Chapter 1 #2
My skin tightened painfully, and not from the chill of my soaking garments. Sibilant whispers started up in the line. I heard a few shuffles, a stifled laugh.
“Silence,” came Caerig’s voice from the gallery: curt, emotionless. A hush descended. “Anyone,” she continued, “who so much as clears their throat will find themselves in the Confinement Locker from dawn until dusk tomorrow.”
Traditionally, the exhausted examinee was permitted to leave while their classmates emptied the tank and mopped water from the floor.
But Caerig’s lip lifted as her gaze met mine.
“Now, all of you: Clean up this room.”
—
With a thumping heart and trembling hands, I lagged behind my classmates as we wound through the halls, dodging a couple of whispering Sparkmouths clad in their flame-resistant wools and leathers.
As keen as I was to get out of my sodden clothes, I knew if I kept up with the others, there’d be biting words and barbed jokes.
Through the corridor’s only window, I spotted Mudmouths in the grounds, practicing carving furrows in the earth, and beyond them a knot of wind-lashed Gustmouths, listening attentively to a barking Instructor.
But I barely paid the sight any attention.
My mind was in turmoil, turning over what had happened.
Why had the water eventually listened, and how, with my emotions so out of control?
Had it even listened, or had someone intervened?
Our quarters—a full ten levels of rooms along galleries with sentries stationed at every corner—faced out into a great, cavernous chamber, the better to keep an eye on us at all times.
As tenth-years, we had small, single rooms on the top floor, and I shivered as I hurried along the walkway to my own.
Zennia’s room had been right next to mine, but now it was bare, the door standing open.
I stalled and lingered, staring into it.
A month ago, after Zennia’s final exam, I hurried straight here, desperate to see her.
We hadn’t spoken since the previous day, since before Rhama kept her back after our last class to discuss an essay we’d handed in recently.
She’d missed dinner, which was unusual for her—in spite of her short stature, she ate like a wolf—and I didn’t have a chance to speak to her before curfew.
Then, at breakfast, before her exam, we were too near the Instructors’ table to exchange our usual whispers, too rushed to scrawl messages in our made-up code.
But I saw how tired, how drawn, she looked, despite the fierce determination in her eyes.
And I caught the fleeting looks she was giving me—looks that, for once, I found hard to interpret.
She’d impressed in her exam, as I knew she would, but I couldn’t shake the thought that something wasn’t right.
And sure enough, when I reached her room afterward, Rhama stood guardlike at the open door.
Inside, I spotted my friend’s compact figure.
Her back was to me; she was packing clothes into a trunk.
Rhama shot me a warning look, but I decided I would take the punishment. “Zen,” I said urgently. “What’s going on?”
She whirled around, dropping a nightshift onto the floor, and an odd expression flashed across her face—a look that seemed meant to convey something important, though what, I still had no idea.
“Rhama says I’m not to talk to anyone,” she said. We both glanced at the watching Instructor.
“Sixty seconds,” he said flatly, his gaze sliding to Zennia, but he didn’t move; he wasn’t going to give us any privacy. I turned back to her. I didn’t care what he, or anyone, heard me say.
“What’s happening? Why are you packing that trunk?”
“A placement,” she replied, flitting another glance at Rhama. “Corith, listen. If we don’t see each other again—”
Rhama must have looked like he was going to interrupt. She stepped forward, gripped my arm, looked hard into my eyes: “You have to know, you’re like a sister to me. And I know you’ll be fine. You’ll get a good placement—”
“No,” I protested, clutching her tightly. I’d known, of course, that we’d be parted eventually, but I’d convinced myself we had at least a few weeks left. “Where’s the placement? Where are you going?”
Her eyes darted to the doorway, to Rhama. “Somewhere out east. One of the noble Houses. A place called Bower Island, I think.”
I was dimly aware of heavy footsteps, a hand on my shoulder, Rhama’s deep voice: “That’s enough.”
“You can’t go,” I murmured numbly. Then, louder, to Rhama: “She can’t go. Not yet. I don’t…You can’t send her away.”
I’d been about to say, I don’t know how to be without Zennia. But the words got stuck on something in my throat. Something vast and terrible—emotion like I’d never felt.
“Here,” Rhama said to her, picking up the fallen nightshift. “It’s time. Bring your trunk. And you”—he turned to me—“I won’t report this to the other Instructors, provided you turn around and leave. Right now.”
I wanted to defy him, to pull Zennia into a hug and refuse to let go until they peeled me off her, but I knew, deep down, it wouldn’t change what was coming—only ensure I saw the inside of the Confinement Locker for a week.
Instead, I watched with steadily blurring vision as Zennia stuffed the nightshift into her trunk.
“Wait,” she murmured, then dashed over to her nightstand, where she snatched something up and pinned it to her shirt: the brooch I’d given her, plain hammered metal, imprinted with the image of a sailing ship.
I’d saved up a year’s worth of chore money for it, picked it out on one of our rare trips to town.
Ever since I’d known her, Zennia had wanted to see the sea.
“Come,” Rhama ordered. And to me: “Your room—this instant.”
I was shocked at how lenient he’d been already. Caerig would have imploded by now. He must have seen, over the years, how close we’d become. But it didn’t stop the flare of anger I felt toward him.
I walked backward down the gallery, feeling my way along the wall, unable to wrench my gaze from Zennia. Rhama was inscrutable as he hefted her trunk and ushered her toward the stairwell.
I was left to stare after my only friend, the closest thing I had to family, knowing that once she rounded that corner out of sight, I’d be utterly and completely alone in the world.