The guardian grabbed Arabel’s upper arm and hustled her along the landing, banging on doors as he passed.
“Ow, OK, geez, we’re coming,” Arabel said.
He hurried them down to the aspirant lounge on the floor below, where they were joined a few seconds later by Ferne and Charlotte in sheer, lacy dressing gowns, their blond hair cascading over their bare shoulders. A moment later Alistair shuffled in.
“What’s going on?” Charlotte asked, smoothing her sister’s hair with her hand.
“There’s an eidolon loose in the castle,” Marl said, his soul blade in his hand, his eyes scanning the walls. “They have it cornered, I’m just here to…” He trailed off, listening.
“How did it get in?” Ferne asked.
The guardian’s eyes lingered on Arabel. “We’re not sure.”
Comfort washed over the room; the light from the lamps took on a soft pink tinge. Arabel noticed Charlotte standing to one side, her brows knitted together in confusion, her eyes unfocused, as if struggling to remember something.
A tongue of pink fire licked through the far wall. A second later, a great glowing panther, with shining claws and blazing eyes, red arcs of light peeling off it like sun flares, stalked into the room. Its eyes swept lazily over Marl, who stood crouched, his blade at the ready, then found Charlotte. They stared at one another, and Charlotte took a step towards it.
“Charlotte, what are you—” Ferne gasped and grabbed her sister’s forearm, pulling her back. Alistair grabbed her other arm, holding her firmly as she struggled towards the creature.
Marl dove in, swiping at the creature with his blade, but it ducked out of his way, sinking its claws into his torso as he ran past. He gasped as they sliced into him, and fell to the floor, motionless. The light inside him dimmed and went out. Arabel’s heart stopped beating for half a second. No. Get up. You can’t be—she couldn’t finish the thought.
Charlotte was crying now, struggling to get to the glowing creature. It looked like it was laughing as it paced slowly towards them.
Without thinking, Arabel stepped out in front, placing herself between it and Charlotte. Her hand went to her side, fumbling for her sword, but she grasped only empty air. She pulled off a boot and threw it at the glowing cat, but it passed right through it. The dizzying sense of comfort now settled on Arabel, but it was easy to keep it out; she knew this wasn’t her. She’d never felt that kind of peace before. It bared its teeth at her, digging its claws into the ground and continuing its approach. Charlotte was sobbing behind her, but Arabel’s eyes were locked on the cat.
It was on her before she had even registered its leaving the ground. It connected solidly with something in her chest and she started to fall. Something inside her started to tear. Well, I guess this is it, she thought, but then it had leapt past her, closing the short distance between it and Charlotte. It raised a paw, claws extended, and Charlotte strained towards it. Ignoring the wrenching pain in her chest, Arabel picked herself up and launched herself at the cat. Her hands swiped at the empty air, but whatever the broken thing in her chest was, it connected with the cat, knocking it aside.
Alistair and Ferne pulled Charlotte back, dragging her towards the stairwell. Arabel launched herself at the beast again, and it turned its attention to her. She just had to give them time to get away. Footsteps thundered up the staircase and a dark shape shot into the room, just visible through the roiling light of the beast. Purple light flared in the creature’s eyes and it grew larger and larger, its ghostly claws pawing the air furiously.
With a pop it disappeared. Arabel tensed, waiting for it to reappear, but then she realized that standing in its place, directly behind where it had been, was Oswald. Behind him were another ten guardians.
He looked… different. Straighter. There was something clearer about the light emanating from him, too, but to her annoyance her vision faded before she got a good look.
Oswald bent to Marl’s body, felt gently for a pulse. Finally, his shoulders slumped, and he stood.
“Which of you,” he said, his words clipped and deathly serious. “Which of you was it who broke into my office this evening?”
There was silence in the room. Arabel realized everyone was looking at her.
“It wasn’t me,” she said. “I was in my room. With Avery.”
