Memories Alight

  “You must be feeling better,” smiled a curious-eyed Callie as she observed the already-prepared dining hall booth. “I was planning on doing this. You shouldn’t have.”

  Theo shook his head, returning the smile and nodding to the two trays of food in the middle of the table that he had been listlessly sitting in front of for the past five minutes. “There wasn’t much, so it wasn’t terribly difficult. Besides, I had time.”

  “Still. Thank you,” returned the support, sliding down the other side of the booth with Elias behind her, until she was beside Theo. “I’m surprised they let you out. You were in rough shape when Elias got you.”

  “Oh?” Theo cocked his head. How had he not stopped to think about how they brought him back to the Academy? Ty wasn’t around anymore, and it wasn’t like Cephelia—no one had enough anima to keep a Weightless spell on for that long.

  The duelist shrugged and leaned back in his seat, head turning to watch the rest of the class arrive. “Wasn’t too bad—you’re light. With Callie and Selene taking turns with the Weightless every so often, I could have stuffed you into a bag and slung you over my shoulder.”

  “Kind of you to set aside your differences,” Theo murmured under his breath with a grin, turning to watch his three remaining students arrive.

  Elias’s reply was similarly veiled. “Beggars can’t be choosers, after all.”

  “Hey, y’all arrived early,” commented Kor, surveying the table before pointing a thumb toward the front counter. “I’m feeling like tea. Anyone want?”

  “O-oh, I’ll take some,” Callie piped up first.

  “Anyone else?” offered the chemist again, stepping back to let Selene into the booth before cocking her head at Faris behind her. “You?”

  “Coffee. I’ll come,” grunted the caster, who met Theo’s gaze for a split second before pulling away and taking the lead to go up to the front, a light-footed Kor in tow. The hall was so silent that the rest of the class could clearly hear their conversation.

  “Good, ’cause I don’t wanna mess it up again.”

  “You’re a chemist. You wouldn’t mess it up if you cared enough.”

  “Maybe I mess it up on purpose.”

  “Why in the world would you do that?”

  “Hmm. Why, indeed?”

  “Shall we eat?”

  The tactician turned to the royal. “Yes, of course. Please go ahead.”

  The meal matched the tone of the Academy. Sparse, barely there. Without the color it always had before. It felt sad. Nourishing, enough to get by, but different from living, as if mere students needed to care about such things.

  Watching Selene sit back down with a small dinner roll, some vegetables dressed in a light sauce, and a portion of stuffed omelette on her plate, he suddenly thought to ask, “Who taught you how to cast Weightless? I didn’t know you learned support script.”

  The botanist looked at her meal shyly. “Only…only a little. It was in an old tome that Ty gave me before she left…with some healing spells and stuff. She said I was good at it. I dunno.”

  “Ah.” He found himself nodding and gazing around the hall as the royal returned to eating.

  A group of four young students, eating silently among themselves. A group of two with librarian badges dangling from a band on their arms. A lone professor eating with a book in front of him. A few other lonely students sprinkled around—one in a corner booth, one near the front counter, and one by the windows overlooking the courtyard.

  What are they still doing here?

  “Aw, you were waiting for us?” chuckled a playful voice.

  Theo locked eyes with Kor and smiled wryly, finding no reason to lie. “Nah, was just thinking.”

  “Mm,” mumbled the chemist, extending a cup of tea to Callie before sitting down across from Theo and to Selene’s left. “Maybe you need some of Faris’s coffee.” About to make a silly remark, she turned to Faris only to see that he had taken a seat beside her. “Wait—” she balked, looking the caster up and down. “You seriously sitting here?” She nodded to Theo. “What’ve you got against him?”

  Taking a long swig of the coffee in his hand while facing away from the rest of the class, Faris pretended not to hear.

  “Wow, okay then.” While a playful pout would have normally accompanied the words, she seemed hurt for once as she turned away.

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  And then, like the other students in the somber dining hall, the six students ate. Korinna struck up a conversation with Selene from time to time, Callie whispered a few passing words to Elias, and Faris ate silently. Theo took small portions for himself after everyone else, knowing he needed to eat though his stomach turned at the thought.

  Bread, vegetables, and eggs. A simple meal that was easy to stomach, unlike everything else. Enough to keep going, to survive. More than what he could have ever hoped for growing up.

  “So, have we decided if we’re all going, or…?” started Elias once he finished his dinner.

  “Back to the Royal Capital for us,” mumbled Kor while chewing on the last dinner roll. “Circle of Graces isn’t safe anymore, but maybe we’ll help out if they need us.”

  “Be safe, okay?” piped up Callie, the worry never quite leaving her face since Theo had seen her.

  Selene’s reply was immediate, but wavered slightly. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Hey.” Kor nudged Faris with her elbow, not for the first time that dinner, trying to get a word out of him. “Where you goin’, huh? Home to mom and dad?”

  Without even looking up from stabbing a few pieces of vegetables together with his fork, he replied immediately, just like Sel, but with pure conviction behind his words. “No.”

  “What, you gonna stay here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well.” Eyes wide with surprise, not pushing the matter further, Kor smiled painfully at Theo. “What about you, Theo?”

