Away
The morning the first snow fell, Avis was sitting in his usual perch at the foot of my bed when I woke.
Why does he do that?
A black strip of fabric landed by my head. “What took you so long?”
“You needed time to get good at it. Did you think you could move to Round Six just because you practiced a few times?”
In truth, the only sort of practice I got was in how to sneak across the grounds to Parvani’s room without getting caught.
“Besides, you didn’t really want me interrupting your
conquests
.” My fists tightened at the mention of Parvani as a conquest. I didn’t know what my feelings towards her were exactly, but I didn’t like the idea that I was being accused of using her.
“Alright, calm down, lover boy. Today you meet Sinha for knife training.”
Just kill me.
“That can be arranged. Just tell Sinha you don’t want him to heal you.”
So that was it then. That’s how students with knives and swords could fight without protective gear. Sinha would heal any student who was hurt.
“He only heals flesh wounds. If you break a bone, you’re on your own.”
Still, it would be a long road to earning a victory against every other student, and the injuries wouldn’t hurt any less when they happened.
“You only have to challenge and defeat three students.”
“Finally. Some good news.”
“And it won’t hurt if you don’t get hit.”
Avis no longer had to force me to eat, as my large frame and muscles required a constant food source. Besides, the dining hall wasn’t the torture chamber it had been during my first year. He left me at the entry to the dining hall with strange instructions, “Try to be quick about it.” It wasn’t like him to hurry me along, and usually he tried to slow me down as much as possible. I wondered for the hundredth time what it would be like to have a mentor who wasn’t cryptic and strange.
Sinha was waiting for the rest of the students in the combat training area, and I was thankful not many familiar faces were among them. Stabbing a friend would be just slightly worse than stabbing a random student. The only person I recognized was Micha, and there wasn’t a force in Madurai that could get me to attack him.
It took a few minutes for Sinha to get the Round Three students started. When the fourteen or so students in Round Six were all present in the snow-filled combat area, Sinha gave us each the option to observe challenges or participate in them. I opted for participation, confident both in my abilities in combat and in my Spark. We were paired up and given a weapon: a sword for those that wanted one, and knives for students like me who preferred a closer form of combat.
My Striker partner, Khasla, had seventeen summers and was pretty average with a knife. He started off aggressively with a quick jab to my gut, which I easily blocked with my forearm. The knife fell in an arc back towards my chest, but I drew his thread and heard the move as he planned it. I was able to block or duck each pass of his knife before I got an opportunity to slam my blade into the meat of his thigh, instantly dropping him to the dirt amid his screams.
Before I could make a sound, Sinha was there holding his hand a few inches over the wound. I watched the torn skin begin to reweave itself closed and wouldn’t have believed it unless I saw it myself. I wished I could read his thoughts so I didn’t have to voice my curiosities aloud. “What do you call that kind of Spark?”
He answered only when he was finished with Khasla’s leg. “A Healer.”
Of course.
Miraculously my partner was up and standing within two or three minutes of my hit, only the bloody hole in his pants giving any indication he had been injured.
“Are there very many Healers?”
“No. Lark, you’re with Rista next. Khasla, you’re with Nhorva. Take a break if you need one.” Apparently, the small girl with fifteen summers had just beaten Nhorva, a boy nearly my size. Sinha seemed to intentionally pair us together because we had already beaten an opponent.
Poor Rista was arrogant and overconfident, thinking I would go down just like Nhorva. Her eagerness to humiliate me worked against her, and she had a matching hit to the leg within minutes.
“There are other students here Lark. I can’t stand watch at each of your matches. Try to space it out a bit so I can get around to the others.”
I took a few minutes to get to the dining hall and eat a quick lunch before my final match with a Shaker girl named Maudlin. She was smaller and faster than the others but it didn’t make much difference when I could sense her blows before she made them. She lasted longer than the others because of her speed; by sunset, however, I had earned my three victories and headed back to my room through exhaustion and the snow-covered grass.
