Chapter 41
Forty-One
Morning combat class is a melting pot of too loud voices and too bright light.
My head pounds and my eyes blur from lack of sleep, but missing a day of class is worse than attending it half-awake.
Besides, with the way the academy likes training its initiates, the guaranteed adrenaline spike of terror will inevitably wake me up.
By the time I arrive, most initiates are already lined up in the courtyard. The ones that remain, anyway. If they feel the loss of their two classmates yesterday, none of them shows it. Not even Rook, who stands with her hands clasped behind her back, posture perfect and face set.
I arrive two minutes late, which is the equivalent of streaking across the grounds naked. Everyone notices, and half hope I get eaten for it.
Unsurprisingly, Falcen’s already here, likely heading straight to the courtyard after leaving me in his room with more heartbreak than answers.
He leans against one of the marble columns that ring the courtyard, arms crossed, mouth set in a line that would make a brick wall jealous.
He still looks every inch an Elite. If I hadn’t witnessed what I did a few hours ago, I’d assume what every other initiate is likely thinking.
That he’s returned from his hunt successful, and the idea of capturing a nether drake for the Master Keeper holds all of the initiates in awe of him.
Except for the almost invisible tremor at the corner of his cheek as he continues to fight the rot within him.
It takes effort, but I keep my eyes forward and slide in next to Rook.
She’s taller than me, all lean muscle and clever hands, hair braided tight this time to keep it out of the way during combat.
We haven’t spoken since our session with the Void eels, but she gives me a brief nod.
Not a smile, not quite, and her eyes are rimmed in red, but I take it for what it is, which is proof I’m not nameless to her.
Two Keepers I haven’t seen before pace up and down, eyeing us with varying degrees of disdain, depending on our pedigree. One stops in front of me, a female with a jaw like a guillotine, and sniffs as if expecting me to collapse at her feet.
“Initiate Holbrook,” she says. “You look like Nox’s hell.”
“Nearly getting eaten by Void eels will do that,” I say. The initiates snicker and cough, some with actual empathy.
Rook stiffens beside me.
The Keeper doesn’t smile. She taps her scroll against her palm before she unrolls it. “We’ll see if you survive today with all your limbs intact. You’re paired with”—she checks the list—“Rook Sparrow.”
Rook’s chin snaps up. Mine does too, but I make a point of rolling my shoulders, lazy, like this is the easiest assignment in the world. The last thing I want is for this Keeper to latch onto my unease and skewer me for it. I can’t help Falcen if I’m a corpse.
“Sparrow, Holbrook. Court One,” the instructor barks. “Everyone else, line up. We are not here to build your character. We are here to see who remembers last week’s footwork. Move.”
Court One stretches wide, a square of pale stone bordered by marble columns, and between them, carved ward-glyphs that shimmer with acknowledgment whenever a Soulren steps inside.
Three other courts spread out beside it, each marked the same way.
Columns rise at the edges, not for grandeur, but reinforcement.
Their surfaces are inlaid with sigils meant to hold back any wild surge of soul-magick.
The floors are scarred with years of sparring, gouges where soul-blades struck too deep, pitted cracks from weapons that flared beyond control, and faint stains where magick scorched permanent ash into the flooring.
Rook and I head to the first court and face each other at opposite ends.
She’s textbook-perfect, chin tucked, hands up, boots planted in a ready stance.
I try to remember my own body. It’s still shaky from last night.
I ignore the ache in my thighs and the rawness at my wrists.
There’s no room for anything except what’s in front of me.
Falcen moves to stand just behind the female Keeper, close enough for me to feel him across the space separating us. His eyes fix on Rook, then me.
I don’t let myself return his stare. I know what I’ll see. Worry, maybe, or worse. A monstrous need to protect me. Excruciating torment.
I’m so focused on not paying attention to Falcen that I almost miss the clipped command that snaps across the court.
Rook moves like a thrown knife.
No flourish. No warning. She closes the space with a three-beat combination that forces me backward before my brain catches up. Jab high, hook low, sweep for my ankle. My heel skids against stone, and I save my tailbone by a hair.
“Nox’s cock, Rook!” I curse.
Rook doesn’t react. She circles me with no heat in her eyes, only calculation. She doesn’t smirk when I curse or when my stance gets sloppy, nor does she offer a single insult for me to feed on. She just keeps coming.
