Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists)

by Giacomo, Jasmine

  Eward spoke before Bayan could decide what to say. “No, no, no. Just because we can’t help you ourselves doesn’t mean we don’t want to, or that we won’t find someone who can.” He looked to Bayan and Calder for support. “All you need is someone who isn’t a duelist. There are plenty of people who work on campus who have no magic at all. And there’s the Peace Village students and staff. Hundreds of people.”

  Tarin blinked. “Eward, I didn’t realize you were so eager to marry me off.”

  Calder hooted with laughter.

  “Just be careful, Tarin,” Bayan said. “You need to be able to trust whomever you pick to keep your secret. If anyone finds out before you become a full Savant and can tell everyone about it, they’ll boot you from campus. And then we’ll be down to four.”

  Tarin nodded and sighed. Silence settled, and the hexmates studied the fire.

  “I wonder who they’ll get to be our sixth,” Calder murmured. “They can’t wait much longer. We’re the strongest hex in our class. We’ve even caught up with a couple of the hexes in the class ahead of us.”

  Eward leaned back from the fire. “Let’s have the teachers worry about that. I’m more worried about getting caught doing Savantism training. There’s no place on campus we can go without someone noticing.”

  Bayan thought back to his ill-fated skill duel with Kiwani, which had nearly resulted in her death at the hand of an assassin, and to an earlier duel in which their hexmate Odjin had lost a leg and lain in the wilderness for hours before being found. He also recalled that one person on campus did, in fact, know that Bayan was a Duelist Savant: Master witten Oost. The Master Duelist had chosen to keep Bayan’s secret, no doubt seeing some convoluted future benefit in doing so, and Bayan had no wish to force the master into a difficult position by practicing in plain sight.

  “We’ll have to leave campus. There are plenty of niches and obscure valleys within walking distance. Let’s keep an eye out for several, in case we need to abandon one.”

  The others nodded. “This is it.” Eward looked around the fire pit. “This is that moment. The moment when we take our fates into our own hands. Ours, and each other’s. We’re leaving the boundaries of duelist canon behind and following the advice of a sint. If they catch us… ”

  “If they catch us, I think Langlaren will understand,” Calder said. “They say he talks to the sints, too. It’s why he allowed Kiwani personal leave from training.”

  Tarin nodded. “That, and he knows she’s one of the strongest duelists in our class. She’ll catch right up.”

  “Still, off-campus training,” Bayan said. “You know how the teachers think of Savants. You know what they do to them when they find them, if they haven’t fully mastered their emotional link to their magic. This is our secret. Ours alone. No one else can ever know.”

  Shattered

  “And don’t let me catch you in my pie-cooling room again, Ashawi, or your uncle will hear of it. Now scoot.” The plump cook shooed a young boy out the side door of the kitchens.

  Kiwani paused next to a wooden table whose surface was scored with decades of blade marks at the gentle threat in Ginina’s voice. When Kiwani was a child, Ginina had hustled her out of the kitchens numerous times, often while the stolen pie crust was still warm on Kiwani’s lips. Ginina hadn’t given any indication then that she was anything more than the head baker. But then, Kiwani now realized, she’d been paid not to.

  Everything had changed since then. Sint Esme had promised Kiwani the gift of clarity, if she would just return and speak to her mother. All spring and summer, Kiwani had refused, saying she’d never speak to Inayu K’mokamo again as long as she lived. When during that endless, sleepless night she finally realized that Sint Esme meant for her to speak to her birth mother, Kiwani at last understood what the sint was encouraging her to do.

  Stepping into Ginina’s range of vision, Kiwani clasped nervous, sweaty fingers behind her back. “Mother?”

  Ginina looked over, eyebrows raised. Her thick dark hair formed a large bun at the nape of her neck and peeked out from the bottom of the white kerchief she wore. A tidy apron covered her green and blue shell-patterned dress. “Miss Kiwani. Heard you were here. No, your mother’s not here, child. As I’m aware, both your parents are still in Akkeraad.”

  Kiwani gritted her teeth and took a step forward. Her nails dug into her palms. “No, you’re my mother, Ginina. My… adopted parents told me the truth.”

  Ginina paused, pursing her lips. Kiwani waited, taking in the woman’s features. Ginina had given her daughter her cheekbones, it seemed, but Kiwani must’ve inherited her father’s nose and mouth.

