by Heath Pfaff
“I’m alive.” I answered, not sure where I stood beyond that at the moment. “Has Zark been back yet?”
She shook her head. “No, you’re the first. What happened?”
“Someone reported us for . . .” I felt myself blush. “For having sex.”
Ori’s face went pale and she looked nervous. “Did you?”
“No, of course not!” I said quickly, angry. Her words felt almost like accusation, though I was certain she hadn’t meant it that way. “We’re here most of the time we’re not out training. Have you ever seen us do anything inappropriate?”
She shook her head and let out a breath. “Then who reported you?”
“I would guess it was Kiiava and some people she either forced into helping her, or that simply went along with her because they don’t like how well we’ve been doing in our training.” I answered, still furious about this.
“Where did they take you? I’ve never known anyone who was taken away and came back.” She said, showing more interest in me than she had since I’d arrived. I guessed the night’s events were probably more interesting than most things that happened.
“They took me to the Rift doors, and then through to some place where there were a bunch of Wardens, a dozen of them, maybe more. It was some form of hearing. They presented evidence and . . . “ I frowned angrily. “Most of them wanted me executed. They wouldn’t even listen to me. No matter what I said it didn’t matter. There were only two of them that I could see seemed actually interested in hearing me out, but fortunately they’d taken statements from all of the witnesses and the statements didn’t match at all. At that point there wasn’t enough evidence for them to kick me out, so they returned me.”
I grinned wickedly. “I called one of them a ‘vile bitch,’ and she broke my ribs.”
Ori looked horrified. “You didn’t!”
“I did!” I lifted my shirt and showed her the red, bruised flesh around where the break had been. The healers always left us reminders of the pain.
“You’re lucky they didn’t kick you out of here for that alone.” Ori had a mirthful expression on her face, and she actually laughed, a genuine sounding laugh, which was rare for her.
“I think they might have, but the woman who’d read all the reports shamed them into letting me go. She said they’re going to find the people who made the false reports and they might be kicked from the school for attempted murder, since Zark and I would have been killed if we’d been found guilty.” Mentioning Zark reminded me that he wasn’t back. I looked at the door nervously. “I wonder if he had an entirely separate trial. I hope there was someone there to stand up for him.” It occurred to me that if no one had spoken for him, he might be dead, though they usually publicly executed deadies.
It was quiet for a while in the room, and then Ori spoke up. It came from nowhere, and it was surprising for the suddenness with which she spoke. “I killed my uncle. When you first got here you asked me why I was at the academy. I said treason, and it was treason. My uncle was a piece of shit. He’d raped my sisters, all three of them, and then I’d gotten old enough to be interesting to him and he decided he was going to do the same to me. He came for me in the night, slipped into my room and came and sat on the edge of my bed, but I was ready for him. I’d seen him looking at me during dinner. He’d bumped into me in the hall earlier, putting his hands all over me as he pretended to help me up, so after supper I snuck a knife into my room and hid it under my pillow.
“He reached out and grabbed me, and then leaned down to put his lips against mine so I grabbed the knife under my pillow and shoved it into his neck with all the force I could muster, and then I did it two more times, and he died right there on top of me. Apparently I was screaming while I did it because my parents ran in. They were furious at me, told me it wasn’t so bad and I should have just let it happen, my sisters had and they were fine. They weren’t fine. All of them were afraid, terrified women. One of them became a Fel Cleric, and the others married men who used them badly and they can never quite meet your eye when you talk to them. Well, I wasn’t going to be one of them.” She said, voice cold and angry.
“That’s terrible, Ori, but I don’t see how it’s treason, or even a crime. That monster deserved what he got.” I said, angry that she’d been forced into the academy for that.
“He deserved worse. He’d ruined so many lives, and I figured it was probably more than just me and my sisters, but he was an advisor to the Court of the Iron Will, a high ranking one. Killing him was a crime against the King. I was tried and found guilty of high treason. The penalty is public flaying and then boiling, so I was pretty happy to be brought here. This place is terrible, but what I had in front of me was much worse.” She said, shrugging and then laying back down in her bed.
“I’m sorry.” My voice was soft and apologetic. I deserved to be here. Ori didn’t. She should have had a life beyond these walls, and the hopes of a real future.
“Don’t be.” She said, a small smile on her lips. “I’ve lived more since I’ve been here than I ever did out there. I was really happy here for a while. Really happy.” She said the last bit wistfully, that smile warm for a few moments before it fell away. “But everything moves quickly here. Nothing lasts. If they suspect you’re too happy then things get changed. Even if you’re not breaking the rules they’ll change things just to keep you miserable. Happiness isn’t allowed.”
“What did they take from you?” I asked, realizing this was at the heart of the reason Ori was such a hard person to get close to, and suddenly very, very curious about her. I felt like we were connecting for the first time since we’d started sharing a room. It was frightening, but it also felt important. It felt like I needed to know her, to understand her.
