SEVARIN COULDN’T HELP but complain about his schedule as they walked.
“Mythic Songs of the Kenai Clan? Discovering Pre-Eiolic Sculpture?” He lowered the paper with a sigh. “What about battle tactics? Wrestling? Warcraft? What the heck am I supposed to do with—” he lifted the schedule again, “—advanced meditation techniques?”
Barrel, walking backward, addressed the group like a tour guide. “Anyone have any idea why a Sargonaut might want to learn music, sculpture, history, and meditation?”
Lily’s arm shot up. “Ooh! Yes! I know this one!”
“Quit being such a teacher’s pet,” Owen said.
Lily ignored him. “The Kenai Clan were a famous band of Sargonauts. They wrote songs that increased their stamina in the thick of battle and conveyed tactical information the enemy couldn’t decipher. As for Pre-Eiolic Sculpture, the Eiols were a Sargonaut civilization—long extinct now—that studied ancient statues they kept finding in hidden caches in the mountains. They were the work of a previous civilization that had discovered the exact locations of sensitive nerve endings on a Sargonaut’s body. Studying them taught the Eiols how to use Tir’sun, the paralyzing technique Garig used back in the train car to reduce Sevarin’s body to a motionless sack of potatoes.”
Sevarin looked taken aback. “Whoa. How do you know all this? And what do you mean, a motionless sack of po—”
“And,” Lily interrupted, “last but not least, meditation is said to be a Sargonaut warrior’s most important skill. A Sargonaut with a clear mind can better draw his strength into different muscles to create power attacks.”
“Very good,” Barrel said.
Lily beamed as the other orphans gave her admiring looks.
“So…” Sevarin said.
“So, advanced tactics and warcraft can come later,” Barrel said. “Your mind must become a weapon long before your body.”
“Plus,” Emma said, patting his shoulder, “meditation might help you develop your sensitive side. Wouldn’t that be nice for the rest of us?”
“Ha-ha-ha,” Sevarin grumbled, kicking aside a loose rock.
The orphans compared schedules as they walked. Owen and Gunner had every class together and already knew where to find the buildings. They had spent all weekend poring over maps and course catalogs in anticipation of the technology and engineering classes that would lead to admittance into the mecha program.
Milo felt abandoned by his two friends. They were obsessed with mecha now and no longer gave luminether and sorcery the attention they once had. They had stopped dreaming about joining the Steel Teeth and hunting Elki for a living. Now, they fantasized about using mecha to topple enemy bases and fight hordes of giants as tall as mountains.
But it wasn’t all hopeless. At least he and Lily still shared an inclination toward magic and would have most of their classes together. Speaking of together, when was he going to finally ask her out on a date? And how did that sort of thing work in a place like this?
“Let’s meet at the Hall of Champions for lunch,” Barrel suggested. “Say, twelve o’clock?”
“I hope Oscar’s okay,” Emma said. “Think he’ll make it?”
“Someone should get the message to him about lunch,” Gunner said.
“I’ll take care of that,” Sevarin said.
“Since you’ll probably skip class anyway,” Owen said.
“Better not,” Emma said, throwing Sevarin a heated look.
“Quit being my mother,” Sevarin said, to which Emma responded with a hurt look.
“That’s enough, you guys,” Milo said. “Twelve o’clock at the Hall. I’m sure Oscar will show up, since that’s where everyone eats lunch.”
They all agreed to meet, and the group split off in different directions. Milo and Emma hugged and wished each other luck.
Then it was just him and Lily.
“What do you think’s going to happen to Oscar?” Milo said.
“He’ll get in. You’ll see.”
Milo shook his head. “I feel bad for him sometimes.”
“You shouldn’t.” Lily picked at her hair, which had been gathered into a tight bun like all the other female cadets.
“Why’s that?”
She let her hand drop. Then, smiling, she lifted it and swept it front of her, indicating the entire sprawling campus in front of them.
“You see all these buildings? One day, they’ll name one of them after Oscar.”
