Chapter Ten: Congratulations, You’re Dead

Confused, and afraid, the people cried out to the Sculptor, begging for salvation from the God who had shaped the clay of the universe to bear forth the world.

Relic Mastery class was held in a long, wide room, one side lined with cushioned dark blue mats that led to a wall of sliding glass, the doors moving to open onto the rolling sands at the edge of the campus. The other half of the room was a polished wooden floor, reflecting the lazy light of sinking afternoon sun on a gleaming surface that smelled of lemons. Shadows crept up the barren walls, holding up no decorations save a painted mural of the school's crest, the domes of the university stretching high towards the ceiling that hovered nearly ten feet from the floor.

Following her classmates into the room, Briddy’s attention was caught by a couple of planks that popped up here and there out of the burnished floor, raised just slightly above the rest in a seemingly random pattern. The only reason she had noticed was that the light from outside was slightly warped around them, bending around and continuing beyond the few irregularities in the ground. There weren’t many of these planks that she could see, but something about their placement felt purposeful.

“Not another invisible one.” Someone grumbled, and Briddy looked up to see people craning around the classroom once more, looking for a teacher or some kind of staff to begin the class. The gnawing, freezing pit in her stomach that had reared its head back in Relic Lore grew bigger, and despite her best efforts to push it down further, the sight of all those hands in the air hovered in the back of her mind. Wiping sweaty palms on the sides of her shorts, Briddy craned her neck to look with the rest of her class, searching for the “Hennigan” that her sister had warned her about.

As the doors closed behind the last of the class that wandered in, something about the shadowed room kept them huddled near the front, muttering and whispering to each other.

“We get to leave if no one comes in a quarter-hour, right?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”

“Did you hear about what she did this morning?” Briddy caught the golden-headed friend of Niles muttering this to Parvati, who listened to him with a half-cocked head and a skeptical expression. Looking away, she spent another couple of moments studying the odd floorboards in the classroom.

Turning to Gail to try and distract herself by asking if she saw, she was caught off guard by the intense expression that the tall girl wore, her eyes narrowed towards the far end of the room.

“Everything all right?” She found herself asking.

“Do you feel that?” Gail responded, not moving to look at her as she spoke.

“Feel…?” Turning towards the front, Briddy let the inquiry trail off, a tingling sensation buzzing up her spine and ringing a pulse of alarm through the back of her head. It felt somewhere between a nagging throb and a migraine, but it eclipsed her in a feeling of wrongness, the way nails dragged down a board of chalk raise hairs across the body.

Vex…

Unbidden, she called to her relic, feeling an echo of recognition that lasted for barely a moment before a block slammed into place, cutting off the response from ever truly reaching her. The air was suddenly rent with the sound of ringing metal, and the silver half-moon of an axe with a blade half the size of a fully grown adult winked over their heads. Scuttling backward, the class tripped over one another in an effort to get out of the way of the falling weapon as a ring of red appeared along the curve of its blade. Despite the initial panic to move, the axe embedded itself in the ground a good six paces away from the student nearest to the front, sinking deep into the wooden floor like it had landed in warm butter. After a moment, it dissolved into a cloud of black ribbon that seemed to burn away as it met the afternoon sun.

“Line up.” A voice said, silken smooth and devoid of inflection. Unlike the invisible tones of Doctor Gektu, there was a clear direction for the origin of this sound, the exact point that Gail had been staring at just moments before. Fighting her panic, Briddy froze, looking at the weapon for a good, long moment as she tried to will her body back into moving. Who threatened their students like this? Just what kind of teacher had Adelaide made an enemy out of?

“That was amazing!” Niles burst out, his nasal tones coated in honey.

“If I want your air, I’ll tell you to waste it. Line up.” A man stepped out of the shadows, lithe and long with a hard face and blonde hair buzzed painfully short. Across his scalp, visible through the fuzz, a bright patch of angry red skin took up one side of his head, and small, dark eyes looked emotionlessly across the scuttling students. Niles was one of the few who eagerly hopped into the spots at the end of the line closest to the teacher, who began slowly pacing the length of the assembled class.

Briddy was reminded of the MountainCores that she had seen in the Teradish Coalition’s zoo, hulking, deadly felines with curved golden tails ending in a large, bulbous stinger. If their claws and teeth didn’t rend your flesh from your bones first, their venom would quickly burn you through if not immediately treated. Something about the way that the man’s eyes glittered told her that he was much the same.

“All of you,” He spun in a fluid motion at the end of the line, stalking his way back up while looking each student in the face. “Died.”

