The Soulstoy Inheritance (12 page)

“Good afternoon everyone, I see my class has grown exponentially in popularity since last week. If any of you are here that do not have signed permission slips from your parents, I’ll have to ask you to leave now.” He paused and waited until a large section of the crowd had begrudgingly moved off.

“You too Brown, Kingsly.” Two more people slinked off, and then he turned back to those of us who remained, ignoring the court officials that ringed the edges of the arena, and my own Black Guardsmen, who hovered just beyond the last row of students.

“Now for today’s lesson, we’ll be continuing where we left off with last week’s offensive and defensive strategies. I’m going to call each pair onto the stage one at a time and give them either a defensive or an offensive role. You’ll be graded for this exercise, so I suggest you take it seriously. If you fall behind a five, you will be asked to discontinue Offensive Training.”

He ordered the first pair onto the stage, and then stepped off to the side, talking quietly with Arrol.

How did you get hurt?

I glanced back at him, but still he spoke quietly, his eyes riveted to the fight.

A rock, I think. I didn’t see who threw it.

I told you it wasn’t safe, did you not get my message? I don’t think you should come back.

My father’s burial…

It will be even worse, Bea. Most of the city thinks you killed him. As soon as Hazen finds out about this, he’s not going to let you anywhere near it.

I felt a tear slide down my face, and found that I couldn’t say anything, in my head or otherwise. I sat there, silently crying through the next six rounds of sparring, until it was time for Cale and I to fight. We walked onto the stage, and I swiped the tears from my eyes. Harbringer should have assigned us roles, but he only stared at me, shaking his head slightly.

“You can’t fight, Miss Harrow. Cale, take her back to the Academy while everyone is still in class.”

Cale nodded and grabbed my hand, his grip a little too tight.

“Aw come on, Professor!” someone shouted—Cudos, I thought—“I wanna see her carve him up like she did her Dad!”

I suffered a flash of darkness so intense, for a moment I feared that I had actually lashed out and killed him, but when I looked, his face was still grinning, eyes narrowed on me.

“That’s enough.” Harbringer’s voice was dark, matching the way my heart felt. “Get her out of here.”

Cale began to tug me away, but my feet didn’t seem to want to move.

“I can fight,” I found myself saying. “I can fight him.” I pointed to Cudos.

Everyone fell silent, and Cale started pulling harder, until I stumbled a little bit.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” he muttered beneath his breath. “Dammit, Bea, come
on
.”

He managed to pull me a few steps further, and then I dug my heels in again, my voice deceptively calm.

“Let me fight. I can fight.”

Cudos shot up in his seat, the movement a blur, and I felt a stinging pain in my gut. I fell back a step, just as the rock fell to the ground, and I put a hand to my stomach, surprised despite myself that he would throw something at me in such plain sight, in front of Harbringer.

“Come on, synfee scum! Show us what you’ve got!” Cudos was climbing over the seats, moving toward me, and I suddenly wasn’t so sure anymore that I wanted to fight him.

Harbringer stalked to us. “Why is she still here?” he asked Cale, eyes flicking back to Cudos, who was now being detained by Arrol. “Do you have a death wish or something, Harrow?”

I laughed at the question, the sound slightly hysterical.

“You know, Professor, that’s not the first time I’ve been asked that.”

He didn’t answer then, as his arm had just shot out, his hand hovering before my face, a sharp rock trapped between his fingers. He growled, smashing the rock against the ground in an effortless flick of his wrist, and then turned, that black gaze of his trained on Cudos. The boy visibly flinched, and I finally let Cale lead me away, my limbs suddenly trembling.

Thank you
, I thought,
I’m sorry. I won’t come back.

Rose caught up to us as we were leaving the trail, and we hurried back to the Academy in silence, the five guardsmen trailing behind.

“Someone wants to see you,” Cale muttered as we passed through the gates again.

I looked sideways at him, but his face was tense, and when I looked at Rose, she only shrugged. He walked me to one of the administration buildings, and up a few flights of stairs, before depositing me outside of a door, knocking once.

“Good luck,” he whispered.

