by Sacha Black
“Where did you get this information?” a Shifter with a mop of dark hair sat at the back asks.
I glance at Trey who shakes his head.
“Let’s call it an anonymous source. But one that is extremely trustworthy. And while the attack was happening, I noticed a few of the rebels had damaged Binding scars.”
Arden nods and stands. “Thank you, Eden. This is excellent intelligence. Julian…” he says, indicating the Shifter who asked about my source. “I want you to work on this. I’ve had an update from the Guild of Investigations. Trey and Eden captured one of the marble cases from the rebels’ smoke bombs. The Guild has analyzed the residue from inside the casing, and it appears that they’re using a rare plant, the Mizzenbud. It’s only found in two places in Trutinor, the northerly part of the Ancient Forest and the valleys of the Eris mountains. Can you liaise with the Guild and narrow down the search areas?”
Julian nods and writes some notes on his CogTracker as Arden speaks.
“Oh,” Arden says, “and put it out through our informant network too. Someone must have heard something or seen something, if not in the valleys then in the forest.”
Julian nods and taps out more lines of notes when something occurs to me.
“Arden?” I say, “do you think we should be investigating the Binding process?”
Ren shifts in her seat, and there’s a smattering of conversation around the room. A Sorcerer in long green robes sat behind Israel pipes up, “Fallon East has a point. If the thing that unites the rebel group is the fact their Bindings are faulty, then there must be something wrong with the Binding process itself. Which isn’t exactly news to us given the events of the summer.”
“Yes, and we all know who’ll be tampering with them,” I add. The muttering is louder this time; a few pints are slammed against the table in solidarity, and a couple of older Elementals in the back of the pub cheer.
“Simmer down, Libras,” Arden says, waving his hand at the room. “I agree, we should be investigating the Binding process. But we must tread very carefully. If, as Eden is suggesting, the First Fallon is tampering with the Binding process itself, then we may have an opportunity to prevent her from doing it in future.”
“I can use the academy library for research,” I say. In all the spare time I don’t have, I think, immediately regretting offering.
Arden nods, “Israel and I will use the Keepers School library to do the same thing, and Julian will contact the informant network to see if there’s a contact connected to the rebel group. The rest of you, business as usual.”
Arden comes over to our table. “What do you think so far?” he says to me, “are you ready to take the Libra oath?”
“I… Umm. Potentially, yes.”
“Potentially?” Arden laughs as if I was joking. I wasn’t.
“I mean, obviously,” I lie. “The next Oath Ceremony isn’t for a while though, is it?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head, “we’re going to have weekly meetings, which you’re welcome to attend, but because we’re trying for a big recruitment push, we’re holding out for an official Oath Ceremony.”
I nod, grateful for the time to think about it. I decide I have to know who the rebels are and what they want, and I don’t know if I can take the oath until I have. Arden turns back to the room, seemingly satisfied.
“Oh, and at the next meeting, I’d like a recruitment update,” he says, raising his glass, “cheers, Libras. To Balance and truth.”
“Balance and truth,” the room answers with a round of clinking glasses.
Twelve
‘It is argued that the soul is the source of our strength. But I beg to differ; the heart is much harder to control than mere mind and will power. But that makes it all the more fun to play with.’
Karva Arigenza, in discussion during the creation of The Book of Balance
“I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” I say, waving to Bo and Kato outside the main entrance to Stratera.
“You’re actually going to study?” Bo says, looking at her watch. “It’s almost eleven.”
“I know, but I promised the twins. Besides, the training room will be empty, so I’ll be able to practice in peace.”
“Yeah, ‘peace,’” Kato says, nudging Trey.
“Goodnight, Kato,” I say, and slip my hand into Trey’s to lead us through the huge oak entrance doors. We walk across the foyer’s black and white checkered flooring and into the corridor leading to the practice towers. Fire lanterns hanging on the wall light the way as we pass the wrought iron gates and climb all the way up to the fifth floor.
Our first-year practice room is a large round training area that reminds me of the London cage fighting gym we first found Cassian in.
The same lanterns hang in here as the hall, although there are also spotlights in the ceiling. Next to the spotlights are a set of free-standing black separators resting on the wall, which must turn the room into a simulator. Dangling from the furthest side of the room are five drapes, each embroidered in gold with our State symbols.
The air has the faint smell of animal, ash, and sweat; signs that whichever class was in here last, worked hard. The walls have a row of hooks for our combat bags and spare kit, and above them are paintings of all the great Trutinor wars: The Mermaid-Siren War, the first North-East battle, and the West War. All of them are graphic, filled with blood, scenes of torture, and dismembered body parts. They serve as a reminder and a warning: war only causes Imbalance.
Next to the drapes is a bookshelf and next to that, a wooden bar with a folder on it. I pick up the folder; there’s a note scrawled on it from Arna telling me what I need to do and what books I need to read. I turn to the drills section in the folder. Some of it’s simple stuff: use of essence power in defense, combat drills, and then some more complicated Fallon specific drills. For me, I also need to practice simultaneous use of multiple elements and running various drills with a squadron of front-line Keepers.
