“My family won’t be disappointed if I don’t stay at the Academy,” Sam said.
James chewed on a roll. “Won’t you be disappointed?”
“Seeing as how I wasn’t even expecting to be here in the first place, I…” He trailed off, looked over to James, and forced a smile. “It’s just that when I reached my seventeenth birthday, I wasn’t expecting to be selected.”
James nodded. “I understand. I’m a year older than most people at our level, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like for you.” James’s eyes widened slightly. “Sorry. I’m not trying to say you’re old.”
“Thanks?”
“Besides, she doesn’t seem to mind,” he said, looking down the table and toward Tara.
Sam chuckled. “She is mostly interested in…”
The problem was that Sam didn’t know what Tara was mostly interested in.
He wouldn’t have thought that she would be interested in him, but she didn’t seem to be offended by the fact that he had wanted to spend time with her, nor did she seem to be bothered by the fact that he had asked her to meet him. In fact, she had seemed almost happy about it.
“I think she’d just happy to have somebody willing to study with her,” James said, lowering his voice. “She’s pretty serious.”
“You said that before.”
“It doesn’t make it any less true,” James said.
“I’m sure she just wants to do well.”
“With her parents? Of course she does.” When Sam turned and frowned at him, James shrugged. “What? You don’t know?”
“What about her parents?”
“Well, her parents are fairly visible within Tavran. Her mother once served on the council but lost her spot. It’s all pretty political. You have to make alliances, and if you have others that build up against you, it is easy enough to lose your slot to somebody else.”
“Who did she lose it to?” Sam asked, looking over Gresham. He was sitting at the sharan table, a group of students sitting around him, laughing. He looked like he was a king surrounded by his court.
“Not him,” James said, shaking his head. “At least, I don’t think so? He’s been on the council for a long time, so he didn’t necessarily take her mother’s position, but he might have been behind the one who did.”
“It seems far too complicated for me,” Sam said, shaking his head and turning his attention back to his food.
“Well, once you graduate from the Academy, and you get your apprenticeship with the council, you’re going to feel differently.”
“I’m not sure that’s what I want.”
“You might not have much of a choice.”
Sam looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“They draft those with the most potential. And it’s possible that they won’t give you much of a choice. Though I have a hard time thinking that anybody would say no when the council come calling. Why wouldn’t you want to serve on the council? It gives you a chance to help administer Olway.”
Sam finished his food and nodded to James before getting to his feet.
“What did I say?”
“You didn’t say anything,” Sam said. “I just realized I needed to get back to my studies.”
“There’s another free night coming up. We can go out to the city.”
Sam glanced over to Tara before turning back to James. “Maybe.”
James sniffed. “It’s already happening,” he said dramatically. “You’re leaving me so soon.”
“Leaving you?”
“For her.”
Sam snorted. “I didn’t say that either.”
“You don’t have to come,” James said, picking up a roll and hiding his smile behind it. “Go on with you. I might need some time to myself, anyway.”
Sam picked his way back to his room before deciding otherwise and heading into the Study Hall. This was where he had been spending quite a bit of his time lately, though not to spend it with Tara so much as he was trying to use it for him to practice. He could draw upon the power of the alchemy device without drawing any notice.
He wandered through the tunnels, pausing in one dead-end section, where he began to focus on the patterns that he had to form with his hand in order for him to trigger the power within the alchemy device.
He needed a better name for it. He was sure whoever had made it had some name. Exploder? Green bomb? Destroyer of Ferand?
Sam liked that one, so maybe he would just call it the destroyer, though he hoped that maybe there was something more to it than just destruction. It seemed to him that it would be a waste of power if all it could do was destroy.
He sat down and began to focus, trying to work through various ways of triggering it, when he noticed something down the hallway. At first, it seemed like a pale white glowing, but as he turned his attention to it, he realized that wasn’t it at all.
A pale greenish glowing.
It was subtle. He got to his feet, clutching his hand around the device, before making his way down the hallway, heading toward the source of light he’d seen.
It was the same green he had seen when he had been in the alchemy section and had been attacked by Ferand. Did that mean Ferand was here, coming after him?
Sam squeezed his hand around the device, focusing on the pattern that he might need. He had no idea if it was going to be effective, but he had to be ready. There weren’t many places that he could go here anyway. He had to go forward get back out.
He moved carefully.
It seemed as if the pale greenish light faded the further that he went.
Maybe he hadn’t seen anything and all. Or perhaps it was tied to his use of the device in the first place. That might explain what had happened.
Sam paused.
He looked along the hall and realized it did seem to be glowing with the pale green light up ahead, though as he approached, noticing the intersection that would lead him toward the kitchen—or the alchemy section, he decided—he saw the glowing further along the hall.
It seemed as if the greenish light was trailing all the way down toward the kitchen.
