Shadow Trials

by Isla Frost

  The sky had grown dark behind the drapes, but Bryn’s fire was blazing merrily, filling the space with toasty warmth. It was particularly welcome after my freezing shower.

  I covered a yawn. I’d barely been able to sleep last night and had woken before dawn to squeeze the most out of my final hours with my family.

  I wasn’t the only one yawning either. So after trying and failing to find a way of adjusting the lighting, the three of us crawled into bed.

  The lamps dimmed and went out.

  All right then.

  I wondered again how so many firstborns could disappear from this manor without a trace. Where were they now? What had happened to them?

  And what did it mean that everyone we’d spoken to had come from cities around North America? Were there other academies like this one? Was the Firstborn Agreement limited to this continent? Or most horrifying of all—were there no surviving human settlements anywhere else on earth?

  Realizing I’d never get any sleep with thoughts like that, I took a leaf out of Bryn’s book and focused on the positive.

  The mattress was incredibly soft, the blankets warm, and the wallpaper a little less creepy in the dark.

  Or was that more creepy in the dark?

  I needed to stop thinking about the wallpaper.

  But when I managed to quash that train of thought, I found myself yearning for my lumpy old mattress at home.

  Mila would have crawled in beside me by now, her small and squirmy body warming me inside and out. She had her own mattress but preferred to share mine most nights.

  The room was cozy thanks to Bryn’s fire, and there was nothing wrong with my body temperature. But the hollow ache in my chest persisted until exhaustion at last overcame me.

  Chapter 7

  Humans say magic broke the world.

  According to my grandmother, the invaders claim that magic merely re-formed it.

  Either way, when the world walkers and their entourage of monsters came, humankind drew closer to extinction than any other time since Adam ate that damned apple.

  The monsters and magic killed millions. Our desperate acts with nuclear weapons killed more. And the shuddering ripples of life without the technology we’d learned to depend on—the subsequent disease outbreaks and food shortages and chaos—slaughtered most of all.

  At first humankind fought back.

  The survivors surrendered.

  Before communication failed, they’d seen the monstrous devouring darkness in Europe wipe out all life on the continent. Seen the walkers clearing still more territory for themselves, driving out the humans and animals that had once called it home and burning their settlements to the ground.

  In the territory that remained, the earth itself had become hostile to us, morphing with the invaders’ magic into something hungry and alien, and swarming with monsters that were even more so.

  The richest and most powerful humans left on spaceships to settle on Mars or hastily built space stations. Grandmother said there were rumors at the time that they were working on a solution to save the rest of us.

  They did not come back.

  So the remnants of humankind clustered in the concrete jungles made by their ancestors and slowly starved or were plucked away one by one by the monsters roaming the forests.

  Until the others offered the Firstborn Agreement. They would provide food, provisions, and protection within our concrete walls on one condition. That every firstborn child, regardless of gender, mental faculties, or physical health, would be sent to the others in their seventeenth year.

  On pain of death.

  Under the circumstances, it seemed a worthy trade. One does not have to look far into human history to learn that incessant, gnawing hunger and the fear of dying drive people to do unspeakable things.

  That was three generations ago now. I hadn’t been born yet. But my grandmother told me the tales until she passed, and then my father took over the mantle of storyteller. Historian. Teacher. My mother said nothing at all, pressing her lips together the way she always did when she was displeased about something.

  Understanding the history of the sacrifice I was destined to make had helped me accept it.

  I’d known it was coming, and known why it was coming, for each of my seventeen years. And I’d found a peace in that. A purpose even.

  But when I was literally flipped out of my bed the first morning after stepping through the runegate, that acceptance was sorely tested.

  My soft, comfortable mattress had abruptly decided to stand upright.

  I groaned and rubbed the parts of me that had been the first to hit the floor. On my right, Bryn was suffering through a similar wake-up call. On my left, Ameline’s mattress rocked her gently awake.

