It was late when the four of them finally filed in out of the darkness. Jey’s three companions had begun to flag shortly after sunset. They’d been making the journey in easy stages, relying on the woods for concealment. Now they’d come close to the capital. They often walked along the rims of cultivated fields. The trees, when there were any at all, were widely spaced, underbrush sparse. This was a landscape Jey and Elle knew well. Only a year ago they’d been running for their lives in these woods.
It was strange to be back in the broad, mild lands around Deramor. They’d descended steadily since leaving the Valley of Mist, leaving behind the sharp-scented pines to drop into the realm of ancient oak and ash. They had walked down and down. The air had grown steadily more warm, and more damp.
Phril had spent much of the early journey on the other side of his stitchring. The stitchring was one of the few innovations the Tessilari had created after they fled Masidon. It was a tiny portal, a loop of wire enchanted to connect to a single brillbane bush in a greenhouse. Any tessila that flew through the ring would shift across all the miles between itself and that bush in an instant.
It was an important innovation, as tessili could not live without brillbane. And a Tessilari, once joined, could not live without his tessila.
At first Phril had eschewed the cold, dark forest in favor of his bush in the warm greenhouse. Each day, though, he’d grown more interested in the journey. Now he was with Jey, and he was delighted. The air in this valley was warm and rich with summer. He could fly without getting a chill. His high spirits filtered back to Jey as he darted through the hatch ahead of her and disappeared into the darkness.
Not long ago, Jey would have worried about him flying off on his own like that, fearing the shelter might not have been well sealed. There could be cats or bats or territorial birds lurking in the darkness. His body being only about the length of her thumb, for a long time, Jey had considered Phril vulnerable.
That was before he’d learned to shift. Now Phril was capable of expanding to the size of a large dog. At that size, with sharp talons, wings, and a jaw full of teeth, he was formidable.
Still, Jey looked after her tessili, unable to keep from worrying. The first few times Phril had shifted, he’d made himself as large as a horse. But in the months since their arrival at the Valley of Mists, he’d never been able to repeat that feat. Treyam’s theory was the absence of mortal danger made him less inclined to push his limits. But Jey, knowing temperance was the least pronounced of all Phril’s traits, wasn’t so sure.
Jey walked to the center of the room as Treyam followed, holding aloft a spherical spell that glowed in his palm. It was an active luminance spell, Jey knew, but it was one she’d never been particularly good at. She also wasn’t great at the active ignition spell Lokim cast a few moments later after he’d carried an armful of logs to the fire ring. It seemed Jey’s talents, no matter how hard she tried to shift them, continued to lie in one direction. If it didn’t involve maiming or killing, she wasn’t good at it.
As the fire began to dance, Jey set her pack down on one of the sleeping stones. As the fire caught and bloomed, a low rippling light spread along the bas relief carvings that adorned the walls. To her eye, this chamber seemed an exact copy of the one they’d stayed in before, complete with withered brillbane bushes and a thick coat of gritty dust on the floor. These shelters had been created by the Tessilari to keep their people safe in the eventuality the diods reached the capital. That hadn’t happened. Instead, after that war, the people of Masidon had turned on the Tessilari, fearing the very magic that had saved their lives.
Taken by surprise, already weakened by the long war, and facing weapons they themselves had crafted so men without magics could stand against the diods, the Tessilari had fallen. Most had died fighting. Some few had fled. Others had been captured and taken to the academy, where they’d been forced to create the school that had produced Jey and Elle.
With the fire lit, Lokim settled down to skin the rabbits his tessila, Bliz, had caught for dinner. The orange tessila was a stealthy, effective hunter, and caught twice as many rabbits as the rest of the tessili combined. Phril himself was not much skilled at hunting. He was ferocious if attacked, but strategy was not his forte.
Jey sighed, gazing in blank fatigue at the dancing murals that were coming to life around the edges of the room. She felt so limited sometimes. Elle had learned dozens of new spells during their time in the valley. Treyam was a versatile caster with a seemingly endless ability to improvise and adapt his magic on the fly.
