The Tree of Ecrof

by Kobe Bryant

  By the time the horn sounded to end foundational training, Pretia’s legs were aching from running laps. As she left the track, she watched a group of older Realists arrive and begin to set up hurdles.

  “We need to hurry,” Pretia said, tugging on Rovi’s arm. “We don’t want to be late again.”

  “I don’t think the Viz Trainer is going to assign us penalty laps, do you?” Rovi said.

  “I don’t want to risk it,” Pretia said, hurrying on ahead and leaving Rovi to bring up the rear.

  The cool interior of the Halls of Process was a welcome relief after running around the field in the hot sun. Pretia hurried down the main corridor, peeking into classrooms until she found her class of recruits. The closest seat was next to Castor, which she took to avoid attracting attention for tardiness.

  The minute she sat down, her cousin tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, Pretia,” he said. “I have a question.”

  “What?” Pretia asked, intrigued by the unusually pleasant tone in Castor’s voice.

  Castor waited a beat. “I’m wondering if the people of Epoca should be informed that you lost a race to Leo Apama.”

  Pretia rolled her eyes and shoved his shoulder. “Quit it,” she said.

  “I bet the Dreamers are super-excited to have you on their team,” Castor said. “I bet—” But he was cut off as a teacher entered the room.

  It was Satis, the small bald man who had handed out the tracksuits the day before.

  “Quiet,” Satis said, clapping his hands.

  Before he could say anything more, Rovi made it into the classroom. “Nice of you to join us, Mr. Myrios. I didn’t imagine that you of all people would be late to your first Visualization class.”

  “Sorry,” Rovi grumbled, and found a seat at the back of the class.

  “I’m surprised he’s allowed here at all,” Castor said, “especially after what his father did.”

  “Castor Praxis,” Satis warned, “your father might be the Head Trainer of Ecrof, but I am in charge of this class, and you will not speak out of turn.”

  Pretia glanced over at her cousin and saw him whisper something under his breath to Nassos.

  “Now that everyone’s paying attention,” Satis said, “welcome to your first Visualization lesson. I’m sure many of you would rather be out on the field playing sports, but without being able to visualize your success, you will never achieve your potential. The work you do in here is as important as the work you do in the gym or on the court. Because if you cannot visualize what it is you need to do when you compete, how are you going to do it when the time comes on the field?”

  Pretia heard a few groans from her fellow students. Satis rubbed his bald head and ignored them.

  “Students,” he said, “visualization is the marriage of belief, concentration, and imagination. Once you are able to do these three things at once, for a sustained period of time, you will have mastered the art.” He held up one finger. “Belief—the unwavering conviction in your own abilities.” He held up a second finger. “Concentration—the ability to think about a single thing with no external or internal interruptions for five minutes or more. And finally,” he said, holding up a third finger, “imagination—the creativity to see yourself in a wide range of situations. Sounds easy, right?”

  “No,” Rovi said. “It doesn’t.”

  “You’re right, Mr. Myrios,” Satis said.

  “But it doesn’t sound very interesting,” Leo offered.

  Satis looked over. “Leo Apama, right?”

  Leo nodded.

  “What if I told you the ultimate goal of visualization was to be able to literally step outside yourself?”

  “Like leave your body?” Leo asked.

  Satis clapped his hands together. “Exactly.”

  “Wow,” Adira said. “Can you do that?”

  “No one can actually do it,” Rovi said.

  “So what’s the point of the class?” Leo asked.

  A question was buzzing in Pretia’s head—literally step outside yourself—but before she could raise her hand, Satis had continued speaking.

  “When an athlete or an artist or an actor or anyone in any profession is performing at the peak of his or her abilities, a place opens up in his or her mind called the Selfless Zone. If you work hard enough, you will be able to enter this zone.”

  “And what happens when you enter it?” Leo asked.