“What’s the damage?” Trey says, turning the lanterns up, so there’s more light in here.
“Two sims, some drills, and homework.”
“Okay, I’ll call the drills,” he picks up the folder and nudges me into the center of the room but grabs my arm, stopping me from moving, and pulls me back in, “kiss me first.”
I smile into his lips; I love it when he does that. Wrapping my arms around him, I kiss him hard, my insides tingling as I do.
“Enough,” I say, grinning and untangling myself, “I have to practice before I lose the will to do it at all.”
“I think you should lose the will,” he says, his blue eyes burning hot and intense like he’s about to compel me to stop.
“Trey Luchelli, behave yourself.” I put my hand on my hip and open my mouth again, but he holds his hand out to cut me off. “Fine, let’s be boring.” He pushes a life-sized plastic training-dummy into the middle of the room. “Ready?”
I nod, pushing up my sleeves.
“First drill: arm swipes and hand grips. I’ll help.”
He comes in front of me and grabs for my arm, “Now swipe your hand over mine twisting my arm over.”
I do as he says and it works; the power shifts from his grip on me, to my grip on him.
“Again,” he says.
So again, he grabs, and I twist out.
“This is too easy, we learned this in Keepers School. What’s next?”
“Alright, show off,” he says, grinning at me. “Second drill: fireball. Fireball. Water cuffs to the ankles, and finish with a two-element combo: fire wrapped in electricity, straight to the chest.”
I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and draw on the elements. They’re sluggish today. I coax and pull water and fire from deep inside my chest. Fire comes first. No surprise there. After air, it’s the one I find easiest to control. Much to my father’s disappointment, I always struggled with his water essence.
The silky cool sensation of water eventually slides into my veins, ready to sub
mit to me. My eyes fly open. I launch the fireballs fast, spin around, and drop to the floor as I shoot the water cuffs at the dummy’s legs. I roll forward, leap up, and unleash a stream of fire from one hand and entwine it with the bolt of electricity pouring from my other one. The electricity loops around the dummy’s chest, but the fire ricochets off it like the two elements are magnets repelling each other.
“Again,” Trey says.
So I do. Throwing fire, water cuffs, and dropping to the floor. But again, the fire and electricity ropes repel away from each other.
“Dammit,” I say, launching a ball of fire at the floor. It rolls a couple of feet then fizzles out, so I throw another one at the same spot.
“What did the floor do to deserve that?”
I glare at him, raise my palm, and create a flame, bouncing it up and down mock threatening him, “Do you want one too?”
He grins, his eyes twinkling as he does, “Only if you give it to me in the bedroom.”
My gut clenches, remembering Evelyn’s dresses in his bedroom. “Do you ever think about anything else?” I say a little sharper than I intended. But the thought of his hands on her body, her hands on his back, makes my skin crawl.
“What was that?” he says, putting the drill sheet down.
“Nothing. Can we get on with this? I’m better than that shoddy performance. I’ll get it right this time.”
“Eden,” Trey says, his voice softening, “it wasn’t just your expression, I felt it too. So it’s not nothing. What’s going on?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I take a step back, then turn, and walk over to the bar, switching on the sound system, cutting him off. A killer base beat rumbles through the room, growling and vibrating so hard I swear the drapes are moving to the rhythm. He raises an eyebrow but stays quiet, as his gaze follows me back to my start position where I reform my fighting stance.
I really don’t want to talk about it because even if those dresses are in his wardrobe by mistake, they still represent the years he spent with Evelyn. I can’t take those away. Just like I can’t take his scars away. I know that even if he says he didn’t love her, he had to spend years pretending he did. They did all the things we should have done. The First Fallon took that time and those ‘firsts’ away from us, and nothing can change that. And maybe, if I’m honest, that’s why we haven’t had sex yet. I know it’s pathetic; he can’t help what’s happened, but I can’t help how I feel either.
I launch the fireballs, one after the other. Larger, hotter, and angrier. I fling them so violently at the dummy I knock it over. Dropping, rolling, and sliding the water cuffs over the ground, I manage to get them to loop around the dummy’s ankles faster than the last time. I jump and straddle the dummy. Evelyn’s face appears like a ghost over the dummy’s. A roar erupts from my belly as I punch the fire rope around the dummy’s chest and finally fuse the lightning rope into it.
“Enough,” Trey says, touching my shoulder. A thick gooey sensation, like a cooling foam, pours from his hand into my shoulder and suffocates my emotions, extinguishing the fire and dampening my powers.
He hoists me off the still-smoldering dummy and leads me to the bar so he can turn the music down to a soft rhythmic hum. Staring into my eyes, he puts his arm around my waist and pulls me close, “What’s going on?”
“Please don’t. I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s not even worth it.”
“Well, the dummy sure as shit thinks it is.”
I give the smoking carcass a sideways glance, “I’ll have to replace that.”
Trey snorts, “I’m sure they have a million spares. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you or do I have to compel it out of you?”
I look away. He pulls me a few feet around the circular wall where there’s a pile of discarded fighting pads. We sit down and lean against them, and as we do, the words spill out before I can stop them, “Why do you still have Evelyn’s dresses in your wardrobe?”
