The Complete Chosen Trilogy (The Chosen #0)

by N. M. Santoski

  Pyrrhus blinked for a moment. “I thought you were the Swordsmith, but I could never be sure. I didn’t think you’d tell me right out, though.”

  “Well, I am,” Nolan said defensively.

  “Splendid. You’re in trouble now,” Pyrrhus predicted almost cheerfully, hopping up on the end of a broken table turned sideways. “With your uncle injured, Dr. Castillo is in charge... and what did you do to Captain Selocrim? I’ve never seen her look so pissed!”

  “She thinks I’m the one who attacked my uncle, since everyone else has an alibi,” Nolan said bitterly. “Our argument got more heated than I intended.”

  “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t, but it was a close thing, and she knew it.”

  Pyrrhus let out a loud breath. “You’re making it hard to keep you alive, that’s for sure, but I do love a challenge. I’m pretty sure Selocrim is going to sweep the building... the entire building, all wings. My advice is for you to go as deep into the basement as you can and wait it out until I tell you the sweep is over, then break into the Power wing and hide there.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Surely that’s the first place they’d look!”

  “They will, but you won’t be there. When you are there, they’ll think they’ve already checked and won't bother looking again. You should drop the baileys for just a moment, if you can—make it look like you’ve escaped.”

  “I can’t—I’d need the Sword, and I can’t get to it right now. What about food while I’m hiding?”

  “I’ll meet you in the basement tunnels to bring you some.”

  “And classes?”

  “I don’t think you really need them at this point, do you?”

  “No. You won’t tell anyone where I am?”

  “Only people you approve specifically.”

  Nolan was quiet. When he spoke, the conviction in his words startled Pyrrhus. “You should be the only one who knows, and even you shouldn’t know exactly where I am. I’ll stay here until you give me the all clear, then I’ll move and only meet you here once a week to pick up supplies.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Pyrrhus nodded and stuck his hand out. “I'll meet you back here in two days to bring you supplies.”

  They shook hands, and Nolan slipped into the darkness of the back rooms so completely Pyrrhus didn't even see him go.

  ***

  “Nolan Aeron stands accused of brutal attacks upon two separate men in two separate instances over the course of yesterday,” Captain Selocrim announced to a solemn group of students. “The attack on his uncle could not be proven, so I did not apprehend him then—a mistake, I now admit. He then, in front of witnesses, used his numina on Jonas Keller and has paralysed him, perhaps permanently.”

  The students were muttering now, an angry buzz that grew even as certain students—known to be friends of Nolan's—remained quiet and somewhat sullen.

  “He then fled the scene, avoiding incarceration. We assume he is in collusion with his grandfather, but we cannot be sure. Therefore, the building will be swept, from top to bottom. Every room will be completely searched. All belongings will be tossed. No one is exempt.”

  She shouted down the students' protest merely by saying, “Blame Mr. Aeron if you want to complain! No one will leave this room until the search is complete. Settle in. Sensei Stone, you are in charge of making sure no one leaves.”

  Sensei nodded, though she wasn't fully paying attention. Her mind was on Robert Jenkins down in the surgery room, barely alive and fighting to stay that way.

  “Teachers, with me. We will conduct the search, beginning on the roof deck and working our way down to the basement.”

  Dr. Castillo eagerly led the way, and the dining hall doors slammed shut behind the search party as the students immediately broke into a chatter of gossip and speculation.

  For the first time in her life, Gia willingly started a conversation with Leiani.

  “Do you know what happened?” she asked in a whisper.

  Leiani's answer was bitter. “Nolan hasn't spoken to me since New Year's Eve... all I know is that he was in his room when he found out about Uncle Robert, and I don't think he'd a good enough actor to fake that kind of grief and anger.”

  “Nolan would never have hurt Proctor Jenkins,” Gia said definitively, tucking her legs under her in the chair. “It's the Jonas thing I don't understand. I notice they didn't drag him out of bed, even though they told us all no exceptions.”