  “That’s…a good question,” he responded weakly. “I’m not sure either.”

  Korinna palmed her face dramatically and let out a loud sigh. “Ah, y’all really out here to kill Callie and me with worry.”

  “A-as long…as long as they’re safe, as long as we return,” answered Callie, locking eyes with Theo. “That’s all that matters. That we live.”

  “…And that we return,” finished Theo, trying to smile for Callie, if not for the part of Ty he could see in her.

  Callie’s expression seemed to brighten, and her frown turned into a soft smile. “Yeah,” she breathed.

  “So where are you two going, then? Staying here? Eletia?” grinned Kor, no longer acting dejected.

  “Heh,” chuckled Elias before turning to his side. “Callie?”

  “Umm,” the support fretted, her face turning slightly pink. “Well…I was going to say that I—”

  “How about we go to the beach first?”

  Callie’s eyes grew wide. “Are—are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I know you wanted to go back.”

  “I-is that okay? Won’t it be dangerous?”

  Elias broke eye contact and picked up his second dinner bun, nonchalantly ripping it into two. “It’s okay. I’ll protect you.”

  All eyes turned to Callie, who sat frozen in place, staring at him.

  When she finally snapped out of her stupor, her face was beet red. “T-the beach…then maybe—maybe, um, Eletia? And then we’ll be back.” She turned to Theo. “How does that sound, tactician?”

  Still struggling to find his own answer, Theo uttered an indecisive groan. “Well…what will we do, even if we come back together?”

  “Explore!” exclaimed Selene, standing up while her voice echoed in the hollow dining hall, attracting the gazes of all present but refusing to shy away from her answer. “We can do what we’ve been doing, can’t we? Going around? Even if Moriya gives us missions every once in a while, it’ll be like normal, won’t it?”

  Though the answer was still unclear to him, though there were still so many important questions left to consider, Theo found himself nodding. “Yeah. I’ll…speak to Moriya when I see him. We can make the deadline…the first week of the ninth Grace. When we would have…entered our third year. If anything happens, I’ll try to be in touch. Is everyone okay with that?”

  All around, save for Faris, were nods.

  “Sounds good, then.” He looked down at his empty plate. “When is everyone planning on leaving?”

  Kor hummed, tapping her index finger on her chin. “Maybe the day after tomorrow. Need to pack.”

  “Yeah…” agreed Callie with a slight nod. “We should probably…take what we need for the next while, huh?”

  Theo nodded, too. “Yeah. And if you can’t take everything back, at least make sure your belongings are all back in the dorms.”

  “Mm.”

  “’Kay.”

  As Theo turned to the setting sun outside, his head felt light. Like he hadn’t fully woken up yet, going through the day stuck in a memory that was undoubtedly, undeniably real. A dream that would become a memory once it passed, once it altered the trajectory of their futures.

  Back for our third year, playing students to an absent audience.

  “Theo?”

  His eyes focused on Callie.

  “Are you alright? You look pale—maybe you should lie down. We can clean up. You set everything up, after all.”

  At first not wanting to give in, trying to do at least the bare minimum as the class lead, Theo quickly realized that Callie was right.

  “Thanks. I’m…going to get some fresh air,” he exhaled shakily before getting up from his seat and smiling one last time at his students. “I’ll see everyone tomorrow. Thanks for today’s dinner.”

  “Go rest, silly.”

  “No problem.”

  “Good-night, Theo.”

  “Nighty.”

  And the last one—if he had said anything, he couldn’t hear. He was busy heading back outside so he could sit on their class bench and breathe. With the old tree beside it, green and full of life.

  Feeling the cool iron on his back, he listened to the silence of the school and watched the sun gently fall below the buildings. He tried not to remember the world that had been left behind by Ty, the world that now lived in the past. A warm flicker over the course of the long history of life, passing like everything else.

  He looked to his right after a long while, imagining her sitting there with her hands clasped in her lap. Looking out into the distance, looking like she was about to cry at any moment. Staying as still as possible, as if the world was part of a painting she wanted to save, the world for which she wanted to seek revenge.

  And then he imagined her leaning on him with her head on his shoulder. Full of warmth and love. He imagined her soft, warm robe in his lap brimming with memories so gentle that even the most sinister of nightmares cowered in fear.

  A reality that had passed was all it was.

  He slowly got up, not bothering to wipe the tears off his face because no one was around to see them anymore, and then headed through the main courtyard to the eastern practice yard across from the lecture halls. Where he had fought her for the first time, where he had been healed by her. Where he had handed her the first flower out of the hundreds, if not thousands more he created for her later.

  Pushing open the door, stepping past the tactician’s table and onto the sun-kissed grass, he stopped at the very center of the clearing. Lowered himself onto the grass. Lay there, looking at the sunset sky while his tears soaked the soil.

  No more, he thought to himself. No more memories. I want to move on. I want to give up on the unfinished puzzle. Call it complete as it is. Let it go. Let it burn like the lost time we once shared, that we no longer remember, like the lifetimes we lost to greed. Let it burn like the sanctuaries, the Graces, like those halcyon days. Like our books. Like hope. Let it all burn.

  To a fiery sky, Theo’s eyes slowly closed.