All eyes turned to Avery. With a sickening feeling, Arabel realized that no, she hadn’t been with Avery. In fact, Avery had asked her why she’d gotten back so late. She’d just been exploring. Of course she hadn’t broken into Oswald’s office. Why would she do that? But if they asked Avery, and Avery told them she hadn’t been there… Arabel looked at the dead guardian on the ground.
“She was with me,” Avery said. “We were studying.” She paused. “Well, I was studying. She was there. Just, you know…”
Wow, Avery was a bad liar. Oswald studied her for several seconds.
“I will be questioning you each separately. I expect the truth. Anyone who does not tell the truth, and I find out, will at the very least be expelled.”
Two pink spots appeared on Avery’s cheeks, but she didn’t say anything.
In silence, the guardians carried Marl’s body down to the plaza. His body was placed on the dais, the doors to the vault wide open. A tearful Rody placed a mug of beer and a mug of vinegar next to him. Naomi played a soft melody on a small set of pipes as the guardians built a pyre around him. Such practiced movements; everyone knew what to do.
Oswald said some words as the pyre was lit. The flames quickly consumed the body; a white mist rose from it, coalescing, drifting, and eventually moving off through the vault doors.
Arabel stood behind Ferne and Charlotte, but no one was looking at her anyway.
12
The next morning at breakfast, Arabel kept watch on Avery out of the corner of her eye. Avery had gone straight to bed the night before, without saying a word to her. In Arabel’s mind, that pointed to the possibility that Avery hadn’t wanted to tell in front of her, but that she would talk to Oswald or Naomi later. That was the logical choice. Don’t betray an enemy in front of them. She could almost hear her father’s voice in her head.
When Avery, still avoiding Arabel’s gaze, stood to take her empty plate back, Arabel moved to follow her.
“Finish up,” a clipped voice said behind her.
Naomi, a burlap sack slung over one shoulder, had appeared at the end of the table.
“With what happened last night, Oswald wants you trained faster. No chores today; get changed and come with me to the practice field.”
Practice field. She liked the sound of that.
Naomi led them all through the courtyard, where the last of the burned remains had already been cleared away, heading for the vault. She turned right at the last second and went around back, where some steps led down to a grassy field. Off to the far left, at the base of the new tower, were lines of flower and vegetable gardens. Past those, she caught a glimpse of light reflecting off the surface of a pond.
All around the borders of the field were more beds of flowers and herbs, and past those a high stone wall. Golden figurines looked down from the crenelated top of this wall, and past those, much farther away, were snow-capped crags.
Arabel stood a little apart from the group, watching Avery out of the corner of her eye. She doesn’t look like she feels guilty.
The twins stood in the middle, so close to Naomi that she glared at them until they moved farther back. They seemed to have decided that today’s practice session required appropriately dramatic outfits. They wore matching sleeveless silk gowns in a deep, bloody red, with leather bodices. Their silvery hair was done up in braids, coiled around their heads and topped with tiny hats with several three-foot long feathers that dipped and waved every time they moved. Their shoes were practical at least, though: tiny leather boots with buttons up the sides.
Naomi kept staring at them like she wasn’t quite sure she could believe what she was seeing, that any
one would dress that way ever, let alone to practice fighting a demon.
Just a few feet behind them stood Alistair, his long hair hanging lank over his shoulders and a vacant, hollowed-out expression on his face. His hands were in his pockets, and he didn’t even look like he was fully awake. Arabel started, realizing she’d been staring when his dark eyes flicked towards hers. He stared back until she looked away.
“This is your first lesson in demon fighting. You’re going to be bad at it,” Naomi said, lifting up the glowing orb. It was just like the ones in the vault. And, Arabel realized, she’d seen one like it in Oswald’s office. “If you earn the death glimmer, you will be slightly better at it.”
“In the future,” she added dryly, giving Charlotte and Ferne an annoyed look, “you will wear something practical. If you do not have anything practical, something will be provided to you.”
Ferne raised her hand, the feather on her hat bobbing. “What counts as practical?”
