Spectrum

by Samantha Mina

  “What brings you here today, mister?” I enunciated carefully.

  “Yes, um,” he began, his Ichthyothian accent already evident. “I would need… some two gallons… from that––uh, Scarlet, how do you say ‘fire,’ again?” Cease interjected in Nurian.

  I sighed and told him. “Sir, you can’t forget the most frequently used word on the island! For Tincture’s sake, ‘fire’ is the first word mage infants learn!”

  “Alright, alright!” he said. “By the way, what’s with this ‘Tincture’s sake’ and ‘oh, Tincture’ business? This isn’t the first time I’ve heard you say that.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a Conflagrian expression. Tincture is the name of our—their—Principal, as you know. I guess the Nordic equivalent would be ‘for goodness’ sake’ or ‘oh, gosh.’”

  Cease nodded. “Interesting.”

  “Let’s get back to the lesson, shall we, sir? You were asking me for something?”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat and tried again, but this time forgot how to say ‘gallons’ and wound up requesting two ‘gulps’ of fire, instead.

  “That was better, wasn’t it?” he inquired in Nurian after laboriously constructing the question.

  “Um, not quite, sir,” I responded, in Ichthyothian. “You see, I couldn’t exactly give you what you asked for unless I was a dragon.”

  Cease raised an eyebrow. I translated his sentence word for word and he actually chuckled, though without smiling somehow. It was the first time I ever heard him laugh, and I was startled by how the sound made my heartrate jump. It was like music. The first real music I’d heard, since Nurtic’s viola.

  But, I could tell Cease didn’t really think his struggle was funny. His temples pulsed and his forehead shone with sweat. He was obviously frustrated with himself, worried about the looming deadline. He wasn’t used to having difficulty learning anything. He was accustomed to being amazing at whatever he did.

  “How long did it take you to learn Nurian?” he suddenly asked.

  I couldn’t lie; he could read me too well. I kept my head down, buried in the examples I was writing for him—phonetic Conflagrian phrases spelled out in Ichthyothian letters.

  “A night,” I said quietly, aware of how very cocky I unintentionally sounded.

  “A night?” I could feel my face flush under the intensity of his astonished stare. “Who taught it to you?”

  “I did,” I replied, still not looking at him. “I snuck into the Order Chairman’s home library in Alcove City and got my hands on a dictionary and some grammar books. I also soaked in a lot by just sitting in public places and listening to people talk.”

  Cease was dumbfounded. “What about Ichthyothian?”

  “The academy taught me Ichthyothian,” I half-whispered.

  He narrowed his eyes into silver slits. “I bet you were already familiar with the language before going to the academy, right?”

  I was stricken; how in the world did he know that?

  “Am I right?” he insisted.

  What could I say? Yes, sir, I snuck into a top-secret meeting and had my first exposure to Ichthyothian from you!

  “Well, Ichthyothian is very similar to Nurian,” I babbled. “It sounds like a dialect of Nurian—essentially, that’s what it is—so, the patterns and sounds were pretty easy to pick up—”

  “Ichthyothian is not a dialect; it’s its own language!”

  I waved my hand. “Sir, you know what I mean. Once upon a time, Ichthyosis was a Nurian colony, so, naturally, its origin had to be—”

  Cease wasn’t interested in a history lesson, right now. And, he was too sharp to be derailed.

  “Were you or were you not already familiar with Ichthyothian before you entered the academy?” he interrupted, loudly.

  “Yes, sir,” I whimpered. “The first time I heard it, I was able to start understanding some of it.”

  “And, when was that?” he snapped, leaning forward.

  “Right before I left for the academy,” I said in a small voice.

  Cease tapped his mechanical pencil against the metal table. “The Isolationist Laws make that pretty unlikely. How did you hear any Ichthyothian if you were living in southeast Nuria, at the time?”

  I was silent.

  “I’m aware of all your powers,” he said. “And, I have a strong suspicion where you picked it up—or, should I say, from whom.”

  I didn’t dare to breathe.

  “You hid yourself with eye magic and snuck into the Alliance Conference.”

