by J. B. North
I wandered through the stands aimlessly, deep in thought, when I spotted Liana. It looked as if she was searching for someone. When she caught sight of me, she hurried over.
“I saw the headmaster pull you away. Is something going on?” she asked.
I smiled at her. “You know he’s been doing that about every week, right?”
She nodded. “I know, but now that you have your cast off, it’s making me a little more worried.”
My smile faded. I realized that I would miss her. “I leave early tomorrow morning.”
Her face crumpled. “He didn’t even give you enough time for your arm to recover,” she objected.
“I know. It’s very sudden, but I’m not going alone.”
“Oh?” she asked.
“Roland is going to be coming with me.”
She raised her eyebrows. “How did you ever manage that?”
“I told the headmaster that I wouldn’t go unless someone went with me,” I answered.
“And you didn’t want me to come along with you?” she said, disappointed.
“I didn’t want you to be in danger.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care about danger. But I understand your choice. Roland is talented at many things. He could keep you safe better than I could.”
“You are also very talented. But he’s been on many quests and has a lot of experience.” I found it odd that I hadn’t even chosen Roland on the quest, and yet I was backing him up. It made me think back on what Kurt said about our friendship.
She studied me, her mouth pressed into a worried line. “Well, it’s almost time for dinner, so let’s go ahead and make our way there.”
We found a table together. I didn’t think that I had ever been on a survival test without Liana, except for the first time, of course. She always sat next to me, no matter what. I found it comforting that I had found a good friend. A couple of them, actually, more than I ever had at the orphanage. Roland and Natalia were also good friends, and even though Natalia mostly kept to herself, I found myself trusting her. I’d thought that Grix was a good friend, but after the bullying that I saw today, I wasn’t so sure. Roselle, of course, was always a good friend, right from the start. I missed her.
A girl and a boy that I didn't recognize joined us at our table, and then the numbers were brought in.
When we got to our tent, number 26, it felt so good to finally change and get to stretch out my wings, although if I strained them too hard, it would start to hurt. I felt like the tent system was being quite ironic today because it set our scene in the middle of the ocean. I would be traveling over the ocean a lot in the days to come.
I caught a few fish that were jumping out of the sea, and a seagull, although I’ve heard that those can be quite chewy. They were still a source of food, and in real life, I would have to eat it, but right now, the food that I caught turned into normal food that the cook produced in the kitchen. I had learned during my stay here the kitchen was under the dining hall. Nobody dared to go there because if someone were caught sneaking anywhere near it, they would be punished.
I went to bed as soon as possible because I knew I would be getting up earlier than I was used to. It would be about the same time that I used to get up when I went to train with Roland.
Oddly, I wasn’t able to sleep until everyone else was in their beds and snoring. My mind was racing, anticipating the freedom of tomorrow.
Part Two
THE QUEST
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Strangely enough, when I got up the next morning, I felt like I had been sleeping for days. I was energized and ready to go, jumping out of bed and jerking on my clothes.
I was ready in less than five minutes after my eyes had opened. My mind was racing, but I stopped for a moment to look back at my friends, Natalia and Liana. I hoped that I would see them again. They were sleeping peacefully in their bunks, so I didn't want to wake them to say good-bye.
After that brief pause, I rushed to the headmaster’s office. I noticed for the first time since I'd been here that Gibble’s desk was empty. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer. When I tried to open it, it was locked.
I sighed and sat down in Gibble’s chair to wait for everyone to catch up with me. It must have been ten minutes before Gibble came up the stairs, rifling through a few papers in his hands. He looked up at me, and was so startled that he dropped his papers.
“W-what are you doing at my desk?” he sputtered. He lurched forward, stepping right over the mess he made. “No one sits at my desk except for me. N-no one!”
I stood up quickly and backed away from the cluttered mess he called a desk. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know…”
Didn’t know what? That a crazy man would come in and yell at me for sitting in his seat?
More steps echoed through the hall, and we both looked over to see the headmaster. “Really, Gibble, get a hold of yourself. She sat at your desk for a few minutes.”
“B-but…” he protested.
The headmaster cut him off with a sharp look. Gibble’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, sir,” he said grudgingly.
Headmaster Drake waved his hand over the lock and the door opened. At about that time, I heard more footsteps approaching from behind, and turned to see Roland's grinning face. The smile was wiped from his face when the headmaster ordered in a harsh tone, “Both of you, inside.”
I had no choice but to comply. He went around his desk, and took a book from his bookshelf. “Sit,” he commanded.
We sat.
He began rifling through the pages of the book, his brow creased in deep concentration.
“Ah,” he finally said. He slapped the book down on the desk and pointed at a picture. Both Roland and I craned our necks to see it. The plant of eternal life. It was beautiful, but simple. “This is the plant. Memorize its appearance.”
