by Sever Bronny
“And you’d say that too,” Isaac muttered to himself, glancing from face to face. “Everyone would act completely normal, totally unaware they were caught in the trial.”
Jez approached him as well. “Isaac, you’re being irrational and you don’t see it. You’ve got to trust it’s over.”
Isaac watched her with glassy, skeptical eyes before pacing and continuing to mutter. “They’re all waiting for me in this room right now, waiting for me to—” He froze. “To save Caireen. Of course. But who has her? There’s only one person who could possibly have her. But then you’d all try to stop me, which would be part of the—” He froze once more before shoving at the air and shouting, “Baka!” An unsuspecting Jez was sent flying into the bleachers. Then he veered around to sweep out an arm. “Voidus vis!” A pitch-black cloud of darkness enveloped them with a whoosh.
As everyone cried for Isaac to stop what he was doing, Augum scrambled after him but slammed into someone else. They both tumbled into the sand. “Baka!” he shouted frantically to clear the cloud, only to have someone else shout the same thing, causing the cloud to swirl in place. Finally, he crawled out of it in time to see the main door slam closed.
“He’s gone!” Augum shouted, and bolted after Isaac. The others were slower than him.
“Get him, Aug!” Leera called through teeth gritted with pain, perhaps from a collision within the cloud. “Catch him before he gets himself into trouble!”
Augum got to the door, hurled it open, and launched himself into the Hall of Rapture. But Isaac had a huge head start and was sprinting down the empty hall.
“Isaac, wait!” Augum called. “It’s in your mind! It isn’t real! I mean, it is real, and that’s the problem!” He realized yelling was only slowing him down and so he focused on sprinting. But Isaac, who hadn’t spent two days in a row furiously studying and training, easily outpaced Augum, eventually disappearing into the giant portal that exited into the courtyard. Augum followed, glancing back to see that a few of his friends were trailing behind quite a ways. He ran through the portal and staggered in the snow on the other side. It was cold and windy and gray, the clouds trawling low overhead like a disgruntled army.
“Which way did you go?” Augum muttered, before settling on the path that likely led to Darby—the Student Wing. Who else could Isaac have meant? But was Darby even in the academy on a study day? For Isaac’s sake, he hoped not.
He ran on, huffing, exhausted emotionally, spiritually, and physically. He careened through the portal and sprinted on the other side, trying not to think of poor Caireen.
Remarkably, there were no overseers about, making him second-guess that he was still in the Arcaner trial. No, that led to the same trap. It led to insanity. I must not indulge in that kind of thinking. Overseers were not around because it was a study day, and they went where the students were—the dorms, the library, the Supper Hall.
The Student Wing was a maze. Augum halted at a fork of two hallways. The left one led to the arcanist and student dorms, the library, and the Supper Hall; the right one to the catacombs. But where would Isaac think Darby was? He listened carefully and heard the distant echo of shouting coming from the left one, and sprang in that direction. The shouting got louder as he neared, and he soon spotted a few students filtering out of the Supper Hall.
“What’s going on?” one asked.
“I think there’s a fight up by the arcanist dorms,” another replied, and students moved in that direction as word spread.
Augum raced by them, turning heads, and skidded to a halt at a pair of open doors that led to the arcanist dorms. The sight that awaited him inside the foyer speared his heart, for lying at the foot of the stairs, surrounded by a squad of overseers, Katrina, and her Black Eagle, Ethios Kamagant, all of whom protected an ashen Darby … was Isaac’s prone body.
“Another one incoming!” an overseer shouted.
“I’m not here to attack you!” Augum called, holding his hands up while steadily pacing forward. “Please tell me he’s all right.”
“Of course he’s not all right,” Katrina spat from within the throng, pushing past the Canterrans. “He tried to assassinate His Royal Highness.”
Augum kept walking, hands raised, all the way to Isaac’s body. “Please, I just want to take him to the Hall of Healing.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.”
“And he has proved something my father said,” an ashen Darby said to Katrina.
“What is that, my sweet prince?”
“Father said more of them would take the shield. He was right. This fool here was an Arcaner squire. You saw his shield. It had the motto.”