The door opened, and my heart sank, just a tiny bit.

“Miss Harrow,” Master Savar drew me into the room and closed the door firmly on everyone who stood outside. “You’ve been hurt.”

His beard seemed to be longer, the strands glinting like strings of steel, weighing down a posture that had always seemed rigid to me, but now appeared stooped. It didn’t detract from the fierce severity of his eyes; a focused, hard slate-stare to match his beard.

I touched my head. “It’s nothing. I want to thank you… for… allowing me to come back.”

He nodded. “That’s not why you’re here right now, Beatrice, though I hate to admit the Academy may not have been such a good idea in general. I had thought that you coming here—unarmed and clearly far from dangerous—would instill just enough doubt in the officials who might have been swayed before your trial. I have failed to contain the Resistance, however, and so I have failed you. I’m only allowed ten minutes with you, and we need to get you back to the border before something worse happens.”

I followed him to another door, which lead into an empty corridor, and then halfway down, he suddenly stopped, tapping the door he now stood in front of.

“This is my supply closet, I think you’ll find it useful.” He smiled at me for a moment. “I’ll be back in my office. Don’t take too long.”

I stared after him until he had disappeared back into his office, and then I opened the door. It was indeed a supply closet, from what I could make of it in the shadows. But then one of the shadows shifted and turned into a person, and I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to cut off my scream. Hazen reached into the hallway and pulled me against him, closing the door with his free hand. I clung to him, disbelieving, smelling something wonderful and familiar that was somehow unique to him.

He had my braid wrapped around his hand, and was hugging me just as tightly as I was him. “You’re hurt,” he muttered, his voice raspy, “what happened?”

“It doesn’t matter, it’s fine. I can’t believe you’re here.”

“You saved my life, Bea, of course I’m here.”

I wanted to sob then, but couldn’t waste what precious minutes I had crying.

“What’s going to happen?”

He seemed to deflate a little and his arms fell away from me.

“It’s all moving too slowly.” He was angry, frustrated. “They’re trying to track down a man—a mind-reader. He’s the only other person with a mind-ability similar to Joseph’s and my own. He’s supposed to examine you at the trial, but until we find him, you’ll have to stay over the border. The Tainted Resistance is too strong right now. These sorts of groups are as fast to rise as they are to fall. Once we have managed to acquit you, their fuel will dwindle, and they will lose followers. Until then, I’m afraid that they are a very real threat.”

“Who is he? Why can’t you or Harbringer do it?”

“Obvious reasons.” I felt him shift, and tried to make out his expression, but it was too dark.

I wanted to hug him again, but suddenly it didn’t seem so appropriate, closeted off together in the dark.

“Joseph told me he kissed you again,” he said suddenly, his voice changing.

“Did he tell you, or did you see it in his mind?”

“I saw it, and then forced him to tell me.”

I laughed, though there wasn’t any humor to the sound. “You must be sick of seeing my kisses in other people’s minds. You’re lucky Rose doesn’t have a boyfriend. It would drive you insane.”

He didn’t say anything to that, and then finally he sighed, his hand sliding around my side. “Come on, take your hug, and then you have to go.”

I did cry a little bit then, I could feel the dampness of my tears on his neck, as I tightened my arms around him, needing to push to my toes to be able to reach him. I turned and kissed his cheek. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

He didn’t say anything, so I kissed his cheek again, and then buried my face back in his neck. He made a strangled sort of sound and pushed me gently back.

“Time’s up,” he said, pushing the door open.

I slipped into the hallway, feeling a strange mix of elation and sadness, and walked back to Savar’s office. He was sitting behind his desk, humming to himself as he looked out of the window.

“Thank you, Master Savar,” I said quietly, as I moved back to the other door. “But you haven’t failed me. Your plan would never have worked.”

His grey eyes sparked with something akin to understanding, as if he knew my answer before he even voiced his question.

“Why is that?” His silver eyebrow quirked the barest of inches.

“I
am
dangerous. The longer I stay here, facing any kind of threat… The clearer that will become.”

