Honor's Price

by Sever Bronny

  “I’m surprised you even remembered you have class, Fleiszmann.”

  “Exciting seeing an army march on your home, isn’t it, Martel?”

  “What, was there no party to attend this morning, Beaumont?”

  Party girl Elizabeth Beaumont rolled her eyes as she schlepped in and plopped into a seat near Brandon.

  Katrina Southguard Von Edgeworth strolled in next with a superior expression, cheeks sparkling with a touch of glitter and dark hair swaying with each step. She was the only one who did not receive a rebuke from Gonzalez, perhaps because she had powerful friends and was spiteful enough to make Gonzalez’s life miserable.

  Katrina was Eric’s cousin and niece to the king. She had perfect olive skin and was considered one of the most beautiful girls in the school. Her face was angular yet elastic, as if every thought had a facial variation to go with it—when she chose to express something, that was, for she had the same cool countenance as her cousin. Her eyes were the color of an ash cloud, and the famous Von Edgeworth ambition simmered behind them like a pot of stew on perpetual boil. She had dueled Augum in the Black Arena for the king’s honor as well as for the Von Edgeworth honor—and she had lost. And woe be to the pupil who dared to bring it up, for that loss haunted her, poisoning every thought, every interaction. One student who had allowed a stray remark to fly from her lips found her scribe parents jobless the next morn. Sometimes Augum felt her glaring at the back of his head with demonic intensity, and it creeped him out.

  Katrina plopped down beside Brandon, turned to make sure Augum, Bridget and Leera were watching, then placed an arm around Brandon’s shoulders and gave them a cold look that would have made ice shiver. She used to sit beside Eric, but lately she had maintained a distance from him, something that worried Augum. Perhaps she had discovered that Eric was secretly in league with the trio, or perhaps she was just trying to confuse them. It was difficult to say with her.

  “Jealous, are we?” Katrina said.

  Leera plopped her chin onto her fist while the class settled in. “Still sore about that butt whooping Augum delivered, eh? Your star has really dimmed since then. Must suck not to get gushing praise from teachers and students anymore.”

  Katrina’s lips widened with a false smile. “I still get more praise than you ever will, sweetie.”

  Leera was undaunted. “You know why that star turned so black, right? You revealed yourself as shallow and petty and unforgiving to tens of thousands of people—all at once. Not exactly endearing qualities, are they?” Leera narrowed her eyes at Brandon. “Except to those with similar natures, that is.”

  Bridget placed a gentle hand on Leera’s arm. “Please don’t antagonize her. We’ve got other concerns.”

  Instead of replying to Leera, Katrina merely made a show of snuggling up to Brandon. A serpentine smile spread across both of their lips as Brandon winked in the trio’s direction.

  Bridget swallowed, squared her jaw, and appeared to force herself to look away. Although she had insisted to Augum and Leera that she no longer felt anything for Brandon, her reaction said otherwise. And Brandon and Katrina knew it too, twisting in the knife any chance they got, each for different reasons—Brandon felt betrayed by Bridget while Katrina followed the Von Edgeworth tradition of vengeance, which in her case apparently meant by any means necessary, something that also worried Augum.

  Gonzalez intertwined her fingers on her desk. “Before you get too cozy, I want your essay on the Seven Subjugations of Canterra of the year 2724, otherwise known as …” She extended her hands.

  “The Great Solian Reprisal,” the class chanted in dull tones.

  “Shoot, was hoping she’d forgotten,” Leera mumbled as she rooted in her satchel, the exterior of which was covered with graffiti doodles that obscured much of the academy crest.

  For once, Augum had caught up on his homework. He withdrew the wrinkled parchment from his satchel. The Seven Subjugations of Canterra, infamously imposed by Solia over six hundred years ago, just so happened to be the same subjugations Canterra now imposed upon Solia. That period was a black mark on both kingdoms’ histories, though Canterra chose to only record the events that painted them as victims. The Canterrans even memorialized the invasion with a day of remembrance, which happened to be coming up.

  “A little perverse for Gonzalez to demand this subject matter considering the Canterrans are strolling through our kingdom like it’s their garden, eh?” Leera whispered.