Not toward the alchemy section.
Okun and the others in the kitchen could be in danger.
Sam hurried forward, keeping his hand clenched around the device. When he reached the door that would lead them into the kitchen, he paused for a moment and then triggered it to open.
He backed away, half expecting that there would be something there to attack him, but he saw nothing. He held his hand up, preparing to trigger the device, but the closet was empty. Sam stepped forward and looked around the inside before pulling the door closed behind him.
He didn’t see anything, certainly nothing to explain what might be here.
There were bags of grain, jars of fruit, and other supplies set inside. He leaned his head up against the door, listening to the sounds of the kitchen. He hadn’t been to visit Okun in a while, ever since he had gotten focused on his studies.
Sam poked his head out of the door, looking around the kitchen. He heard the sound of voices, kitchen workers, but he didn’t see Okun in his usual station.
“Getting awfully tired of so much food going to waste,” one of the kitchen workers said.
“What do you expect? They’re all so spoiled. None of them know what it’s like to not have a full belly.”
They laughed a bit.
There was a time when Sam would have laughed along with them, especially as he had known an empty belly for so long before coming to the Academy, but since he had been here, Sam hadn’t even paid any attention to how he ate when he was hungry, skipped meals when he wasn’t, and generally didn’t have to worry about food. It was a stark reminder of where he had come from.
They were saying something else, but Sam pulled the door closed. He wasn’t going to interrupt their conversation. He might not have fit in when he had first come to the Academy, especially as he didn’t really know his place, and Okun had welcomed him, but now…
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Sam didn’t feel as if he fit in there. They might still welcome him, but he was a member of the Academy. At least for now.
Sam leaned his back against the wall, and he stayed there for a little while.
When he did, he squeezed his hand around the device. There was somebody else in the Academy. He was certain of it. And more than that, he was certain that Ferand was after him and the device.
He triggered the door leading out into the Study Hall and headed along the hallway, seeing no sign of the greenish light anywhere, nothing to suggest that somebody was still here.
He paused at the door leading down to the alchemy section before triggering it. It slid back with a soft whisper, and Sam glanced down, checking to make sure that there was no sign of the greenish light down below. When he was convinced that there was nothing, he started down the stairs. He held his hand along the wall, tracing along stone that seemed to grow cooler until it suddenly flipped, getting warmer once again. It felt as if he were descending down into the bowels of the earth, but he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead of him, worried that he was going to see that greenish light again.
There was no sign of it.
Sam paused at the bottom of the stairs, and then triggered the door into the alchemy section.
He hesitated for a moment. It was empty. He hadn’t returned here since running from Ferand, and as far as he knew, Ferand didn’t know that he had access to the Study Hall, though if he had been in the Academy, it was very possible that Ferand knew about the Study Hall, and might even know how to navigate through it.
Sam wandered through the common area, finding it empty, before making his way along the hall. The doors had a strange sticky coating over them that Sam knew to avoid, and he reached the door at the end of the hall that Ferand had come through, but didn’t see anything around it. He glanced the other direction, taking his way to the room where the device had been, and triggered the symbols on it quickly, before the door slid open.
Once inside, he looked around. It looked as if there had been a battle in here, and considering how he had fought with Ferand, that wasn’t surprising. But it was otherwise empty. There were no items here that would draw Ferand’s attention. The only thing that he had been after was this device.
Sam squeezed his hand.
This alchemy section had hidden it. Protected it.
And then Sam had come and opened the door, revealing its presence?
No. He’d expected the door to be open.
Someone else had been coming through here then. Ferand wasn’t working on his own.
Sam stepped out into the main hallway, closing the door behind him, and headed to the common room, when he realized that he wasn’t alone. A figure stood in the door leading back to the Study Hall.
Sam tensed, readying the device, when he realized who it was. “Tara?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tara stepped toward him.
Sam noticed that she had pale white glowing around her face as if she had used Arcane Arts in some way to seal off the potential poisoning that might exist in the alchemy section. She was looking around, standing somewhat timidly in the doorway.
“It’s okay,” Sam said. “You can come out here.”
She turned her attention to him. There was a brightness in her eyes, mixed with anger that seemed to burn. “What are you doing down here?” she asked, her voice somewhat muffled, though not nearly as muffled as what Ferand’s voice had been like when he had been here. Her voice managed to carry through whatever power she’d used around her face.
“I was looking at something,” he said.
As he did, he realized how this would appear. He didn’t have on any sort of protection. He wasn’t supposed to be in the alchemy section. More than that, the alchemy section was supposed to be dangerous for somebody like him. And for somebody like Tara.
“How are you able to stand it?”
There were a couple of options here, and Sam tried to decide which way he was going to go with it. He could tell her that it wasn’t toxic to somebody with the Arcane Arts, but Sam didn’t know whether that was true or not.
