6. SIX #2
In a flash of straining sinew, grunted pain, and bare feet padding against the mat, the others had him disarmed all over again.
Calver lunged for Armad, the weakest of those left standing, but Thero brought him to the ground with a throw.
The anger he’d restrained since his mother left that morning tore through its feeble cage.
He bellowed in frustration and tried to get his knee beyond Thero’s pin to roll away.
“Raise your hand, slumling. If you’re going to lose the match you might as well keep some dignity,” Thero jeered.
Nothing like Thero to make Calver appreciate the idea of getting sent home. The trio behind the boy leveled their sparring blades at him. A blow was coming, he could sense it. He just didn’t know from where.
Then Thero reeled off him, screaming. His cries mixed with Arleena’s ferocious squeal.
She had latched onto the boy’s back and lodged her teeth into the nape of his neck.
Thero’s arms flailed, trying to beat her away.
Calver threw up a hand in defeat and rushed towards the struggling boy to pull Arleena off.
Even after prying her free, she continued to thrash, shrieking and snarling with blood dribbling from her mouth.
“Next time you bring your pet to class, keep it in its cage!” Thero shouted, holding a hand over his neck.
“Arleena. St-stop!” Calver pinned her biceps to her sides and latched his arms around her belly. “It’s a g-game!” A few of his peers looked to be holding back laughter. Most stared in wide-eyed shock.
All eyes fell on Calisto, who approached them and slowly bent onto his old knees to become level with Arleena.
She would stop, right? Her knowing how much Calver respected Calisto meant she wouldn’t purposefully say anything impertinent to him, right?
“What kind of stupid game puts five on one?!” Arleena screamed.
Calver was done for.
Calisto’s line-wreathed face broke into a smile. “Hello, Arleena. It is very nice to see you again.”
Calver considered clapping a hand over her mouth, saying something stupid about his sister’s unpredictable temperament, and shuffling out the door. But why had Calisto sent five against him? He’d never done it to any of the others. If they came late, they were simply dismissed or ignored.
“That wasn’t fair,” Arleena spat. “And you made them do it. You don’t deserve to be a leader.”
Unholy Fates. This could not possibly get any worse. Arleena was about to single-handedly ruin his chance at becoming a prominent dowagist.
“I am teaching him to be prepared for any situation. Do you think an enemy will attack him while he is on even footing? Tell me, Calverous, based on your experience thus far, do you expect life to be fair to you?”
Calver’s eyes sought the floor. “No, Mesu Calisto.”
“Tell me, Arleena, do you expect life to be fair to you?”
Arleena’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll make it fair.”
To Calver’s incredulity, Calisto chuckled. “You, young Curtaim, are just like your father. It is uncanny.”
Unprecedented, molten hatred pooled in Calver’s belly. His grip tightened around his forearms where they kept his sister pinned. “T-t-take it-it-it—” He got stuck for only a few seconds. “You c-can’t tell her that. T-take it back.”
Shit. He was now helping Arleena ruin his chance at becoming a prominent dowagist.
“Easy, Calverous.”
Arleena’s fingernails dug into him. Too tight. Calver released her and she spun, pressing her face into him. Her new tears were hot against his stomach. He clutched her to him. From his peripheral vision he saw Pim shaking his head. Darion’s face had gone white.
“She’s not.”
“Let us speak on this at a different time. I advise you to sit at the wall with your classmates. Arleena, I expect you will stay quiet and behave like a young queen until the class has ended.”
Calver shook his head. “He was a traitor. P-p-people d-died. And he left us. Arleena is not like him.”
“Calverous, I—”
“TAKE IT BACK!” He couldn’t recall ever—ever—yelling like that. Regret sank teeth into his chest. The space fell utterly silent.
Calisto lanced Calver with a razor-sharp stare. “Anger does not serve a dowagist, Calverous. I ask you to take a seat until it has abated.”
Calver’s head dipped. He nearly shuffled for the far wall. Nearly muttered an apology.
But only for a floundering heartbeat. He was not his father, either. He would fight for his family, or not at all. His chin lifted. Jaw tightening, stomach roiling, Calver grabbed Arleena, whose fingers had found her mouth, and hoisted her onto his hip.
With all the subtle shift of a lightning strike, the idea of being a dowagist had completely and suddenly changed. If having dowagian meant having his sister compared to his father, Calver would rather live without it.
He had never been very good at speech, but he’d have the final word.
They left.
Calver and Arleena stood where the surf met the sand, letting the ocean lick their wiggling toes. They threw orange shells into the waves. They dragged algae-crusted sticks through crunching sand.
Arleena laughed when a too-tall crest left Calver winded and spluttering. He laughed too, ignoring the scrapes it gained him. They built a castle from the sand. They dug a small pool near the tide. The wind tugged Arleena’s disheveled curls around her face. It was filled with the grit of the sea…
Their mother would find out.
Before he took them home, he had Arleena rinse beneath a communal water-spout. He had to pay his only silver note for it, which left him with nothing to buy fresh injera to eat. But they weren’t allowed to stray to the beach. Better to beg for dinner than not be trusted alone together again.
Lowsun came and went. Darkness seeped in from behind the curtain. No Mother.
Calver read Arleena to sleep. It was the same book they’d read from for months, now: a compilation of seafarer tales from the Raider Wars, thirty years before.
It was not a suitable tale for a five-year-old—the sea had been bloody and ruthless in those days—but the book had been free, forgotten on the beach, caked with sand and damaged from the rain.
Arleena’s eyelids had only just settled when a knock sounded at the door.
Calver’s chest swelled—Mother—then clenched. That was not her knock.
He unlatched the lock and cracked the door. Calisto stood in the darkness, a fine burgundy cloak thrown over his head. Calver nearly warned Calisto that he shouldn’t wear something like that here. Nearly.
“May I come in, Calverous?” Calisto’s voice lacked its usual sternness.
After a pause, Calver nodded meekly and opened the door just enough for his instructor to pass through.
Calver pressed it shut behind him and threw the lock.
Only then did he put mind to the state of the home.
The compacted adobe floor hadn’t been swept in ages.
The pots hadn’t been cleaned since the morning.
Their sparse clothing was tossed around the small room.
The roof sagged at its center. He might have been less mortified if Calisto had stumbled upon him using the dowaga as a mirror to practice his smile.
Arleena stirred in her sleeping space, eying Calisto warily.
She shot Calver an expression that questioned why he’d let the intruder in at all.
Calver, with shoulders nearly up to his ears, managed to kick his thoughts into a line and pulled a chair from their makeshift table to offer to Mesu Calisto.
His teacher took it graciously, but Calver remained standing.
If he sat, he might explode into a million pieces and ruin Calisto’s fancy cloak.
If he spoke, he feared what might come out.
Calisto broke the silence. “I am sorry you felt the need to leave today. Temper or none, I want you to feel welcome at dowagian. I know it is one of the few places you do.”
Calver could not find adequate words, so he kept his mouth shut.
“I was not angry you were late. I expected it today, considering your circumstances.” What had his mother told Calisto?
“And it is why I set five against one. You have always done well at calming your emotions. I wanted to know how you would react to unforeseen circumstances when you were already in a state of stress. But I dare say, I was disappointed.”
So it had been a test. And he’d passed it as well as any dowagist might win a fight with his hands tied. Heat touched Calver’s ears.
“H-how did you g-get here?” Irrelevant. Stupid. But no one was allowed to know where they lived. That was Mother’s rule.
“I’ve been here many times. In fact, I was the one who scouted this space when your mother was forced from the Skywalk.”
“Oh.” Stupid. Calver wished he’d just said nothing.