  “She’s arming us with knowledge,” Bridget replied. “We need to understand the history behind what’s happening.”

  “Canterra invaded us, we threw them out then marched into their kingdom. So what? How else would you ensure a bully doesn’t do something again? You don’t make things equal. What you do is you break their nose. You make them cry like a baby. When you steal a necklace the constables don’t steal one back from you and call it even. They throw you in prison for many more times the value of the item—to teach you a lesson.”

  “Did you even read up on the study material?” Bridget countered. “It’s called The Seven Subjugations for a reason. Revenge is one thing, excess quite another.”

  “To be fair, we had a nutcase for a king back then,” Augum threw in.

  Bridget gave an acceding nod. Then she flashed Augum a double take. “Wait, you read it all?”

  “That I did.”

  Bridget smiled. “Good.”

  “As a matter of fact I read it too,” Leera sang in a sanctimonious voice. She smoothed out a crumpled piece of parchment with cramped writing. “Just glad it wasn’t another essay on Rivican architecture, or their interest in alchemy, or their stupid giant siege engines that probably didn’t even exist.” She scratched off a piece of food that was stuck to one corner then rolled the parchment into a proper scroll.

  “I actually found Rivican siege engines a fascinating topic,” Bridget said.

  “You find everything a fascinating topic.” Leera smacked the edge of the desk with the scroll, adding another few wrinkles to it. “I stayed up late doing this stupid thing. Better be worth it.” Then she reached across Augum to poke Bridget with the scroll, emphasizing each word with a thrust. “I don’t like staying up late doing homework.”

  Bridget smacked the scroll aside. “You should learn to love staying up late to do your homework instead of—” She flicked a dismissive hand at Augum.

  Leera pressed a hand to her chest. “Hey, play fair now. We don’t make out that often.”

  Even Augum scoffed at that and received a light backhanded slap from Leera.

  “Stone! Jones!” Gonzalez called from the front. “Sometime today, lovebirds.”

  “Yes, Arcanist Gonzalez,” Leera grumbled, floating the scroll over.

  Augum unfurled his scroll to make sure he’d gotten all the points right, then rolled it up and telekinetically floated it to Gonzalez’s desk, where a pile of scrolls had already begun to accumulate.

  Gonzalez made a languid Bring it in motion with her hands at the incoming scrolls. “Hurry those turtles up, people.”

  Leera, who had gotten into trouble before for her poor writing and lack of detail, grimaced as she wiggled a finger, trying to stuff her scroll into the bottom of the pile—only to knock over the entire thing.

  Gonzalez let out an exasperated sigh as she glared at the class. “Must everything be so difficult?” She pointed at the pile. The scrolls rose and arranged themselves onto the desk. “If you are trying to speed my way to the grave, you are succeeding—” She stopped, hand frozen in midair as a scroll wavered before her. She pinched the corner of the offending parchment and held it like a soiled rag. “What is this? Did someone try to slip in latrine paper?”

  The class chortled as Leera hid behind her desk, face crimson, fingers twitching as if she was contemplating casting Chameleon on herself.

  Gonzalez used her other hand to telekinetically unfurl the scroll. “Jones. Leera Jones. Why am I not surprised?” Her eyes trawled the room. “
Where is that girl?”

  Leera slithered back up, squeaking, “Here, Arcanist Gonzalez.”

  “Jones, I couldn’t read this with the help of an arcaneologist. And what’s with all these stains? You drag it through a pigpen before handing it in? What are you, four?”

  Leera swallowed as classmates gawked and snickered. Katrina placed her chin on her fist in mockery of Leera’s earlier display.

  Gonzalez shot the scroll back at her with an annoyed flick of her wrist. “Rewrite it.”

  Leera snatched the scroll out of the air and quickly stuffed it into her satchel. “Yes, Arcanist Gonzalez. Thank you, Arcanist Gonzalez.”

  “Don’t thank me, just do it. And if I don’t get that back by end of day, it’s a fail, which you more than deserve.”

  “You got it, Arcanist Gonzalez.”

  “And Jones?”

  “Yes, Arcanist Gonzalez?”

  “A little maturity would go a long way.”

  “Yes, Arcanist Gonzalez.”

  Gonzalez sucked air between her teeth at the breeziness in Leera’s tone.

