Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
I showed up at the pitch at two on game day, Daziel’s scarf wrapped around my neck.
I hadn’t been to these fields before—they weren’t on the Lyceum peninsula but where Issachar Quarter sloped down to the Lersach River.
The fields were separated from the water by an abundance of mimosa trees, their bright yellow blossoms swaying under the pale winter sky.
A sparse crowd had gathered on the bleachers.
I stood uncertainly on the sidelines, trying to decide if I should grab a seat or find Daziel.
I was unaccountably nervous. Though we spent so much time together, it was together, going from one place to another—it felt stranger to separately enter a space he belonged in.
Daziel bounded over from a group of players on the field. He wore a blue uniform I’d never seen before, with white stripes on the shoulders and down the sides—the School of Humanities club knockball team. I’d only ever seen his practice clothes.
“You came! Come meet the team.” Daziel grabbed my hand and towed me toward a loose crew of others. Paz jumped from my shoulder to Daziel’s and chittered excitedly as he ran up and over Daziel’s head.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to get in the way before the game or anything…”
“I want you to meet them.” He bubbled over with excitement, and my shyness increased as we approached his teammates. I knew some of these boys—like Ezra, of course—but most were strangers. For the first time I’d be in the position of being Daziel’s betrothed instead of the other way around.
“This is Naomi,” Daziel proclaimed, interrupting their huddle, beaming proudly. Everyone ignored us, which was about what I’d expected.
Everyone had their residence hall written on the back of their jersey, beneath their team name, the Fiercest Figs. I peeked at Daziel’s. It said Testylier House.
The sweetness of this was so sudden and intense I had to blink very rapidly to maintain my composure.
“Here’s the deal,” Ezra said, in his element as team captain. “The other guys are faster, stronger, and smarter than us.”
“Isn’t this supposed to be a pep talk?” I murmured to Daziel.
“It’s a ‘here’s the deal’ talk,” Ezra said. “But you know what we have that they don’t have?”
“Spirit?” I suggested.
Ezra glared. “Your input is unnecessary. What we do have,” he continued, “is no fear of pain.”
“What,” I said under my breath.
“No pain!” the boys all cried, like (1) this made sense and (2) was something to be proud of. “No pain!”
I looked at Daziel. Like the rest of them, he was pumping his fist in the air, looking delighted. “No pain!”
The corners of my mouth quirked up. Okay. This was kind of cute. Bizarre. But cute.
Ezra delivered a not-very-empowering speech about how they’d win no matter what, even if it meant playing dirty, then backtracked and said they couldn’t play dirty because they already had two strikes, and also the other team played dirtier and one of their front men had a nasty habit of kicking knees, stay away from him.
Then, with a final “No pain!” they clapped their hands together and looked toward the other team on the opposite end of the field.
Daziel kept holding on to my hand, even though I suspected the game was about to start. I tugged free. “I think I better go. Have fun, okay?”
“It is not about fun,” Daziel said seriously. “It is about winning.”
We were going to have to have a talk later about Ezra’s speechmaking. “Hm. Good luck, then.”
“Hey,” a voice called from the other team as I started toward the bleachers. “Is that—do you guys have the demon?”
I stiffened and turned.
The opposing team approached en masse, matching scowls to go with their matching red uniforms. The boy wearing the captain’s epaulets stepped forward. “You can’t have a demon play.”
“Whatever,” Ezra said dismissively. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” the opposing captain said. “That’s cheating.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s not even any good.” Ezra used the same tone as when he decried the Sanhedrin’s ability to do anything. “He gets distracted half the time.”
“I don’t!” Daziel protested.
“Look!” Ezra pointed behind Daziel. “A tabby cat.”
Daziel turned.
This didn’t appease the School of Engineering’s team. The fight snowballed until the umpire made his way over, besieged as each side made their case. He was a slim man with ginger hair and a cleft chin. He took one look at Daziel and shook his head. “It’d be an unfair advantage.”
I’d stayed uninvolved until then, but at this, anger bubbled up. “Oh, come on. This is ridiculous. He’s played in the games within the School of Humanities.”
“Who the hell are you?” one of the boys on the other team asked.
“She’s his betrothed,” Ezra said, “so be nice.”
“He just wants to have fun,” I said. I wanted to hit something. Who were these guys to police who played?
Daziel’s shoulders drooped. “No, I understand.”
