Precious Colors

  It’s…it’s morning.

  With one eye open, Theo groggily brought a hand up to shield his face from the bright light streaming in from the window behind him. Home?

  He glanced to the side and saw a stack of books and his book bag lying on a small table. Beside him on the bed, was his class coat.

  No, this isn’t home.

  Letting out a yawn and closing his eyes one more time to get rid of the burning red of his nightmares, Theo stretched and dragged himself out of bed. Then, stopping to take a long look out the window at the waking city, he shuffled on his coat—warm from the sunlight—and grabbed his bag to get ready for the long day ahead.

  * * *

  “It’s a nice day today,” said Theo softly, breathing in the crisp spring morning air. “Chilly, though.”

  Moriya gave him a curious look. “Are you going to be okay?”

  Theo returned the look. “What do you mean?”

  As if caught having said something he shouldn’t have, the professor stiffly turned to head into the main MATS building beside them.

  “Ugh.” The tactician rubbed his eyes and followed unquestioningly. “I’ll pretend you said nothing.”

  The inside of the main MATS headquarters was, as always, beautiful: the inner framework of the building was mainly made up of white, polished stone and dark, elegant wood, carved so ornately it felt rather pointless; the ceiling was as high as the first three main floors, extending down the entire length of the building to the back entrance on the other side of the block where there were wide windows to match the main entrance. It almost felt like being in the palace with all the walkways for the floors above plain to see, except there were far more people here than back in the Royal Capital. And at the center of it all, past the entrance and down the first set of stairs to the floors below, was the most convincing replica of a Soul of the Earth Mother—its trunk stark white and its overarching, all-encompassing leaves pitch black, the tree’s obsidian canopy dominated the ceiling and the building with its grandeur.

  However, the most breathtaking thing—what Theo never tired of seeing—was the books. Endless rows of them, stacked from as low as the first lower floor up to the third floor. The fourth floor above, which was devoted entirely to MATS’s training grounds, could not be seen from the entrance, but he knew for a fact that there were plenty of bookcases up there as well, full of tomes he would never get around to learning in his lifetime. Especially not when he had been tasked with eradicating them all.

  They have to know that this is a fire hazard…

  Dodging several people before getting into line to be admitted inside by an administrator, Theo could not help but notice how oddly busy it was for so early in the morning. “Was it like this last night?” he whispered, recognizing city officials making their way through with their uniformed outfits in the stark Faluntide violet.

  “Yes, busy,” responded the professor dully, his icy stare boring a hole into the administrator at the head of the line. “Annoying. Give me your pin.”

  The obedient student he was, Theo pulled his silver pin off his coat and put it in front of the professor, who grabbed it with the same hand he had been using to hold his own golden pin, which was decorated with a single black line—1st order—followed by two red lines.

  “You…can have a single class as both your primary and secondary?” asked Theo inquisitively, never having seen the same discipline for both lines before. For himself, he had a solid, unfilled first line—given by default to students, who were considered of the 5th order—a yellow line for what used to be his first profession, physician, and then a red line for his secondary profession as a caster. Ty had a gray and red line—tactician first, caster second. Even Em didn’t have two of the same color; his was solid gold with white—denoting the highest MATS rank, ‘Founding’—red, and yellow.

  Moriya lowered his hand and glanced at Theo from the corner of his eye, a triumphant smirk on the edge of his lips. “Yes. In very rare cases, should you request it. It’s frowned upon because it’s important to diversify your arsenal, but if you can get a Founding member to vouch for you during adjudication, as well as win in a battle of their choice, you can have it granted. I’d tell you to do the same, but without a fancy pin like mine, I will say that you do have the privilege of catching other sorcerers off guard.”

  Theo couldn’t help but offer a judgmental look. There was no doubt in his mind that Moriya absolutely relished in the fact that he had an official two-lined caster’s pin cementing his superiority over his other single-lined casting peers. “I’m sure you could get your hands on any crappy pin if you wanted to.”

  The silly smirk did not fade. “Who says I haven’t? But why use that ugly pin from the sorcerer you killed when mine’s shiny?”

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  “Next.”

  Unable to fathom what had possessed the professor to take a pin off a dead man’s body, and watching the individual in front of them walk forward to present their pin to the administrator, Theo returned to observing the strangers going in and out again.

  However, his eyes fell on one.

  Long blond hair. Thin, delicate. Commoner’s hair.

  Oh no, oh no, oh no. I’ve got it dirty. It was those stupid carts! Almost ran me over, I’m such a fool…I’ve got to wash it…hey Theo? Do you think I could wash it in the fountain? When it’s dark, and no one can see? I’ve only got a few coins left…

  Beautiful green eyes.

  The old gramma who took care of me…before she was gone…she said my mother gave me her eyes. She said that they could fetch me a lot of money. What did you think that meant?

  Clad in armor bearing an amber Eletian seal, they walked toward them from the opposite direction with two helmeted soldiers following.

  Do you think you’d ever become a soldier? I hear sometimes they pick up kids like us off the streets…I think…if they treated me well, I would go. But only if you two came with me. Would you, Theo? Oh, come on. Don’t give me that face. How about you, Aze?

