Aki

I sat leaning against the vast outer wall beside the thick iron of the southern gate, nibbling on a loaf of bread and watching the others arrive in gaudy and lavish carriages. As though they’d organized their order of arrival, each came more extravagantly dressed than the last, each with a larger trunk banded to their more decadent carriage and surrounded by one or two more in their adulating retinue.

Four years with these pompous fools, I thought, shaking my head.

The caravan to the academy stood next to the only gate to circumvent The Muds and Roots. A garrison especially created to keep watch of the bypass watched us from their barracks—old but well maintained two-story buildings that surrounded the large, open space before the exit. The Royal Academy’s caravans—twenty passenger carriages and five luggage carts made of dark, polished wood, all of them proudly hanging The Royal Academy flag from their rears—stood lined against the outer wall. This would be the second and penultimate such caravan. Twenty passenger carriages, a hundred and twenty students per trip, three hundred and sixty from the capital alone. Then there were the other Evergreen cities, and the free-cities, and those from vassal states. Altogether, The Academy was said to take nearly two thousand new students every spring.

Edon arrived relatively early, his usual carefree demeanor stiffened by the company he found himself in. He did not approach me, nor offer words of greeting. A quick and discreet nod was all I got. I did not resent him for it. He was as weak to resist the world and its machinations as I was.

After the last of the passengers arrived, the academy coaches began to move, twisting about like a slithering snake. An odd sight, that. They moved with a fluid complexity I thought exclusive to constructs of soul and flesh. No rider sat atop them to provide direction, no animal or beast was hooked to them for propulsion, and yet they moved as though they were but a single sentient creature aware and in control of each coach like it was a limb.

“Attention,” a voice boomed beside me.

Jolted, I bit my tongue. The bitter taste of blood wet my throat as I looked up at the source of the shout.

The young man, or, I should say, an outwardly young man, stood atop the leading carriage. As if in wait, his eyes, already aimed at me, locked mine to theirs with utter contempt, content to ignore the hundreds of godlings who watched and waited for him to continue. Dark shadows under heavy brows tried to push my gaze down into submission, his sensus weighing on my soul. I did not shy away.

Suddenly, as if finding some answer in my resistance, he gave me a knowing smile and turned his gaze to the crowd, his face going slack in that lazy way that allowed features to droop into bored neutrality.

“I am Lokos,” he said to the crowd, “the head groundskeeper for the prestigious Royal Academy and your escort for the journey. We will be leaving shortly. Any excess luggage unable to fit your allotted space on the carts must travel by private means, which, I would be remiss not to remind you, will not be under my protection. There are no assigned seats aboard the carriages. Decide the seating arrangements amongst yourselves. You have a quarter turn.”

With that, he dropped down from the carriage and landed next to me, not a speck of dirt rising from the impact.

“Aki, is it?” he asked.

I shifted back, eyes going hard. “You know me?”

“Well of course,” he said, amusement curling the edge of his lips. “You are the first Mud to ever attend The Royal Academy after all. Did you think being the first to transgress into the realm of your betters would not earn you the recognition of infamy?”

“I suppose if they were my betters,” I said, shifting my gaze to the mass of royal brats. They lashed their servants with orders, whipping them into a frenzy of tasks. Men and women rushed to pack away the erected tents, tables of food, and jugs of water and wine. I remained where I was, reluctant to suffer their company until I was forced to join them in the carriages.

The bald man came closer and sat beside me. “They are your betters. Time, if you are given any, might see you rise above them. Until then, it would be dangerous for you to think otherwise.”

“I have always thought time was a currency only the weak spent and the strong could afford.”

The man screeched a laugh that opposed his masculine features. Like the pitch of the now-dead Rowan, it stung my ears.

“Why did you attack me?” I asked.

“Attack you,” he said, surprised. “Oh, you mean my little experiment? Well, to test your mother's claims of course. I couldn't help myself—she speaks so highly of you.”

It took a moment for me to register his meaning. When I did, I leaned away from the man, a sudden lump in my throat. “She—”

“There’s no cause for concern. I am only here to deliver a message.”

“A message?”

“Yes, a message. A brief list of duties you must follow to stay in her good graces. Well, she didn’t say ‘good graces’, but I think you're clever enough to catch my meaning.”

“And?”

“And there are simply four of them.”

“And?”

The man smiled. “You must know it is dangerous to be so curt with those who could take your life as easily as I.”

I quirked a brow in question. “And?”

His smile disappeared and a look of irritation furrowed his thick, hairless brow. “Are you seeking to die? Such reckless irreverence could mean little else.”

“I am no fool, Groundskeeper. Do not take my initial reaction as my only one. I know you are tasked with my safety. A task that could see you punished for its failure. More importantly, you know who my mother is. I believe her punishments make death seem like ecstasy. And so it is you, not I, who offers reckless irreverence.”

