by ML Spencer
“I need you!” Aram gasped. “Please! Wake up!”
“What is it?” The old man set the book down on the floor and sat up, wiping a trickle of saliva off his jowl. His eyes were watery and almost as red as his nose. Aram suspected he’d been in his cups again.
“My friend—the friend I told you about! Markus!” He had a hard time getting the words out. “I need your help!”
It took a long time to explain to Esmir about Markus, about the Heart of the Grove, about the torching of the Great Tree. By the end, Esmir sat staring straight ahead, as though incapable of processing all he had just heard.
At Esmir’s lack of reaction, Aram bit his lip, fighting back tears of despair. “You don’t understand!”
“I do understand,” Esmir barked. “I was Daymar’s husband as well as his Warden. I doubt there were ever two men closer than we were.”
Aram hung his head. “What will happen to him, Esmir?”
“They will try him before the Council. They will likely find him guilty.”
Terror lanced through Aram’s heart, and he shot to his feet. “Then I need to talk to them! Right now!”
Esmir shook his head heavily. “You have no right to speak to the Council.”
“I don’t care!” Aram gulped, already heading for the door of the eyrie.
Bursting into the corridor, he took the stairs down to the level of the Council room and, without bothering to knock, thrust the door open and strode in. Within, the Council was already convened. Every person in the room turned to look at him as Aram forced himself into their midst. Expressions ranging from shock to outright hostility greeted him, but he paid them no mind. He strode right to the center of their circle and stopped beside the fire. Rage flaring in her eyes, Vandra started to rise, but the Dedicant Mother waved her down.
Looking at Aram with a stare of chiseled ice, Luvana said, “This is a closed meeting, Apprentice. We have heavy matters to weigh, not the least of which is the destruction of the Grove. Now, remove yourself! Turn around and walk back out that door.”
Aram shook his head, his fists balled at his sides. His eyes felt red and raw, but at least they were dry. Desperation fueled his courage and trampled his prudence.
“I’ve come to beg for the release of Markus Galliar,” he said. “He is my friend from my village. He was captured by the Exilari at the same time I was. He’s been—”
“Exilar Galliar has been sentenced to death,” interrupted Luvana flatly. “Now, go.”
The world stopped.
“No,” Aram gasped, shaking his head emphatically. “No! You can’t do that! He’s my best friend! He’s like my brother! He’s risked his life for me—”
Eyes flashing in ire, the Dedicant Mother rose to her feet and pointed at the doorway. “Leave here now, before I charge you with insubordination!”
Taking a menacing step toward her, Aram shouted, “I will not leave here until you release Markus!”
“Vandra,” Luvana said quietly.
The Wingmaster surged to her feet and started toward him. But Aram evaded her, backing away toward the open wall of the chamber, maintaining his distance.
“Talk to him!” Aram pleaded. “Markus wouldn’t kill innocents! He didn’t hurt anyone!”
Vandra stalked toward him relentlessly. Aram backed away from her, mindful that he was being cornered against the cliff’s edge. “Please! Just talk to him!”
Vandra hesitated, and Aram swung to glare his rage and defiance at Luvana. “If you execute Markus, you may as well kill me too!”
Scowling, Luvana waved Vandra forward. “Get him out of here.”
The Wingmaster swiped out to catch him, but Aram dodged sideways, positioning himself right at the edge of the opening that looked out over the gaping chasm. Vandra drew up immediately, raising her hands, her eyes peering deeply into Aram’s as though gauging his resolve.
To the Council, Aram proclaimed, “Markus Galliar is innocent. Either agree to hear his side of the story, or I’ll take a long step backward.”
“Wait!” One of the old men seated before the fire rose to his feet. “Would you believe the word of a Champion, Luvana?”
The Dedicant Mother kept her eyes on Aram as she answered, “He’s not a Champion yet, Barom, and he’ll likely never be.”
