by Jade Alters
“I’ll take care of it,” I tell her. The next second, my body folds into a dense blur of undefined matter. The one after that, it forms a shape with talons, wings and a pointed hook of a beak.
Emery,
The Broken Academy,
Rec Field
I keep my face forward as I cross the field. Even when the score ticks up. Even when the buzzer sounds. Even when I hear the screech of a bird of prey, followed by the flap of its sonic wings. I wait for him to come to me. I honestly didn’t think I was going to have to push it this far. I thought I had him, with my “breaking from the family” performance. Maybe he really has changed more than his name. Last time I saw little Rock Cloud, he was a messy knot of doubts. He doubted his abilities. He doubted his right to the Chief’s Seat. He doubted his capacity to lead. It is not the same child who zips an inch over my unflinching head in the form of a falcon. He banks a sharp turn on the edge of his tilted wings and shifts back to his human shape to plant his feet just inches in front of mine. He closes the gap between us with a fist around my collar. He leans in close to murmur:
“My other Runner is a Vampire.” It doesn’t take me more than a second to discern the meaning behind his message. One sound-dampening trick coming right up. With the light of full-sun all around me, it’s the simplest flick of a few fingers. I sweep the particles in a perpetual vortex around us. As soon as the air follows suit, we’re wrapped in a sound-scrambler that will confuse even the keenest of ears. Even the members of Cypher Stream leaning in to hear our conversation through their Runner. “That was mighty bold of you. Coming out here like that.” Finally, I give Rock a genuine smirk.
“How much of what you just said was a lie?” I ask.
“Not as much as you think, since you just asked me that,” Rock warns me, or at least he tries to. I still see a twitch of hesitation in that sharp jaw of his. In those sea-green eyes. In his lips that make him look more like a statue than a man. “What about you?”
“Show me your hand and I’ll show you mine,” I answer him. He continues to hold me by my collar, to simulate a stern talking to, maybe even a threat. I wrap my fingers around his arm, tense with bulging muscle, for authenticity.
“Nice try,” Rock gives me a daring little smirk. His knuckles graze the bone of my bare collar under my shirt. Before I can even reconcile how strange it is, my cheeks flush.
“So it’s all a show then?” I ask. “Go on, throw me down and be done with it. I didn’t come here to unhinge your seat of power in your Sealbreaker Team.”
“Then what did you come out here for? The truth,” Rock demands. I almost laugh out loud at him. He hasn’t the slightest idea what he’s asking for. If I gave it all to him, right now, he might flee the Academy. So I give him a piece of it.
“What the hell do you think? To join a Sealbreaker Team! I’m on thin ice here, in case you forgot the allegations against my family right before they went missing last term,” I tell him. Rock’s face lightens a shade with the beginning of understanding. The beginning of belief. That’s all I need, for now. “I want the Council to quit eyeing me like I’m a timebomb waiting to blow. I want a little freedom to breathe. I figured some community involvement would help.” I cast my eyes down at the ground to heighten the effect of the real stress behind the words.
“You know what the sad thing is, Emery?” Rock asks me. It catches me so by surprise that, just for a second, I look up at him with genuine curiosity. We’re locked in a bizarre stalemate. Our body language tells of two people about to rip one another apart. Our faces tell an entirely different story, now no one is close enough to see them. “Despite everything…I actually want to help you. I just can’t. The recruitment for this season is over. Bryant is our newest fielder, and our backup roster is full. If I moved someone now to put you in…the team would kill you before the first match.”
“Yeah, really- what kinds of things have you told them about me?” I ask.
“Nothing, actually. But the dispute between your family and mine is pretty much public knowledge, “ Rock tells me. I believe the remorse in his eyes. Remorse that shouldn’t even be there. I want to slap it off him, like my parents would have done for me - he hasn’t done a damn thing wrong. “What about your brother? I think Silver Spark is actually down a player this term. Why in the hell did you come to me before him?”
“I… There’s a lot going on in my family right now, as you can imagine,” I give Rock just enough for the vote of sympathy. “Serge and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms.”
