Chapter 21
The students were given two further days for recovery, time to allow all the drug's effects to wear off before they had to start classes again. Then, although the next day was technically one of their free days, they were woken early and informed that they would be taking part in a small competition.
"Think of this as a small practice for the contests next year," Andreas said once he'd gathered all the students down in the practice hall. "Although, unlike next year, today you'll be competing in three teams of three."
He divided them according to where they were sitting, which put Eleanor, Daniel and Sebastien together, Mikhail with Paul and Mack, and Jorge, Fred and Charles in the third team.
"You'll each have a ribbon tied around your wrist," Andreas continued. "Your goal is to keep your own ties safe while attempting to gather as many as possible from the other teams. If you lose your ribbon, you'll have to come straight back to me to collect another one, but you'll only have three lives each. Anyone who loses all three of their ribbons is out of the game, and must come back here without delay, and three points will be deducted for carelessness. You'll score one point for every life you have left and every ribbon you've stolen. We'll play until midday."
He handed out three loops of red ribbon to each team.
"These are tied with quick-release knots, so they'll come off easily if you pull the long end – no, don't try it now – and I'll take a very dim view of your abilities if I find anyone resorts to re-tying the knots. Once you've captured an opponent's ribbon, you're advised to hide it well, somewhere about your person, because we'll have no other way to verify the scores at the end."
Eleanor slipped the loop of ribbon onto her wrist, adjusting it so it wouldn't fall off as she ran.
"I'll send you out one team at a time, and you'll have until the count of fifty until the next team comes out. Jorge's team first, then Sebastien's, then Mack's. Are you all clear on the rules?"
Everyone nodded their agreement.
"Good. Jorge, Fred, Charles – go!"
Once the three of them had left the hall, Andreas started a slow count-down from fifty. He looked across to Sebastien, Daniel and Eleanor as he neared the end of the count, and they got to their feet in readiness.
"Four... three... two... one... – go!"
The students ran for the door.
"We will need to make a plan," Daniel said as they jogged towards the forest.
"Let's concentrate on getting out of sight, first," Sebastien said.
"But what if we plan to track the others?"
"What if they plan to ambush us?" Eleanor said. "I'm with Sebastien, let's hide ourselves somewhere out of the way before we start doing too much thinking."
They made their way between the trees, and down to a bend in the river where they could hide in a dip beside the bank while knowing their backs were moderately well protected by the fast-flowing water.
"We could just stay here," Sebastien said. "It's a good spot to defend."
"What if no-one comes looking?" Eleanor asked. "We can't just opt out and hide – that virtually guarantees us second place."
"We have three lives each," Daniel said. "We should split up, but each come back here to hide once we are on the last life."
As much as she wanted to, Eleanor couldn't think of a better plan to put forward as an alternative.
Neither, apparently, could Sebastien. "Back here when you get down to one life, then, or meet at the practice hall just after midday if you're lucky enough not to get to that stage."
"Okay."
"Okay."
Eleanor's first instinct was to climb; in the dense parts of the forest she knew she could make her way from tree to tree easily enough, and most of her fellow students wouldn't think of looking up when they had plenty of potential threats to keep them occupied at ground level.
She saw Jorge, Fred, and Charles first, but they were moving in one tight formation and she didn't think she could get all three without losing a life of her own. Maybe they'd split up later. She waited for them to pass out of her sight, then continued to make her way between the trees.
She came upon Paul next; he was walking alone, taking each step slowly and purposefully, studying the ground for tracks. She waited until he'd passed beneath her, then dropped down behind him and grabbed his ribbon before he had chance to even react to the sound of her landing.
She tucked the ribbon safely out of the way and started to walk. She was picking her way through some particularly thorny undergrowth when she rounded one large trunk and came upon Mikhail. They both reached out at the same time, and pulled the ribbons away simultaneously.
"Well, that'll teach us," Mikhail laughed as he tucked Eleanor's ribbon into his breast pocket. "Shall we go back and get another one?"
"Sure." She turned to walk alongside him. "We have to go back to the practice hall, don't we?"
"Is this the first life you've lost? You're doing well, then. How many have you caught?"
