The Quad

by Todd Fahnestock

  The futures she saw for herself rolled out before him. She must marry. She must produce heirs. She was betrothed to a powerful Keltovari duke’s son, and the marriage was set for the moment she graduated from the Champion’s Academy. He felt her distaste for the betrothal and, at the same time, her iron determination to follow through.

  Unexpectedly, Brom dove even further inside her. He hadn’t thought there was further to go, but he fell into Oriana like a bottomless well. He felt the power of his magic expand. He not only saw her intentions but her hopes. And he saw a secret so personal that no one else in the world knew it.

  Oriana’s heart had already been captured, and not by her betrothed. She had a lover. A woman with dark brown hair, freckles, and mischievous eyes. A woman surrounded by horses.

  Brom couldn’t see the woman’s name. Anima magic didn’t seem to work that way, with words and names and concrete things that language could define. There were only impressions, images of what the person would do or hoped to do.

  Brom saw the woman as Oriana saw her. He saw the woman as she turned, her dark hair flinging out in a halo, her profile outlined by the setting sun. He saw the woman crying. The woman laughing. He felt the future that Oriana wished to have with this woman, and he felt Oriana’s certainty that it could never be.

  He drew a shuddering breath and pulled his Anima sight out of Oriana. He felt like a voyeur seeing her hidden dreams. But when he tried to sever his connection to her like he’d done with so many people these past weeks, it didn’t work. He surfaced from her deep places, but he couldn’t pull away. It was like he’d hugged her, but when he tried to release her, his hand couldn’t let her go.

  Exultation burst within him as he realized what this meant. This wasn’t just some person on Quadron Garden. This was a Quad mate. His increase in power, the dive into her hopes and dreams. He had broken through their barrier.

  Brom had just bonded with Oriana.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Oriana

  Oriana sat in the mud at the edge of the river. Grief raked through her like claws. Mother’s bloody cough had begun the night Oriana had accepted The Collector’s offer to attend the Champions Academy. She’d known it would kill Mother, probably within the year, but nevertheless the horror of it had slammed into her hard when she’d received the message tonight.

  She hadn’t been fast enough. She’d come to this academy to cure the Bloodbane—the disease ripping through the highborns of Keltovar—, and her only hope was magic. And Oriana wasn’t any closer to becoming a Quadron. She could feel the magic in this place, could feel it locked within herself, but she couldn’t get her hands on it.

  Her grief had driven her from her dormitory tonight. She’d run blindly until the river had stopped her. Here, she’d fallen to her knees, then curled up to sob by the water.

  She had never felt so helpless as she did now. She thought she’d come here to gain power, but instead this place had stripped her power from her. She wasn’t really even a princess here. She was just a girl trying to do the impossible—

  The willow fronds moved to her left, and Oriana jolted upright.

  Her Quad mate, Brom, materialized from the darkness like a wraith.

  She froze. With effort, she gulped down her tears. Anger bloomed in her, giving her the strength to lock her grief behind an iron door reinforced with years of training. She wasn’t supposed to appear this way, not in front of people.

  And aside from the brawny Fendiran, Brom was the last person in the world she wanted to see her weakness. Brom cared for nothing. He’d abandoned his studies. He’d fled his own Quad. He recklessly dared expulsion to bed equally reckless girls.

  Father had told her of men like him, arrogant men who believed they were invincible. They pushed their luck until it ran out. And then they always looked bewildered when the axe fell, never admitting they themselves had called the headsman. Oriana almost stood up and left.

  But then she heard Father’s voice in her head.

  What others see as disaster, a leader must see as opportunity.

  She held herself still. This might be such a moment. A tiny voice in the back of her mind said that somewhere in this horrible mess lay the key to bonding with Brom. She couldn’t see it, not yet. But if she could just find it and take control of it, perhaps this was the opportunity she needed.

  The end of the year was only weeks away, and if Oriana didn’t do something, her entire Quad would be expelled. She wouldn’t bring magic back to Keltan, and the Bloodbane would prevail.

  If any of them had a chance to become a Quadron, her Quad mates had to bond, and they had given up on trying. If they had only listened to her, she could have knit them together.

  Except that her Quad mates detested her. Her very existence was offensive to them. Royal hated her because she was Keltovari. Vale hated her because of her station.

  And they hated each other only slightly less. In the end, they’d walled themselves off. Brom didn’t seem to care about becoming a Quadron anymore, only about how many skirts he could raise.

  The Fendiran had wrapped himself in his righteousness, refusing to bow to Oriana’s suggestions, no doubt swearing to himself that he would rather die than help her, even if it meant failing to become a Quadron himself.

  And Vale... Well, Vale just wanted to kill them all, it seemed. The more their Quad spun toward certain expulsion, the more worried Oriana became about Vale’s undisguised malevolence. Oriana had actually begun locking her door at night, not knowing if Vale would come calling with a knife, intent on exacting some bloody revenge for her ruined chances.

  And Oriana... Well... She had tried everything she could to bond with her Quad. And she had tried everything she could to learn magic on her own. She had started with her natural strength: research. She’d absorbed all of the first-year texts, the second-year texts, and even some of the third-year texts. But there was only so much she could understand without actually practicing magic.

