Honor's Price

by Sever Bronny

  “So … what’s your plan again?”

  Bridget blew aside a lock of cinnamon hair that had strayed into her face as she placed her hands on her hips. “I’m going to cast Centarro.”

  Drops on the Floor

  After some diligent mental preparation, Bridget closed her eyes and uttered the sacred phrase to trigger the ancient Leyan spell. “Centeratoraye xao xen.”

  She took a deep breath as Augum and Leera looked on. Mildred stood rock still, the slit of her helm dark and empty. Augum hoped she wouldn’t interfere.

  Bridget hopped from one uncovered spot of floor to the next, balancing on one foot with ease while stretching down to peer and prod and mumble at the parchments. She was rapid and precise, eyes flitting about. Her hair, which she’d tied in a ponytail for the exercise, flopped beside her cheek.

  “Her brain is made of steel,” Leera whispered, looking on. “So weird. Like watching a graceful but crazed dancer.”

  Bridget abruptly froze, one foot sticking out, the other placed just so. She glanced up at Augum and Leera, a wild look in her eyes. “Inefficient,” she blurted. “Inefficient!”

  Before either of them could ask her what she was going on about, she dropped her leg, stepping on a parchment. Mildred launched into a barrage of insults but Bridget ignored her and pointed at the parchments around her. They rose like leaves caught in the wind. Her arms and hands blurred as she gesticulated madly. More parchments, scrolls, tomes and ornaments rose, until a tornado of objects surrounded the trio. And throughout, Mildred was shrill with abuses.

  “… malingering ox turd, how dare thou soil the sacred …”

  The parchments turned in midair and launched themselves at Bridget’s face, stopping a foot away. She scanned and dismissed them with a flick of a finger, sending them falling back to the ground, causing more uproar from Mildred, who Augum was sure was about to charge at Bridget and tackle her.

  “We have to help,” he snapped, pointing at the parchments and telekinetically organizing them.

  “Good call,” Leera answered, joining in. “Look, Mildred, we’re helping clean up! Don’t freak out!”

  It worked. Mildred turned to hurl insults at the pair of them instead. Throughout, Bridget’s hands worked independently of her mind. Her usually straight brows were pincers of focus, her eyes zipping to and fro as she examined and rejected parchment after parchment. Tomes flew open before her and pages flapped by, occasionally stopping at a relevant chapter, before they too were thrown aside—and caught just in time by Augum or Leera lest they smack into a shelf.

  Blood dripped from Bridget’s nose as her expression sharpened. And still, she continued. Augum and Leera could barely keep up with her—and there were two of them! It was the most incredible feat of arcanery Augum had seen in some time.

  “Logic,” Bridget mumbled amidst the swirl of flying parchments, backhanding one after another. “Concealed. Concealed with purpose. With penitence. Begging history’s forgiveness. Knowing, one day, someone would come. Someone like us. Like me. Bloodhound. Becometh fire hath I, burning walls of obfuscation. Yes. Yes. Getting closer—” She gasped while examining a parchment. It hung in the air as she whispered in awe. “A fragment. They’re not real. Ghosts drifting through time. Resumption therefore possible. They anticipated. They anticipated extinction.” She discarded the parchment with a wave of a finger and summoned forth more parchments and scrolls, voice increasing in speed and fervor. “Final focus. Quest. First. Then second. Metaphoric map. Obfuscated by character. But discoverable. Yes. Yes. Charred. Flare. Old tongue. Shield. Quest. Fragment—!” Bridget froze, a yellowed scroll floating before her eyes. Augum and Leera, after catching and placing what she had dismissed into one of several neat piles, also froze. Even Mildred’s screeching fell silent.

  Bridget panted, face deathly pale. Two streams of blood dribbled from her nose, over her mouth, and dripped from her chin onto the floor. “This,” she whispered, and the scroll slipped from her fingers and hit the ground, furling with a sloop. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she lost consciousness. Augum and Leera shot their arms out and telekinetically caught her, then gently lowered her to the floor.

  Leera ran to Bridget, placed her head on her lap, and tended to her nose with a cloth, murmuring soothing words.

