“How can I help?”
Bayan blew out a breath. “I still need to finish my final essay for my Etiquette class. Can you get into the Periorion and look around for the book the sint showed me? I can sketch a picture for you.”
Tala dug out a clean sheet of paper and a small charcoal pencil. Bayan made a quick sketch of the cover for her, and she tucked the picture inside a book on her night stand. “I can portal you back home. But I’m not skilled enough to open the portal right in your room if you’re not there to anchor the far end, sorry. I can get you close to your barracks, though. I’ll find you again the moment I learn anything about your book.”
“Thank you. Really. For everything.”
She smiled prettily as she sang his portal. The circle of light opened onto the grass outside the boys’ barracks. As Bayan stepped through, he wondered if anyone aside from his roommates would take note of his double entrance into the building that evening.
When he stood on the frosty grass, he faced her through the ring of light. Warm air drifted from her room onto his skin. “Please, try not to be too angry with Doc Theo. I’m sure now that he’s not crazy. He’s just distracted by what he’s trying to uncover. If he saw something dangerous at the Temple, he’d try to address it for the safety of the students. Maybe he dragged you into it because you were the only person he could trust.”
The look on Tala’s face told Bayan she hadn’t considered that. His feet started to go numb, so he waved a final time and hurried back inside the warm barracks.
His hexmates were so busy with their final essays that they didn’t even look up when he came back into the room. Kah gave him an enthusiastic greeting, though, hopping about and cawing. Bayan tossed the bird a bit of bread crust, then sat and skimmed his essay paper, seeking to regain his thoughts. To his surprise, he saw that his pages had been filled with many more paragraphs than he remembered writing. Someone had completed his work for him, and had discussed several subtle issues in the process.
He read over the eloquent conclusion and looked up. “Thank you. Who did this for me?”
Taban turned sideways in his chair and draped an elbow across its curved back. “That would be me.” Eward grinned over his essay, but Calder merely shook his head and kept writing.
Bayan gave his hexmate a crooked grin. “And what do you want in exchange for your generosity?”
“To know more about the girl in the middle of the room. Don’t worry,” Taban added, holding up his hands. “It won’t be for sale to the network. I’m just curious what sort of hex I’ve joined. I knew you had eccentricities and secrets, but that there was a new one on me.”
Bayan hesitated. The last time he’d been completely honest with his hex, it had split down the middle. Hating himself for keeping secrets from his friends, he said, “She’s a Balang Singer Doc Theo met at the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies. She gets homesick, so she portals to me and we talk about food and the ocean and stuff. You know, Balang things.”
“Good thing you’ve stopped mailing letters home, then,” Calder said. “What would Imee say?”
“Oh, is that the way of it, then?” Taban grinned like a toddler finding a new toy.
Bayan scowled. “Shut it, Taban. That’s not ‘the way of it’ at all.” He stuffed his completed essay into his pack. Inside, he wondered if that weren’t exactly the way of it, though. Did he want to talk to Tala alone because Calder was being a spoiled child, or because of Tala herself?
He shed his outer clothes, slid into his bunk, and threw his arm over his eyes. Though he pretended to sleep, his mind churned. The book—finally!—Tala, Doc Theo’s behavior, Master witten Oost’s teachings, the attacks on campus. What does it all mean? How does everything connect? And what business do I have lying to the people I should be able to trust implicitly? If everyone gets through this alive and whole, I will tell everyone everything. Absolutely everything.
A Hero Falls
Kiwani huffed out a white cloud of breath into the thin air as she and Tarin made their way through the campus tunnels, angling toward the Flame Arena for what Instructor Takozen believed would be some extra Avatar practice. Kiwani had used every persuasive skill in her extensive playbook to convince him and the other instructors that letting her hex practice after dark would give them a better shot at passing their Avatar exams. The instructors had been leery, but Kiwani had pointed out that all the daylight hours were packed with other activities. The only hours free to the students or the teachers were at night.
