Traces of Sulfur: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Series (Blade Keeper Academy Book 1)

by Madeline Freeman

  The third cadet was the tallest of them all. His tight black curls were cropped close to his head, and his honey brown eyes searched me like he was cataloging every detail about my face. He offered his hand, but he didn’t smile. “Thor Rocha. Unda Blade.”

  I moved to Bridger last. His hair was messier today than it had been yesterday, but in a way that made it clear he’d spent time perfecting the look. “Bridger Ross,” he said as he took my hand. “But you know that already. And the Terra Blade is mine, but you probably figured that out already, too.” He pulsed my hand before releasing it. “I had a feeling about you.”

  Although there was nothing menacing in his tone, I didn’t like the way he said it. Like we shared a secret. Did he tell anyone he found me upstairs? Would they believe my looking-for-a-bathroom story, as he apparently had? I didn’t know the answers to those questions, and I didn’t want to find out. I also didn’t like the idea of Bridger holding something over me, no matter how small.

  I glanced at the silver-haired man. “And what about you?”

  “I am your trainer, Octavius Anders.” He inclined his head slightly. “You can call me Anders.”

  I nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

  His lips twisted into an approximation of a smile. “The greater pleasure is mine. I’m honored to be the first person in generations to be charged with the training of all five Blade Keepers. It’s been so long since the Aether Blade has had a Keeper that much of its potential has fallen into lore. I look forward to rediscovering its secrets alongside you.”

  An icy chill crept up my spine. “Is it here somewhere?” I glanced toward the wall of weapons, searching for the subtle glow of the sword. If I had to touch it again, there was no telling what might happen. Someone would quickly realize me being here was a mistake.

  Anders chuckled. “No, it’s not. The Eternity Blades are powerful and dangerous weapons. Much too much so to have cadets train with.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying not to sound too relieved.

  “Not to worry,” Anders continued. “There are plenty more weapons for us to work with. Now, Miss Jensen, let’s see just how much work you have ahead of you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Standing in the center of the fighting ring, I struggled to get a grip on the sword in my hand. It wasn’t the Aether Blade, but Anders assured me the balance and weight were the same as its eternal-realm-forged counterpart.

  From across the ring, Bridger tipped his head to the side as he studied me. “Have you ever held a sword before?”

  I shook my head. “You mean besides yesterday?”

  He offered a half smile. “Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  “Go, Eden!” Clio called from the sidelines.

  “Try not to over-think things,” Anders said from his spot just outside the ring. “No one is expecting impeccable technique from you. I’d simply like to see what kind of natural ability you have as a starting point.”

  I gulped. Natural ability? Was sword-fighting an innate ability all angels possessed? If I was terrible, would that point to me not being what they thought I was?

  I tried to come up with some reason I couldn’t go through with the training exercise—I slept wrong last night and pulled a muscle, I wasn’t strong enough to lift the sword—but Liza had warned me not to get carried away spinning a web of untruths. The more lies I told, the more I would have to keep track of. It was best to stick to the truth—or as close to it—as possible. As much as I didn’t want to try my hand at this exercise, I could only put off the inevitable for so long.

  “Ready?” Anders asked.

  “Always,” said Bridger, sounding a little more eager than I liked.

  I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could get a sound out, Anders called, “Begin.”

  Bridger dashed any hope I harbored of him going easy on me as he darted forward, sword raised.

  He was going to chop me in half. In that moment, it didn’t matter that Anders had already assured me the blades were human-forged and therefore couldn’t cut an ethereal’s skin. Seeing Bridger charge unlocked a primal sense of self-preservation.

  I jumped out of the way just before he reached me, but he swung around so swiftly I couldn’t put space between us again. Hefting with all my might, I lifted my sword to block his. The reverberating clash loosened my grip on the blade.

  Bridger swung again, and I leapt away. When I tried to lift the weapon to defend myself, my jelly-like muscles refused to cooperate.

