Hollow Core

by Gage Lee

  Deacon reached for the vessel that contained the ice aspects, and I slapped his hand away before he could touch the precious container. I pulled the crystalline flask off the table and tilted its wide mouth over the panel I’d opened in the bowl’s base. Two ice aspects tumbled out and dropped into the space between the bowl’s copper walls with melodious chimes. I deposited the vessel on the opposite side of the desk from Deacon to keep his traitorous mitts away from it and went to work. I didn’t know why my own clan had pitted themselves against me, and there was no time to get to the bottom of it just then. The only way I’d get answers was to squeeze them out of Deacon when class was over.

  The panel slid closed with a faint click, and I swirled the bowl between my palms. The ice aspects hummed as they spun around the inside of the bowl’s hollow wall and chilled its surfaces. Within a few moments the copper bowl had gathered condensation, and a few seconds after that ice crystals had formed around its mouth.

  My aura sight told me that the ice aspects inside the bowl were all used up, but that was all right. The copper bowl was ice-cold, and its double-walled construction provided enough insulation to keep it that way for at least a few minutes. If I needed more cold, I could always toss more aspects directly in with the rest of the ingredients. They wouldn’t affect the ice cream’s flavor and would evaporate without a trace.

  I checked on my rivals’ progress. None of them had even pulled the last of the corruption from their jinsei. Clem might’ve been able to catch up to me if she’d stopped distilling the ice aspects out of the jinsei and started creating the ice cream, but she was too caught up in the process to realize that was an option.

  I poured all the ingredients into the bowl with quick, efficient motions. Hahen had introduced me to more advanced alchemical processes, and we’d been whisking, stirring, shaking, and pressing pills, serums, and elixirs of all varieties for the past few weeks. Whipping up some ice cream was the simplest thing in the world compared to the rigors of real alchemy.

  Friction from my frenzied stirring had warmed the bowl before the ice cream had quite set up, but that was all right. I had plenty of aspects left. I poured one of them into the bowl, stirred until it evaporated, then added another and continued to stir. It would’ve been faster to dump the ice aspects into the ice cream, but that would’ve frozen the ingredients into a solid block of ice.

  I wouldn’t have put it past the professor to declare that I’d lost simply because I’d delivered frozen milk and sugar instead of ice cream.

  Finally, twenty minutes after the contest had started, I was done. The bowl of ice cream in my hands was still ice-cold, but there was no trace of the aspects in the food. I’d whipped my ingredients into an airy froth that had set into a light and creamy dessert. I’d even added a little swirl on top for a little more pizzazz.

  Deacon shook his head at me when I stood, but I ignored his protest. I didn’t care what the rest of the Shadow Phoenixes thought. I needed to win these challenges, and I wouldn’t let anything stop me.

  I darted down the walkway between the desks to reach the professor, careful not to tip my bowl or trip on the stairs. I’d made this walk hundreds of times, without ever falling, but there was no such thing as being too careful.

  I’d done it. I’d beaten the rest of them, and the points I’d earned would put me that much closer to safety.

  Or so I thought.

  Three yards away from Professor Xarla’s desk, disaster struck.

  A raven-eyed initiate from the Titans of Majestic Stone leaned back in her chair. She yawned so wide her eyes were closed as she thrust her hands into the air.

  And her feet into my path.

  Our legs tangled together, and my right ankle twisted out from under me. A sharp stab of pain blasted the air from my lungs in a startled yelp, and my knee twisted hard to the side. If my core had been whole, I’d have been able to push jinsei out of it to stabilize my legs. I wouldn’t have tripped in front of the whole class.

  And my perfect bowl of ice cream wouldn’t have splattered across the floor.

  But it did.

  Professor Xarla stared down at my twisted form and the dessert I’d spilled. Globs of vanilla ice cream clung to the front of her black lacquered desk and melted into the cracks between the floor’s slats.

  “My, my, Mr. Warin, to come so far only to trip over your own feet.” She shook her head and tutted at me. “Sad, really.”