CHAPTER 20
“I t’s going to be all right,” Emmanuel told Oscar as they crossed the courtyard toward the keep. “Remember what I said about limits? They don’t exist here.” He tapped Oscar’s head. “Only in here, if you let them.”
Andres placed a hand on Oscar’s shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. “Your mother and I are very proud. Not important what happen here, don’t change anything, okay?”
All this attention and sympathy, combined with his father’s struggle to communicate in English, made Oscar feel miserably self-conscious. He shrugged off his father’s hand and turned to him at the keep’s entrance.
“Can you wait out here?” he asked him.
Andres, looking like a farmer with his long hair, stiff beard, and plain white shirt, looked down at the ground and nodded. Oscar winced at seeing his father’s docile expression. How could he be so sorry for himself when today could wind up being the most decisive day—maybe even the last day—of Oscar’s military career?
“Let’s go,” Emmanuel said. He opened one of the keep’s stately wooden doors. “Andres, we’ll be right back.”
“I understand. Buena suerte,” he added.
Good luck.
But luck wouldn’t change the color of Oscar’s eyes. It wouldn’t turn him into a normal Feral like Calista, like all the other cadets with tails and ambitions and promising futures.
The door slowly erased his father from sight, and Oscar found himself trapped inside a dark foyer with Emmanuel casting a sorry look at him.
“Whatever happens today,” Emmanuel said, “keep in mind how lucky you are to still have a father. The rest of your friends can’t say the same.”
Oscar shook his head. “I just hate how he’s always feeling sorry for me.”
“He’s proud of you, and he loves you.”
“But he still feels sorry for me. I’m different, and he knows it. I’ll never be like other Ferals.”
“No, because you’re better.”
“Even if that was true, I don’t care. I just want to know what I am.”
“That,” Emmanuel said, placing a hand on Oscar’s shoulder and turning him toward the carpeted, lamplit reception area, “is a question we must all ask ourselves. And trust me when I say by the time you find the answer, it won’t even matter anymore. All that will matter is your mission.”
Oscar tried to make sense of this and soon gave up. The magician was always so cryptic, except when he was reciting slogans you might hear in a kindergarten classroom. There are no limits. You can be better. Et cetera, et cetera. It was all a load of crap.
He followed Emmanuel toward a broad stone staircase dominating the center of the room and leading up to the second floor. At the foot of the stairs, they passed two wardens, who nodded at the magician and squinted suspiciously at Oscar, obviously uneasy with his non-matching eyes.
A cold sweat broke out on Oscar’s forehead as he climbed the steps, and his fingers felt like icicles inside his pockets. If things didn’t work out here, he could always go to the forest outside the city and live off the land, alone. Life would be easier that way, and he would never be made to feel like an imposter among his animal friends.
They walked through a carpeted corridor lit by magical orbs ensconced in the walls. Posters hung alongside them, holographic designs moving as if they were alive. Most were militaristic in nature. They showed mythical heroes dressed in armor and wielding weapons or dressed in robes and holding books with sparkling spells curling off the pages. Slogans addressed the need for
warriors, leaders, and scientists.
MAKE YOUR OWN LEGENDS AT THEUS ACADEMY, one of them said, showing a woman with white wings flying around and touching her fingers to her forehead in a bold salute.
Great. More empty slogans.
STUDY HARD, FIGHT SMART, CHANGE THE REALM, said another, this one showing a boy and girl in first-year uniforms dropping into fighting stances, hands burning with magical spells they then whipped at some unseen enemy. Oscar had to duck as the spells flew over his head and hit the wall with a silent splash of colorful lights.
The kids in the poster reminded Oscar of his friends. Emma and Lily and Milo had it made. They were demigods. They knew their own powers and would succeed in a place like this. Sure, Oscar could communicate in a strange way with animals, but it wasn’t something he could control, not like Calista phasing into her cat shell whenever she pleased.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Emmanuel said, his steps echoing in the corridor. Oscar’s boots didn’t make a sound at all, probably because he was walking like a scared little wuss.
