The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2)

by Sethlen, Aron

  Pard peeks back and mouths, sorry, and then he continues to wobble forward until his eyes meet Nox, sitting next to Sully. Pard stutter steps and gulps.

  Nox, twirling his pencil between his fingers, raises his hand and taps the tip of the eraser on his temple where he hit Pard with the snowball. He raises his eyebrows twice and grins, exposing his grossly crooked-white teeth. Then he sweeps his pencil across his throat, mimicking a blade slicing through skin.

  Pard sucks in a quick breath and shuffles forward again with his eyes fixated on his seat as he passes by Nox. Only two more desks. His eyes widen with every step, almost free.

  Professor Ames, still with his back turned away from Pard, continues to lecture with even more energy and emotion than before as he reaches the climax of the war. Every jab of the map is accentuated with an inflection in his voice as if he is reliving the battle he partook in, and he expresses the moment in every minute detail down to the shade of the sky to the choking black smoke lingering in the air. “Here! When Iinia joined the forces of Erden, they crushed the Lasteane forces of the Lir. And here! The Erden Commander Olo fell under the blade.”

  Pard leans forward, his goal within his grasp, but his foot catches on something. His giant stack of books shift in his arms as he tips forward at his waist. His eyes meet the obstruction as his neck cranes over his body. A foot and long leg stick out from underneath a desk. Pard’s eyes shift to the right and meet the boy’s. He grimaces. No, Blaine.

  The black curly haired boy Blaine, stout and strong but still lean, with a gleam in his dark eyes, his mouth curls up into a devious grin. He shrugs and thrusts his leg up, locking it into Pard’s ankle, and causing Pard to loose control of his body.

  Pard’s books fly out of his hands and crash onto the floor.

  The writing in the classroom ceases, and the tip of Professor Ames’s stick slides along the canvas with a zip as he whirls around to face the class. His purple robe flutters with a wisp of chalk dust flying off the adjacent blackboard. The teacher goes silent and faces the class and scans from student to student.

  All eyes shift toward Pard’s direction.

  On his knees, Pard palms the ground with both hands and clinches his teeth. “Shit.” He rises, straightening his back he glances around the room.

  Half the class watches Pard’s every move. Some of them giggle and point.

  Professor Ames, annoyed at the interruption, raises his pointy chin in contempt and sweeps a clump of long errant blond hairs back behind his ears. He eyes Pard and his brow furrows, but not a furrow produced out of anger, but one produced out of disappointment.

  Both of the classroom double doors click open, and with grace, Miles strolls into the room, cocky grin plastered on his face and head held high.

  Professor Ames, face frozen in shock from the back to back interruptions during is recanting of the Fifty Years War, shifts his gaze away from Pard, and onto Miles strutting down the center of the aisle.

  Miles nods. “Hey, professor, how’s it going?” He takes a big chomp out of his apple.

  The class roars with laughter.

  One boy raises his hand, and Miles gives him a high-five.

  Blaine, Nox, and Sully scowl.

  Professor Ames smacks his stick with a crack against a boy’s wooden desktop. “Silence!”

  In a fright, the skinny boy behind the desk jumps out of his chair.

  The class shutters and the room goes quiet.

  Miles, unfazed, munching away on his apple, continues to stroll toward his desk and chair, the only empty one in the classroom on the left side of the aisle.

  Professor Ames, expressionless, nods. “Both of you, detention.”

  NERO

  The sun already set, Pard’s mind wanders as he gazes out the frosty history class window during detention. This sucks, I should be eating dinner right now. His stomach growls. Stew and fresh warm bread. He sighs and shakes his head trying to get his mind off of food as it will only make the pain manifesting in his belly worsen. Probably cold stew and stale bread at this hour. He looks to the other side of the classroom at Miles, who has his head down and forehead propped on his knuckles, and he appears to be reading, but the long stream of drool dangling out the corner of his mouth forming a puddle in the center of his book says otherwise.

  Professor Ames pushes up his oval glasses on the bridge of his thin nose and presses them tight between his eye sockets as he scans essays with his finger. His lips pulsate and his teeth clinched, every few seconds he either grunts or sighs then madly scribbles on the paper.

