13. Aurora
AURORA
Professor Griven led me away from the Mess Hall and up the long stone steps to the third level of the Academy.
We passed by all the classrooms and testing rooms until we came to a section of offices.
He paused in front of a door that had Professor G.
Griven written in elegant gold script on it.
He opened the door and motioned for me to go inside with an “after you” gesture.
I went in and saw a large wooden desk. There was a comfortable looking chair on the far side of it and a gas lamp with a green shade as well. In front of the desk were two hard wooden chairs—I assumed that was where I was supposed to sit.
Sure enough, as soon as Professor Griven got seated on the far side of the desk, he made a motion to me.
“You can take a seat, Lysandra,” he said.
“Thank you, Sir.” I was glad to be seated—my knees were as weak as water, and I was afraid I might fall down if I didn’t sit down first. The collar of my new uniform felt too tight and I had to resist the urge to try and loosen it with my fingers.
“You will, by now, have seen the Rankings for yesterday’s entrance examination,” he said to me.
“Er, actually I was too short to see and too small to get through the crowd,” I admitted. “But my friend, Jorn-o told me I passed.”
“You did more than pass, Cadet—you made the highest score in the past seventy years—you even beat Cadet Skoren, and he beat the previous high score by ten points.” He frowned. “I’m sure he won’t be happy to hear his record was so quickly shattered, but that is neither here nor there.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to this, so I said nothing at all. But I felt hot and cold all over and my palms were clammy. Professor Griven didn’t look like he was giving me good news—in fact, he looked as stern as ever, as though I had done something wrong.
“Cadet Lysandra,” he said, staring hard at me. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
Oh God and Goddess, the way he was looking at me was not good.
He knows! He knows, he knows, he knows! shouted the little voice in my head.
It was on the tip of my tongue to blurt everything out—to admit that I was Aurora Lysandra, not Auren.
I was going to confess and beg him to understand.
“I had no food in the house, and I was all alone—my brother and father are dead!” I pictured myself saying.
“Please, you have to believe me—it was pretend to be my brother or starve to death!”
But when I opened my mouth, all I said was,
“No, Sir.”
His frown deepened and he leaned forward across the desk.
“That’s your final word on the matter?”
“On what matter?” I shook my head dumbly. “I don’t understand.”
“All right,” he said grimly. “We’ll do this the hard way.” Raising his voice, he said loudly, “Larson, step in here if you please.”
My stomach, which was already twisted in knots, flipped slowly forward as Chud Larson came into the office and shut the door behind him.
“Have a seat, Larson,” Griven ordered.
With a poisonous glance at me, the upperclassman lowered himself into the wooden chair beside mine.
“What’s this about?” he demanded, staring at the professor belligerently.
Honestly, I was wondering the same thing. What could my secret identity have to do with Chud Larson? Unless he had somehow discovered that I was a girl and reported me. But how could he know?
I didn’t understand at all until Griven pinned us both with a steely stare and spoke again.
“What this is about, is the fact that the first half of both your exams are identical,” he snapped.
Opening his desk drawer, he pulled out two familiar sheaves of parchment paper and slapped them on the desk.
“Look at this!” he exclaimed, leafing through them. “To the letter and the number, up until about problem fifty, these tests are exactly the same, right down to the mathematical work proving the correct solutions! You even both got problem twenty-two wrong because you both forgot to carry a one!”
I stared at my own neat handwriting in horror. If only I had scribbled! And was Larson really so stupid that he couldn’t change any of what he’d copied from me? Now we were both in trouble and none of it was my fault!
I opened my mouth to say so, but Chud Larson beat me to it.
“It’s not my fault, Professor,” he said quickly. “The little runt must have copied off me when I wasn’t looking!”
“Well, well…” Griven tapped an ink pencil on his desk as he stared at Larson. “So you’re claiming that Lysandra cheated off your test and that’s why your answers are identical?”
“He must have!” Larson jutted his lip out defiantly. “How else could he get my answers?”
“Professor, please!” I exclaimed, finally finding my voice. “I never—”
“Enough.” Professor Griven raised his hand for silence. “Larson claims you cheated off his paper, Lysandra.”
“Yeah, I do—because he did!” Larson narrowed his eyes at me, as though daring me to contradict him.
I wanted to, but my throat was so tight I could barely breathe at that point and my heart felt like it was trying to pound its way out of my chest.
“Well, as it turns out, there are a few problems with that theory,” Professor Griven said. “First of all, if I remember the seating correctly, you, Larson, were sitting behind Lysandra. Which means that he would have had to turn his head multiple times to see your paper.”
“He did!” Larson lied quickly. “I saw him—that’s why I hid my paper after I saw him looking so he couldn’t copy the second half of my test!”
“I see.” Professor Griven nodded thoughtfully, still tapping the ink pencil against his desk.
“Professor please—that’s not true,” I finally got out, though every word was squeezed though a throat that couldn’t get enough air.
“I was the one who saw that Larson was cheating off me—I realized it right after the part of the test where we had to translate the fable about the fox and the hare from the Ancient Tongue to the Common Tongue!”
“Liar!” Chud Larson’s no-color eyes flashed with fury. “You’re a liar, you little fucker! Admit you cheated off me or you’re going to be sorry!”
“Enough, Cadet!” Griven thundered. “And watch your mouth in my office!”
“Well, he’s lying!” Larson snarled. “I have the right to defend my honor.”
“You would—if you had any honor to defend,” Griven snapped.
He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a cadet who was simultaneously so stupid and so duplicitous,” he went on, glaring at Larson.
“Stop lying—you’re insulting my intelligence by expecting me to believe your falsehoods.
It’s clear that you were the one cheating off Lysandra—not the other way around. ”
“How do you even know that?” Larson demanded. “He could be lying!”
“No, because the rest of his test is correct—Lysandra only missed one other question. Whereas the second half of your test, Larson, is almost entirely wrong. In fact, you scored so low that, were you actually a First-year cadet, I would dismiss you on the spot,” Griven told him.
“Unfortunately, you were given the benefit of the doubt in your studies last year and were allowed to bond with a dragon. So now we’re stuck with you—but that doesn’t mean I’ll put up with your dishonesty! ”
“What are you talking about?” Larson demanded. “Why are you always picking on me?”
“I’m not picking on you—I’m disciplining you,” the professor said sternly. “For cheating on the exam and lying to my face, I am hereby demoting you in rank. You’ll pack your things and move back to one of the First-year dormitories.”
“What? But I’m a Second-year!” Larson whined.
“Not anymore, you’re not. I’ve become convinced, both by your performance on the second half of the entrance exams and your abysmal grades on your final exams that you have been cheating your way through your classes,” Griven told him.
“Effective immediately you’ll be taking all of the First-year classes over again.
And I’m going to inform all of your instructors that you need to be watched.
From now on, you’ll be taking every test separately from the rest of the class and you’ll be at the front of every classroom so the professor can keep an eye on you. ”
Larson stood up so suddenly he kicked his wooden chair over with a clatter.
“You can’t do this to me!” he roared, pointing a finger at Griven. “You can’t fucking send me back to the First-year class!”
“And yet, it appears that I am, in fact, doing exactly that,” the professor said coolly. “I want you to think very carefully about what you say to me from now on, Larson. I can make your life here even harder if I choose to.”
Larson’s thin-lipped mouth worked as though he wanted to say something else and his jaw clenched so hard I could see a vein throbbing in his temple. At last he turned to me.
“You’ll be sorry,” he grated out. “So fucking sorry, you little shit!”
Then, without another word, he slammed out of Griven’s office hard enough to make the door rattle in its frame.