The Quad

by Todd Fahnestock

  Suddenly, he felt her delight. She’d caught Brom doing exactly what she was doing. They stayed like that for a moment, viewing each others’ desires and intentions in that wispy realm of magic.

  Brom blinked, opened his eyes, and looked to his right. Sitting against a tree was a lanky Keltovari girl with honey-colored hair. Only Keltovari nobility had light-colored hair, which hinted at her parentage. But her eyes were black, which meant she was likely bastard born. She blinked against the sunlight and smiled at him. She was about twenty feet away and she spoke softly.

  “Come over here,” her lips said, though he didn’t hear her words. Over the distance, the noise of the Garden, and the slight breeze that ruffled his hair, he didn’t hear the words at all, but he still knew what she wanted, as though her soul had communicated to him her desires without words at all.

  He went to her. She squinted up at him. He moved to the block the sun and cast a courteous shadow over her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re...”

  “Doing what you’re doing,” she finished for him. “So... You’re a fellow Anima.”

  “I don’t... I haven’t chosen yet, so I don’t know.”

  She laughed. “How can you use Anima magic if you don’t know?”

  “I’m not...” He trailed off, embarrassed to tell her that his Quad was failing and that none of them had been able to choose a path yet. “I can’t really do much at all. I’m...”

  “Oh!” she said, as though something had just occurred to her. “You’re with Quad Princess, aren’t you? The one that hasn’t formed yet.”

  Great. They had a reputation.

  Brom glanced at his boots, but the girl didn’t mock him. She sat up straight, seemingly interested. “So let me sort this out. You haven’t bonded with your Quad, but you’re using Anima magic? Really? That’s...wow. It’s not supposed to be possible. How did you even do that?”

  “I just...do it.”

  “You not supposed to be able to do that, though. You know that, right?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not much for rules. Since my Quad is floundering, I thought I’d try doing something without them. They’re just...” he trailed off.

  She chuckled. “You misunderstood me. I didn’t mean it was against the rules; I meant it’s impossible,” she said. “No one can work magic without bonding to a Quad. It’s impossible. The Quad gives everyone a boost that enables them to work magic for the first time. But you do it once, and you can do it on your own after.”

  “Boost?”

  “It’s so cute that you don’t know what that is. First-year babies...” She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, then smiled again. “You know that bonding with your Quad doubles your power, right? It was that boost that flipped open my first Soulblock. It was the only way I could even start doing what you’re doing.”

  “I read that. But nothing is doubling with my Quad. We’re all just...stuck.”

  “And yet you’re doing magic all alone. I just... Wow.”

  Brom thought the girl might be teasing him to get a rise from one of the failures of Quad Princess. But her soul seemed calm and open. Her basic nature indicated she was curious, straightforward, and...lusty.

  “I’m Caila.” She stood up, dusted off her breeches, and stuck out her hand.

  He shook it. “Brom.” A little jolt passed between them at the touch. They grinned together.

  “So you’re a rule-breaker?” she said, like it was a naughty secret. “Using magic on people you’re not supposed to be using magic on?” She nodded her head at the other students in Quadron Garden.”

  Her attraction for him swelled inside her soul like a warm red light. His heart began beating faster.

  Caila was a flirt. He thought of Myan back in Kyn, and he was suddenly intensely curious what it would be like to kiss Caila.

  He cleared his throat. “Some rules don’t serve a purpose,” he said.

  She smiled, and her teeth were white and straight. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. Did you know that students are not supposed to...you know...fraternize with each other?” She raised an eyebrow.

  He felt a flush creep into his face.

  She laughed, and he his gaze strayed to her body. She was long and lean, and just a little taller than him. She was obviously Keltovari, but he could easily picture her spending her days running through the thick southern forests and jungles like a Fendiran warrior druid. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and grinned at him. “Best thing about being an Anima,” she said. “You can’t hide your nature from me.”

  “And?”

  “And we’re two of a kind.”

