by Tess Adair
“Thank you, sir. And good day to you.”
Logan heard more footsteps and took a quick, silent step away from the wall, pulling her map up in front of her face and posing as if she had been studying it the whole time. After a moment, a gray-robed Order member rushed past her, barely even glancing her way before he was gone. Logan watched him slip around a corner, and then, on a sudden impulse, she placed her coffee on the floor and took a step to look down the hallway he had just exited.
Standing in the middle of the corridor with a slightly bereft, helpless look on his face was a tall, white man with white-blond hair and a slightly familiar face. After a moment, Logan realized he was the man Sasha had claimed was looking at her during the opening feast. He glanced up right as she made the connection.
“I suppose you heard all of that, didn’t you?” he asked, equal parts forlorn and flirtatious. Now that she knew his surname and she could hear him a little better, she hazarded a guess that the accent was Russian. “No point in pretending that you did not, is there?”
“Can’t say I know what it was about,” Logan answered, allowing her own voice to echo his ambiguous flirtatiousness. She took a few steps forward, bringing herself into the hallway with him.
He gave a dry laugh. “Oh, it was only about a precious family heirloom and all of the goddamn fucking rules in this goddamn fucking place. What else would it be?”
“What was the heirloom?”
“Ah, that would be—well, cards on the table, I suppose. It is an obsidian blade.”
Logan raised an eyebrow at him. A true obsidian blade, strong enough to be passed down through multiple generations while retaining its utility, would be an incredibly powerful letha object.
“You really thought they wouldn’t confiscate something like that?”
“Well, no,” he shrugged sheepishly. “To be honest, I just did not think I would get caught.”
Logan crossed her arms and gave him a serious look.
“So, what exactly did you intend to do with an obsidian blade? Inside the headquarters of the Order of Shadows, no less.”
Volkov shrugged, his expression sheepish.
“Not much,” he replied. “I just prefer to keep it with me. It is…a comfort in an unfamiliar setting, you know?” He glanced at her expression, which remained unchanged. “Listen, if you do not believe me, I understand. But even if I had planned for something with the blade…the Order has very cleverly put my evil plans to a halt, yes?”
Logan let out a noise that was half scoff and half laugh, then she took another step forward and slowly unfolded one arm to stretch out her hand. She kept her eyes trained on his face, watching his reaction to her.
“Logan,” she said.
A surprised smile appeared on his features, and he took her hand and shook it.
“Casimir Volkov,” he said. “But you may call me Cas.”
“Nice to meet you, Cas,” she said. She kept the uncertainty she felt out of her voice, allowing him to hear friendliness instead.
“I have seen you before.” He said it almost like a question, as if he were asking permission.
Logan straightened up her spine and nodded. “In the dining hall the other day, yes. I…saw you, too.” She kept her voice as neutral as she could.
“You are not…you are not the Logan, are you?” He cocked his head to the side as he studied her, as if somehow simply examining her might give him his answer.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific than that.”
“You are the one they were all talking about,” he said with a mischievous smile. “A bit of a thorn in the Order’s side, are you not? One might even call you famous, I think.”
First Blake, now this guy. What is it with this place?
“Doesn’t anyone own a television anymore?” Logan asked out loud, then sighed. “Look, I’m not famous. If I had to guess, I’d say that absolutely nothing you’ve heard about me is true.”
Casimir Volkov just smiled.
“If you are not famous, then why should I have heard anything about you at all, hm?”
She let out a slow, even breath.
“I guess you wouldn’t,” she answered, her voice sounding far breezier than she felt. “I’m probably not the right Logan, anyway. There’s practically a million of us, you know?” She forced a shrug, crossing her arms over her chest once more.
“I see that I have offended you,” said Volkov, inclining his head respectfully. “This was not my intention. Tell me, what may I do to ameliorate my misstep?”
Logan could have laughed at him. Instead, she shook her head.
“Forget about it,” she said, shrugging. “I already have.”
“You are quite gracious.”
“Right. Well, I’d better be going. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Volkov. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
“Please, call me Cas,” answered Volkov. “And I certainly do hope we shall see each other again, before all this is over.”
“Count on it.”
Without another word, Logan turned away from him and strode out of the hall. Though she had no real reason to suspect Casimir Volkov of anything more than owning an impressive object and failing to sneak it into the Summit, she figured she might as well keep an eye on him whenever she could.
She made sure to pick up her coffee as she went on her way again.
Before long, she found herself walking down the long hallway that led to the doors she’d been searching for. Unhelpfully, she finally saw a sign pointing her in the right direction, placed merely a few feet from the intended doors.
Great work, guys. That’ll help maybe four people.
She pulled her jacket tighter around herself, took a bracing drink, and stepped through the large, arching doors.
As she placed her foot onto the first step of the sweeping staircase beyond, she could already hear the echoes coming from the crowd below. By the time she was halfway down, the crowd’s sounds were punctuated by high-pitched metallic clangs.