  Guess that meant Millicent hadn’t given up her grudge overnight then.

  Noises through the door suggested we weren’t the only ones who’d been woken. We’d slept in our soft new uniforms for want of clean sleepwear, and they were miraculously unwrinkled now. So all we needed to do was pull on boots and belts and run hasty fingers through our hair before we were presentable enough to learn what was happening.

  Or so I thought.

  Until one of the ties I’d left in the bottom of my trunk caught me around the neck as I reached for the door handle.

  A wise person knows when to pick their battles. Ameline and I straightened each other’s ties, Bryn insisted hers preferred to be askew, and we finally burst into the hallway.

  Other kids, all of them likewise wearing uniforms, were walking in a single direction down the corridor. There were far more people than we’d seen yesterday, and I wondered if we’d found the missing firstborns from previous years. Excitement fluttered in my chest.

  Maybe we were about to get answers.

  I needed to use the bathroom, but curiosity urged me forward. The three of us followed the crowd.

  We made our way downstairs, passed the turnoff that led to the dining hall, and turned instead into a wider, grander passage with vaunted ceilings and nook after nook of antique treasures.

  Over the sea of heads, I could see a set of imposing double doors and Glenn and Glennys beside it. The golin said something to the nearest students, then threw the doors open.

  Beyond them was the manicured lawn I’d glimpsed from our bedroom window.

  Outside.

  A mere two hundred yards from the perilous forest.

  To my amazement, the first students stepped through the doorway, and the crowd resumed its forward momentum. Kids hesitated but were urged on by Glenn or Glennys. I guessed it was a combination of muttered threats and kind assurances that drove them onward. But no screams of terror came from those milling on the lawn, and slowly the pace sped up.

  I was beginning to regret my shortsightedness in not having gone to the bathroom.

  When our trio reached the doors, the fresh morning air swept over me.

  “What’s happening?” I asked Glennys.

  “Your first class. Hurry now. Professor Cricklewood doesn’t like tardiness.”

  Bryn leaned past me. “Did we miss breakfast?”

  “Don’t worry about that, child. You’ll want an empty stomach for this lesson.”

  With those foreboding words, we walked down the manor’s steps and onto the grass.

  Everything I’d spied from our dorm room seemed bigger out here. The gardens, the topiary cats, the lake, and most especially the imposing wall of the forest hemming us in.

  A wizened old man with a long white beard and an ornate walking staff half again his height approached the group, heedless of the swirling mists drifting in from the woods.

  His watery blue eyes and kindly human features made him feel comfortable and familiar in this strange place. And I took a half step toward him, wondering if he might be the one to finally make sense of what was happening to us.

  Then he opened his mouth.

  “Look sharp, you liver-licking, shrimp-for-brains maggots! When I tell you to run,
your hooves better be flying or I’ll teach you to regret it, you hear?”

  He paced back and forth in front of our gobsmacked group, wielding his staff like a weapon.

  Which upon closer inspection, it was. The spiked top was not decorative.

  “I will force you sloppy snot-burgers into shape if I have to shove you through the meat grinder myself. Notice I said you and not me because I could lap you lazy scum-suckers running backward with my eyes closed!”

  A poor hapless girl raised her hand. “Sir, I was just wondering, sir, um, whether we could run inside where it’s safe?”

  He thumped his staff viciously into the ground at her feet, and she scrambled backward until she hit the kid behind her.

  “You want to stay safe?” the professor roared. “Then. Follow. My. Orders!”

  He paused for a moment, then conceded, “And stay on this side of the sentinel hedge cats.”

  His voice reverted to a drill-sergeant shout. “Now run or I’ll eat you.”

  A few of the students chuckled, but I had the distinct impression Cricklewood wasn’t joking.

  I ran.

  The grass felt strange under my feet. Soft and kind of springy compared to the asphalt and concrete I usually ran on.