  “She pushed herself hard,” Augum said, telekinetically finishing the cleanup while isolating the scroll she had found.

  “Nothing she said made any sense,” Leera said.

  Mildred pointed at a tome he had missed. “And this one there, ye fish-fingered ferret. Thou shall return it to its rightful place, all of it, before my temper finds its fury!”

  “I’m on it, Mildred.” Augum telekinetically placed everything back into the cubby except for the scroll. “There, even neater than before, eh, Mildred?”

  If Mildred could scowl, Augum was sure she would have. Instead, she stood motionless, silent, arm still outstretched at the spot where the tome had lain.

  Augum grabbed the scroll and kneeled beside Bridget. “She all right?”

  Leera caressed Bridget’s cheeks with the back of her fingers. “Don’t know yet. I hope so. I haven’t seen her push herself like that since the war. That was a dangerous casting. She should have quit earlier and allowed one of us to take over or something. Although I suspect we’d have been totally useless. Look at all that.” She nodded at the cubby. “Who does that? Who goes through that much information in so short a time? It’s impossible.”

  Augum glanced at the cubby. “You know what that was? A feat of legend, that’s what that was. We witnessed a legendary casting.”

  “By gods … you’re right.”

  They looked at Bridget with proud smiles. Augum considered reading the scroll, but thought better of it. Bridget had won a battle and deserved to be the one to reveal it to them.

  Time passed.

  “Uh, I’m getting a little concerned here,” Leera said when Bridget still had not woken. “Bridge? Wake up.” She gently shook her. “Wake up, Bridge.”

  “Come on, Bridge, wake up,” Augum found himself murmuring. He took Bridget’s hand in both his own and squeezed. It alarmed him how cold it was, how pale her face was—pale as the moon.

  “Gods, I think she might have overdrawn.” Panic entered Leera’s voice. “Bridge? Bridget Abigail Burns, you’ve got to wake up now, no more fooling around. Wake up, Bridget!” Tears streamed down Leera’s cheeks. Augum knew her terror, for if Bridget had pushed herself and overdrawn, she could have caught arcane fever, which could be deadly. And sometimes when someone overdraws and passes out, they never wake up at all.

  Leera was practically screaming by then. “Bridget! Bridget—!”

  Bridget’s eyes fluttered open and she gasped. Her body spasmed as she turned over and dry-heaved. But she did not retch, which was a good sign—or so Augum wanted to believe.

  Leera squeezed Bridget close, sniffling. “You gave us such a scare, Bridge. Oh, gods, you gave us such a scare …”

  Bridget breathed heavily in Leera’s arms. She clung onto her like a child finally returning home after running away. And she was shivering, which sent alarm bells clanging in Augum’s brain.

  Leera turned Bridget over. “Aug? Aug, her teeth are chattering!”

  “Healing Wing. We’ve got to get her to the healing wing.”

  “Is she coming down with …?”

  Augum swallowed. “I think so.”

  Leera was about to pick Bridget up, but changed her mind. “You take her, you’re faster. I’ll sign for the scroll.”

  “Gotcha.” He shot his arm out and threw all his telekinetic might at her body. She lifted with ease. But then he realized it was a heck of a long distance to the healing ward and using Telekinesis would blow through his arcane stamina in no time. He switched course, choosing to cast the 8th degree spell Strength instead.

  “Virtus vis viray,” he snapped after preparing his mind and flexing his muscles. He felt his muscles bulge and veins pu
sh against his skin as if trying to break free. He gently picked Bridget up and ran for the exit. She felt as light as a large feather-stuffed pillow.

  “Key, key, key!” Leera said, running after him.

  “Satchel.”

  “Right.” She frantically dug out the key and bolted back to Mildred, shouting, “Don’t wait for me! Just go, I’ll catch up!”

  Augum hesitated. He didn’t want to leave Leera alone. What if the overseers snatched her?”

  “What are you waiting for? Go!” she shouted before cajoling Mildred to hurry up, for she was shuffling too slowly to the sign-out register.

