Chapter 55 Kidan
KIDAN
Before semester break began, the professor called them all back to check on their Red String task progress. Yusef hadn’t been able to find Arin, technically his companion, to conduct his assignment with.
Professor Andreyas had reprimanded him. “You should know where your companion is, Umil.”
Yusef rubbed his neck. “She kind of does her own thing.”
Yes, Kidan thought. Arin’s reaction to Kidan’s blood, the white of her eyes entirely going red as she disappeared into that hole—was still vivid. At least she was buried now.
Slen had already completed the task, spending six hours with Taj. “Easy” was the word she used. But Warde, like Arin, had a tendency to disappear. Kidan made a mental note of that. Was June with him, then?
“This is the trouble with rogues.” The professor’s mouth drew into a line. “They have no respect for Uxlay. I hope you will all be wiser in your companionship selection from now on.”
That was an understatement.
When Kidan reported she was doing well with her companions, the professor raised a brow. “How have you managed that?”
Through trickery and torture.
“Through communication and trust,” she said. “The Last Sage’s ways.”
Yusef hid his chuckle while Slen slid her a curious glance.
“Communication and trust,” Professor Andreyas said, running an eye over them. “You laugh but it is the only way. One misconception you all have is that the Last Sage is disconnected from you all, a faraway myth. Yet if I say you are all practicing Sageism as house masters, would that be false?”
They all exchanged glances.
Professor Andreyas held a near amused expression. “It concerns me how little insight you all have even at this stage of your education. You do not read carefully, nor do you search for more than one meaning.”
Kidan bristled at the tone, but she kept quiet. They were clearly inadequate in his ancient eyes and admitting it was the first step to learning.
The professor spoke carefully. “Three Binds. You have heard that term since you were all children. Yet none of you have revisited nor analyzed it through the lens of all you know now. Go on, revisit it. What parallels can you draw?”
Slen’s brow was furrowed in concentration. As was Yusef’s. Kidan was just as stuck.
“A synonym, actis.” The professor’s tone hardened. “You can offer that at least. A synonym for ‘binds.’”
“Oh. Ties?” Yusef offered.
“Restrictions?” Kidan continued.
“No.” Slen’s eyes were fixed ahead on the board. “Laws.”
The moment Kidan heard it, she knew it was right. Professor Andreyas had spoon-fed them the answer, so he didn’t look impressed.
“The Three Binds or the Three Laws. There is no difference. As students of Mastering a House Law, you are also engaging in the art of Sageism. Everything is connected. A Sage is a soul imprisoned by many laws. A house master is a soul imprisoned with one law.”
“Imprisoned” was an interesting word to use.
Kidan thought “freedom” would fit better. She was certain if she had the ability to set any law, she’d feel quite liberated.
She glanced at her notes. The Last Sage gifted actis power over their own houses, a portion of his own command.
But unlike them, his laws stretched over the land, unrestricted.
Kidan marveled at such power. Wondered what things could be created in his position.
She’d always thought the Last Sage was weak, creating restrictions on vampires, instead of killing them.
But there had to be a limit even he couldn’t cross.
Otherwise, he’d be no different from a god.
Kidan dared to ask a question. “Can the Three Binds really break?”
Yusef’s brows disappeared into his hairline and Slen straightened in her seat.
Blood roared in Kidan’s ears. Maybe it was unwise to ask blatantly.
A rumor of the Last Sage’s settlement discovery had gotten her parents killed and Kidan didn’t want to give Slen or the professor any indication it was true.
Professor Andreyas studied her reaction for a while. “What is a Sage’s powers? Can the binds break? How do the famous artifacts work? These are questions Uxlay will always come to, mysteries that hover above us.”
That wasn’t enough. She was sick of mysteries.
“But the answers are in the book Ye Abyssi Tarik, aren’t they?” Kidan pushed, unable to stop herself. “You would know. You must have read it.”
As the oldest vampire here, there was no book their professor wouldn’t know inside out.
Tense silence swallowed them all.
Yusef gave her a pointed look to leave it alone, but she ignored him.
The professor didn’t look angry, merely amused. “The secrets found in that book require decades of study. Knowledge of language and philosophy. None of you are able to understand it at this point, which implies you’re not ready.”
Kidan was tired of his condescending tone. “Why make it so difficult?”
The vampire’s pupils turned black, frightening wells.
“Myths are spun from a thousand sources. They are told from ancestors to descendants and each time, they transform. They are impossible to capture, difficult to discern truth from lie. It is difficult because you want a simple answer. Simple stories. The origin of things rarely is simple. Has the study of Dranacti taught you nothing? Unless you challenge yourself to seek more and build enough space in your minds for a paradox, to tear down everything you know and build it again, you will not understand the beginning of dranaics and actis and sages.”
Kidan dropped her gaze, working her jaw. She was searching, reading. Her mind swirled with the myths she’d read over the past few weeks—stories about Demasus.
The firm set of the professor’s mouth made her want to crawl under the desk.
“Though it is curious,” he said. “How your sister knows more about Ye Abyssi Tarik than you. Which is why it was a true disappointment to learn she’d dropped out.”
Kidan’s head snapped up. “She did?”
Did trying to kill Kidan wake June up? If June had dropped out, where was she now?
The professor tilted his head, reading something in her face. “Your sister has excelled far more than expected. When I wish to dismiss a student, I ask one question. A question about the Six Manes of Blood because not one student of mine under the age of fifty has answered it. Until June.”
Kidan’s heart pounded, the desk beneath chilling her to the bone. She didn’t know what or who the Manes of Blood were.
Another thought struck her. Her mother’s journals. Drawings of six lions wielding different silver weapons. Was that who they were?
Professor Andreyas’s unrelenting gaze flicked over to Slen and Yusef, and she breathed out a sigh of relief. Neither of them appeared to know either.
“Ye Abyssi Tarik begins with the Six Manes of Blood. With Varos the Night Lion, the first vampire.”
Slen furrowed her brow. “I thought Demasus was the first. The Fanged Lion.”
An expression Kidan couldn’t identify flickered in the professor’s eyes, a cross between amusement and disappointment. “Demasus was the first to forge peace. Varos was the first to forge war.”
The edges of their room darkened. His ancient gaze slid to Kidan, and she felt ice cold. He was searching her mind. “It’s a true shame we lost your sister’s mind. I believe she holds most of the answers to your questions.”
Kidan didn’t listen to the rest of the class, thinking of June.
If the professor had noticed she was this impressive, the question was, when had June learned all of this?
They hadn’t spent that much time apart. Could it have been enough to learn a whole new language like Aarac and discover deeply withheld knowledge?
Varos the Night Lion.
The name was like a cold breath on the back of her neck, the thing of nightmares. Kidan shivered, wishing she hadn’t heard it. And she worried about her sister, who had learned about more terrifying creatures than the Nefrasi.