Augum, reaching for a face-down Isaac, could barely comprehend what they were saying through the panic. When he turned him over his face was white, eyes wide open, lips already turning blue.
“Isaac?”
“And you know what else Father said?” Darby asked, crouching before Augum, the tips of his fingers pressed together.
Augum gently shook Isaac. “Wake up, Isaac.” He tried to ignore the gaping wound in his chest and the blood pooling around his body.
“He said a death would remind you of what is at stake.” Darby flinched when he saw the creeping puddle of blood and tripped, only for his overseers to grab him, saving him from a fall.
Augum couldn’t breathe. Isaac’s blood reached his shoes. He stared at it, seeing his own reflection.
Behind him, students and friends from the Arcaner Studies Room had gathered, and many of the latter, already distraught from losing Caireen, wept even harder.
“What he didn’t tell me,” Darby added in a whisper after shrugging off the supportive hands, “was how deranged you could become by pursuing Arcaner fancies.” He stood and turned to the closest overseer. “Double my guard. Bring in reinforcements.”
“Consider it done, Your Highness. Shall we arrest them?”
Darby considered Augum. “Not yet.”
* * *
Augum numbly wandered into the Elements Wing, hood raised, face obscured in shadow. He had asked his friends for time alone to think, time to process what had happened. He had also asked Jez to bring Isaac’s parents to the academy. She had agreed with the caveat, “I’ll do this, but you need to focus and bounce back from this, Stone.” Focus indeed. What a jest. Caireen and Isaac had died because of his belief in the Arcaner path. One moment they were there, smiling with high hopes and even sharing a tender kiss, and the next they were gone. Gone. He had known the Arcaner path was dangerous, but he had believed in his friends’ abilities to conquer it, assuming the dangers they faced were external, not internal. And now one hadn’t come out alive, and the other had succumbed to the illusion of the trial even though he had survived and passed it.
Augum entered the Hall of Heroes portion of the Elements Wing, which showcased statues of famous academy attendees as well as historic Solian figures, including his great-grandmother and former mentor, Anna Atticus Stone. He plopped down on the glass bench opposite the Orb of Orion, which sat on a tasseled pillow behind thick glass. Beside it rested its miniature control pearl. The Tiberrans had gifted the ancient war artifacts to the academy a thousand years ago. And because Augum had used them in the Legion War, they brought back memories of working together and persevering in difficult times.
But sitting before the orb contrasted those times too sharply against his current state of mind, and so he moved to the bench before Mrs. Stone. There he slumped, staring down past his shoes, which were smeared with Isaac’s blood. A peaceful and infinite starry night sky loomed below the floor.
“Talk to me, Nana,” he whispered, looking up at the life-size statue. She stood staring with fierce blue eyes into the horizon, staff clutched firmly in hand, face not as wrinkled as he remembered it. “Guide me, Nana, for I am lost.” He willed her to reach out to him from the Leyan plane. “My friends died because of me. All of this … is my fault. If I’d taken the throne or chosen a suitable king, things would b
e so different.” He dumped his face into his hands as someone strode over.
Damn it, I said I wanted to be left alone—
“Another piece of my victory is complete,” Katrina said when he looked up. “Seeing you fall apart, that is. And I didn’t even have to lift a finger.” She straddled the bench to face him. Standing a ways behind was Ethios Kamagant.
“Which one of you did it?” Augum hissed. “Which one of you killed him, knowing you didn’t have to?”
“Does it really matter, Augum?” But as she studied his face her features softened. She seemed to struggle with what she saw and swallowed. She reached up with a shaking hand and in a gentle, musical voice, said, “May I … dry those tears for you?”
Augum’s rage boiled over and he slapped her hand away. Behind her, The Butcher took a step forward only for her to stay him with a raised finger.
Katrina’s soft look withered and died, replaced by cold amusement. “I suppose my charms don’t always work.” She stood. “I take it your quest to find the Heart of the Colossus is not going well.” Her face drifted near his. “Well I don’t give a damn what you’re going through, you understand? Not one damn. Unlike the precious flowers brought up by weak, homespun baby-nursing mothers, I am my father’s daughter and have been reared by one of the most fearsome Von Edgeworths to have ever lived. Arinthians are meant to serve the Von Edgeworths, don’t you ever forget that.”