Swords? she wondered, picking up her pace. With each step, the temperature seemed to drop the tiniest bit. Before she stepped out into the arena, she took one last fortifying gulp of coffee, then disposed of the empty cup in the nearest receptacle.
The last corner she rounded introduced her to a wall of sound. She had entered into a massive chamber beneath the main building, with a large arched ceiling and a steeply curving floor lined with rows and rows of seats, intersected by slim sets of stairs to lead between them. By her estimate, nearly 500 people populated the rows below, and every single one of them was standing as they rapturously watched the match before them. Just as Logan had guessed on the stairs, the two fighters down on the platform bore swords.
As she stepped toward the nearest pathway to the center, a young man in robes with one red sleeve approached her solicitously.
“Name of your party, please?”
“Logan,” she answered, sincerely hoping that, for once, her name wouldn’t strike recognition in a random stranger.
She seemed to get her wish. His face was blank as he glanced down at the clipboard in his hand.
“Oh, uh, you’ve been assigned to Blake,” he said with some surprise. “That means you’re in a box, then. Well, follow me.”
He led her around the circular path along the wall, all the way to the far side. Pillars had been set at regular intervals between the path and the uppermost row of seats, but Logan could see the crowd pretty well in between them. Long before they actually reached the so-called box, she spied Jude standing in the very front row in a small, walled-off section. The stone walls gave her something of a birth, leaving her standing alone, ever so slightly separated from the rest of the crowd.
A perfect place to get spied on, though Logan. Not a great place to do much spying yourself.
Nevertheless, she let the young man in red sleeves led her onward. Before long, she had descended the stairs and entered the front row, stepping through a small, meta
l gate that the young man opened for her. Then he closed it, and she tried very hard not to feel like she had just stepped into a cage.
“You made it!” exclaimed Jude, her excitement evident on her face. “Isn’t this amazing?”
Logan turned to look at the match playing out before them. To her surprise, Eliana Blake stared back at her, a sword gripped loosely in her hand. After one full second, Logan took in the other form on the dais and realized that Blake was actually staring at her opponent, who stood merely a few feet in front of their position.
“It’s certainly something,” she answered, keeping all evidence of her momentary shock out of her voice. She did her best to take a survey of the rest of the arena, but as she’d suspected, her proximity to the heavily lit stage, combined with the relative darkness of the stands, made it extremely difficult to take in much beyond the match.
And then, of course, there was the duel. Logan focused her eyes back on the platform and watched Blake advance on her opponent, expertly deflecting his first blow before executing her own. Her blade found its target, glancing off his arm and drawing blood. The crowd swelled a gasp as one, immediately underlining her opponent’s predicament.
He tried again, but this time his aim was sloppier and weaker; Blake seemed to exert no effort at all as she side-stepped him, watching him stumble to the right and nearly fall. She gave a quick smile before twirling on him, using the flat side of her blade to knock his sword right out of his limp hand. In an instant, she was on him, grabbing a wrist to twist behind his back while she held her sword to his throat.
“Yield!” her unnamed opponent cried. “I yield!”
From somewhere out of sight in the far corners of the chamber, a loud gong sounded, signifying the end of the match. Blake’s smile broadened with satisfaction, and she took a quick step back as thunderous applause slowly filled the room. Blake dropped her sword and stretched out her hand, which her opponent promptly shook.
A man in blue-lined black robes ascended the platform. As he approached the fighters, they turned to him and dropped to their knees.
“Novice Eliana Blake is the winner,” he announced, though his voice came out of his mouth at an impossible volume. Logan couldn’t immediately tell if this was due to a cast or a hidden microphone. “She will move on to the next stage of the tournament. Novice Steven Haim has been defeated with honor. He will take his vows with distinction at the closing ceremonies this evening. Novice Haim, please exit the arena.”
The boy took a deep bow before stepping down from the stage to the south and walking up the long, narrow steps to the southern exit.
“The next match will begin in five minutes. Novice Tara Moore and Novice Jacob Thompson, please begin your approach.”
At his words, Eliana Blake turned northward and walked over to a small door coming out of the center of the stands on the side. Logan guessed that was where all the fighters went to wait for their next turn. Within a few minutes, she was proven right as the next two students came out from that same door.
During the brief recess between duels, Logan stepped back as far as she comfortably could inside their four stone walls and did her best to look around. Their box contained two benches, each wide enough to seat at least three people. A quick glance in either direction told Logan that their box was hardly an outlier. Each walled-off section appeared to host roughly a third to half of its capacity, while the stands just behind swelled with people clamoring for a better and better view.
“You didn’t miss much,” Jude told her, her own gaze never straying far from the doorway through which Blake had disappeared. “The first part of the fight was basically the same as the second.”
“Blake’s a capable swordsman,” said Logan tersely, eyes still sweeping the crowd. “Seems she’d be a formidable opponent.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Jude answered absently, her attention elsewhere. “Pretty cool, huh?”
Logan gave a noncommittal grunt in return and forced her attention back to the platform as the next set of duelists got ready.