"Yours is my second. You?"
"Same, but I've lost two."
"Truce till the count of ten once we get new ribbons?" Eleanor suggested as they approached the academy buildings. "Otherwise this could be over quite quickly."
"Truce," he agreed. "Good plan."
Her truce, however, applied only to Mikhail; as they left the practice hall she saw Mack coming in, and found the perfect spot at the edge of the forest where she could wait to pounce on him when he emerged.
After that coup she spent a long while up in the treetops again, moving occasionally between branches and looking for opportunities, but the forest was large and the students had spread widely.
Jorge and Fred were walking back-to-back when she next saw them, having apparently lost Charles somewhere along the way. She was getting bored of waiting, and the challenge appealed; two was surely possible.
Once she was confident that their position was as vulnerable as it would get, she dropped to the ground and seized Jorge's ribbon as she landed, turning immediately to launch herself towards Fred before he could target her.
As she reached out she felt a tug at her own wrist, and the fabric slithered away from her wrist as her fingers closed around Fred's ribbon. Only after she'd recovered her balance did she look to see who her assailant had been, and saw the back of Paul's head as he sprinted off.
She was onto her last life, then.
She ran back to the practice hall, and once she'd got her final ribbon, made her way much more carefully back to the riverside. Daniel and Sebastien were already crouched in the hollow when she reached it.
"How many do you have?" Daniel asked as she sat beside him.
"Five, I think." She searched under her shirt and pulled out all the ribbons. "Yes, five."
"Then we have ten altogether. With our three lives preserved, that should be enough."
Sebastien glanced at the sun's position overhead. "It's nearly time, anyway. We just have to keep out of sight."
They settled back against the bank, and Sebastien stuck a twig in the ground to measure the sun's progress towards its zenith.
The flash of red between the trees caught Eleanor's eye; it was Mikhail running across the path just a few yards further into the forest. He clearly hadn't seen them.
She sprang to her feet.
"What are you doing?" Daniel hissed as she sprinted away, but she didn't turn back to give an answer. There wasn't time.
Mikhail heard her coming, but by the time he turned, she'd launched herself past him and grabbed the end of the ribbon. She hit the ground and rolled, keeping her fingers firmly clenched around the thin strip of fabric.
She ran back to her teammates with the ribbon held aloft, triumphant. "Eleven," she said. "And Mikhail's out."
"We did not need eleven," Daniel said quietly. "Come, it is time to go back."
They were the last ones to reach the practice hall.
"Time to work out the scores," Andreas said. "Please count up your rib
bons."
He gave them a few moments to make their tallies, while he pulled the remaining ribbons from their wrists.
"Jorge, your team had two lives left, one man down, and how many ribbons captured?"
"Six," Jorge said, holding them up.
"And Sebastien, with three lives left and everyone still standing, how many ribbons?"
"Eleven."
"Mack. One life left and two men down, and...?"
" Four ribbons."
"Well, we have a very clear winning team, I don't think we need to bother with the detail of the scores." He held out his hand to collect the lengths of ribbon. "Well done. And now I'm sure you're all ready for lunch."
Eleanor and Sebastien congratulated one another as they walked across to the dining hall, and most of the others came across to comment on the comprehensive nature of their victory; only Daniel held himself a little apart, aloof from the celebrations, and he sat quietly throughout the meal.
After lunch, as Eleanor made her way upstairs, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning swiftly, she found herself face to face with Daniel.
"That was an unacceptable risk," he said. "You gave away our position, and if you had failed, we could have all been forfeit."
"It worked." She turned to walk away, but he gripped her arm and refused to let her go. She stared at him in astonishment. They'd won, hadn't they?
"It was unnecessary. We had already won."
"So? We didn't lose anything, and it was his last life. I had to go for it."
"You did not 'have' to. You risked your own last life, and ours. You should not have taken such a risk, and most certainly not without permission."
"Permission? What is this, school?" She yanked her arm sharply away from him. "You don't get to give me 'permission' for anything."
She ran up the stairs before he had chance to say another word, and nearly crashed into Sebastien as he came out of the common room.
"Eleanor? Are you okay?"