“You can stay within human limits!”
“He could be within human limits and still be better than any of us,” someone on the other team retorted. “It’d be like hiring a ringer.”
Daziel stepped back. “You should sub Colin in for me,” he told Ezra. “Good luck, everybody.” Shoulders slumped, he walked off the field.
Sending a fierce glare at everyone, I hurried after his dejected figure. “Come on,” I said, determined to cheer him up. “Let’s get out of here.”
He shook his head. I could practically hear the morose music playing about him. “I should watch the team. Cheer them on.”
Watching other people do something I couldn’t sounded horrible. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “It’s the right thing to do.”
So I watched the first knockball game of my life, trying to offer support to Daziel supporting his team. He stared intensely at the field, shouting encouragement at his teammates.
“Are you okay?” I asked halfway through.
He mustered up a smile. “Yeah. For sure. Go, Ezra!” He cheered as Ezra slapped at the ball.
I took his hand and squeezed.
I’d never paid much attention to knockball before. Still, I knew the basics. One ball, two teams, nine players on each. Zones where different body parts were allowed in play—heads, feet, hands. Three ways to score and one to lose points. Three goal zones, one decided randomly just before play.
Knowing rules didn’t mean I knew anything about strategy.
People had tried to explain it to me before, but I’d always tuned out.
It was easier with Daziel. His excitement was infectious, and he shared the plays like he was whispering secrets—“Ah, they must be trying Brown’s Route. It’s a sneaky one…”
Daziel’s team won. Not, as far as I could tell, because they were better than the other team but through pure luck. I turned to Daziel. “Congrats?”
He’d managed to be fairly upbeat through the game, despite the longing on his face. But now, as he watched his friends jump on each other and hug, the depressed creases in his brows deepened. “Are you okay?” I asked again.
“I just really wanted to play,” he said in a small, forlorn voice.
I bit the inside of my cheek, hard, to keep from viciously going after the other team. “You know what? Let’s climb Lyra’s Seat.”
Daziel lifted his head with bewilderment, then spoke as though afraid to hope. “It’s the weekend. You like to spend weekends getting ahead on homework.”
“I’m done already,” I lied.
His eyes widened. “Really?”
“Let’s do it.”
Lyra’s Seat was the highest of Talum’s four hills, on the northmost peak.
We took the tram, arriving as the sun started to sink.
We climbed it in the cold, and harsh wind kept whipping past us, yet we couldn’t stop laughing.
At the top, we could see all of Talum spread out before us, glowing in the twilight.
~ ~ ~
When we got home, it was pitch black, and we were exhausted. We fell onto the sofa, wrangling the blanket over our legs, letting them fall against each other.
“Thank you for today,” Daziel said.
“I didn’t really do anything.”
His black eyes met mine—so unnerving once, and now so dear. “You wanted me to be happy. That’s something.”
I looked away. I did want him to be happy. It almost hurt, how much it mattered to me.
When had I started caring about him so deeply?
And what was I going to do about it?
Winter was the bleakest time of year, not just in Talum but all of Ena-Cinnai, the days short, the nights long.
The temperature dipped below freezing in the night as the season deepened, and we often woke to frost covering the Lyceum lawns.
Students exhaled white puffs of air as they hurried across campus.
The Trio Winds intensified. Though the second wind, the Ver, came less often than the Clo, it was far worse.
It blazed down from the northeast and tore shingles from rooftops.
Then the Den arrived, and when it collided with one of the other winds, it created gales so fierce they howled together like dogs pursuing a wild hunt.
The Maestril was worse, I’d been told by proud locals.
Like the Trio Winds, the Maestril was bitter and violent, but it was helpful, too.
It dried out the soil for the harvests and churned the river, which improved its ecosystem.
When the Maestril left, it carried away the dirt and grit of winter in a golden haze—so beautiful, locals bragged, artists came from all corners of the continent to try to capture it during the two weeks it blew.
“But this year, the Trio Winds are as fierce as the Maestril,” Leah told me one day as we walked to class in the bitterly cold dawn.
She sounded stressed; she’d had a letter from her parents describing the wreckage the Trio Winds were causing.
“Only, they’re more chaotic. And if the Maestril doesn’t function like usual… I don’t know.”
“When’s it supposed to arrive?” I asked. “Spring?”
She nodded. “You can smell it on the air even earlier. When spring begins, it settles in and really blows.”