by Gage Lee
“It’s not just that they’re afraid I can’t win,” I said. “They don’t want me to win. There’s something about the second reward they want to keep out of my hands. They’re willing to sacrifice a lot to make sure that happens.”
I tried to remember everything about the meeting I’d just had with the team leaders. They’d all been dead set against me, except for Tochi. He’d seemed flippant about the whole thing, and I wasn’t sure why. And then, in the middle of everything, he’d acted the fool and dropped his ax. Why would he draw attention to himself like that?
The ax. Had he been trying to tell us something with that little stunt?
I dashed around the table to where Tochi had been seated. There was nothing on the table, nothing in his chair. I kneeled on the floor and examined the indentation where his ax had fallen. I channeled a tiny globe of jinsei between my fingers and let the light play over the carpet. Something sparkled between the fibers. A long, silvery thread.
I plucked it from where it lay within the outline of the ax’s head and held it up for Clem to see.
“Any idea what this is?” I asked. The thread was about the thickness of a human hair, slightly springy, and a yard long. “This was on the carpet where Tochi dropped his ax.”
Clem rushed over to me, peered at the item dangling between my fingers, and gestured at the table.
“I’m not positive, but I think it’s a snake script.” She tapped the table’s lacquered surface. “Put it here.”
I dropped the thread on top of the table, and it coiled into a loose circle.
“Yes,” Clem said. “That’s it.”
Excitedly, she ran her fingers around the silver thread. Jinsei trickled from her fingertip, forming a second circle around the first. One second passed, then two. The jinsei that Clem had left behind coiled tighter and tighter. Then, with a sharp pop, the two circles became one.
The silver wire contorted itself across the table like a snake. It writhed back and forth for a moment, undulating waves passing along its length. Then, bit by bit, it spelled out a long, spidery line of text.
“The brother has your rewards. Challenge in two days.” I read the script, and my heart sank. “Why would he tell us this?”
“Honor,” Clem said flatly. “The Jinsei Institute must not agree with what’s happening. They want you to compete, Jace.”
“He could have given me some more information.” I scratched my head, frustrated. “What am I supposed to do with this? The brother has my reward—that must mean Brother Rhône—but how does that help me find the challenge? And where is this challenge that’s going to happen in two days?”
“He couldn’t risk a more direct message, and a snake script won’t hold many words.” Clem tilted her head back and forth as if trying to ferret some deeper meaning behind the pair of short sentences. “He took a big risk just giving you this much. It’s up to us to figure out what he meant.”
That was always the problem. No one could ever tell me the whole story. Everything came in bits and pieces that I had to figure out how to stick together.
“Where is the brother staying?” I asked Clem. “If he’s got our reward, it’s probably in his quarters.”
“I think I know where he’s staying,” Clem said quietly.
“We should gather the others,” I started, and Clem cut me off.
“No, no one else. We don’t know who we can trust, Jace.”
“We can trust our own team,” I insisted. “You think Eric or Abi might turn against us? That’s ridiculous.”
“No,” Clem said. “Not them.”
“You think Hagar would betray me?” I shook my head in disbelief. “She saved my life, more times than I can count. There’s no way she’d cause problems for us.”
Clem gathered the thread off the table and twisted it around her index finger until it formed a thin band that looked for all the world like a simple ring. She touched a droplet of jinsei from her fingertip to the thread, sealing it in place. It was a good disguise, and we wouldn’t have to worry about anyone finding it. But it still didn’t answer how Clem felt about my handler.
“I don’t think she’d betray us,” Clem said carefully. “But I do think she’d report all of this back to the elders. It’s something they’d want to know, don’t you think? And once they find out about it, there’s a chance someone else in your clan will hear the details. And, honestly, Jace, we don’t know who might turn us in to the Inquisition. Let’s get the reward, first.”
As much as I hated to admit it, Clem had a point. Telling anyone else what we were up to could disrupt our entire plan. We had to keep this between us for the moment. I let out a sigh and nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “You win. We’ll tell the others after we’ve secured the reward.”
“We’ll tell them when we both agree it’s safe for them to know,” Clem clarified.
“Agreed. You said you might know where Inquisitor Rhône is staying,” I said.
“I do,” Clem said with a grin. “When my mom was here for the tribunal, she stayed in the guest wing. There aren’t many rooms there. That has to be where he’s staying.”
“Do you know how to find your way back there?” I’d had no idea that the school even had a guest wing, though I suppose I should have. There were plenty of people coming in and out during my first year at the school. Sages, elders from other clans, and Clem’s mom, for starters.
“Of course,” Clem said. “I wouldn’t forget something like that. Let’s go!”
I chased along after my friend, and we quickly made our way into the newer areas of the School. The stone floors and walls gave way to luxurious wood and Venetian plaster, with soft rounded corners and warm lighting from recessed sconces. Attractive portraits of the School’s founders and current faculty dotted the walls, their gentle smiles exuding a warm welcome to any guests.
“Here we go,” Clem said. “This was the guest wing where we stayed.”
Thick wooden doors lined the hallway, four to a side. They were heavy enough to withstand a concerted attack, though I didn’t detect any scrivenings or aspects tied to them. The School likely considered their location within its bounds to be protection enough for most visitors.
