by K A Riley
Okay, this was definitely worse than a projection. If ever there was a time I wanted to sink into a hole in the ground, this was it.
I found myself slouching into my hoodie, issuing a sheepish smile to the denizens of the Great Hall.
“Stand up straight. Don’t ever let them see your weaknesses,” Niala cautioned quietly as Rourke, still in his wolf form, crept over and gave my hand a reassuring lick. “Don’t show your rivals that you’re feeling overwhelmed, or they’ll do their best to eat you alive.”
She was right and I knew it.
I told myself to mirror the redhead’s body language, lifting my chin and pulling my gaze away from the mass of curious stares aimed in my direction and up to Callum, who, thankfully, was smiling at me. That was enough to reassure me and take my mind off the judgmental leers of literally everyone else in the room.
“I’d like,” Merriwether said loudly, “to introduce Vega Sloane. She’s the last of our Candidates to arrive. I trust you will all make her feel welcome. She had her birthday just yesterday, so as you can imagine, this has been a little overwhelming for her. We appreciate her quick decision-making and willingness to help.”
I wasn’t sure if he was expecting a round of appreciative applause, but it didn’t come. Instead, it was a shimmer of nearby whispers that met my ears. Looking around, I wasn’t entirely sure where they were coming from. I was sure I heard the words, “Mariah,” “grandmother,” and what sounded for a second like the word “traitor.”
Merriwether explained that our first lessons would occur in the morning, starting with basic combat skills. “Some of you established students who are more experienced than others will be training alongside our Candidates,” he said, shooting a look toward the group of Zerkers. “I know you’ll enjoy showing them how it’s done.”
“Holy crap,” I muttered under my breath as I stared at the Zerkers. Many of the boys were enormous, muscular, and daunting-looking. The girls, too, looked like they could snap me in half like a pretzel stick. “Really? We’re fighting them?”
“They’re less powerful than Waergs,” Niala assured me. “But they fight like animals. It’s good practice.”
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure they want me dead just as badly as any Waerg does. Why does everyone hate the Seekers so much, anyway? Aren’t we here to save the day?”
“Yeah. But everyone else trains all year round, honing their skills under extreme conditions. And then the Seekers swoop in every half-century and grab all the glory.”
It was then that a woman who’d been sitting to Merriwether’s right stood up. She was tall—at least as tall as Callum—and wore a chainmail tunic, leather pants, and bright red leather boots. She would have looked downright comical, had she not been such an intimidating presence. Her dark, shiny hair was tied back in a high ponytail, her lips coated in red lipstick. Sleek, cat-like, and vaguely angry, she looked like a video game villain.
“My name is Lady Gray. I am a weapons specialist here.”
She shot me a look before pulling her eyes to the Seekers’ row. “Each of the Seeker Candidates will learn weapons skills,” she said. “Though you will soon discover that they aren’t the only thing that matter in this place.”
I found myself looking down at my fingers, which were intertwining nervously. Would I be tested on how I held my fork? Whether I talked in my sleep?
“Seekers, the next week will prove extremely difficult for you all,” Lady Gray continued, her eyes moving from one face to the next. “You will be tested constantly. You will find yourselves exhausted by the time the Trials begin. Some of you will be injured—that’s a promise. You’ll be happy to know that no one has died during this early stage of training. Yet.”
She shot a look at one of the smaller female Seeker Candidates, who immediately sank into her seat as though the words themselves were enough to cut her deeply. She looked like she regretted her choice to come here, and I found myself wondering if she’d even had a choice. “Being a Seeker is a tall order, and not every one of you will be up to the task. I will see you all in the morning. Be ready.”
“Thank you, Lady Gray,” Merriwether said, stepping forward once again. “Lady Gray will be instructing the courses on daggers and short swords,” he announced to the room. “Some of you are already familiar with her methods.”
A low buzz arose from the Zerkers. “She does love the sight of blood,” one of them uttered far too loudly from the end of one row.
“He’s not wrong,” Niala whispered. When I looked at her with horror, she shrugged. “You have to be a little psychotic to teach teenagers to stab each other.”
“Mr. Drake,” Merriwether announced, gesturing toward Callum, “will be assisting in the training for ranged weapons, as well as fire spells.”
“Fire spells?” I whispered.
“That’s for the Sparkers,” said Niala. “The students who can summon and manipulate flame.”
“Callum can teach that?”
“He knows quite a lot about fire, actually.”
A memory rushed to my mind of him telling the man in the alley that he could burn him to a crisp.
As I thought about how many powerful people were sitting in front of me, a rush of terror swept through me. It wasn’t so much a fear of being hurt as of failure. What if I wasn’t good enough? What if I made a total fool of myself in front of Callum? It seemed silly, given how little time we’d spent together, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing his friendship—or whatever it was that we’d begun to forge—before I’d ever had the opportunity to get to know him better.
“With that said,” Merriwether concluded, “you are all dismissed. Your classes begin in the morning. I’ll be watching you.”
As the students rose to their feet and began shuffling out of the Great Hall, I shot one final glance toward Callum, hoping to find a way to speak to him. But Merriwether, who had stepped down from the stage, was already making his way over to us.