“Love, Lil, they took love. It has no place here.” There was pain in her voice.
“You were in love with one of your fellow students, you didn’t . . . “ I began, but she was shaking her head already.
“No, not a student. Someone else. We never broke any rules, though we were lovers for a long while. Others found out and we were split up. Neither of us were punished, at least beyond being torn apart, but we don’t see each other anymore.” Ori shot me a sad smile. “When I get out of here, when it’s all done, I’ll find her again. We can be happy. That’s what I fight for.”
I’d never felt so keenly bad for Ori before. I knew now why she went on with such grim determination, and why she was so hard to get close to. The academy took away what you cared for, and the only way you could even hope to get it back was to finish the mess. Deadies never finished. It all felt so hopeless in that moment.
We lapsed into quietness then. I kept waiting for Zark to return, but eventually sleep took me away, even in a bed that was far too big for just me.
4.2
When I woke the next morning I immediately reached out to check for Zark, and when I didn’t feel him I jumped awake, getting out of bed quickly. I slipped off my shirt and put my bindings in place before redressing again. I looked over to Ori was also finishing getting dressed.
“You didn’t hear Zark come back, did you?” I asked her, nervously securing my boots.
“No. I don’t think he did.” She said, a sympathetic look of worry on her face.
“They wouldn’t . . . I mean, they let me go, they wouldn’t kill him would they? If I was innocent, that means he was too.” I wasn’t sure whether I was asking her, or trying to convince myself.
Ori shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said last night, I’ve never heard of anyone who was dragged away like that coming back. Until you were returned, I thought it was impossible to come back after being taken.”
I nodded absently and left the room without saying anything further. I made my way to the cafeteria to grab food, keeping my eyes opened as I went. I was looking for a Warden I could speak to, someone who might know more than I did about what had happened, but instead of a Warden I found Zarkov. He was dressed and in line for food. W
hen he saw me he stepped out of line and came quickly across to me.
“You’re alright!” He said excitedly, his eyes looking a bit glassy for a moment, and then he blinked it away. “I mean, they said you were, but I was afraid anyway.”
“Of course I’m alright!” I said, a bit giddy myself, though doing my absolute best to hold it all in. “When you didn’t come back to the room I was terrified you were dead.”
He grinned as he led me back into line so we could get our food before going to training. We only had so much time so it was better to keep moving. “I was dead, as good as anyway. I thought it was over for me. They had agreed I was guilty of . . .” He turned a bit red. “Well, of exactly what we’ve never done, and they were getting ready to send me out for execution and this other Warden came in all of the sudden and started yelling at everyone. They fought for a long time, and then at the end of it they took another vote and no one accused me of being guilty. Apparently the people who made the accusations didn’t have their stories straight.”
“Yeah, I bet I know the woman who spoke for you. She came to my defense as well.” I said, breathing a sigh of relief, and reminding myself to thank Ella if I ever saw her again.
Zark’s expression fell a bit as we collected our food and headed for the Forge. “Yeah, well, after they dropped the charges they all came together to split up our group. I’ve been put with some other people, and they said to avoid confusion in the future, we won’t be sharing a room anymore.”
“Oh,” I almost whispered the word, and my heart sank. We would see very little of each other. Group events and the few moments in the morning and at night were really all we had together.
“Yeah.” Zark spoke softly. “They told me we’d be assigned new groups at the next group event. I’m in a room with three other guys. None of them are deadies. They really, really don’t like me. I mean, Ori was cold, but these guys border on violent. They made me sleep on the floor, not that I really slept much anyway.”
I sighed, remembering the conversation I’d had with Ori. “If they suspect you’re too happy, things get changed.” She’d said, and apparently it was true. We hadn’t been lovers, but apparently Zarkov and I had found enough happiness that they’d decided it was better to split us into separate groups.
We ate as we walked, and we talked for a bit longer, but soon we were at the Forge door and our time was up. We probably wouldn’t see each other again that day. “Good luck, Zark.” I told him as we filed through the door.
“Good luck, Lil.” He said, and then we were going our separate directions for training. After that we saw little of each other. Some mornings we happened to hit the line at the same time, but not all of them. We were so close together, and yet separated as though we were living on different sides of the city. It felt like the end of a section of my life, the passing of an era.
A few weeks later it was time for a group activity. I approached the Warden near the Rift gate and he asked for my name. I gave it to him and he shuffled through some papers and told me to wait aside. Other groups came in and were pushed through the door which opened up each time with a blast of freezing air. He handed the members of the team heavy cloaks and sent them through with simple instructions. “Walk to the fire and you’ll find your next instructions there.”
I watched a half dozen other groups go through the door before two people approached and he called me forward. “Lillin, this is your new group.”
