by Tracy Deonn
33
AFTER THE MEETING with Patricia and Mariah, several hours ignoring their calls, and a fitful nap that left me more tired than rested, I arrive at the Lodge completely uninterested in sitting at a table and making small talk. Nick is nowhere to be found. Busy, he’d texted. That’s fine; I don’t feel like talking.
The dinner display is massive: shrimp cocktails on the rim of mini wine goblets filled with red cocktail sauce; vegetable crudités on two-tiered silver serving dishes; seasonal flowers in red and white nestling between baskets of warm rolls, crostinis, and olive-oil soaked baguettes. Layers of grilled pineapple sticks sit by chocolate-covered melon on a white serving platter.
Right now, none of it is appealing.
I keep thinking about how Mariah and Patricia looked at me when I told them that the Order killed my mother. I can still see their eyes: they may believe my story, and they’re sorry if it’s true, but they think it’s something I need to accept.
Their branches of root bring both of them closer to death, and so maybe acceptance is possible for them, but I’m not them.
I’m a daughter whose mother was taken from her.
Acceptance, I decide, is for people whose parents just died with no reason. True accidents or illness. Acceptance is not possible for murder.
Whatever Mariah did sent cracks through all of my old walls and brought After-Bree, raw and spiteful, clawing to the surface. I don’t bother to repair them. I just let myself feel. More deeply than ever before, I feel the presence of death in my chest. My mother’s, my grandmother’s, my great-grandmother’s. Now that I hold all of that death, how can I just accept it?
If there’s one thing the Order has taught me, it’s that I’m my family’s Scion. I have a duty to fight for them.
* * *
I’d been in the infirmary in the Lodge basement so many times, I’d started thinking of the entire floor as “William’s.” I’d completely forgotten it houses the Order’s training rooms too.
Even underground, the biggest room’s ceiling is twelve feet overhead. It can easily fit every chapter member and probably another twenty on top of that. Tonight, however, it’s just the six Pages that remain in the tournament, spread out while we wait for our coaches.
In the center are three concentric circles painted on a large square mat. The smallest circle in the middle is outlined in white, the next-largest blue, and the one after—almost fifty feet in diameter—is red.
On the far wall, lined up on a rack, is an assortment of metal weapons. Long wooden staffs banded with silver rings, four sets of silver bows with a quiver of silver arrows beneath each, maces, swords, and daggers.
I remind myself that I don’t need to win win. I just need to lose well.
The door bangs open. In walk a man and a woman in their late thirties. The man is tall and broad-shouldered with closely cropped blond hair. The woman is taller than Nick, and her black hair is cut into a short, severe bob. They’re both dressed in expensive athletic gear and wearing soft, worn shoes that make little sound as they walk.
“Line up,” the man barks at us, pointing to one side of the mat. We scurry over while he watches. If the eyes are windows, then this man’s are boarded shut with no clear view into what goes on within. “My name is Liege Owen Roberts, Squire of a Fallen Scion of Bors. This is Gillian Hanover, a Liege of Kay.”
Fallen Scion. What would it feel like to lose one’s Scion in battle? Suddenly, the man’s hardened appearance takes on new meaning.
And Gillian, Nick’s former trainer, was never Awakened at fifth-ranked, but nothing about her looks weak or incapable. Nick said she’d been in the field since she was fifteen, deployed by the Regents to fight Shadowborn worldwide, just like the Merlins.
In other words, they’re both plenty deadly.
“We are here for the next five nights to oversee your preparation for the combat trial, and assist with skill acquisition as necessary.” The last bit Gillian says with an eye on me, and it takes everything in me not to look away in embarrassment. Somewhere to my left, Vaughn snickers. “We will also referee the trial so that the members of this chapter, and the three Scions in need of Squires, may evaluate your bouts from the audience.”
When Gillian takes a step forward, the weight on her left side lands differently: she wears a prosthesis. It’s possible she’s always used it, and equally possible she’d been injured in battle.