“What is?”
“This building,” Emmanuel said. “It’s been here for over ten thousand years.”
“In all that time, has a student like me ever tried to study here?”
“A student like you?”
“I mean, with my eyes like they are.”
“Ah,” he said with a nod. “I don’t think so. But who knows? Maybe you’re too special for a school like this. They might create a whole new program just for you.”
“Uncle Manny, can I ask a favor?”
“Sure, kiddo.”
“Can you not talk to me like I’m six years old?”
Emmanuel gave him a confident, though somewhat pitying, smile.
“Of course, cadet.”
Oscar’s mood lifted somewhat upon hearing that word. Cadet. Maybe his application had in fact been accepted, and he would join his friends after all.
They reached the door at the end of the corridor. Next to it, a sign read DEAN OF STUDENTS, and beneath that, ROGUE TAIL PROGRAM.
Was this the man who would decide his fate?
Emmanuel opened the door and motioned for Oscar to go inside. He entered an old-fashioned reception where all the furniture was made of pale stone. A stately, gray-haired woman sat behind a desk that looked more like an altar on which animals or small children might be sacrificed in a bloody ritual. This lone receptionist was just as colorless and dry as the furniture. When she looked up from the holographic screen embedded in her desk, Oscar saw, behind her spectacles, a pair of eyes as hard and dull as old pennies.
“We have an appointment with Dean Sethanel,” Emmanuel told the woman. “The student in question is Oscar Andres Cabrero Reza.”
“Spell that, please?”
As Emmanuel recited the letters, the woman tapped her screen. At one point, she glanced up at Oscar and held the stare for a second longer than normal.
His eyes. She was studying his eyes.
“You’re five minutes late,” she finally said. “Admissions for next semester began two weeks ago, and Dean Sethanel is very busy weeding out the subpar applicants.”
Weeding, the woman had said. As if students like Oscar were bad weeds that had to be yanked from an otherwise healthy garden.
“My apologies,” Emmanuel said.
“Your appointment was for ten minutes. You now have five. You may enter.”
She motioned to a thick wooden door behind her. Oscar dreaded what was on the other side.
“Are you ready?” Emmanuel said.
Oscar tried to give a brave nod, but his head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. He forced his chin up.
“I’m ready.”
The door shut behind them with the heavy clang of a jail cell being sealed. The air in this enormous office was at least ten degrees warmer thanks to a roaring fire in the hearth. Oscar’s boots landed against something soft, a carpet as red as blood and covered in elaborate designs spun out of golden thread. It matched the tapestries hanging on the stone walls. The furniture arranged around the room was so glossy it appeared to be covered in maple syrup, especially the enormous desk facing him.
Most impressive of all was a sprawling display case made of wood and glass that spanned almost the entire length and height of the back wall. Through the glass, Oscar saw antique weapons—mostly daggers, swords, and bows and arrows—hanging like artifacts in a museum. He noticed the room had no windows, only weapons cases and tapestries.
The dean was nowhere in sight, but something else lurked in the room. Oscar caught its scent a moment before he saw it rise in the narrow space between the desk and the display case. The smell, distributed by the heat of the creature’s movements, was of animal fur.
Before Oscar could make sense of what was happening, a sleek predator sprang toward him with a vicious roar.
His reflexes took over. He leaped toward the wall across from the fireplace and grabbed the tapestry hanging there, then climbed it like a cat.
The beast lunged at him, all claws and teeth and flickering eyes. It could easily reach his height. What had he been thinking?
A split-second before its claws could sink into Oscar’s back, he heard a crackling sound, felt electricity in the air that made the hair on his arms go stiff.
The animal was now hanging two feet away from him, suspended like one of the weapons in the display case, mouth still open, though not from rage or hunger.
It was open in fear, thanks to the swirling, sparkling ribbons of blue energy wrapped around its meaty chest. The ribbons trailed back to a crystal Emmanuel held in his right hand.
