Our fights increased in pace, our punches became faster and truer, but still neither of us would yield. By the end of summer, my anger toward her burned white-hot. She was my last yield, but she wouldn’t give in. Finally, in the middle of one of our desperate fights, I gave up. She threw a punch at me, and I didn’t block. I gave her my yield before I even touched the ground. At least I wouldn’t have to see her around the combat area anymore.
With Khea moved on to the next round, there was no one left for me to fight. I lay in bed and refused to get up or go to the combat area again. There was nothing left for me there; I would just have to wait out the rest of the fall as my anger simmered in my room.
Avis knocked, and then pushed his way in to give me a look that said he disapproved of my choice.
I should have known I wouldn’t get the chance.
“You’ve completed Round Two,” he said.
“No, I haven’t.”
“You defeated all the other students.”
“There’s no frost on the ground. You of all people should know.” I knew it wasn’t wise to talk to Avis that way, but I didn’t care. He could do what he wanted.
“For the rest of the season you’ll be with me.”
“I’m not allowed to go to Round Three.”
Doesn’t he remember?
It was yet another cruel trick from my loving mentor.
“You’re not. You’ll continue combat training. With me.”
You can’t be serious.
“I’m not going to fight you.”
“Fine. You think you know everything, Sir rule-breaker? If you can get me to the ground, I’ll leave you alone until the frost. You have my word.”
I jumped up then, with only my loose brown bottoms on, and attacked. In an instant, he grabbed my wrist, spun me around, and slammed my chin into the floor.
What the hell was that?
“Come on,” Avis mocked, “you’ll never get me to the ground with those scrawny arms.”
I’m not that small anymore.
As a matter of fact, I’d grown at least an inch since winter and gained enough weight to hide most of my bones.
And so, the rest of summer–and the start of autumn–continued in a blur. Avis forced me to eat and beat me in turns. He never faltered, never created openings, and never missed a block. He was like Khea, in that respect, only I couldn’t fake a yield to get out of it–and he never showed an ounce of mercy. We fought everywhere: in my room, the combat training area, the gardens, and even at the library once. I could never get close to him, much less put him on the ground.
I was trapped in a prison of defeat and frustration, and even if it started to snow in the middle of fall it wouldn’t have made a difference. I couldn’t hit him. I was just stuck.
One cool, foggy morning I met Avis by the lake on the eastern side of the school grounds. “Did you eat?” he asked patiently.
“Yes, of course I ate.” Even as I voiced my annoyance at his constant insistence to take me to the dining hall for meals, I knew it was doing the trick. Muscle started to fill out my body, and I’d grown even taller.
As if I’d ever tell him that.
“Ready to get beat again?”
It was a simple question, but it was also that little bit extra that pushed me over the edge. I’d been destroyed on a daily basis by him for three months, if not longer. I couldn’t beat Khea, I couldn’t beat him, I couldn’t do anything right. My mind filled with rage, and I flew at him. By the time my thoughts cleared, I was on his chest, and continued to beat on his face.
Is he laughing?
“Alright, alright! You win! I yield!”
I slumped over onto the grass beside Avis and breathed the cool air deep into my lungs.
What happened, did I just do that?
I was shocked to see blood smeared across my knuckles and even more shocked to see Avis’s face. Blood streamed down his cheek and dripped onto his grey shirt. His lip didn’t look too good either, but he just laughed. “I guess you’re ready for Round Three,” he finally said.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was starting to think you’d never do it.”
“Why’s that funny?”
He seemed to immediately sober up at the prospect of having to explain himself. “Never mind.”
“So what now?”
“Now we wait for the frost.”
The snow stuck by the end of the week, and Avis showed up in his mysterious fashion to leave my second stripe across the corner of my dresser.
More than a year
, I couldn’t help but notice.
At this rate, I’ll have twenty summers before I get my pendant.
~~~~~~~~~~
The next day, I woke to a knock at my door; when I got up to open it, I grumbled to myself about Avis’s never ending demands that I go to breakfast. It was Micha, dressed in his coverings with a plain, brown bag slung over his shoulder.
“You made it just in time,” he said though I didn’t understand what he meant. “Get your things, we’re leaving soon.”
