The Cadet of Tildor (12 page)

CHAPTER 16

R
enee staggered back. He was a mage. Alec was a mage. Her shy, steadfast, loyal best friend wielded the power to Control life forces. Her ears rang as if from a blow.

Alec turned to Diam. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Khavi does.”

Alec nodded and knelt to grip the dog’s shoulder. Blue mage light engulfed them both, pulsating like a beating heart and illuminating the forest around them. Diam groaned.

Renee gathered the boy in her arms. His small body pressed into her while sweat and fire consumed Alec and Khavi. When Alec’s hand dropped away at last, his clothes soaked despite the cold, Khavi climbed to his paws.

“You Healed him?” Renee’s voice sounded hollow.

“Yes. Well . . . no. It’s simpler with animals, but I wouldn’t know how to Heal a wound like that. I offered Khavi my energy and his body guided it.” Alec sank to the ground. “I think it’s instinctual with him . . . with the mage beasts. They can’t Heal themselves any more than human mages can, but once I gave Khavi my energy, something in him took over.” Wisps of blue flame scurried about his fingers like bits of lost lightning. Gasping, he clawed at the lining of his coat. The mage fire flared up over his hands, died, and flared again. He ripped at the cloth. “Help me,” he whispered.

She knelt beside him and patted the jacket. Something inside crinkled in response. With the nimbleness her friend’s fingers now lacked, Renee found the opening to a hidden pocket and suddenly knew what she was about to extract.

Dry orange veesi leaves crumbled into her palm. The bloody cursed leaves that affected mages so differently. She bit her lip.

“Please, Renee.” Alec’s shaking hand extended to her. “Please. I need it.”

Renee stayed where she was, her jaw tight. It wasn’t fair. He was making her a part of this and it wasn’t fair.

“Renee.”

She stood and flung the leaves onto his lap. “Take it yourself.”

He did, trembling as he placed the orange bits into his mouth, cringed, chewed, and swallowed. Nausea contorted his face, but the blue glow died. His shoulders drooped in relief.

Renee hugged her chest and studied Khavi, now cuddling against his boy.
It hit us,
Diam had said. And Khavi . . . mage animals were rare . . . and wild. Hawks. Bears. Lions . . . “He isn’t a dog, is he?” Renee whispered. “He’s a wolf.”

Alec nodded. “He’s so friendly, you wouldn’t think it, but . . . Maybe mage animals act different when they bond?” Alec chuckled without humor. “I guess they’d have to, if they are to keep from eating their partner for dinner, right? And the partner’s family . . . I guess we’ve proved bonding is more than legend.” He offered Renee a weak smile.

Rene didn’t smile back. “Is Diam too a mage then?”

“I think he’d have to be. He’s too young for it to show yet, though.” Alec’s shoulders slumped farther over a bowed head. He prodded the dirt with his knuckle, bracing for the question they both knew she had to ask.

“How long?”

“Four years.” He looked up, holding her eyes. “I’ve never touched a human. I swear, Renee! Never. Not once. I wouldn’t even know how to get past the Keraldi Barrier in a person. Just animals, sometimes, sick ones who I can help a little. But almost never that even. I keep it down.”

With veesi. An illegal drug to hide a power so dangerous, the Crown mandated its supervision. She kept her face blank.

“Now you know,” he said, hushed.

“I . . . yes. Now I know.” What should one feel upon discovering that her best friend is a felon? Betrayal? Sympathy? Fear? All Renee felt was a humming silence filling her mind with a single, monotonous note. She chewed the inside of her cheek. “Why?”

“I chose freedom.” Alec’s eyes strayed to the boy and dog curled up together, asleep on the ground. “But not at the expense of their lives.” Alec’s head shot up with borrowed strength. “I asked you to say behind!” he yelled, but the fight left him as quickly as it had come. He lay down in the dirt. “I asked you to stay behind.” His gaze rested on the ground. “What will you do?”

Staring at him, Renee found neither the will to answer nor the desire to help him sit up. Debating whether to arrest a hypothetical mage in Seaborn’s class was nothing like standing across from a friend. If she told, Alec would face a noose.

Her fingers curled into tight fists. King Lysian waged war against crime while Alec, the king’s own Servant cadet, was himself a criminal. And Renee . . .

She had never thought herself capable of betraying the Crown.

She could not, would not, betray a friend.

And that loyalty meant treason.

Renee pushed herself off the ground. “Damn you.” The words squeezed past her gritted teeth. “Damn you, Alec!”