“All Scions must become proficient in the use of a longsword, but not every Scion will inherit one from their knight. As a Squire, you will need to demonstrate proficiency in the weapon your Scion uses, as you’ll be generating that same weapon from aether once the two of you are bonded. Who here can explain the inherited weapons of the Lines of Arthur, Owain, and Gawain?”
Vaughn recites the details as if reading from a book. “Scions in the Line of Arthur inherit enhanced strength and intuition for battle strategy, and the ability to wield Excalibur. As such, Scion Davis uses a longsword. Scions of Owain inherit the Knight of the Lion’s aether construct familiar and use the quarterstaff. Scions of Gawain, healing, strength at noon and midnight, dual daggers.”
“Very good.” Gillian nods, her eyes assessing Vaughn quickly. “Over the next three nights, we will begin the evening with a demonstration, modeling the bouts you will undertake on Thursday evening. These bouts will be Page against Page, and structured so that each of you has an opportunity to demonstrate your skill—or weakness—with each form of combat.”
I wait for Gillian and Owen to step into the sparring circle, but instead the door slams open and Sel strides into the room in loose pants and a black tank.
The Kingsmage pulls everyone’s attention like a magnet, but he passes the Pages without a word, his face a blank mask. As he walks toward the smallest ring, he calls swirling blue aether into one palm and draws it out with the other until it stretches and solidifies into a shining quarterstaff. In the white ring, he pivots to face the coaches and twirls the crystalline weapon from one hand to the next, behind his back and across his chest.
I haven’t seen him since the fight between him and Nick. To anyone else he looks like his normal broody, stoic self, but I can tell it’s just a front; his casting smells acrid and sharp in my nose.
Sel is furious.
I take slow, deep breaths in through my mouth to block out the scent of his rage. I add duct tape and glue and spackle and plaster to my walls, because inside me, After-Bree is responding to him. She wants to be furious too.
“Selwyn and I will demonstrate quarterstaff combat,” Owen says. “Pages aiming for the Line of Owain, please pay close attention. Watch our demo for speed of attacks and for techniques to defend against a Shadowborn opponent, which Selwyn here will mimic for educational purposes.”
The coaches know for a fact that Sel is part demon, but no one else here does. No one except me. Distantly, I wonder if I should warn Owen. Yell that he should reschedule, stop the match now before it starts. Sel’s far too angry. Another, freshly cruel part of me says, why bother? If Owen knew who I was, he’d probably turn me in without a second thought. Let Sel beat him. Let me watch.
They start slow with measured footwork, one opponent rotating around the other. Then, at some cue, Owen advances, and the fight begins.
I can’t take my eyes off Sel. His movements are everything that I know mine won’t be: arcs that glide through the air, quick strikes that send his staff whistling toward Owen’s. Where Nick is powerful and arena-ready, Sel is lean and built for agility and speed. He doesn’t move like a human at all, and it baffles me that I ever thought he was one.
Loud clacks fill the room; the weapons meet again and again.
Owen’s staff whips low at Sel’s legs. Sel leaps—into a perfect one-handed backflip. The wood never meets its mark. Owen scowls. Sel straightens with a grin.
Owen shifts tactics, lunging for an overhead strike. Sel evades fluidly, under and around Owen’s attack, then twists his staff for a wicked blow to Owen
’s ribs. Owen grunts, recovers, and moves into a flurry of attacks.
Sel meets each downward smash, sweep, thrust, and lunge with preternatural speed. He uses the full length of his staff—the top, the middle, the butt end—and even blocks one of Owen’s blows with a bare forearm.
Eventually Owen lands a blow. He clips Sel on the shoulder. It doesn’t even faze him. Instead, the Kingsmage grins and sweeps low, swiping at Owen’s shins. The Liege blocks—barely—with a downward stab to the mat.