  Back home, I hadn’t known what to prepare for, so I’d tried to be prepared for anything.

  Every day I jogged up the stairwell of the tallest remaining skyscraper, then ran a seven-mile route around the safe areas of the city. If someone in the community had a feasibly useful skill, I offered to perform odd jobs for them in exchange for learning it. I also read everything I could get my hands on.

  The running, hard labor, and skill acquisition was harder than the reading. It was no burden to lose myself in stories of the Before. But I made sure I did both. And that discipline put me in good stead now.

  I was at the head of the group as we jogged around the manicured lawn. After half a dozen laps, the only person beside me was the guy who’d caught my attention in the dining hall. The one who’d moved differently from everyone else. Mr. Knows-Something-We-Don’t.

  We ran another dozen laps, the other kids falling farther behind.

  I checked on my running companion. Out here in the daylight, his eyes were more gold than brown, and there was life on his face that had been lacking last night.

  Like me, he was barely breathing hard, his strong athletic build demolishing the miles with ease. Plenty of capacity to talk then.

  The real question was whether he’d cooperate. Time to find out.

  “I’m Nova,” I said.

  He didn’t respond.

  I made my voice honey-sweet. “You don’t have to answer if you’re too short of breath.”

  He shot me a look.

  “I’m Klay.”

  Well, that was two more words than I’d gotten out of him in the dining hall. He had an unusual accent too. One I couldn’t place.

  “How long have you been here, Klay?”

  “Since yesterday.”

  Damn. Not that I’d really expected him to say otherwise, but if he wasn’t a firstborn from a prior year’s intake, then none of the kids puffing behind us were.

  Then again, I wasn’t sure I believed he’d only just arrived.

  “Do you know something the rest of us don’t?”

  I glanced over to gauge his reaction.

  “The balance of probabilities would suggest yes,” he informed me, and maybe his lips curved a fraction as he said it. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  I bit back a growl, wishing Ameline was here to win him over. Rapport building was not in my wheelhouse.

  All right, smartass. “Do you know what’s going on here? Who the beings behind the Agreement are? And why they’d want to steal human firstborns from their families just to make them run around in circles for no apparent reason?”

  “I know you should focus on Professor Cricklewood’s lessons if you want to live,” Klay said.

  Then he put on a burst of speed in an unsubtle signal our conversation was over.

  I could’ve caught up. But it wouldn’t have made him any more accommodating, and I wasn’t sure how long this exercise would go on. Smarter to pace myself.

  Half a dozen laps later, Cricklewood whistled shrilly. “That’s enough of that, you miserable manticore snacks! I want to see thirty-seven push-ups. Seventy-four for anyone who doesn’t complete them in a timely manner.”

  Thirty-seven? What was wrong with three dozen?

  Was this guy an eccentric professor or—I swallowed as a new possibility occurred to me—a world walker?

  Walkers in the stories were always beautiful. Cricklewood wasn’t. But he was a long way from your average human too. Maybe like Glenn and Glennys he’d been gifted by the “masters” here with powers.

  Like the ability to curse a mean streak. And terrify teenagers into exercising first thing in the morning.

  We dropped where we were, scattered around the track, and did as we’d been ordered. Most kids were strong enough from hand-hauling water and supplies around our communities. Life was tougher after the invasion. But as the son of a mayor, Jayden must have lived a life of privilege. His face was red and his arms were wobbling before he was halfway done. I knew this because I’d been about to lap him, and that meant he was disappointingly nearby.

  Cricklewood stalked over to Jayden and rammed his staff into the earth an inch from the boy’s straining fingers. “Congratulations. Just for making me pity you, I’ll allow you to do seventy-four.”

  Jayden’s cheeks darkened further, and he sat up. “Get lost. I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

  Cricklewood’s voice turned real quiet.

  “Keep. Going.”

  But Jayden crossed his arms. “No. You can yell all you want, old man, but you can’t make me.”