  What!? “Y-yes, sir.”

  It was dangerous to have someone know me that well. No one else could’ve guessed the truth, from so few clues. I waited for his loud reprimands to come, but instead he said something else that shocked me to the core:

  “I felt it. I couldn’t exactly see it—more like, I sensed it. I don’t quite know how to describe it. I wasn’t even sure what it was until I met you face-to-face in May and started feeling it again. It was your aura. It started about halfway through the meeting. And, when I passed near the door at the end of the meeting, it got really strong. That’s where you were standing, right?”

  I nodded. Cease, a Nordic of all Nordics, could sense my aura, like a mage?

  “You looked right at me, sir,” I breathed. “My heart almost stopped. How did you…?”

  “I’ve always been unusually sensitive to the spectral web and no one here can explain why.”

  “Wow.”

  “Do you have any idea why?” he asked, looking a little on edge. No, not on edge. Afraid. Cease was afraid of his inexplicable connectivity to the magical world.

  I furrowed my brows. How could Cease sense my aura like a mage, even when I put in a lot of effort into concealing it? How could I have a vision of him, despite the fact he didn’t have an electromagnetic field in the visible portion of the spectrum? It was the same question, I knew. Because both scenarios implied twining. Typically, mages could only have visions of one another if they were spectrally twined. And, twining was a result of interpersonal relationship. It’d always been assumed only colored frequencies could twine. Infrareds couldn’t. Until now. Somehow, Cease’s infrared lifeline twined with my red one. Even before we had a chance to interact. How? I knew my aura had greater dominion over the spectral web than any in history. Did that explain it? Maybe. Possibly. But, I had no real way to find out for sure. I couldn’t exactly research the issue. There’d never been a mage like me before. Not even the System Castle would have a spectroscopy book that’d cover this. I was venturing into uncharted territory here.

  “I don’t know, sir,” was all I said. If the topic scared him and I had no real answers, there was no point in elaborating. My speculations would only frighten him, without actually leading us anywhere. “But, this is a good thing, right? Sensitivity to the web would be an asset for someone whose job is to fight mages. Like, you were able to blow my cover in a second, when we first came face-to-face. And, I was putting in some serious effort into hiding my aura.”

  Cease nodded. “It’s an asset, yes, but I’d be lying if I said this didn’t freak me out, a little.”

  I sat still as a statue, hoping my face also stayed stoic. I couldn’t believe Cease would openly admit a fear. To me. I guessed he really did consider me a part of his inner circle of confidence. He trusted me not just with his men in battle, but with his personal weaknesses. His secrets. I was elated.

  Cease folded his hands on the table, blinked, and abruptly changed the subject right back: “So, you were at the meeting. If you were living and working in Alcove City at the time, what brought you so far north?”

  I swallowed. “I was curious about the war.”

  “How did you know about the war?”

  “I figured it out. All I used to do back then was study. I read something in an early-seventh-age history book about a Nurian stowaway on a ship captained by a Terminus Lechatelierite, and it got me thinking.” Maybe throwing out his grandfather’s name would derail
him?

  Wishful thinking.

  “No.” He shook his head. “That could hint to you war once existed on Second Earth, but it wouldn’t uncover the current conflict, nor would it lead you on a cross-country journey to the secret Nurian base on the northern shore. Is there a specific reason you’re lying to me?”

  I averted his eyes. Here it was. The stuff that freaked him out. The stuff I didn’t even understand myself. I was going to have to dive into it, after all. “Sir, you know how spectrally-twined mages can have visions of each other?”

  “Yes…”

  “Well, for lifelines to twine, you, um, apparently don’t have to both have frequencies in the visual portion of the electromagnetic spectrum… nor do you have to really… well… know each other, at least not yet. I’m not sure, maybe I’m an exception to the rule.”

  “What are you getting at, Scarlet?”

  I inhaled. “Sir, I had visions of an underwater battle. I didn’t know you or any Ichthyothian divers the first time it happened—for Tincture’s sake, I didn’t even know which nation was fighting which—but, I—”

  “First time? How many visions have you had?”

