CHAPTER 10

I fell asleep that night feeling worn out and just not thinking of anything other than how much fun I’d had with the two boys.

We had raced along the course for hours until we could no longer move, then strategized for the quickest routes and how to go about setting records. Even thinking about it brought a smile to my face and even though they warned me they would be there in the morning to see to any repairs that might be needed, I worried that leaving them would mean that I wouldn’t see them again.

Almost like it had been with Xanile.

As the light hit my face, I woke up and went to the cubby that the boys had told me about and found a new pair of clothes for me to wear that morning and my freshly laundered ones too. Pressed nicely, and smelling like flowers I didn’t recognize.

I opened my door and bumped into someone on their way by me and fell to the ground. I looked up and found Xanile standing there with her face flush and her hair a mess.

Before she could say anything, I blurted, “I’m sorry I was so rude!”

She blinked at me and then said, “You were right.” Her already red cheeks darkened. “I’ve been too ashamed to come and apologize myself even though Winfred was insistent that I do. You were right. I apologize for insulting you.”

She reached down and held out her hand to me. “Besides, you’re no longer courtless.” I reached out and grabbed her hand so she could help me to my feet. “Have you decided whether to take my house name or not?”

I blanked and said, “uh…”

She snickered, “There’s still time. Think on it.” She stared at me. “You might want to hurry, I think that today’s course will be fun for you. Save me a seat at lunch?”

I nodded and turned to run off, mind whirling full tilt.

While I ran, the quest giver decided to make itself known to me, Congratulations, your Might and Dexterity have both been increased by one thanks to your efforts and toiling to improve.

I blinked at that and found myself grinning as I moved faster than I had mere heartbeats ago with no effort on my part, wondering how much my strength had improved and what I would do with it now. How much could I grown on my own?

I sped along to the training ground to find a line of people stacked up, those who waited in line doing various exercises as the instructors pointed to them and issued orders.

It appeared that a lot of the people who were seeing this for the first time were refusing to get into line until they saw it done adequately. I scanned the area and sure enough found my two friends watching from the sidelines with supplies for repairs if they needed them.

They smiled at me and I grinned at them back. They straightened up and someone appeared to my right, “Something funny cadet?!”

I flinched at his raised voice and stood straight, “No, sir!”

“I think there is, and its gonna be you!” He grabbed me by the arm and hauled me to the front of the line. I was too worried about what was going on around me and where my feet were to really get a good look at him in the early morning light. “Get your sorry rear onto that obstacle course—now!”

I grunted as he shoved me hard enough to actually push me over the log at the beginning where I landed on the ground up mulch with a grunt.

I heard snickering behind me, voices expressing dissent. One of them loudly proclaimed, “He can’t do this thing. He’s too small.”

That was all I needed to goad me on. Checking my speed at first to get used to it, I was up and running to the bars in front of me. I didn’t bother trying to grab the bars from a jump and clambered up the side like Shalie had suggested. Once I was there I wriggled over and clear of the pole a little and did the roll perfectly before launching myself forward to clear the next log.

“Woah!” Someone called behind me. “He’s like a little spider!”

“Faster!” The instructor who had grabbed me screamed, and my heart pounded as I overshot my jump to get to the side of the pool to the straddle bars. My hands grabbed the bar and I swung my legs through, pushing myself up and through to slide down to the logs like I had the night before.

I pushed myself onto the log and sprinted down it, leaping toward the log a few feet from where the bar for the straddle bars and balance logs were. This time my waist hit it and flipped over it and fell. I managed to catch myself and roll forward but still wasn’t as graceful as I could have been if I had judged my strength and the distance correctly.

I pushed myself forward and up the wall, keeping my self low as I dropped and vaulted the next few logs that were close together. Once I got to the rope it was a simple rush up the hempen obstacle to ring the bell that they had installed before I made my way back down.

The instructor stood there with his arms crossed over his chest as I stood aside for another cadet to climb the rope I had been on. “Well I just bet you feel like you’re special, don’t you, cadet?”

I blinked up at him, outlined in the light and and his face was obscured by the shadow that crossed his face. All I could answer was, “No?”

All that did was enrage the man more, making him scream, “Get on your face!”

Shocked, I dropped to the ground and laid there with my face on the ground uncomfortably.

The man shrieked again, “No! Put your hands beside your chest and push yourself up—push!”

I laid there pushing as he screamed commands to go faster, slower, stop, stand still, push again, then he finally howled, “Go! Sprint back to the front and go again. Sprint!”

As soon as I moved to comply with his demand, he chased me yelling for me to run faster. To push myself harder.

I did.