“Nevertheless.” The old man spread his hands. “If this young man passes the Trials, then a Champion is exactly what he will be. But he will never pass the Trials if he flings himself off the cliff. That this boy feels strongly enough to threaten his own life gives me pause. I wish to speak with this Markus Galliar before we condemn both these young men to death.”
Luvana’s lip curled, her eyes full of reproach. “Very well.” To Aram, she ordered, “Move away from the edge.”
But Aram shook his head. “No. Not until you talk to Markus.”
There was a long, tense moment during which no one in the chamber moved. At last, Vandra turned and strode toward the door with a spitted curse. “I’ll get him.”
Aram remained at the edge of the chasm, feeling the wind of the gorge at his back. Every member of the Council was staring at him, but he didn’t care. All his life, he’d wished desperately for a best friend, and he had found such a friend in Markus. He couldn’t abandon him—he couldn’t live with himself if he did. Compared to the pain of knowing he’d failed his friend, a plunge into oblivion would be a welcome alternative.
It took many minutes before Vandra returned with two men leading Markus, who came behind them in chains. He had been stripped of his armor and was brought forth before the Council shirtless and bruised, a cut on his cheek, his bottom lip split. As he entered, his gaze went straight to Aram and, seeing his position at the edge of a cliff, his eyes widened in fear. He shook his head vigorously.
“Markus Galliar.” The Dedicant Mother rose to her feet, her eyes cold as death. “You stand accused of aiding the massacre of the people of the Grove. What do you have to say in your defense?”
Markus tried to spread his hands, but the chains binding his wrists denied him the motion.
“I didn’t know!” he swore. “The army went through first. I didn’t know they were killing villagers until I got there!”
Luvana’s eyes narrowed. “What did you know, and when did you know it?”
Markus glanced around desperately at the members of the Council. “I knew we were breaking an Anchor to create a stable rupture. I didn’t really know what that meant. I never heard anything about it before today, and I didn’t know anything about a village. The moment I stepped through the rupture, all I knew was that we were under attack. I defended the sorcerer assigned to me until I saw the bodies, and when I realized what was happening … I abandoned my sorcerer…”
“And then what?”
“Then I saw Aram.”
“By all reports, you attacked him too,” the Dedicant Mother said coldly.
“I thought he was a void walker.” Markus glanced at Aram with a look full of profound sorrow. “Please believe me—I would never kill civilians. I didn’t know. I didn’t …” His voice collapsed into sobs. His strong shoulders shook, and he raised his chained hands to his face.
“Did anyone see him abandon the fighting?” asked Luvana.
“I did!” snapped Aram. “He broke off from the fight and came to me!”
“And I,” said Vandra. “I saw him lower his guard and walk away from the sorcerer he was protecting.” She glanced at Aram, nodding slightly, and he smiled back with heartfelt gratitude.
Luvana’s gaze went from Vandra to Markus, who stood bowed beneath the weight of his guilt. Tears glistened on his cheeks, his face red and tormented.
To Aram, she asked, “Will you vouch for him with your life?”
“With my life,” Aram answered, for the first time daring to hope. “He’s Impervious. If I pass the Trials, he can be my Warden.”
The Dedicant Mother raised her hand, rubbing her eyes as though exhausted by the decision before her. “Very
well. Are there any who disagree?”
Three hands went up around the fire, but they were outnumbered by the hands that didn’t. Aram sagged in relief, feeling a heady dizziness. He moved forward, relinquishing his position at the edge of the chasm.
Luvana asked Markus, “Will you foreswear your allegiance to the Exilari and seal your cause to ours?”
Markus hesitated. “What exactly is your cause?”
“The defense of our world,” Luvana answered. She added acidly, “From people like you.”
Markus glanced back at Aram. “Do you support this?”
Aram smiled through tears of gratitude. “With all my heart.”
“Then I will do the same.”
“Very well.” Raising her voice, the Dedicant Mother pronounced, “Let Markus Galliar be assigned to the fighting Wing as an apprentice. Wingmaster Vandra, he is now your charge. Have Esmir begin his training as a Warden.”