I should have known it was too good to be true. It had been all in all too easy. Avis was waiting in my room with a bag on his shoulder and another lying on the bed.
“What’s this?”
“We’re leaving. Get your things.”
It was almost dark and there was a fresh layer of snow on the ground, hardly the ideal environment for starting a trip. But I knew that Avis knew it, and there was no point in arguing. I placed my coverings in the bag, followed by the knife Sinha had given me, and my old knife from home. Avis pulled the blanket of patchwork furs from my bed and shoved it into the bag as well. I threw my bow and quiver over my shoulders on top of my thick coat and followed him to the stables, sure that it couldn’t be good.
Rhada was there with Pearl and Obsidian saddled and ready. She looked nervous, and her thread quickly told me she also recognized the precarious timing of our departure. “Be safe,” she called after us as we rode the horses into the snow and out of sight of the school.
“Where are we going?”
Avis didn’t respond, but I knew he had heard my question both in my head and aloud. He just wanted to ignore me, though I couldn’t think why we would be leaving like that or where we were headed. Had I done something wrong? Defeated the other challengers too easily? Looking back, I probably should have made it look more like an even match so no one would suspect. As we rode through the city, I began to wonder if maybe I was to blame for our sudden voyage to some unknown location. Maybe Avis didn’t trust me to know.
After we left Hubli, we continued moving through a wooded area I would have thought to be the Creekmont–except the trees weren’t right; instead they were winding and full of vines that slowed our movement over the rough trail.
Several hours later, I began to have trouble staying awake in the saddle. The swaying as Obsidian traversed the trail between the thick trees was smooth and rhythmic enough to put me to sleep. A few times, I did succumb to the dark, but the falling of my head woke me only seconds later. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could last.
“Come on, we have to ride until morning.” Avis said as he walked his horse next to mine, though I didn’t know how long he’d been there.
“Please, I need to sleep.” My exhaustion from fighting all day and attempting to ride all night had left little room for dignity. I was fully prepared to beg if it meant I could stop and sleep for an hour.
“We can’t make a fire, and it’ll snow soon. Just a little longer.” Avis flipped the reins, and for the next three hours, we moved at a faster pace. By the time we reached the small farm where Avis stopped, the pink of the sun just coming up could be seen to the right.
My blurry mind obediently followed Avis as we pulled the horses into the barn and rolled out sleeping pads on the hay-covered floor. Well beyond the point of caring, I quickly fell asleep in the mysterious barn, buried under my heavy fur blanket.
~~~~~~~~~~
Sure enough, the morning brought an onslaught of snow that left us trapped in the barn. Avis pulled some dried meat and two rolls from his bag. As he handed some to me, he tried to avoid my gaze.
“You’ve had this planned,” I told him accusingly.
“There’s nothing to be done for it. This is the only way.”
“Where are we?”
“The Oakwick. We’re just on the southern border now.”
“Why don’t you want anyone to know where we went? Are we in hiding?” It was clear from the timing, just before the snow, that he wanted to make sure no one could follow us. Even an experienced and gifted Tracker like me would have to wait until the thaw to find any tracks that were strong enough to follow.
“Yes.” His answer was so simple, so honest it shocked me a little. “Look, I’m sorry I dragged you out here without an explanation, but there just wasn’t time.”
“Well, there’s time now.” Judging by the heavy fall of the snow, we would be in the barn for a while.
“Yes, now there’s time. Do you remember Lheda telling you that you would do great things?” I immediately pulled up the memory, confirming it for him before he continued.
“She intends to use you to influence the Nakben queen to ally with her in the takeover of Takla Maya.” I stared blankly at him and blinked a few times. It was just plainly ridiculous to make such a statement.
“If you don’t want to tell me why we’re out here, then fine. But don’t lie to me.”
Avis flew at me, his fist landing squarely against my jaw to throw me to the hay-covered floor. “When you’re ready to know what’s going on in the world, you just let me know,” he spewed at me. I had never seen him so angry, and it immediately confirmed to me that the story about Lheda and Takla Maya was true–though that didn’t make me feel much better about having to leave school so suddenly.