I made it to the line and when I tried to go back he snarled, “Go! Go again. Now!”

I did as he said and this time as I went to move past him, he went berserk and shouted in my face, spittle flicking onto my chin, “Scream! Scream ‘yes sir!’” When I froze again he stooped lower so that his face was even with mine and shrieked, “Screeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaam!”

“Yes sir!” My eyes were wide as the man stood up straight and whipped his arm toward the course, “Yes sir!”

This time, I trusted my body with the strength I didn’t know I had and tried to just keep myself from breaking anything on the course or on me.

There was a near miss with the balance logs and me jumping over the log in front of it entirely, flailing and trying to correct myself only to roll over my shoulder and hop back up running. I was sho shocked I started to chuckle and then enjoy myself.

After I completed the rope portion for the second time the man who screamed at me found me again and looked like he was about to make me go again when another man showed up out of nowhere, “Sadick. Enough—go away.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The man growled and sprinted away.

“Young cadet Saemus.” The man stared at me in interest, then walked away without another word before stopping and saying, “Follow me, please.”

I blinked at him and followed after. We only walked inside the nearest hall to the training grounds and turned into an office that was decorated with leaves and other small such treasures that children might bring to a parent. There were hundreds of them along the walls and on shelves.

Looking at him now, he seemed almost familiar to me. Gray cast to his skin and his hair tied back in a knot at the top and back of his head. His voice was low, gravely almost and when he spoke again, it was with kindness, “I hear that you have met my sons.”

I blinked, “Yes!” I hadn’t meant to sound so overly excited, was I grateful for him saving me from that screaming tyrant? “Vidda and Shalie are very nice boys.”

“They say that they helped you learn the course in exchange for you testing it with them?”

I nodded, then remembered, “Yes sir.”

He chuckled, “I see. I am Headmaster Sahenlal, and I appreciate your assistance in ensuring that my children’s work for the academy was well tested.”

“My pleasure, it was really nice to meet them.” I worried that he was going to tell me to leave them alone.

He frowned and tapped his desk, paperwork spread over it like he had been working before coming out to rescue me, perhaps purposely, perhaps not. “Saemus, I understand that it can be difficult to be here with so many people your elder and who are all supposed to be much more mature and physically capable than you are.”

I blinked at him, That came out of nowhere.

“That said, I am delighted to see that even in the midst of all that turmoil you must be experiencing, you are trying to thrive and find the fun.” He smiled at me and it looked genuine. Like a father talking to a child he was proud of. “I appreciate your parents’ donation here and have promised them that I would ensure that you had what you needed to adjust well here. While I cannot commute your judgement from Revina Doranda, I can ensure that you are well prepared for your time here.”

He reached back onto his desk and smiled as he collected a sheet of parchment and looked it over before passing it to me. “This is a list of the small exceptions and grants that I can give you. If you need more, I would ask that you let me know and I will do what I can.”

I nodded and took the sheet from him folded it up to pocket it. “Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you for your time and pleasantness toward my children, they are quite enamored with the thought of having someone their age here who doesn’t view them as a nuisance or a gray elf intruder. You have my gratitude for that.” He frowned as the shouting began again, shaking his head and chuckling. “And please, don’t mind instructor Sadick, things have changed since he served in the Unseelie army and he is quite the botany instructor if I do say so myself.”

“He teaches botany?” the headmaster nodded and I groaned. “I’ll be in his class.”

The man laughed loudly at my distress and just said, “I think you will see that he is not always so…confrontational. His class will be enlightening, I’m certain.”

I nodded and he looked to be finished speaking and I turned away to walk back out to the training and all I heard was, “Go prepare for chow, cadet Saemus.”

A curt bow of my head again and I was off to clean myself and prepare for my next class and eat.

**

I finished eating in record time as the other students had begun to stare at me, then when I looked at them looked away to speak amongst themselves as if they had never been looking in the first place.

I took out my map and found that the botany class was closest to the side of the building that I had just been near and was almost right next to the mock forest that the academy tended and kept for classes.

I made my way there, whispered conversations and mentions of my name and disbelief that I hadn’t cheated on the course some how slithering from mouths all around me. I wanted to scoff and laugh at them, but there was just no way that someone my size could do that so easily. Was there?

“I’ll find out how you cheated.” Someone muttered beside me and I turned my head to find the boy Marki standing in his doorway, staring with a glaring intensity that I had come to expect. “And I hope that you know the headmaster will hear of your poisoning me.”

I snorted at that, glad he was so stupid. “Poison?” I tilted my head and feigned remembrance, “Oh! You mean the tainted Cindry fruit I tried to take from your plate because it was going to make you sick? Well, I guess next time I won’t be so kind.”