Briddy looked up at Gail, slowly raising an eyebrow quizzically. Shaking her head slightly, Gail turned back to the teacher.

“Four of you noticed that I was here. Nine of you were able to tell after my relic had been summoned,” He strode to the middle of the room, stopping beside a raised floorboard. “Two of you noticed something was off with your environment.” He pressed down on the protrusion, and to his right, the boards of the floor parted, sliding back over each other like scales on a fish. With a distinct pop, a dummy shot up out of the ground, an oblong, sagging sack tied at each end with multiple rings drawn across different parts of its horizontal body. As the animal-like dummy reached a height equal to the man’s shoulder, the floor planks slid black into place, the single board slowly rising back up to its raised position near his foot.

“None of you took the actions necessary to negate the things you noticed, and none of you would have survived had this been a hunt outside the Reach. Congratulations, you’re dead.”

Bridget could feel her cocked eyebrow raising even higher, a skeptical expression creeping onto her face. That was what they were here to learn, was it not? Either he was a poor teacher, or this was a play to embarrass his students and reinforce their fear. Whichever it was, she was beginning to understand why Adelaide hadn’t gotten along with this man.

“I am Instructor Hennigan. You may address me as ‘Sir’ or ‘Instructor’ or not at all.” Smiling in a way that showed no teeth, he continued, “I have the… pleasure,” the tight-lipped smile turned to a grimace “of teaching Relic Mastery and Advanced Combat Encounters.” He tapped a finger on his sharp jaw, looking over the assembled line in front of him. “You. Name.” The finger swiveled to point at a young man with dark hair curling down his cheeks in shaggy sideburns.

“Lord Thurston Kishwall, my good sir.”

“Kishwall, summon your relic and attack the dummy.”

“Well it’s actually Lord-” The young man began.

“Do I look like I give a GutsGoose’s ass? Summon.” Hennigan jabbed a finger at the boy, then at the dummy. “Attack.”

Frowning, Thurston raised his hands in front of himself, closing his eyes as his lips moved without noise, the sideburns on his face twitching with the movement. Growing up out of his hands in wavering lines, vines curled and knotted into a club, thicker at the end than the handle. Eyes opening to reveal a sense of grim determination, he charged, swinging at the dummy with a cry on his lips. Halfway through the weapons descent, the vines wavered, poofing out of existence before the young noble could land a strike. Instead, his hands harmlessly glanced off the rough cloth that covered its back.

The instructor folded his arms, letting out a long sigh that pushed through both his nose and his mouth. “Back in line, Kishwall.”

Thurston shuffled back into place, not bothering to attempt a correction this time.

Hennigan repeated this, pulling a couple more students out to summon their relic and strike the dummy with varying degrees of success, but the air of overwhelming disappointment clouded the room even further. Sending Parvati, who had summoned a silver bow the same color as her arm and neatly impaled the front of the dummy to no praise, back into line, the lanky man began to look down the line once more, seeking his next victim.

Briddy could feel herself shrinking next to Gail, sending up a silent prayer to the Sculptor that he looked her over and called someone else, or at least moved on from whatever this was supposed to be.

“You.” Hennigan’s finger pointed straight at her. She jumped, letting out a slight squeak and stepping forward. “Name.”

“Bridget…ah, Vasily, sir.” Bridget winced as his mouth slammed into a thin, bloodless line. “But I’m nothing like my-”

“So you’ve been proclaiming to anyone and everyone across half the campus. Summon your relic, Vasily.” He said her name as though talking around a taste of mud. An icy branch of fear sprouted from the pit in her stomach, turning her veins cold from core to extremity. Looking between him and the staring line of students, she froze, her mind fizzling to a halt as her limbs refused to move.

“Well, Vasily?”

Summon it, girl.

Her chest tightened as her mouth tried to form the words to explain.

“Don’t just stand there and leave us in suspense, now.” Hennigan’s voice was dry.

I’m not asking, Bridget. Call it.

“Vasily. If this is some form of belligerent prank…” The threat trailed off, unspoken.

Vex?

There was nothing there, inside, except a scared little girl, cowering in the corner.

“I…” She swallowed, moisture creeping into her eyes, “It won’t listen to me, Sir.”

Instructor Hennigan scoffed, the muscles in his arms tightening where they crossed his chest. “What does your relic look like then, Vasily?”

“A sword, I think.” Bridget managed to choke the words out, avoiding his gaze.

“You think? Have you ever even summoned it?” She tried not to flinch, his condescending tone striking like a whip.

“I don’t know that she can, sir.” Niles drawled from somewhere to her right, seeming to savor each word.