In the end, the instructors all agreed, motivated, no doubt, by their desire to see a full hex of Hexmagic Duelists become a reality for the first time in decades. It was a risk, forcing Savantism under the watch of an instructor, but Kiwani’s hex had run out of time and options.
In retrospect, her idea to request extra training time in one of the unused arenas every evening seemed all too obvious. But with the chaos that had enveloped the campus recently, she’d had trouble focusing on even such important matters as how to finish her Savantism forcing.
The hex had trained for hours every night since Kiwani’s suggestion was approved. So far, neither Taban nor the various supervising instructors had noticed anything out of the ordinary. One or two more nights, and all their spells would be bound to their chosen emotions, and they could call themselves Duelists Savant as well as, hopefully, Avatar Duelists.
Kiwani wasn’t sure she would ever use the title of Savant, at least not before she was assigned to a permanent posting in a duel den. With the recent bedlam her parents’ deception had caused, such a move might strike her instructors as a bid for attention. Worse, it might ring false, since she’d shown no traditional signs of Savantism early on—wild magic, inability to control spells, fixation on one general emotional state—and Bayan had. Being suspected of another lie was the very last thing Kiwani wanted.
How amusing to think that, after all Bayan has been through, he’ll have the easiest time publicly claiming to be a Savant.
Halfway to the Flame Arena, some shrubs beside the path rustled, seemingly of their own volition. She held out a hand, and Tarin stopped, too.
A slender figure stepped from the shadows. “Tarin? I need to talk to you.”
Tarin’s eyes widened in the darkness. “Kipri? What are you doing out here?”
“I could ask you the same. See, I’m staff, and you don’t seem to trust me with any of your secrets except the one you need my help with.”
Tarin stepped back and looked away. “Look, now is about the worst time you could pick to—”
“And why should I believe that you would say any differently the next time? You’ve been avoiding me. I need to talk to you about that. About everything that’s happened between us.”
Tarin shot Kiwani a helpless, apologetic glance. Kiwani’s mouth fell open.
“You, and Kipri?” Kiwani couldn’t keep her voice from rocketing into the high tones of disbelief. She winced at her accidental soprano reference and cleared her throat.
Before Tarin could answer, Kipri stepped forward. His mouth formed a flat line of frustration. “She’s been availing herself of my services for almost a full season, but apparently she didn’t think that was important enough to share with her closest friends. I can only assume that means they’re not as important to you as you led me to believe.” The look he aimed at Tarin was full of hurt and outrage. “You won’t see me again.” The tall, slender eunuch pivoted and strode into the darkness.
“A temper on that one,” Kiwani murmured. She watched him until he vanished around a corner, then tapped Tarin’s arm. “Come on. We need to get moving. We have a lot of work to do tonight.”
Tarin didn’t move. She stood rooted to the spot, staring after Kipri.
“Tarin? We have to go. Come with me.”
“Sints. What have I done?” Tarin breathed. “I just needed a few more days. Just a few more days.” She closed her eyes and bowed her head. “I’ve ruined everything. Everything!”
; “What are you talking about?” Kiwani felt her annoyance rise. She jerked Tarin into motion by the wrist.
Tarin didn’t resist. “Kipri. He and I have been—you know.”
“Kissing partners?”
“It’s gone past that.”
Kiwani’s eyebrows rose. “With a eunuch? How?”
“Rather an indelicate question.” Tarin lifted her chin. “Anyway, it’s been a while now. When I first explained what I needed from him, I tried to be clear on my reasons: that it wasn’t personal, it was to protect my hexmates. But Kipri… he hasn’t ever had someone pay that sort of attention to him. I suppose I chose poorly again. He couldn’t handle our arrangement.”
“You’re telling me you used him all this time just to, what, relieve your stress, and you expected him not to fall in love with you? Tarin!”
“I canna help who I am!” Tarin cried. “I canna seem to stop making mistakes, either. And this one’s turning out to be the biggest one yet.”
Kiwani reached the tunnel that led through the wall of the Flame Arena. “Explain.”