  Dull shouts reached my ears, but they sounded like they were coming from far away. I didn’t dare glance to the outside of the ring, knowing that even a moment’s distraction could be disastrous.

  Bridger approached again with a swiftness that astonished me. He brought the blade down like he was swinging an axe, and I only barely rolled out of the way before the tip slammed against the rubber mat where my head had been.

  Adrenaline surged in my veins and my vision went red. Bridger wasn’t holding back. What’s worse, after a move like that, I was convinced he would do real damage to me if I let him.

  Fire burned beneath my skin, threatening to consume me. With the option of flight off the table, my fight reflex kicked into overdrive. But battling Bridger was nothing like the hand-to-hand skills Marco had drilled into me for the last nine years. My disadvantage was complete, and no amount of effort was making a bit of difference.

  I scrambled backward on the mat, trying to keep distance between myself and Bridger’s next onslaught. As he raised his sword again, I scrabbled to my feet and lifted my blade to meet his. The shock of metal-on-metal rang through my system, ratcheting up the fire simmering inside me.

  I kicked out, aiming for Bridger’s abdomen. But before my foot made contact, his hand clamped around my ankle. Somehow, without losing his grip on the blade in his right hand, he twisted my leg with his left. Using my precarious balance to his advantage, he knocked me to the floor with my face to the mat. Cold metal bit at the back of my neck. “Do you yield?”

  The reflexive terror that had filled me during the match gave way to a rising rage. Wasn’t this exactly how an angel wanted to see a demon—on the floor and forced to give up?

  Demons gave into the rage all the time. I’d witnessed it firsthand with the girl who stole my purse. The fire strengthened my kind beyond our normal capabilities. If I gave in now, I might stand a chance…

  The red in my field of vision intensified, sending a cold shock through my system. What was I doing? Bridger wasn’t a threat. As far as he knew, I was an angel like him. This was a sparring match, not an expression of angelic superiority.

  Liza had warned me about giving into rage. The accompanying power was tempting, but it didn’t come without a price. If I wasn’t careful, my eyes would flash black like my mugger’s had, and everyone would know just what I was.

  “Do you—”

  “Yes!” The word ripped from my throat, leaving behind the acrid sting of bile. “Yes, I yield.”

  In an instant, Bridger’s blade disappeared from my neck. I took in several deep breaths, urging the heat in my body to dissipate. When I finally opened my eyes, the red was gone, replaced by Bridger’s curious expression.

  He held out a hand to help me up, but I ignored it.

  “Thank you, Miss Jensen,” Anders said. “I believe I’ve identified a starting point for your training. Mr. Ross, will you show Miss Jensen to the free weights?”

  Bridger nodded and grabbed my practice sword without asking if I needed help with it. Part of me wanted to snatch it from him on principle, but I felt like my grip might give out if I tried to carry it again.

  Clio and Thor stepped into the ring as I exited. Only Nate waited on the outside. I couldn’t decode his expression, which seemed to be part curiosity and part something ineffable.

  My cheeks warmed at his attention.

  “That was a good effort,” he said. His voice was low—not like he was afraid for the others to overhear him, but m
ore like his words were meant for me alone. “You have good instincts. But I already knew that.”

  He smiled, and a deep dimple carved itself into his left cheek. My stomach fluttered when he didn’t break eye contact.

  I didn’t know how much time passed. A few seconds? A millennium? Nate’s eyes were so dark and deep, it would be easy to get lost in them forever.

  “Mr. Kouri?”

  Anders’s voice broke the spell, and I turned away before I could get sucked in again. Bridger stood a few yards ahead, and I hurried to join him.

  What just happened? Sure, Nate was good-looking, but that was no reason to go all gooey inside because he made eye contact.

  If Bridger noticed what must have been an obvious flush in my cheeks, he didn’t mention it as he led the way to the other side of the gym. “Have you ever worked with free weights before?”