  The cook picked up an unbleached cloth and wiped her hands. “Miss Kiwani, I gave you up. Do you know what that means? All my legal rights, and with them, my hopes for your future. But the lord and lady, they gave you more than I ever could have. You see that? And they took good care of us. Still do. My husband’s a right fine businessman now. All thanks to his lordship’s generosity.”

  The woman’s even tone made as little sense to Kiwani as her words. Hadn’t she heard what Kiwani said? Maybe she didn’t know the full truth. “But they lied to me. They never told me anything, and they spent a fortune trying to hide the truth from everyone else. Even from the emperor himself!”

  Ginina sniffed and turned to a broad wooden side table laden with bowls of freshly mixed dough and flour bins. She thrust a hand into a flour bin and sprinkled the soft powder liberally across the table top, then began kneading a lump of bread dough atop it with broad palms and strong fists. “What the lord and lady do is their business, Miss Kiwani. We all made our choices years ago.” Her hands paused. “That why you’re here? Trying to make your own choice? Let me tell you something: I am not your mother. I got a whole house of mouths to bake for, and my own brood of children to watch. That little terror I just sent out into the sunshine is my youngest boy. But they’re not your brothers and sisters, Miss Kiwani. They don’t even know you exist, except as their lord’s only daughter. And that’s the way I’ll have it stay, if it please you, Miss Kiwani. There’s no room in our lives for a prodigal duelist. We all have a place where we belong, and yours ain’t here.” Her hands resumed their stretching and pounding of the dough.

  Kiwani stood stunned, chilled, unable to comprehend Ginina’s point of view. The woman who had borne her was disavowing her in the most nonchalant of tones, as if denying ownership of a lone, loose stocking. “But… I’m your daughter… ”

  Ginina stopped again and met Kiwani’s gaze. Kiwani realized she had Ginina’s eyes, too: that sharp flex in their outer corners, when she was about to explain to Bayan that this or that action simply wasn’t done by polite imperial citizens.

  “Can’t be that way, Miss Kiwani. What would your parents say? What would everyone say? Everyone I know knows who you and I are to each other, who you and I are to the lord and lady. We can’t go changing that. We can’t. The best secrets… they’re for the protection of those we love. You think on that, now, and have a safe journey back to where you belong, Miss Kiwani. If you’ll excuse me, I do have work.” Ginina turned her shoulder to Kiwani once more and kneaded her dough with strong, efficient motions.

  Kiwani felt the world fade away like a dream upon waking, abandoning her in the only room left in the empire. And she needed to escape from it. Backing up, she managed to find the kitchen door and stumble into the vegetable gardens. Breath heaving through her throat as if she’d just run five laps around campus, she sought only to flee. The mansion’s clean lines and numerous wings mocked her. The bountiful gardens of flower and fruit belonged only to those who loved each other. The horses in the stable only pulled carriages whose windows looked out on reality. The finality of her complete lack of belonging on the Eshkin estate sank deep, wrenching through her spirit, leaving an ache that stole her ability to think.

  When she came to her senses, she found herself in town, at the foot of the hill sloping to the sea, with the setting su
n in her eyes. Kah’s distant form was silhouetted overhead against the pinking clouds. Her pack, with all her belongings, still waited in her suite back at the estate, but she couldn’t bring herself to consider going back for it.

  “We all have a place where we belong, and yours ain’t here.” Ginina’s words echoed in her mind. “Yours ain’t here… we all have a place where we belong…” The sweet-sharp scent of the waskukone’yen fields only seemed to mock her now.

