by B. T. Narro
Their bouts often came down to whoever made the right decision at the right time, with Cleve usually claiming the point. His natural instincts were a blink faster, and many times that’s what it took.
After Sneary called for them to fight, they put on a show as their swords danced and clashed. Cleve took the first point, but Alex took the second. The third went on for what had to be the longest duel of the day. Alex liked to attack in flurries, then retreat. Five times in a row, Cleve almost took a glancing blow as he deflected Alex’s speeding sword.
Alex surprised Cleve by refusing to retreat when he usually did, taking a swipe at Cleve’s feet instead. Cleve jumped and kicked Alex in the chest.
He stumbled backward, his eyes wide with shock. Then a smile turned Alex’s mouth, and Cleve smiled back.
They both returned to the line sweaty and sucking in air. They knew they would both be put in Group One, so there was little pressure for them to beat each other.
Alex and Sanya were called to face each other after lunch, when most of the other warriors had already repeated all of their duels from the first day of evaluation week.
As Cleve watched Sanya stand her ground against his friend, he mused how she no longer appeared to fight any differently than the men. She threw punches, knees, and even shoved Alex with her shoulder. Unfortunately, it only forced him back one step. He easily blocked her follow-up attack and countered with a strike to her thigh.
But Sanya scored the next point when Alex tried to entangle her and she managed to trip him. She gave his side a hard kick once he was on the ground.
He chuckled as he groaned and gingerly got to his feet. “That hurt.”
She grinned impishly.
During their final duel, Alex blocked her attack and closed the distance between them to entangle her once again. She attempted to trip his front foot like before, but he lifted it preemptively so the swipe of her shin went beneath it. Cleve had gone over this many times. When an opponent lifts his leg to avoid a sweep at his foot, his weight is unbalanced. In this case, Alex went with his forward momentum and came down a step closer to Sanya, putting force into his sword locked against hers.
She spun out and swiped his back leg hard enough to take it out from under him, putting him squarely on his ass. He was quick to roll, but Sanya’s sword was quicker as it poked him in the back.
“Point,” Sneary announced.
Alex came to stand beside Cleve wearing a bitter grin. “You taught her too well, you bastard.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“We’ll see how proud you are when she starts beating you.”
Everyone else finished dueling by early afternoon. Peter finished the day losing only to Cleve and Sanya, not letting anyone else score a point. Alex was in the same position, as he and Peter hadn’t fought each other.
“Last duel,” Sneary announced. “Cleve and Sanya.”
Sanya showed an unprecedented abashed smile as she shook her head. “Just earn your points quickly,” she said, not bothering to lift her weapon.
“Fight,” Sneary called.
Cleve didn’t move and wouldn’t until she lifted her training sword.
“Come on,” she goaded. “I’ve never been able to score a point against you, and I don’t expect it to change today. Just get it done.”
Cleve wanted to spit in disgust. “Don’t do that.”
She opened her arms and walked toward him. “Do it.”
The crowd showed their anger and disappointment with insults Cleve hadn’t heard since the first and second day.
“It’s pointless,” she tried to tell them, now looking at them instead of Cleve as she continued to approach.
He backed away to give himself time to think. But she just increased her pace.
He gave in and raised his weapon as he sighed. He jabbed it toward her stomach, but she suddenly jumped to avoid it and struck him in the hip with her sword.
“Point,” Sneary called out.
Completely emotionless, Sanya walked back to where she’d started and lifted her weapon to show she was ready for the next round. Cleve was incredulous, though many of the men watching laughed and applauded.
“You’re really going to count that?” he asked Sneary.
“I announced the beginning of the fight, and she was the first to strike you. If anyone’s to blame, it’s you for treating her differently than you would another opponent. The only reason I’m not making you run a lap is because this is the last duel and I don’t want to wait for you to return.”
Sneaky woman.
“All right, Sanya. You can have your point. But only because it’ll be the last you ever score against me.”
The audience hooted and whistled, ready for a show. Sanya smirked.
“Fight.”
Cleve rushed and leapt at her. She blocked his first attack, but the force of it caused her to stumble. He tried to take his point quickly, chasing after her. But she regained her footing as she deflected his next attack, and soon she was on the offensive. She got too eager, though, thrusting when she thought she saw her opportunity.
Cleve batted away her thrust hard enough to take the sword out of her hand and drive it into the grass. It stuck there, wobbling but managing to stay. A few of the warriors laughed at the odd sight.
“Point,” Sneary said.
But Cleve felt no better. He’d lost his first point ever in a duel during evaluation week. His perfect record stained. It felt almost like the time he’d ruined his first bastial steel sword back in Greenedge.
They fought for the last point, and this time Sanya kept more distance. She also gripped her weapon harder, he noticed when he failed to disarm her the next time she lunged.
She fought nearly the opposite of Alex, with single, calculating strikes and counterattacks. Eventually, she backed away and appeared to strategize. She used her speed to keep herself unharmed and give herself time to think, and her following attacks were clever as a result.