Oscar studied the ensnared creature. It must have weighed over a hundred pounds, with fangs as long as daggers and black claws equally as vicious.
“Down with you,” Emmanuel said through clenched teeth.
The creature roared again. Emmanuel made a jabbing motion with the crystal, sending a shock through the ribbons. The creature yelped, its limbs and tail going limp in surrender.
“Release her, Professor,” a man said in a deep voice that filled the room.
Still hanging from the tapestry, Oscar whipped his head around to see a dark-skinned man emerge from a doorway in the far corner. Well-dressed and neatly groomed, he was drying his hands on a plush towel. Oscar caught the flowery scent of hand soap.
The man looked strangely at ease as he watched the spell break, dropping the animal. It landed easily on all fours and fell into a crouch with a resentful roar. Its fangs flashed.
“Enough,” the man said.
He was Dean Sethanel, clearly. Everything about him, from his silky shirt to the aristocratic lilt of his voice, spoke of authority and prestige. The disgusted look he gave Emmanuel was that of a king regarding a lowly peasant.
“Lucky I didn’t roast her alive,” Emmanuel said.
The cat snarled as if it had understood his words. Finally, it slunk toward the fire and settled onto its paws in front of it, still watching them carefully with its reflective eyes.
“You can come down from there,” Sethanel said, looking up at Oscar.
Oscar hesitated. He let go only after Emmanuel gave him a nod to show that it was safe. He landed softly on the carpet and went to stand by the magician. The saber-toothed cat watched him, licking its fangs.
“Nothing to fear,” the dean said. “You just surprised her, that’s all.”
Emmanuel slipped the crystal into the side pocket of his pants, where it would be within reach. “You train it to attack visitors?”
“I train it to attack those who barge in without warning. We are in times of war, are we not?”
“A damned foolish idea, Olmere,” Emmanuel said. “That thing rips out a student’s throat and you’ll have a legal battle even the academy won’t be able to protect you from.”
“I told you,” the dean said, easing himself into the leather chair behind his desk. “Reina’s harmless. Aren’t you, girl?”
The cat looked at Oscar
and made the color in its eyes flare like a match being struck. A neat trick, though Oscar was no longer afraid. Somehow, he understood that the cat had no desire for bloodshed. It only cared about showing off.
“Oscar,” Emmanuel said, “I’d like you to meet Dean Sethanel. He’ll be admitting you to the Rogue Tail’s pre-certification program, so you can get caught up for your admission exams next year. It would benefit the realm for you to start training with the rogues as soon as possible.”
Sethanel turned his orange eyes to Oscar and studied him with the same burning intensity as his pet. Everything about him was carefully manicured, including the long, black tail curling around his waist, the thin goatee around his mouth, and a gleaming, bald head with not a trace of stubble. He looked as polished as the weapons that hung above his shoulders, and equally as sharp.
“You’re Oscar Reza,” Sethanel said finally. “I’ve heard of your friends, Milo and Emma Banks. I’m sure they’ll be natural fits at the academy thanks to their talents. You, on the other hand, haven’t learned to phase like others at your stage of development. This ability is essential for success in our program.”
“How do you know—”
“He has other talents,” Emmanuel interrupted. “I already explained this to you in my note.”
The dean joined his hands on his desk and leaned forward. “Show me this ‘animal empathy’ talent, then. And you have—” he glanced at his wristwatch, “—precisely one minute. I’m already late to my next appointment with the Archon.”
“Show you?” Oscar said. “You mean…”
The dean tilted his head toward the cat. “Use it on her. Make her come up to you and lick your hand. Do that, and I’ll admit you into my program.”
“Go ahead,” Emmanuel told Oscar. “Show him what you can do.”
The dean looked amused. “She hates kids,” he added.
“Not for long,” Emmanuel said confidently.
Oscar let out a nervous sigh. He locked eyes with Reina, who now appeared to be half asleep. He had no idea how his strange ability worked and tried pleading silently with the animal.
Help me out here, Reina. He held out his hand. Be my friend. I won’t hurt you.
Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series Page 60