  There must have been an important meeting for Eletian soldiers to be here, leaving right after the Faluntides. Not a commotion, not a single abnormality in sight, despite being under the roof of the commoners’ sworn enemies.

  Another ghost. Another impossibility. Every ghost but the one he wanted to see.

  Meeting their gaze briefly as they walked past, having caught Theo staring, the soldier’s eyes lingered for barely a second before moving on. The same thing happened to one of the other soldiers who walked past.

  “Theo.”

  His heart skipped a beat as he turned to Moriya, who was standing beside the administrator in front of them.

  “It’s our turn. Let’s go.”

  But before he could obey, Theo could not help it. Fighting every instinct in his body, he stiffly turned back. To see if his ghost was still there, if he had heard.

  There was no one.

  “Right here, it’s this kid,” proclaimed the professor loudly as he pulled his speechless student by the arm over.

  Just as Theo met the eyes of the stranger behind the desk, he turned his head again to the entrance.

  Gone.

  “Ah, I thought it might have been you,” smiled the staff when Theo finally returned to Moriya’s side, feeling his aching heart beat again. “You may come through—I think Em’s wrapping up a class, but he might have already returned to his office.”

  Nod. He could not trust his voice. He could not tell who was listening, which ghosts remained.

  “Got it. Thanks.”

  With one more rough yank of the arm, Theo finally snapped out of it, walking past the gate and stumbling straight into his stern-faced professor.

  “Oh, I-I’m so sorry,” stammered the fully alert student as he caught his professor’s deadly glare, fully prepared to recite his last wishes before Moriya helped him shuffle off his mortal coil. “I-I didn’t—I didn’t mean to. I’m here. I’m sorry.”

  The apologies appeared to impress the irritated professor, who nodded toward the stairs behind Theo. “Good. Now, let’s go.”

  The tactician furrowed his brow, pointing down the stairs that went toward the fake Soul of the Earth Mother. “Em’s office is downstairs, though.”

  But Moriya’s withering look was all it took for Theo to retract his statement, stepping toward the main staircase with his current teacher in tow to search for his former one.

  “No way he’s in his office,” explained Moriya tersely, ascending the stairs faster than Theo even though Theo had been ahead. “He knows we’re coming, and he hates me.”

  Theo did not ask why—he did not have to. The hurt look on Em’s face every time Theo had mentioned Moriya’s name to him…after the third time, he decided he wouldn’t speak of his current teacher anymore out of sheer guilt. But that changed little—he could still see it in his face, the look of betrayal whenever he spoke about school, whenever he evaded any mention of his name.

  “I guess it’s only fair, since I don’t like him either.”

  “Give…give me a bit, okay?” complained Theo under his breath, trying not to pursue the topic, but also truly struggling to catch up to the swift-footed professor.

  “Ah, yes,” the professor quipped, his attention successfully diverted. “Stairs, your mortal enemy. I forget that often.”

  Letting out a loud sigh, which wasn’t all that loud among the chatter of the other MATS members heading up and down the stairs—a class must have just concluded—Theo remained silent until they finally approached the fourth floor, and a blast of fresh air hit them.

  “Seems like they opened the front courtyard today,” he muttered under his breath, taking a sharp turn from the fourth-floor landing over to the main training grounds when he noticed his professor was no longer with him. “M-Moriya?”

  “Excuse me.”

  “O-oh, sorry.” Not taking more than half a second’s glance at the individual behind him, Theo stepped out of the way and continued to search for his professor in the crowd.

  “Over here, we’ll meet with—” called out a monotone voice from the other end of the hallway, in the middle of nodding to the side for Theo to follow when he realized he had attracted more than just his student’s attention, but also that of the stranger beside him. “Oh. What a coincidence.”

  Hearing that, Theo finally took a thorough look at the tall stranger with the brown cloak and thick tome at their side. Even with only wisps of their grayish-black hair peeking out from under their hood, he knew he had made a grave mistake.

  “I’d call you bold, but you forget that I know you’re here because you’re itching for a fight,” rumbled the sorcerer with a deep chuckle, walking up to the professor and easily dwarfing him.

  “Who says I forgot? Come fight me, old man,” threatened the tiny caster with his arms folded across his chest.

  To think that Theo had been worried for nothing during the General Assembly earlier in the year—he had feared the worst when he caught Emrys entering the class, but he later calmed down when he realized that both his teachers were capable of being civil with one another in a public space. How was it he was only now realizing how much of a lie that must have been?

  “Now, now, people are watching; we don’t want to trigger any alarms,” chuckled Em patronizingly before turning to Theo and the handful of other students who had stopped to watch the courageous caster challenge one of MATS’s highest ranked individuals, “How does the front courtyard sound, my boy? It should be empty for the next hour.”

  Eyes darting first from Em’s warm gaze to Moriya’s cold one, then to the interested looks of other students, Theo slowly and awkwardly nodded. “S-sounds good.”

  “You heard the child.” With a polite smile, the towering sorcerer turned back to Moriya, about to usher him to the side when his hand stopped about an inch away from the professor’s coat. “Oho. That would have been an unwise move, huh?”

  “Courtyard it is,” responded Moriya tersely, turning his back on his enemy and stalking off.