by Olivia Ash
Sophia glanced at her teacher. She couldn’t keep her tongue any longer. The nerves in her body were too restless. They demanded answers to relieve some of the agony of not knowing her fate.
“Grindel, where are you taking me? You owe me an answer.”
He didn’t answer, nor did he even look at her. He kept walking, expecting her to follow. And she did, like the obedient solider she was training to be.
Finally, the tunnel opened up into a cavernous hall lit by sconces along the walls. Sophia knew the room was beneath the academy. It was the closest she’d ever been allowed within Nighthelm. She’d always been kept at a distance from the rest of the population, like some diseased creature. That notion had been pounded into her, much like when Grindel smacked her with a stick during some of their training sessions.
She had been to the room a few times before. Usually to see Headmistress Mittle. Indeed, the elderly woman was there, pacing on a raised platform at the back of the hall. Her head came up when Sophia entered and she visibly relaxed. The headmistress seemed genuinely grateful to see her. There was no smile though. Which was not surprising. Sophia had never seen a smile on the noble woman’s unflinching, stony face.
Sophia also relaxed, but only a little. While the woman always had nice things to say over the years–words of encouragement even–it was Headmistress Mittle who had originally given Sophia over to Grindel when she was a child for the brutal training she endured on a regular basis. Deep down, some flicker of resentment had always kept her from fully loving the woman who was essentially the closest thing Sophia ever had to a mother. Sophia had no recollection of her own. Obviously, she had parents at one time, but she couldn’t remember them.
Headmistress Mittle stepped down from the platform and came towards Sophia, the hem of her heavy, gold and red, embroidered robe dragged on the stone floor behind her. “You look well, child.”
“I am, thank you.”
“I’m surprised. After your explosive episode the other night in the woods, I expected you to be weak and broken.” She looked Sophia over, then gave a side-eye look toward Grindel. Had he mentioned something contradictory to the headmistress? “You don’t look broken. You look strong, if not a little pale in your face.”
Sophia was surprised she wasn’t being thoroughly admonished. Headmistress Mittle could use words like whips. It stung when hit with them. It made her wonder what Grindel had told the headmistress earlier about her incident.
“You were instructed to do a recon of the woods, and not to engage the grimms.” The headmistress paced in front of Sophia. “You deliberately failed to follow orders. Orders exist to not only protect the people of Nighthelm, but to protect you too.”
Sophia met the headmistress’s gaze. “I couldn’t let that little girl die. She was only, like, four or five years old. She would’ve been torn limb from limb and eaten by that pack. Right in front of me.” Sophia’s voice rose a little as she pictured what would have happened if she hadn’t interfered. “How would her horrible death protect Nighthelm, or me, for that matter?”
Grindel sighed and shook his head, obviously displeased with her outburst. For a moment, Sophia wondered how he would punish her for it. Extra sword training? Cutting wood for the stove?
Headmistress Mittle’s face softened a little. “I understand, Sophia. I know it is an impossible choice to make. But you are given orders for a reason. I even have orders to follow. And we must follow them at all costs, however high those costs may seem. There are always other things at play other than what you see in front of you.”
Sophia went to open her mouth to argue some more, but quickly closed it when Grindel pinned her with a hard stare.
The headmistress continued her lecture. “One of our purposes is to make sure the people of Nighthelm feel safe. That little girl, with her frightening tales of the grimms and the mysterious girl with the flaming sword who cut them all to pieces, only make people scared. It does Nighthelm no good to have fear spread across the city.”
Sophia was going to say that fear had spread around the city regardless. During her visits, she’d seen a few posters hammered onto walls declaring how dangerous the woods were and that people shouldn’t be traveling the woods at night, especially alone. That if they had to travel, to use the east or west bound roads that went around the forest. But she held her tongue, knowing being a wise ass wasn’t going to curry her any favors from the headmistress or from Grindel.
Headmistress Mittle set a comforting hand on Sophia’s shoulder to assure her everything would be all right, but Sophia didn’t feel that comfort. She was disappointed with the headmistress’s reprimand of Sophia’s actions on that night. Sophia hid her reaction, though, and bit her tongue. Knowing when to pick her battles was something Sophia was quickly learning. Regardless of the consequences, she would do it all over again. She would rescue that girl in a heartbeat. No matter what order she was given, she would never let an innocent die.
The headmistress squeezed her shoulder, then let her hand drop. As she moved away from Sophia, she played with the thick, emerald ring on her finger, spinning it around and around. “Now you can get back to your training. Get back to what’s important.”
Sophia sensed it was a dismissal of sorts. But she wasn’t ready to go just yet. She had one more question she needed an answer for. The question that had been on the edge of her mind for years. The question for which Grindel would punish her.
“What are you training me for?”
Both the headmistress and Grindel went dead silent. Grindel looked at Headmistress Mittle, who seemed visibly uncomfortable a brief moment before she gathered her composure and faced Sophia, with a slight tilt of her lips. Was that her version of a smile? It didn’t instill any amount of warmth in Sophia.
“To heal, of course. We want you to gain control of yourself and your magic so that one day you will be able to reenter Nighthelm society.”