His lips quiver as if he’s suppressing a smile, “Is that what the dummy abuse was about? A few of Evelyn’s dresses?”
“And that right there is exactly why I didn’t want to talk about it,” I say, slamming back against the pads.
“She’s dead. What on earth have you got to be jealous about?”
“Because she’s had you. All of you, and you can’t take that back.”
Trey pulls his hand through his hair and sighs, “Yes, she’s had me. Yes, I had sex with her.”
Deep down I already knew he had. But hearing the words hurts more than I want it to. I swallow hard, trying not to let the bile in my throat turn into vomit. My eyes sting worse than my throat, and I have to draw on the water element to force the tears away. I don’t care if Trey can sense I’m using my power to stop myself from crying. I won’t let Evelyn be the cause of any of my tears.
“You know when I was Bound to Evelyn, I thought I’d lost you? You’re the only thing that matters to me. The only thing that’s ever mattered to me, and I thought you were lost to me. Forever. So I chose to carry on because I didn’t think we, ‘this,’ would be possible. But I swear to you, Eden, she never had my heart. And she knew that too. It’s why she hated you so much. She had me physically, but she couldn’t have the one thing she wanted…”
“Your heart?”
He nods, “You know as well as I do, my Binding to her was a farce. No matter how strong the First Fallon Bound Evelyn and me or how hard she tried to keep me and you apart, nothing Evelyn or the First Fallon did could ever change what was, and always will be, in my heart.”
“Then why do you still have her dresses?”
“Because her parents asked me to send her things back to them, and I’ve been shipping it in batches. I had to unravel three years of living together and pull the entire mansion apart looking for her belongings.”
He lifts my chin up to his, “There’s only one person my heart has ever belonged to.”
I attempt a smile, “What if I’m not as good as her?”
“Eden, my life without you was nothing. Just a vague half-life. Evelyn was only ever a duty forced upon me by a corrupt Council and a cruel Fallon. But you… You were and always will be my salvation. Every second I stole with you, every touch, every night by the Pink Lake. It was all worth it just so that I could have one more moment with you. And if you’re not ready, then I’ll wait, even if that’s forever because I’m happy just knowing I have you in my life. You’re the missing piece of my soul, Eden. You and you alone.”
I inch back toward him, slipping my hand under his neck and around the back of his head, pulling his lips onto mine. The jealousy evaporates.
“Okay,” I say between hot kisses, my lips moving over his, “Okay.” I straddle him and pull him as close as I can. His arms wind their way around my waist, under my top, brushing over my skin like hot static. I want him. All of him. I no longer care if he’s been with Evelyn; he is mine and always was. I pull his shirt off, running my hands over his shoulders and down his abs. His hands slide up to my bra, unhooking it from behind. He grabs my hips and flips me underneath him, lying on top of me, smothering my neck and mouth with kisses. His touch makes me catch my breath.
The spotlights flick on, startling both of us. I scrabble to readjust myself, re-clipping my bra. Trey grabs his top and twists his back away from the door.
“Kato, seriously. Did you ever think to knock?” I snap.
“Why would I?” he says, “I thought you were studying.” He feigns innocence, but the way his jaw is jutting out, it looks more like he’s wearing his ‘I told you so’ face.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“We have a problem…”
Thirteen
‘Soul Death – The absolute and final destruction of a soul, thereby preventing it from resurrection and severing the eternal tie with its Balancer, forever.
N.B. Performing a soul death is treason under the jurisdiction of The First Fallon Law.’
From the Hi
story of Forbidden and Lost Magic
Kato leads us out of the training tower, down the stairs, and through the foyer.
“Where are we going?” Trey says, upping his pace to keep up with Kato.
“Library. Arden’s waiting for us there.”
“Arden?” I say, frowning, “but we only just left him in the West a couple of hours ago.”
“Like I said, we have a problem,” Kato says, and breaks into a jog.
Much like the Keepers School library, Stratera’s library is buried deep in the belly of the central academy building. We descend down a set of spiral marble stairs, the heat sucked out of the air by the cold stone. At the bottom of the stairs is a short corridor that ends at a set of arched wooden doors with a metal ring for a handle and a plaque in the center of the door that has the academy motto on it:
WITH KNOWLEDGE SHALL WE JUDGE
Kato pushes open the door, and the three of us walk in and down the central aisle between two long racks of all the editions and versions of the Book of Balance through the years. When we reach the center of the library, it breaks open into a seating area, with long thin mahogany tables decorated in maroon leather down their centers, book rests, and dim-lit brass lamps. The air smells of musty books, leather, and insomnia. Even at midnight, the library is busy.
In the furthest corner of the breakout area behind the study tables, in an area of armchairs and coffee tables, are Bo, Arden, and Hermia, whose eyes look glazed; I’m not sure if it’s because of the amount of alcohol in her blood or tiredness.
We sit, Kato next to Bo and Trey and me in a two-seater sofa. I rest my bag on the floor and dump my CogTracker on the coffee table next to Trey’s.