  “I’m so sorry.” The Titan initiate who’d taken me out of the challenge gave me a wholly unsympathetic smirk. She covered her lips with blue nails in a half-hearted attempt to hide the smile that tugged the corners of her mouth up. “I didn’t realize you were so focused on winning that you couldn’t see my feet in front of you.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Warin will realize that he was at fault once he has time to reflect on what’s happened here today.” Professor Xara’s eyes burned into mine, and my anger withered.

  There was no point in arguing about what had happened. Xara had seen the Titan trip me and didn’t care. The desire to challenge the Titan to a duel burned in my gut, but I doused its heat with a long, slow breath. The last ice aspects that still hung in the air from my spilled ice cream washed through me in a cool, cleansing wave.

  I couldn’t win this fight. Xara had backed the Titan’s halfhearted apology; if I pressed for a duel it would look spiteful and dishonorable. I’d lost this challenge. My only option was to accept it and move on.

  “May I be excused to gather my thoughts?” I forced the words through gritted teeth.

  “Of course.”

  I left the room with a heavy heart. Grayson had warned me that my stay at the School would be difficult, but I hadn’t imagined the depths my fellow students and the professors would stoop to. They were all against me. There was no one I could turn to for help.

  If I wanted to stay enrolled, I’d have to become so skilled and strong that no one could beat me even if they cheated. That seemed like an impossible task, but no one had ever thought I’d make it to the academy in the first place.

  I’d just have to be smarter and sneakier than the rest of them.

  “Then that’s what I’ll do,” I whispered to myself as I made my way through the shifting hallways, mind racing with a thousand desperate thoughts.

  The Ambush

  THE REST OF THE STUDENT body wouldn’t let the ice cream incident go.

  On my way to classes, other initiates flung themselves out of my way or pressed their backs flat to the wall.

  “Whatever you do, don’t get in Jace’s way,” Rafael warned a crowd of laughing upperclassmen on more than one occasion. “If he trips, he might challenge you to a duel.”

  The endless teasing had become tedious and annoying for me, but it was worse for my friends. A week after my disastrous dessert, they confessed that their friendship with me had earned them a lot of unpleasant pressure from their clanmates and others.

  “The elders of the Titans of Majestic Stone have ordered me to keep my distance from you,” Abi confided. “They are concerned that my relationship with you will sow division among the clan’s initiates. And they worry that the way you shamed Rafael will come back on anyone who allies themselves with you. I’m sorry, my friend.”

  “We’re in a tough spot.” Eric pushed his food around his plate with his fork. “On the one hand, it would be dishonorable to abandon a friend in his time of need. On the other hand, it’s even more dishonorable to disobey your clan elders. Headmaster Bishop told all the Resplendent Suns that you’re on the bad boy list, Jace. We’re not even supposed to talk to you.”

  “The Thunder’s Children elders haven’t come down on anyone’s side in this fight,” Clem said around a bite of bloody steak. “But they’ve warned all the initiates that there could be fallout from standing by you, Jace, no matter which way the wind eventually blows. We’ve been told to keep our distance until they give us further guidance. I don’t know what to think, honestly.”

  Hav
ing my friends confirm the depth of the trouble I’d landed in wasn’t very reassuring. I wanted to beg them not to leave me to face this disaster alone, but that would have been selfish and dishonorable. Grayson Bishop hated me for something my father had done, but I couldn’t make Clem and the others turn him into an enemy. If the headmaster kept sending his dogs after me, I’d deal with them on my own.

  “I understand.” I smiled at each of my friends before I continued. “And I don’t want any of you to risk yourselves for me. This battle is mine to fight. I appreciate what you’ve done so far, but I’m afraid it’s time for us to part ways.”

  “Jace,” Clem started, her eyes wet with unshed tears, her voice tight with emotion. “I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could do.”

  “You’ve already done enough.” I smiled past the lump in my own throat.