“I can hurt you in ways that leave no mark and have you wishing for death.”

Anger boiled. Not fear, anger. I worked to keep it off my face. “Do as you please. But remember, if you mean me harm, make sure death follows. For if it doesn't…”

He laughed again. Again it sent a sharp slice of discomfort up my spine, vibrating my teeth. “What can I say?” He shrugged. “I can't help myself. She was entirely too infatuated with you for me to resist. You’ve shown me a little of why.”

I waved away his excuses. “Tell me the message and be gone.”

“It's rather simple. Two objectives, the smaller of which is inherently achieved by the larger, and two rules you must follow in their pursuit.”

I sighed. “You have issues with brevity.”

He ignored my remark. “Your duty, should you wish to earn her approval and avoid her displeasure, is to win a commission into the Royal Institute of War. She assures me this does not deviate from your own plans.”

I nodded. They did not. No one could accuse me of aiming low. Yet the familiarity of her instructions was more than a little disconcerting. Knite sharing her goals for me did not speak well of him. But then again, it did not speak well of me either, for I too shared them.

“Her only restrictions are for you not to speak of your lineage or swear allegiance to another,” the man continued.

I shrugged. I had no plans of the like. In my mind, I had no family, no parents, no kin. I planned to kill her and Kalin to render that thought more true. And swearing allegiance to another? Such an act went against the very reasons I found myself here.

I stood to leave.

The bald man nodded to the bustling crowd of students. “They hate you, you know?”

“They always have.”

“No, they haven't. Those who you’ve interacted with in the preparatory academy have only been annoyed by your presence. Even then, most were failures the Branch families had sent away to avoid having to spend any serious time and resources on. They, to an extent, accepted your presence as punishment for their inadequacies. Those you will soon meet are a breed apart and will hate you for trespassing into their world.”

“I am not trespassing. I bought my right to be here with blood, sweat, and talent.”

He shook his head at me like a world-weary elder would at a callow child. “They will see it differently. Roots and barks who made it will suffer until they submit. You, not only being a Mud but having no choice but to deny them your submission, will see the worst of it. Do not waste the first year, for that will be the only one you have to prepare yourself for the onslaught.”

I nodded. They could do no more than Kalin, I thought. Let them do their worst. “Tell my mother I will do as she asks.”

“If you think she gave me questions to deliver, then maybe you are not as smart as I was beginning to believe.”

I turned and walked towards the carriages.

Naturally, the students seated themselves in order of hierarchy. The six Leaves took the front, the order amongst themselves decided by reasons unbeknownst to me. Those from The Branches came next. They ordered themselves not by strength—as I suspected the Leaves had—but further still by sequential pedigree. Yet behind these were the students from The Roots who seemed to place themselves by way of their family's wealth. My place, as was decided for me, put me beyond the carriages and in the foremost cart, sitting among the luggage. Though there were three empty seats on the last of the carriages, all three of the occupants, every one of them a Root, refused to share it with me. I hadn’t the strength nor idiocy to oppose their decision.

I sat cramped between chests and coffers and trunks, the small sack of Merkus’ clothes and other provisions held tight between my cramped legs. I’m better off, I told myself. Better this than their company. Deep down, I hurt. I had spent the days after my acceptance into The Academy basking in my success. Dreams and reveries of climbing up from the dirt, past the roof of my station, and into the warm rays of privilege had brought the light of happiness to my bland and vengeful existence. They had given me a harsh reminder when they threw me from the carriage. I had landed hard, crushing the resurgence of my naivety beneath me. I’d thought I’d killed it, but then again, it is hard to kill what the mind has given birth to. At some point, before we began to move but after the sun’s light broke through the opening gate, the soothing thoughts I nursed myself with were replaced by cold anger. Not at them, but at myself. It quietened my aching pride and cleared my eyes of budding tears. Privilege is a childish pursuit, I told myself. Power is the channel that directs the rivers of life. No longer was my passing into The Academy a momentous accomplishment, but a minuscule victory, a single step on the journey of my ascension into true control. My pride instantly rejuvenated, telling me I would get there.

What met us on the other side of the gate was a stone road cut into the very face of the crag, a thin lane hugging the gargantuan cliff the capital was built upon, its surface flattened by age and covered in dust by recent obsolescence. Unlike the plateaus, which by definition had near vertical declines, the road was an even slope, wounding down below the adjoining city and its walls and rising at the end with the dip of The Muds as the city ended and the cliff joined the rest of the island.

For much of our smooth descent, I saw nothing but the ocean and sky pushing against each other like lovers. When I finally released my eyes from the lovers and turned away from the dead sea, it was to witness the sky sharing a similar, more chaotic embrace with the land. Fields of green farms stretched into the distance. Beyond them were hills of darker greens. Further still, undulating waves of trees composed forests of near-black. Yet further, obscured by the mists of distance, were snow-tipped mountains.