“Wool or leather. No skin showing. Imagine you’re going to be thrown from a horse, then dragged behind it for half a mile. Whatever you’d want to wear for that.”
Ferne lowered her hand, nodding, and elbowed Charlotte, who elbowed her back.
Naomi held the glowing orb higher. “This is a confine. It contains an eidolon.”
Ferne raised her hand again, already speaking. “Will we get weapons?”
“No. It is possible to resist an eidolon without a weapon. This is the first thing you must learn.”
Arabel’s hands started to tingle and she forgot all about Avery. She was going to be good at this. She was going to learn to resist an eidolon and then she would be able to go wherever the hell she wanted.
“Not all eidolons can be resisted,” Naomi continued. “Some will try to take you over, to merge with you. Remember that eidolons are parts of souls, lost souls. They wish to be whole and if they can they will convince you that they belong to you. They will merge with your soul and take it over. That isn’t all they can do, though. Depending on the eidolon, they may hunt you, or rip you apart, or suffocate you. From those, if you have no weapon, the only option is to run.”
Avery watched this all calmly, her face expressionless.
“Some of you may be more sensitive to the eidolons than others.” Ferne and Charlotte looked over at Arabel. Arabel remembered how she’d felt the eidolons coming, long before even Naomi did. She was going to be so good at this.
“The best defense against an eidolon, though, is to have a soul that is whole.”
Charlotte and Ferne’s heads turned from Arabel to Avery, who remained impassive.
“The fewer holes you have, the fewer ragged edges, the less opportunity you present to an eidolon. That is the point of your work in the library, and also why you are meeting with the archguard. Once you have hunted down the missing pieces of yourself and incorporated them, you will no longer be an aspirant, and you will receive your soul blade. Right now, you are all more or less raggedy bits of people. Perfect demon fodder.” She glanced at Alistair. “Alistair is the worst example of this, which is why he is here only to observe. He is not attempting our training. We are simply helping him to reincorporate himself.”
He nodded, his expression unchanging. He seemed calm for someone who’d just been called “perfect demon fodder” and “more or less raggedy”. Naomi wasn’t done, though. “Alistair has so many eidolons he barely has any soul left. He already had a demon passenger which we managed to extract, barely.”
Arabel bristled, remembering the hopeless sobbing she’d heard the previous week. “Stop talking about him like he’s not here, Naomi.” She glanced back at Alistair, who was watching her again. He shook his head, ever so slightly.
“I’m not being insulting, Arabel,” Naomi shot back. “I’m being factual. You are all here to learn. Alistair is an example of what will happen to you if you do not take this seriously. He is an example of what happens when you push away too much of yourself. He is also an example of what can happen to you if you don’t learn what I am trying to teach you. I am not here to mince around your feelings or anyone else’s. Got that?”
This was where she was supposed to look at the ground and nod, and it would all be over. She leveled her gaze at Naomi. “Still seems mean.”
There was a beat of silence as Naomi’s features hardened. Arabel could see the internal struggle, the debate over how far to take this. She wondered if Naomi would lose it. She looked close.
Something flickered in Naomi’s eyes, and the anger went out of her. “That’s enough. We have work to do. Arabel, you’ll go first.”
Covering her disappointment, Arabel moved forward as Naomi placed the confine on the damp grass.
“Your goal is to resist it,” Naomi said. Arabel wondered if there was anything more to it than that, but she wasn’t about to ask.
The others backed up, Alistair moving all the way back to the flower beds, crossing his arms and leaning on a large granite pillar. Arabel shook out her hands and bounced on the balls of her feet, focusing on the confine. Naomi nestled it solidly into the grass, then jogged back fifteen feet. She lifted a hand, palm stretched towards the glowing piece of glass, and clenched her fist. Light shot from between her fingers, and she opened her fist.