  “That's because he can't move below the waist,” Noel chimed in from behind them. “I ran into Liz on the way down here, and she said that Aeron punched Jonas right in the spine with a fistful of electricity and didn't pull the Power back out. He'll be paralysed until they can make Aeron undo it... or until it wears off on its own.”

  “Now, Noel, don't you think that there had to be a reason for him to do that?” Leiani demanded. Gia had long ago given up on convincing her friend of Nolan's merits and remained silent.

  “Probably,” she admitted. “Still, though, I think that amounts to torture, leaving your numina to work on someone else's body indefinitely.”

  “Maybe he didn't have time to pull it back,” Leiani countered, but Gia was no longer listening. She was watching Pyrrhus with narrowed eyes.

  He was trying to give every appearance of reading the novel in his hands, but his eyes weren't skating across the page. Every once in a while he turned a page, but he was just staring blankly at the page, she was sure of it. She casually got to her feet, leaving the girls behind, and sat down next to him at the table.

  “Crazy night, huh?” she said, inordinately pleased to see him jump about a foot and slam the book down on the tabletop.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I hope Nolan is okay.”

  “I'm sure he's fine.”

  Gia made a small noise deep in her throat. “I'm sure you're sure.”

  When Pyrrhus glared at her, she widened her smile a hair and said nothing.

  “He'll be back for the Rite of Passage, I'm guessing,” he said with a shrug, retrieving his book.

  “He knows he has to compete, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he'll be back. It's a shame no one knows where he is.”

  Pyrrhus grunted. It was times like this that he hated having a reputation for being brutally honest. Gia often exploited the fact shamelessly, using his non-answers to pry information from him.

  “If someone did know,” she pressed, lowering her voice, “would they pass on a message?”

  “Messages can be intercepted, you know,” he said, matching her tone. “I'm sure he'd appreciate the message, but for safety's sake...”

  “I understand.” She did. Just knowing he was safe was a relief, and knowing that Pyrrhus was helping him an even bigger one. They sat together in silence until early morning, Gia eventually falling asleep with her head pillowed on her arms. It was practically ten in the morning when Captain Selocrim returned and reluctantly let them all go.

  “Don't think we won't be watching,” she stressed. “If any of you are caught communicating with Aeron, you will be treated as an accomplice... and dealt with accordingly.”

  “Are we safe?” Manas called out.

  “He must be here somewhere, since the baileys have not fallen. If you see evidence of his presence, please contact Dr. Castillo or myself. There will be no classes today—you are all dismissed.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The students were progressing nicely, Jenkins thought to himself as he oversaw the last sparring matches of the year before the Rite of Passage. If they were lucky, they’d all survive. He’d tried to teach them all about honor and dignity, but he wasn’t sure how much of it had gotten through.

  Case in point. He watched Manas bury Captain Selocrim—who volunteered her time in training him to fight against Nolan in case his nephew resurfaced in time for the Rite of Passage—in a pillar of dirt and mud that even
covered her head, making it impossible for her to breathe.

  “Not her head, Manas!” he called for what felt like the hundredth time.

  He huffed and cleared away the mud covering her face, allowing her to take a deep breath.

  “Match?” he asked cheerfully.

  She grimaced. “Yes. I look forward to watching you destroy Aeron—he won’t stand a chance.”

  Jenkins thought of his nephew and smiled. The teen had visited him just the night before… at great personal risk to himself.

  Nolan waited almost two months into his exile before taking a risk and heading back into Caer Anglia proper to visit his uncle and retrieve the Sword of the Nine. Pyrrhus had been keeping him abreast of his uncle's recovery, and he felt as though a visit was now possible.

  Knowing of his uncle's night owl tendencies, he waited until far after dark before taking a combination of tunnels and small stairways sideways from the summer wing of the building to his uncle's office.

  He knew from his exploring—bolstered by Pyrrhus's helpful information—that the small closet in this room shared a floor/ceiling with the closet in Jenkins' office.