  Kiwani did have a place she belonged. She turned her feet north. The Duelist Academy called to her like a beacon. She threw a last glance back at the calm turquoise bay. A beacon, and she was nothing more than a foundering ship.

  ~~~

  Bayan and his hexmates crossed the plaza in the dark. Above on the hillside, six rows of hex houses waited. One of them, in the Earth row, belonged to his hex. He grinned, glad he hadn’t been assigned a hex house up on the Wind level. The campus had enough stairs as it was. Motion caught his eye as he approached the main stairs, and he spotted a shambling figure in a brown robe across the plaza.

  “Is that Doc Theo? He doesn’t look well. Wait for me.” Bayan left his hexmates behind and jogged over to the stumbling man. As he drew closer, he heard Doc Theo mumbling. “Doc, how are you? Is anything wrong?”

  Doc Theo shuffled himself around and looked at Bayan with an expression of distant, doddering confusion. “Didja know th’ earth kin heerya?”

  The Laarwyck native’s accent was stronger than usual. Bayan could barely make out the man’s words, and even then, they didn’t make any sense. “What? Doc, you don’t look well. Let me get you back to the Chantery.”

  “Chanters!” the older man grumped. “Potioneers of song.”

  Tarin appeared by Bayan’s side. “What’s he saying?”

  Bayan saw that all of his friends had come to help. Of all the campus chanters who watched diligently for injuries during arena practice, Doc Theo was the one with whom his hex felt the closest kinship. “I have no idea. Maybe he’s sick. Let’s get him over to the Chantery.”

  Together, the four of them wrangled the wandering, mumbling Doc Theo in the right direction. Finally, he seemed to recognize Bayan.

  “Ah-hah. Thought that wa’zhoo. Don’ talk to the gardens. Hear me, B’yan? Don’ do it. Not safe.”

  “If you say so, Doc.”

  “Is he drunk?” Tarin whispered.

  “If he is,” Eward replied, also in a whisper, “it’s because he means to be. Chanters can heal inebriation.”

  Alarmed, Bayan asked the man if something had happened to upset him. He had to repeat the question twice.

  “Yesanno. Ever see somethin’ that was always there, and yer jus’ now seein’ it? Iz not good. I cain’t—spiderwebs. Big, ugly spiderwebs.”

  Doc Theo flailed and rambled on about dangerous webs. Bayan and Calder took hold of his arms, trying to keep him from hurting anyone. Over his bizarre ramblings, Tarin asked whether they should restrain him with magic.

  “I think that’d look even worse,” Eward said. “The Chantery’s just one tunnel away. We can make it.”

  Soon the Chantery loomed ahead of them, half of it magicked from the living stone of the cliff behind it, and half shaped to look as if it were living stone. Its second story windows, Bayan knew from experience, led to recovery rooms. His hexmate Odjin had lain in one, moments before he was expelled from campus for no longer possessing the requisite four limbs required to perform elemental magic.

  The hex reached the Chantery steps amidst Doc Theo’s soliloquy on snakes, who apparently couldn’t be trusted with pies. Before Bayan could open the Chantery’s front door, someone opened it from within.

  “Thank sints!” Diantha sighed in relief at the sight of Doc Theo. “Bring him in here.” The willowy chanter led the way to a small patient room at the end of a hall. While Tarin conjured a small flame for the lamp, Diantha helped Calder and Bayan guide Doc Theo to the bed. The man sat easily enough, interrupting his speech on which blood types were tastiest to bats in order to test the thickness of the feather mattress with a hand.

  “We think he got drunk,” Eward explained.

  The corners of Diantha’s mouth drew down, and she spoke in the sentence patterns peculiar to the Akrestan lands. “Doc Theo, he’s not drunk. This time, it isn’t the first. And whatever is bothering him, I can’t heal it.”

  Bayan and the others exchanged glances. Doc Theo had been instrumental in saving Kiwani’s life just last year. He had kept Kiwani’s devastating secret to himself when he learned that her blood type didn’t match that of her noble parents—an impossibility that led him to the knowledge that she couldn’t have been born from nobility. He’d become someone Bayan could trust completely. Something was happening to him, and not even another chanter could remedy it. “How long has this been happening? What do you think it is?”

  “Nearly a season now, with greater frequency. I’m… I’m afraid he’s losing himself.”

  “You mean… he’s going off his nut?” Calder asked. “His mind’s off squint? He’s losing his ducats?” Eward gave him a severe look.

  Diantha hesitated, then nodded. Her rows of short blonde braids swayed. “Some form of dementia, yes. Such natural processes, they aren’t curable. We can’t extend life past the limits we’re born with. If we could, we’d all be richer than the emperor, instead of manual laborers within our magic.”