The other option was telling her the truth.
And then…
He had no idea what she might do, no idea how she might respond to him, and more than that, he had to worry that she would be disappointed in him. He had come to appreciate the time that he’d spent with Tara, finding a kindred spirit of sorts with her.
But he didn’t want to lie to her.
“We can go somewhere else to talk,” he said hesitantly.
She nodded and stepped out of the alchemy section, up the stairs, with Sam following behind. As he triggered the door closed again, he paused for a moment, watching for any sign of greenish light, but didn’t see anything. The only greenish light that he had seen lately had come from the alchemy device that he carried with him.
He found Tara waiting for him at the top of the stairs, one hand resting on the wall. She seemed as if she were worried that he might run off, though truth be told, he was tempted to do so.
He tried to think of different ways that he might be able to spin it so that it wouldn’t upset her, but anything that he came up with ran the risk of her getting even angrier when she learned the truth about him.
There was no choice but to tell her the truth.
Sam breathed out heavily. When he reached the top of the stairs, he triggered the door to close, and then looked to Tara. She had removed the protection around herself, but she glowed with a pale white light suggesting that she was still calling upon the energy of the Arcane Arts.
“Well?” she snapped.
“You want to have that conversation here?”
“I don’t know. I think of two of us need to have a conversation somewhere. And seeing as how there isn’t anybody else in the Study Hall, I—”
“You told me that there were others that were coming in and out of the Study Hall, so maybe we should find someplace quiet.”
She frowned at him, but she spun, storming off, and wandered through the narrow passageways. She didn’t turn the way he expected. He thought that maybe she would lead them back to one of the rooms, to the tolath tower, and someplace there, but instead, she guided him toward the dead-end section where he had been before.
It reminded him of what he had seen, though perhaps it shouldn’t.
She crossed her arms, watching him. “Go ahead.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Why don’t we start with why you decided you needed to go down into the alchemy section? You obviously have an interest in alchemy.”
Sam didn’t look away from her irritation. “I do. Before I came to the Academy, I was working with a minor alchemist. I couldn’t really help him with a whole lot, but I thought that I could learn about some of the uses of alchemy so that when I leave the Academy, I have options.”
She frowned at him. “What do you mean you have options? I saw your scores. You did better on your exams than anybody has done for several years.”
Sam hadn’t known that, and for a moment, he felt a surge of pride, but it was misplaced pride, he knew. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “After the year is up, I’m not going to be in the Academy any longer.”
“I never took you for somebody who lacked confidence,” Tara said, sounding disappointed.
He hated that her words stung.
“It’s not a lack of confidence,” Sam protested. “It’s a practicality.” He took a deep breath and held her gaze. She really was lovely, but there was anger that surged in her eyes now as if he had somehow betrayed her. And perhaps he had. “I don’t have any ability with the Arcane Arts.”
She started to laugh. “You mean you don’t have much experience with it.”
“No. I don’t have any ability with it.” Sam wasn’t exactly sure how much to share with Tara, but if he had to leave, then having somebody like Tara in the Academy who could keep an eye on his sister might be helpful.
Sam hadn’t expected to come to the Academy and want to stay. Having had the success he had while he was here, and having been able to prove he could handle the rigor of the studies, had left him wishing that maybe there would be a way for him to remain in the Academy.
“I told you that I came from the Barlands. It wasn’t just me that was there. I have a sister.”
“So?”
“My sister has an ability with the Arcane Arts. We’d been begging, essentially, trying to find scraps when we could. But she always had an ability.” Sam turned away, not wanting to meet Tara’s eyes. “I wanted nothing more than you give her the opportunity to come to the Academy and prove she belonged here. So when Havash came through our village, I forced him to test her.”
“You forced him?”
Sam looked up, and some of the irritation in her gaze and softened. “She used her ability to hold his wagon in place. She couldn’t hold it for very long, or she couldn’t before we came here, but it was enough to convince Havash to test her. And from there…”
“I think you’re missing something.”
“Which is?”
“He obviously tested you and found something in you.”
“That’s just it. I don’t have any ability with the Arcane Arts,” Sam said, letting out a soft and shaky breath. “My sister was getting injured during the testing. At least, that’s how it seemed to me. I sort of attacked him.” When she said nothing, Sam took that as his cue to keep talking. “It looked like she was dying. I don’t know what he was doing, but it wasn’t like any testing that I had ever read about. Then again, finding accurate stories about the testing process had been difficult.”
“It isn’t meant to harm anyone. It’s merely a matter of demonstrating whatever you’ve learned. If she knew how to pause the wagon, that should have been enough. Kal knows that is an impressive use of the arcane years all by itself, especially in somebody who hasn’t had any training.” She snorted. “It suggests strength.”
Alchemist Apprentice (The Alchemist Book 1) Page 23