“Renee . . . ” His hand reached for her, but she stepped back, turning away.

A gust of wind blew in, howling through the trees. Renee walked into the wall of air, holding on to her jacket, trying to think of nothing but placing one foot in front of the other. The evening moved on, at a distance. The guards called
all’s well.
A clique of cadets hurried to reach the barracks before curfew. A stray cat brushed her leg and scurried up a tree. Renee walked. Just walked. Nowhere in particular.

The midnight bell tolled.

“Renee?” Savoy, flanked by his two sergeants, turned into the small quad between the barracks buildings, where Renee realized she now was. With all the increased security, she should have known she was bound to run across an adult sooner or later. “Is all well?” Savoy asked.

Another instructor would have punished her for missing curfew. He wouldn’t, she knew. Savoy asked direct questions and took her at her word. And she was about to lie to him. Another betrayal. “I thought I saw a horse loose.” She gestured behind her.

“All the way over here?” Cory’s voice carried surprise, not doubt.

Her fingers toyed with the hem of her coat. Catching herself, Renee stuffed her hands into her pockets. Gods, how did Alec stand it, lying to everyone—lying to her—all these years?

“We’ll check,” said Savoy. He crossed his arms, his eyes penetrating hers. When she remained silent, he nodded. “Very well,” he said, and they walked away.

Hanging lanterns illuminated her walk back to quarters, and unfinished notes welcomed her home. Alec’s materials had disappeared. Sasha, asleep in her bed, pulled her blanket over her head in response to the creak of the door.

On the heels of the evening’s events, the impossibility of finishing her essay by tomorrow throbbed like a drip of water against a wound, simultaneously trivial and unbearable. She chuckled bitterly. Seaborn would down-rate her, and the lowered academic standing would pull her further along the spiral toward losing an already tenuous hold on her Academy slot.

Renee walked to her roommate’s drawer. There lay the assignment she needed. If caught, she’d still be down-rated and likely spend every evening for the rest of the year digging latrine holes. But the consequences of doing nothing were little different. The past four hours saw her become an accomplice to treason because of her friend’s choices. It would serve nothing to jeopardize her own for the sake of a few sheets of homework.

After she finished copying Sasha’s words, Renee spent the rest of the night washing the ink from her hands.

CHAPTER 17

S
avoy knew he was sleeping, but it made the dream no less vivid.

The cell stank of blood and urine. Both his. “Is he alive?” His voice cracked, echoing against the stone walls. On his stomach, he slithered toward the bars. “I’m sorry!” The taste of copper filled his mouth.

The guard snorted.

A hand from the darkness grabbed at him
 . . .

Savoy gripped his assailant and threw him into the wall.

The foe grunted and stayed put.

Savoy vaulted from his bed into a defensive crouch and froze in place. Sun rays poured through the window to fill his quarters with light, and the man slumped on the floor beside the bureau was Verin. His long gray coat pooled around his body and his silver-streaked hair puffed out in disarray.

Savoy drew a breath. “Gods.” Shaking away the last bits of sleep, he offered his hand to help the older man up. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“I see you’ve grown a bit, lad.” Verin’s voice was composed despite its owner’s sprawl. He climbed to his feet, leaning more on the proffered arm than Savoy had expected.

Savoy’s head pounded still. If the headmaster wished to see him, courtesy demanded a summons or, at the least, a knock. He was no longer Verin’s foster to be subject to random intrusions. His gaze weighed the other man. Verin was still taller, of course—Savoy had outgrown his adolescent runtiness but still stood nearly a hand shorter than the other man—but Savoy out-massed Verin now and had the edge of recent battle on his side. He braced his hands on his hips. “You should not startle me so.”

“Ah, my mistake then.” Verin pulled down on his tunic, settling it back into place. His forehead creased. “I had been under the impression that I raised a self-controlled military officer and not a wild animal. I thank you for correcting the misconception.”

Heat rose to Savoy’s face and he turned away for a moment to let it settle. Behind him, chair legs scraped against the floor. He turned to find his former teacher and guardian seated in the room’s sole chair.

“I’ve known several people who chose to leave their quarters unlocked,” Verin said conversationally. “But you are the first to have removed the locking mechanism completely.”

Savoy glanced at the door, where his handiwork had left several holes from the extracted screws. Locks had a way of trapping you in as fast as keeping others out. He shrugged. “A good sword bests a good latch, sir.” Verin had taught him to fight, even if it had been decades since the now Servant High Constable was junior enough to wield a sword on the battlefield himself.