  Augum gave Leera a sympathetic look. She’d been struggling with her studies. And she couldn’t see the blackboard because she stubbornly refused to admit she needed spectacles. But he knew where her mind had been. With numerous assassination attempts against him already, she worried the next would be the last. And she didn’t even know the attacks had been ongoing. If he told her, she’d likely fail her crucial end-of-term exams because she’d spend even more time worrying than studying. She put up a brave front, but he saw right through it. He saw a vulnerability in her that deeply endeared her to him.

  “Maturity my butt,” Leera muttered to Augum. “I ain’t changing. They can all shove it.”

  Augum sighed.

  She elbowed him. “Shut up, it’s what you love about me.”

  “Your immaturity, or your stubbornness?”

  “Hush, I’m the perfect package.”

  Augum smiled tenderly at her. To him, she was perfect. He loved her wit, her ability to shake off the worst criticism, her brazenness, her raven beauty.

  He gave her thigh a double tap, whispering, “I can help with your homework later, if you want.” Though how, he had no idea—he couldn’t read her chicken scratchings half the time either.

  Leera gave the idea a dismissive but grateful wave, intimating, Bah, I’ll be fine.

  Gonzalez refolded her hands on the old desk and leaned forward, sweeping the students’ faces with a gaze that bled tediousness. “Today we’re going to talk about the history of Leyan thought and how it influenced Sithesian politics.”

  The class groaned. As the lecture began, Augum, tired from a bad sleep and crashing from the hyper energy of a battle to the death, found himself getting drowsy.

  Interrupted

  Augum was jolted awake by a stern elbow from Leera.

  “Were you just sleeping?” she hissed.

  “’Course not,” he croaked, only to realize the whole class was staring at him, most notably Arcanist Gonzalez.

  “This lecture boring you, Stone? Reminiscing about wandering through the Leyan plane, are we?” The class tittered. Gonzalez loved to poke fun at him on this point. He and the girls had well and truly been to Ley during the war, which was another plane where the ancient Leyans dwelled—although there were only a few dozen of those ancient beings left, most notably his great-grandmother, Anna Atticus Stone. But of course hardly a soul believed that Ley existed or that Mrs. Stone was still alive. When the trio tried telling anyone, they might as well have been trying to convince them the sun was really the moon.

  “My apologies, Arcanist Gonzalez.” Augum absently hovered his satchel under his desk again as he rubbed his tired eyes. Ridiculous that he had fallen asleep, though being inside a classroom while the kingdom had been taken over was just as ridiculous.

  “Stone, stand up and tell the class how the Leyans withdrew from the world after the War of the Scions.”

  Augum hauled himself to his feet, trying to organize his slumberous thoughts. Luckily, he was saved by the dull gong of the bell. Yet the class exchanged looks instead of gathering their belongings. And then it hit him. Class was two hours long, so it couldn’t be over yet, for he hadn’t slept that long.

  Then the bell sounded again. And again. And again. And kept ringing alarm-like, striking before the last gong dissipated.

  “That can’t be good,” Leera muttered.

  “It’s the Canterrans,” Bridget said, gathering her stuff and carefully placing it inside her satchel. Leera did the same, but instead of being careful, she swept everything off the desk with her arm, dumping it into her satchel as if it were nothing more than refuse. As for Augum, he had fallen asleep before taking anything out of his satchel in the first place, so there was nothing to return.

  There was a frantic knocking on the door as the bell continued to sound.

  “Yes, what is it?” Gonzalez called above the racket.

  A girl in her early twenties wearing the traditional burgundy robe of the 1st and 2nd degrees opened the door. “I beg your pardon, Arcanist Gonzalez, but there’s a mandatory emergency assembly in the theater.” She saw the trio and her eyes widened before she caught herself. She curtsied awkwardly and hurried off to the next classroom just as the bell finally ceased.

  “Of course there is,” Gonzalez muttered, tugging her black robes about her and standing. She impatiently wafted a hand at the door. “Well, stop your gawkin’ and start your hoofin’.”