  Pard scratches his pencil over a crude sketch of a boy shooting arrows out of a castle window at an elongated man with exaggerated features, bushy sideburns, and wings for arms. He slides the sketch away and slumps forward in his chair, his back and neck sore, he rests his wobbly knuckles under his chin to prop up his heavy head. Pard looks forward at dates and battles written on a blackboard. He rubs his tired eyes and turns back toward the window and peers through the cloudy glass, a thin film of condensation lies on the surface. Snow lightly falls in the dark. The courtyard is illuminated by several lit lanterns hanging from the copper posts. Some of the boys laugh and prance while others have a girl on their arm. Must be the local girls from Greysin, lucky bastards. The big dance is coming up and I still don’t have a date. He peeks back at Miles, head is now buried deep in the crook of his arm, he breathes heavy, every third or fourth breath the upper half of his body twitches like a sleeping dog, then he smacks his lips for a second then goes silent. Bet he has a date, and Pard sneers, sighs, and scans his book of odd letters and symbols. The rough worn leather of the book scratches his palm as he cups the spine and transcribes the title: The Third Order Of The Rue.

  Ding—

  A large grandfather clock standing between two windows announces it’s eight at night, and Pard lifts his head out of his book. He wiggles his sweaty fingers in anticipation, staring at Professor Ames, hoping the clock announced the end of his detention.

  Miles flinches and jerks up right, sucking in drool. He slowly turns toward Pard, his eyes red and puffy, he smiles.

  Pard glances at Miles, raises his eyebrows, and forces a smile back. Wonder if I slept through the entire detention if Professor Ames would leave me alone or make me stand? He twists his lips, definitely stand.

  Miles winks at him then yawns and stretches his arms high above his head.

  Pard’s stomach gurgles as he shifts in his seat. He looks back to the Professor. His body drifts forward, eagerly awaiting any sign of his release.

  Professor Ames coughs, and Pard’s eyes widen in anticipation. The professor flips a paper and continues grading.

  Pard’s shoulders slump, and he lowers his gaze back to his book. Guess I’m not getting any dinner tonight. The kitchens closed at eight anyway.

  A few minutes later, Professor Ames taps his pen on the desk. “I hope my point has sunk in. You are released.”

  Pard smiles and snaps his book shut then stacks the rest of them into a neat pile.

  Miles slides out of his chair like a snake and slings his backpack in one motion. “Later, professor.”

  “Lord Marlow,” Professor Ames says in a monotone voice, “I expect punctuality and no food in my lecture hall going forward.”

  Miles ignores the professor and nods at Pard. “Head on a swivel, Wenerly.”

  Pard rolls his eyes and presses out of his chair.

  Professor Ames lowers his gaze and goes back to grading the essays. “Not you, Mr. Wenerly.”

  You’ve got to be kidding me. Pard sighs and plops back down in his chair. He glances out the window again, lost in his thoughts. I’ve got to be the unluckiest person ever, this sucks, dang I’m hungry. Then Pard’s eyes fix on a marble statue of a stern man with angular features with his hand held out as he lectures to the courtyard, then Pard realizes how lucky he is, to be at this school, one of the finest in all of Vetlinue.

  Miles passes by the window and salutes Pard. Several
of the other popular boys meet him and slap him on his back.

  I’m sure he’ll find away to get dinner tonight. The kitchens would reopen for Lord Marlow at any hour. Pard sighs again and removes the top book off his stack. His stomach growls again as he wiggles in his chair from the discomfort.

  “Mr. Wenerly,” Professor Ames says.

  Pard’s head snaps up and looks at the teacher, not expecting to hear his name so soon. “Yes, professor?”

  “Come here.”

  Pard pops out of his chair, hugs his books, and hurries to the front of the lecture hall.

  The professor ignores Pard for a few seconds, still passing his finger over an essay. He shakes his head and scribbles, to wordy, be more concise, and the Battle of Als was five hundred years after the Nestvine movement, C-. He slides off his spectacles and rubs his weary, bloodshot eyes as he leans back in his chair. “Some of these kids,” He mumbles, “idiots.” Then he sighs. He clears his throat and sits up. “So, Pard Wenerly.”