“Mmm. Indeed.” Verin smiled, crossing his legs. “Especially when someone else has another set of keys, eh?” A metallic jingle sounded when he patted his pocket and a bushy eyebrow rose in gentle amusement. “Were you afraid I’d lock you in?”

Savoy picked up a shirt and shrugged into it, letting the hem hang down over the battered britches in which he had slept. He started to pull himself up to perch atop his desk but changed his mind and walked back to the bed instead. With a few motions he tugged the woolen blanket tight and tucked the corners under the mattress. “Would you?”

The older man chuckled. “No. If I wished you to stay in your quarters, I believe I would have but to ask.” He tented his fingers under his chin. “That is something that differentiates a man from a boy, don’t you think? That he fulfills his obligation and follows his orders because they are obligation and orders, and not because he’s forced into obedience.” He cleared his throat to indicate a change of topic and inclined his head toward the bed. “Sit. Since I seem to have intruded on your sleep at midday, may I presume your night was otherwise occupied?”

Midday. Savoy glanced out the window for confirmation. “I drilled the Seventh until dawn, then herded cadets around the salle.” The words held an unintended ring of excuse that he didn’t care for. He scrubbed his hand over his face. The headmaster did not make social calls, so something was amiss. If previous experience was anything to judge by, the longer Savoy took to realize what that bloody something was, the worse the outcome. He sighed, remembering. The instructors’ conference to discuss the midyear exams a few weeks off had passed without the pleasure of his company. He squared his shoulders. “My apologies for the ill planning, sir.”

Verin nodded slowly before speaking. “I believe it was more a matter of priorities than plans. The needs of your men versus those of your students?”

It was a trap, but Savoy failed to see how he could avoid the bait. “A misstep for my fighters will get them killed. A misstep for my cadets will get them sent home to their parents.”

“Your dedication to your men is commendable.” Verin’s fingertips tapped each other. “Your disobedience to my orders, less so. I seem to recall holding a similar conversation with you upon your arrival, but perhaps my memory is in error.” His brows narrowed and he leaned forward. His smile faded, replaced by a steel-gray gaze that laid a heated rod along Savoy’s spine. “Let me thus revert to more primitive methods: You will keep your commitments to this Academy, Servant Savoy, or you will find your team’s behavior under a level of scrutiny they will not enjoy. Am I clear?”

The older man rose, waited until Savoy stood and bowed, and then headed for the door. He paused with his hand resting on the handle. “I know my words raked you, lad. That marks you a good officer. See that you are a good teacher as well.”

Savoy stared at the door long after it closed, wondering how Verin had turned being a “good officer” into a liability.

The conversation still weighed on his mind when he met his sergeants, Cory and Davis, a few hours later for a surprise inspection of the Seventh’s mounts. The men had drilled with the Palace Guard a few days ago, but until a specific mission arose, the team had little to do in Atham but patrol the city and the palace grounds, watching for misbehaving Vipers. The reserve status chafed his soldiers. And chafed soldiers found trouble. As glad as Savoy was for his men’s company, he was beginning to reconsider the wisdom of the precautionary recall.

“How are the boys handling the tether?” Savoy asked.

The stable’s lantern light glinted off of Davis’s bald head. “We have enough mending, supplying, and training to do to keep them trotting a while longer, but once that ends . . . ” He opened his palms. “I can’t keep a sword sharp for you if I have nothing to sharpen it on, sir.”

“Understood.” Savoy drummed his fingers against a stall gate. The occupant poked her black nose over the railing and sniffed curiously until a crash of the stable door startled her into a rear. “Whoa, girl.” Savoy grabbed her halter, restraining the filly lest she harm herself. He twisted to see the source of the racket and found a man who should know better standing a few paces away. “Easy near the horses, Connor.”

“Get your hooligans under control,” said Seaborn.

Cory and Davis stepped forward, hands hovering over sword hilts.

“Gentlemen.” Savoy kept his voice low. “Give us a minute.” He watched his men retreat, then stared at Seaborn.

“Either the back pasture grew a barrel of mead, or your men cannot tell a school from a taproom. I found two cadets stumbling around the barracks, losing their dinners.”

“Mead any good?” Savoy rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I told them to stay away from the cheap brew.”

Connor planted his palm against the wall near Savoy’s head and leaned close. His voice, coming quiet from behind clenched teeth, was a growl. “Get your gang on a leash, or get them gone.”