“I dinna tell any of you about Kipri because I thought it would be safer that way. No one could accidentally spill a secret they dinna know. You know they’d try to potioneer me for falling in love, like Lady Caolan and so many others. Now Kipri’s upset at me. He thinks I don’t care for him at all. But I do! He’s been perfect, exactly what I needed. And now that support is gone, Kiwani… right before our Avatar exam. Do you know what this will do to me?”
Kiwani stared. “Are you saying you actually need Kipri to pass your test?”
“No. Yes! If I think too much about trying to take the test without him to calm me down, it’ll stress me even more. If I test without knowing he’s there for me, my magic will be a ball of chaos. And… I can’t… ”
The frigid night suddenly felt surreal. Was this really her classmate, her hexmate of a year and a half, standing before her, saying she couldn’t make Avatar Duelist if she couldn’t have some intimate time with a eunuch first? Leaping ahead, Kiwani had to ask herself if the only way to save their hex from disintegrating at the last possible moment was playing matchmaker for a pair of lovers so woefully star-crossed that most romance bards would never have bothered to pen their story.
Blinking back into the moment, Kiwani gave Tarin’s arm a squeeze. “Let’s not overthink, then. Let’s just beat the guts out of each other for a while and try not to freeze out here.”
Kiwani finally got Tarin all the way into the arena. It still startled her to see Taban training with her other hexmates. She and Tarin silently spaced themselves a good distance from the boys and did a few warm-up stretches in the freezing air.
As she limbered up her body, she wondered if it would be rude to ask Odjin about how love worked among potioneers. Or if it worked. She felt terrible that she still had no good news for him regarding Sint Koos’s book—everyone she’d written to had expressed keen interest in the book should she find it, but no one had ever laid eyes on it themselves. With a shake of her head, she let her mind delve into her driving emotion. No one is perfect. Not my parents. Not my other parents. Not Tarin. Not Taban. Not me. I am flawed. I am broken. But I serve at the pleasure of the emperor.
Invoking her magic, Kiwani used her Wind Avatar, Stratus, to perform the last few Wind Avatar spells she needed to force into Savant status. Though her bonding session was again progressing smoothly, she saw Tarin struggle, first only occasionally, then with every attempt as the night wore on.
Finally, the redhead sat down in tears. The boys encouraged her to try again, but she refused. Kiwani let Stratus fade away and stood a short distance from Tarin, arms crossed. She knew she should tell them Tarin’s problem. She also knew it wouldn’t do any good.
“I’ll take her back to the room,” Kiwani finally offered. “She’s done for the night.”
Taban lowered his dark brows at her. “No need for snap judgments, hexling. We’re all feeling the stress of the Avatar exam, aye?”
“‘Aye,’ some of us more than others.” She reached out to help Tarin up from the cold pebbles of the arena floor.
“No, I’ll just sit to the side, Kiwani. You should finish your bon—your spells.”
Shoving down her innate smugness as Tarin acknowledged she’d be holding Kiwani back, Kiwani said, “If you’re sure. Do your revocation and sit over in the first row. I’ll warm the seat so you don’t get cold.”
Kiwani did so, then finished up her last few spells. She managed to resist the urge to let their winds whip at Tarin. It really wasn’t Tarin’s fault she required the affection of another to feel normal. Why did it bother Kiwani so much? A small heavy thought sank through her consciousness, and she knew that she knew the answer: because loyal duelist Kiwani t'Eshkin always followed the rules. Even the ones that told her she couldn’t fall in love with anyone while she was on campus.
A specific face floated before her mind’s eye. Unwilling to follow that thought any further, Kiwani dismissed Stratus and stalked over to Tarin. “If you’re ready to head back, I am.”
Tarin stood. “We canna keep this secret very well, can we? Especially me. Taban’s going to winkle it.”
Kiwani merely shook her head as they waved farewell to the boys and started back across campus. “If he doesn’t, I’ll actually be disappointed.”
After some while, another rustling shrub caught their attention. Kiwani’s hopes rose. If that was Kipri again, maybe he’d had a change of heart. Maybe she could convince him to stay with Tarin for just a few more days at least. Just as she was frowning in distaste at how cold-hearted that sounded even to her, Tarin called out. “Kiwani? Can you make a light?”
