Academy 7

by Anne Osterlund

  Murmurs rippled in response, and rude comments sallied forth about the rider’s fancy horse and clothing.

  “And you are?” demanded the bearded man as he stepped forward from the crowd. He blocked the horse’s path and crossed large arms over his muscular chest.

  “Theodore Lorry, royal courier,” said the man with the plumed hat.

  Aerin felt a shudder run through her body. Even though she knew all this had happened long ago, she could not help but worry. Why would a royal courier have a message for her father unless the government was aware of his efforts to overthrow it?

  A narrow gap opened between the rider and the podium. “I’m Antony Renning,” said her father, without taking a step forward. “What do you want from me?”

  The courier did not dismount, a move for which Aerin could not blame him. Instead, he steered his horse around the bearded man and urged the gelding to pick its way forward through the crowd. The horse did as it was told, snorting at anyone who came too close. At the front of the podium, the rider pulled on the reins, reached down to deposit the brown tube into Tony’s hand, and stated calmly, “You’ve a summons from the princess.”

  Then the images began to dissipate. No, no! Panic rose in Aerin’s throat. She had yet to learn the answer to her question. But the simulation had not come to an end, only that scene, and a new one was taking its place.

  An elaborate room lit by a golden chandelier emerged before her. Carved oak chairs swept in a crescent around the room’s edges. A polished desk served as the room’s center-piece, and sheets of paper with neat, curled calligraphy scattered the desk’s surface. Two paintings hung on the walls, one of a beautiful pastoral setting and the other of an elderly man with a scepter in his hand. The king, Aerin supposed.

  The lone window, set in a wall five feet thick, looked out over a courtyard. Her father stood gazing out, silent, his fingers clenching stone. His clothes were the same as he had worn in the last scene, though he had removed the ragged vest, tucked in his shirt, and bound his hair in a neat queue.

  “So you are the one intent upon starting a war in my father’s own city,” a female voice came from the doorway. Tony whirled, and his jaw dropped at the sight of his accuser.

  The young woman was unlike anyone Aerin had ever seen. Her chestnut hair coiled up around the edges of a silver circlet. Dark eyes glistened below a smooth forehead and arched eyebrows. A deep rose color spread over high cheekbones and pursed lips, and a dusky cinnamon gown clung to her curved shoulders before gliding to the floor.

  Tony, having regained his composure, dropped his head in the slightest hint of a nod. “Your Highness,” he said.

  “Do take a seat, Mr. Renning.” She gestured toward a chair. “I should not wish to have a lack of hospitality added to the list of faults you have leveled against my family.”

  He did not sit.

  “Pray tell me, sir, how a young man from the Alliance came to care so much about disrupting the only planet in this region that cares to deal with the Council.”

  Tony gave a half smile. “I doubt Your Highness has any desire to hear the truth.”

  “On the contrary, I have been raised to listen to views beyond my own understanding.” She crossed to the desk at the room’s center, lifted an ink bottle, and placed it back down with a thud. “If I had not, you would be rotting away in a dungeon at this very moment. And the Alliance would have to manage without its most recent prodigy.”

  “I’m here on my own.” Tony straightened his shoulders. “Not on behalf of the Alliance.”

  “So they would have us believe. According to the ambassador, if you return to Allied space, you will be sent to prison. Were you aware of this?”

  His cheekbone twitched. “It is not unexpected.”

  “Tell me then.” She turned the full power of those dark eyes upon him. “If you are not here to help the Alliance gain control of our supply of ironite, why are you trying to cause a rebellion on this planet?”

  “Because the people of Mindowan deserve better.”

  The princess took a stutter step forward, then back, and her words when she spoke had lost their earlier tone of command. “Better than what, Mr. Renning?”

  “Than years of hard labor in the mines so that others can enjoy the advantages of the metal they uncover.”

  Hard labor. A thousand memories from the fields of Vizhan scraped through Aerin’s mind: the rips on her bare hands after weeding without gloves, the searing pain in her back and shoulders from working hunched over, the unrelenting heat bleeding her dry. Had her father been trying to save the people on this planet from the darkness of toil without hope? She had lived through that darkness. Its elimination she could defend.

  The princess lifted a quill pen from the desk and ran her fingers along the feathers. “We are in complete agreement on that. And what would you have my father do? Join the Trade Union?”

  “The Trade Union is seeking power, not better lives for its people.”

  “Then I repeat, what would you have my father do? He has worked his entire life to keep Mindowan free from the Trade Union’s control. I assure you, he did not go through all that effort only to have her swallowed up by the Alliance.”

  Tony’s jaw tensed. “I’m not suggesting he give Mindowan to the Alliance.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Then what are you suggesting?”

  “That the people of this planet have the right to rule themselves.”

  The princess reacted to the statement, her quill pen falling to the floor. “And you believe that would work?” she asked softly.

  “I believe the people must be given the chance.”

  “And you intend to help them achieve that chance?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “Through violence?”

  “Through words and conviction.”