  I was taken aback. “Just two. Of the same battle.”

  “Which battle?”

  I looked at my hands and answered in a small voice, “The one you lost, sir.” I inhaled. “I saw it from your eyes. I could even hear your thoughts.”

  Cease didn’t speak. He looked away. Was he embarrassed? His dying thoughts weren’t exactly humiliating. There was nothing personal in them, at all—no desperate good-byes to loved ones, no flashing memories of his life. He thought of only his duty and how his death would affect the war. He cared about nothing but his job. I saw little difference between the Childhood Program and the System. Both indoctrinated their victims.

  Cease’s eyes met mine. “It was you who told me to let go,” he breathed.

  “What?” I blurted, forgetting proper salutations.

  “The day I lost the battle. Right before the Underwater Fire hit my crystalline, a voice in my head—like my own thoughts—warned me of what was approaching and told me to let go of the handlebars. That was you.”

  I gaped; he was right. During the vision, I screamed at him—or, rather, at myself––to drop off or burn alive.

  I saved his life.

  We sat in stunned silence, for a moment. Then, Cease reached forward and placed his icy hand overtop mine, on the table. I froze.

  “Thank you, Scarlet,” he said, quietly.

  I couldn’t breathe. Could he feel my hand trembling beneath his?

  “O-of course, sir,” I stammered.

  There was something odd about the way he was looking at me, now. His face was almost deadpan—but, only almost. What was I seeing in his eyes? Gratitude? Well, yes, of course. But, I could tell that wasn’t all. Approval? Perhaps. Yet, that didn’t quite hit the nail on the head, either. I’d seen gratitude and approval in his eyes before, and this was different. Greater.

  Was I just imagining things? I sincerely hoped not. But, why did I hope not? Why did I want more from Cease than just the simple thankfulness of a comrade-in-arms?

  At long last, Cease withdrew his hand and glanced back down at the pages spewed across the table.

  I picked up my pencil and cleared my throat. “Al-alright, so where were we, sir?”

  And, the evening wore on, long enough for Cease to fail four more times at conversation in Conflagrian.

  “Okay, sir,” I said in Ichthyothian, wrapping up the lesson. “That wasn’t too bad for a first try,” I lied, handing him a stack of notes. “We just need to work on your accent and your tendency to insert random Nordic words in the middle of your sentences.” If you could even form a sentence, in the first place.

  Cease looked dejected. He could tell my encouragement was empty. “If I use any Nordic words or speak with a trace of an accent in front of anyone there, our cover’s blown,” he said, flatly.

  “We still have some time,” I reassured delicately, getting to my feet. Right. Some time. A couple more nights.

  Not for the first time since joining the fleet, I found myself doubting my legendary commander’s abilities.

  Scarlet July

  It was seven o’clock on the thirty-first. Time for the inaugural Nurro-Ichthyothian infiltration of the South Conflagrablaze Captive. Cease had only set foot on the island once before in his life, if you counted his measly night as a prisoner, last week. I hadn’t been there myself since I was ten, and I was sure the System wouldn’t give me a warm reception if they recognized me.

  So, yes, I was scared photon-less.

  Dressed in full mage garb, I buzzed Cease’s intercom. “Here you go, sir,” I said as I handed him his new, black robe—I’d finished sewing it, last night.

  Cease took it from my hands without even glancing at it—his focus was elsewhere. There was an indiscernible expression on his pale face as his eyes traveled up and down my body, like an elevator. My insides squirmed. I wondered what he was thinking when he looked at me like that.

  “That’s real, isn’t it?” he asked. “Your robe—it’s the one you actually wore back home?”

  “One of them, yes.”

  “So, you brought it to Icicle,” he said, sounding rather unsurprised. “Magically cloaked your cloak, huh?”

  Did Cease just crack a joke? Well, it was the closest thing to a joke I’d heard from him, yet. I smiled, internally.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s illegal, you know,” he went on, voice miraculously void of anger.