“Any idea which one he’s staying in?” I asked.
“Let’s find out,” Clem said with an impish grin. She darted from one door to the next, twisting each handle. I took the opposite side of the hall, and soon we’d reached the end. Seven of the eight doors were unlocked. The last one, on the far end of the right side of the hall, was secured.
“We should break it down,” Clem said.
“And what if he’s in there?” I asked. “Or, more likely, what if he’s got a trap set?”
“That’s a good point,” Clem admitted. “I don’t sense anything on this side of this hall, though. Do you?”
I closed my eyes and concentrated. The inquisitor’s core wasn’t as powerful as mine, but it was strong enough I’d be able to detect him anywhere within the hallway or the rooms connected to it. I felt nothing.
On the other hand, the doorknob radiated a significant amount of jinsei. I couldn’t see any scrivenings on this side, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a nasty bit of work on the other side waiting to be sprung on anyone stupid enough to force the door open.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said quietly. I led Clem to the room next to the inquisitor’s, and we slipped inside. I locked the door behind us, then gestured for her to join me at the window. Waves lapped at the rocky shore outside, and the sun’s rays cast rainbows across the thick glass window. This floor was about thirty feet above the ocean, a sheer drop that would not feel good if I took a spill. Fortunately, I didn’t intend to fall.
“I’m just going to pop out here, slip across that ledge, then open the window and drop into his room. I’ll find our reward from the last challenge and come right back.”
“That’s an excellent plan for a spider,” Clem said with a frown.
“
The ledge is plenty wide.” I pushed the window open and was relieved to find that it didn’t squeak and moved smoothly in its frame. I looked at the outside of the window and saw the ledge was at least eight inches wide. I’d have no problem walking along that. The window also had handles on the outside, which would make things much easier. “Time to be a spider. I’ll see you on the other side.”
Before Clem could stop me, I hopped up onto the windowsill and stepped out onto the ledge. Luck was with me, and it was even wider than it looked. The only way I’d fall is if I was extremely clumsy.
Or something attacked me.
Banishing that grim thought, I eased along the ledge toward the end of the guest wing. It only took me a few seconds to reach the other window, which was covered by a heavy curtain. I rested my fingertips against the glass and felt no scrivenings. I grabbed hold of the handle and slowly, carefully, pulled it open.
Or, I would have, except it was latched.
Fine, I’d do it the hard way. I took a deep breath in, let a deep breath out. Aspects of the sea, a gentle breeze, salt, and water, all filled my aura. I took it slow, careful to let the jinsei ooze out of my core long before it caused any stress. Meanwhile, the wind had kicked up enough to spritz the ledge with some sea spray that made it slippier than it had any right to be. After a nerve-wracking minute clinging to the side of the building, I’d gathered enough aspects into my aura to summon my serpents. They eased out of my aura, slipped under the window, then rose up the inside of the glass until they found the latch.
Security at the school was tight, but it wasn’t impenetrable. There was no way to ward and scriven every single window in the entire campus. Instead, they’d opted to use standard locks on the exterior, with more heavily fortified hallways and doors nearer areas that needed the most protection. After all, anyone attacking the School of Swords and Serpents would go after the students, not the infrequent guests who used these rooms.
The latch popped free, and I pulled the window open and dropped into the room, staying behind the curtain. I left the window slightly ajar, so I could make a speedy escape without having to force it open. I held my breath, waited for any sound, and when none came, emerged from my hiding place.
The guest room was basically the same as the first one we’d gone into. There was a desk on the wall nearest the door. To its right, facing the door, was a closet. The left side of the room held a bed and a clear space for meditation or pacing the floor while waiting for an appointment. Inquisitor Rhône hadn’t brought many personal touches from home with him. I glanced in the closet and found five sets of identical red robes, as well as two pairs of slippers.
I shuffled through each of the robes quickly and found nothing of value. I lifted his pillow, peeked under the bed, and even raised the mattress. There was nothing in any of those hiding spaces, either.
That just left the desk.
I rolled the chair away from it and carefully opened the center drawer. I found a slim notebook with a red cover emblazoned with a stylized Empyrean Flame. I opened it, flipped through the pages, and found nothing. Either Rhône had used an invisible ink that I didn’t have time to uncover, or it was simply an empty journal Rhône hadn’t gotten around to filling. Either way, it wasn’t my prize.
I moved on to rifling the drawer on the right side of the desk and found much more interesting material within.
A small black box, with a glossy, almost mirror-smooth exterior, sat at the front of the drawer. I carefully lifted it from its resting place and set it on top of the desk. Even more intriguingly, a stack of letters lay at the back of the drawer. They were all enclosed in thick, cream-colored envelopes. They also had wax seals, or the remnants of broken ones, on the flaps. There was no information on either the front or the back, though the wax that remained gave the vague impression of a spiral, or a circle. Curiosity demanded I lay several of them out on the desk to get a better look at the image, but a sudden noise in the hall outside set my heart jumping into my throat and froze me in place.
“Headmistress.” Clem’s voice was tight. “You surprised me.”
