by Anna Webb
A message was sent to Master Akerman that she wouldn’t be participating in the afternoon training session, and Allyra spent a quiet afternoon catching up on the sleep she’d missed the night before.
All too soon, it was time to reenter reality, and she hobbled gingerly to the dining room for dinner. A chorus of voices carried clearly through the door and suggested she was late—again. She was starting to get used to all conversation ceasing as she entered a room. Worse still was the weight of stares as all eyes turned unerringly to her. She ignored them all, held her head high, and did her best to hobble with some dignity.
The food was laid out in a buffet style with no shortage on choices. Despite having done next to nothing for most of the day, Allyra found she was starving. Reasoning that she needed protein for strength and carbs for energy, she passed over the salads and chose a hamburger, piling French fries onto the remaining space on her plate.
Feeling very much like the new kid at school, she made her way down the long trestles. She didn’t recognize anyone other than Jason, who was surrounded by an array of adoring female admirers. He didn’t bother looking up as she limped by. Another raucous group seemed to be centered around a boy with a loud laugh and dancing, mischievous eyes, who she surmised to be the Mr. Lee who’d made the sarcastic comments during High Master Zhuang’s recitation of the rules.
Spotting an empty spot at the end of one of the trestles, Allyra made her way toward it but stopped when two girls waved her to join them. In appearance, they were polar opposites—one was olive skinned with dark hair cropped close to her head like a boy’s. The other had classically pale Scandinavian coloring with clear blue eyes and long blonde hair.
The blonde looked at her bandaged ankle and grimaced. “Ouch. You okay?” Before Allyra could answer, she continued, “I’m Henrietta, or Henri, and this is Adriana.”
Allyra slipped into the seat next to Henri. “Allyra,” she offered in reply.
Henri grinned. “We know—you’re kind of famous. Even for those of us from the Oceanic College.”
“That’s Antarctica, right? Sounds freezing—"
Henri waved it off, cutting her off. “It’s not too bad, it’s pretty well heated inside, and all the snow does make it rather beautiful. But enough about Antarctica, and tell us about the Between—we heard you actually fought a Revenant.”
Henri’s voice was husky and breathless, as if she couldn’t get the words out fast enough. She paused and looked at Allyra expectantly, her blue eyes wide with childlike expectation.
“If by fight a Revenant, you mean that it cut me open and I barely escaped with my life…” Allyra said sarcastically around a mouth full of hamburger.
“Really?” Henri looked disappointed, but it only took her a couple of seconds to brighten up again. “Well, don’t tell anyone that. Let the rumor work for you.”
Allyra raised her eyebrows in a silent question, and Henri quickly jumped in to clear up any confusion. “Reputation is everything here. The last thing you want is everyone thinking that you’re an easy target. It’ll open you up to challenges, and you really want to avoid those if you want to stay in the competition.”
“And being a First, you’re already at the top of everyone’s hit list,” Adriana chimed in.
“A First?” Allyra asked, swallowing down the last mouthful of her hamburger and moving enthusiastically onto the French fries. If discovering her Gift had done anything, it had awoken an appetite of ferocious proportions.
“Meaning that you only won this year,” Henri replied thoughtfully. “It’s pretty unfair really. The Firsts almost never win. The Fifths are the most likely to win. After all, they’ve had the most time to prepare and get used to working as a team.”
Henri paused for breath, and Adriana took over. “It sucks to be a First, they’re always the first to be eliminated, and they’re constantly being challenged by the other pairs who want to gain an advantage. And they’re always the most likely to be killed—”
“Adriana!” Henri admonished, her eyes wide. She glanced at Allyra and hurried to soften her partner’s words. “Sorry. She doesn’t mean it. Besides, you survived the Between, I’m sure you’ll survive The Five Finals.”
Allyra waved her off. It wasn’t that she enjoyed hearing she was part of a group considered to be easy prey for others in The Five Finals, but she’d always preferred the ugly truth to kind lies.
“The most important thing is to trust your partner.” Adriana said.
“That’s not useful, Ads,” Henri reproached again.
Adriana scowled at her. “It’s the truth though.”
Allyra glanced at Jason, who was still at the center of a cluster of excitable admirers. “We haven’t exactly gotten off to the greatest start,” she muttered darkly.
Henri gave her a sympathetic glance. “Look, I know it sounds impossible, but you have to trust him. You guys are in it together. You live and die together.”
“You might as well get used to the idea that if you die during The Five Finals, Jason will probably be the last person you see,” Adriana added helpfully.
“How did you guys do it?” Allyra asked, desperately trying to turn the focus of the conversation from her and Jason to something else. Anything else. “How did you become friends with someone that tried to kill you?”
Henri and Adriana grinned at each other, an easy and practiced look that Allyra suddenly found herself envying.
“Well, first of all, we didn’t try to kill each other,” Henri said.
“Yeah, because Henri only lasted twenty minutes before conceding,” Adriana said, laughing.
“Only because I knew that you were way too stubborn to concede, and you were busy bleeding to death!” Henri shot back good-naturedly. “I didn’t want your death on my conscience.”