We spent another night in the barn in near silence. I was fuming mad about having to leave school just when I was starting to make some real progress, and Avis was still sore about being called a liar. Neither of us were prepared to swallow our pride and mend the gap first, so we left the barn and continued the ride north without a word.
Our horses crunched through the snow that lay between the trees as we made our way along the trails. The falling of winter in the Oakwick had left it eerily quiet, except for a hawk that screeched above us. Daylight provided a much better view of the oaks and strange, vine-covered trees that made up the Oakwick on the northeastern side of Madurai all the way to the coast of the Eastes Sea. The snow clung to the branches and some of the higher vines, making them look more ominous than they already appeared.
One day, Avis stopped and declared the spot would be our camp for a while. It didn’t look to be anything special, except it was quite densely wooded by the trees with trailing vines and had a tiny clearing in the middle.
We had been at the camp in the middle of the Oakwick for about a month when I decided I was ready to talk to Avis again. He was the only person I had seen since leaving Rhada at the stables the night we left Myxini. It was either talk to Avis or listen to the silence of the winter forest.
“I’m ready.” I told him one night sitting around the fire as we both ate from the elk I had killed the day before.
“What do you want to start with?”
“Why did we leave like that?”
“Lheda plans to use your Spark to gain the Nakbe Islands as allies for a war against Takla Maya. It’s always been the plan. She learned the queen had died about two months ago, and they’ll be spending the next year electing a new ruler.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“She wanted you to figure out who was planning to run against the person she wanted and find their weakness so she could expose them. It would help ensure that the future queen will be someone who’s willing to help her take over Takla Maya.”
“That’s why she wanted me to learn Nakben?”
Avis nodded. “And why she was ‘disappointed’ with your progress. She hoped you would have finished Round Nine and she could convince you to complete this for your demonstration for Round Ten. Like I said, she just doesn’t like when things don’t go her way.”
I sat for a while thinking about what Avis had told me. I had to take him at his word after what happened last time I questioned his honesty, but it was a lot to swallow to think she had been planning it all along. And I wasn’t really sure having Madurai under its own control was a completely bad thing. At least it would put an end to the dues that frustrated the people.
Avis began to chuckle. “The dues go to Lheda and Mathias, not Takla Maya. Who do you think pays for the school?”
I thought about my iron bedframe and the hot meals I’d eaten for years; I even thought my Obsidian. All of it had been paid for by the people of Madurai, who thought they were buying their safety. Was such a thing even possible?
“So what’s your plan? Just hide me out here until after the Nakben elections, and then we go back to finishing the rounds I have left?” The idea of waiting a year to start Round Seven was more than infuriating, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice.
The look on his face fell, and I knew I wouldn’t like his answer. “I’ll teach you as much as I can, but I can’t promise that you’ll ever go back.”
“WHAT?” I stood up and glared at him.
How could he do this to me?
“I’m sorry, Lark. There’s nothing I can do except keep you safe for now. You just have to–”
I didn’t hear the rest of what he said; I broke into a full run into the vined trees, looking for any escape from him. I ran from the unfairness and the anger, hoping to stay ahead of it and keep my mind clear from the injustice of it all.
He had no right to take me out there and tell me I couldn’t go back to school. I had worked to complete six rounds, and I would do whatever there was in my power to earn my pendant and be in complete control of my Spark. I promised myself I would find a way to go back.
By midnight, I had no choice but to start making my way back to the fire. Without my heavy coat, I would certainly fall ill in the icy cold–despite my anger at Avis. I couldn’t go back to school if I died of frostbite, and I wasn’t about to let him have his way.
As I approached the warmth of the fire in the clearing, Avis was leaning against a tree and looking out as if he’d lost his mind. I pulled out my sleeping pad and, before sliding in, spread the heavy blanket from my bed at school.