“That didn’t stop you from coming in here to talk to me,” Rock chuckles quietly, “Listen, the team’s probably already suspicious about what I’m doing over here. I have to go back. If you want to change the way the Council sees you, do yourself a favor and talk to Serge. I may hate the bastard, but he’s certainly earned his way into the Council’s good graces.” I don’t flinch at the news of Rock’s hate for my brother. Anyone remotely invested in Sealbreaker at the Broken Academy is aware of the rivalry between the Captains of Cypher Stream and Silver Spark.
“Thanks, Rock,” I smirk at him, “Now go on and throw me down. Make it convincing.”
“You always were an odd bird, Emery,” Rock smiles back through a squint. He gives me a shove, or at least what he thinks is me. My illusory body melts into a purple puddle as soon as it hits the ground. The next second, Rock’s head twitches from the impact of an empty soda can from the stands, where I’ve really been the whole time. He glances around for me, but I’ve already slipped away through the portal back to B-Wing.
Emery,
The Broken Academy, D-Wing Courtyard
Mother’s blood trick pendant leads me to him from across the Academy without a single hiccup. The trouble starts when I peer around the corner at him. I find Serge exactly where I’d hoped he wouldn’t be. Eating lunch with his new girlfriend. The Dragon girl. The one who almost torched half our family and all but chased them out of the Academy. The one who turned Serge against us. I suck down a deep breath with the amulet clutched in my palm. It’s been years since my brother and I have shared a school. It’s been double that time since the last time we sat down and talked.
I cross the Courtyard to the lovely pair sitting in the grass. I look down at my brother’s overgrown hair. At his face, so full of untamed emotion. He’s looking at the girl beside him when I arrive, but he quickly turns up to me. No matter what Mother says, no amount of training could prepare me for the look he gives me. For about three seconds, Serge has no idea who I am. Then, like a kick in the head, he realizes.
“Emery?”
“Hello, brother,” I say. An odd battle wages across my lips, between a smile and a grimace. I realize all too late that I might actually have missed him.
“You never mentioned you had a sister,” the girl beside Serge remarks. My eyes bolt to her. She stares up at me with crystal blue eyes that are somehow ferocious, even when she seems to bear me no animosity. In her face I see something inversive of a child’s innocence. In her occasional stress lines, she carries the guilt of a hundred heavy decisions.
“Well…I didn’t expect to see her again,” Serge tells the girl. “Cece…this is my sister, Emery.”
“Nice to meet you,” Cece put forward, but I see a tinge of suspicion flick across her eyes. I can understand why, too. The last members of our family she met tried to coerce her to their cause, and she made the crucial mistake of denying them.
“Yes,” is all the civility I can manage. I crouch to lower myself to the grass across from them. Maybe she’ll find me less threatening if she can look at me at eye-level. It’s not that I am no threat to her, by any means. I just need her to think I’m not.
“What can I do for you, sister?” Serge asks. I turn my face back to him. He’s been on a journey so similar to mine, up to a point - there’s no use in trying to lie to him.
“You can let me onto your Sealbreaker team,” I say, flat out.
“And why would I do that?”
Serge counters instantly. “After weeks of courses, you suddenly feel inspired to join a Sealbreaker team?” He bears into me with the same golden-brown eyes we share. I can’t defend myself either, without confirming the suspicions I already see brewing in him. This is why I went to Rock first. “It’s more likely a move across Mother and Father’s board.”
“Are you that bold?” Cece asks. Her fingers snap a tall tuft of grass. It sizzles in her grasp as she poises, ready to launch at Serge’s signal.
“It has nothing to do with boldness,” I bite back at Cece. Then to Serge, I offer a shimmering scarlet amulet, dangling by a silver chain. “Here.”
“A blood trick amulet? So that’s how you tracked me down,” he humphs.
“Listen. You grew up in the same house I did. You’re just about the only person who could possibly understand…just how badly I want out from under their thumb. Take this. That way I can only find you if you want me to,” I promise him. I drop the jewelry in Serge’s palm before he can object.