In the early quiet of the hall, Micha’s thoughts told me we were going out tracking with a group led by a man named Jhurian. I pulled on a shirt and a heavy jacket before I put the rest of my coverings in the bag Micha brought for me. He had already gone out once with Jhurian and a group for more than six weeks at the end of the summer, but it hadn’t been easy for him. I didn’t dread the thought of living in the wilderness at this time of year as much as Micha, but I knew it would be challenging as I slipped my bow and quiver over my arm.
The realization that Micha had been away from Myxini for nearly two months lightened the sting from not seeing him around. It wasn’t his fault that he moved on and I didn’t, but that fact hadn’t made it any better that I was alone with Avis during that time.
It was a short walk through the torch-lit corridor to the dim sky over the southwestern grounds where Jhurian was waiting. He had a long, grey beard, weathered hands, and hid his face under a thick scarf and fur hat. There were two other Trackers with him,
according to their coverings.
Rhada was a soft girl. With eleven summers, and hair as black as night, and the nerves of an old, blind horse. She was terrified of Jhurian, and even more so of the wilderness. Iseut was older, taller and–despite her lack of experience–met our excursion with excitement rather than fear. It seemed impossible that those two girls could have had any abilities associated with tracking.
“We’ll start in the Creekmont for about a month or so. After that, the Calloway, then we move along the coast to the Oakwick and back to Hubli. We won’t be visiting the Highlands or the Frost Pass at this time of year, nor the Andover. Those are best left for the summer.” I liked Jhurian immediately; he was no-nonsense and quick to the point, which saved me from my frustration that I couldn’t read him. If he had a problem, he’d tell us–and that was really all I could ask of an adult at that point.
When Jhurian prepared to leave, I wondered if I should be going along. I couldn’t wrap my head around what had happened with Avis at the lake, and I hadn’t seen him since.
Would he approve of this trip?
In the end, I decided it didn’t matter. He’d battered me effortlessly for the summer season, and I would have been quite happy to never see him again.
My return to the Creekmont was better than I ever expected. Despite the agony of the cold that crepti,nto my boots and the bite of the wind, the untouched deer trails were a joy to travel. Each day Jhurian would select a site and make camp, so we were free to go out and track.
Our instructions were to find, learn about, and report the behaviors of the nineteen types of animals unique to the Creekmont. We didn’t know if we were to look for bears or bugs, but we set out each day to find them and returned to Jhurian’s kill warmed over the fire at night. We were forbidden to do any actual hunts; we were instructed to observe only. Still, the freedom of the Creekmont was a much preferred pursuit after my yearlong captivity at school.
It occurred to me now and then that I was only a few days away from the dismal, rocky shores of Lagodon. I could have slipped away to see my parents–or just left entirely. Rhorken said enrollment was voluntary, so it seemed to me that I could choose to go home whenever I wanted.
I wanted to see my parents. I wanted to see how they did with the money Rhorken paid for me. It seemed so long ago that I’d hunted with Father or heard one of Mother’s stores. We’d been hopelessly poor and desperate for food, but those were some of the happiest moments of my life.
As much as it sounded good to go back to my happy, uncomplicated life, I had to continue my course. There was too much I could learn about my Spark at Myxini, let alone to mention the real purpose I would have in the world after. Besides,
I had made new memories, too
, I reminded myself. I learned to read and, though I was driven from the library by the other students’ thoughts, it was an accomplishment that I couldn’t deny. I’d also met Micha, and he was the only true friend I’d ever had.
Jhoma helped me pass Round One before he quickly advanced through the rounds. The last I’d seen him, he had six stripes on his sleeve. Khea seemed as far from my friend as anyone could be. She refused to talk to me or even see me–unless it was to humiliate me in combat. No; there was only Micha, the talented Tracker with a big heart for lost animals and gifted boys with secrets.
No one stopped to pay attention, but Rhada and Iseut instinctively paired together, just as Micha and I did. We’d tracked down eighteen of the required animals within a week while the girls found only five. I noticed that one night, as we sat around a fire in an attempt to thaw our extremities and shared a pair of squirrels between us. Micha wondered where to find the last animal, the girls sulked about their lack of success, and Jhurian–of course–had no thoughts that I could detect.