As we looked at it for a little longer, he continued with his lecture. “There are natives that guard it, but against you two, I'd hardly call them a threat. It should be easy for you to get to the plant. I believe it to be in the center of the island, up the mountain, although I don't know its exact whereabouts.” He turned to the next page and pointed to a map of the kingdoms. He traced his finger along our route, sweeping it around the coast of Ginsey. “It shouldn't take you more than a few weeks to get back here with the plant.”
“What happens if we can't find this plant?” Roland asked, leaning back in his chair.
Headmaster Drake didn't even look up from the book. “There will be severe consequences.”
I swallowed my nerves.
The headmaster finally looked up and clapped the book shut with one hand. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small bag, tinkling with coins. He tossed it our way, and Roland caught it. “In that bag are fifteen gold coins for both of you to share during the journey, but keep your load light or your pace will slow,” he said.
As he walked around the desk, Roland and I stood. He led the way out of his office and down to the doors of the boys' dormitory. Just before he opened the doors, he stopped and turned to face us.
“One more thing,” he said, looking straight at me. “During the quest, you should keep your second form hidden. If anyone finds out that you are the phoenix, bad things could happen.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Why is that?”
He twisted his mouth up into a smile. “I might tell you when you graduate.” He then turned to the door again, and opened it for us.
On our own from this point on, Roland led me past the girls’ dorms, past the arena, and past the survival tents until we were walking on the bare, snowy terrain. Our footprints blemished the clear face of the snow. Roland looked at me guiltily. “It’s slow now, but once we hit ocean, we'll be a lot faster.”
I shrugged. I didn't care. I was happy that the school was behind us. “I don’t mind so much,” I said. “Even if the entire journey went at this pace, I wouldn’t mind.”
He smiled at me. “Oh, you wou
ld after a while. We humans have a habit of being discontent. Even freedom, after a while, can get tiring.”
“I guess I should enjoy it while it lasts,” I replied.
He was silent as he looked ahead.
We walked on the flat ground for perhaps an hour, and then the land started to slope downward. It got steeper and steeper. We could smell salt and fish in the air. “We’re getting closer to the ocean,” Roland said.
Then, all of a sudden my foot slipped out from underneath me.
Roland tried to catch me, but he reacted too slowly. I plowed down the slope, my heart thumping violently, and then, all of a sudden, I was falling. The smell of the sea was stronger than ever. I looked down.
Below me, white waves crashed against the russet rocks. I didn’t know if I could make it, but I changed into my second form as quickly as I could. In a panic, I flung my wings out to catch myself. Icy spray splashed at my talons and feathers, sending chills up my spine. I had caught myself just in time.
I gained altitude, and looked back in search of Roland. I had expected him to be watching from the top of the cliff, but he wasn't. Dread filled me as I watched him plummeting toward the sea.
I hurriedly circled back, but there was no way I could catch him in time. He plunged into the freezing waves. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t landed on any rocks, so I searched for any sign of his tossing body.
I shrieked and flung myself upward when a giant head burst out of the sea, scales shining like copper in the mid-morning sun. Jagged spikes lined its spine and its fangs were hooked and sharp like a snake’s. Despite its threatening appearance, I recognized the same mischievous glint in its eyes that Roland had. I was so relieved that I missed a wing beat and wavered for a moment in midair. Roland’s form straightened out, longer than I thought was possible. In order to swim, he dove his head in the water and made the rest of his body follow suit. Then, while the other half of his body was still under the sea, he plunged back onto the surface and repeated the process.
I stayed back a ways so that I could watch him. He was the most majestic thing that I had ever seen. True to his word, he was very fast, mostly because of his monstrous size.
The ocean stretched out as far as the eye could see, but my eyes hungered for more. I wanted to see past the horizon. I wanted to explore lands that I'd never had the chance to see before.
What would they look like? I was only used to the barren landscape of the Crescent Isles. Or at least the northern tip of my island. Perhaps the lower islands had the same climate as the Isle of Ginsey, known to have five months, rather than three, of summer. I wouldn't know. I don't travel much.
To conserve my energy, I would get as high as I could, and soar, pointed slightly downward for speed. For the longest time, I wasn’t tired, but gradually, my wings were loaded down with more and more weight, especially the one that I'd broken. I hadn’t eaten anything all day.
Roland was probably stuffed from seawater and some unfortunate fish that wandered into his path. He’d no doubt had a feast of them by now.
It was late afternoon when I finally saw land. I let out a loud, piercing cry and forged forward. I was definitely winded by the time I landed. Sand spayed up into my eyes because of the clumsy landing, and I had to change form to wipe it away.
I turned to watch as Roland transformed back into himself. I hadn’t noticed that he was tired when he was a sea serpent, but in first form, his face was slack and his eyes were dull as he stumbled onto the shore. The outfit he wore was the same color that his scales had been, and form fitting, like the outfit of an acrobat.
I sat down on the ground with my head resting on my knees, waiting for my breath to stop coming in gasps. The temperature felt at least fifteen degrees higher than what it had felt like at the conservatory. There wasn't even snow here yet.
