Hollow Core

by Gage Lee

  MY MOUTH WENT DRY AND the only thing my exhausted brain could come up with in my defense was a name.

  “Tycho Reyes,” I said.

  “What are you—” The red-haired girl stared at me for a moment, pursed her lips, and then shook her head in disgust. She snapped her fingers, and the alarm stopped blaring. “The rest of you get back to bed while I deal with this initiate.”

  When the last of the sleepy Phoenixes had vanished back into their rooms, she continued. “You must be Warin. Headmaster Bishop warned us about you.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m exhausted. Can you tell me where my room is?” My aura was filled with tainted aspects from my time in the alchemical laboratory, my body was exhausted from hours of circular breathing, and all I could think of was finding a dark corner to crawl into for the next dozen hours.

  “The headmaster said you would be disrespectful.” The girl puffed her chest out to show me the silver badge affixed to her robes over her heart. “I am Warden Hagar, in the future you will address me as Miss Hagar, or simply as Warden if a name is too difficult for a camper like you to remember. And you will only address me when I have first addressed you.”

  “My apologies, Warden.” I bowed low and held my hand over the stolen serum vials so they wouldn’t spill out of their hiding places behind my belt. “I intended no disrespect. Can you please direct me to my room? I will trouble you no further.”

  “Very well, come with me.” Warden Hagar let out an exasperated sigh and guided me down the hallway to a door midway along its length. “This is your room. It will only open for you, one of the wardens, or a member of the staff. Breakfast is at six, sharp. Don’t be late or you won’t get fed.”

  “Thank you, honored Warden,” I mumbled with the last of my strength. The door opened at my touch, and I slouched inside.

  The room held a chest of drawers, a single desk, and a cot masquerading as a bed. A single narrow window pierced the wall above the bed, and a pale sliver of early morning moonlight slipped between the wooden shutters and splashed across the ratty pillow. It wasn’t much of a room, but it wasn’t any worse than the room I’d shared with my mother in the labor camp, and it had a bed.

  Before the door had even closed behind me, I’d shed my robes and slithered under the narrow bed’s single thin sheet. By the time the door sealed the warden outside my room, I was fast asleep.

  Morning burst through the door of my room with a shout, and I hardly felt like I’d slept at all. Hahen’s relentless corrections and endless litany of instructions had haunted my sleep from the moment I’d closed my eyes until I woke. That rat would be the death of me, yet.

  “Two minutes, Warin,” a warden shouted through my door. She was twice as angry and a hundred times louder than Hagar had been the night before, and she slammed my door so hard my whole bed shook with the impact.

  “Coming.” I tossed the flimsy sheet off, scrambled out of bed, and dove into my tight black robes as quickly as I could. Grayson had replaced my work shoes with black slippers when he’d given me the robes, and my feet slipped into them. I secured the stolen vials under my belt and hurried out of my room to face the day.

  Fortunately, I wasn’t the only straggler, and it was easy enough to fall into line behind the last of my fellow Phoenixes.

  “First year?” the boy beside me asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You?”

  “Yep,” he said. “My name’s Deacon. I came in from the southwest Five Dragons Challenge. You?”

  “Jace.” We had to hustle to catch up as the rest of the dragons rumbled down the stairs at the end of our hall. “I earned my way in through the St. Louis challenge.”

  “Nice!” We scrambled down the stairs with the rest of the first years, our slippers tip-tapping on the stone steps. “I heard about you. Almost didn’t make it?”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that, but fortunately I didn’t have to.

  We’d reached the ground floor and burst out into the main entryway along with dozens of other students. It was impossible to hear yourself think, much less carry on a conversation, and Deacon and I put our chitchat on hold while we made our way into the dining hall.

  If the spread the day before had been impressive, this breakfast was miraculous. The dining hall seemed three times its former size, and upperclassmen as well as first years had formed into tidy lines along the room’s perimeter. The wardens, their shiny badges gleaming on their chests, herded us into the lines like watchful sheepdogs watching over unruly lambs.