  Despite his concern for Doc Theo, Bayan sensed a kinship between Diantha's words and something Doc Theo had said earlier. “Manual laborers… Potioneers of song?”

  The Akrestoi healer lifted a corner of her mouth. “Yes. Chanters here on campus, we work hard to heal every student as quickly and thoroughly as possible. We know first-hand how it feels to be looked down upon for a failure that might not even be our fault.”

  “Do the singers ever heal anyone? What do they do, anyway?” Tarin's gaze flitted across the floor as if she were embarrassed that she’d never inquired about song magic before.

  Before Diantha could answer, Doc Theo stood and pointed at Tarin. “Spies! Everywhere, spies!” The redhead flinched away in alarm.

  “I’m sorry, but you’ll need to leave now.” Diantha tried to press Doc Theo back down onto the bed. “Doc Theo, he’ll be like this for hours, but he’ll be fine in the morning. Just… don’t mention any of it to him later on. Your tales, they’ll just distress him.”

  “Come.” Bayan pulled a shocked Tarin out of the small room along with his other hexmates. “We have our own problems. Let Diantha care for Doc.”

  As they parted ways for the night, heading back to the boys’ and girls’ dormitories respectively, Bayan felt unsettled. Doc Theo was not what he’d consider old. The chanter didn’t look any more aged than Bayan’s father, Datu, whose hair had barely begun to gray the last time Bayan saw him. Bayan always assumed the chanter would outlast the entirety of Bayan’s training on campus. But if Doc Theo couldn’t do his job, what would happen to him? Would he be a danger on campus? Would they send him away? Would they offer a mercy death? Bayan had no idea. All he knew was that there would be a gaping hole in the tapestry of his life if Doc Theo stopped being Doc Theo.

  Far From Home

  “Just hold the note, Tala; don’t worry about singing the whole spell.”

  Tala heard Alton Bessia’s near-monotone instruction, but she couldn’t have held the note if her life depended on it. Her hiccups were just too strong. After the next hiccup, she gave up and stopped singing, feeling blood suffuse her cheeks. Behind her, Graela tittered.

  “I’m s—sorry, Alton,” she hiccupped. “I just can’t get the s—spasms to stop. I’m sorry.”

  The alton pursed her lips and sighed through a nose several shades lighter than Tala’s skin. Tala focused on the smooth floor of the classroom, where concentric circles of various colorful rocks formed seamless rings from the center out to the round wall. She knew how much Alton Bessia had looked forward to working with her—such a talented girl, the other a
ltons all said—but so far, no one had been able to help her get rid of the hiccups that assaulted her.

  And if you can’t sing at the Temple, then you aren’t a Singer. It doesn’t matter if you have perfect pitch. It doesn’t matter if your vocal range destines you to be one of the most powerful Sopranoi in the last century. Tala peeked out of the corner of her eye; sure enough, her quarton partners, Tonn, Daen, and the snotty Graela, were shaking their heads at her and muttering to themselves.

  If you can’t sing, then you’re not a Singer.

  Class let out. Tala shuffled down the curving, rounded corridor, buffeted by taller, faster students. She’d only been at the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies since summer began, but it was achingly clear that she was letting everyone down. The First Singer had personally spoken to Tala regarding her vast talent, and what a wonderful life awaited her with the power her beautiful voice could learn to wield. That had been when she first arrived. Now, there were no further visits to her classrooms by the Octet members who wanted to hear her voice. There were no more approaches by older girls offering to be her friends out of poorly hidden desires for personal advancement. She wasn’t valuable to anyone anymore. She was just an embarrassment.

  Skipping the humiliation of eating in the meal dome alone amongst groups of friends, Tala headed up the Akrestan Scale Tower to the third tier and slipped into her single-room quarters. She’d been favored with a view of the Temple’s center due to the high expectations that arrived with her, so from her cluster of small circular windows, which peppered her wall like windblown seeds, she could see the other five major towers, each named for one of the musical scales used in songwork. Within their circle lay the great Choral Hall, which occupied a cockle shell-like depression in the very center of the Temple floor. Beyond the farthest towers in the ring rose the Temple’s far wall, which formed a vertical barrier against the nearby mountain spires and swept all the way down to the Choral Hall. When she’d first arrived, the hemispherical cup of the Temple had seemed an otherworldly creation, as if Bhattara had dropped his stew bowl from the sky into the rocky towers of the Spineforest. Now, the mysterious, reclusive campus felt like a jujufish’s prison, a bowl over whose edge she could never hope to escape.