Yawning into a hand, dressed in her in her usual combination of a blouse and high-waisted skirt, Ty hurriedly put on a pair of brown boots and headed outside, a light sweater and her bag slung over her arm. For once, she felt good.
As she usually did in the morning when she woke early, she walked the long way around the dorms to head out: she passed by the girls’ washing area, Kor’s room, Sel’s room, Faris’s, Cyril’s, and then finally Theo’s at the end of the hall before continuing down the hallway, walking briskly and taking the extra time to properly put on her sweater and bag when she heard a noise coming from straight ahead.
“Okay, so this one is history. ‘What is the significance of the Pyre of Northfield?’”
“Oh! Oh, I know this!”
She found herself walking faster, her interest piqued.
Elias slapped his pencil-holding right hand several times on the sheet of paper. “Um, um, that’s when fire burials were banned all around. They, um, the Ancients living on the land were super displeased about something to do with the fire, and they got so mad that the, the everyone, like, did some agreement thing. We had something to do with it too, I think. MATS.”
Callie hung her head defeatedly.
Elias continued his desk tapping. “Okay, but, like, I was right, right?”
“Yes, I mean, kind of,” she sighed. “One of the earlier common tribes—the Northfield people—had erected a pyre to publicly display the cremation of one of their own revered members. When a report was published by a member of MATS, the tradition was met with such disapproval that word of it was quickly spread to all other tribes, and the Northfield people were left with little ties. The entire village, without allies and with little means to sustain themselves over a long period of time, eventually disappeared. An agreement was struck as a result to officially denounce fire burials, calling them an extremely blasphemous practice.”
“Graces, that’s grim.”
Again, Callie sighed, about to start on the next question when she finally noticed Ty by the door. “Oh, hi lead,” she smiled pleasantly, waving.
Elias turned his head as well, looking far too pleased to have his studies interrupted. “Ty! Hey, come study with us!”
The tactician smiled, shaking her head and ignoring her duelist’s blatant cry for help. “No, no, you’re fine. Keep it up. I’m going to make my rounds.”
“Oh, bye!” she heard Callie cry after her, accompanied by a loud groan.
Next was the dining hall.
Pulling the ends of her sweater tight across her chest, Ty walked through the chilly dorm passageway, the surprisingly tidy common room—Darius and Selene must have brought back some of the food trays to the dining hall before breakfast—and then finally the rest of the way across campus to the dining hall.
With barely any people around today, so quiet you could hear a pin drop, Ty looked down the long rows of tables down the middle, some of the smaller tables near the back of the hall and close to her, and didn’t see anyone she recognized.
As she headed over to the other end of the hall, on the side where there were entire class-sized tables and booths to sit at—her favorite spots—she finally spotted a small, hooded figure beside a large one at one of the long center tables.
“Hi there,” whispered Ty when she approached the two, Selene not even caring enough to look up from her porridge.
“Hi,” spoke Darius gruffly for them both, looking up from his breakfast of bread, jam, and some other creamy gruel. He put down the spoon in his hand and gave her his full attention.
Selene muttered something inaudible, pulling her hood over her head some more even though it was already shielding most of it.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“Selene tired,” explained Darius quietly, offering a thin-lipped smile. “Talk is loud.”
Ty nodded. “That’s alright,” she answered, getting straight to the point before she permanently got herself on the botanist’s bad side. “Workshop at noon?”
The Ancient nodded solemnly.
She turned her head, nodding faintly and about to leave for the library when she stopped. She looked at the other doorway leading out of the dining hall to the courtyard.
“Have you seen Theo?”
Darius did not answer immediately like he usually did, so she turned around.
“Have you?” she asked again, watching his dark, steely eyes.
“He left at sunrise,” he articulated perfectly.
“What do you mean left?”
“He visit someone.”
“He didn’t tell me.”
Em, he’s going to go see Em.
“He back afternoon.” Darius gave her a confident nod before turning back to his breakfast. “No worry.”