  “At least they feed us well. You have to try these,” Deacon said. He helped himself to a giant scoop of scrambled eggs, then plopped an even bigger mound of the fluffy yellow stuff onto my plate. “Hash browns? They’re really good.”

  “Sure,” I said, and he obliged with a small shovelful of shredded fried potatoes. They really did look good.

  By the time we reached the end of the buffet table, our plates were almost overflowing with food. I hoped I’d get a chance to eat what I’d picked out, because my stomach felt as hollow and empty as my core after a day of difficult labor without a single meal. If I didn’t put something in my belly, soon, I was afraid it would turn itself inside out to eat me.

  I caught a glimpse of Clem across the room, but apparently we weren’t allowed to pick where we wanted to sit at breakfast. The wardens assigned each of us a seat with our own clan members. Deacon and I ended up together in the middle of a table filled with upperclassmen who didn’t even bother to look down their noses at us.

  “Twenty minutes,” the wardens said. “When time’s up, empty your plate in the bins there at the end of the hall.”

  Compared to the fifteen-minute lunch breaks we got at the camp, breakfast at the School of Swords and Serpents was practically a vacation. Still, I didn’t want to waste a single minute with this delicious food. I grabbed my fork in my right hand, curled my left arm protectively around my plate, and shoveled food into my mouth as fast as I could manage. The food tasted better than anything I’d ever eaten, but there wasn’t time to savor it. I chewed just enough to get the calories down my gullet, then moved on to the next bite. I poured myself a glass of crystal-clear water from the pitcher on the table and washed down a mouthful of spicy sausage and crispy bacon.

  It was all so good I wanted to cry.

  I noticed that the rest of the Shadow Dragons shared my table manners. We ate like we expected someone to take the food at any moment, because that’s how we’d been raised. A few of my fellow clan members might have been Empyreals, but I doubted it. They had the wary, cautious look of street kids, and I wondered if maybe I didn’t belong with these folks, after all.

  The students from the other clans sat upright at their tables, not hunched over their food. They talked as they ate, and most of them didn’t have more than a few slices of bacon, an egg or two, and maybe a bagel or a piece of toast in front of them. I wondered if I’d ever become so casual about protecting my food.

  It seemed doubtful. I couldn’t imagine ever not worrying where my next meal would come from.

  I’d made my way through most of the plate before a high-pitched chime rang out across the dining hall. Sparks of light crawled across layers of scrivenings on the wall to my left, and the stone barrier faded away to reveal a small stage. A dainty woman clad in the white-and-gold robes of a Resplendent Sun strode to the edge of the stage and was greeted with a round of thunderous applause from the members of her clan seated at the table directly in front of her.

  “Welcome, first-year Initiates!” she exclaimed with youthful exuberance. She pumped one fist in the air, and I couldn’t help but clap along with the rest of my classmates in response. “I am Professor Ishigara, minister of this year’s Core Contest!”

  The upperclassmen at the other tables clapped ferociously and cheered with wild abandon at the announcement. The older students at my table, on the other hand, groaned and rolled their eyes dismissively.

  “This contest will establish your ra
nking throughout the year,” Professor Ishigara continued. “It is very important that you pay attention to the rules and understand the contest to give yourself the best odds of winning.”

  “Whatever.” Hagar was two seats down from me. She ignored the professor and returned to shoveling forkfuls of hash browns soaked in sriracha sauce into her mouth.

  “The rules are very simple. Only first years may compete in the academic challenges, though upperclassmen may participate in ranked duels if challenged by a first-year initiate. You may earn rank as follows:

  “Winning an academic challenge of any kind earns four ranks for the student, and two ranks for his clan!” The Resplendent Suns lost their minds at that, clapping and hooting like mad things, and even the Titans of Majestic Stone cheered Ishigara’s announcement with enthusiasm. The Disciples of Jade Flame seemed uninterested in the proceedings, while the Thunder’s Children clan members whispered to one another. The Shadow Phoenixes, though, seemed to think the challenge wasn’t worth their time.