  Slowly she retrieved the pen, her movement so smooth that not even her skirts rustled. For a moment Aerin could imagine the princess stretching out her finger in a gesture of command and ordering Tony’s death upon the instant. But the forthcoming words surprised Aerin as they must have surprised her father. “Then I will arrange for you to speak with the king, Mr. Renning.”

  The simulation faded, the images disappearing without another word spoken. Aerin waited for a new picture to form, but none came. “It’s done?” she murmured.

  Dane stretched his arms behind his back. “It answered your question.”

  “No, it didn’t. I asked—”

  “Who your mother was. The computer answered.”

  Aerin’s mind swirled. That beautiful woman with the royal bearing and aura of command? “She couldn’t be my mother.”

  “She could,” Dane said firmly. He stopped stretching and turned to face Aerin, his gaze intense. “You looked just like her at Christmas, in that red dress.”

  Aerin stared past the brown depths of his eyes. She had felt like royalty that night, like she belonged. And she could not have been more wrong. “Maybe the computer thinks I’m someone else. How can it know who I am?”

  He broke the gaze. “It must have gleaned who you were when we were talking after the first scene. A simulator is designed to input data whenever it’s running.”

  Could he not have mentioned that before? Now the machine would be able to trace her. But what did it matter in the face of all she had seen? Besides, she was already trapped here. She might as well take advantage of every moment.

  “Simulator, my name is Aerin Renning. If that was my mother, what happened to her?” It was such a vague question that as soon as Aerin had said it, she wanted to take it back; but the room was darkening, and there was nothing she could do but watch.

  She felt Dane’s arm slip around her waist.

  They were in a small, simple room, dimly lit. Night had fallen. A woman in a homespun dress and a plain blue scarf crouched beside the fireplace. She rocked the sides of a cradle and hummed a soft melody. Her face glowed in the candle-light, the same face that had belonged to the p
rincess.

  It’s true!Aerin realized. This woman is my mother. And the baby in the cradle must be me.Desperately, Aerin took in her mother’s image, filling the void that had existed Aerin’s entire life. While older than in the previous scene, the woman still looked young, no longer wealthy but in good health. Her dark eyes watched the door.

  Then a fierce pounding vibrated its wooden boards. Aerin’s mother leaped to her feet and flung up the latch. A man stood on the threshold, panting.

  “Oh, it’s you, Stephen.” Disappointment rang heavy in her voice.

  “Mrs. Renning,” he said, struggling to catch his breath, “is your husband here?”

  “No, Tony’s out, waiting for the announcement.”

  “The announcement came, over an hour ago. I thought by now he’d be here to tell you.”

  “It’s happened then? My father has signed over Mindowan to its people? I knew he would. If anyone could win him over, Tony could.”

  “That’s a lot of faith you have in your husband, Mrs. Renning, to give up everything to follow him.”

  “He’s an easy man to follow, as I’m sure you know. Hasn’t he led all the citizens of Mindowan to freedom this night?”

  Pride burst through Aerin’s chest. Her father had succeeded then!

  Her mother gestured for the visitor to enter the room, but he shook his head.

  “He has,” Stephen replied, “but that’s why I was searching for him. The crowds aren’t out celebrating. They’re storming the castle.”

  The swell of pride tumbled.

  Fear threaded through her mother’s voice. “What?”

  “They’re drunk, ma’am, and out to prove they’ve won. You know there were those who opposed your husband’s negotiations with the king. They wanted action, not words. And after your marriage . . .”

  “They broke away from Tony. But he was right. They must see that now. They have their freedom and without bloodshed.”

  “There’s those who don’t see it that way. They don’t want a peaceful transfer of power. They want vengeance.”

  Aerin felt disappointment marred by fear. Was this what had happened to her father’s dream? Her mother reached for a heavy wool shawl on a peg by the door. “Watch after Aerin, will you?”

  “But I wanted to find your husband. He’s the only one who can stop that mob.”

  She paused. “And they know that. They may have trapped him somewhere, or . . .” Her face drained of color, and she did not finish the statement. Instead, she brushed past the man in her doorway. “I have to go.”

  “No, ma’am, tell me where, and I’ll look for him.”

  “I’m not going after Tony. I have to warn my father.”

  “But it’s dangerous. I thought your father hadn’t spoken to you since he disinherited you before your marriage. What if he doesn’t listen?”

  “He has to.” She rushed off, disappearing into the night.

  Aerin barely had time to assimilate the news that not only was she not royalty—a fact she had no trouble accepting—but that her mother had willingly forgone her own status in order to marry Tony. Why then—why—had he been so reluctant to mention her mother’s name? Once again, the simulation shifted.

  Pound. Pound. Pound. Almost a minute passed before Aerin could recognize her father in the darkness. He was hammering with a makeshift club against the inside of an old door, and she realized he must be trapped, as her mother had said. Pound. Pound. Then crack! The door split near the latch.

  Tony attacked the weakness with ferocity, and the club did its job.

  He shoved open the broken door and sprinted into the night without looking back. Shadows of wood buildings flashed past him on either side of the street. He took a corner, then another one, heading uphill. Twice he tripped over unseen obstacles, but he kept going, his breath now coming in heavy gasps. He should be dead on his feet by now, Aerin thought as he cut behind a merchant’s shop and scrambled over a fence, then launched once again into a steady run.