For years, Sophia had heard the same song and dance. She planned on changing the music this time.
“You’re not exactly training me to be a housewife or a future mother to a brood of children. I’m certain none in this room could picture me doing needlepoint or playing a piano.”
Grindel sniffed derisively and shook his head. “You might as well tell her the truth. She’ll be insufferable until she knows.”
The headmistress pursed her ruby stained lips, then she sighed. She twisted her ring around her finger again. “You’ve always been told that it was I who found you in the mountain when you were a little girl, but that was a lie.” She paced the room, forever twisting the ring over and over. “Another found you. A magical creature of great power who took pity on a poor orphan girl and brought you to me. Your training has been paid for all these years by someone who occasionally asks for favors in exchange for the work we’ve done to help you once more to become whole.”
“Who found me? Who do I serve?”
The headmistress looked at Grindel, he didn’t meet her gaze, then she looked back at Sophia. “As soon as your training is complete, you will earn the right to know that information.”
Sophia saw Grindel stiffen. It was subtle, just a small lift of his bony shoulders, but she noticed the movement. She’d been around him long enough to know the majority of his tells. And that one said he smelled a lie. Sophia had detected this one on her own, but it was affirming to know she was right. Why was the headmistress lying?
A nameless creature had found her and delivered her to the academy to be trained as a deadly solider for favors in return, all under the guise of goodwill and protecting an orphan. What a bloody crock. It went deeper than that. Nothing was as it seemed. Sophia knew that all too well. She was going to find out the root of it all one way or another.
If they thought she isn’t following orders now, they haven’t seen anything yet.
Headmistress Mittle gave them permission to leave. As they traversed back down the dark tunnel, Sophia muttered under her breath. “You could’ve t
old me a long time ago that I was being trained to be a warrior slave, forever in debt to a stranger with no name.”
He clucked his tongue. “Debts must always be paid. That is the way of things. And you owe a great debt for being saved from the mountain.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve paid that debt and then some.”
“You’re being overly dramatic, as usual.” He shook his head. “You may not enjoy all your missions, but at least you can say you have a purpose in life. For some, that is more than enough to be thankful for.”
Sophia nearly snorted in frustration at his meager justification for her brutal life. Indulging the whims of a mystery master wasn’t the sort of purpose she wanted.
Chapter Eight
Ezekiel
Deep in the labyrinth of the hallways in Nighthelm Castle where he studied and sometimes slept slumped over his worktable, Ezekiel, on hands and knees, drew along the stone-tiled floor with enchanted chalk that glowed as he wrote his runes. The blue luminance cast eerie shadows over the stone walls and the portraits of long dead sorcerers and academy professors. For some, those shadows might’ve instilled fear and wariness, a creeping dread. But for a sorcerer like Ezekiel, it was the residue of his practiced magic. There was nothing to fear.
He’d traveled much of the known world, always seeking adventure and meaning outside the kingdom of Nighthelm. He’d been as far as Ondia, bordering the Serpent Sea to the east, and seen many extraordinary things like dancing lights in the night sky, met many interesting people like a giant that loved to play chess. One night, on the shores of the sea, he’d had an encounter with an undine. She had been beautiful and seductive, but he knew she would’ve taken him to the bottom of the sea if he had given in to her charms; much like the rumored sirens who lived in Ghost Light Lake in the woods. However much he wanted to give in, he left her where he found her and gone to the tavern nearby instead, to drown himself in ale.
Despite all the beauty and knowledge of the outside world at his fingertips, something always drew him back home. Back to Nighthelm. It was like a piece of his soul was trapped there, shackled by unseen bonds. Shackles he was determined to shatter.
He drew the final rune of the circle then straightened and took a step back to examine his work. It was well constructed and intricate. The lines were thick and clean. Deliberate. This was what all powerful magic needed to work and work well. The circle was perfect. He’d measured the diameter expertly. Every symbol was exactly the same distance from the center. The spell had to be flawless to work the way he needed it to.
He wanted to finally set himself free. To finally be able to leave and never return to this place of so much pain. His nightmares grew progressively worse. Some nights, he was jolted out of sleep, sweaty and gasping for breath. The only thing that would soothe him was to practice battle spells. Thankfully, on nights he didn’t crash at the castle, he lived in a large estate in the city proper, willed to him by his parents, away from nosy neighbors with only his servant, Howard, as company. Howard never complained about the explosions in the basement.
Thankfully, Howard never complained about anything, not even when he ended up shackled with a young boy of twelve to raise after Ezekiel’s parents were killed. The professors at the academy were also instrumental in Ezekiel’s upbringing. Growing up, he spent most days in the academy studying and learning to control and master his magic or in the extensive library reading about history and science. As a man, he still spent most of his days and nights roaming the castle halls. Everyone basically left him to his own devices, as his magical abilities had far surpassed any inside these walls.
Closing his eyes against the onslaught of memories of his family screaming as they were slaughtered by grimms in front of him, and him being helpless to protect them, Ezekiel stuffed them down, deep into his psyche. He needed to lock away his agony and loss if he was going to succeed. He needed a clear head to continue his spell. Nothing could interfere.