  “All right, uh, meet you there, I guess,” Augum stuttered, and bolted through the open doors. “Shyneo,” he said as he ran. Lightning crackled to life around his hand, turning the dark passageway blue. He dimmed his palm enough to illuminate the path twenty feet ahead. Then he extended his palm and spread his fingers, concentrating on the arcane ether. A heart-pounding moment later, he felt the faint pull of Object Track, and bolted in its direction. After running down what he hoped were the right passageways, he reached the hall with the floating trees and haunting bagpipe melody. It was then that Bridget moaned and Augum slowed his pace.

  “That melody … so … beautiful.”

  “Conserve your strength, Bridge.”

  “I’m not … feeling well.”

  “I know. Hang in there.”

  “There might not be … living teachers of the order.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Not in … sense we think. They’re ghosts. Always were. Taught alongside … living arcanists. And … think I solved … the scroll. Can’t … remember … foggy. You … brought it?”

  “Leera has it.”

  “Don’t remember … everything. So clever. So clever.”

  “I don’t understand, Bridge, none of it.”

  “Don’t know how … to summon … them …”

  “Summon who?”

  “Aug …?”

  “I’m here, Bridge.”

  “I … I can’t see.”

  Augum glanced down and saw that her eyes were wide open. “You overdrew and might be coming down with arcane fever. I’m taking you to the healing ward.”

  She moaned, hands weakly clinging to his neck, body shaking.

  “Stay with me, Bridge. Stay with me …” Yet he knew what lay ahead for her. The horror of the vast cold nothing. The fear, the isolation. He had been through it once before in the war. He only hoped, because it had just happened, that the healing ward could forestall the worst symptoms of delirium and coma.

  Her skin was turning hot, indicating the fever was taking root. She must have seriously overdrawn for the symptoms to show so quickly.

  They left the floating trees behind and he hurried his pace once more, conscious of the Strength spell’s duration, feeling its power anxious to leave his muscles. He wasn’t adept at the spell yet and thus could not hold it for as long as other spells. He needed more practice. It was a dangerous spell for one could easily underestimate the fragility of the body in relation to the spell. There were countless examples of students breaking bones or tearing muscles when they overextended themselves under its influence. It took practice, observation, and a thorough understanding of one’s limits.

  He soon came upon the secondary entrance, put Bridget down, and tiptoed up the steps. Both overseers were still sitting there, backs to the wall. One was still sleeping—and snoring loudly, telling Augum they were taking turns minding each other—while the other one was fighting off sleep by rhythmically slapping himself, muttering, “I hate the army, I hate the army, I hate the army …”

  “Senna dormo coma torpos,” Augum whispered, and the overseer’s head slumped forward. Then he retrieved a violently shivering Bridget and rushed her through the Student Wing. Luckily, nearly everybody was either in class or out earning crowns. The students he encountered gawked as he passed, one shouting out, “What’s going on? She all right?” Augum did not answer. He paid careful attention to the hallways as he ran, more than once having to wait for an overseer to pass before resuming.

  In the snowy courtyard he encountered someone he had been hoping to avoid—a Path Disciple. And it just so happened to be Pouch Eyes, one of the pair that had accosted him and the girls at the entrance to the theater yesterday.

  Augum slowed to what he hoped was a casual walk, but was certainly a hurried amble. It didn’t work. The skinny disciple spotted him.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Pouch Eyes shouted. “What did you do to that girl?”

  “Nothing, just a training accident, sir,” Augum said as he rushed by. “Taking her to the healing ward.”

  “Training?” the man squawked. “Training where? Where would you have been—come back here this instant!”

  “Sorry, it’s an emergency—” and Augum bolted.

  “Halt, I say! I say now, halt—!”

  But Augum barreled through the giant portal to the Elements Wing, appearing on the other side with a whoosh, and ran on with Bridget in his arms.

  “I’m scared,” Bridget whimpered. “Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong inside me. I can’t … describe it. Like a demon has woken up. It’s woken up and … and it’s looking at me.”

  “Almost there, Bridge, almost there.”

  “It’s horrifying … horrifying.”

  “Halt!” shouted the disciple from behind them, huffing to catch up.