“If you turn them against you, you’ll have no one. You know that, right?” Serge tests me.
“I know. Until…maybe, you find it in your heart to forgive me. I heard you were down a Sealbreaker member and I thought…well, you know how much Mother and Father hate showboating. What better way to get back at them, than both of us parading our tricks out on the field for everyone to see?” I prompt. Serge squints up at me but his lips give a faint little twitch of intrigue. That’s all I need. He clutches the amulet and jams it in his pocket. Cece follows it there, then glances back to me, hardly as moved as my brother.
“We’ll see, sister. Consider yourself on probation. Like a tryout. Come to our next practice and maybe you’ll find yourself a chance to show off a little at last.”
“Thanks, Serge,” I smile at him. I feel Cece’s frown burning into the side of my cheek, but I choose not to humor it. It’s hardly time to pretend-mend bridges with the girlfriend yet. I still can’t believe Serge gave me a chance. I believe that I gave him Mother’s amulet even less, but I knew it would take nothing short of extreme risk to earn even a sliver of his trust.
I only hope Mother understands the sacrifice as a move of strategy, at our next meeting. It was only another move on the board. Just like she taught me.
Breaking the Seal
Emery,
The Broken Academy, Rec Field
I can’t believe how nervous I am. So stupid. It’s just a game - but maybe that’s precisely why it’s getting under my skin so much. I never had a game. I never played a game. They were pointless wastes of time and resources in Mother and Father’s eyes. Now my reputation hangs on the edge of one. It’s my first year. I’m starting late in the season. Factor that in with the allegations surrounding my family, and it all means one thing. There are a lot of eyes waiting for me above the Sealbreaker prep rooms under the Rec Field.
I sit with my back against the cool steel of a bench. I close my eyes and listen to the commotion. Footsteps play out an endless drumroll on the bleachers that line the field above us. Even ten feet underground, I hear the chatter of the spectators. They’ve come to watch their favorite teams flash their powers for all the Academy to see, or maybe watch their most detested one stomped deep into the ground and set ablaze. After all, any means short of fatal are permitted to stop your opponents from dropping their Goalstone down the Chute. Even just in the fifteen minutes I’ve been sitting down here, dressed for the game, I’ve heard the talk of the crowds rise from hardly a mutter to something bordering a roar.
Tests have been no problem for me. More challenging are the social goals, but I’ve even managed to make progress on those fronts. I’ve been to lunch with Fey Deller a handful of times and I still see Hoster, both in class and my dreams. I’m able to balance it all without too much thought or effort. But this game? I’ve been dreading it all week. Since Serge paid me a visit to tell me the day, time and team we’d be facing in my first official Sealbreaker match. The levitating scoreboard above ground must be lighting up right about now, with the words Silver Spark vs. Fiends and Fangs. I’ve got my signed permission to use tricks outside class to show for it, and yet…the sweet taste of victory eludes me, while this wretched game still hangs over my head.
“Alright everyone, group up. We’re on in five,” Serge calls out over the prep room. He summons in the four other members of our team.
All of them eyed me with a certain, healthy level of suspicion when I showed up to my first practice two weeks back. That look has vanished from about all of their faces now, besides our Cavalier - the girl I previously thought to be Serge’s girlfriend. Now their arrangement seems more to me like he’s her boyfriend, and she’s free to do what she pleases with whomever she pleases. Cece and I have hardly shared a word since that day in the courtyard, despite sharing a Sealbreaker team. But, at any given moment, I can count on a fresh dose of stink-eye, should I choose to look her way.