Instantly the confine went black, but Arabel barely noticed because her chest was tightening, her breath coming in short gasps. She remembered being a small child; she’d done something; she couldn’t remember what it was, but it was terrible. No one would look at her, no one would love her. She wasn’t worth that, she wasn’t worthy of love. The things she had done. She remembered them, one after another, the feeling getting worse and worse. She had failed, she had no friends, had never had a single friend. She wouldn’t be a good friend. She would be—it stopped. Everything stopped and Arabel realized she was curled up on the ground, crying.
She stopped immediately and sat up, flushing hotly. Her hands were full of grass and dirt—had she been clawing at the grass?
Charlotte and Ferne were staring at her, wide-eyed. “We thought you’d be good at this,” they said.
Arabel pushed herself up and looked over at Naomi, whose eyes glowed in triumph.
“What did I do wrong?”
“You’re weak. You’re willing to accept what it’s telling you. You have no sense of who you are, unsurprisingly.”
Rage rose hotly in her chest. She knew who she was. She wasn’t weak. She was anything but weak.
“Let me try again.” She was sure she would get it this time.
Naomi smiled thinly. “Sure.”
Two minutes later Arabel came to on the ground again, her forearms dirty and scraped, her nails full of soil. Only Naomi looked at her as she pushed herself back up.
“Time for someone else to have a turn,” Naomi said, her voice clipped.
Her stomach hot with embarrassment, not unlike the shame she’d just been overpowered with, Arabel moved away as Avery moved up.
Naomi opened the confine, and this time Arabel felt the shame, but not as strongly, and saw a golden mist rising out of the glowing glass confine. Avery was balanced evenly on her legs, her knees bent, and she stared intently at the confine. She apparently couldn’t tell that it was already open, that the eidolon was already moving towards her.
The cloud drifted heavily for several quick heartbeats, then it shot towards Avery, hitting her squarely in the chest. Avery gasped and stumbled back, clawing at her neck.
Naomi was moving towards her, shouting out advice, this time. “OK, feel that shame? It’s not yours. Think that to yourself, Avery. Have you done those things?”
Tears were leaking down the sides of Avery’s cheeks, but she struggled to remain upright. “Yes,” she gasped out.
“But are you worthless? Are you as bad as it says?”
Avery’s expression hardened and she clenched her fists and shook her head.
“Say it.”
“No.”
“Good. Keep saying it
. Then, say what you are.”
“No. No. This is not me. I’m not this. I’m OK.”
Arabel could see wisps of smoke coming off of Avery, little golden claws struggling to find purchase in her but being thrown back.
Some inner resolve in Avery seemed to break, then, and she fell to her knees, curling into a ball and crying. Naomi darted forward, picking up the confine and pressing it to Avery’s chest. Avery gasped and sat back up.
Ferne and Charlotte edged over to stand next to Arabel.
“She let you cry a lot longer,” Ferne commented.
“It was embarrassing,” Charlotte said.
“For you,” Ferne clarified.
“Thanks. That’s great. Fantastic,” Arabel said. “Did I last as long as Avery?”
“Oh no, you were out right away.”
“Yeah, she opened it up and you were on the ground.”
Arabel grimaced.
“Now,” Naomi called out, “did you all see what Avery did there? She has a sense of self. That’s what can protect you from an eidolon. You have to know what you are to keep an eidolon from possessing you.” She smiled briefly at Avery. “Avery did very well.”
Avery nodded awkwardly, still looking shaken, and moved back to join the group.
Next, Ferne and Charlotte both tried. Ferne went in shouting and gesturing with both hands and was flat on her back within seconds. Charlotte held out a few seconds longer before she went down, too.
At least I’m not the only one who’s bad at this.
After that, Naomi ran them through drills, splitting them up into pairs and having them hurl insults at one another which they were to practice not believing. She alternated this with sprints—which Charlotte and Ferne still managed to do without so much as losing the feathers from their hats—saying that if they were this hopeless at demon-fighting they’d better learn how to run.
Eight hours later, without even giving them a break for lunch, when the shadows of the peaks stretched long and dark across the practice field and the lights of the castle glowed warm and inviting through the purpling dark above, Naomi allowed them to stop.
The Eidolons of Myrefall Page 8