  And for that, she needed the others.

  She had tried commanding the Quad to work together, but that had been a disaster. Royal, eternally suspicious of her, had ignored her. Vale had hissed at her.

  Oriana had been stunned to learn that the skills she’d been taught didn’t work in every situation. They were predicated upon power and authority, and she had no authority here. The academy brought all students to the same level, whether they were street urchins or princesses.

  She’d finally abandoned trying to connect with them and tried to discover which path was hers on her own, starting with Mentis, which seemed the most likely. She’d tried every mental exercise on the Invisible Ones. Nothing worked.

  Frustrated, she’d turned to Motus, projecting her emotions. That had been just as useless. She’d tried to dive into their souls, as an Anima would. She got nowhere.

  She’d even tried to focus her strength and lift Royal’s stupid steel pyramid. But there was simply no way around the necessity of the bond. She’d circled the dilemma for months. It was a question of breaking down the barriers between herself and her Quad mates.

  She couldn’t fathom breaking down Royal’s barrier, and Vale’s was just as hopeless.

  But Brom, on the other hand...

  He had no deep-seated hatred for her. His dislike was situational, based only upon their interaction of her trying to lead him and him refusing. Despite his uncaring attitude, he might be the one Quad mate with which she might form a bond.

  The only question was: how to achieve it? What command could she give him that would break him open, make him vulnerable, make him...

  No. Wait. Maybe that was backward. She’d tried all that, after all. Perhaps it wasn’t about breaking down his barriers, but about breaking down her own?

  The realization was excruciating. What if, rather than making them cooperate, she must make herself vulnerable? What if she must open herself up and hope they chose to bond with her?

  It sent a shiver up her spine.

  H
ope...

  Hope was a horrible idea. She’d have no way to control the outcome. Not only that, but making herself vulnerable left her open to attack. She could hear Father speaking.

  A ruler who relies on hope is lost. You must have a plan.

  But she’d followed her plan. She’d followed all the plans, and each of them had led to a dead end.

  This, however, was new. Perhaps this was what the masters had intended all along. She must step outside of herself, choose to become like those to which she desired a bond. To become, in Brom’s case, like a commoner.

  What did residents of Kyn do? She imagined it. They thumped each others’ backs, hugged and laughed and talked about their problems. Oriana had never done that. Moreover, Father had told her she could not respond as others did. Her subjects expected her to be more, to project perfection.

  So when Brom came near, sat down next to her, she tried to joke with him. It felt awkward, and she was horrible at it. But surprisingly, he responded, joking back.

  Her spirits lifted. They were connecting. It was the closest she’d come to making a bond.

  Then he downplayed the importance of becoming Quadron. He said “Fuck it,” and she rebuked him.

  If he didn’t care about becoming a Quadron, why was he even here? Why would he put himself through this torture? It cast her own dedication—her need—in the mud, as though it didn’t matter. Becoming a Quadron, for her, mattered more than anything.

  Failure reared its head again as Brom closed off, tossing a verbal stab at her. He shrunk away from her, readying to stand up, and she realized she had made a misstep. In this, as with her previous attempts to bond, it didn’t seem to matter that she was right. It only mattered if they…somehow drew closer.

  As long as this rule-breaking boy saw her as trying to command him, he’d never bond with her.

  Desperately, she leaned into him.

  He went stiff. She thought he might stand up anyway, but instead he relaxed.

  Slowly, his arm encircled her. He was tentative at first, but then more sure, pulling her tight. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She went stiff...then caught herself and tried to relax.

  There. She was snuggling with a boy who cared for nothing and no one. Surely that was enough to crack open her first Soulblock.

  She waited for it to open, to reveal her path to magic. But it didn’t. No magic came spilling forth. No bond formed.

  Her heart beat faster. This insidious magic demanded more. She shrugged off the notion that she was failing again. Did she think it was going to be easy? No. She could control this outcome; she simply had to give more. She couldn’t just hug Brom and expect lightning to fill her. She must deliver something he wouldn’t expect, something powerful.

  Something private.

  “I want to tell you something,” she said hesitantly, and she found it was suddenly hard to breathe. She swallowed, and her scalp itched. “A…secret. Something no one else knows about me.”

  “Oh?” he said, and he got quiet.

  In that torturous calm, she hesitated again. This admission would betray the one person she loved the most. Then she thought of the oath she’d made when she’d left Keltan with The Collector.

  My life does not belong to me, she had sworn to herself. My life belongs to my people.

  She must protect them no matter what. Even if it cost her what she held most dear.

  “I’m...in love...” she said. Her throat constricted, choking off the words. “I have a lover. No one knows about her. No one knows that I... That she...”

  It felt like her heart was a piece of paper and she was slowly tearing it in half. Ayvra was full of life and passion. She was glorious and innocent. She and Oriana had discovered each other, held hands, shared secrets. They had even kissed a number of times. It had been a stolen season of happiness.

  But the truth was, it could never be. Such a thing was utterly forbidden for a princess betrothed to another. She had duties of marriage and childbearing. If Father found out, he’d put Ayvra to death. In Father’s eyes, she could only ever be a threat to the throne.