The journey back to the border was uneventful, made almost intolerable as I had been forced to say goodbye to Cale and Rose back at the Academy and I had no idea when I would have a chance to see them again. They deposited me in the clearing and then melted back into the trees, and I walked to the border, trying to hold my head up high. Teddy, Quick and Sweet were waiting for me, which meant that they had learned I was coming somehow.

“What happened to your face?” Sweet asked without preemption.

“People have been throwing rocks at me all day.”

“Well I don’t think things are about to get any easier. We’re to take you to Castle Nest East for your Throne Test. Everyone is already waiting.”

I mounted another horse and we travelled not toward where I knew to be the entrance to Castle Nest, but instead over the eastern crest of the hill that it sat at the base of. Below us stretched a wing of Castle Nest, which I hadn’t yet seen. In the center of it was a huge arena, and judging by the noise that floated up to us,
everyone
really was waiting. The arena was a dark stone monstrosity. Flagless flagpoles spiked along the top in a menacing greeting, and the surroundings had been completely cleared of any evidence that there was a synfee empire beyond its sparse valley—despite the fact that it sounded as if the entire synfee civilisation had amassed within its curved walls. I followed Teddy down the hill and along a barely-there path, which navigated the rare thicket of shrubbery, thin stream or sapling nest, to a guarded outer building attached to the arena, where we were admitted.

“Lady Beatrice.” Grenlow spotted me first and strode forward. “Are you ready? What happened to your face?”

“It looks better that way,” Ayleth stated with unblemished boredom.

I gritted my teeth, taking in Dain, Ashen, Isolde, Cereen and Rohan, who all stood about the room in various poses of lazy respite. They didn’t look too worried, so I decided I’d try not to be either.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure it looks worse than it is,” I muttered.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Isolde asked.

I thought about that, and then lifted my shirt. There was a mottle of three or four purple and blue bruises scattered across my stomach, spreading up to the right side of my ribcage. I poked one of them and then held in a wince.

“Still looks worse than it is, I’ll be fine.”

Isolde looked doubtful, and then she shrugged, waving her hand in my direction. “Let’s get on with it then.”

Grenlow produced a large syringe and then held his hand out to me. I stared at the syringe, and then to his hand, and tried to stop myself from taking a step backwards in cowardice.

Ashen spoke up.  “It’s a tracing device, girl. Without it, the mirrors won’t work, and we won’t be able to monitor your progress.”

“What mirrors?” I asked, hesitantly giving Grenlow my arm.

The needle pierced my skin, and I grimaced.

“You’re in the famous mirrored arena, Lady Queen,” Dain said. “Did they not teach you anything at that Academy?”

“I wasn’t there for long.”

“The mirrors display your progress throughout the test, no matter where you are, as long as you have the tracking device activated,” Ashen explained, sounding nowhere near as surprised or offended as Dain had.

“Won’t I be in the arena?”

“Not necessarily.”

I swallowed, pushing back whatever panic threatened at the edges of my mind at that statement, and then shook out the sudden numbness in my arm.

“You have five minutes,” Grenlow said, stepping back.

I nodded, and then thought of something else. “Is there anything I’m going to need?”

“You’re only permitted what you already possess,” Isolde said, not unkindly.

Just then, a man barreled into the room from the door connecting us to the arena. His face was red with excitement, and he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

“Lady Queen!” he exclaimed, rushing over to me and clasping my hand. “My name is Alth, the beastkeeper, it’ll be my beasts that you be fighting out there.” He seemed pleased of that.

“I’m fighting beasts?” A dumbstruck sort of dread crept into my words.

Nearby, one of the advisors groaned. “Alth, you really couldn’t wait?”

He coloured even further, muttered an apology and then slipped out of the room. I stared after him, my mouth hanging open, and then turned on Grenlow. “What kind of beasts?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, Lady. You had better get ready; your tracking device will turn on any second now.”

He took my arm, which had begun to tingle with feeling again, and walked me to the door. Ashen leaned against the wall, and reached out to clasp my shoulder just as I reached the door. There was a sudden outpouring of thunderous noise from above, leading me to guess that the tracking device was now working.