Gritting her teeth, she turned around and left.
Heading to the library next, Ty reaffirmed to herself that whatever he was doing, she trusted him, too—call it na?ve, call it gullible, she had a feeling.
After doing some studying for her classes and preparation for class examinations, looking up every once in a while from her small study desk among the many on the bottom floor to see if anyone was on the still-barred fifth floor—which was always no—she headed out at noon.
After taking a small moment to stop at the Academy gates and stare at the grassy plains and rubble path leading to the village and its pointed roofs, smoking chimneys, and all its stone architecture, wondering if fate would bring Theo to her if she just stood there, she finally made it to the workshop.
Her meeting with Darius went well, as they spoke entirely about equipment and class uniforms and weapons; he’d get the standard uniforms sent over, adjusting them to her liking and specifications, and she reauthorized several tomes to have them ready for the next day.
Their meeting was so thorough that, when she finally had the chance to take a breather and sit down at the steps to his workshop, sipping on some hot tea he made her, she remembered one last task she wanted to complete for the day.
“Have you seen Kor today, Darius?”
“No, but she come later.”
“For supplements?”
“Yes. You hear, from yesterday.”
“Mhm,” she mumbled into her steaming tea. “Though I don’t know what they’re for.”
Darius’s answer was a simple chuckle.
Ty didn’t bother to look back. “Something else I’m missing, huh.”
“Is not future event. Is now, you just cannot see.”
“Hm. What do you think of her?”
“Difficult.”
“Difficult?”
“Complicated. Oppose Earth Mother.”
“They do fantastic work, though.”
“That is why difficult.”
“Ah.” She was starting to understand. “She may not be perfect or abide by your ethical standards, but she’s good at what she does.”
Darius chuckled. “Too many word.”
It was Ty’s turn to laugh this time.
She looked into the distance, past the Academy gate, at the village below, then craned her neck so she could see the school entrance to the left. Where she hoped Theo would be. “Say, have you ever seen those crystals Theo can make?”
“…Yes.”
She swiveled her head around a bit more to give him a suspicious glare before resuming watching the Academy’s entrance. “The bluish-white ones.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I’ve been thinking of a way to make a version that doesn’t disappear.”
“You talk to Kor.”
“That’s what I was think—”
She put down her cup onto the workshop floor behind her and stood up.
Someone tall slowly approached the Academy gate, not wearing any of the standard Academy clothes. A shorter, younger boy wearing a cloak was at his side, back to her. She could see the physician’s insignia on the hood clearly, the first years’ black lining on the edge of it. They appeared to be talking to each other, the boy looking up at the taller man as they stopped.
The taller figure looked old. Not in the wise, grandfatherly way like many of her tutors. He looked tired and spent, having seen more than one year too many, the white in his wispy, long grey hair predominant though mismatched and thin. He wore a long brown robe, bearing no insignias or affiliation even though she knew his ties, a simple tome holder slung over his shoulder that looked like one that Theo wore. It protected a threatening, deep-blue book that was as large as it was unwieldy, strangely suiting the rest of his outfit. Those who carried such tomes generally knew spells by heart and didn’t need to read from the script.
As his lips moved, his face was pale and dark, bearing the deep, fine lines of old age, defying the undeniable youthful intensity to his intense expression. It was as if he had been taken out of his time and placed in the present, condemned to a purgatory he could not escape—or perhaps he simply refused to die. Whatever it was, there was something off about him that she could not place, something about the darkness she could feel seeping under her skin while she watched the white, pale man speak that undid her once steady, resolute heart.
She wasn’t there with him, and she couldn’t read his lips or hear his voice, but she could tell from the way he talked, the way his mouth barely moved as if he only spoke in mumbles, as if he were perpetually casting a spell, or trying to hide that he was doing so, that this could not have been the face of someone who could be trusted, let alone human.
The man looked up and met her eyes.
She did not dare breathe.