With hands raised over the runes, fingers spread wide, he spoke the words and casted his magic. The spell was one he studied for years. Every nuance of it was ingrained in his mind. He had over one hundred pages of notes and practice symbols scattered across his desk. Within seconds, brilliant light burned like a small sun in the middle of his circle. Contained, the magic sizzled and sparked, and in its center Ezekiel saw the blurry outline of a face.
He twisted and turned his hands, manipulating the spell to increase its power, to get a better bead on the face. The jawline was smooth, not rugged. The shape wasn’t blocky, but more oval. Ezekiel was reminded of something soft and gentle but with a pointed chin, and high, sharp cheekbones. Feminine.
It was a woman.
Somehow, this woman was not only blocking his magic, but she was the reason he was chained to the city he so desperately wanted to leave behind him. He pressed his magic, pushing past her defenses which were as thick and immovable as the mountain itself, trying to gauge her power and force the spell to complete so that he could discern her identity.
He pushed harder, using his hands to manipulate the energy flowing through the runes. The face in the circle flickered then compressed. He could almost note some features. She was young, maybe even his age, maybe a little older. She didn’t carry the air of the any of the elderly ladies of noble families. So, maybe, a commoner. Small, thin nose, nothing hawkish. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line, but there was no mistaking the fullness of those lips. He could almost make out her eyes, the color, the shape. They were the key. The eyes held all, held everything inside a person.
Again, he pushed. Harder. His hands nearly shaking with the effort. Sweat popped out on his forehead and upper lip from the exertion of holding his magic in one place. One slip and it could shatter every fragile thing within fifty feet.
The light brightened, getting hotter. He moved his hand to shield his eyes. Energy in the room pressed against him, running over his skin, until there were goosebumps all over his body. Wincing from the pushback, he knew he’d failed.
The spell imploded.
Energy bombarded him, singing his clothes and hair, and burning away the runes he’d so carefully drawn on the floor for the last month. The scent of electricity filled the room, like the moment after a bolt of lightning had hit the ground. The hairs on his arms stood at attention.
Groaning at the loss of his work, Ezekiel turned and punched the stone wall. Bone cracked, and skin split from the force. He looked down at the cuts on his knuckles. Blood bubbled out of the wounds. Concentrating on it, his skin slowly knitted back together, and the bones clicked back into place. He’d healed himself but hadn’t dissolved the anger boiling inside him.
He stared at where the light had been in the center of the circle. Where the face of the woman hovered above the stone ground. Although his spell failed, at least it had given him a vital clue to what he had suspected all along: someone had cursed him. Someone had tied him to the city for reasons beyond his understanding.
Armed with that knowledge, he could do something about it. He was determined to find the woman; more determined than ever to finally be free of this place and his past.
Chapter Nine
Sophia
On the hard, wooden floor in her room, Sophia crouched as her heart raced and her body shook. She couldn’t catch her breath. Something unseen–unknown–attacked her. It was magical in nature, she was certain. Outside her window, Haris whimpered because he knew something was wrong. She couldn’t form the words to assure him she would be all right, though she didn’t know if that was true. Without air, she couldn’t scream, even if she wanted to. Besides that, she didn’t want to wake Grindel.
Hand to her chest, she sensed someone poke at her, wielding a branding iron like a weapon. It burned like wildfire, searing her flesh from the inside out. Looking down, she fully expected to see her flesh sizzle and crack, blackened from the fiery assault. But her skin was still her normal pink, not blistering red. Unmarred and unburnt.
Bu
t the pain. Dear Gods, it hurts!
She looked to her small, open window, wanting to see if there was someone outside, hiding in the trees, wielding commanding magic toward her. But she couldn’t move, as if she was forced to the spot on the floor by large, powerful hands, pressing down on her, ripping at her very flesh.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she wrapped her arms around her body, like a shield. She didn’t know who was attacking her, or why, but she would be damned if she allowed it to go on much longer. Channeling all her thoughts and all her emotions, she stacked them one on top of each other, constructing a fort, an impregnable stronghold to wait out the attack.
I will not let you in.
Another whip of burning pain slashed across her body, trying to see inside, trying to pry something loose from her mind. Rough finger-like pressure traced along her jawline, molded her nose and lips and cheeks. Whoever attacked her was attempting to unlock her identity. He was trying to see her.
Keep out! She shouted in her mind as she balled all her thoughts into one, solid, sphere and launched it like a comet, pushing outward.
Then all the burning pain and invasive poking ceased. Vanished in a second.
Taking in greedy breaths of air, nearly collapsing on the floor on her face, Sophia considered her attacker. It had to be a sorcerer, given the expert command of magic, but she didn’t know much about them, and certainly had never faced one before. Not even in Grindel’s small library of books did she find any information about sorcerers, except for a paragraph or two in the text about Nighthelm Academy. Unlike the guards and wraith shifters, sorcerers trained in secret, deep in the halls of Nighthelm Castle. She’d never been able to find them in order to observe and learn more about them. Their ways were shrouded in so much mystery, she didn’t even know how many there were or how they were trained or even chosen for that matter. The only thing she did know, for sure, was there were no female sorcerers. So, it had definitely been a man attacking her.