She looked him over as if he were nothing more than a cut of meat. “You will update me on your progress upon your shield when I come calling, because I have run out of patience. And just so you don’t get any clever ideas, we will keep the people we took from Arinthia to ensure your compliance. Do not worry about them. Their labors are … survivable.”
She twirled a finger closer and closer in front of his face before pressing his nose. He flinched. “Oh, and in case you’re wondering, honey, seeing you cry …” She closed her eyes, drew her arms to her chest and breathed in deeply, savoring the image. Then she giggled as she spun on her heel and spoke as she walked off. “But it’s not enough. The kingdom has to see you blubber a full-throated lament before I vanquish you as the champion I am.” She raised a fist. “Honos alvara avenga!”
As Katrina disappeared down the hall, Augum slumped onto the bench and dropped his head back into his hands, cursing himself for allowing her to see his weakness. Everyone looked to him for leadership, and yet all he had provided was death and bewilderment, insecurity and fallibility, frailty and indecisiveness and immaturity and inexperience and recklessness. The list could almost be endless.
An idea resurfaced, one he did not beat back with the blade of rationality. Only one thing would bring Isaac and Caireen back. One profound, powerful idea.
Maybe he was still in the first Arcaner trial …
He looked back up at the stalwart Mrs. Stone, voice broken as he said, “What would you tell me if I thought this was all an illusory trial, Nana? Would you say I was losing my mind, or that my suspicions were warranted?”
Mrs. Stone continued to stare as unimpeachably as before. And looking into her face, he knew the truth. She would lambast him for bathing in ignorance like a toddler in a puddle. She would say he was allowing self-serving delusional hopes to obscure reality. She would tell him that a person accepted responsibility for his actions, for what had happened, and what was happening.
And to further solidify the point, Dragoon Pelagia’s speech floated back to him from the recesses of his embattled mind. Dwell not in self-doubt or paranoia, for many a warlock has gone mad using every random occurrence to justify their fear that the trial never truly concluded for them. And thus the test tests the aspirant once more, for those who cannot accept the end of the test are also doomed to fail it.
The last line echoed in his brain, eventually settling to permanence like an ancient enchantment.
“Three lives snuffed in a matter of days, Nana. Eric, Caireen, Isaac. Three lives. Two of whom were good friends. Friends I laughed with. Friends I loved and who loved me back. Help me understand, Nana. Am I doing the right thing? Am I on the right path? I’m terrified for the others, especially for Bridget and Leera. Terrified. And I’m so tired and I feel so unequipped. Speak to me … please.”
Mrs. Stone looked on, eyes ever fixed on a distant horizon. She did not speak, nor did she appear in ghostly form. No salvation came from the heavens, nor from Ley. He was alone. And out there, beyond the walls of the academy, the kingdom unknowingly awaited an enemy to claim an ancient debt.
If this was how he felt about three lives, what would happen when the Canterrans butchered a quarter million?
Augum stood, facing the great Anna Atticus Stone, aware of the vastness above and below him. It was difficult to hear, but the answer did come.
He had to persevere.
Blade Upon the Sand
Augum stepped back into the Arcaner Studies room to find his friends sitting on the sandy arena floor. They looked up with mournful faces as Leera stood and waited for him to join her, then gave him a hug. He turned to face everyone, searching their watery eyes. Haylee, Jengo, Laudine, Olaf, Alyssa, Bridget and Leera—the ones who remained. Just the other day they were jesting around with Isaac and Caireen at Haylee’s womanhood ceremony. He could almost hear the echoes of their laughter.
And then his friends got up and enveloped him in a gentle group hug. Together they stood embracing, heads low, remembering their beloved lost friends, until Jez entered the room with a stern-faced man and a weeping woman. The man was tall, with a familiar lean face and red hair, while the mother was a short woman with curly auburn hair. Both wore conservative court-style clothing, he a brocaded doublet and she a pale green dress and pearl necklace.
