by B N Miles
He tried calling to Drina to alert her, but before Sam could open his mouth, Drina had already turned the corner.
Sam picked up the pace, the soles of his shoes clapping against the cobblestones like an encouraging applause.
Two figures dropped to the ground in front of Sam and he pulled up short, yanking his hand from Mattie. She didn't need any verbal cues, she simply pressed her back to his and he turned them so he was facing Delcan.
His boot knife was in his hand in seconds.
A tongue of flame licked toward his face. Sam pushed Mattie to the ground and ducked atop her, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid the fire altogether like in the arena. This was close quarters. This was a place where he couldn't escape. The smell of crisping skin crammed into Sam's nostrils and his shoulder was suddenly a pulped bag of weeping meat, throbbing and cringing away from the fresh air that stung like a million sharp needles.
"Don't worry." Delcan came to a stop a yard away from Sam, too close for comfort. "I have at least some honor. I'll let you try your hand at defending yourself."
Sam bared his teeth at the two girls who had cut them off. June and Brie. They darted for him and grabbed Mattie. She hissed and spit, but the other girls managed to drag her from underneath Sam. He lurched for her, stretching to catch her, but he was yanked back by his shirt.
His ass hit the ground and he bolted to his feet, grabbing the side of the pond with one hand and his knife in the other. The two other men standing behind Delcan sniggered at the small, rusted weapon.
There were only four others with Delcan but he usually ran with five. Was the other girl, Prin, lying in wait, ready to slice him open if he got a hit in?
And the real question, just as it always was—would this be the day he died?
"You know..." Delcan took a few steps and Sam's muscles tightened even further. "There's something about you that I just don't like. I can't seem to put my finger on it. If you want to know the truth . . ."
Delcan held out his hand and a small flower of flame burst into his palm.
The truth.
"The truth is, I'm doing this school, this country, a favor by taking you out of it. Spirits know what you might fuck up if you're allowed to fight for it."
The truth was that Delcan had all but said he was going to kill Sam. Mattie too, if he had to guess. The sea wasn’t far from the end of the alley. Delcan's crew could just throw the two of them into the churning waters. The school would write them off as deserters, wipe their hands, and be thankful they didn't have any families to notify. The truth was, if Sam didn't think of something, this was where it all ended.
Mattie's screams for help were muffled by hands over her mouth, her movements stilled by tight holds on her arms and legs.
Sam's lungs pumped out heavy billows of air and sweat gathered along his hairline. He was going to die. He was going to let Mattie get killed. He had to do something, but what? What could he do? What could he do except die and welcome oblivion?
He was exhausted. He'd been exhausted since he was a kid. It was a soul-deep, unshakable sap of strength and energy, whispering for him to just close his eyes. A man's cracked voice, It's time to go to sleep, Sammy-boy.
The figures around him blurred into blobs of color. Not the color of their clothes, their hair, or their skin, but the colors of a prism. A smudge of yellow at Delcan's right shoulder, a smudge of indigo at his right. An unruly slash of red where Delcan used to stand. Blackness closed in on them like a window, getting smaller and smaller until he could only see red and black.
The truth . . . of oblivion!
Black trumps red.
Sam sucked in a lungful of air as reality crashed back into focus. He didn't know if he'd ever closed his eyes, how long he'd been zoned out, or what had happened, but he suddenly wasn't worried about the 'why' of anything right now.
He curled his fingers, his knuckles like jagged rocks to slice flesh. Instead of swinging, instead of doing something that would see him consumed in fire, he called for the shadows, and they answered.
The midday sunlight was suddenly gone.
Delcan jumped back and looked up, but the shadows were already over the top of the alley, sealing the mouths of each end, floating between and around them like playful snakes made of vapor.
The fire in Delcan's palm stuttered and Sam homed in on it, shooting his Will around Delcan, above him, and the blackness shrunk until it was only the two of them in a world of nothing. In Sam's world. He flicked his fingers and the arms of his encasing shadow stretched for Delcan's hand.