  “Two?”

  “Maybe one, if we work at it.” She winked. “Would you like to break some rules?”

  The unabashed desire and mischief in her soul made him laugh, and he fell in love with her a little just then. After the confidence-shriveling failures of being with his Quad, the idea of spending time with this lively, flirty Caila seemed heavenly. “I would,” he said.

  “Let’s.” She took his arm and began running across the grass. He stumbled along behind, laughing.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Brom

  Brom snuck across the campus, keeping close to the river and out of sight. The sloped banks were over six feet tall in most places, and it was thick with willows and oak trees, the perfect place to travel from one side of the school to the other without being seen. Caila had showed him this trick.

  They’d been lovers for several heady weeks, but Caila had soon moved on. She was more interested in finding new students to corrupt than staying with one person. Brom had moped about her for two days before he realized he was being silly. Caila had never promised him fidelity. She’d promised him rule-breaking and adventure. And she had delivered, introducing him to an entire campus of beautiful mischief.

  Caila had opened doors to a way of thinking Brom couldn’t have imagined before. She scoffed at duty, laughed at guilt. She loved what was in front of her and she didn’t seem to care what anyone else thought about it. She was like a rock skipping across water, somehow defying what seemed to drag so many others down. He’d always love her just a little for that, for her wild nature, and for stopping long enough to take him under her wing.

  There was a banquet of pleasures all around, in every moment, and these had blessedly taken Brom’s attention away from his Quad’s dismal failures. He only spent time with his angry Quad when he had to, and only for long enough to allay suspicion if the masters happened to look his way.

  So, since Caila had flitted on from her relationship with Brom, he’d decided to wreak a bit of corruption himself, and he found he was rather good at it. He’d been breaking the rules of “fraternization” for almost a month. Gods! It fed his soul. It was the only thing he looked forward to. His passion for his morning classes remained, and he tried to match up what he learned with his personal magical practice.

  But his afternoon sessions in the official practice room, well... He dutifully spent the required hours with his miserable Quad, but he barely cared about them anymore. Brom lived for the nights when he could break free and use his meager Anima skills to find other interesting souls and play with them.

  He jumped a log and continued jogging quietly along the rushing river. He was close enough to the water that the ground was spongey with moss and river grass, but not so close that he made squishy sounds.

  “Let your feet be silent,” Caila had told him when she pointed out her secret silent thoroughfare across the campus.

  An odd, muffled sound up ahead caused Brom to stop in his tracks. He shrank against the trunk of a tree, blending with its silhouette.

  Who would be out here? Anyone spending time by the river at this time of night was breaking curfew, and Brom wondered if he was about to stumble across Caila with one of her new lovers.

  The notion dissolved as he recognized the sound. That was sobbing. A woman was crying. The fronds of a giant willow
tree obscured her, but it would only take another couple of steps to part the veil and find out who it was.

  He considered clambering up the slope to the Quadron Garden. His giant marble dormitory was just a quick jog away. He could vanish without the crier ever knowing he’d been here. He almost did. He really ought to leave the poor person to their private distress. They had obviously come out here to hide, to be away from people.

  But...

  Brom had never seen into a person’s soul when they were crying, and he suddenly had to know what it looked like. The woman, whoever she was, would never know Brom had been here. He could ‘touch’ her without ever seeing her. He opened his first Soulblock, and the magic crackled into him. With his mind, he reached out and...

  There was no one there. No one and nothing.

  He shook his head, closed his eyes and reached out again more carefully, but no... Nothing. To Brom’s ears, some girl was crying just a few scant feet beyond that veil of willow branches. But to Brom’s Anima vision, the little hollow beneath the trees was empty.

  A chill thrilled up his spine as he suddenly realized what that meant.

  The unseen crier had to be one of his Quad. Only Royal, Oriana, and Vale were blocked to his newfound sight.