"Fine," she assured him. "It's just Daniel being an idiot. He's a sore loser."
Sebastien looked puzzled. "But we won."
"Yeah, he's going on about what I did being too risky, even though – as I told him – it worked. I'm sure he's just down about it because he didn't get as many as me."
"Well, it was a big risk."
"Oh, not you as well!"
"Seriously, though, in the real world we're not going to be playing games – it'll be life or death. That's a dangerous time to take risks."
"Which is something I'm perfectly capable of working out for myself."
"But how will you know when it's worth risking your life?"
"That's the thing about risk, isn't it? It's a gamble. You can try to weigh up how likely you are to succeed and what you'll lose if you fail, but you can't really know if it'll work. You just have to decide."
"Sometimes it is not your decision." She hadn't realised Daniel had come up behind her while they were talking. "It was not your decision today, when we were supposed to be a team. You should have at least consulted with us."
She sighed. "I saw a chance, I took it, and it worked. Get over it."
She shut herself in her room and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Nothing seemed right. It seemed that whatever she did recently, someone had a problem with it. It was getting to the stage where she'd stopped enjoying herself.
Why am I putting myself through this?
Hard as she tried, she couldn't find an answer which satisfied her. She'd expected the academy to have its challenges, of course, but she'd never thought it would be this hard. She'd expected to enjoy the development of her skills, not to live in a state of permanent frustration. It simply wasn't worth it.
She had a lump in her throat as she made her way to Laban's rooms, but now she'd made a decision she wanted to get this out of the way as soon as possible. She knocked once but didn't wait for an answer before trying the door – when the handle turned easily, she let herself in. Laban was hanging upside-down from his trapeze, his head a full six feet above the floor, though he somersaulted down as soon as he saw her enter, landing lightly on his feet.
"Tea?" he asked, straightening.
"Thank you." She sat down on the sofa to wait for him, and shortly he returned with two steaming mugs.
"This is a pleasant surprise," he said as he joined her. "What can I do for you?"
She stirred honey into her tea and wondered how she could possibly soften the blow, but there seemed to be no way – and if she couldn't make it any easier for him, she could at least simplify matters for herself by getting this over with quickly.
"I'm leaving," she said quietly.
"Leaving?"
"Yes. I'm going to leave the academy."
He snorted. "Don't be ridiculous."
"I mean it – I don't belong here. I don't want to be part of your experiment any more."
He took a careful sip of his tea. "Are you listening to what you're saying?" he asked. "You don't just leave the academy. Besides, where would you go? You can't waltz back into the Imperial system and expect them to put a roof over your head and food in your mouth."
"Why not? I could tell them you tricked me."
He shook his head. "No-one would be interested, believe me. Well, except maybe for Myran, I'm sure he'd still like to get his hands on you – he always did bear a grudge."
Eleanor swallowed and looked at the floor, her guilty secret weighing heavily on her mind. Laban seemed to take her silence as capitulation.
"You see? However hard you might think things are here, it could be a lot worse. You've got food on the table, a warm bed at night, and good people on your side. The Association looks after its own, always has done."
"But the Association doesn't want a woman!"
"The Association wants good people – and that's all. I know there are some who are a bit old-fashioned, I warned you as much, but most people are on your side. Especially after how well you're doing."
"Well, they're not showing it."
"I know you're angry–"
"Of course I am!" She slammed her mug onto the table, splashing hot liquid across her fingers. "You manipulated me, you're still trying to use me to prove a point, and I'm sick of it."
"Perhaps I did use you." He sipped his drink, looking pensive, as if he'd only just thought of it. "Perhaps I did. But it was only for your own good, only the same as how the whole assignment system makes sure that the Empire uses everyone to their best advantage. You belong here."
"I don't. I can't do anything right. They say I shouldn't be here to start with, and I shouldn't try too hard to win, and I certainly shouldn't try to escape from their stupid fake-kidnap, or be upset at the idea of something being unwinnable... How can you say I belong here when everything I do comes out wrong?"
Tears of frustration rolled down her cheeks, and Laban passed her his handkerchief as he spoke.
"You just do things differently to what they're expecting. They're not used to you, yet."