She set a pattern of slashing at his left leg every time she ducked down in a defensive move. When he noticed she was doing it, he set up his own counterattack. But she changed the strategy to lunge at his opposite leg, and it would’ve worked if he hadn’t realized it at the last moment.
After a few more similar exchanges, with both of them fatigued from the long bout, Cleve firmly blocked her sword and stepped forward in hopes of entangling her.
She tried to trip him as she backed away. He lifted his leg and stepped over her foot, then reached out for her, but she spun away from him. He’d taught her this very move, and he’d just seen it work against Alex, so Sanya had to know that Cleve expected it. She’d gone low against Alex in this spot, so Cleve assumed she would go high in hopes of outwitting him. He leaned back as far as he could.
Cleve watched her sword whizz by an inch from his face. He grabbed her weapon arm and yanked it in the direction of her momentum. She flipped and landed on her back. Still holding her arm, he pushed his sword against her stomach.
A surprising amount of applause followed. Cleve looked up to find a few other groups had gathered to watch his duel against Sanya. He offered his hand and she took it, letting him help her up.
She looked half irritated and half amused. “I was thinking one step ahead, and you were thinking two.”
“If only you weren’t thinking ahead at all,” Cleve teased. “You would’ve taken out my leg, like you did Alex’s.”
“Or if I was thinking three steps ahead in expectation of you thinking two steps ahead.”
“There’s never time for three steps ahead.”
“We’ll see, Cleve.” She smiled mischievously and walked off.
A group of warriors circled around Cleve, all asking to duel him now that the day was done.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As Basen watched the morning sun emerge from behind the long and twisted tail of the Fjallejon Mountains, he finally felt the return of some of the strength that Nick’s death h
ad sapped from him. He stood at the eastern wall and lost his breath as the rays of the sun colored Lake Kayvol golden.
He was right to assume that the Academy’s wall was a much better place to stand than the doorway of Nick’s room as he waited for the day to begin. Sleep wasn’t entirely hopeless, but staying awake was the only way to avoid his nightmares.
“You’re Sanya’s friend, aren’t you,” a reserved voice said, sounding disappointed.
He turned to find Annah Varra looking back with an icy stare full of hatred, as if she’d caught him stealing her most prized possession.
“Basen,” he reminded her.
“Are you waiting here for me?”
“No,” he answered, confused.
She brushed back her silver hair and took a skittish step toward him. “You do know who I am, don’t you?”
“How could I forget the psychic who was apprehended by guards at Redfield. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been coming here each morning because I can’t sleep in that damn house Sanya has exiled me to. Are you like her and the rest of them?”
“What do you mean?”
She came another step closer and huddled inside her cloak. “Do you think I am a traitor and I killed Nick Gallilo?”
“I’ve yet to find myself capable of imagining any man or woman murdering him.”
“So you never once thought it could’ve been me?”
“You’re a man or a woman, aren’t you?”
She folded her arms beneath her cloak. “How can you speak about such things so flippantly?”
It’s the only way I can talk about “such things.”
“What do you want, Annah?”
“Just to watch the morning sun rise above the land in peace.”
Leaning forward against the parapets, he gestured to his side. “I seek the same thing.”
She joined him and they gazed out at the sunrise in silence for some time. Basen found his breathing finally relaxing as he cleared his mind.
Then Annah’s sharp voice broke his serenity. “You might be the only person here who doesn’t suspect me. I’ve never despised being a psychic until now. It’s already enough that I catch their dubious glances every time I look their way. But I can also feel their distrust like heat.”
“This isn’t what you want to hear, but if I had the ability to feel anything, I might be suspicious as well.”
“You’re right. That’s not what I want to hear.” She looked away from the horizon to stare straight at him. “You were close with Nick?”
Basen kept watching Lake Kayvol become ever more golden. “About as close as two roommates can be who’d only just met,” he said with considerable embarrassment. “I realize I feel more emotional about his passing than I should.”
“He was your roommate?” she whispered, as if her question was some sort of secret. “It must be difficult to live there now. Will you be moving?”
“I hadn’t thought of it.”
“Has Terren spoken to you about anyone taking Nick’s room? I’m sure it would help you to have company.”
He finally tore his eyes away from the lake so he could judge her expression. As he’d expected, her arched eyebrows matched her tone. She wanted to take Nick’s room.
“You despise your current living arrangements so much that you’d live in a dead man’s room with another man you barely know as your roommate?”
She turned back to the horizon and fell silent. He did as well.
They spoke no words for the better part of an hour, and eventually he forgot the question.
“You know it’s the final day of evaluation week for you mages and warriors,” she said. “The most important day to show your abilities.”
“I know.”
“Then you should really get to the dining hall before breakfast hours are over.”
“I stopped wanting to eat recently. Why aren’t you there?”