  The sky was beginning to lighten in the distance, and still he kept going. Now he was skirting the edge of a high stone wall, the silhouette of the castle in the background. The gate, torn from its hinges, lay on the ground.

  Her father ran through the opening. No guards moved to block his path. Not a single person stood in the courtyard. Or at the castle entrance. Or the foyer.

  Tony sped down a corridor littered with broken glass and skidded to a halt at the edge of a thick door. It was propped open. For a moment Aerin could see only him, not the room into which her father was staring. Then he sank to the ground.

  And she saw what he did: the thick beams running across the ceiling, the ropes wrapped around the beams, and the figures dangling from the ropes—two bodies, their heads lolling against the knots that had severed their breath and ended their lives. That of an elderly man with white hair. And that of Aerin’s mother.

  Aerin’s screams filled the Spindle’s chamber. High-pitched panic slammed off the walls and echoed back at her, like a laser cutting into her skin and burning through her organs. She sank to the floor.

  The simulation had long since come to an end, its final image searing her brain. What more was needed to make her father into the man she knew? A man, without passion or conviction, who lapsed into silence for hours at a time and had raised his daughter alone, outside the realm of any planet or political boundary.

  Her lungs began to ache, but she could not stop the screaming. After years of horror, anguish had found a way out, and she could do nothing to curb its escape, would not have if she could.

  Then warm arms circled her chest and rocked her back and forth. Dane was saying something. At first, the words failed to break through her emotion, but they continued, soft and steady, until she realized he was repeating the same line over and over. “You’re all right. You’re all right. You’re all right.”

  She wanted to argue with him, to tell him she could not be all right, that she should not be. But the words tangled in her brain, and the screams drowned into tears. “I don’t . . . I don’t . . .” she choked.

  “Don’t what?” he whispered in her ear.

  She was thinking of her mother. “I don’t even know her name.”

  “Ilaina.” It wasn’t Dane who answered. “Or, more correctly, Her Royal Highness, Ilaina Seranee of Mindowan.” And the rigid figure of Dr. Livinski stepped from the elevator.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  REPERCUSSIONS

  DANE WAS LIVING ANOTHER NIGHTMARE. WITH THE echoes of Aerin’s screams in the background and the images of last night drifting loosely through his vision; the penetrating stare of Dr. Livinski as she had stepped out of the elevator; the long, silent stretch of darkness on the ride down, down through the Spindle’s stem, not to the hangar, but all the way down to the secret underground tunnel that led to the empty basement room of the Great Hall; the almost hollow shell that had been Aerin as she and he were escorted back to the dorm by the principal. And the love—yes, love—that had shown in his mother’s eyes as she took his father’s hand during the first simulation.

  He tried to brush aside the visions. But the present experience of waiting for the beginning of the announcement ceremony was no more comforting. The hard bench dug repeatedly into his thigh as other first-years moved up and down restlessly. Voices swarmed over one another, and sweat was building up on the back of his neck, no doubt the result of the dense crowd packing the auditorium—fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and who knew who else—all eager to provide emotional support for their own Zack or Zelda. Dane’s father had not come.

  The principal moved to the front of the room with her thick stack of invitations for the lucky students who would be returning to Academy 7.

  He would not be among them.

  Don’t care, he told himself. Don’t feel.

  He had known when he had agreed to take Aerin up to the Spindle that it would cost him. And it did not matter that he had
yet to be punished. Because the woman standing at the podium with her head high, her neck stiff, was the same woman who had stared at him last night with that cold look of . . . disappointment. He didn’t know how else to describe it. She controlled his fate, and he could do nothing to alter that imbalance of power.

  Don’t care, he reminded himself. Because if he didn’t care, she couldn’t hurt him.

  But she could hurt Aerin. He could not shake the memory of Aerin’s screams from his head. They had ripped through him, exploded out of her like the voice of insanity, and there had been nothing he could do. Nothing but hold her and lie to her by telling her she was all right.

  He could not look at her now. Could not bear to see the blank gaze that had gone right past him when she had walked away from him last night.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Dr. Livinski’s voice tore through the room, “welcome to the Academy 7 Announcement Ceremony.”

  The room sank into a brutal silence.

  His heart spiked. Maybe this was why she had not punished him last night. Because she knew it would be more painful to live through the ceremony without hearing his name.

  Don’t. Care.

  She began with the second-year students. The third-years would have their graduation ceremony later in the evening, a moment of pure celebration.

  This. This was altogether different.

  He had nearly forgotten that the second-years would be here, that they also had to be invited to return. There was no limit on the number of upcoming third-year students. They just had to satisfy Dr. Livinski.

  A task, Dane knew, that was not worth taking for granted.

  He listened with dull awareness as one by one the second-years rose to the sound of their names. The chosen students, smiles of relief spread across their faces, retrieved their envelopes and climbed the small staircase to the stage. A human line grew slowly until it covered the distance between the thick gathered curtains on either side.