Kiwani rolled her eyes in the darkness and summoned a floating flame. Tarin was entirely useless in her state.
“Over here.” Tarin pointed to the ground behind a juniper shrub.
Kiwani directed the light downward, and in its warm glow, she and Tarin both spied a pair of knee-prints in the frosty soil. Kiwani whipped her head around, but it was too late. Whoever had been watching them was long gone.
~~~
Before Bayan and his hexmates could rise for breakfast the next morning, a heavy pounding came at their door. Bayan felt instant alarm shoot through him. He glanced across the room to Calder, who wore a similar expression beneath his tousled hair.
Taban, looking down from his new bunk above Calder’s bed, must have sensed that something was amiss. “And this is the part where I’m a great stupid oaf for believing that was just an extra training session, aye? What’s really going on, Bayan?”
Bayan, in the act of yanking last night’s discarded pants back on, paused in surprise at Taban’s use of his real name instead of any number of nicknames. “Sorry,” was all he could think to say, before Eward opened the door behind him.
Instructors Aalthoven and Staasen stood in the hallway, looking grim. “Come with us, please, duelists.”
The others looked at Bayan. He pressed his lips together, determined not to implicate himself, even though the whole Savantism idea had been his. He stepped past them to follow the teachers. The others fell in behind him.
The teachers led the hexmates to the Hall of Seals. As they entered the building, Bayan saw that the first several rows of the central hall’s benches were filled by teachers and Academy staff members. He and the others followed Aalthoven and Staasen down an aisle among the benches and up onto the raised dais, where Headmaster witten Oost awaited them, hands behind his back. He did not look at them.
The teachers on the dais seemed to be waiting for something. Bayan looked around. Wekshi and Mikellen weren’t present. With a heavy heart, Bayan realized where they had gone.
Moments later, the two female instructors entered the room, shepherding Kiwani and Tarin, who looked especially pale, up to the dais as well.
Taban shared a bright smile with the girls. “Top o’ the mornin’ to you, fair hexmates.” Kiwani didn’t seem able to summon the energy to s
mile back, but Tarin lifted a corner of her mouth in acknowledgement.
Headmaster witten Oost cleared his throat, drawing the room’s attention. “I’m afraid I’ve woken all of you this early in the morning for a very serious issue involving one of our finest hexes. I’ve asked everyone to witness the charges, so that we may come to a consensus that will protect future students from this level of outrageous behavior.”
Puzzled looks greeted his announcement. Bayan felt his stomach clench, then twist and sink. Not only did this sound like the end of his sudden popularity on campus, but it could well signal the end of his entire hex.
“You see,” the Master Duelist continued, “it is often the case that, once a student begins doing very well, he or she feels increasing pressure to continue to do so. This is a normal effect of the duelism system, and it pushes our students to be their best. But occasionally, a student, or an entire hex, will take matters into their own hands. They will seek out prohibited actions in order to further their training, whether for private pride or public acclaim. Such actions can be merely unwise, or they can range into the truly deadly.
“This hex you see before you has engaged in such an illegal act. The pressure on them is massive, I freely admit. They are the best hex in their class—the best hex in the last ten years combined. All six of them, with their new member Taban, show the potential to pass their Avatar exams, which,” he added, finally turning to the hex, “had been scheduled for tomorrow. Today was supposed to be a happy day for you, a day of preparation and anticipation, but your actions have put your entire futures at risk.”
Bayan caught the looks of abject fear, loss, and frustration that shot across his hexmates’ faces. For his part, all he could feel was guilt. He’d pushed the idea of Savantism on them, saying they needed to do it as a hex in order to keep training together.
“This hex, and one duelist in particular with a falsehood to her name,” the master continued, “stands accused of manipulating the instructors into allowing them to traverse campus grounds at night, without proper supervision. Campus rules clearly state that a dark-hours curfew is in effect due to the danger of attack. Yet they ignored the danger to themselves, to their own hexmates, in order to push their training schedule.
Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists) Page 21