Jey was only good at one thing. And it was something she loathed.
Her mouth tightened as Phril remerged from the darkness, coming in for a quick landing to cling to the collar of her leather vest. Looking down, she ran her finger along the fine edge of his skull. Her thoughts drifted towards the academy. At least her talents would still have use for a short while. There were some people in the world yet who deserved to die.
She heard the light creak of leather and turned to see Elle setting her pack down by another sleeping stone. She noticed Jey watching and her mouth bent in a wan smile. “I’m out of shape,” she said, rubbing her shoulders where the pack’s straps had chafed. “I’m rubbed raw, and I’ll need to wear a wide-necked gown within a few days. If they’re still in style, that is.”
Jey glanced towards the fire. Treyam had joined Lokim, but the two men weren’t talking. They crouched on either side of the fire, working on the rabbits in brittle silence. Jey still didn’t know what had happened between the two of them that caused such tension. When she asked Treyam, he dodged the question. When she asked Lokim, he either went stiff and silent or simply walked away.
“Treyam could heal the chafing,” Jey said. Treyam had a particular gift for healing. As she spoke, she seemed to feel a bloom of remembered heat in her own calf where she still bore the faintest of scars to remind her of the vicious puncture Nylan’s knife had left in her leg. Treyam had healed her, clamping his firm hands over the torn muscle and making it whole. Moments later, he’d healed Lokim’s cracked skull. But Jey could barely manage to smooth over her own blisters.
Elle’s face flushed in the low light at her friend’s suggestion. “Oh, I can heal them myself,” she said. “I’m just being a wimp.” Then she gave a light, uncomfortable laugh, and drifted away towards the fire.
◈
The stone set above the northern entry hatch began to glow. Jey looked up from her work, squinting. It was a bright, cloudless day. The sunstone of the ceiling let the brilliant light spill down unchecked.
Jey was sharpening her knives. She’d neglected her weapons somewhat these last months. In the Valley of Mist, there was no need to hunt. The Tessilari kept herds of domesticated goats that thrived on the sparse grasses of the high meadows and flocks of lean game hens that pecked for seeds among the pine trees. While some of the ingenious greenhouses were devoted to the brillbane that supported the tessili, others were full of cultivated plants that produced an impressive variety of plump fruits and colorful vegetables.
Jey and Elle had both been interviewed and assessed upon their arrival in the valley. Elle had been put to work in the clinic, where her soft voice and gentle hands were appreciated. She was taught any number of practical spells that might ease a sick child or a woman in labor.
Jey, on the other hand, had been assigned an axe and sent to a barren camp where downed trees were hauled to be chopped into firewood. Day after day, she’d split logs and watched the quick clouds cross the sky, waiting to be summoned by the council, fearing she’d made a mistake in trusting Treyam.
Treyam, later, had assured her the assignment was not a veiled insult or a punishment of any kind. “Many here are too old or too young for heavy work,” he’d said. “And our numbers are fewer each season. You’re a valuable resource.”
Today, Jey had made a systematic review of her weapon’s belt. She’d considered the callouses on her palms as she rubbed oil into the g
rips of her knives. She’d healed a ragged hangnail that had left the tip of one finger tender. A warrior had to take care of her hands.
The sunlight in the chamber was so bright Jey wouldn’t have seen the stone above the hatch begin to glow if she hadn’t been watching for it. As soon as she saw the telltale light, she stood, setting her whetstone aside and settling her knife into her palm. She waited, watching the dim hallway that led into the shelter from the hatch. Phril, who’d already begun to grow bored with the chamber, flew over to loop in lazy circles around her head.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. A woman appeared, walking out of the shadows. For a moment, Jey could only stare.
The woman wore a fine gown, rich without being ornate, marred only slightly by the few damp areas along the bottom of the skirts that indicated she’d been walking through a forest rather than along a cobbled street.