I shrugged and he looked like he wanted to draw the sword he held. It looked like a nice weapon even though it was sheathed. As I walked away, I called over my shoulder, “I would mind what you eat—you never know what will creep up on you when your trying to mind yourself in front of the older students.”

His face blanched and turned red, his voice barreling down the hall at me, “Stop!”

Something within me clicked into place and I froze where I was. There was nothing that I could do to make my body move of my willpower. Someone’s hand grasped my shoulder and whipped me around so that he could cock his fist back and punch me fully in the chin. Pain exploded along my jaw line and I gasped, as his voice raised again, “Don’t move!”

I couldn’t even so much as reel back as he hit me again and again. The only thing in me that could move was my mind and it was reeling on its own. Was there anything I could do to keep myself safe from this magic he had? That’s what it had to be, right?

Correct, this magic is known only as the ‘Order’ and is a hereditary magic passed down through the Marki family. Each generation is capable of using this magic, but their control of it varies.

The quest giver had just given me information that I hadn’t known before. What more did it know?

I silently cried out for the quest giver to respond as another punch landed on my cheek this time.

It was hard to see through the stream of tears that sprang unbidden to my eyes, but I noticed a blurry figure loaning behind the Marki boy as he cocked his arm back for yet another punch.

The figure reached out and grabbed his upper arm and shoved him to the side, pressing him against the wall, “Release it, or I break the arm.”

“Who do you think you are?” The boy screamed and cried out in pain. “Release!”

“Comply the first time, you twit.” The figure snarled and shoved the boy against the wall. “And yes, I know who you are Etran Marki. Your pretty little sister too. Both of you are equally bothersome but for entirely different reasons. If I see you using this magic like this again, I’ll break both your arms and we will see how you do beating a defenseless child. Leave me.”

“But sir..” Etran began to whine, but his head rocked back and left before he turned and ran away.

I had already fallen to my rear and did my best to clear my tears before the man turned toward me. “Stand and follow me.”

I did as he told me, the pain in my cheek and jaw lessening slowly until we reached a large building covered in glass that reminded me of the sword my father carried. The man used something to unlock the door and ushered me inside.

He pointed to one of the seats at the front of one of the work tables, “Sit over there, boy.”

This wasn’t like the lecture halls that I had been in before with rows of rising seats and desks attached for work. This made it look like everything the class would do was hands on.

“I take it you didn’t know about his power?” The man spoke from where he busied himself, harvesting leaves from this place and that one before bringing them back over to me.

I shook my head, my jaw still aching too much to talk. He nodded and went to one of the cabinets in the side of the room, pulling out a mortar and pestle before bringing it to me, and pointing to a leaf that looked like it could have been mint, another a set of thistles and finally a thorn of ruby red, “I want you to grind all of this together.”

I gathered the herbs without a thought and put them into mortar and began to grind it with the stone pestle. The effort of it took my mind off the pain and embarrassment a little, but not much.

“Bad form to hit someone immobilized by magic like that, never cared for it.” He grabbed a couple more things and came back to the table, “Oh, you know your way around a mortar and pestle, that’s good work there.”

He added something to it that turned the paste that was beginning to form purple, then another thing that made it into a fine powder. “Excellent quality,” he sounded like he was smiling, but when I looked up at his face I realized that I couldn’t see his features at all. Like the instructor whose face I couldn’t quite make out in training. “Recognize me, boy?”

I managed to mumble, “Instructor Sadick?”

“I see that the headmaster told you my name then? Good. Saves me introducing myself to you.” He sounded like he was smiling again. “You know, I haven’t yelled at anyone like that in a good while. You had me genuinely excited out there, boy. What was your name again? Don’t stop grinding please, crucial part coming here.”

I kept grinding and he reached out and cut my cheek with something I hadn’t seen, my hiss making him grunt and just hold my head steady as the blood dropped into the small bowl. As soon as it touched the powder in the bowl, the substance exploded into a cloud that ran from the violet at its base to the red that flowed up toward me. Once the red was closer, it filtered toward my wounds and I felt better instantly. Like I had never been pummeled by some one larger than me at all with no hope of defending myself.

“There, all better.” He seemed pleased with his work, then stood up quickly. “Now, I believe if you rush, you’ll have enough time to make it to your next class. I can write you a slip to explain why you’re tardy if you need it. Most instructors know of me and will likely believe you if you say my name.”

I blinked and smiled, pulling my map from my pocket and stared at it, “Well, if this room right here is where I think it is on the map—I’m in the right spot for my next class, instructor Sadick.”

He turned back to look over his shoulder and growled, “Well I’ll be damned.”