  The spell finally timed out and Augum stumbled and fell from the sudden loss of strength. Bridget rolled to the ground with a weak moan and curled up into a fetal position, shivering, fists balled at her chin, hair splayed on the floor around her head like an aura.

  The Path Disciple skidded to a stop beside Augum. “What are you running from? Huh? What crime have you two perpetrated? What plot have you concocted?”

  “I told you, it was a training accident—”

  “You are the Arcaner, are you not? I want you to swear it. Swear it on your shield, boy.”

  Not a chance. “No time. Later.” And I’m a man, you bald little ferret. Augum pointed at Bridget and heaved with all his telekinetic might. She lifted off the floor, still curled into a ball, and he began running again.

  The Path Disciple ran alongside him, for Augum was slower due to the added weight. He felt like a boat dragging behind an anchor.

  “You will flare your shield and tell me the truth! What are you hiding!” There was fear in the man’s voice, as if he were scared to do anything without the protection of overseers. “Why will you not reply! Answer me, boy, else face the fury of The Path!”

  Augum, groaning from the strain, ran through the Hall of Heroes, then the Hall of Evernight and plowed through the membrane of The Hub, plunging them into the combined cacophonous noise of all seven halls extending from it. The Path Disciple followed him in and slapped his hands over his ears with a yelp. “May the gods give me strength to pursue these vile witches and bring them to justice!” he yelled over the chaos.

  As Augum ran toward the healing passage, two overseers exited from the fire element passage.

  “You two!” The Path Disciple shouted. “Get the barbarian!”

  The overseers took one look at Augum and bolted after him, shoving aside a pair of gaping students.

  Augum ran into the cool and peaceful healing hall, feeling as if he had plunged into a warm bath. Yet he was rapidly diminishing his arcane stamina. Telekinetically carrying a person this far pushed his mighty limits with the spell, and blood trickled from his nose. Still, he maintained his steely focus and carried on, hoping he could talk his way out of the situation once Bridget was attended to.

  “Come back here, I say!” Pouch Eyes shouted, following Augum. “Who do you think you are, contravening orders like that! You two, hurry along now!”

  Augum glanced back to see the pair of overseers sprinting behind Pouch Eyes and closing in fast. He soon shot through the portal at the end of the healing hall, narro
wly avoiding running over Kiwi Kaisan on the other side, a bronze-skinned fifteen-year-old with long black hair. Behind her was a voluminous room that stretched into the distance, one wall of which had countless sets of double-doors, and the opposite wall countless beds, some of which were surrounded by linen curtains.

  Her almond eyes went straight to Bridget’s face. “How can I help?” she asked in her squeaky voice.

  “Bed, quickly—” he said, panting from the run.

  “This way. What happened?”

  “Overdraw, arcane fever.”

  Kiwi led him to a bed and Augum rested Bridget on it just as the pair of overseers shot out from the portal, followed by a heavily breathing Pouch Eyes.

  “I’ll get the senior healer,” Kiwi said, unperturbed by the situation, and ran off. Augum thought her well trained to ignore the chaos and focus strictly on Bridget. A few other healing students peaked out curiously from behind curtains, but seeing the overseers, kept their distance.

  The overseers spread out. Their hoods had fallen back from their run, revealing a middle-aged man with blotchy skin and a younger man with ears too large for his small head. They were panting from the sprint, hands in attack position. Augum, huffing from his own exertions, readied his own hands as he stepped away from the bed to face the men.

  “That’s him, isn’t it?” the young man said, voice wavering. “Gods, we should get help—”

  “Shut up and stay sharp,” snapped the older man.

  Pouch Eyes, who was between them, stepped forward. “It is apparent you have committed a grave crime. You have one of two choices. Surrender peacefully and we leave the girl to heal, or we take you both by force.”

  Bridget jolted up in the bed.

  “She’s looking at me,” Pouch Eyes hissed. “Lower your eyes, girl. Do you not see how you offend the gods? How you offend me? Lower your eyes, now!”

  Augum stole a glance at Bridget. She was indeed staring at the man, but with eyes that burned with fever. They were glassy and terror-stricken, and that terror fed the flames of the man’s superstitious nature.