"Why me?" She dried her eyes and took another mouthful of her tea, willing the honeyed taste to soothe her as it always had in her childhood. "If I'm so out of place here, why did you pick me?"
"You have all the right skills. You might do things differently, but you're doing well."
"Not well enough."
"Ivan says you're one of the most natural throwers he's seen – though he's young, of course. But you're one of the best in your year. And think of the principles at stake here. If our first woman walks out on us, what are the chances for other girls?"
"I don't want to be a principle!"
"Fine. But if you won't think of their future, at least think of your own. Where could you possibly go?"
She avoided meeting his eyes. "There are smugglers who live just as nicely as we do."
"Will you listen to yourself! You're not a criminal."
"I could be."
"Eleanor, Eleanor." He sighed heavily. "I'm bored of hearing this from you.
This is just what you always do. You'd have left school if you'd been able to think of any alternative. And here you have about as much freedom as you could ever wish for and you still want to give up, just because you think some people don't like you."
"It's not about people liking me."
"Why did you come here?"
"What?" The question surprised her. 'To the academy, or up here?"
"To see me, today."
"To tell you I'm leaving. I just told you that."
"Did you really come to tell me of a firm decision? Or are you expecting me to talk you out of it, like I always told you to stay at school?"
"No! No, absolutely not. I just didn't want to leave without saying goodbye."
"Good, because I'm not going to tell you what to do this time. You're an adult, Eleanor, you have to make your own decisions. But think carefully, because if you can't be happy here, I struggle to believe you'll be any happier somewhere else."
She put her mug down on the table, tea half finished. "I have to go and pack," she said. "I want to be away by first light."
"Stay and finish your drink," Laban said, but she got to her feet and walked to the door without another word. "Good luck finding your happiness," he called after her. "I hope you can find it inside yourself."
As she wrapped her things neatly into a small parcel, his words echoed in her head. Could he possibly be right? Was she just condemned to feel out of place anywhere?
She shook her head, trying to shake out such troublesome thoughts, and reached under her mattress for her identity bangle and the pendant Raf had given her. Of course she could be happy – just as soon as she found whatever it was that she really wanted. She clipped the bangle onto her wrist and hung the pendant around her neck. She'd known as soon as she'd seen it that her assignment wasn't the answer, and she'd pinned her hopes on the academy... but this was just another setback. Somewhere out there, she'd find it. She looked hopefully towards the window but it was dark, and she saw only a few drops of rain against the glass.
Once she'd packed up everything that could possibly be useful she went to bed; there was nothing to be gained by sleeping out in the rain, and it was too late to find anywhere to stay in the city. Besides, she had no money, so unless she was willing to pawn her knives she'd have to rob someone to pay for a room. The thought didn't appeal; it had been easy enough to justify petty thieving when the only alternative had been to starve, but this time she was walking out of a safe, warm place where good food was put on the table every day.
All because some people didn't like her, Laban had said. Was that really all that was driving her away?
She gripped the emerald pendant. Raf would never have given up like this... but if Raf had made it, she probably wouldn't be leaving. Again, she caught herself staring longingly into the darkness outside the window. Was this all about her grief? She'd clung to the thought that he might turn up at any moment, but as the days turned into weeks and months, her hopes were fading.
But running away from the academy wasn't going to bring him back.
She got up a little later than usual the next morning, washed her hair, then returned to her room to unpack her clothes back into the closet. She threw herself into athletics with even more than her characteristic abandon, turning frustration into movement as she'd always done as a girl.
She wasn't looking forwards to that afternoon's climbing lesson, dreading facing up to Laban and admitting that, in fact, she hadn't left. She could imagine his smug expression all too well. As it happened, though, he didn't mention her change of heart during the class, and she went to dinner feeling that she'd got away more lightly than she could ever have hoped.
When she got back to her room, though, she found a short note on her pillow inviting her to visit his rooms 'at her convenience.' She crumpled the paper and tossed it across the room, taking a quiet satisfaction in ignoring the request. She'd go eventually, of course, but she didn't want to talk about it yet. She hadn't worked out what had kept her here, yet.
Rebellion (Chronicles of Charanthe #1) Page 21