  “Defeating an opponent in a duel will earn an initiate two ranks, three ranks if the opponent is an upperclassman. Do note that a professor does not need to sanction a duel, but you will need at least two witnesses from each of the involved clans to earn any ranks. As is tradition, no styles, techniques, or tactics are illegal in a duel; you fight at your own risk.”

  She let that one sink in for a moment. It was clear by the grave faces of most of the students that this tradition would end up with a lot of students with injuries.

  Or worse.

  “As a reminder,” the professor continued, “duels do not earn ranks for the winner’s clan.”

  The Resplendent Suns groaned at that last announcement, but Professor Ishigara shushed them with a single fingertip pressed sternly to her lips. She didn’t continue until quiet had once again descended on the dining room.

  “Finally, I have been informed there will be several special challenges this year, which will be announced to all of you at the same time. And, for the first time, the final assignment will earn rankings for each initiate.”

  The girl with the hot potatoes raised her head from her plate and peered suspiciously at the professor for a moment.

  “Ha,” she muttered. “That’ll make it harder for them to cheat this year. Not that it matters for us.”

  “Remember, students,” Ishigara went on, “while the winner of the Core Contest will be rewarded, those who fall below into the bottom ten percent of the student body will have larger problems to worry about because of a new rule that has been implemented. Any initiate who remains below this mark following their final assignment will be expelled, immediately.”

  And with that fateful pronouncement, Professor Ishigara vanished from the stage, and the wall returned. Stunned initiates stared at one another in shock, appalled at the news that we could be bounced out of the academy if we didn’t win enough challenges.

  Pandemonium exploded through the dining hall a moment later.

  “Well, we’re doomed now,” Deacon grumbled. “There’s no point in even trying.”

  “You got that right.” Hagar took her rage out on a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “You two should just relax and ignore the challenges. It will be easier for you that way.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “We have just as much chance to win this contest as anyone. There’s no way that all the Shadow Phoenixes will fall into the bottom ten percent.”

  All the upperclassmen within earshot stared at me like I was a three-eyed frog and then burst out laughing.

  “Oh, man,” Hagar said. “I’ve been here for three years, and I’ve never heard anybody so naïve. Dude, the other clans have been trying to squeeze the life out of the Shadow Phoenixes since we were made. Honor prevents them from just killing us off, but this new wrinkle in the contest means they can starve us from the bottom up. Both of you will be gone at the end of this year.”

  “We can’t just quit,” I said. I’d expected some surliness and disgruntlement from what little I knew of the Shadow Phoenixes, but this was an entirely different ball of wax. The rest of my clan wasn’t afraid they couldn’t win, they’d already decided we’d lost.

  “Better get good at dueling,” another upperclassman said. His dark hair was chopped short and his robes were adorned with a trio of scrivenings over the right breast. “That’s the only unbiased way to earn ranks. Even then, you have to watch out. If you get too far ahead, one of the clan elders might send an initiate out to break your leg.”

  “No one would do that!” I exclaimed. “Their honor would be stained forever.”

  “Oh, kid.” Warden Hagar finished off her hash browns and tossed her fork down on her plate with a clatter. “You’re killing me. There’s no dishonor in following an order from one of your elders. And there’s almost no way to prove someone set out to intentionally injure you in a duel. Accidents happen. They just happen a lot more often if you’re a Shadow Phoenix.”

  While the other clans jabbered excitedly amongst themselves about the rewards from the Core Contest and strategized on how best to maximize their odds of winning, my clan finished our breakfasts sullenly. Even Deacon refused to discuss the challenge any further, no matter how many times I tried to drag him back to the topic.

  Grayson wasn’t in the room with us, but that didn’t stop me from feeling his gloating smile on the back of my neck. Tycho’s reputation would protect me from a lot of things, but I doubted even he had the authority to alter the results of the contest. This was how the headmaster was going to get rid of me.

  Or, at least, it was how he was going to try to get me out of the academy.