She watched the next fight with markedly less interest, barely even taking note of the winner. As the pair after them began to get ready, and Logan realized that Blake probably wouldn’t resurface for a little while yet, she decided to run out and get another coffee. This time, she walked along the half of the perimeter that her guide earlier hadn’t taken her, and she took her time, getting as thorough a lay of the land as she could while she passed along the last row of seats. The arena certainly wasn’t filled to capacity, but by her estimate, more than half of the Summit’s attendees appeared to be in the room watching the tournament, and it was early yet. She imagined more people would file in as the day progressed, and the fighters dwindled down to their last numbers.
On her way back, she waved off the various red sleeves who tried to guide her to her seat and made a full circle around the room, before doubling back and finally returning to the box with Jude. She had nearly finished her second coffee when Eliana Blake walked back out through the northern doors, to thunderous applause from the stands. For the briefest moment, she appeared taken aback by her reception—then she smiled broadly and raised her sword up to the crowd, like a practiced gladiator.
As Blake raised her sword and took in the ever-increasing enthusiasm of her audience, Logan zeroed her attention in on her, curious to see if the energy and agility she’d displayed in the first match would hold through a second.
Blake’s next opponent was a slight, blonde white girl who entered the stage with a defiant smirk on her face. They took their places opposite each other and bowed as they were commanded. Then each took a fighting stance and waited for the opening gong.
As soon as the haunting, alien tone echoed through the chamber, the two duelists exploded into blurs of movement. The white girl was fast on her feet, far faster than Blake’s last conquest. She hardly stilled long enough for Blake to strike a definitive blow, and when Blake finally lunged at her, she sped instantly in the other direction, as if she’d read Blake’s mind. As Blake slashed at the empty air, she gave one short huff of frustration, then seemed to shake herself. When she leapt into battle again, Logan noticed a new, quick sharpness to her movements, as if she had instantly adapted herself to her opponent’s style.
A funny thing happened as Logan watched Blake swirl and slash at her opponent once more: her mind wiped away her face and defining features and replaced them with the form-concealing jacket and the stone mask of the Wolf.
She had always assumed that the Wolf was male, but what evidence did she have to support that assumption? Only the words of the boys who had blindly followed an unknown, and perhaps unseen, master. Regardless of the Wolf’s true gender, wouldn’t it have suited them to claim maleness? Each of the boys Logan had faced had been dismissive of women, even hateful toward them. And when Logan had seen the Wolf, they had been wearing a mask…
All of a sudden, she felt a renewed interest in the match playing out before her. Was there any chance she was watching the very same sword-fighter who had given her such a run for her money over the summer? Or was the expert swordsmanship before her merely a coincidence?
Would be nice if I’d ever been to one of these before, I suppose, she thought absently. Is it always a swordfight tournament? Knatt’s always made it sound like they train in everything but eira….
She made a note to ask Knatt at the end of the day.
Despite herself, Logan stayed to watch the entire tournament. Jude maintained her enthusiasm all day, and even seemed to double-down on it when they stepped outside for lunch, making sure that they weren’t about to miss Blake’s next fight, of course. Logan kept to her self-imposed high-protein, low-carb diet with another fish filet and a small side of brown rice, while Jude ordered a giant pretzel and cheese sauce.
“Eliana introduced me to these,” Jude explained as Logan did her best to keep from raising an eyebrow at her food. “The kitchen here is amazing, isn’t it?”
“Indeed
, it is,” said Logan.
The people behind the walk-up window they’d found handed them their orders in neat little to-go containers and pointed out that the seats in the boxes came with fold-out tables. So, once their orders passed over the threshold and into their hands, they made their way immediately back into the arena.
This place is ridiculous, Logan thought as she placed her elegant to-go order on the small desk that folded out of her seat. Before her, on the dais, a new pair of students flew at each other with reckless abandon.
The second half of the day passed in much the same manner as the first. To no one’s surprise, Eliana made it to the final round—the very last match. Of course, before the last match started, the tournament held its one true intermission—half an hour of break time stood between the second-to-last match and the last. Logan assumed the purpose of this was dramatic effect. The Order seemed determined to put on a show.
She was a bit surprised when Eliana Blake decided to use her break to come out onto the dais, locate Jude and Logan in the crowd, and make a beeline for them. Jude stood up from her seat to greet her, and Logan reluctantly followed suit.
“Hey, guys!” she said excitedly, boundless energy coming off her in waves. A towel hung loosely around her neck, and she used one end to pat her face as she stood over them. “Been a pretty good day so far, huh?”
“It’s been amazing!” Jude gushed. “Are you ready for your last match? Are you nervous?”
Blake gave a perfectly calibrated twinkly laugh and said, “Oh, I’m just trying not to think about it. How about you, Logan? Like what you see?”
Logan pursed her lips, giving herself a moment to think before she responded.
“It certainly has been a show,” she answered noncommittally. “Have you been practicing long?”
“Feels like forever,” said Blake, almost sheepishly. “But I guess it’s really only been about two years, give or take.”
“You seem like quite the natural,” said Logan, crossing her arms over her chest as she smiled.