As the two young men departed the Council chamber, Eraine Vandra watched them leave with a long, considering gaze. In truth, she was surprised that Luvana had conceded to halting the execution. She had grave misgivings about her own support, but it was a gamble she felt she had to take, because she felt deeply that Aram’s only chance of success might lie with his Impervious friend. When Aram had first arrived at Skyhome, Vandra had held out little hope for him. She had doubted he would survive the training, much less the Trials of a Champion.
But now, each day a little more, she felt her mind changing. Aram was improving faster than she had ever imagined, and the magic he could summon was no less than miraculous. After his defense of the Grove, Vandra had allowed a tenuous hope to take root. But that hope depended on two grave uncertainties. First, every Champion needed a Warden, and the only trained Warden they had was Esmir, who was far past his prime. Which was why Vandra had voted to save Galliar’s life, though only time would tell whether the young man’s training as an Exilar hadn’t poisoned his core.
It was the second uncertainty that was the source of many more sleepless nights.
Regarding Luvana with a long and searching gaze, Vandra asked, “When do you intend to tell Aram about his father?”
“Not until I have to.”
Vandra nodded gravely, for she hoped Aram wasn’t destined for the same calamity.
III
Apprentice
Chapter Forty-Nine
Markus spent the remainder of the day getting reacquainted with Aram. He couldn’t believe how healthy his old friend was and how much he had grown. Aram had changed so much from the twelve-year-old boy he had rescued from Jory Kannet and his friends back in Anai. And not only physically—Aram was much more animated when he spoke, and he seemed to have a passion for life that had been lacking when he was younger, perhaps learned from his experience in the cellars. His face had lost a lot of its severity, so his rigid gaze wasn’t as unsettling as it used to be.
Markus was also amazed by the world he found himself in. He had known dragons existed, for he had seen and fought the ones that had come through ruptures. But he could have never imagined what a real, living dragon would look like. His experience on the back of one had been the most breathtaking minutes of his life. The people who lived among them reminded him of his own people, the Vards, though many of their customs were different. They had the same brown skin and hair, and any one of them could have passed for a citizen of Anai. It was the accents that threw him off the most. They rolled their r sounds instead of softening them, and accented different syllables.
Markus followed Aram back to his dormitory and, once there, set him up in his own bunk, moving his things to the one beneath it. He then introduced himself to the other apprentices who would be his roommates. They seemed nice enough, except for Iver and Eugan, who seemed a little hesitant, not sure what to make of him or his past with the Exilari, and both had an obvious dislike of Aram.
They stayed awake long into the deep hours of the night, whispering about home and their experience with the Exilari and Aram’s experiences in this new world. When Markus tried questioning Aram about the cellars, though, he wouldn’t talk about it. He grew quiet and clammed up. Markus understood, so he stopped asking, feeling horrible for him, wishing he could have gotten him out of there years before he did. He was just happy that whatever horrors the Extractors had inflicted upon Aram hadn’t caused irreparable damage. It was almost unbelievable, really. He had seen the other people in that courtyard with him, and their minds had been broken, one and all.
Of course, none of them were Aram, and that made a big difference.
When they blew out the small candle and lay down to sleep, Markus pulled his covers up and gazed at the shadows of the ceiling, beyond grateful for this chance to start over—to become a person he wasn’t ashamed of being.
In the morning, they ate breakfast with the other apprentices. Aram was excited for the day—excited to show Markus around his new home and show him how much he had learned with the aid of his new friends, hoping more than anything that Markus would be proud of him.
But as soon as they arrived at the training grounds, Master Henrik told them they would no longer be training with the other students. From now on, they would be reporting to the Henge every day. Hearing that filled Aram with not just disappointment but a dark feeling of foreboding. He didn’t like looking at the ring of standing stones, knowing what they meant for him. He didn’t know why he and Markus had to train there. There wasn’t even any equipment up there. Besides, who was going to instruct them?
