can fight with small acts. Kindness. Compassion.’
‘The Stewards fight with swords,’ said Will.
‘But our swords are not what make us strong,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘The true power of the Stewards is not our weapons. It is not even our physical strength. It is that we remember.’ And something in her eyes seemed ancient. ‘When the past is forgotten, then it can return. Only those who remember have the chance to stave it off. For the dark is never truly gone; it only waits for the world to forget, so that it may rise again.’ She looked at him with a grave expression.
‘I think there is great power in you, Will,’ she said. ‘And when you learn to wield it, you must make your own choices. Will you fight with strength, or compassion? Will you kill, or show mercy?’
Her words stirred something inside him. He could feel it, even though his mind wanted to shy away. He didn’t want to look at it. But he forced himself to, and when he did, it was there. Not power. But something else.
‘A door,’ said Will, because he was overwhelmed by the feeling. ‘There’s a door inside me that I can’t open.’
‘Try,’ said the Elder Steward.
He looked deep inside himself. He was standing in front of a giant door made of stone. He tried to push on it, but it didn’t move. He could feel somehow that it was sealed tight. And there was something on the other side.
What was behind the door? He pushed at it again, but it didn’t budge. He tried to think of the Stewards’ battle and all that depended on his success. Open! he thought, straining to try to move it, shift it, anything. Open!
‘Try,’ said the Elder Steward again, and he threw everything he had at it, every particle of strength—
‘I can’t,’ he said, frustrated to his core. It seemed to taunt him, no matter how he pummelled at it, no matter how he pushed and strained—
‘That is enough for today,’ said the Elder Steward as Will came gasping up out of his reverie. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but when he looked at the candle, it had burned down almost to a stub. ‘I believe you need something to focus your mind. Tomorrow, I will begin to teach you the chants of the Stewards. We use them to still our inner turmoil, and to focus our concentration.’
She rose, still speaking, and Will stood with her, thinking of the drifting Steward chants that he heard each morning. He knew they were significant, but had not understood their purpose before now.
‘The chants have been handed down to us across generations,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘They have shifted and changed over the centuries, but they were once used by those with magic in the old world, and I believe they will still have some power. Come.’
She moved to the other side of the table and picked up the candle. Then, as if weakened, she swayed, and the candle dropped from her hand. Will rushed to pick it up, then stepped in to support her. She leaned on him gratefully.
But for a moment, he had the strangest impression that the candle hadn’t dropped from her hand; it had instead dropped through it. He shook his head to clear it.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Just tired,’ she said with a smile, her hand on his arm solid and warm. ‘One of the effects of getting old.’
‘Will!’ called Emery, waving him and Violet over to his table in the dining hall.
Novitiates began their morning chants at dawn, and the first bell rang an hour before that. They ended their training at sunset. Downstairs in the dining hall, rows of novitiates sat at long tables, set for an evening meal. Sitting with Violet in the chairs Emery had gestured for them to take, Will found himself famished, as though his exercises with the Elder Steward had worked up a great appetite.
Violet tore open a warm piece of bread, while Will helped himself to a generous portion of hot potage, thick with barley and leeks. The first spoonful was warm, comforting and heartening, and he had soon eaten it down to the bowl, never having eaten better.
Several of the novitiates at surrounding tables gave Emery strange looks at his friendliness to the outsiders. Emery didn’t seem to care and had shifted so that Will and Violet could sit with him, alongside Beatrix and Carver.
‘You’re dressed differently,’ said Will. Emery and his friends were not wearing their usual novitiate tunics, but were instead dressed in the kind of garments that were worn under armour.
‘We’re going outside the gate,’ said Emery. ‘With the Stewards, on patrol. Tonight.’
He said it as if it was uncommon. ‘Novitiates don’t go outside the walls often?’ said Will.
‘No, hardly ever. That is – the best go, sometimes.’ Like Carver, thought Will. Or Cyprian, who had been riding outside when Will had met him. ‘But for us, it’s an escalation of our training. We’re going to ride along the marsh to the Lea, then north as far as the coppices on the Flats.’
It was funny to hear Emery talk about the River Lea as if he was describing a mission to an exotic location. Will supposed that to novitiates who had lived most or all their lives inside the Hall, the outside world must seem a strange place. He tried and failed to imagine Emery or his friends on the streets of London.
‘Do you know why they’re sending you out now?’
Emery shook his head, but then leaned forward to speak almost secretively. ‘Everyone’s saying the Stewards are preparing for something big,’ he said. ‘They want the novitiates to be ready … as ready as we can be. It’s why Carver’s test was moved forward.’
‘You said it yourself,’ said Beatrix. ‘Simon is on the rise. The Reborn has come into his power. And—’
‘And?’ said Will.
‘And you’re here,’ said Beatrix.
Will flushed, feeling the eyes of everyone on him. He knew what the Stewards thought … that he was Blood of the Lady. They thought he could kill the Dark King. But when he thought about what he was supposed to do, all Will could remember was the dead Tree, and the unmoving candle flame.
‘It’s like the alliance of old,’ said Emery. ‘All of us fighting together.’
Will’s stomach turned. I can’t, he thought. I can’t be what you need. He didn’t want to say that, with all of them looking at him.
He felt Violet’s shoulder leaning slightly into his, and was grateful for the silent gesture of support. He drew a steadying breath.
‘When is your test?’ Violet asked Carver.
‘In six days.’
‘And it’s early?’
‘I’m nineteen. Novitiates usually test a year later. Unless their blood is very strong.’
Carver’s quiet, serious manner was different from the strong certainty of Beatrix and the shy, naive friendliness of Emery. The three of them were a tight-kn
it group, and he seemed like the steadfast presence that kept them together.
‘Who will your shieldmate be?’ said Violet.
Carver shook his head. ‘I haven’t been told that yet.’
‘You don’t choose?’ said Will. He was surprised that such an important relationship was assigned rather than chosen. ‘I thought it was – a deep connection.’ It didn’t make sense. Wasn’t a shieldmate a partner for life?
‘We’re paired by our elders,’ Carver said to Will. ‘The connection comes later.’
That seemed like a risky way to gain a life partner. What if you didn’t like your shieldmate? The Stewards he saw in the Hall were always in pairs. They bedded down together, ate together, patrolled together. Perhaps Stewards were so dutiful that they accepted any shieldmate. Or perhaps after they were matched together, some kind of bond was formed.
‘I wondered if it might be Cyprian,’ said Carver, ‘but he isn’t testing for another month.’
Will looked over at Cyprian. He was sitting two tables down, with a group of novitiates Will didn’t recognise. Straight-backed and perfectly attired, he had the quality of a Steward about him already. But Cyprian was sixteen, and Carver had said novitiates usually took the test at age twenty—
‘He’s three years younger than you,’ said Will.
Carver nodded. ‘He’ll be the youngest to take the test since the Elder Steward.’
‘So who will get stuck as Cyprian’s shieldmate?’ said Violet, as if she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be. But Carver answered her question seriously.
‘Probably Justice.’
‘But – he hates Justice!’ said Violet as Will’s mouth fell open in shock.
‘They’re the best,’ said Carver, as if this explained everything. ‘They assign Stewards of equal strength together.’
Later, Will talked to Violet in his room.
‘The Stewards are preparing for something,’ said Will. ‘A mission. I wonder if it has to do with the object the Elder Steward told me about? The one Simon took.’