“How…unsurprising. You cannot bull your way through a relic’s bond, and every Vasily I’ve met tends to force their way through things, ignoring naught but their own wants.” Niles and his golden-headed friend loudly snickered their agreement, lighting a burn in her cheeks that slowly crept towards the tips of her ears.

At her side, Briddy’s hands curled into fists, shaking as she dug her nails into the skin of her palm as Hennegian continued. “I’ve told Mistress a’Tyr, they shouldn’t even allow heirs that are so fresh they’ve never even summoned, it’s a waste of the University's resources.”

“I’ve done it once.” Her voice came out in a mortified whisper. She felt like vomit would accompany her next words. “It was a sword, like my father's.”

“Was it now? Well, relics do tend to take on the forms of their previous bearers at first, Vasily. Summon it now then.” He waved away her statement with a few casual flicks of his hand.

Taking a deep, shaking breath, Briddy closed her eyes, trying to gain hold over a focus currently shaken from panic and embarrassment.

Vex, please. Come to me. She called, slowly releasing the fingers she had clenched so furiously at her side. Without raising the lids that shrouded her gaze, she could tell that nothing had happened from the murmurs and occasional snicker that rose behind her. It hurt so bad, failing at the one thing that made her special, the one thing that could set her apart from Adelaide and Nolan, but no matter how hard she called, she just threw herself against an immovable, unfeeling barrier that never reciprocated her pleas.

The mutters grew, and she withdrew, wrapping a blanket of nothingness around her heart. If she felt nothing, then nothing could hurt her, not Hennigan or Niles or the great Titanium Kerr. Not if she protected herself in a numbing void. She pushed, yearning to feel something, to have that sense of a whole self that she had felt in that one singular moment when Vex had responded to her call, straining to find a crack in the wall that kept them apart.

Vex. I’m begging you.

Why can’t you hear me?

“That’s enough.”

Briddy opened her eyes to see Hennigan walking away, towards the back of the room where he pressed a protruding plank with his foot, causing a section of wall to slide open. A neat rack of training weapons was nestled inside the apartment, and he selected a large, two-handed wooden sword and tossed it towards her. She made no move to catch it, and the training weapon clattered to the ground, sliding to a halt near her feet.

“Hope for your own sake that you at least have your father’s skill with it.” Briddy crouched to scoop up the sword, hanging her head as she made her way back into line. She knew she was nowhere near her father or Adelaide, and every part of her body felt weighed down, crushed under the weight of a light silken robe and a silver pin in the shape of the sigil of her father’s famous guild.

“With mastery over a relic’s true essence comes a greater connection. With a greater connection, you receive more of its name. More of its name grants you more of its power.” He looked around at the students, most of whom had eager faces at the thought. “For now, separate into your Cells and practice attacks on these targets,” Hennigan stomped on another board and the floor to the class’ left slid open, more of the oblong sacks shooting up in a neat row.

Gritting her teeth, Briddy made her way towards the dummies with the rest of the class, only making it a few steps before being stopped in her tracks.

“Kishwall.Vasily. Arment.” The instructor called out. “Not you. Practice on the dummy here, alternating between your practice weapons and trying to call your relics. Try not to cause a scene.”

Working her jaw, Briddy tried to ignore the smug look that Niles shot over at her, nearly jumping out of her skin when a hand clasped her shoulder. Looking up, she saw Gail, looking at her with an unreadable expression. The pair stood there for a moment, pausing before Briddy slightly shrugged, and Gail squeezed her shoulder and went over to go join Niles. Since Tuck wasn’t an heir, he wasn’t in the class, but Bridget missed his easy grin that seemed to temper the scowl that seemed almost permanently plastered to his cousin’s face.

“Well then! Shall we get started?”

She turned to face the pair standing behind her, a short young woman with dark hair neatly swept into a pair of buns, and the young noble with those egregious sideburns, both staring at her as though expecting something.

“Sorry?”

“I said let’s get started, old girl! These relics won’t summon themselves. Abaget, fetch me a training weapon, would you?”

“Taken care of, my Lord.” Sweeping off, the dark-haired girl walked towards the open wall.

Turning back towards Bridget, Turnston gave her a sly smile. “So that Hennigan, eh?” His eyes shot towards the other side of the classroom, and Briddy glanced over her shoulder to make sure the teacher was still patrolling the practicing Cells. The clamor of ringing metal and the occasional rush of power made eavesdropping difficult, so she looked back over at the noble and nodded, with a grimace.

“Don’t take it too hard, I hear he’s a beast unless you earn his respect. Doesn’t help that he’s Head of Discipline too, so I imagine that your family was rather intimately acquainted with his mercies.”