“Mr. and Mrs. Fleiszmann,” Augum murmured to no one in particular, straightening.
The friends broke apart as the newcomers descended, Mrs. Fleiszmann’s arm resting on the crook of her husband’s elbow as he carefully led her down the bleachers in a dignified manner.
By the time they reached the sandy floor, Augum waited apart from his friends, Burden’s Edge resting on his palms before him, knowing what he had to do. He ceremonially got down on his knees and extended the blade.
“Mr. and Mrs. Fleiszmann. Today, your son perished attempting the first Arcaner trial. No words of mine can ever bring him back to you, nor can they bring you the peace you deserve. I shall miss my friend Isaac to the end of my days, yet I, Augum Arinthian Stone, recognize I am also responsible for inspiring him to follow my lead on the Arcaner path.” He placed Burden’s Edge in the sand at their feet and bowed his head, closing his eyes. “I beseech thy forgiveness in the old way.”
There was the quiet rustling sound of many heads lowering in solidarity. A deep silence befell the room, broken only by Mrs. Fleiszmann’s gentle weeping. After what felt like an eternity, a cool hand pressed on Augum’s head.
“I forgive you, dear Augum,” Mrs. Fleiszmann whispered in a broken voice. “I forgive all of you.”
The stillness returned. And then, Mr. Fleiszmann spoke.
“By igniting the passions of my son, you have killed him as surely as if you had taken that blade and stabbed it through his heart. I do not forgive you, Augum Arinthian Stone, and condemn you to live out the rest of your days knowing the part you played in his death.”
Agonized gasps arose from the crowd of friends. Mrs. Fleiszmann protested meekly only to be silenced by an angry hiss from her husband. Then the pair turned their backs and ascended the steps.
Augum, numb and shaking, continued to kneel before Burden’s Edge, head bowed, until Mr. and Mrs. Fleiszmann left the room. His friends then kneeled around him, gathered him close again, and nursed his wound with love and quiet words. And Augum, lost in a lonely desert of guilt and shame and horror, was slowly coaxed back to them, one word, one kind caress, one hug, and one cheek kiss at a time.
* * *
Sometime later, after much quiet healing, Bridget strode to the center of the
arena.
“I wish I could say something to make what happened disappear or make you all feel better. All I know is we have to be strong, and remember what our friends died for. They died for a chivalric ideal. An old ideal that almost became a fable. Not everybody is or will believe in that ideal. But this isn’t just about Augum’s vision. It’s about all of us, together. The burden he carries, we all now carry. And it’s about our kingdom. What I do know is, Caireen and Isaac would have wanted us to continue together on this path.” After a shaky breath, Bridget then strode to the dragon desk. “Dragoon Pelagia. Please summon the portal to Mirror of the Dragon class, first hour.”
“Mirror of the Dragon class, first hour, for Squire Burns.” Pelagia stepped away from her desk to draw the outline of a portal. “Portus ea ire itum.”
Before Bridget stepped through, she looked over to Augum and nodded once. He squeezed Leera’s hand and got up. The others all got up too and formed a line before the dragon desk. Augum, seeing the stalwart, proud and mournful looks on the faces of his friends, felt his heart constrict, for although he suffered, he wasn’t alone in that suffering.
* * *
Late that night, after a grueling fourteen-hour day of the most difficult training of his life done in the old way, and after an emotional Memorial Ceremony performed in an empty snowy field on academy grounds, Augum, bruised and scratched and sore, numbly washed up. After splashing water on his face, he stared at himself in the mirror, his visage lit by the light of his palm.
The whip scars on his back peeked around his shoulders, his hair was scraggly, and there was exhaustion in his light-blue eyes, eyes he had inherited from his mother. He had also inherited her nose. It was an ordinary nose, not too small or too large. Yet that’s not all she had given him, for whereas his tyrant father had left him a strong chin, chestnut hair, arched brows that peaked sharply, and a wiry body that has been filling out of late, the most important thing—the heart—had been a gift from her. But there was one thing both of them had given him … the lightning element.