He led Markus up the many long flights of steps to the top of the cliffs. There, Aram started across the sand-paved circle to the center of the stone ring, but when he got there, he saw that Markus hadn’t followed him. Instead, his friend had walked toward the edge of the bluff and was looking down into the great fissure of the gorge. Aram could only imagine what Markus was thinking—probably the same thing he had been thinking when he’d first seen the bottomless rent in the earth: wondering what kind of evils could be spawned down there.
Eventually, Markus turned away from the edge and walked toward him across the circle. There, they stood in silence, peering at the stone monuments: Aram, with feelings of anxiety and dismay, and Markus, with a look of wary speculation.
To Aram’s surprise, they were joined by Esmir, who came out from behind one of the perimeter buildings, panting from the climb and limping toward them with the aid of a cane.
Drawing up in front of them, the old man bobbed his head at Markus and said, “I’m Esmir Revin. I’m what you Exilari call a Shield. I was a Champion’s Shield, so I’m called a Warden. I’ll be making you unlearn everything those imbeciles taught you.” To both of them, he said, “From now on, you will report here, to me. Our goal is to make Aram into a Champion.” He poked his cane into Markus’s chest. “And you into his Warden. How many years did you study with the Exilari?”
“Five and a half,” answered Markus.
“Well, you can throw out most of what you learned from them.” Esmir swiped his hand through the air with a disgusted look. “Shielding a Champion is very different from Shielding one of their sorcerers. Even with all the essence they can drink, an Exilari sorcerer still can’t see in color. Which means they can only do one thing at a time, and they have to focus on the details. True Savants, on the other hand, see in color, but it’s more than just that. Daymar described it as weaving an entire loom of threads all at the same time. Which means that Aram can weave an entire tapestry of magic in seconds, so you’re going to have to learn to react a lot faster.”
Markus glanced at Aram with a look of new appreciation.
Esmir continued, “So all of those cumbersome forms and exercises they taught you will have to be forgotten. You will have to learn to be fluid on your feet. You can’t use a bulky shield, so you’ll have to learn how to use your own body to Shield him. It’s all about positioning. But, more than that, it’s about teamwork. The two of you will have to train together until you can anticipate
every move the other makes. You’re going to have to move as one body controlled by the same brain—and that’s going to take a hell of a lot of coordination and practice.” He rammed the butt of his cane into the sand. “Which means we need to start now.”
As he was speaking to Markus, Aram was gazing around the square, looking at the ominous standing stones surrounding it, each a door to a terrifying unknown. The longer he stood there, the deeper anxiety’s sharp claws dug into him.
He looked at Esmir in concern. “How will any of this help me prepare for the Trials? Won’t I have to go in alone?”
“You’re ready to move on to a new phase in your training,” Esmir told him. “But it’s taxing, so you can only spend so much time at it. And you’ll need Markus the moment you come back out of those stones, so you need to start working together.”
“Will there be any Trials for me?” asked Markus.
Esmir gave him a sad, knowing smile. “Every day of your life will be a trial. It’s a heavy burden, knowing that the life of a Champion depends upon you exclusively.”
Markus frowned, a worried and distant expression on his face. “That’s … intimidating.”
“It is. Everything you do from this moment forward should be done with that thought in mind.” The old Warden clapped his hands. “Now, for the first order of business! We have to get both of you sized for armor. You’ll also need swords. Real swords,” he added, lifting his eyebrows at the worn blade Aram wore at his side.
“I’ve got armor,” said Markus.
“Bah!” Esmir crinkled his face. “You can throw that armor off the cliff. It’s too damn heavy, and it will slow you down too much. A Warden needs special armor, so he can be light on his feet. The same for a Champion.” He pointed a finger at Aram. “You need armor that can take a beating in case Markus goes down. And it needs to be made of a material that’s highly conductive. So that’s going to be our first order of business. Now, to the armorer!”