It was the type of easy banter that only came after years of friendship. Adriana rolled her eyes dramatically, and Henri turned to Allyra and whispered conspiratorially, “Between us, the guy that came third… He was a complete jerk. So—neither of us wanted to get stuck with him.”
Adriana sobered quickly and said seriously, “I won’t lie, it wasn’t exactly easy sailing. There’s no magic potion for friendship.”
Henri nodded. “It took us weeks before we spoke to each other, months before we became friends, and years before we trusted each other to watch our backs.”
“And the fact is, you don’t have years.” Adriana interjected. “Do something to trust him or you’re going to be out of here. Or dead.”
Allyra sighed and glanced at Jason again. “I know.”
* * *
Jason had left by the time she finished her dinner. Henri and Adriana had invited her back to their room to chat further, but Allyra had demurred, feeling exhausted after a long first day. She limped back to her own room, ready to get some sleep.
After her talk with Henri and Adriana, Allyra resolved to set her anger aside and at least trust Jason enough to leave her alone to sleep. Imagining what he might do to her was achieving nothing except to give her insomnia. And, if she was too tired to think or train, the other pairs were definitely going to get the message that she would be easy pickings. At least, that was, if they hadn’t already.
Filled with optimistic thoughts, Allyra felt positively angelic. Until—her door came into view. Allyra stopped dead in her tracks. There was a sock on the door handle. The universal do not disturb message. Understood by anyone and everyone.
Rage blossomed back into life within her. It burned so brightly Allyra thought she might actually burst into flames. Wrath threatened to consume her, and she struggled to pull her thoughts together. Taking a deep breath, Allyra waited for the red tide of fury to recede. Then, she contemplated storming into the room with righteous indignation and throwing out whoever Jason was amusing himself with. Perhaps it was time to finally have it out with Jason. And if it came to blows—well, so be it. She’d had enough of his underhanded taunts.
With the decision made, A
llyra strode forward with determination and instantly regretted her decision. She winced as she put her full weight on her sprained ankle. Suddenly, she had two heartbeats—the one in her chest and the other pulsing out a rhythm of pain centered in her ankle, sending jolts of red-hot agony up her leg.
Perhaps discretion was the better part of valor.
The last thing she needed was to have a full-on fight with Jason. And lose it. It would only make her already precarious position even less secure.
Allyra tightened her jaw and then turned around abruptly, heading quickly toward the common room before she could change her mind again. She would read for a couple of hours, and then, sprained ankle or not, she was going to kick out Jason’s bedmate.
There was only one other occupant in the common room, sitting at a table, almost completely obscured by towers of books, his forehead furrowed in concentration. He had huge brown eyes hidden behind a pair of thick-framed reading glasses through which he blinked up at her as she walked farther into the room.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
She shrugged noncommittally, a little wary.
He grinned knowingly. “Or is it that you didn’t want to be anywhere near your partner after he dropped you from a great height?”
Allyra sighed. Had everyone seen that?
“Something like that,” she replied.
He shot her a sympathetic look. “My partner and I aren’t particularly fond of each other either.”
He gestured for her to take a seat and she hobbled over to join him.
“It’s Chi, by the way,” he said by way of introduction.
“Allyra,” she replied, looking at the piles of open books spread before him. “Are you studying?”
He nodded. “I have to.”
She turned to him questioningly.
Chi tilted his head and quirked a half-smile at her. He pointed to his slim and small-structured body. “As you can see, I didn’t get here by traditional means. I’m not the strongest, and I don’t have the most powerful Gift. I basically outsmarted everyone in the First and Second Trials. Then, as expected, I got thoroughly beaten in the Final Trial. My partner isn’t exactly excited to have me in his team. If I want to get anywhere in this competition, I have to study.”
The entire explanation had been delivered honestly without hesitation or embarrassment. Allyra warmed to his frankness and smiled. “Outsmarting everyone seems like a totally valid way to get here. I’ve always thought brains were better than brawn.”
Chi grinned. “Well, my partner would definitely disagree with you.”
“What are you studying?”
“Evanescence.”
Allyra raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t think that was something you could learn through reading.”
Chi looked shocked. “What are you saying?” he said with exaggerated horror. “Everything can be learnt through reading.” He continued more seriously. “But you’re probably right. I just figured that I could use as much information as possible to avoid killing myself when I finally try it.”
“If you’re worried about it, then why try it at all?” Allyra asked. “The Shadow Causeway makes it easy enough to travel between the colleges. And most people make do with airplanes, cars, and trains. I’m sure no one will judge you for sticking to more mundane forms of transportation.”
He smiled at her kindly. “It isn’t about traveling—it’s about winning The Five Finals. At least one of the Finals will require Evanescence.”
Yet another thing she didn’t know. The list seemed to be growing. She was really getting tired of consistently being the least informed person in the room. In her mind, she cursed Laureline. A whole month of lessons and she left this particular pearl out?
Chi studied her, his intelligent brown eyes searching.