The blonde's eyes were huge. He looked legitimately frightened.
He yelled when the arms curled around the fire. The flames bled from red and yellow to purple and black and midnight blue, and then neither of them could see anything. Sam felt the fire in his own hand as if he were holding it too, but it was only the shadows binding him to Delcan, as if Sam himself were the noble's shadow.
It felt like ice in his hand.
Sam took a deep breath and directed the fire to Delcan. He knew exactly where the other man was on an instinctive level, felt it as if he were standing in both places at once. The flame left his hand. Delcan yelled.
Then the spell was broken.
Sam's beautiful black world was gone in the blink of an eye. He stared at Delcan, then he fell backward, his limbs not bothering to try and prop him up any longer. He stared at the sky, past the tall alley walls.
The Sheet's face was above him, blotting out the sun.
Then, nothing.
8
He got his first demerit. So did Delcan, thankfully. The blonde couldn't exactly claim innocence when Sam's shoulder was singed to all hells.
At least The Sheet got Sam to the infirmary and let him have a rest before laying into him.
And now . . . now he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do except wait to be released. He missed most of his classes but Mattie dropped in to give him the day's assignments. Today was supposed to be fun and exciting, today was the day where he was supposed to walk right up to Mattie, kiss her until she melted, and ask her if she wanted to keep playing her game or come into his room.
Instead, he was in the damned infirmary.
That was the extent of his first thoughts upon waking from his second nap of the day. His second round of thoughts jumped to why he had to have two naps. He didn't know what came over him in the alley, he didn't know what he did, and he definitely didn't know how he could do it again.
He had cut Delcan off from his power origin—the heat and light of the sun, and he took what little the blonde had left before crafting it into his own. He had stolen, no, imitated the antithesis of somebody's power.
Sam had never known another shadow caller, had never even heard of one. That wasn't so strange, talents were as varied as faces, and even those who had 'common' talents would be hard pressed to find their fellows in a crowded tavern.
Still, there had to be something on shadow wielding in the library. He hadn't been to the expansive room yet, mostly because he was so damn tired from class, but now he had a burning desire to walk right out of the sick room and go find answers.
The stinging pain in his shoulder reminded him it could wait until tomorrow at the least.
Sam sat up in the narrow bed, rested his hands across his bare stomach, and just looked around. The room was wide and tall, the same grey brick as the rest of the Academy. The beds were neatly made on thin iron frames, some separated by curtains, some not. Across the room was a long counter and cabinets upon cabinets of tools and medicine.
There was nothing else in the room, and nobody.
He stared down at his pale stomach and his eyebrows quirked. He couldn't see the bottom-most rib on his torso. Sam adjusted his seating and still, his third rib didn't strain against his skin.
Wow.
He grinned. If he kept eating like he was eating, he may be as imposing as Delcan. He was just as tall, after all. All it would take is nourishment and exercise
.
"The nomadic western tribes believe the first sign of insanity is unwarranted joy."
Sam jolted and looked up to see one of the curtains slide back, only two beds away. A girl was sitting on it and staring at him.
Oh yeah, that was the girl that broke her wrist in wilderness class just that morning. Her name was on the tip of his tongue. He'd never heard her speak before, nor had any instructors called upon her in class. Was it weird that he didn't know all of his class members' names by now? Was it awful that he didn't bother learning them because most of them would be gone by the second year?
"Unwarranted joy is a bad thing, then?"
"Technically, yes." She swung her legs around until they dangled to the side of her bed. "According to the western tribes, anyway. They would have tossed you right on your arse to go find yourself a nice place to die if they saw you grinning at your own tummy like you were expecting a child."
Sam smiled, his eyebrows pinching together, because what was he supposed to say to that?
She cocked her head at him and suddenly a big grin slid over her pretty face. Sam relaxed. She hadn't been expecting him to actually answer, she was just messing with him. Which was great because while serious, odd people were interesting, his head was still too foggy to try and navigate a conversation with one.