  “Yes, professor?”

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  Pard gulps, hoping the professor does nothing with him. Though Pard knows that out of most of the teachers here at Fairstone Preparatory School for Boys, him and Professor Videl are the only two that stand up for him against Headmaster Yitch, or as Pard likes to think of him, Lord Snitch, Lord Witch, or Lord Bitch.

  “You know—” Professor Ames leans forward in his chair, and Pard snaps out of his thoughts and looks the professor in his kind eyes. “I don’t understand you sometimes, Pard, why you bring all this trouble upon yourself. How can the best student in this school always be tardy, get into trouble, and bumble around the grounds as if he doesn’t want to be here?”

  Pard steps forward in protest. “But I do—”

  Professor Ames raises his finger cutting Pard off. He glances away from Pard and to a portrait of a scholarly black-bearded man at the end of the line of many portraits lining the far wall. “You know it’s been six years since I took over this post from your father. I was a student of his, and he was my mentor, and a good friend.”

  “Yes, sir, I know.”

  The professor purses his lips as he stares at Pard for a few seconds without saying a word. “Go and don’t be late anymore this term.”

  “Thank you, professor.” Pard spins away and stumbles up the aisle as fast as he can without dropping any of his books, making straight for the back door before the professor can change his mind. Pard balances his books on his hip and swings open the door with a hard pull. One lumbering step through the threshold he sways to a stop in front of a tall, lanky bird-like man with a beak-like nose, white bushy sideburns, and wearing a fine-tailored red robe with gold embroidering. “Headmaster,” Pard says with a cough and scratchy voice.

  “Mr. Wenerly, detention again I see,” the headmaster says in a snobbish tone as he looks down on Pard frozen in the middle of the doorway, blocking his entry.

  “Yes, headmaster,” is the only thing Pard can spit out in his nervous state.

  Smelling fear, the headmaster’s eyes narrow like a snake. “A few more detentions and that may be grounds for your expulsion. What do you have to say for yourself, Wenerly?”

  Again Pard can only muster, “Yes, headmaster.”

  Yitch scowls. “You’re in my way, Wenerly.”

  “Yes, headmaster,” Pard says, though he doesn’t move.

  “That means get out of my way, or do you want another detention for insubordination?”

  “Detention?” Pard immediately scoots by the headmaster, brushing his shoulder on Yitch’s red velvet robe. “Good night to you, Headmaster Yitch.”

  Yitch sneers and shivers, backing away from Pard as if he has the plague.

  Pard continues forward through the west wing and back toward the courtyard, moving farther away from Yitch but also away from the nearest set of stairs that lead up to his room on the fourth floor. He resists the urge to look back, figuring out long ago that it’s best for himself and his eyes to keep well clear of Lord Yitch, though for the life of him he can’t understand what he ever did to cause such animosity toward him, and all Pard can do is hover in the shadows, do his best at his studies, and not get into any trouble. Though the getting in trouble part is usually not his fault, but for some reason he’s the one that always gets caught and receives the blame. And speaking of trouble.

  “Finally out of detention, low-borne,” Blaine says, frowning and pushing off the wall and blocking Pard’s path.

  Shoot, not again. Pard lowers his head then looks back up, staring Blaine in his cold black eyes, trying not to show any sign of fear. Though his heart is pounding out of his chest and if it wasn’t for the giant mound of books in his arms, it would be visible how much his arms are shaking.

  Sully giggles in annoying spurts and slides out from the shadows.

  “What’s with you guys?” Pard says. “Why don’t you leave me alone? Don’t you have something better to do then to pick on me?”

  “Right now?” Sully says with a frown and a shake of his head. “No, no not really.”

  Pard rolls his eyes and steps forward. “Great.” He glances at the stairs to the fourth floor on the left and makes for them.

  Nox steps out from the shadows like a creature summoned from the deep recesses of hell and bumps into Pard’s shoulder, sending Pard tumbling to the side and crashing into the double oak doors which lead outside to the courtyard.

  “Come on,” Pard says. “What did I ever do to you guys?”

  “You’re here at this school, and that’s good enough,” Blaine says.