“But I guess you don’t need to worry, do you?” he asked quietly. “You’ve already crossed the Veil into the Between. You already know what it feels like.”
Allyra shook her head, fighting a cloud of general confusion. “What do you mean?”
“The Five Finals always tests Evanescence. It’s an artifact of a time before the Betrayal, when The Five Finals were meant to find the strongest Gifted pair to enter the Between and renew the Source. Evanescence is the closest thing to actually crossing the Veil,” Chi explained.
Chi fell silent, his long artist’s fingers stroking the pages of the book in front of him. He turned to her suddenly and words tumbled from him. “What was it like?” he asked. “Crossing the Veil?”
Allyra took some time to consider how best to describe the moment of infinite light as she’d crossed the Veil. The almost irresistible siren call reverberating through her mind like an endless echo, screaming for her to let go. The strange, indescribable feeling of being so small as to be utterly irrelevant yet somehow a part of something infinitely large and important. It had taken every shred of willpower to remember what and who she was. It had been both intensely exhilarating and desperately terrifying.
“I don’t really know…” Allyra said slowly. “It was like being me and not me at the same time. Like standing on a knife edge. On one side, you return to yourself and carry on living. On the other side, you become… You become part of something more.”
Chi nodded, his expression troubled, and silence stretched between them. Allyra fidgeted, feeling awful for not being able to offer him a more concrete explanation.
He brightened suddenly and turned to her, asking, “Do you want to hear my favorite description of Evanescence?”
Not bothering to wait for her reply, Chi dug through his various piles of books, searching for the correct one. He pulled out a large, bound volume, flipped through it to find the right page, and then started reading from it.
“Perhaps, above all else, Evanescence is the thing that defines us as the Gifted—the privilege to be more than ourselves, to become part of the Elements that make up the world around us. It is a privilege never to be taken lightly or ever to be attempted by the unprepared. For those untrained in Evanescence, it would be best described as attempting to find a single grain of sand on a beach covered in identical grains. Even for the most talented and skilled amongst us, the experience is akin to searching for a single red grain of sand on an infinite beach covered in straw-colored ones.”
Allyra tensed. Like lightning on a stormy night, electricity leaped through her nerves. Those words were familiar. Too familiar. She’d heard them before—on Alex’s lips.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Chi asked, oblivious to her sudden horror. “At least, it’s equal parts beautiful and terrifying.”
“Who said them?” Allyra asked, trying to keep her voice light and neutral, feeling anything but.
Chi grimaced. “The Elemental High Master from the Betrayal. Not exactly a respected source these days. But it’s still a great description of Evanescence.”
Allyra’s throat tightened, and she felt as if the air was being choked from her lungs. Ice crawled through her veins, covering her skin with a swarm of goose bumps.
Is this finally going to be the confirmation I need?
Am I finally going to find out whom Alex really was?
Chi flipped through a few more pages of his book. “Do you want to see a picture of him?” he asked.
Allyra nodded, not trusting her voice anymore.
Chi held out the book to her, and her fingers trembled as she took it from him. She forced herself to look down. And then suddenly there he was.
Alex.
My Alex.
It was a copy of a painting, but the artist had successfully captured the elegant, beautiful lines in Alex’s face. A passable attempt had even been made to reproduce those extraordinary eyes that had always seemed to contain every shade of blue—from the pale light of a dawn sky to the heavy darkness found only in the deepest fathoms of the ocean. Even as a painting, Alex’s fierce energy was unmistakable, almost leaping off the page.
There was no denying it anymore. The m
an she’d met in the Between, the one who had saved her life, who’d trained her, was not some unfortunately named descendant of the Elemental High Master of the Betrayal. He was the Elemental High Master, the one who’d convinced an entire generation of Elementals to betray everything the Gifted stood for, ultimately leading them to their deaths.
“He doesn’t look like a power-hungry, homicidal maniac, does he?” Chi asked thoughtfully, jolting her from her thoughts. “I guess that’s why they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”
Chi glanced at her when she didn’t reply and took in the stricken expression on her face, now utterly devoid of blood.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked with gentle concern.
Allyra nodded and did her best to force a smile back on her face. Judging by Chi’s continued look of concern, she wasn’t completely successful.
“I’m…” Her voice caught, and she tried to swallow down the lump that had formed in her throat.
She tried again, her voice still hoarse. “I’m fine. It’s… It’s just that he changed everything…”
Chi turned his eyes back to the picture in the book and nodded eagerly.
“And the fact that they’ve never found him—it really adds to the mystery, doesn’t it?”
“Excuse me?”
“They never found his body,” Chi clarified.
Allyra shook her head, trying to make sense of the flood of information. “What does it matter?” she asked. “They all died, didn’t they? All the Elementals that followed him into the Between?”
Chi nodded, and she could almost see the excitement rising within him. This was clearly a subject he’d spent a great deal of time thinking about.
“Thirty-three Elementals crossed through multiple Gates during the Betrayal. They found thirty-one bodies, including that of his brother Thomas.” Chi stared at her, his dark brown eyes swirling with excitement. “But they never found his.”
