6. The Tamer of Beasts
THE TAMER OF BEASTS
Seraphina
“There’s no time to freshen up,” Zaheer says as we follow him through the hallways of Vulcaris. “This year's sign up will already be in full swing in the Sparring Yard.”
Five of us chose the military. Jack and Diana, my neighbors from the mast, are two of them. No one has called the other two by name yet and I can’t very well ask them in front of Zaheer.
As far as he is concerned, I’ve spent the last three years at the academy with them. They are both male though, and have that same half-starved, broken look about them.
“Sparring yard?” Diana asks.
The moment Makina mentioned the Sisters, I’d made my choice. Even if she hadn’t, the decision would have been easy for me. I have no idea what possessed Diana, Jack and the other two to follow suit though.
Lorelei’s words in the alley flash across my mind and I shiver. ‘Kill Me.’ Is that why they chose this? Because it offered death?
“Yes, a sparring yard. You know, a yard where people spar?” Zaheer clarifies for Diana, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Anyway, Vulcaris is a big place, easy to get lost in, so keep up.”
We do, following him through the most magnificent Great Hall I’ve ever seen.
Like the foyer and Makina’s office, all the artwork and statues display both angels and demons, and I’m surprised to find the angels aren’t depicted as hideous beings, or victims of brutal slaughter like demons often are in Virtus.
Instead, they paint them at loggerheads, almost as equals.
At a wall of archways, we enter a narrower corridor with sconces and suits of armor lining the brick walls at intervals. I catch my reflection in one of the shining metal suits. The often-silent-hellhound-whispering-fire-leaking demon wasn’t lying when he commented on how bad I look.
What happened to ‘vanity is a form of pride and Virtishans are not prideful.’
Mentally shaking myself, I quickly turn away and focus on the room in front of us where the words ‘Training Hall’ are carved into the stone above large double doors.
Zaheer pushes them wide open with practiced ease like he owns the place, or at least is very familiar with it.
Inside, the air smells of smoke and iron, and weapons line the walls. Some I know well and have spent countless hours training with, others I couldn’t have imagined in my worst nightmares. I have to stop my fingers from twitching to try them.
Curved blades and spiked gauntlets hang beside racks of twin daggers that shimmer faintly with runes. Ropes dangle from the rafters, and several sparring dummies stand in the corner beside a pile of mats, their surfaces burned, cracked and impaled.
At the far end, tall doors stand already open, and beyond them is what can only be the sparring yard, an expansive courtyard cut out of the middle of Vulcaris.
Outside, the yard is all sand, circles, and hot springs beneath the dwindling crimson sun.
The place is a hive of activity, the humid air buzzing.
Demons, or more accurately, cambion, crowd the open space.
Some horned, some more human looking, all very much the enemy.
The five of us are the only nephilim in sight.
Many of the cambion appear to have already signed up and are now watching matches take place within the sand rings.
Not sand, I realize as we get closer, looking up at the raining volcanic peaks towering over Vulcaris and this open topped yard; ash.
Each ring is bordered by small, jagged rocks, and the fighters step inside two at a time, wrestling each other until one steps over the boundary.
Their bodies are slick with sweat, and many are covered in rune-like tattoos. Those not engaging in the violence lounge around the edges of the yard, where sunken hot springs are dotted, boots discarded and bare feet dipped into the steaming water while they chat.
Making early alliances for whatever lays ahead?
Zaheer catches me staring. “The stews,” he nods to one of the pools. “Can’t beat a dip in the stews after a hard day's training. Great for tight muscles and recovery.”
He stretches out his back, squeezing his shoulder blades together as he walks like he’s just remembered he could use a soak of his own.
Between the sparring circles and the stews, a line stretches and curves, dozens of cambion recruits waiting to sign their names, looking half bored, half thrumming with anticipation.
Zaheer steers us toward a young woman about halfway into the line.
She’s around my age, twenty-three-ish, with ink-black hair so dark it’s almost blue.
She wears it straight and long, combed and shining all the way down to her waist. I can’t help but think about how my hair is neither straight nor combed right now.
In fact, I wouldn’t be at all shocked if a bird flew down and found it an adequate place to lay her eggs.
Kohl-smudged eyes with irises the color of onyx look each of us over as we near. They linger on me for a little longer, likely because the four others are all blonde haired with pale eyes of blue, gray or green, typical for those with angel blood.