  “You will be able to do whatever it is you’re doing, like play tennis, for instance, without even thinking about it. Your body will act without your mind telling it what to do. You will not be aware of the outside world or your opponent. You will not even be aware of yourself.”

  “But that’s not stepping outside yourself,” Leo said.

  “Because it’s impossible,” Rovi muttered again. “It’s a theory, not something anyone can do.”

  “Your dad sure tried,” Castor said. “Your dad—”

  “This is your final warning, Mr. Praxis,” Satis cautioned. “Rovi is right. Literally stepping outside yourself and watching yourself from a distance is impossible. But it still is the ultimate goal of visualization.”

  “Are you sure it’s impossible?” Pretia asked. She remembered watching herself playing tag on cliffs and climbing the rigging.

  “So far,” Satis said, sitting down on the desk at the front of the room. “It would take exceptional grana to do so. Even so, we need to try.”

  Exceptional grana. The phrase worried Pretia. She was certain her grana was exceptional, all right—exceptionally cursed.

  Before she could dwell on this, Satis continued. “The ultimate goal of visualization is teaching yourself to envision the impossible so that you can make it possible. And the ultimate impossibility is to step outside yourself so you can simply watch yourself perform without nerves, without awareness of the world around you. To allow your shadow self to do the work. Only then can you truly perform without fear.”

  “Shadow self?” The phrase was out of Pretia’s mouth before she even knew she had spoken.

  “Yes,” Satis explained. “When you compete, you are not just competing against your opponent, you are competing against your shadow self. Before you can beat anyone, you must first make peace with your shadow self. That’s what holds you back.”

  Pretia heard a snort from the back of the room. “I don’t have a shadow self,” Vera said. “I just beat my opponent.”

  “Well, Vera, we will see about that,” Satis said.

  Pretia raised her hand but started to speak even before Satis had called on her. “What does your shadow self do?”

  “Your shadow self is something you need to learn to control,” Satis said. “It can either bring you down or lead you to greatness.”

  “What do you mean control—” Pretia began. But Satis was already passing out metal circles the size of crowns. Her shadow self was certainly out of control. Or worse, her shadow self was under the control of Hurell.

  “Let’s save the questions for later,” he said. “Soon you will understand more. Now, these are Mensa Crowns,” Satis explained. “They are a simple device with which we can see your thoughts projected on the screen over my head.”

  All around the room, the kids were examining the crowns. But Pretia didn’t pick hers up. She had no interest in seeing her shadow self. She suspected she’d already seen it . . . and didn’t like what she’d seen.

  Rovi, on the other hand, was staring at his crown with a strange expression on his face, half-delighted, half-sad.

  “Yes, Rovi,” Satis said. “These are the ones your father designed.”

  Pretia watched Rovi turn the crown over and over, as if he were staring into the past.

  “Why don’t you go first,” Satis continued. “Stand up and place the crown on your head. Now, what I want you to do is hold on to a sustained i
mage of yourself running a race or competing in an event of some sort. Anything in which you hope to excel.”

  “Be careful, Satis,” Castor said. “We wouldn’t want Rovi to go insane like his father after a visualization experiment.”

  Pretia kicked her cousin under the table. Why was he harassing Rovi so much? “Lay off,” she whispered.

  Castor leaned closer to her. “You don’t know anything about your new friend, do you, Pretia?”

  Pretia looked up to see Satis standing in front of her and Castor. “I see that obedience doesn’t seem to be a royal trait,” he said, putting a finger to his lips.

  Pretia blushed. But Castor looked Satis squarely in the eye and smiled. “I only mentioned anything for Rovi’s safety,” he said.

  “Thank you for your concern,” Satis said. “But I think Rovi will be all right.”

  Pretia looked over at Rovi and he seemed anything but all right. His cheeks were quivering and his lips were trembling. He looked as if he were about to explode with rage.

  “All right, Rovi, put the crown on your head and concentrate.”