  The crying was unquestionably female, which meant it had to be the emotionally volatile Vale. Oriana wouldn’t cry. He’d bet she’d never cried even when she was a child. He’d bet the ice princess didn’t even have tears.

  Brom had maintained a cautious curiosity about Vale since he’d first met her. Suddenly, he felt a swift sympathy for the street urchin. She was vicious and hateful, but her life couldn’t have been easy before the academy. This lucky break, the chance to become a Quadron, must be the greatest opportunity she’d ever known, a singular chance to change her life. And she was failing because their Quad was failing. They all knew they were just marking time until their inevitable expulsion at the end of the year.

  Brom had been so wrapped up in his own disappointment, it never occurred to him that it must be twice as difficult for Vale. If Brom was ejected from the academy, he had a place to go. He had a home, a family. So did Royal and Oriana. Royal would go back to Fendir and no doubt continue their war. Oriana would return to her palace. But if Vale failed, there was nothing waiting for her except poverty and an early death.

  Brom swallowed and pushed aside the long branches of the enormous willow tree—

  —and stood in stunned silence.

  Princess Oriana sat next to the river, hugging her shins, forehead against her knees...

  And she was crying.

  Her expensive slippers pressed into the mud at the river’s edge as water rushed over her toes. The hem of her ridiculously ornate dress flowed downstream, rippling and twisting in the current. Her slender back shuddered with sobs.

  He couldn’t breathe. Seeing the ice princess of Keltovar crying was like seeing a fish climbing a tree. He didn’t know how to react. To cry she’d have to feel pain. To feel pain she’d have to feel, to have warm blood pumping through her veins.

  Brom hadn’t made any sound, but Oriana caught the movement of the willow fronds. She raised her head elegantly, like she did everything, and her tear-stained eyes focused on him.

  He couldn’t glimpse the colors of her soul, but her face told her anguish plainly for one raw moment. Then she stopped crying. Her face went stony and she looked as haughty as ever.

  “Have you come to watch, then?” she asked, her voice rough. “It’s fine entertainment. The princess in shambles.” She flicked a tear from her eyes with the edge of her finger.

  “I didn’t...come here for you,” he said.

  “I see.” She glanced up the river from where he’d come, then turned her gaze back to the water rushing over her feet. “How was your latest conquest?”

  He swallowed. She knew. She knew he’d been sneaking out of the dormitory, breaking rules.

  “You...knew?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  “Why didn’t you...tell someone?” One word from her to the masters, and it was an immediate punishment. They might have even yanked him from the Quad. “You could have...replaced me,” he said. “It might have increased your chances of becoming a Quadron.”

  “You are my Quad mate,” she said firmly.

  “But you hate me.”

  “Do I?” she replied.

  But she did. Of course she did. She had said so with every withering glance, every frosty silence. If she’d had the chance to hurt him—or any of her Quad mates—he’d have assumed she’d take it.

  But clearly she hadn’t. And the way she’d said he was her Quad mate, so protectively...

  Seeing her now, he questioned everything he thought he knew about Princess Oriana.

  He stepped through the willow fronds and let them fall behind him. The river’s rushing noise filled the sheltered little cove, as did the smell of moving water. He sat down next to her, put his boots in the mud by her slippered feet and mirrored her pose, wrapping his arms around his shins.

  “Well, thank you for that,” he said softly. “For not telling anyone.”

  “I only postpone the inevitable,” she said. “They shall rid themselves of our disastrous little Quad soon enough.”

  They sat for a time. With every moment that passed, the silence felt more strained. Brom sought desperately for something to say, but nothing came.

  Finally, he cleared his throat to ask the only question he could think of.

  “Why were you crying?” he asked.

  At first, he thought she wasn’t going to answer, then she said, “My mother died yesterday.”

  For a second, he couldn’t breathe. “Oriana, I’m... I’m sorry.”

  She gave him a sidelong glance. After a long moment, she looked back at the water. “Thank you.”