“Guard your ribs,” she whispers, not unkindly, and drives a fist exactly where my elbow is late.
Air whooshes out of me. I stagger, vision pinwheeling, and hear a few appreciative noises from Court Three where two male initiates try to murder each other and fail.
I force my attention back to Rook and step inside her reach, aiming for a knee.
She shifts, already elsewhere. Her counter uses my own weight, and I find myself tasting marble, cheek pressed to a cold ground.
I roll, spit blood, and grin up at her in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Is this your love language?”
She doesn’t blink. “On your feet.”
That, more than any taunt, flays me raw. She treats me like any opponent. Not a friend. Not even a rival. Just a body to test footwork against.
I hate how much it hurts.
What would she do if she knew the truth of what she’s training for? That if she continues being this good, this dedicated, she could be tapped for the Darkening?
I risk a glance around the courtyard.
Does anyone know what they’re truly training for? Anyone but me and the halflings?
After pushing up from the ground, I straighten into a fighting stance. Hands up, chin tucked, elbows tight. Pain rings through my wrists where Falcen pinned me last night, a dirty echo that sends a flare of heat straight to my cheeks. Unhelpful and embarrassing.
Falcen is like a banked storm behind the Keeper’s shoulder.
I don’t look, yet I know exactly where he stands.
The wards lining Court One hum at a pitch my bones recognize, reacting to the soul-magick sparking loose in the air, yet his presence shrinks the oxygen in my lungs.
I can almost taste him at the back of my tongue.
Ember flutters. Careful. He is a lit beacon inside a nest of Keepers. Do not awaken his magick.
How would I even know how to access his magi—
Rook almost catches my temple while I’m mid-conversation with Ember.
Then she aims for my throat.
Knuckles kiss my windpipe before I wedge a forearm in and shove.
Rook rolls with it and uses the resistance to pivot and take my back.
I drop my center, hook a foot behind her ankle, and twist. She goes down with me.
We hit the ground, her shoulder slamming into my ribs. Breath leaves me in a rude whoof.
“Again,” she says into my ear.
“I haaaate you,” I wheeze.
“Focus,” Rook says.
“I would if you stopped trying to rearrange my face.”
She surges again. I answer with a low strike and a grab that nearly finds purchase.
She slips through like water and slaps the side of my face with an open palm.
Not hard. Just enough to ring my bell. I blink stars.
Falcen’s presence tilts the world for a breath, pressure building against the soft part under my sternum where our shared thread hums traitorously.
Ember burns hot again. This is exactly what I warned you about last night. By giving a piece of yourself to him, he gave a fragment to you. A poisoned one.
I’m out of breath, my chest aching. You weren’t so clear in your explanation last night as you are now.
That is because I am constrained. I can only divulge details when it’s necessary to preserve your life. Like now.
There’s no time to keep questioning her. Even if my mind understands not to use whatever connection I’ve sewn with Falcen, my powers have the instincts of a trapped animal. If I don’t gain control, I don’t know if I can stop whatever my body will want to do to defend.
That’s why I’m here. To stop what was never meant to bloom within you.
You might be too late.
I call my weapon with a thin trickle of intent, and it answers.
The thrum under my sternum sharpens. My halberd sparks against my scarred palm, and the court’s ward-glyphs illuminate in answer.
Only, it isn’t just my magick. Across the courtyard, Falcen jerks.
Veins under his jaw catch the sunlight, and for a split second, they ripple black as if the pulse of summoning my weapon struck him.
Ember lashes inside me, like teeth snapping at my ribs. Stop. Don’t call on him. Not here.
Call on him? I don’t know what you mean!
This isn’t my choice. Pure instinct has taken over, and I don’t know how to stop it, even when sparring with a friend.
BUT SHE’S NOT A FRIEND, IS SHE?
ROOK’S TRYING TO HURT YOU.
SHE’S NO BETTER THAN DAVRIN. OUT TO HURT YOU.
I shake my head, dislodging the unfamiliar voice that’s not Ember’s, but not altogether mine, either. The ribbon I spun into Falcen last night surges like a starving beast, snapping taut between what my mind conjures and what’s real.
Desperate for help, to stop this, my soul-magick lunges for that tether, and Falcen’s body answers.
His jaw locks.
The tremor in his cheek becomes a full spasm, his bracers stuttering with cobalt light under the metal.