  Rovi did as he was told, or at least pretended to. In a few moments, a white light appeared on the screen over Satis’s head. Soon, a blurry image of Rovi running on a track emerged. It flickered and flashed. Pretia could just make out the shape of Rovi in the starting blocks beside a shape that looked like Castor. The image wobbled, disappeared, then reappeared with Rovi crossing the finish line in first place.

  “In your dreams, Rovi.” Castor snickered.

  Rovi took off the Mensa Crown.

  “Not bad,” Satis said, “but not particularly focused, either. True visualization requires holding a sustained and clear image in your head for a consistent period of time.”

  “Did I visualize or not?” Rovi asked, sitting down.

  “You did, Rovi. But I believe that you can certainly do better.”

  The rest of the class took turns coming to the front of the room with their Mensa Crowns. Virgil, Nassos, and Cyril couldn’t get theirs to project an image at all. Leo, Adira, and Hector managed to get theirs to show an image, but it was one that had zero relationship to sports. The entire class laughed as the clear and perfectly sustained image of a bunny hopping around a flower garden appeared over Leo’s head. When it was Castor’s turn, he tried to conjure the same image as Rovi had, but with him coming in first. But he failed to sustain the visual long enough to see the race across the finish line.

  When Vera took the crown, she jammed it so forcefully on her head and pressed her fingers so hard into her temples that Pretia worried she was going to bruise herself. The white light instantly sparked to life, and an image of Vera playing tennis against her brother appeared. She was zinging balls at his head and driving them full force into his body. The visual was clearer and steadier than any that had been conjured by the rest of the class. But it didn’t last. After one minute, the projection of Vera and her brother faded, and no matter how hard Vera drove her fingers into her head, she couldn’t pull it back.

  She ripped the crown from her head and nearly flung it across the room.

  “Good job,” Satis said.

  “It was terrible,” Vera said, slamming her body down in her chair and kicking the empty seat in front of her. “I totally sucked.”

  Finally, it was Pretia’s turn.

  “All right, Pretia,” Satis said.

  Pretia didn’t pick up her crown. She wouldn’t pick up her crown. She couldn’t. She didn’t want the class to see her shadow self. She couldn’t control her shadow self. And she didn’t want to see what would happen if her shadow self appeared.

  “I can’t,” Pretia said.

  “Why?” Castor asked. “Is the crown not fancy enough for you?”

  Pretia shook her head. “I just can’t.”

  “Nothing bad happens,” Adira whispered. “Just do it.”

  Pretia flipped the crown over in her hands. What if it showed her shadow self—her cursed self—pushing another student off the cliffs of Cora? What if it showed her pulling Vera off the mast? What if it showed the flame she’d lit for Hurell? She couldn’t think about all the possibilities.

  “I just can’t,” she repeated.

  “Can’t or won’t?” Satis said.

  Pretia thought about this for a split second. “Can’t,” she said.

  “And why not?” There was an edge in Satis’s voice. He was clearly getting impatient.

  “Yeah, Pretia,” Castor said. “Why not?”

  Pretia could feel her cheeks burning. “Because I don’t have grana,” she said finally.

  The room fell silent. Castor was staring at her in amazement. Then a satisfied smile—a smile of actual happiness, not sneaky malice—appeared on his lips. She knew exactly what he was thinking. But she didn’t care. Let him think he was going to be King of Epoca. Let him be king for all she cared.

  “But, but—” Satis stammered.

  “I don’t have grana,” she said again.

  “That’s impossible,” Satis said.

  “I don’t,” Pretia said for a final time. Then, without another word, she fled the class. She rushed back to the Temple of Dreams and climbed into bed, hiding under the covers and wishing for all the world that Anara was there to comfort her.

  10

  ROVI

  THE TREE

  All night Cyril and Virgil had whispered back and forth from their beds about Pretia—the princess who didn’t have grana. Of course she was only here because of her parentage. How unfair was it that the heir to the throne just got to go to Ecrof for no reason? Her spot should have gone to a real athlete with real grana.