As she passed out of the hatch and continued towards Jey, the familiar set of her shoulders and tilt of her jaw made Jey’s head spin.
Because nothing else about Elle was recognizable.
Her friend continued a few more paces into the room, then stopped. Her expression was a mingled blend of self-satisfaction and annoyance. She directed her strangely light eyes at the weapon Jey held at ready. “I take it the disguise is working, then?”
Even her voice was different. Jey, flushing, shoved the knife back into its sheath. Phril, fascinated, swept towards Elle and danced a circle around her body.
She was transformed, but the changes were subtle. Her forehead was a little too high, her nose a little too long. Her eyes were a different color, set too close. Her waist was a little too thick, her hair two shades too light. It all combined to make Jey’s oldest friend into a stranger.
When Jey’s only response was to stare, Elle laughed and glanced around the bright, expansive room. “Where’s Lokim?”
Jey managed to tear her eyes away. Shai, who’d been hiding at the base of Elle’s braid, stuck his spiked head out and hissed at Phril, who hissed back but looped away, his red wings brilliant in the sunlight. “Still out gathering. So is Treyam.” Jey herself had downed a large goose early in the day and returned to clean the carcass and prepare the meat, setting most of it in the smoke room to cure. They wanted to stockpile as much food as possible. Fortunately, this place was equipped to help with the work of keeping many people sheltered and fed for long periods of time.
Elle looked disappointed. She gazed down at her muddied skirt, sighed, and her face seemed to smear. The magic fell away from her in slow loops. Jey blinked. Her friend was herself again. “That’s amazing,” Jey said.
Elle grimaced, heading towards the pegs on the wall where she’d hung her leathers. “Hardly,” she said. “It’s just a dozen passive distortion spells, held on different parts of my body. It’s way less work than one big passive echo spell. I think, with practice, I’ll be able to hold them for hours at a time.”
Jey walked over to the fire, stirred up the coals, and dropped on a log or two. They didn’t need the warmth, but somehow this central fire powered the entire chamber. It heated the pool in the back that was for bathing and caused the smoke room to grow hot and fill with smoke. The sheer complexity of the magics, the sophisticated understanding of the principles of enchantment that would have been required to create such a place, made Jey’s head spin.
Across the room, Elle began to work her way out of her fine gown. Shai flew to the lacing at her back and pulled on the tie until it came free and Elle could continue with her fingers. “I found a house,” Elle said in a cheery voice as she worked. “It’s a good price. The family selling it seems to have left the city rather suddenly. It’s well positioned on High Street. I can set up there, and go about introducing myself to old friends.” She laughed.
While Jey had been primarily used as an assassin during her years at Tessili Academy, Elle had been something subtler. She’d had an entire false persona and had been sent into Deramor on a regular basis to use her gifts at passive persuasion to ensure certain people behaved and thought in certain ways. Because of this past, Elle felt at home in Masidon’s capital. She was adept when it came to the intrigue of the court. Their plan was to set her up in town and establish her there under a new identity. She would gather intelligence and be poised to use her talents to influence important people when needed.
Jey poked at the fire again, chewing on her lip. It was all going to take so long. It would be months before Elle was established, even longer before she had a true grasp of the current political environment, and longer still before they could take what she learned and use it to somehow bring down the academy.
“The price hardly matters.” Jey spoke under her breath, but her friend heard, and frowned. Elle didn’t like to be reminded her funds had all been stolen. She sniffed, hung up her dress, and began to pull her leathers on over her underclothes.
Jey set the stick she’d been using to poke the fire aside, hearing the meanness of the comment. “I’m sorry, Elle.” She spoke with sincerity, trying to rally. “You were amazing today. This would never work without you.”
Elle tied her breeches into place, giving Jey a small smile over her shoulder. But when she turned, her eyes were sad. She walked over to the fire and set a hand on her friend’s arm. “I want to get those girls out of the academy as badly as you,” she said. “But you know the risk. Right now, we lose one or two a year. If we mess this up, they could all be murdered.”