“Niala, take Miss Sloane to see the crafters to be fitted with her gear,” he said. “Quickly, now. Dinner will be soon, and she needs to be outfitted before she eats.”
Niala nodded reverently.
I shot a look over to Callum, who’d been accosted by a male student who apparently had some pressing question about the belt he was wearing. I managed to catch Callum’s eye for a moment before Niala reached for my arm and dragged me out of the room.
“Come on,” she ordered, her voice sharper than usual. “We need to hurry.”
When we were clear of the room, I turned her way and asked if everything was all right.
“It’s fine,” she said quietly, though I could sense a lie.
When we’d passed a small group of students dressed in blue and green, she reached out and stopped me, pulling me toward the wall. “Don’t let them see you…looking at Callum like that,” she said. “It’ll make things difficult for you.”
“I was just trying to…”
“Your cheeks were going red, you were two seconds away from hyperventilating, and you generally looked like a smitten kitten,” Niala shot back quietly. “I’m serious, Vega. If the others think you’re a favorite of his or of Merriwether’s, you’re going to find your time here really unpleasant.”
As if in reaction to what she’d just said, a trio of boys who’d been standing close by wandered up to us. The tallest of them was dressed in red, his hair tidily combed back, a smug expression on his face.
“So,” he said. “Vega-freaking-Sloane, is it?”
His tongue dripped with disdain as he uttered my name, like it was the most repugnant thing he’d ever had to say. “You don’t look all that amazing. Does she, boys?” With that, he turned to his chuckling friends.
“I’ve never claimed to be amazing,” I replied. “So I’m not sure what your problem is.”
“You do realize this is the Academy for the Blood-Born, right? Not the Academy for the Blood-Polluted? You’re supposed to be invited based on your ancest
ry.”
“My grandmother was a Seeker,” I snapped.
“Your bloodline’s tainted, thanks to your granny,” the boy said, turning around and gesturing to his friends, who let out a series of hoots after what they apparently thought was a very clever insult.
The first boy spun around again to look at me, holding a hand out, palm up. Slowly I watched as he pressed the tips of his thumb and middle finger together. As he pulled them apart again, a series of sparks flared up, growing into a fireball hovering in the air over his palm. “Besides,” he said, “I hear your specialty is doors. Good luck winning a fight against me with a flammable hunk of wood.”
“Shut it, Larken,” Niala snapped, even as Rourke let out a low growl. “You don’t know anything about Vega’s ancestry, let alone her skills.”
“I know enough,” the boy replied. “I know she should never have been invited here.”
With that, he turned and left, his friends accompanying him.
A sinking feeling overtook me, my stomach flipping over on itself. “What’s he talking about?” I asked. “About my bloodline?”
“Ignore him,” Niala replied. “He’s an ass. Come on, let’s get you geared up.”
Without another word, she reached out and took my arm, holding on tight as she guided me down the hall.
Gearing Up
When we arrived at a room with a brass sign outside that said, “Gear and Weapons,” Niala nodded to me to head in.
“I’ll see you in a little while. When the bell rings for dinner, come find me if you want someone to sit with.”
After nodding my thanks, I pushed the door open to find a number of women scurrying around inside a small, dusty room. To one side was a clothing rack packed tight with leather tunics, linen pants, and leather boots, and to the other side was another rack lined with weapons, scabbards, horse saddles, and a bunch of other items I didn’t recognize.
“Vega Sloane,” a short, roundish woman said, striding up to me. It was impossible to tell her age from her face. She had wrinkles, yet her eyes and skin were bright, her cheeks rosy. She wore a long gray dress tied loosely at the waist with a leather belt, and she looked me up and down as she addressed me.
“Yes?” I replied.
“You’re the last of them, eh? Mariah Sloane’s granddaughter?” She narrowed her eyes in an indecipherable way before adding, “Come with me. Quickly, now.”
She escorted me behind a tall screen that concealed me from the other women, who were milling about the room. “Stay here,” she said. “I’ll bring you your items.”
I nodded silently and watched as she disappeared around the corner, returning a few seconds later with a pair of linen pants, a white tunic, and a pair of leather boots that seemed, miraculously, all to be the right size.
“These should fit. Your armor will go over top of them,” the woman said. “Even if the clothes don’t fit perfectly, the important thing today is that you receive what you need to start your training at dawn tomorrow.”
“Dawn?” I gasped. To someone whose ideal sleep schedule involved getting up at the crack of noon, the word was a horror. “Seriously?”
“Get used to it,” she snapped. “A Seeker doesn’t keep an easy schedule. You never know when you’ll be called upon. War doesn’t allow for naps.”
“Wait. Isn’t a Seeker just supposed to find the Relics of Power? I mean, I knew we were doing combat training, but we’re not actually expected to fight…are we?”
The woman shrugged. “A Seeker gets called upon to do whatever he—or she—must,” she replied with a smirk. “But really, how should I know? I’m just the help. I don’t go in for all of that fighting and hunting business.”
With that, she left me to put on my new outfit. When I’d dressed, another woman in gray brought me to the weapons rack on the far side of the room. I thanked her and began assessing my options. A woman dressed in green held each weapon up for me to examine, explaining what they were.