  I eyed the carefully arranged bars with varying amounts of weight loaded onto them. “No. I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

  Bridger grinned, and I devoted half of my attention to studying him as he began describing the different workouts he would take me through. The other half of my focus was on Bridger himself. Even after our fight in the ring, his hair retained its artfully messy look. His forest green eyes were lovely, and the muscles beneath his uniform were well-defined. But no matter how I stared, I couldn’t manufacture the swooping butterfly sensation that had overtaken me in Nate’s presence.

  At Bridger’s direction, I faced the mirror on the far wall as I worked on my bicep curls. But instead of watching my form, I couldn’t keep my eyes from straying to the ring where Nate, Clio, and Thor battled. The latter two were ganging up against Nate, who blocked each blow so gracefully the whole thing unfolded like a dance. Except I knew of no dancers who could move with such jarring speed, or who could wield a sword with such deadly precision. I’d seen enough of the angelic guard in action—whether at a distance or on television—to know what not all angels moved so quickly. Maybe the fact that they were Blade Keepers gave them an edge over other angelic warriors. How long would it take them to realize I didn’t possess the same gift?

  And what consequence would I suffer when it came out?

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the time Anders announced it was time for us to head to our next class, my skin was slicked with sweat and my arms felt like jelly. I worried I would have to spend the rest of the day smelling like a dirty sock, but Clio led me back to a changing room I hadn’t noticed before. In one of the open lockers hung a second uniform, identical to the one I found in my closet this morning. As I toweled off and changed clothes, I wondered if I should always expect my clothes to magically appear for me, or whether I would eventually have to take care of things myself.

  When I finished changing, Clio and I joined the guys and they led the way to our next class. Clio gave a rundown of what to expect—classes from Angelic History to Weapons and Stealth to physics, and I did my best to smile and nod like all those things sounded awesome. But as we made our way to the front of the building, more students exited from other training gyms, and I could feel their eyes on me. Those who dared speak did so in hushed tones, but there was no hiding what they were discussing. Finding the fifth and final Keeper was hot gossip, and the academy students were probably dissecting everything about me.

  Their stares made my skin crawl. I wasn’t used to being the center of attention, and being so now came with the added danger of someone realizing that I wasn’t not really one of them.

  Eyes continued to prickle my skin as we settled into our next class—Angelic History. Although there were more than a dozen other students in the room, the Keepers sat at a table removed from the rest of them. The instructor, Professor Danson, locked eyes with me for approximately three seconds at the beginning of the period, as if committing my face to memory. Beyond that, he conducted class as if he was unaware of the excited buzz in the air.

  My mind was too cluttered to focus on the lesson, which Professor Danson plowed through despite the fact that most of the cadets were fully ignoring him. Instead, each of the fifteen students—besides the Keepers—took turns staring at me. Well, fourteen. Shonda sat near the front of the room, her attention wholly focused on the professor. From the ramrod straightness of her back, I wondered just how much effort it was taking her to appear unconcerned with my existence.

  The professor droned on, his voice like white noise as I doodled in the margins of the piece of paper Clio had torn out of her notebook for me to use. I clued into her movements, pausing from my drawing to scribble a phrase or two any time she began writing. The effect left my own notes a haphazard list of disjointed names and phrases. Pinegate Riots. Voting reform. Bellington Convention Center.

  Nate pushed his chair back from the table and stood. Professor Danson merely glanced in his direction as Nate strode from the room.

  Clio followed his progress with her eyes, her lips pursed. She didn’t turn back to her notebook until he disappeared into the hall. I wasn’t sure what to make of her reaction. It seemed strange she would care about his departure when the teacher didn’t.

  The professor continued with his lecture and I returned to my curling doodle in the margins of my paper. But my looping scrawl ceased when a familiar name came out of Danson’s mouth.

  “…organized by known agitator, Adina Everdell,” he said, sitting on his stool in the front of the room like he hadn’t a care in the world as mine came to a screeching halt.