  Eventually Rovi had to tell them to be quiet. He knew what it felt like to be the outsider. He didn’t need to hear people running Pretia down, even if she was a princess. A spoiled princess, Virgil had insisted. But Rovi hadn’t really seen too much evidence of that. When she’d been given penalty laps, she’d run them, just like Rovi had. And she’d had to find her own way through the Decision Woods, the same as all the other kids.

  When he woke up, both Cyril and Virgil were already out of the room. Rovi dressed quickly in his training gear and rushed down to the cafeteria. Even after his mistake overfilling his tray on the first day, he still couldn’t resist taking way more food than he should have. The cafeteria was mostly empty. Most kids had already finished eating and left.

  Carrying his tray, he found a seat at a table where Adira and Virgil were still sitting over their breakfasts. They didn’t notice when Rovi joined them. They had their heads bowed together, whispering animat­edly. He could guess what, or rather whom they were talking about.

  “Are you still talking about Pretia?” he said.

  Adira glanced up and gave him a funny look.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than gossip?” Rovi asked.

  “Who’s gossiping?” Adira said.

  “Oh,” Rovi said, “I just assumed—” Then he looked at the table in front of them and saw that they were huddled over their Grana Books.

  “Assumed what?” Virgil asked.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” Adira added.

  “To go to track training,” Rovi said. “Wait, why aren’t you in your exercise clothes?”

  “We don’t have track training,” Adira said. “Don’t you ever look at your schedule? Or is that why you’re always late?”

  Rovi had hardly looked at his schedule. He just followed others’ lead about where he needed to be and when.

  The first hunting horn blared across campus. Adira and Virgil bolted from the table. “We have Granology, of course,” Adira said, clutching her book to her chest. Her eyes were wide with excitement.

  “Granology?” Rovi repeated.

  “How could you forget?” Virgil called over his shoulder. “Today we’re
going to learn how to use our books!”

  Rovi had totally forgotten. Yet again, he was going to be late.

  The Temple of Dreams had already emptied out. Rovi dashed up the stairs to his room. He’d been too afraid of anything happening to his Grana Book to ever take it out of his Ecrof duffel. It was his only connection to his parents and he dreaded anything harming it. So he’d carefully wrapped it in his old Star Stealer clothes and stashed it away. Now, for the first time since boarding the ship, he removed his book from its hiding place and sprinted as fast as he could to the Halls of Process.

  When Rovi was halfway there, he heard the next horn blast. He wondered what the punishment was for being late to Granology.

  Rovi picked up his pace. He was closing in on the Halls of Process. He could see the Panathletic Stadium in the background with the magnificent Tree of Ecrof towering above even the highest level of seats. Without thinking, Rovi passed the Halls of Process and entered the stadium. He had the place to himself, exactly what he’d hoped for. When he’d been little, he’d spent the hours while his father was teaching dreaming of scrambling up the wide trunk and reaching the branches thirty feet overhead.

  He’d been dying to try since he’d arrived at Ecrof. And now, with the rest of the school already in class, he had his chance. The marble stadium was silent. Rovi approached the tree. He placed his book on the grass, then grabbed the trunk. He looked for a foothold and a handhold. He gripped the tree and pulled himself up. He climbed higher and higher, shinnying farther than he’d imagined possible. His heart soared as his feet found the necessary footholds. Then he looked up—the branches were still too far out of reach.

  He pulled himself higher. His arms were burning. Higher. Higher. Now the first branch was only a few feet from his grasp. Just a little more. Just a little more. Rovi reached up. He almost had it. Almost. But then his hand slipped. He felt the bark cut his palms. He clawed for the tree, trying to keep ahold of it. But it was too late. Soon he was sliding down the massive trunk, scraping his knees and elbows on the bark before crashing to the ground with a painful thud. He felt the wind get knocked out of his chest.