Aside from her, Serge and myself, there’s our Striker, Dyne. I still can’t tell if Dyne is male or female, or if Demons even observe such conventions as gender - though, comparatively, Bryant from Cypher Stream had much more masculine features. Then there are our Runners. Camilla, the Vampire, makes some solid sense in a role designated for sprinting around the field to gather up the Pins the game is named for. The second we set foot on the field, we’ll be in a field that Seals our abilities, until we claim one of the Sealbreaker pins. Each one has a shelf-life of two minutes, so Runners have to scoop up as many as possible for the team. This is what confused me so deeply about my brother’s choice for our second Runner. Rose is an Astral. I couldn’t imagine how access to the Blue Plane gave her an edge in collecting pins, until I saw her in action at practice. The variation in ability between her and Hoster is astounding. The six of us cluster close to the benches at the foot of the stairs to the field above.
“Our last practice was rough. We all know it. But it’s not what happens in practice that people remember, right?” Serge prompts.
“Right,” Cece answers immediately. Her energy is infectious, to the rest of the team.
“Right.”
“Yeah,” voices murmur through our little gathering. What a bunch of sheep. Makes me sick.
“Right,” I say anyway. I’m already fighting with knots in my stomach, and I’ve never been part of a team before… Maybe it does help.
“They don’t see the sweat, the tears, the grit we pour into learning our plays. They see the execution, in the face of another team who’s worked just as hard,” Serge goes on. His every word works like a pump from an air hose, inflating the rest of the team. Every last kink and slouch is worked out by the time he says, “Let’s get out there and make a good impression.” A resounding cry of:
“Yeah!” follows from around our little circle. I’m surprised to hear my own voice join them. It was automatic, just like the smile on my lips when I said it. I shake it off like something that’s just spilled on me. Something that couldn’t possibly have come from me…could it? On my way to the stairs in the wake of the others, a hand catches the side of my arm. I turn to find Serge’s heavy gaze.
“Remember. You and I are Disruptors. Support roles. That’s all we do. Disrupt,” Serge reminds me. Right. Like I don’t remember our last practice. I took my eyes off Rose for a second to intervene with the Goalstone. Getting slammed with the combined force of a Magician, Dragon and Demon isn’t something you forget. Ever. The headaches haven’t even fully subsided from it.
“I’ve got it. Watch the Runners. Keep them away from the pins,” I recount my role description to assure myself, as much as my brother. Serge raises an eyebrow, then squints at me.
“We’ll see what you’ve got,” Serge promises. I swear, if I didn’t need him for this minor subtask of my operation, I’d let him have it. In this temporary dependence, Serge has found all the revenge for the way our parents favored me he could ever want. I need him and he knows it. I can’t deny he does have infinitely more experi
ence in the realm of showmanship and recreation than I do. I also can’t help but feel the slightest note of something I’ve never had for him before, when I see the way he motivates the others…something like respect.
I climb the cement stairs from the prep room up to the edge of the Rec Field. The shockwave of applause jostles my body. People leap from their seats at the sight of us and the team on the opposite end of the Field. They don’t even know me. Yet, on sight of my tight, dark, silver-thread accented Sealbreaker uniform, these strangers fill the air with trumpeting screams. They strike up drum-rolls with stomps and claps. I haven’t even done anything yet! Just hearing it is a violation of everything I’ve had sliced into my psyche, and a shock to my soul. Despite all my years of training in restraint, in composure, my wide eyes wander. I look out on the screaming masses with the wonder of a child.
Three rows up on my right, I spot Helena and Fey Deller. Helena screams with a ferocity that turns her face purple. Hoster is a few rows behind them, slapping his hands together hard enough for me to distinguish, all the way down on the field. My feet take me where I need to go on a track of two-week’s training. On my way across the short-trimmed grass, I pass another spectator I know on my left. Rock. He sits upright, beside the rest of his team in the very front row. A smile-shaped crack runs across the lower half of his statuesque face. I can hardly believe it, but I’m nervous. Like the way I used to get when I knew Mother or Father were watching. Before I had the confidence to know I was going to succeed. I’m a child again as I settle my unsure feet into the grass of my starting position, behind Camilla, just behind the front where our two teams line up. I take a deep breath as I take the sideways stance of a Disruptor. Just like I used to - like I almost forgot how to do - I fake it in the hopes of making it.