"I'm Rosin." She stood up and trotted to his bed, sitting down on the mattress next to his. "I heard the nurse talking about what you did. Gave Delcan another thrashing, did you?"
"Ah, not exactly. He got me good, though." Sam pointed to his shoulder.
Rosin shrugged, and he didn't know what it was, but there was something very relaxing and easy about her. Like he'd known her for years already.
"Not all victory is won with the blood of the enemy." She said sagely, nodding to herself. "General Hollan said that."
Sam laughed. "Didn't General Hollan also lose the last pitch battle with Meera?"
"Ah!" She tapped the side of her nose and winked, "Only because he had a problem keeping his hands to himself. He was found in his tent when the battle horns sounded, naked and blue as the sky from the strangling he got. It's said the assassin was so beautiful that even after death, the good general was standing at attention, his last memories of her bared body keeping his blood alive and pumping south."
Sam laughed. She was clearly well-read. Quite beautiful, too, now that he was so close to her. She was as white as Mattie, maybe even whiter, and she had big blue eyes too. No freckles, though, and her hair was so blonde that it looked silver in the gleam of the sunlit windows.
She was so talkative right now. It made him wonder why she was so quiet in class. Maybe she just wasn't assertive in a group setting. Most people weren't.
Then he had an idea.
Sam didn't usually make such split-second decisions, but he trusted his gut when it told him that she was his type of person, that they would get along easily. He needed another crewmember, which was made even clearer thanks to Delcan's ambush. And unless she was weird like Fletch, she could probably use a few friends to watch her back. They were only in the first week, and Sam didn't know what was to come, but it would only get more competitive from here.
"I've never seen you talk to anybody in class. You like to keep to yourself?" He asked.
Rosin pursed her lips and looked at the ceiling. "Hmm. Not really, but also yes. It's hard to explain. I like people, but not all people, and I don't generally go out of my way to make nice unless I need to."
Sam nodded, his face serious. "I see. And do you need to now?"
"Well, boredom is quite dangerous, so yes." She waved her arm at him, her wrist wrapped tightly and kept straight in a small splint.
"Ah. Well, if you ever feel the need to have a few friends to make sure you don't go breaking your arms from climbing trees, I have a spot open in my crew."
Rosin narrowed her eyes at him, one corner of her mouth lifted. "You're offering me a spot in your crew, but you don't even know if I'm any good."
"I figure you'd have to be good to get into the Academy to begin with."
"Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I won't be suspicious that you're eager to lure me into a false sense of security in order to sabotage me in the near future."
"Quite. If I'm going to sabotage you, it would be in the extremely near future."
They shared a matching grin and when the door opened, Rosin grasped his palm with her good hand and gave it a firm shake.
"You got yourself a deal."
Mattie and Drina came not long after Miss Cher, the round elderly nurse, checked his wounds and mended the little she could with her healing talents.
"You're fully awake this time!" Mattie tossed her satchel on an empty bed, her tone put-upon but her face relieved. Drina sat on the bed beside her satchel. She winced when Mattie peeled back his bandages to have a look.
"Spirits below, that's bad." Mattie stroked her fingers through his hair and slid onto the bed beside him.
"Yeah. It's not as bad as it was, Miss Cher cleared up the edges. She said she couldn't heal something that big, so it might scar."
Mattie kissed his temple, her nails gently scrubbing into his scalp. "Another battle scar. Be careful getting those, or I might swoon."
Sam laughed and kissed her properly. Mattie was an odd girl. She never really went after men, not that he ever saw, and he's sure he would have noticed. However, of the few he saw her looking at in the past, they tended to come off the docks flying foreign flags, tall and lanky and rough-looking. He might have seen her drool over a couple of men with eyepatches, maybe a few with long-healed talon marks crossing their jaws.