As awful as they were, the words were true. Still, Jey had a hard time accepting them. It was a brutal kind of equation. The Tessilari were slow. They’d survived all this time by hiding. If they were going to reveal themselves now, they had to make sure to do it the right way.
Jey looked up at the bright ceiling, her eyes suddenly hot. “It’s almost time for graduation,” she said.
Elle’s hand fell to her side. She walked back to where her boots lay and stepped into one. She spoke in a sad, low voice. “I know.”
◈
Professor Liam walked through the dim corridors of the faculty compound, making his quiet way towards his bedchamber. Around him, most of the large windows were open, letting in the fine night breeze. It was late, nearing midnight, and Liam did not carry a candle. He’d been in the library, as he often was these nights, filling his head with useless knowledge.
The truth was, Professor Liam didn’t sleep well these days. Ever since that night when the seniors Jey and Elle had escaped, the atmosphere in Tessili Academy had been tense. Their friend Kae, Liam knew now, had not been as fortunate. The faculty had all been summoned to a meeting hall the next morning. Kae’s body had been on display there, arranged next to the crushed remains of her tessila.
Liam and the other professors had been addressed by the dean himself. This tragedy, the man had said, had come about due to negligence on the part of the faculty. Everyone knew contact with magics unhinged the human mind, stripped away the moral compass, and left behind a monster in human form. That was why most children who showed any aptitude for spellwork were humanely put out of their misery before they could cause any harm. This was why no tessili were allowed to exist outside the academy walls.
Tessili Academy, the dean had gone on, was a special place – a haven for young girls, a place they could learn and grow and have a life they would otherwise have been denied. But magics were crafty. The forces these girls manipulated were evil and tireless. Corruption could sneak past the defenses the academy kept in place. When that happened, tragedy was the result.
He’d gestured at the dead girl, his face a false mask of sorrow. Liam had stared at Kae’s unmarred face, remembering all the times she’d sat in his classroom, her tessila on a holdstone, struggling to learn despite all the blocks in her mind and the drugged state of amnesia in which she passed her days.
Everyone in Masidon knew about magic, but it was a subject never discussed. Children sometimes disappeared suddenly, without explanation. When this happened, no one said anything.
Parents mourned behind closed doors. Neighbors looked the other way. When Liam had been a boy, it had happened to a girl on his street.
But it wasn’t only children. Sometimes rumors would start to fly about a particular adult – strange, inexplicable stories that piled up little by little. Then, without exception, that person would die. It was invariably a peaceful passing during the night blamed on a failure of the heart, or a spasm in the brain. People mourned, feeling secretly relieved it had not happened in their family. Liam didn’t know anything for certain, but he had a theory about what caused those deaths.
He reached the end of the silent hall and opened the door to his bedchamber. His was a generous room with polished floors and large windows. Every room in the faculty compound was ornate, as if the men who lived here could be fooled into forgetting they were prisoners. Liam’s large bed was tucked against the far wall. His desk stood before the open windows.
Liam took one step into the room, then froze.
There was someone sitting at his desk.
For a moment, Liam felt a kind of dull, fatalistic terror. They have found me out at last. The thought came with a strange sense of relief. Ever since Jey and Elle had fled, Liam had waited, convinced some bit of evidence would come to light and reveal his role in what had happened.
A year and a quarter had passed since the night Liam had stood at his window and watched two girls cross the bridge. He’d heard a report they’d been killed, but Liam was skeptical. Unlike with Kae, no bodies had been presented to the faculty.
And the academy had changed. The students were more closely monitored now. He’d been unable, this year, to make any progress with the current seniors. So, in his frustration, Liam had turned to the library. The collection of books in the faculty compound was truly amazing. It was a disorganized mass of every kind of book on magic. He’d read and read. And while he’d learned many interesting things, he’d come up with nothing that could help either the students or himself.
Tessili Revenge Page 2