  A lot of the Nurians had illegal trinkets—photos of family and friends, pocket bibles, key-chains that had sentimental meaning, and so forth. The biggest offender of them all was Nurtic, who somehow, without any magic, managed to bring his viola to the academy and then to Icicle. Hmm, I still didn’t know how he pulled that off…

  Cease continued to stare at my robe, eyes intense. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say there was some appreciation in his gaze. It was as though he actually liked what he saw. No. There was no way. He’d been taught all his life to hate mages, so the last thing I expected was for him to like it when I looked traditionally Conflagrian.

  The last thing I expected was for him to like how I looked at all, no matter what I was wearing.

  My pulse jumped higher than the Nurian Trade Centerscraper. Was it possible Cease was attracted to me? I certainly was to him—intellectually and physically. But, he was usually so cold, prickly and walled-off, I couldn’t imagine him ever developing a romantic interest in anyone, let alone a scrawny, Conflagrian mage.

  “Time to fix up your hair, sir?” I piped, more to break the silence than anything. What a strange question to ask my commander.

  After considering various aspects of Cease’s appearance, hair was the only possible ‘source’ we could come up with, for him to fake. His hair was convincingly thick and disheveled, but it wasn’t quite wiry enough to look authentically spectral. For that, it needed gel.

  “I’ll put on the robe first,” he answered.

  I waited outside his quarters while he changed. When he opened up, it was my turn to stare. It was so strange to see Cease in anything but white, not to mention how very out-of-place he seemed in the robe’s billowing folds; until now, I only ever saw him in a conforming diving suit or a crisp, ironed uniform.

  And, his boxers, once. But, Cease and I were pretending thatnever happened.

  I went inside and closed the door behind me. Time for hair.

  “Your name is Nox Acherontic,” I reminded him as he settled in his desk chair, facing away from me.

  “Nox Acherontic,” he echoed. “What does it mean, again?”

  “Black Night.” I shook the bottle, upside-down. “I chose ‘Nox’ because it’s easy for you to pronounce.”

  “How very considerate of you,” Cease replied, dryly. Then, after a pause, he added, “Black Night, huh? Sounds mysterious… and a bit evil.”

&n
bsp; I was silent. I didn’t tell him I had my reasons to think an evil-sounding name suited him.

  Fair would certainly agree. My chest tightened as I wondered for the umpteenth time how she was doing. I wished I could visit her. I hoped the hospital was taking good care of her.

  I squeezed out a large lump of goop in my palm, put the bottle down and rubbed my hands together. Then, I hesitated, gooey fingers poised an inch above his head. Why was I so nervous? It’s not like I could mess up. Cease’s hair was always a mess—that was the point. I just needed to smear in some gel so the mess could be wirier and stiffer. There was nothing to it. And, yet, here I stood, hands frozen. Why?

  Who was I kidding; I wasn’t nervous because I was worried about botching anything. I was afraid to touch Cease because I was so strongly attracted to him, and the idea of running my fingers through my commander’s hair seemed invasive and inappropriate in light of that chemistry.

  I was being stupid. This wasn’t inappropriate. Strange? Certainly. But, not inappropriate. Regardless of my feelings for him, there was nothing personal going on, here; this was still business. I wasn’t playing with his hair for fun or giving him a scalp massage or doing anything sensual, I was helping prepare his disguise for a very serious mission on which the fate of the alliance rested.

  I exhaled and dropped my hands into his hair. It was surprisingly soft and smooth. And, thick. I had to use three more handfuls just to cover it all. As I worked, I noticed, with a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach, that he’d closed his eyes, almost like he was soothed by my touch. I was relieved when I finished.

  “All done, sir.”

  He retrieved a small mirror from his desk drawer and cocked an eyebrow at his reflection.There was a long pause.

  “I look ridiculous,” he finally declared.

  Yeah, ridiculously handsome. “You look like a hair mage,” I said, wiping my slimy hands on my robe. “Though, honestly, sir, if you were to have a source, it’d probably be your throat, not your hair. We just had to go with hair because it’s easier to fake, visually.” Plus, his vocal control faltered when he tried to speak Conflagrian. He had to put all his concentration toward just remembering the right words.