I was a city boy. My whole life was spent between walls I could see, walls that protected me from the true scope of my insignificance. Herein lay my ambivalence. Whereas my mind swam with the freedom of such vast and open spaces, by that same quality, I struggled with the depths of my nullity.

The Royal Academy was not far from the capital. The journey took an able caravan no more than five days. Located on the southern coast of the capital island, the road that led us there flanked the edge of the land, the beaten track always in sight of the calm sea. For half of the first day, we passed farmlands sporadically peppered with the estates that presided over them. Then we were out of the capital and into the wilds of the island.

The winds were quiet the first night we camped. The carriages and carts were clustered together and surrounded by scores of tents, their flags raised high and bright as a warning to night-dwellers of ill-intent. Larger tents of colorful sheets tied with golden ropes and embroidered with complex matrixes made up the inner camp. As the concentric grouping spread outwards, wax and fires and other such mundane tools replaced matrixes, silk replaced linen, and tents grew exponentially smaller, ending with those provided by The Academy.

I sat by the carts, chewing at the tough, dried meat I’d packed for the journey, when a voice jolted me.

“You must try to win the support of the lesser students,” Lokos said. His voice came from somewhere to my right and behind me. I did not look to see. My eyes remained on the erected roofs, shining matrixes, and constant lights of the camp.

“They would not risk associating with someone like me,” I said. “It would bring them nothing but strife.”

“You will need allies if you are to survive, and anyone above your status would, at the very least, demand your allegiance by way of a lesser bondage.”

“I will not need allies; I will need strength.”

“You can use theirs.”

“Godlings have long proven that the strength of others can only be used by a greater strength.”

“So, you are thinking on the matter?”

“Without wisdom, bravery would simply be stupidity. I understand the scale of my undertaking.”

“Without doubt, wisdom would simply be arrogance.”

I looked at him then, surprised. “You’ve read The King’s book?”

Lokos smiled. “Though I may not look it, I was not always of The Branches.”

“You are a Named?” It was a question that didn’t ask the question it asked.

He nodded. “As all us masters of The Academy are. Mine was conferred long ago. I have your mother to thank for it.”

I grabbed my small sack of clothes and placed it against the bottom of the cart's wheel, then shifted down to lay my head on it. “Will you not tell me the tale?”

He looked down at me, meeting my gaze. “No,” he said, a hint of anger in his voice. “I’d almost forgotten your age. Only a child would—”

Lokos’ head jerked east. He closed his eyes and tilted his head, listening to some far-off noise. He’d covered ten paces before I registered his movement. I lurched up from my makeshift bed, leaped to my feet, and made to follow. I knew where he was going, and why.

Most of the students in the inner circle of tents remained a rowdy lot. I could hear their careless carousal as I rushed past the glowing, silken flaps of their tents. A few of the more vigilant and sober students had come out into the open, having sensed some disturbance or other. They caught sight of me and chose to follow. One of them grabbed me, thinking me the cause of the disturbance. I pointed at the wave of embers that had just then floated into view. Slackjawed and wide-eyed, he released me.

I found Lokos a little outside the row of humble tents that made up the border of our camp, his figure silhouetted by the gruesome sight of fire and death that blazed a hundred paces east of us. The wretched screams of men and women, the wild neighing of horses, and the cracklings of burning wood pierced the night sky. Hundreds of figures atop squat horses pounded through and around the camp of guards and attendants who’d followed us.

A Leaf tried to run past Lokos. The bald man grabbed him by the scruff of his burgundy silks and threw him back into the crowd of spectating students. “No one leaves the camp,” he stated.

The boy struggled to his feet. “I command you to save my root. I’ve only just broken her in.”

Lokos looked at the boy, communicating his reply without words.

“You are a branch,” the boy argued. “I am a leaf! Damn you, you will save my mud!”

A few others stepped forward, all of them dressed luxuriously, all of them blonde-haired and petite.

“Linus is right,” one of them said.

“We order you to save what is ours,” another said.

Lokos remained quiet.

The godlings grew indignant, screaming threats at his back, voices rising into a crescendo of outrage. One of them pitched forward, rushing towards the groundskeeper. Several of them followed. Lokos took out the first three before anyone could blink, causing the rest to stagger to a halt—physically and verbally both.

“No one leaves the camp,” Lokos repeated, his voice booming with enough volume and clarity to reach both camps. “I do not follow your orders for the same reason your caravans do not carry the marks of your houses. Until you have proven your worth and graduated into your entitlement, you are no longer royalty, but merely students of The Academy.” Lokos turned to the carnage. “And as such, you have no authority whatsoever, let alone the authority to make demands of a Named such as I.”