My amber eyes are unusual; it’s one of the reasons why my father didn’t need very much convincing when I showed up on the doorstep of the citadel that night a decade ago.
When the seraphim staffer answered, I’d barely been able to explain what had happened through all the sobbing, how my mother’s last words had been to tell me the High Seraph of Industria is my father.
One look at my eyes and chestnut hair though, and the staffer had fetched the High Seraph in person.
“Khali,” Zaheer says, throwing an arm around her. “Good to see that you’ve finally decided counting chips and pulling pints is for the boring.”
Every inch of her pale skin that can possibly hold a piercing has one.
Silver hoops even hang from one of her horns, which are the color of bone and sharp as any lethal blade.
If a child in Virtus were instructed to draw a portrait of a demoness, the woman in front of me would be looking up from the parchment.
She shrugs out of Zaheer’s grip, but not in a hostile way, and smiles up at him. They’re friends, or at least they’re comfortable with one another by the looks of it. Her smile takes me aback, despite her intimidating look. It softens everything about her.
She’s not hideous either, far from it. The smile makes her human side easier to see, and once she flattens her features again, it’s hard to unsee the warmth beneath the mask of black everything, everywhere that she wears.
“You better be in my group,” Zaheer tells her.
The girl laughs. “No can do, Z. One of your colleagues already staked his claim, I’m afraid.”
“Oh yeah?’ He lifts one eyebrow, then shakes his head. “You know what, I don’t even have to ask who. Of course he has. Bastard.” Zaheer curses, but his voice is jovial. “In that case, you owe me one.”
Khali raises her eyebrows. “Go on.”
“Look after these, will ya?” He tilts his head to me and the other nephilim like we’re burdens at his back. “See to it they sign up alright and no-one starts anything before they’ve got a day's training under their belts?”
She sighs like he’s asking her to drop and give him one hundred dragon squats.
“Fine,” she eventually says, then shuffles over to make room in the line for the five of us.
I put myself between Khali and the rest of the nephilim, not that it helps anything when we are surrounded by at least fifty more of her.
Those behind are not happy with us cutting in, but none of them seem to have the nerve to express their upset to Zaheer about it.
“The lovely Khali will take you from here,” Zaheer says, turning his attention to us. “She knows this place like the back of her hand, don’t ya Khal?” She nods. “Been keeping our thirst quenched and card tables running since she was, what? Sixteen?”
She nods again. “Seven years almost.”
“Fuck, time flies,” Zaheer says. “Lucky number though.”
Seven is a significant number in Virtus too. Lucky for some, a favorite of many, the first thought about when asked to pick between one and ten. There are seven days in a week, seven colors in a rainbow, seven kingdoms on each side of Trutina. Seven deadly sins and seven heavenly virtues.
The number is special, it’s always had a presence, an importance.
I’m surprised to find the demons agree.
Zaheer’s voice drops lower, quieter, as he leans toward her. “Even someone like you will need every bit of luck you can get over the next few months. Doesn’t matter who’s group you’re in, you know that, right? Our hands are tied.”
Khali nods. “Don’t you start, too. I’ve heard it all already.”
“I bet. Anyway, I’ll see you in The Meet a bit later.” He turns to us. “Try not to get yourselves killed before then. Oh, and stay out of those sparring circles.”
He heads off through the crowd, many of whom move out of his way like they can sense he’s not one to mess with.
A few seem familiar with him, like Khali clearly is, and I wonder if they took the option of working back of house first before signing up to the military.
Others hold out a hand, introducing themselves as he passes.
He stops for all of them, shaking hands and slapping backs, wishing them luck before he disappears.
The sparring yard hums with some kind of restrained violence as the line to enlist moves slower than the dying sun overhead. Every few steps, another recruit's belongings are stripped away, weapons stacked in neat piles, bags tossed into iron chests.
As we get closer to the front, I see the woman stepping out from behind the desk every so often. Her horns are short and curved; her black robes trimmed in gold. There’s something disarmingly elegant about her, right until she starts patting down the demon man in front of her and my stomach drops.
The journal.
My hand goes to it. What if they take it?
I ignore the chaos around me and Khali’s attempt at small talk with Diana, Jack, and the other two, who I overhear introduce themselves as Micah and Gabe.
I can’t join in; too distracted watching the front of the line in scared silence.