  I still had a quarter of my food left, and though I’d lost my appetite, I forced myself to devour every last scrap of food. I needed the energy to keep up with whatever my teachers would throw at me on top of the work Hahen demanded each night. The rest of the Shadow Phoenixes didn’t say a word to me as I finished my breakfast, and that was fine with me. I didn’t have room in my head for any more of their negative thoughts. They could believe we were all doomed if they wanted, but they couldn’t make me accept that.

  I was here, and I wouldn’t let anyone kick me out. I’d just have to work harder and smarter than any ten other students combined to prove that I deserved to stay.

  I shoved back from the table and marched my empty plate down to the waste baskets at the end of the room. The other Phoenixes looked away from me as I left, and I couldn’t tell if they were ashamed or disgusted by my resolve.

  I didn’t care.

  I couldn’t make my clanmates fight to win the Core Contest.

  But they couldn’t make me quit.

  No one could.

  The Day

  WHILE IT WAS TRUE THAT no one could make me quit, the class schedule certainly made me want to pack it in and go home. Some sadist at the School’s central office had decided the best way to follow up a hearty breakfast was with a rousing hour of brutal calisthenics. While I understood the need to harden our bodies and prepare us for the rigors of the martial arts training that was to come, putting the wardens in charge of our physical fitness turned the exercise into brutal torture. Despite my urgent desire to heal my core and restore my family’s honor, it had started to feel like the deck was stacked against me.

  After a particularly agonizing series of push-ups that left me barely able to lift my arms, I looked around at the other students. Most of them didn’t seem more than slightly winded, and closer examination of their auras showed me why.

  The other initiates had forced jinsei into the channels that ran through their bodies. This strengthened their bodies and gave them an endurance I couldn’t match. If my core hadn’t been so battered and bruised from my time in the lab, I might have been able to force some sacred energy into my limbs. Unfortunately, even with my efficient breath cycling technique, I couldn’t get enough jinsei into my core to alleviate my pain, never mind harden my body against the rigors of the demanding exercise
.

  I did, however, have one trick left that might help me get through the mess.

  When we switched from push-ups to crunches, I saw my chance and took it. During the first crunch I filched the elixir I’d stolen from Tychos’s laboratory from where I’d hidden it behind my belt and popped its cap open. I kept the opening covered with my thumb as I finish the crunch, so it wouldn’t spell, and in the second rep, I gulped the jinsei down.

  The sacred energy flooded my core. Before it could escape, I forced it deep into the channels that ran the length of my limbs and pushed the remainder into the coil of channels that surrounded my torso.

  The sudden burst of energy banished the pain from my body. I finished the hour in a flurry of activity with a grin plastered across my face.

  The warden in charge of our morning class, a Disciple named Rafael Gurnani, eyeballed me through the last half of the class, but didn’t say anything. He might’ve been suspicious about my sudden rally, but I wasn’t the only initiate who’d improved during the second half of the class. I didn’t think he suspected anything, but I’d have to be very careful using my boosters going forward.

  No one had specifically said that jinsei elixirs were against any of the School’s rules, but with Grayson looking for any excuse to bounce me, I didn’t want to take any chances.

  “That was fun,” Clem said as we made our way from the wood-floored gymnasium over to the meditation garden for our next class, Core Strengthening. “How are you doing?”

  “Not bad,” I lied. The jinsei had burned out of my channels during exercise, leaving my muscles weak and weary, and my core ached like I’d been punched in the gut by a gorilla. Despite that, I wasn’t about to let my new friends know I wasn’t in perfect shape. “I hope he pushes a little harder, next time. I could use the workout.”

  “We will see how you feel after this next class,” Abi said. “It is very strenuous.”

  He wasn’t lying. Kara Trager, the warden of the Titans of Majestic Stone in charge of our Core Strengthening class, seemed driven to break every initiate she saw. Her eyes were a vivid shade of blue that reminded me of lightning, and when her gaze fell on your core, that’s exactly what it felt like. She wasn’t satisfied to measure your strength, she wanted to see inside your soul and judge your worth.