  “I... How did it...?” he began, then stopped. Silence was better than an invasive question. Wasn’t it? He suddenly thought of his own mother. A swift pang of homesickness hit him.

  “The loss of a queen. A stab at the heart of the monarchy,” she said. A self-mocking little smile twisted her lips. “You could sell the information to Royal no doubt. He would pay to know it.” She looked up, lips tight, indigo eyes flaring as she watched for his reaction.

  Brom was still for a moment, then he cleared his throat.

  “As if Fendirans have money,” he said.

  Her fierceness softened into puzzlement, and then she laughed. It was a little laugh, there and gone, but he’d never heard her laugh before. He’d never even seen her smile before. “I didn’t know you were funny,” she murmured.

  “I didn’t know you...cried.”

  “I don’t,” she said, flicking away another tear.

  He wasn’t sure if she was joking, too. He thought about replying, but then too much time had passed, and he simply listened to the rushing of the river. It was so loud he could barely hear the riot of crickets beyond the slope.

  “You know...” She broke the silence. “You’re the only one of us who doesn’t hate the others. Though you should. We have ruined your chances of becoming a Quadron.”

  “Eh,” he said, as though he didn’t care. “Fuck it.”

  “You are irreverent in all things,” she said under her breath, an edge to her tone. “Perhaps failure is okay for you. But I have never failed so utterly at anything in my life.”

  Her words stung, and suddenly the Oriana he knew had returned. The tears had vanished. Her face had become a stony mask, and her true colors were on display. Judgment. Arrogance. Saying that it was okay for Brom to fail. He must be used to it, after all. But not for her.

  “Perhaps it’s time you get used to it,” he shot back.

  “Perhaps,” she said, as though she didn’t even notice the sting, as though his opinion couldn’t matter any less.

  “You think I’m giving up?” he blurted. “Is that what you think?” He wanted to rage at her, to tell her that he’d been working magic for weeks with
out her or any of the rest of them. And what had she been doing? Nothing. So high and mighty and impotent.

  She looked over at him, and her indigo eyes seemed so large. He thought she might fling some lashing retort, but she didn’t. Instead, she awkwardly scooted closer in the moss and mud and leaned into him. He froze like a rabbit.

  He couldn’t recall Oriana ever touching anyone. Not another student or an instructor. She didn’t even seem to touch the floor when she walked.

  Reflexively, he thought about saying something snide like, “Am I supposed to kiss you now?”

  Instead, hesitantly, he reached out and put his arm around her. He expected her to violently shrug him off. Or even claw at his eyes.

  Instead, she rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Perhaps we’ve been doing this all wrong,” she said. Her slender arms wrapped around his waist, and she hugged him like she needed him, like she was so desperate to hold someone that even one of her horrible Quad mates would do. She nuzzled her face into his neck.

  It was like a violent Fendiran jungle cat had docilely crawled into his lap. He froze. She didn’t smell like danger, though, but instead of new fabric and rain and flowers. Her body was warm. This was bizarre, like he’d stepped into a dream. He’d never seen Oriana falter, never seen her weak. For the first time since he’d met her in the initial gathering room and she’d lashed him with a glare, he felt compassion for her. The ice princess wasn’t made of ice after all. He didn’t know what to do.

  But yes. Yes, he did. Of course he did.

  “It’s all right,” he said. He tightened his arms around her, and then spontaneously kissed the top of her head. Not like a lover. Not like he’d kissed other women at the academy. But like a friend.

  Suddenly, like a rising sun, the colors of her soul flared in his Anima sight. She was a cool blue, tinged in pink and yellow, and she was every inch as controlled as she seemed, driven by a need for strength.

  The goals of her life opened to him.

  Oriana’s life belonged to her kingdom, not to her. That was how she saw herself, at least. Any attempt to take what she wanted for herself was beneath her. She was heir to the Keltovari throne, and she had an obligation to lead her people, no matter what came. She was here at the academy for that purpose and that purpose alone.