“This one’s for stealthier fighters,” she said as she pulled the first dagger out of its sheath. “Of course, if you’re the aggressive type, you can go with a trusty sword.”
She pointed to a narrow but long blade that looked like it might drag on the ground if I actually wore it at my waist. “You also have the option of projectiles, of course.”
I looked over at the next table, where an elaborate bow lay next to a quiver filled with arrows. They were certainly the most appealing option, given they would mean I could keep my distance from any enemy.
“So, you’re thinking archery,” the woman said. “Interesting.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because it was one of your grandmother’s specialties. Along with daggers.”
“You…knew my grandmother?”
“Don’t let the youthful appearance fool you. Yes, I knew your grandmother. Very well. She was the best Seeker the Academy has ever seen. Oh, she had to make some difficult decisions when her time came to leave for good, but I’ve always admired her for it.”
“What decisions?” It was the closest anyone had come to telling me anything about my Nana’s time here.
With a frown, the woman shook her head. “It’s best if you ask her yourself. It’s really not my place to talk about others’ lives. I probably shouldn’t have said anything about it.”
“Right,” I replied, a wave of disappointment washing over me as I realized I was probably never going to learn the truth. “Of course.”
When I’d selected a bow, a small dagger and a simple leather quiver, the woman assured me that all my new gear, armor, and other clothing would find its way to my sleeping quarters that evening. “You can keep on what you’re wearing now,” she told me, gesturing to the new linen tunic. “It suits you, actually.”
I shot myself a look in a nearby mirror, only to see that my eyes, which had seemed to brighten the previous day, were now shining out from my face like two glowing hazel gemstones. Some sort of new life had sprung up inside me, and for the first time in a long time, I actually felt oddly pretty.
My mother would have been so happy to know it.
I thanked the woman, made my way out of the room, and headed back down the corridor leading to the Great Hall. But apparently, I’d gotten myself turned around, because nothing looked familiar. Frustrated, I wandered a little more until I came to an empty stone hallway filled with screens, which lit up as I moved, flashing the Academy’s sigil: a silver sword on a white background.
It seemed the walls were trying to tell me something.
“Right, I get it,” I said. “You want me to consult the book.”
Seating myself on a nearby stone bench, I pulled my phone out of my satchel and flicked the button on its side, and the screen flared to life. I was stunned to see the battery had survived this long, until I realized there was no icon in the upper right corner to tell me how much life was left in it. It seemed my phone was now feeding off some other energy source entirely, though I had no idea what it could be.
Sliding my finger along the glass screen, I scrolled through the book’s cover and table of contents, scanning for any important chapters that could explain the basics of the Academy. Before I knew it, I’d read up on protocol for sleeping quarters, mealtimes, and a brief history of the Academy and its grounds. It was then that I came to a series of maps of each layer of the massive stone building.
You Are Here, a diagram of the main floor told me. Next to the words was a flashing red arrow.
Apparently, I was currently sitting in what was called the Hall of Information.
“Fitting name,” I said as I looked around at the seemingly endless screens around me, which were suddenly displaying the same map. “But how do I get to the Great Hall from here?”
Almost immediately, a dotted line appeared on the maps projected on the wall-mounted screens, leading from my location to one several hallways away, and stopping at a large room at the west end of the Academy’s main floor.
&n
bsp; “Thank you,” I said with a smile.
I shoved my phone into my bag, rose to my feet, and began the long hike back to the Great Hall, winding my way through the corridors as the map had told me to do.
Just as I came to the last large set of doors before the Great Hall itself, they opened to reveal Callum’s familiar and strikingly handsome face. I was on the verge of saying his name when I froze in my tracks. Niala had warned me about interacting with him. Did that mean I couldn’t even say “Hello”?
As if in answer to the question, Callum gestured to me to tuck myself into a small alcove off the corridor, in between two statues of what looked like ancient kings.
“Hey—are you okay?” he asked when he’d joined me. “I wanted to ask you earlier, but…”
“I’m okay,” I replied with a meager attempt at a smile. “A little confused…no, a lot confused. What happened to you in Fairhaven? How did you get away from…them?”
“I have my ways,” he said with a quick grin, his eyes shifting to peer out toward the corridor. “Look, we can’t be seen talking like this. It’s not good for you. If they sense we’re close…”
Close. It was a nice thought, to say the least.
“Yeah, Niala mentioned something about that,” I said with a rush of blood to my cheeks. “She said I couldn’t be seen as a favorite.”
“She’s right,” he said. “You can’t…even if you are. Look, you need to excel in this place, and I can’t interfere with your progress. It’s really important that you succeed.”
“But you’re an instructor,” I protested. “Aren’t you supposed to instruct me or something?”
“I’m a weapons trainer,” he said. “An Adjunct. That’s all I’m supposed to be. Listen, I have to go before someone finds us like this.” He shot another glance out into the hallway before turning back to me. “I’ll see you around, Vega.”
“Wait,” I said as he turned to leave, drawing his eyes back to mine. “I don’t suppose you know anything about archery?”