“Because I realized I’m happier being hungry than going to the dining hall. I feel like I carry a plague whenever I go there. Everyone hopes I don’t come near them, many leaving the table as soon as I sit.”
They watched the sunrise in silence for another half hour until Annah walked off without warning. He watched her go. When she was halfway to the ramp, she stopped and looked back.
“I would rather live with you…if you’d have me.” Her blue eyes glistened with vulnerability as she awaited his answer.
Sanya seemed to think she and the rest of the Academy would be better off with Annah living with more people to watch her, and clearly Terren agreed by putting her in a house with the students he trusted most. It didn’t seem prudent for Basen to ignore all that.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
It pained him to see sadness break across her face.
*****
Penny frowned at Basen as he came to class late, but it was a sympathetic frown that showed she understood. She seemed to be lecturing about the different uses of bastial energy. Like most other days of evaluation week, she probably would test them after lunch to see how well they retained the information.
It was fortunate that Basen knew bastial energy even better than he knew how to use a sword, for he couldn’t focus on much except the letter from his father he’d picked up at the mail building and read on his way to class. His father had joined the army as an advisor until a more specific role was determined. He would be staying at the castle in Kyrro City and wouldn’t be hungry any longer. It was what his father had wanted since coming to Kyrro, and the good news gave Basen an appetite again. Now he regretted not going to the dining hall for breakfast.
He would visit the castle tomorrow to see his father and Alabell and hopefully gain enough distance from the Academy to find himself again before he returned and learned what group he was in. There was still one day left to prove himself, and he would push himself to try his hardest.
As expected, Penny issued a written test when they returned from lunch. On it were easy questions like, “Why does red represent bastial energy and green represent sartious energy? What was the catalyst to the war? Who is the current king, and how was he appointed?”
Basen supposed the history questions were intended to ensure that the students weren’t fools who knew nothing but how to cast fireballs, for that would reflect poorly on the school. But the final question seemed a little too easy: “What color is bastial energy?”
The first question already confirmed what he thought he knew—it was red. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized there must be some sort of trick to the answer. He tried to think back to his lessons at Tenred’s castle, but he couldn’t recall anything about the color of the energy. It was clear when he gathered it, but then why did red represent it? Perhaps because clear wasn’t easily seen and the energy was hot, so red would make sense? That’s what he answered for the first question, so he hoped it was right.
He didn’t know its true color and hoped Penny hadn’t gone over it while he’d been distracted by his thoughts.
He wrote, “Red.”
When everyone was finished, Penny collected their parchments and quills, then brought their group to the training area adjacent to the classroom. Basen’s eyes were drawn to the wood sticking out of the center training dummy, the ribbon at the apex taunting him. No mage had burned it without destroying the wood. He hadn’t made any attempts and still had no thoughts as to how it could be done.
They gathered around Penny. The young teacher wore a proud smile. “You’ve all done well.” But her smile faded with her next breath. “Keep that in mind during this final test, which tends to make students feel more incompetent than they actually are. For the first-years who don’t know what’s about to happen, let me explain. All of you are about to be given an opportunity to change your final score by showing me how much you’ve improved at what you’re least skilled at. You’ll go one at a time. Does anyone wish to go first?”
No one raised a hand.
/> “Then I’ll have to choose at random.” Penny glanced at her scroll. “Effie.”
“Pig shit, that was random,” Effie muttered to Basen.
“What was that?”
“I’d be happy to go first, Mage Penny. What would you like me to do?”
“I’d like you to make a sartious wall.”
This confirmed what Basen already had guessed. If her worst skill was casting one of the most difficult spells—one that no other student in their evaluation group could do—then Effie already had proven herself good enough for Group One.
She pressed her lips together and a fine dust of sartious energy swirled around the tip of her wand as she collected it from the air and ground. It darkened as she continued to pull it together, looking like a green snowball. More SE was needed for this one spell than a wand could hold, but she worked quickly to gather it. For all Basen knew, Effie could’ve been using an empty wand all this time. Having sartious pellets didn’t matter much to a mage who’d become strong enough to gather it from the air.
It came together and began to take shape—a green square as thin as paper floating in front of her wand.
“Faster,” Penny said.
Effie’s face tightened, but the speed at which the energy hardened didn’t change. She huffed and eventually made a floating block dense enough so that it no longer was translucent. The square was only a few inches thick and had a diameter the length of her forearm, but it was an impressive sight nonetheless to anyone who knew anything about the difficulty of gathering SE.
“Hold it steady as long as you can.” Penny walked to it and tapped it with her wand. A clink sounded as if it were metal.
Effie’s arm shook. She bit down on her lip. Then she let out her breath, and the floating block of energy crashed onto the sand.
“Good,” Penny said. “Now break it apart.”
Effie waved her wand and the block turned to dust, demonstrating how much easier it was to destroy than create, a sad truth everyone, not just mages, learned at an early age.