Roland collapsed next to me, breathing even harder than I was.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He nodded without speaking.
I waited for for a few minutes before questioning, “Where are we?”
“Seahorse Island,” Roland answered, still breathing hard.
“Is the mainland very far away?” I inquired.
He sat up, and looked out at the ocean. “It’s too far away for you to fly there. We’ll have to board a ship.”
I groaned. “How long will that take?”
“Well, we only have to be on it until we get halfway there, so I’d say that it would take a week at least.” Roland paused to look around the island. “I believe there is a city a few miles away. We could buy a room at the inn there.”
“Two rooms,” I corrected automatically.
Roland laughed, standing up to brush his pants off. “Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
My cheeks burned red. I hoped that I hadn't implied anything.
I followed him into the forest and we walked on for half an hour before we came to a small village, smaller even than the one that I was from. “A city?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
He wrinkled his brow. “Well, it has been a while since I made this journey…but we can probably still find an inn here.”
“I think I’d rather stay in a village anyway,” I said. “I’ve never been to a city before.”
“I like the city better,” he said. “There are so many more things that you can do…so many possibilities.”
I shook my head. “Then you’re a lot different from me,” I said. “I prefer places with a small population. It just seems safer."
“I understand that,” he said. “My mother was the same way. We lived near a city on the southern isles, called Redrune. Mother would always stay home to garden or cook or do laundry. I wished that she would come with me into town, but she never did. The only time she ever went was her occasional trip to the market.”
I was curious to know what his life had been like before he came to the conservatory. “What was your father like?” I questioned.
“Father? He's nice enough as long as we do what he says. I don’t know him as well as Mother because he's always out to sea.”
“Do you have any siblings other than your sister?” I asked, remembering the time when he'd told me that his sister had just had her baby.
He nodded. “Yes. I have three brothers. The youngest of them is seven years older than me, so it was hard to establish a steady relationship with them. Nowadays, we write to each other, but only on rare occasions.”
I found myself imagining things about Roland’s life, wishing that I could've had a large family. I could picture a thin woman with her son’s black hair and soft brown eyes. She was in a chair, knitting some socks while her young son played with blocks or slept in the cradle that his siblings had used before him.
“Do they ever visit?”
“My brothers don't very often, but my sister lives in the same city as us.”
“And why don't your brothers?” I pressed.
“Jake was a wolf and got a job in the king's castle, and Brent was a stag. They've always had a strong relationship with each other, so Brent moved to the castle with him to get a job as a sentinel. When my other brother turned into a wolf a few years after that, Jake had good connections and got him a job at the king's castle.”
We were silent. I watched the smoke coming out of the chimneys, twisting and spiraling upward until it disappeared. The smell of smoke mingled with the mouth-watering smell of freshly baked bread.
Roland started off down a path. “I remember this village now,” he said. “These people are famous for their cooking.”
As soon as we entered the village limits, I noticed people watching us. There were children peering through windows and women that stared. Then, in a blur of motion, we were suddenly surrounded with people, flaunting their merchandise shamelessly. Jewelry, blankets, coats. One man even pushed a horse in our direction. Roland declined them all, but he did ask one woman a question. “Is there an inn in this village?”
She nodded. “Just ar
ound the corner. It has a sign that says Hayman’s Tavern, so you can’t miss it.”
Roland thanked her, and we pushed through the crowd of people. Thankfully, the tavern wasn’t very far off. The sign was previously held up with two metal chains, but one of them had snapped, and the sign now hung vertically, creaking in the wind, its letters worn and faded.
Roland ignored it, but I studied it with suspicion. Inside, it smelled like dust, old food, and alcohol. A grizzled man sat at the bar with a glass emptied of ale in front of him. He looked up as the bell above the door rang.
When he saw that he had customers, he stood quickly and hurried behind the bar, placing the glass under the counter as if we hadn’t already noticed it. “Could I interest you in a drink? Some stew? Some bread?”
“Yes to all of those,” answered Roland. “And we also would like a room, please.”
With a pronounced limp, the man hurried to a doorway, covered by an old, dingy tapestry. “Rema!” he called.
A plump woman scurried out from behind the curtain, a wooden spoon grasped in her stubby fingers. “Yes? What is it, you old coot?” She shut up as soon as she saw us. “Goodness gracious!” she said. “We’ve got company!” She turned her gaze back at the man. “Why didn’t you say so, Roger?” She hit him with the wooden spoon and hurried back into the room that she came from.
Roger grimaced. He looked at us apologetically. “One room or two?” he asked.
“Two,” I answered quickly.
He limped closer to us and reached under the counter to pull out two keys. Then he led us up a flight of stairs and into a narrow hallway. I noticed why he was limping as soon as I saw his leg, or the lack thereof. He had a wooden stump, starting at mid-shin. We shuffled along behind him, slowly because of the man’s disability.