Savoy crossed his arms. He permitted Connor much, but disrespect toward the Seventh was beyond those bounds. While the Academy slept in the peace of high walls and pretty guardsmen, his men spent most nights with death guarding their dreams. “Put a damn leash on your cadets. Or teach them to drink. I don’t care which.”

“You are the guests here, not the kids. Behave or get out.”

“You think I want to be here?”

“I don’t care. The Academy exists for the cadets, not for you.” Connor’s voice dropped, sending a shiver through Savoy. “Break up the party or I will call Guardsman Fisker to do it. I’m certain he would make the trip from the palace for the pleasure.”

The door slammed behind Seaborn, upsetting the horses again. Breath caught in Savoy’s lungs, as if someone punched his stomach. When he forced himself to turn away, he found Cory and Davis leaning against the stable wall, their eyes boring into him.

“Move the hooligans and their mead into my quarters,” he told them, and started toward the door.

“Where are you going, sir?”

Savoy paused, but did not turn around, not wishing his face to show. “To find a way to get you released from this dungeon.”

* * *

“Am I still welcome?” Alec hovered at the threshold of Renee’s quarters. They had not spoken in the two days since Alec had stood the world on its ears—two days that had left Renee’s nails bitten to the quick and no memory of Alec unstudied. He put his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders.

“You are.” She chewed her lip. One friend should not have to ask such things of another. “Gods, of course you are.”

He closed the door behind him and lingered there for a few moments before sitting on Sasha’s empty bed. He braced his elbows on his knees and interlaced his fingers, his head bent. “I’m sorry that you know.” He spoke toward the floor. “But I’m glad too. And I’m sorry for being glad.”

Renee’s finger traced the rough texture of the bedcover. Two days earlier she would have sworn that a true friendship had no room for secrets. But secrets, it turned out, carried burdens. “Does anyone else know?”

“Gran may suspect.” Alec took a breath. “She raised two mage daughters, she knows what to look for.”

Renee fidgeted. Alec had never mentioned that before either.

“I didn’t lie to you,” he said quickly, as if reading her thoughts. “My
mother
”—Alec spat the word—“she tossed me to Gran and took off, like I’ve told you.” He drew a breath. “Aunt Cayle . . . I never told you about her, but she taught me a bit. We didn’t know whether I would Control yet, but she’d call me over and explain things—how Control works, mage history, some stories. The fundamental skills are the same for all mages, and Aunt Cayle specialized in Healing atop that, learning bits and pieces as best she could in secret. She Healed my dog when he burned his paw. I didn’t know it then, but she was trusting me with her life by doing it.”

And now he was trusting her. Renee scooted to the edge of her bed, closer to him. She remembered his grandfather passing on a few years back and knew he little cared to speak of his mother, who had left long before that. That was all. Renee and Alec had been each other’s family for years now, and rarely talked of other relatives. Now she knew why. “Your aunt isn’t registered, then?”

“She wasn’t. The guard hanged her eight years ago.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a leather square the size of a gold crown. The attached thong marked it a necklace, although Renee had never seen Alec wear it. He turned it over to show a small diamond stud worked into the center. An amulet. “She gave it to me when I feared the dark. I could touch it to make it glow.”

Renee reached out and brushed her finger over the smooth stone. Nothing happened.

“It can’t store the energy long. Giving me a candle would have been cheaper and much more practical. But . . .” He raised his shoulders and let the rest go unsaid.

“Why don’t you recharge it? I don’t think she’d mind.”

He snorted. “Why don’t you best Savoy with a sword?” His thumb rubbed the leather. “Healer Grovener probably could, but it would seem strange to ask.”

She bowed her head in apology. Amulets were rare and expensive, but Renee had always assumed that the cost was due to the diamonds and regulation fees. It was easy to dismiss the skill and training involved in unfamiliar vocations. “Is your mother hiding?” That would explain why Alec spoke so little of her. Unwise to draw attention—to his mother and his own bloodlines, both. “Is that why she left?”

“No.” He chuckled without humor. “No, she registered and went to a Crown’s school. Not the Academy, but nicer than anything we’d have been able to afford.
Registered
mages have status and money, you know. At the expense of freedom.” He snorted. “I was an accident that delayed my mother’s graduation. When she finally received orders, well, I don’t know if she couldn’t take me or chose not to, but I have a guess.” He spread his palms. “The Mage Council has her developing army tools somewhere. She sends Gran coin.”