Still smiling, Sel presses Owen toward the edge of the circle, corralling the older man like prey with rapid-fire attacks. Owen can barely keep up.
Finally, one sharp crack to the head sends Owen to a knee. He raises a hand to concede, and the fight is finished.
The room claps as Owen stands with a grimace, his chest still heaving.
With Gillian’s help, the Liege makes his way slowly to the door, and William’s infirmary.
Back at the circle, Sel watches, unwinded, as they depart. He spins his staff idly, his face unreadable. After a moment, he holds the weapon out with one hand and clenches his fist until it dusts.
He passes by, close enough to touch, but doesn’t spare me a single glance and leaves without a word.
* * *
When Gillian returns, she instructs each of us to take quarterstaffs and pair up if we wish. Everyone except me, that is.
As the others spread around the room, Gillian paces toward me, her arms behind her back. I swear, with every step she grows an inch in height. “You’re the Onceborn outsider Nick sponsored.”
“Yes.”
“I won’t go easy on you.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” I snap, unable to stop myself.
She assesses me, green eyes taking in my arms and hands, my shoulders and stature. Then she heads to the back wall and the rack of weapons. She comes back holding two wooden practice staffs, banded with silver, tucked under one firm bicep. I grunt a little when she drops one into my hands.
“No matter what you do, engage your core.”
Over the next hour, while everyone else is in practice bouts with each other, Gillian works with me. She shows me how to charge, bringing the staff down toward my opponent’s head, and how to block by raising the staff with both hands over my own. Her heavy strikes send jarring tremors down into my elbows. I’m tall enough that my strikes make her stretch for each block, but that’s my only advantage. She wipes the floor with me, and I end up on my ass more often than not.
When Gillian calls time, my wrists and shoulders are aching. “Now I’ll show you how to move to maximize each strike or block. The correct position of your feet provides stability and agility so that you can move quickly into the next movement, be it offensive or defensive. Think of it as a dance.”
I lean against my staff, wincing from a stitch in my side. “Shouldn’t I have learned footwork first, then?”
“How do your ankles feel?”
I rotate a foot. “They hurt.”
“Good.”
I furrow my brow in confusion. She grins, all teeth and cruelty. “Babies learn to walk faster on tile than on carpet. Now you have incentive to get the footwork right.”
I envision slapping her, but the Gillian in my mind has me on my back before I can lift a hand. Her mouth quirks like she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
After showing me how to balance my weight with the staff in various positions, she teaches me how to move forward and backward without tripping or falling. Different holds make movement easier or harder.
By the time Nick pokes his head in, every joint in my body is both painful and unmanageable. My stomach is sore. My glutes are on fire. The webbing between my hands feels like it might tear if I stretch my fingers too far. I collapse to the floor in a heap and look up at the clock; three hours have passed and it’s close to ten.
“How’s it going, Gill?” Nick asks.
Gillian looks me over for a moment. “She’s about as good as you were… when you were eight.”
Nick winces. “It’s her first night.”
The older woman shrugs and plucks the staff from my hand.
Nick helps me to standing, taking my weight when I hop up on sore feet. “At times like these, there are only two words I can offer.”
“Yeah, what are they?” I mutter.
“William’s waiting.”
* * *
On the car ride home, I fall into an exhausted, aether-drugged sleep. Nick offers to help me upstairs twice before I wave him away.
The images I dream of melt and bleed into one another like oil over water.
I see my mother, hunched over her desk, writing. When she looks down and smiles, I know I am a child, and this is a memory.
Her face slips into familiar blue-and-white smoke.
I wear shining aether armor. Metal gleams over my arms and chest. Nameless, faceless Regents kneel on the ground before me.
Men in robes playing god.
I level my crystal blade at their throats.
Beside me, Nick gasps. My armor matches his. I am his Squire. But his sword is sheathed. When I reach for his arm, he pulls away like I am a stranger.
I am on my hands and knees in the graveyard, bent over earth and stone with hands smeared in blood.