"I'll try to avoid it next time." He got lost in her warmth and her soothing touch and once again, he forgot about the rest of the room. At least he caught himself before he got carried away this time. Sam cleared his throat and gestured to Rosin, who was sitting with one dainty leg crossed over the other, waiting for an introduction no doubt.
"This is Rosin. She's agreed to be in the crew. Rosin, this is—"
"Mattie," Rosin said. She smiled and tilted her head. It was a cute little habit, like she was remarkably curious about who or what she was looking at. "And Drina."
"Nice to meet you. How's your wrist?" Mattie smiled and extended her hand, which Rosin shook.
"It hurts, but mainly I'm just milking it so I don't have to go back to my dorm room. The people beside me are supposed to be having another party tonight. They never quit; I swear."
"Ah. They wouldn't happen to be part of Delcan's crew?"
"The very same, yes."
"We should fuck him up," Drina growled.
Drina's sudden words were enough to make Sam's head swivel. She was staring at him intently, her arched eyebrows pinched into a mean scowl he'd never seen her wear before. Despite her words, Sam had to wonder: Did she know Delcan and his cronies were right behind them when she left them to fend for themselves?
She was a wildcard right now, and Sam hated not trusting his own crew, but he hadn't known her long enough to know her intentions or natural reactions. He didn't know if she was the type of person to lash out at the smallest perceived insults or not. He had to set aside time to talk to her, to figure her out, to figure out if keeping her in the crew was a danger to him, Mattie, and now Rosin too.
"I agree." Mattie clapped her hands and the same mean, slashing scowl came over her face before it turned into a smirk. "Maybe we can get him to drink some birdroot tea. Drina can pretend like she wants to go to his crew, then get him to his room alone and offer him a sip of her drink, then—"
"Woah." Rosin laughed nervously. "That's a bit overboard. Sam here just got a demerit, we wouldn't want him getting another for, you know, causing somebody's appendix to rupture. We could just play a nasty prank on him."
Mattie opened her mouth and Sam could see she was gearing up to argue, but then her expression turned thoughtful and she nodded. "Good point. What did you have in mind?"
Rosin's smil
e was bright and chipper. "Quite a few things, actually . . ."
9
Miss Cher released him late at night after a final healing session, apologizing that she couldn't do more. Sam assured her she'd done all she could and thanked her for her trouble before leaving, glad to be out of the sick room. Rosin had gone to her dorm hours before, and both Mattie and Drina had gone to bed before she left, so he'd been doing nothing but sitting around and occasionally dozing off.
As he pulled open his door, he was thinking about how to approach Drina the following morning when a sound halted him dead in his tracks. It sounded like a voice, barely audible and soft as a breeze. When he heard nothing else, he shook his head and made to slip into his room when the voice came again. This time, he was sure he didn't imagine it when his own name echoed like a soft prayer in his ear.
It was Mattie's voice. He would recognize the cadence anywhere.
Sam didn't walk in his room. Instead, he shut the door and stood in the hallway, his turgid blood stirring to life.
"Sam, where do you think you're going?" She whispered, her voice so melodic and quiet that it sounded like a song.
"Come to my room."
The way she was using her talent to bend the sounds in the air was impressive. Her control was so precise that she didn't even have to look at him, didn't have to be in the same room, to be able to make him shudder. The hunger in her tone rattled into his bones. He eyed her door, right next to his and yet leagues away.
This was it.
Sam swallowed and walked to her dorm, every step doubling his pulse until his hand was on her doorknob and his heart was in his throat.
He opened the door and it didn’t make a single sound, not a squeak or a creak. Mattie's doing, if he had to guess, so he didn't wake Drina, who was sleeping soundly on her side.
It was dark in the room but the two little windows on the far wall illuminated everything just enough so that Mattie's lithe body was clearly visible, naked from head to toe. She was kneeling on her mattress and crawling to the edge of the bed as he closed the door and pulled his boots off, peeling the leather away slowly because his eyes were too busy drinking in the sight of the woman on the bed, crooking her finger at him.