  Oriana was so tense it felt like her own fist was clenched around her entire body, and if she could just clench hard enough, she’d hold herself together. She’d find the right path and steer this awkward pairing to the required bond.

  But she couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. She had given her most personal secret to this reckless builder’s boy who had no allegiance to anything, least of all Oriana. Even if he didn’t decide to intentionally hurt her, he would surely hurt her through his negligence, letting this secret slip while bragging to another boy or exchanging pillow talk with one of his lovers.

  Surely, this vulnerability, so raw and reckless, would fulfill the needs of the magic. Surely this would precipitate the bond.

  But Brom just sat there, silent for a long while. “Okay,” he finally said, without any surprise. He evinced no reaction, neither interest nor condemnation. It was like he’d already known.

  And still, her Soulblock didn’t open. No magic came.

  Despair welled up within her. She’d just told him what she’d never told anyone, something that could kill Ayvra...

  And it hadn’t worked.

  “Gods…” The exclamation escaped her lips, unbidden. She had done everything, and yet still no magic. Perhaps The Collector had been wrong. Perhaps Oriana wasn’t meant to be here.

  She saw Uncle’s black lacquered coffin in her mind’s eye, draped in purple. She saw Mother lifting her chin, eyes flashing in denial as she pocked the white handkerchief with the blood on it.

  And then, unbidden, the specter she’d feared the most rose in her mind: an image of Father sitting upon his throne, blood in his beard as he tried to lead a kingdom.

  Her grip on herself faltered. She couldn’t see any way to control this, to make this bond happen. Despair swelled within her like water crashing toward the top of a dam. Uncle’s death. Mother’s death. The specter of the Bloodbane.

  It was too much. Kelto, she fought to hold onto it, but she couldn’t. Her emotion spilled over.

  Her control shattered.

  “We’re dying,” she blurted helplessly, and the horrible truth spilled out. “It’s killing us. All of us, and I’m not strong enough to stop it.”

  “You mean your mother?” Brom said, his body shifting.

  “My mother. My father. All the highborns of Keltovar,” she whispered. Her mind screamed at her to stop speaking. This was the secret no one could know. This wouldn’t just destroy Oriana’s heart, not just one beloved person.

  This secret could take down her entire kingdom.

  The words stopped coming as Oriana fought to breathe. Finally, she sucked in a deep breath, and she sobbed, openly and shamefully right in front of Brom.

  “It’s why I’m here,” she said through her sobs. “It’s is the only reason. I came to find magic…to find a cure.”

  She sobbed so hard it hurt, held him so tightly that something broke inside her. It felt like a rib cracking, a swift pain. A hot, wet guilt flooded through her.

  She was lost. All she wanted to do was die. There was no coming back from this. Whatever she had been before—princess, daughter, ruler—she was nothing now. She’d told this lowborn boy how to destroy Keltovar. She had given up everything. For nothing.

  She pulled away from him, curled into a ball on the mud of the bank. She couldn’t stand to touch him anymore, couldn’t stand to even be inside her own skin. Every tear this builder’s boy saw was a new stripe of humiliation, a new mark of failure.

  I’ve failed. And in my desperation, I've lost everything. I betrayed my people. I’ve done everything I swore not to do.

  Brom broke the silence.

  “…trying to bond with me?” he asked. “The tears and the confessions. Wow.”

  Her guilt turned then, twisting and rising up like a horrible snake, transforming into rage. Brom’s irreverent musings made her hate him. She turned a v
enomous glare on him, ready to unleash a torrent of vituperation, ready to destroy him as she had just destroyed herself.

  But her indrawn breath hung there, and her anger withered.

  Brom’s lips weren’t moving.

  “When she told me about her lover, it was like she was forcing herself to stand still while someone slapped her. But… Not the Bloodbane. I don't think she meant to say that at all. She’s letting loose…everything. She’s doing everything she can to make a bond with me. Gods…the strength of her! The courage. I never knew…”

  Those weren’t his words. Those were his thoughts!

  Elation flooded through her. His thoughts continued to tumble into her.

  “I have to help somehow, but I feel like if I even move, she’s going to claw my eyes out.”

  That warm, wet feeling inside Oriana wasn’t guilt, it was magic! The ‘crack’ hadn’t been a rib. It had been her first Soulblock opening!

  She focused her attention on it, and the wet feeling transformed into lightning, sparking and crackling. This was the same thrill she’d felt when The Collector had appeared in Keltan in that rainstorm a year ago, except a hundred times stronger.

  “I did it,” she said breathlessly. “I’m reading your thoughts.”

  “What?” he asked, surprised. “She’s the Mentis...” His thoughts tumbled into her. “Gods, she’s the Mentis!”

  “Yes,” she tried to think back to him. “I am our—”

  “I broke my barrier,” his thoughts trammeled over hers, unresponsive to her attempt to communicate. “Then she broke her barrier. We just bonded! Both of us!”

  “Yes,” she thought to him again. “We—”

  “I should have known she was the Mentis,” His thoughts stampeded over hers again. “Of course she is. She’s trapped in her head all the time, so cold and distant. It makes perfect sense.”