  And that was the last meal I had with my friends.

  The days passed in a blur of difficult classes, hard labor under Hahen’s watchful eye, isolated meals, and not nearly enough sleep. It was much harder than I’d ever imagined my time at the School would be. I hoped that Tycho Reyes would show up to offer me some words of advice, or at least get some of the other clans to ease up on me, but he hadn’t been seen around campus for weeks.

  Grayson Bishop never confronted me directly, but his gloating grin was everywhere I looked. He couldn’t make me quit, but he could make every waking second miserable for me. There was no one left I could even talk to, much less trust. I’d become so socially isolated I started to look forward to my brief, hostile interaction with the wardens who yelled at me when I returned home from the laboratory after curfew.

  The dead weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were the worst. Initiates weren’t allowed to return home, but all the upperclassmen had left and most of the teaching staff had taken leave to spend time with their families. A single warden for each of the clan towers remained behind, as did a skeleton crew of kitchen spirits to make sure the initiates didn’t starve to death. Otherwise the building was as empty as an open grave. I’d hoped this period with so few of the staff and students around would let me reconnect with Eric, Clem, and Abi, but I should have known that wouldn’t work. The other initiates would have ratted them out as soon as the elders returned. The only change was that I could now watch my friends eat and laugh together while I sat alone on the other side of the almost empty dining hall.

  With no classes outside of calisthenics and core strengthening exercises led by the wardens, I was left with far too much time on my hands. Rather than waste away in the tiny garret of my room, I fled to the laboratory and buried myself in my work. While Hahen’s work was boring and often painful, my time in the laboratory did allow me to swipe serums, pills, and elixirs. I stockpiled the boosters in the top of my toilet and always kept a few hidden about my person in case I needed to fight or use the jinsei in a challenge.

  Unfortunately, challenges had stopped coming, and no one seemed interested in looking at me, much less challenging me to a duel.

  There were, however, advantages to my constant work.

  “Your core is getting stronger,” Hahen complimented me one night. “You still have no jinsei to speak of, but I sense a growing power within you. I see that your Borrowed Soul technique also can now connect to more small creatures. That is impressive and very strange, Jace Warin.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” I replied. It was hard to know how to take Hahen. He expected me to be much more advanced than I was, and he often commented on the fact that my core was still at a foundation level when my classmates were within striking distance of becoming adept level. My weakness caused us both to work harder, and yet he still found time to compliment me on my skills and note the growth I’d managed.

  “With all the breath cycling you’ve done, I would have thought you’d have a perfect core by now,” the rat spirit went on. “Do your parents have this issue? I know you came from the camps, so it may be a defect in—”

  “I’m not from the camps,” I snapped. “My mother and father were Empyreal citizens.”

  “But why would your parents leave Empyreal society to live in the camps?” Hahen eyed me suspiciously.

  “Something happened with my father.” I felt like an idiot for even bringing up my family’s past. My history was a tangled mess of knots I couldn’t even begin to unravel. “We were exiled.”

  “Exiled? What did your father do?” Hahen scratched at his mangy chin and leaned back on his stool. “That is almost unheard of in this day. Perhaps I could help you petition the Adjudication Council for reinstatement as an Empyreal citizen. I hear it’s a simple process, and it would do much for your standing here.”

  “You could do that?” My heart surged into my throat at the thought of scrubbing away my life as a camper.

  “If you went before the council and begged forgiveness for the crimes of your forebears.” Hahen nodded. “Of course, we would have to know what your father did to properly formulate the petition.”

  My hopes crashed down around me. I’d asked my mother about this very thing a thousand times, and she wouldn’t even give me a hint about the crime that had doomed my entire family.

  “I don’t know what he did,” I sighed.

  “Perhaps you could ask your mother?” Hahen’s suggestion was made out of kindness, but it brought all of my frustrations to a head, just the same.