The graveyard falls into never-ending darkness, black and silent and suffocating.
* * *
I sleep until after noon again on Sunday. Nick texted while I was asleep:
Gotta deal with some Order issues. Will try to text later. Have a good session tonight!
Just as I’m leaving for lunch, Patricia texts to ask if we can meet, and I tell her I can’t, that I have to study for my English quiz, which is true. It feels like I haven’t touched a textbook in days.
I fully expect Patricia to keep calling or texting me after I’d run out on yesterday’s therapy session.
I didn’t expect her to show up at my dorm.
I’m so focused on getting out the door to head to the library that I don’t notice her until she calls my name. She has her phone out like she’s about to call me to come down and meet her.
I sigh and walk over. “I didn’t know you made house calls.”
She smiles. “I don’t, usually.” I let her guide me to the grass beyond the sidewalk. Today her glasses are Carolina blue, and her shawl is cerulean and gold paisley.
“Let me guess. You’re here to tell me not to run away from my feelings?”
“I actually just came to check on you after yesterday. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I hike my bag up on my shoulders.
She looks like she has more to say, but decides not to. Instead, she wraps her bare arms more tightly in the shawl. “I realize our sessions together have been very unorthodox.”
I raise a brow. “You think?”
“You’re suffering right now, Bree. More than I realized.”
I look up at the sky. “Isn’t that what grief is?”
“I think you are suffering from traumatic grief now, and if you continue as you are over time, you’ll likely develop a condition called Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder. Panic attacks, or something like them. Your anger, your distrust of new people, your obsession with the circumstances of her death, and your inability to truly live forward? These are all classic symptoms of PCBD.”
My laugh is hollow and derisive. “Sure. Fine.”
She presses on. “Therapy is only beneficial if the patient wants help with the ghosts that haunt them. And I think that during yesterday’s session, we touched on your ghost.”
“My ghost?” I repeat, bewildered.
“An emotional ghost is a moment, an event, even a person, that hovers over us no matter how far we run to escape it or them.”
“Sure,” I say reasonably. “I already know the answer to this quiz. It’s the moment that I found out my mom died. There, easy.”
“Not so fast,” she says with warm amusement. “Do you want to know how I locate a
patient’s ghost, Bree?” An early morning breeze lifts up the edge of her shawl, blowing the material over her cheek in a soft billow.
I don’t, in fact, want to know.
Patricia presses forward anyway. “I listen for what they don’t talk about. Ghosts are invisible, after all.”
“Okay.”
“And you don’t talk about your mother.”
I open my mouth to say, Yes, I do. I just spoke about her. Right now—but Patricia raises a palm.
“You might talk about her death, but you don’t talk about her life. This is a symptom of the type of grief you’re experiencing too: an inability to process that a person is more than their absence. That love is about more than loss.”
“She isn’t lost,” I snap. “She didn’t just wander off and get lost somewhere. I hate it when people say that.”
“Well, what happened to her?”
“What do you mean what happened to her? She died! And someone is responsible for that!”
Her lips go thin. Behind her glasses, Patricia’s brown eyes have iron in them now. “Rootcraft is used for healing, protection, and self-knowledge. The same can be said for therapy. But you don’t want those things, do you, Bree?”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I turn away.
She speaks calmly, but her words are weighted stones dropping one after another, dragging my limbs down, pulling me into unknown depths. “Even if you succeed in your goal and find proof, revenge won’t bring her back. Why someone dies is not the same question as why they are gone.”
After-Bree simmers just below the surface of my skin. “I know that,” I say through gritted teeth, “but it will make me feel better.”
“Why is that exactly?”
I blink. “Isn’t it self-explanatory?”
Patricia narrows her eyes. “No. It’s not.” She turns toward the open quad and tugs her shawl tighter. “I’m going to go now. I apologize for surprising you here today.”
“That’s it?” I follow her as she descends down the steps. “You’re just going?”