“I’d like to go with Rhada and Iseut tomorrow,” I announced to the group.
“You still have one left.” Jhurian said, as if I didn’t know.
“There’s still time to find it. Besides–it’s too easy with Micha.” His Spark allowed him to sense the animals, even at long distances, and as long as I was near enough to Micha, I could sense him as he sensed them. Not to mention I had my own mild ability to detect animals. It hardly seemed fair that the girls had to flounder together while Micha and I made it look easy.
“Alright then, but you can only go with one of them at a time. I don’t need anyone going out alone and getting lost in the snow. Switch off between them for all I care.” It was hard to tell if he was worried about his position in the school, or if he really cared about our well-being.
I started with Iseut the next day, following behind her only to point out the signs she missed: a broken stem, a trampled leaf. She was eager to learn, and once she knew to look for something, she didn’t need anything more to find them on her own. By the end of the day, she’d found six new animals–one of which was the tiny wood vole–using the skills I had shown her. I felt how Jhoma had when he helped me learn to read: satisfied that I could help someone who was virtually helpless. She might have never learned to track properly, even If she fumbled around in the woods for years.
Rhada took longer to get the hang of it, if only because she was more timid. She was nervous to be around me, which was a surprise to me. From her perspective, I was much older and taller–a concept that I knew all too well, just not when applied to me. My infrequent participation in conversation made her feel that I couldn’t be trusted, and the bow on my back didn’t help much either. She watched me out of the corner of her eyes, rather than focusing on the trails, even after I explained that my bow was only for protection.
To calm her, and earn her trust, I led her along trails for most of the morning. I described some of the signs I saw, and we stopped some ways ahead when I noticed the markings of a deer that had come by rather recently. When we glimpsed the broad antlers and careful gaze of the buck in the clearing ahead of us, her fears all but diminished completely; she looked at it with awe, the same way Micha would have.
After that, Rhada wanted to try it herself, so I gave her the lead. She was nervous and unsure, but she stayed put at any given marking she found until I confirmed them for her. When we returned to camp, frozen and tired, she had three new animals to proudly report.
I went out to track with Rhada every day after that and her confidence grew by the day. When it came time to move on, each one of us had found all but the most elusive creature on the list, but it was clear that Rhada was no Tracker. Her skills seemed related to the animals themselves more than the ability to find them; some kind of empathy, perhaps, similar to Micha.
Aside from her difficulty with tracking, she hated sleeping outside. Watching Jhurian kill, clean, and cook animals each night right before she had to eat it was even worse. It was her own personal version of hell.
The night before we moved on to the Calloway, I brought it up to Jhurian. “Rhada’s no Tracker. She should go back to Hubli.”
“What makes you think you have a say in it?”
“Nothing, but she’s no better than average. She wasn’t made to be out here like us. You know that.”
Jhurian considered my words, but his face hid all his thoughts on the subject until he said, “Even so, we’re moving on. She’ll just have to wait it out.” I anticipated that exact response and already formulated a plan.
“Let me take her back. It can’t be more than a day or two from here. I’ll pick up your trail from camp and find you in the Calloway next week.”
“You know I can’t let you go back on your own.”
“I’m the best Tracker here and she needs to go back. Who else could take her?” Jhurian made a face that said the topic had been long since exhausted and walked away. It wasn’t until the next morning that he finally agreed.
“Micha and Iseut will head to the Calloway with me. Lark and Rhada will go back to Hubli,” Jhurian announced. I could hear Micha’s thoughts turn to confusion and worry, but I nodded to him to let him know it would be alright. Rhada, on the other hand, seemed ready to burst with relief.
“I’ll catch up to you within the week,” I told Jhurian confidently.
“No, you’ll stay in Hubli. There’s nothing more for you to learn out here.”
Was he serious?
Well, he wasn’t exactly wrong. I hadn’t learned anything new about tracking in the last few weeks, and I was already aware of the animals of the Creekmont–save for one. But I didn’t want to go back to Hubli permanently. The freedom of tracking made the constraint of Myxini that much more palpable.