  “’You don’t think I’ve asked her over and over?” I nearly shouted at the rat spirit I was so exasperated. It wasn’t Hahen’s fault, but I couldn’t handle having my hopes raised and dashed again. Better to just focus on what I could do on my own than dream about what might have been. “Can we just drop it?”

  “Of course.” Hahen harrumphed and shoved another container of contaminated jinsei toward me. This one was packed full of rot aspects, and I was thankful he didn’t want me to preserve any of them. They were disgusting, foul-smelling aspects that left me feeling sick even after they leaked out of my damaged core. I hated to imagine what they would do to the rats and me if we tried to harvest them.

  “I was only trying to get to the bottom of your issue,” the rat spirit grumbled a few minutes after I’d strapped the mask over my mouth and nose. “You work hard, you are determined in your efforts with jinsei, but your core refuses to grow. I watch you breathe, and the jinsei cycles through your body as I would expect, but there’s something missing inside you. It’s almost as if there’s a veil over your core that prevents me from seeing what lies at the root of your problem. If we could fix this strange defect, your strength would increase rapidly. By the end of the year, you would match or surpass any of the other initiates I’ve seen here.”

  My eyes watered, and I told myself it was because of the horrible stench of the rot aspects and not because Hahen had shown concern about my well-being. None of the other students, not even the ones who’d tried to be my friends, could offer me any encouragement without risking their honor and reputation within their clans. The teachers did as little as possible to assist me in my path, and the headmaster wanted me gone. To have anyone, even this wretched, decrepit old thing, show pity to me was almost more than I could bear.

  The rest of our night passed in silence. Hahen let me go a little earlier than usual, which was a kindness I knew I didn’t deserve. I’d been short with him when he’d only been trying to help me.

  I paused and put together the most formal apology I could muster.

  “Thank you, honored spirit.” I struggled to put my feelings into words that would explain my poor behavior to the spirit. “I wish I had answers for your questions. I do not know why I am flawed. It shames me, and that is why I was short with you. I should not have been so unkind. I beg your forgiveness and hope you will find it in your heart to accept this initiate’s insignificant apology.”

  Hahen said nothing. He didn’t even look at me as I tidied up the workbench and carried the final vessel of purified jinsei to the back of the laboratory where I stored the others. I consid
ered adding to my stash of jinsei boosters and then decided against it. I had fifteen concentrated jinsei pills, twenty vials of purified serum, and even three fire aspect tablets. Taking more would have just been greedy. If what I’d taken so far couldn’t get me through the challenges ahead, nothing would.

  I waited for a moment longer, and when the rat spirit had no words for me, I turned and headed toward the laboratory’s door.

  “Jace,” Hahen said in a quiet, rasping voice that I only barely heard. “I did not mean to pry. But I see great promise in you. Your spirit is strong even if your core is not. If you think of anything that might help us heal you, let me know. As one slave to another, I would very much like to see you succeed where I have failed.”

  “Thank you.” The words seemed inadequate in the face of Hahen’s truth. We were both in thrall to the Disciples and Tycho in particular, which made us more alike than our differences might’ve suggested. “If I think of anything useful, I will be sure to tell you. Have a restful night.”

  “I wish the same for you,” he responded.

  There was nothing else to say, and I left laboratory with my spirits higher than they had been in days. Hahen was an unlikely ally, but he’d turned out to be a friend when I needed one the most. I wasn’t sure how I’d repay his kindness, but I vowed to find some way to ease his burden.

  A clock in the hall of artifacts told me it wasn’t quite midnight. An extra hour of sleep, or more likely an hour of practicing my still crude scrivenings, was an amazing gift from the rat spirit. If I could perfect an inscribed binding, maybe I could use it to imbue a pen or inscribing tool with some of the fire aspect to make it smoother and more efficient. Or, perhaps I could trace a striking pattern in the sleeves of my robes and fill that with my stolen fire aspects. Fists of flame would be an amazing defense against enemies I knew were waiting to attack me at any moment.

  Or—

  “Hey, stranger.”