A particularly loud scream took my attention from Lokos. It came from a man on fire. He ran from the retinue camp and threw himself off the cliff and into the sea, the first but not the last as several others followed him down. Their deaths were certain. I think they wanted that certainty. Barbarians rode horses around the motley group of guards and servants, shepherding them as if they were cattle, saving them from the predator that was their suicidal fear. I doubt their fates were at all more palatable for having been rescued.

Linus, the boy who demanded his Mud be saved, fell to his knees and slammed his fists to the grassy ground. He wailed, tears streaming down his face, snot bubbling from his nose. No one cared. His was not the anguish of grief; his was the petulance of intemperance—not that anyone would've cared either way.

I looked behind me. Branch students stood dejected. They’d conceded their loss. Roots fought to keep smiles from their faces lest they were punished for their delight. They knew better than to allow their cargo to travel without a banner of protection. The rest of the Leaves approached from the inner parts. They laughed as though the loss meant nothing.

At some point, the screams died away and much of the camp retired for the night. Lokos and I and a few others remained, the howls and cheers and pounding hoofs of the bandits ringing in our ears. It was not an easy victory for them. They’d lost half their overwhelming numbers in the attack, a few of the servants having been Roots who had some ability to defend themselves. I believed the barbarians were unaffected by the loss. They cared more about celebrating their win than dealing with their loss. In fact, they danced atop their fallen as they rejoiced in their victory.

Some of their numbers scoured the site, jamming sharp spears into dead bodies.

Suddenly, among the dead littering the site of the battle, two women scrambled to their feet and bounded towards our camp. They’d played dead as the others were slaughtered. Now their strides were ones of pure panic, releasing all the penned-up energy and fear they’d kept silent. Four of the barbarians who took notice jumped onto horses and gave chase.

One of the hopeful escapees—a slight girl with russet hair and a pinched face—turned to see how well she fared. That was the last mistake she ever made. Her sandal snagged on a stone and she tumbled. The leftmost Barbarian peeled away from his companions to deal with her. A lash of his whip wrapped around her leg. Her screams died before he managed to drag her back to the conquered camp.

The other woman ignored everything but her target. It wasn’t enough. One of the horsemen came at her at an angle, swiping a heavy club at the back of her head. She buckled twenty paces from Lokos. Twenty paces from life.

The two that followed pulled short of the woman's body. The third, the one who struck the blow, veered back in a loop and rejoined them.

I could see them better now. They wore clothes and boots of tanned leather, coats of thick fur, and jewelry of coarse gems and polished teeth. The largest of the three bore a bear pelt, the gnarled face of the animal set atop his head casting an ominous shadow over his wide face.

The bearish man dismounted. He bent down to the unconscious form of the attendant, grabbed a fistful of her dark hair, and pulled her up until she hung from his grip, her feet dangling. The pain of having all her weight supported by the roots of her hair whimpered her awake. She tried to struggle free. The man's strength was too great. She tried to claw at his face. His reach was too far. She went for his arm. He wore too much armor there. She tried to beg for her life, then plead for a quick death. He had no mercy to spare, or, more likely, no mercy at all. He held her up until despair zapped away the fury of her struggle. She went limp then, sobbing, tears joining the blood trickling from her scalp.

“Your people are so fragile,” he said. He spoke the island language with an accent I couldn't place. “Mine grow strong in the wild while yours grow weak behind walls.”

“Take your empty words and leave,” Lokos said.

The hulking man, eyes glued to Lokos, buried a knife into the woman’s neck. He dragged the blunt edge across her throat, ripping more than cutting the skin as she gurgled her last breath.

Blood gushed. A little of it spraying forth. Much of it soaked into her dress. What remained slid down her over-saturated garments, dripping from her hands and feet to form a puddle beneath her.

I decided I disliked this wild beast and his kin. Though less insidious than the godlings, he and his kind were just as ruthless, and, to my dismay, entirely more brutal.

“If you’ve grown fearful enough to not take action against me now,” the man said, “soon you will flee when I attack the camps you protect. The difference in our strength is fading, hairless dog of Evergreen.”

This time Lokos Laughed. It was a derisive laugh if ever I’d heard one. He stepped forward, his arm whistling through the air in a blur. Both the barbarian's companions sank to the ground, small blades jutting from their eyes.

The bear-man released the woman and dove back.

“I let you attack the camp,” Lokos said. “Now return to your pack of mongrels before I find you more troublesome than useful.”

I shrunk back from the scene. While the barbarians were brutal, Evergreen’s wards were lethal.

I had begun to like Lokos. His playful nature and boorish manner reminded me of Merkus. They were far from alike; this man was a Named, a faithful servant of Evergreen, a favorite of Lorail.

The wild man did as he was told, forgetting the horses in his mad dash to his fellow barbarians. It wasn’t long before they too took off, hurrying inland and fading into the distant forest, leaving behind a wreck of carts, caravans, and bodies.