  The trio exchanged anxious looks and filed into the hallway with their friends. The Hall of Rapture quickly filled with bodies. Pupils from nearby classes spotted the trio and began whispering to each other. Their friends stuck close to them to protect them from the horde. It was standard procedure, so to speak. Tall, fiery-haired Isaac Fleiszmann took up the rear; dimple-smiled Laudine Cooper took one flank; and the wild-haired Caireen Lavo, a Tiberran refugee from the war, took up the other. They were joined by an emerald-robed Haylee Tennyson, a long-haired blonde with a pronounced limp. She had found them among the crowd by sheer luck; she was a 5th degree ice element warlock and thus took different classes from the trio.

  “Canterrans?” Haylee asked, clutching her satchel close to her chest, as if it could somehow protect her. It was decorated with pink stars, a depiction of puckered red lips, and sparkly ribbons. And throughout, penned in exquisite calligraphy, were words like beauty, creativity, dream, and success.

  “Because if it is,” Haylee continued, “they’ve got another thing coming if they think I’m canceling my womanhood ceremony. I’ll drag out my cane and beat them with it.”

  Some of the others snickered, but Augum couldn’t relate to her excitement as he had thoroughly humiliated himself at his own manhood ceremony by trying to show off with the Teleport spell, only to fail miserably and end up fused with a pig’s trough.

  “It’s got to be the Canterrans,” Laudine replied. The wide dimpled smile she usually wore was absent. “No way would the bell sound like an alarm otherwise.” Her pixie cut jiggled with her animation. “ ‘For the air smelt of enemy as thick as the salty musk of ocean.’ ” As a raging poet who spent half her time in drama class, she had a phrase for every occasion. Leera had once asked her why she loved quoting stuff so much, and Laudine replied that her family, before every supper, sang songs, told stories, or acted out scenes from plays.

  Augum spotted Cry Slimwealth waltzing along in the loose crowd, scribbling on a parchment pinned against his graffiti-laden satchel for support. He had ink-stained hands and disheveled hair.

  “What have they got you cooking up now, Cry?” Augum called, causing a few heads to turn.

  Cry looked up as if surprised someone had addressed him. He was, after all, a bit of an outcast. But Augum considered him loyal to the truth, for Cry wanted to be a herald, which meant dedicating himself to truth and justice. And he had a tendency to sniff things out.

  “What’s your hunch on what
’s going on?” Augum asked.

  Cry made his way over to their group and walked alongside them. “Traveling in a pack. Smart, all things considered. To answer your question, my hunch is it’s the Canterrans and we’re all reaping what you’ve initially sown by not choosing a wise ruler.”

  “Should’ve known better than to ask,” Augum muttered.

  “Like there were any non-corrupt choices,” Leera sniped in support.

  Cry ignored her. “A question in return. Another body turned up the other day in an alley. Third in a tenday. Know anything about it?”

  “Another Whisper Blade?” Bridget asked, gaze whipping to Augum.

  Cry nodded. “Likely, considering the authorities found a curved dagger on the body.”

  “Augum does like to take long walks,” Isaac threw in, mimicking flailing limbs. “And when he dreams, he twitches. He’s killing them left and right even in his sleep.”

  “Hilarious,” Cry replied in tones that would have put a jester to sleep. But his droopy eyes never left Augum’s. “So you deny having anything to do with it? Even though you’re the only one they’ve targeted?”

  “Shouldn’t you be writing about more pressing matters?” Leera asked. Yet her gaze also never left the side of Augum’s head, burning a hole through his temple.

  “Every matter is a pressing matter for the Academy Herald,” Cry replied. “I’m after the truth.”

  “The truth?” Leera countered. “You just wrote a fluff piece praising the Canterrans.”

  Cry’s voice dropped. “It’s a travesty, I agree, but I didn’t write that piece. A couple of Canterran goons wrote it for me and stuck my name on it. But don’t worry, I’m cooking up a thorough reply in the name of the kingdom.” He nodded at Augum. “Anyway, if he’s out there knocking down flies in his spare time, the kingdom should know about it. And he should know better as it feeds into the idea that Arcaners acted like outlaws. Besides, the constabulary and the inquisitor’s office are investigating.”

  “They already questioned him,” Leera protested. “They know he gets attacked. And they don’t do a damn thing about it because they’re corrupt.”