There was a male and a female in my new group. They both had no tattoos on their faces, and yet both looked happy to see me for some reason. The male was tall and slender with blond hair that was so light it almost looked white. He didn’t seem particularly strong. The female was about average, maybe a bit shorter than me, but she had dark hair and bright green eyes that were easy to get stuck on. It wasn’t a matter of her being beautiful or anything like that, her eyes were just so bright that they made you look twice.
The Warden handed us each a cloak and then opened the door. “Walk to the fire and you’ll find your next instructions there.” He said, and then we were being ushered through the doorway and into some terrible, bitter cold world.
I’d run Rift with the snow before, but this was far worse. The snow was up to my hips, and wind was cutting to the point that it even managed to rip its way through the heavy cloak. As soon as the door shut behind us we started walking. There was no point in talking because the wind was too loud for us to hear anything. Distantly, between gusts of wind, I thought I could just make out a glint of fire. I pulled the cloak as tightly around me as I could and started in that direction, taking the lead because the other two didn’t seem inclined to do so. I had no intention of freezing to death.
I couldn’t have said how long it took us to get there, but we eventually reached the place with the fire. It was a massive rock that happened to be faced in such a way as to have its back to the wind so that if you settled in close to it, the biting cold didn’t hit you as well. A massive fire had been built there. I guessed that the Wardens had started the fire because beyond the wood currently burning I couldn’t see so much as another single twig to pick up. At the rate the fire was burning I figured we’d have another hour or so before it was down to just embers and things would start to get much colder, though the rock would radiate heat for a little while.
“I’m Clover.” My new female companion said, smiling and holding out a hand. I hadn’t expected an open hand of friendship from anyone, so I reached out and took it, grasping fists in a show of good faith.
“Lillin.” I introduced myself, though if they’d been listening they would know that.
“I’m Avan.” The guy gave his name, also smiling. “We know who you are. Just about everyone knows who you are, at least in the first years.”
“Oh?” I was surprised to hear that. “You’re both first years?” I was also a bit surprised at this. Most of the time teams were split up between first years and others. Zark and I had both been first years, but our situation had been strange.
They nodded and Clover spoke. “We had a third year with us, but she died in last month’s group event. She was bitten by a snake and had a bad reaction to the venom. We were worried we wouldn’t be able to compete in team events without her.”
“We’ve been coming in last most of the time.” Avan added somewhat quietly.
“We’ve heard incredible things about you, though!” Clover seemed excited again. Apparently deadies were good enough for your team if they could help you win.
I gave a noncommittal groan and started looking around this area. There was no snow here. The heat from the fire had melted it away, and with the reflection of heat from the rock face it was actually quite warm. I searched the area and then found a small box. I didn't waste time considering what to do next. These events were always a race of some type, even if it was just a race against the elements, or the threats that lurked unseen. Time was always important. I opened the lid of the box and peered inside. There was a letter and an old pocket watch.
Avan reached in and pulled out the watch, looking it over curiously. “My father had one of these. This one winds itself when its moved. These cost a lot. I wonder if we can keep it?” He asked, turning it over in his hands.”
I frowned and pulled out the paper.
I read it outloud so we’d all know exactly what was expected of us.
Students,
When the time reaches the ninth hour of the morning you will begin today’s task. West of your location is a mountain pass. It is narrow and treacherous, and the wind whipping around it often causes rock slides and falls. You will cross the entire length of the pass, and then the expanse beyond. Beware the hunters. Reach the cabin and ring the bell. The last third of the teams to arrive will be on the Rift for the next week, and the final team to arrive will be expelled.
The door will only open for complete teams. Leave no one behind.
A chill passed down my spine as I finished reading. This team was coming in l
ast most of the time, and this time last place would mean my death. It felt as though this test was being aimed like a crossbow bolt directly at me. Perhaps I was taking it too personally, but it was hard not to given recent events. I hoped Zark was in a better situation than I was. These two didn’t seem particularly skilled. I wasn’t entirely certain how they’d remained in the school for so long. Of course, they weren’t exactly incompetent. They just seemed unmotivated. Clearly they weren’t coming in last in their lessons or in physical training because they hadn’t been eliminated yet, but they were a bad team.
“What time is it?” I asked Avan.
“It’s just passed eight.” He said, turning the watch over in his hand.
“Alright, we have an hour to prepare ourselves for the trek.” I turned and tried to get my bearings. It was impossible to tell directions in the weather. I looked over at Avan and he was still playing with the watch. As he flipped it in his hand I saw that it had two faces to it. I walked over and took it from him, which made him shoot me an angry look for a second. “This is a compass as well.” I offered in explanation, looking at the second face. It was completely white with a red dot on the glass, and a black dot that moved beneath it. It wasn’t obviously a compass, and I might have been wrong, but I watched the way the black dot moved as I turned and I didn't think I was.