  The elderly professor smiled then. “Oh but I can.”

  And I watched as Jayden’s body jerkily returned to doing push-ups.

  After runegates and sentient buildings and surviving the night this close to the forest without being eaten, it was hardly the largest display of magic I’d witnessed. But it sent unease spreading through my stomach all the same. Perhaps because it was the first time I’d seen magic used against us.

  Well, apart from Millicent flinging me out of bed and sabotaging my shower.

  Jayden’s eyes were wide, almost bulging, and his lips appeared to be glued shut. But that didn’t stop him whimpering when his underdeveloped muscles began to cramp.

  I looked away. I didn’t like Jayden, but I didn’t want to watch Cricklewood bully him either.

  Bryn was one of the other forerunners and completed her push-ups at the same time I did. Ameline had settled somewhere in the middle of the group. She might be curvy, but she wasn’t as soft as she looked.

  “All right!” Cricklewood’s shout interrupted my survey. “Now that you’ve warmed up, we’d usually move on to weapons training. But as you pitiful wet-noodle-armed wretches have so aptly demonstrated, you don’t have a hope in hell of waving a sword without skewering yourselves. So you get to repeat all that again instead. Now run!”

  Some kids whimpered, others groaned, but we all got up and started running. Even Jayden.

  I was happy to move my legs again. It gave my mind time to churn over the implications. Weapons training? Sword? Were our new “masters” trying to make an army out of us?

  The idea was so preposterous I almost snorted. It was more likely they were torturing us for sport. And yet… if there was any truth in the idea, it wasn’t funny at all.

  We ran and did strength exercises and then ran again.

  By the time Cricklewood called for a stop, almost everyone had made at least one trip to vomit into the bushes. The ones near the manor rather than the forest, naturally.

  Ameline was pale and shaky. Bryn was sweat-soaked but determined. Jayden looked like he might have been crying. And knows-something-we-don’t Klay was barely winded.

  Jerk.
>
  Or maybe that was just my competitive side talking because I wanted to be the best.

  I had to excel. How else could I convince myself I had some hope of pulling off my wild scheme?

  And how else could I convince the targets of my scheme that I was willing and worthy and they should trust me with the intel that might bring them down?

  Of course at this stage, we still hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of those unknown targets.

  Cricklewood eyeballed the ragged assembly of exhausted firstborns.

  “I suppose congratulations are in order”—a few heads lifted in hope—“for being the most pathetic group of wretches I’ve ever had the displeasure of laying eyes on. Now get out of my sight. Breakfast is waiting for those that can stomach it. Meanwhile, I’ll try to forget your appalling performance so you can impress me anew this evening.”

  There was a collective groan among my peers.

  Few of us could’ve predicted the day was only going to get worse.

  Chapter 8

  Cricklewood had made it clear that showering would have to wait, which meant we were a sweaty and sorry lot of humans who trudged into the dining hall.

  But whatever our uniforms were made of, they must have had magical properties because the enclosed space did not smell of body odor, dirt, or vomit. Instead, the delicious scents of breakfast wafted over us.

  I’d darted away to use the bathroom and was now in a state to find the food appealing.

  Glenn and Glennys were serving—helping the line move faster than it otherwise might with so many of us barely able to lift our arms—and repeating instructions to each student who came by.

  “You have fifteen minutes before your next lesson. So eat quickly, and the wallpaper will direct you to your respective classrooms.”

  Since Ameline, Bryn, and I didn’t know if we’d be in the same class, we separated as soon as we’d devoured our fresh-baked seed bread and platter of fruit. Which left me to face the wallpaper alone.

  A unicorn tossed its head and pointed with its obsidian horn. A vaguely humanoid lump of a creature that looked like it had been molded by a half-blind artist pointed with his poorly formed finger. A hippogriff ruffled its feathers and refused to offer direction at all. And something that looked like the offspring of a confused giraffe and ostrich pointed with its feathered hoof.