  He pushed aside a few boxes and climbed back to the rear wall, using his numina to carefully cut a hole out of the floor.

  Unfortunately, his uncle's closet was jammed full of old papers and books, and the sparks from his numina set some of them on fire. Which then set him on fire.

  He tumbled out of the closet on his uncle's side, desperately trying to put the fire out, and almost panicked when he realized his uncle was not alone.

  Jenkins and Sensei were frozen on the other side of the office, staring at Nolan as he rolled around on the rug, trying to pat out the flames.

  Wordlessly, Jenkins made a gesture and sent the water from his drinking glass onto Nolan.

  “Thank you,” he said with a sigh, sitting up and shaking his head to clear it. He glanced at Sensei through his wet hair with a bit of a grin.

  “Gonna turn me in, Sensei?”

  “Your uncle has assured me that you were not his attacker, so I think not,” she said a bit stiffly, returning to her chair.

  When Nolan noticed that Jenkins was struggling to rise, he jumped to his feet and hurried around the desk.

  “Don't get up!” he commanded, leaning down to hug him while he was still in his chair.

  Jenkins let go of his cane and embraced his nephew in relief.

  “It's good to see you, but you look terrible.”

  “Life on the run will do that to you,” he said with a smile, leaning back on the desk. “You, on the other hand, look much better than the last time I saw you.”

  Jenkins shrugged. “I'm alive, which is better than I thought I'd be a month ago. Are you here for it?”

  “And to see you, but yes, I am.”

  Sensei was completely white. “You mean it's here? John is dead?”

  Nolan's opinion of her rose even higher. “Unfortunately, yes, my grandfather died in June.”

  “My god—you’ve been the Swordsmith this whole time!”

  “Anna, I've never seen you this flabbergasted,” Jenkins said with a smile.

  “You two could keep secrets for the government!” She sat back in her chair, snapping her mouth shut. Eyes wide, she simply watched as Jenkins rolled his chair backwards, giving Nolan room.

  Nolan reversed the Power seal on the reassembled desk's hidden compartment and leaned back on his heels, looking thoughtful. “Do you have a blanket or something I can use?”

  Jenkins pulled his cable knit sweater over his head and handed it to his nephew. Nolan nodded his thanks and wrapped his hand in it, then reached into the compartment and carefully pulled the long silk bundle out into the open.

  “Why the sweater?”

  Nolan turned his head and smiled at Sensei, who looked fascinated. “If my skin touches the Sword before I bring the baileys down, everyone will feel it, trust me. No need to show my hand too early.”

  “You'll be competing in the Rite of Passage, I trust?”

  “I have to,” he said simply.

  “Manas will try to kill you,” Jenkins observed.

  “I'll just have to draw his blood first, Uncle Robert.”

  Jenkins nodded, then looked a bit mischievous. “It's funny—Gia and Leiani have been in here every day, pestering me for news about you, but I haven't seen Pyrrhus once. You'd think he was getting information about you some other way.”

  Nolan smiled. “Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies.”

  “Fair enough. Now that you've burned a hole in my closet, how about coming to visit a bit more often?”

  “It's not like I have anything else to do.”

  “You look like you're in good shape, for a fugitive.”

  “When your days are empty and you know you'll be fighting for your life in a month and a half, you spend lots of time honing your skills!” Nolan laughed. “Try to hide the hole in the closet, will you?”

  “Done. Be careful-- you've only a month left. I assume you injured Jonas in self defence?”

  “Yes.” Nolan briefly explained the situation, leaving Jenkins nodding.

  “Well, once your secret is out, you can claim self defence with a large measure of success. Pyrrhus will support your claim, I'm sure of it. If you can make it through the next month and not let Manas murder you in the Rite of Passage, I think you'll be okay.”

  “The night I went into hiding, Manas said something very strange to me.” Nolan related the exchange to Jenkins and Sensei, who gave each other a look Nolan couldn’t interpret. “What? What did he mean?”

  “Did you grandfather ever tell you why he took you away?”