“And you surprised me,” the headmistress responded sharply. “What are you doing here, Ms. Hark?”
“Oh,” Clem said. “I was reminiscing about my first year. I visited my mother in this part of the school then, and I thought—”
“Ms. Hark,” Cruzal said with a sharp edge to her words. “Surely you don’t think I believe such a flimsy excuse. What are you really doing here?”
I didn’t have time to listen to the rest of their conversation, but I knew Clem would find a way to wiggle out of her predicament. I had a very specific mission to complete, and I’d just run out of time. I opened the lacquered case and glanced inside.
The box was lined with thick black velvet. It held only two items. One of them was an oblong stone sculpture with a slight curve along its length and rounded edges. One end was jagged and sharp, as if it had been broken off a much larger piece. That was weird. The other item was an orichalcum compass with a ring of numbers and letters running around its outside edge. The red-gold treasure’s aura filled the room with its glow. This was an item of immense power. It had to be the prize.
“And if it’s not,” I muttered to myself, “I’m taking it, anyway.”
I returned the envelopes to the drawer, then closed the box carefully and slipped it inside my robes. I wouldn’t trust it there for long, but it was a fine makeshift sack for the short amount of time it would take me to cross from the Rhône’s room back to the empty one.
Except, I couldn’t go back there. It was too close to Cruzal. I padded across the inquisitor’s quarters, soft and stealthy as a cat, slipped behind the curtain, and eased myself outside. I pushed the window closed, then slipped along the ledge until I reached the second window from the inquisitor’s room. This one wasn’t locked, and I slipped inside, quiet as a mouse.
Cruzal and Clem were still talking in the hall, so I took a seat on the bed and waited quietly for them to leave.
I heard Clem muttering to herself as she walked back down the hallway, but I could no longer hear Cruzal. I waited, then waited some more, then waited even longer. I really had no idea if the headmistress was out there in the hall or had moved on to pester someone else. If I got closer, I might be able to detect her core. But then, she’d be able to detect mine, as well.
I’d just have to take my chances.
I eased the door open, peered outside, and when I saw no one, I headed back to my room as fast as I could go without attracting unnecessary attention by running.
As I made my way back, I couldn’t shake the image of those wax seals. There was something familiar about the curl at the bottom. It bothered me to no end, and snippets and snatches of its appearance flickered through my thoughts right up until I reached my doorway.
And then, just as I stepped into my room, it hit me.
I knew exactly where I’d seen that symbol before.
On the backs of the robes of the Shambala team.
The Bonds
“DON’T GET ANGRY,” HAHEN said as soon as I’d entered the room.
My eyes flicked from the rat spirit sitting on my desk to the dragon dangling its legs off my headboard to my other guest, who was perched on the edge of my bed.
“You know I would have seen her in class tomorrow,” I said to my mentor. “I’m not sure why you had to bring her here.”
“I’m sorry.” Christina’s voice was barely above a whisper. She wrung her hands together, then looked up at me through her bangs. “I should go.”
“No, it’s okay.” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Though these two should know better than to bring people to my room unexpectedly. Things are a little tense, you guys. What if I’d left a trap on the door?”
“Then I would have disarmed it.” Hahen puffed out his chest.
“Yeah, yeah.” It was impossible not to chuckle at the rat spirit’s confidence. “You dragged her all the way up to the dormitory, so
you might as well tell me why.”
“Christina?” Niddhogg hopped off the headboard and settled in next to my student. “He won’t bite. Tell him what you did.”
That set alarm bells ringing in my head. Niddhogg seemed suddenly very serious, and Christina looked like she expected me to bite her head off for whatever had happened. She’d scarcely meet my eyes, and when she finally spoke I had to strain to make out the words.
“I asked Hahen about your core.” My student fidgeted on the bed and squeezed her hands between her knees. “He explained the problem to me. I tried something I thought would help, and it just happened.”
“What happened?” I struggled to keep my voice calm. Hahen shouldn’t have been telling stories about me, and he definitely shouldn’t have been confiding that information to my students. It was hard enough to make them see me as someone they should respect without their knowing all my weaknesses. Still, it wasn’t Christina’s fault. She was only trying to help. Yelling at her wouldn’t solve anything.
“I did something to the jinsei.” Her lips hardly moved at all. “It doesn’t work very well anymore.”
I glanced at Niddhogg, who tilted his head slightly toward Hahen. The rat spirit seemed very pleased with himself.
“What do you mean it doesn’t work? Is it tainted?” That didn’t make any sense, though. Christina was almost as good at cleansing the sacred energy as I was.
“Not exactly,” she said. “It’s slow. When you drink it, I mean.”
Well, that was interesting. I’d never heard anyone describe the sacred energy as slow before. Normally, you drank it, the jinsei went into your core, and then you could manipulate it or force it into your channels. Unless, of course you were a hollow core.
Then it ran out of your core and was wasted.
“Show me,” I demanded.
Hahen tossed a vial from inside his robes to Niddhogg, who handed it to Christina. She glanced nervously up at me, then popped the cap and downed the jinsei in a single gulp. The silver fluid glowed from within her mouth for a moment, then she swallowed with a grimace and it was gone.