Briddy swallowed, looking down at the hefty piece of wood in her hands. That made more sense, and at the same time did absolutely nothing to help her situation.

“Here, my lord.” Abaget was back, proffering up a cudgel with a short sword tucked under her arm.

“Ah, good on you.” Thurston snatched up the club, not even waiting before swinging it down hard onto the sack’s back with a satisfying thwack. “A brute’s weapon, really, but who’s going to tell mother otherwise?” He stepped aside, gesturing with the training weapon. “Your go, I believe.”

They took turns, Briddy swinging the two-handed sword in heavy, long arcs and Thurston smacking carelessly with his club. When it came time to try the relics, neither faced better luck with their relics, the young lord failing to keep his in a form, and Briddy unable to produce anything at all.

“Aren’t you going to try?” Wiping sweat from her brow, Briddy looked over to where Abaget hovered, watching Thurston with a concerned expression.

“Oh don’t worry about her, she can summon just fine.” Thurston flapped a hand.

Looking between them, Briddy tilted her head, glancing over at Hennigan, who was currently scolding a student for swinging wildly and nearly smacking him in the head.

“Oh! Abaget’s my attache, so she failed in order to stay at my side.” He tipped her a conspiratorial wink.

Bridget slowly nodded, her stomach churning as she considered the fact that only two people now struggled with their relics, and she was one of them. Searching, she found the practice target that Gail and Niles had claimed, the latter currently doing a series of jumping spins as he danced around the dummy without striking. She wanted to be there, even if it were just to watch Niles’s antics as Gail was, toned arms crossed and a bored expression hung on her sharp face.

So much of Briddy’s life had been lived behind glass, kept out of the way of people far greater than her, away from actually being able to live. Now, watching her peers swing weapons sung about in legend, it felt like that wall was back, keeping her away from ever joining, closing her into the tiny box of failure.

Sweat began to leak from Niles’ brow as he twirled the shaft of his lance. Creasing his brow behind the oval frames of his glasses, he jumped, thrusting it forward into the sack, directly where a red target was painted on burlap.

“Not bad, Sanlaurant.” Instructor Hennigan said, inclining his chin with the first praise he had spoken all class.

Briddy turned back towards Thurston and Abaget, shaking her head at Niles’ showboating. Of course Hennigan would end up liking him, that just seemed to be her luck. The pair was watching her with an almost identical set of expressions that betrayed naked curiosity, and she cocked an eyebrow to see if they would say something. Abaget looked at Thurston, who simply shook his head with a small smile, and gestured towards the dummy. It was Bridget’s turn again.

She closed her eyes, calling to Vex with weary expectations, and was rewarded in kind with silence, and that insurmountable wall.

“If I may, Miss Vasily?” Briddy’s eyes flew open, and she looked over to where Abaget stood.

“Try envisioning your relic as you call it, not as the literal form you first called it, but rather the spirit of it. What were you feeling at the time? Why did you call out to it?” The attache folded her hands delicately in front of herself as she spoke.

Nodding her thanks, Briddy turned to try once more, but before she could close her eyes, a snicker crossed the room, raising her hackles. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Niles’ golden curled friend whispering to the girl with short fluffy hair, a cruel smirk adorning her lips. Briddy gave him a look, her eyes hardening as she stared until he stopped, sneering as he turned back to the dummy behind his group.

“That’s a scary expression you’ve got, old girl,” Thurston said cheerily, nudging her with the tip of his club.

“Maybe I’m a scary person.”

“You might be right!” He seemed unbothered by her frosty tone.

“Sorry,” Bridget rubbed the back of her head, flicking her horsetail out of the way. “Today has been… rough.”

“Our legends shape our paths, Miss Vasily,” Abaget spoke, her face a mask of serene wisdom.

“Good, well tell my legend it’s full of-”

The chimes that ended class rang out, cutting Bridget off before she could say anything too horrible, and Hennigan clapped his hands once, bringing the class’s attention back to his tall frame.

“You’ve all got a long way to go.” He said, looking at the group standing in front of the dummies. “Some more than others. Your relic requires mastery over its physical form before you can begin to touch its true power, the Unspoken Shaping. Magic formed without the holy words.” Turning to face the group of three in the middle of the room, he made direct eye contact with Bridget, speaking his next words slowly. “Rest assured though, you will not last long here, let alone pass my class if you cannot even summon the inheritance that you lay claim to.”

With that, he turned, stalking back into the shadows at the back of the class, and leaving his students to stare at the girl who was heir to a legacy she could never live up to.