  Adina Everdell. My mother. For the first time all class period, I tuned in to what the teacher was saying.

  “As a show of good faith for ending the violence that dominated the Dark Decade, Chancellor Kingston approved a senate delegation to attend the summit,” he continued. “Despite assurances that her sister, Liza Everdell, would have no part in the proceedings, the sister showed up.”

  “And the convention center exploded,” said a blonde sitting at Shonda’s table.

  Professor Danson nodded solemnly. “It did indeed, Aisha.”

  “My uncle died in that explosion,” Aisha said. “He was one of the guardsmen brought in to keep the peace.”

  It was as though the air had been sucked from the room. Why did we have to be talking about this of all things? The backs of my eyes prickled, and I forced myself not to blink.

  “Three hundred and twenty-seven people died that day,” Danson said, his tone kind, but matter-of-fact. “Including both Everdell sisters, who the Guard determined to be the masterminds behind the attack.”

  His words hit like a punch in the gut. Was that really what the angels believed? Liza never told me that. Did she even know?

  The walls seemed to close in and I fought to keep myself inhaling and exhaling normally. Liza had always kept a low profile, but I assumed it was because there were still warrants out for her arrest from during the Dark Decade. Neither she nor Marco ever went into detail about what they’d done. Liza only ever went so far as saying she’d chosen to give into anger instead of working toward a solution. That, she claimed, was the biggest difference between her and my mother.

  But according to angelic history books, the two of them were exactly the same—terrorists. Never mind the fact that neither of them had anything to do with the bomb that took my mother’s life. Never mind that Liza had planned to stay away for the sake of my mom’s cause.

  “Other victims included members of the press and senate delegates,” the professor continued. “The toll could have been worse, but a protest detained some senators on their way.”

  Clio flipped the page in her textbook, the movement catching my eye. But as my gaze landed on the glossy page, my stomach heaved. Printed out in full color were images from the aftermath of the explosion. I could only take in bits and pieces—piles of rubble, medics carrying the injured on stretchers, onlookers gaping at the wreckage.

  In an instant, I was thrown back in time. I could feel the fine layer of dust coating the inside of my nose and mouth. Smell the acrid
scent of burning electric wires and insulation. Hear the wailing of family members when they learned the fate of a loved one.

  Bile burned my throat. I needed to get out of here.

  Without bothering to ask for permission, I shoved my chair away from the table and forced my legs to bear my weight. Although half the class was probably watching me, I couldn’t make myself care. If I didn’t leave now, I wasn’t sure what I might do. Flipping over a table seemed like a reasonable response to the lies the professor was spewing about my family, but I doubted such behavior would go over well.

  I shoved open the door and slipped into the hallway. The air here felt cooler against my skin and I sucked it into my lungs, suddenly aware of just how shallowly I had been breathing. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t do this. It wasn’t even halfway through my first day and I was on the verge of a breakdown because of a history lesson. I already knew angels twisted facts to benefit their narrative. I knew Liza and Marco were seen as criminals. Why should my mother’s addition to that group bother me? Those in power rarely trafficked in truth—only what serviced their agenda. But if I couldn’t handle this, how was I going to get through the fictional angelic history, how was I going to deal with whatever they were teaching about the state of angels and demons today? Was I prepared to be silent if the professors painted caricatures of my people and blamed them for all society’s ills?

  A sigh from down the hall sent my heart hammering. I wasn’t alone out here. I turned, expecting to find a professor ready to demand an explanation for my presence in the corridor, but instead I spotted a familiar figure that made my heart skip a beat.

  Nate leaned against the wall several yards down. His eyes were closed, and I doubted he’d even registered my presence. I could slip back into the room and he might never know I was here. Except the thought of going back to class made me queasy.

  I squared my shoulders. If I couldn’t go back in, I needed a plausible reason to be out here.