  “He was falsely accused of my father’s murder.”

  “That’s why he had to leave. Why did he take you with him?”

  Nolan stopped for a moment, stunned. He’d never thought about it that way before.

  “Around the time you were born, Fulmen were disappearing right and left. Your father told me about it the night he died, in fact. Your grandfather was trying to investigate, but life kept interfering. He was planning a trip to Wales to speak to the Nerys there when he was falsely accused of murder and had to run for his life. We didn’t know then, but Anna and I have long suspected that Michael Warrington was killing these people, and for a reason. We never suspected this!”

  “Now, thanks to his idiot son, we know why,” Sensei said.

  “Why?” Nolan asked. “I mean, how can he even know what would happen if all the Fulmen were dead?”

  “I’ve done some research into Sword lore in Wales,” Jenkins said. “Very early texts—especially those from times of great strife, like the plague—talk about a hierarchy of numen. On this, though, the writers are very specific: if all Fulmen on the face of the Earth perish, the next numen to touch the Sword will become the Swordsmith, and their numina will rise to the top of the hierarchy. I had no idea Michael knew that information as well.”

  “So Warrington thinks...”

  “If he can eliminate every Fulmen and be the first to touch the Sword, the Warringtons will reign supreme.”

  “I’ll just have to make sure I stay alive, then,” Nolan said, trying to sound flippant.

  Sensei snorted, drawing their attention. “As long as Michael Warrington is alive, Nolan, you'll never be completely safe. That man has been running the show for twenty years, and he's been very happy doing it. He won't be pleased to hand over the reins.”

  Nolan shook his head. “I'm hoping it won't come to that, of course. He had to know that an Aeron would be back one day to claim our proper seat.”

  “If he didn't hesitate to persecute your grandfather, a man he'd known and respected since his childhood, I doubt he'd have any scruples in having you killed. Still, though, if you appear in front of all of the numen as the Swordsmith, he'll have a more difficult time of it,” Jenkins said thoughtfully. “We'll have to be careful and watch your back.”

  Nolan grinned and he
aded for the closet. “No one better to do it than you, Uncle Robert!” With a small wave, he climbed up into the hole in the ceiling and was gone.

  Jenkins found himself smiling at Sensei as she was assisting Pyrrhus, who was tossing fire at Leiani as his practice for fighting Alan Aeron. She kept extinguishing his flames long before they reached her, looking bored.

  “Okay,” he snarled, clearly frustrated, “now what?”

  Sensei whispered in his ear for a moment, and Pyrrhus looked horrified. “I can’t do that to her!”

  “Then you’ll lose.”

  “I can do it to Alan! Not her.”

  “No practice? That’s your chance to take.”

  “C’mon, Pyrrhus,” Leiani taunted. “Whatever it is, I’m tougher than Alan! I can take it.”

  Pyrrhus said nothing. He continued the fiery onslaught and let her continue to play with him, clenching his jaw. Punching Alan in the face was certainly an option, but punching Leiani? He’d never make it out of the room alive.

  Sensei had moved on to fighting Manas and dodging everything he threw at her.

  “Come on, Warrington, try harder!” she taunted.

  “I am!” he snarled, firing a volley of rocks in her direction. She sidestepped them all nimbly.

  “You’re as subtle as a brick, which I suppose is appropriate. You’d better hope you win by default, because if Aeron shows up he’ll kick your ass without breaking a sweat!” Somehow, her faint British accent made the insult worse. He kept trying to catch her, but failed every time. She kept up a string of insults, tapping into his temper to make him lose focus.

  “Warrington, you’ve got to center yourself!”

  “How can I when you won’t shut up?” he roared. He ran right for her, intent on hurting her, but she was just too quick. She dodged him and tripped him on the way past, sending him face first into the floor. She put a knee into his back and pinned him in place.

  “You’re too impulsive and too cocky,” she said loudly, making sure the attention of the room was on them. “You have to let it go.”

  She followed her own advice and let him out of her hold. He stomped off to the showers.