  Pard sneers, unable to hold his tongue. “And what makes you so special? Ten years ago before coal was discovered in some gutter in the Badlands, you and your family were just a bunch of low-class nobodies, and now you act as if you’re a high-class lord or something. You better than me? Humph. You can crawl out of the gutter—” Pard leans forward and snarls at Blaine, “but you’re still trash from the gutter, and I and everyone here knows it, even if Yitch and the board takes your daddy’s mountain of gold to look the other way.”

  Blaine’s tan face shifts bright red and his eyes flare with rage. “How dare you.” He raises his fists and steps toward Pard.

  Pard’s eyes widen, and he backs away until his back presses flat against the oak door.

  “I’m going to rearrange your face for that.”

  Sully giggles.

  Nox chuckles.

  Meow, a fat tabby cat strokes its side against Nox’s leg.

  Surprised by the sensation, Nox flinches and lets out a high-pitched squeal like a baby pig. He kicks the cat away with the tip of his boot, and the cat hisses back at him. “Get away from me, you furry vermin.”

  “Hey, that’s Yitch’s cat, Nero,” Sully says, “don’t hurt him.”

  “Yeah,” Pard adds, “what the heck’s your problem? You didn’t have to kick him.”

  “Shut up, Pardo, and mind your own business. I don’t care whose cat it is, if it’s touching me, it’s getting my boot in its face.”

  “But what about our deal with the headmaster?” Sully says.

  Blaine spins around and points at both of them. “Both of you, forget the stupid cat, we have bigger vermin to deal with.” And he turns back and eyes Pard with hate.

  Pard sucks in a breath and his eyes dart from Blaine to Sully to Nox and back to Blaine. He squirms in place with nowhere to run.

  “So what was it you called me? Trash from the gutter?”

  Pard raises his books to protect his chest, and Blaine swipes straight down with the flat of his hand, swatting the books out of Pard’s grasp. His textbooks tumble to the ground and his papers slide onto the floor.

  Sully hiccups and giggles as he kicks a few of the papers and then stomps on them, grinding them into the wood.

  Nox crosses his muscular arms and his biceps pulsate. He licks his lips in anticipation, getting ready for his turn with Pard.

  Blaine eyes the worn le
ather-bound book not like the other textbooks. “What’s this?” He bends over and picks up The Third Order of The Rue.

  “Don’t!” Pard says, reaching out for his book.

  Blaine angles his body to block Pard and then swipes Pard’s hand away. “So, what do we have here?”

  “What is it?” Sully says in a high-pitched voice, which fits his stature, though not his handsome face.

  “It’s a book, idiot.”

  “Come on now, I know it’s a book. But what kind of book? It doesn’t look like any book I’ve ever seen.”

  “This here is a book of the Rue. My father used to deal in these artifacts on the black market.” Pleased, Blaine nods as he ogles the ancient leather. “Nice score here, Wenerly.”

  “A book of the what?” Nox says.

  Blaine eyes Nox and talks in a condescending tone as if he’s speaking to his lesser. “Book of the Rue, it’s really rare, and really expensive.”

  Pard reaches out for the book again. “Come on, Blaine, I take back what I said earlier, just give it back.”

  “Lot’s of rare books like that in the library,” Nox says, pointing at the abraded leather spine. “I don’t see why this one is so special.”

  Blaine rolls his eyes. “Not like this one, Nox.” He glares at Pard. “And how would the likes of you get a Rue book?”

  “It was my mother’s. She used to do research on the subject.”

  “Oh, the poor mommy that got herself killed and left you alone at Fairstone?” Nox says, circling his head in a mocking manner.

  “Well, I guess she doesn’t need it for research anymore,” Blaine says. “Good thing for us.” He sneers at Pard. “Bad thing for you.”

  Meow. Yitch’s cat rubs against Blaine’s leg, and Blaine’s brow arches, and he nudges the cat away. “What’s with this cat? I’d think it’d get a hint.”

  The cat comes back again and rubs up against Blaine’s leg.

  “I got this,” Nox says, and he lumbers to the cat and sweeps it off the ground with his mitt-like hand.

  The cat squirms and growls and hisses.