Tessili Academy (13 page)

Jey was ignoring him. Or, at least, she was
trying to. It wasn’t easy. The small creature lay within the grip
of her left hand, delicate wings pinned to his small body, purple
head protruding from between her index finger and thumb, tail
lashing beyond her pinkie. Unlike Phril, Shai had a set of sharp
spikes along the base of his skull. Jey’s hand now bled where he’d
used these to stab her. It was tricky, holding him tight enough to
prevent his escape, but not so tight as to do him any harm.

Phril was also not happy. He did not like
Jey to have contact with any tessila other than himself. He
crouched on her wrist a few inches away from Shai. He was coiled
into an angry knot, wings flared, hissing at the other tessila
every time he stabbed Jey with the spikes.

Jey was trying to read. Holdam had loaned
her a text on the methods of preparing soft cheeses. It was an old
book, well worn, with many of Holdam’s own notes written in the
margins.

After her long day working in the cheesery,
Jey was exhausted. It was well past midnight. She glanced with
longing at the two tidy beds that stood on the other side of the
small room. They were both neatly made, plain woolen blankets
tucked in, down pillows fluffed.
I could lie down for just a
moment.

Jey squashed the thought. She knew better
than to give in to fatigue. Her duty was to hold Shai. Shai did not
want to be held. It would take only a moment of carelessness for
him to escape her grasp. And that would be a disaster.

Jey rubbed her forehead with her free hand.
She moved her small dish of oil with its wick and flame closer to
the book. The spidery handwriting on the page seemed to swim before
her eyes.

There was a tap on the chamber door.

Jey jerked in her seat, resisting the
impulse to fling Shai from her hand, launch herself across the
room, and draw the two long knives from where they lay hidden
beneath her mattress. She spat out a quiet curse, cast two quick
passive echo spells—one on Phril, one on Shai—instructed Phril to
hold still so the spell would actually work, and said in a mild
tone, “Come in.”

Jey turned in her chair. Her heart was
pounding. Her desire to arm herself grew intolerably intense as the
latch clicked and the door swung inward, spilling a little more
light into the dim room.

Biala poked her head around the door. Her
long braid, shot with gray, hung down before one shoulder. Her
expression, lit by the candle she held, was friendly. She looked
into the room. “I saw your light. I admire your thirst for
knowledge, Jey, but you young people should not neglect your
rest.”

Jey blinked in what she hoped looked like
abstracted bemusement, gazing at the inky night outside the window.
“I didn’t realize it had grown so late.”

But Biala’s brow had furrowed as she took in
the rest of the room. Her mouth compressed into a small frown. “But
where is Elle?”

Jey felt fatigue bloom through her as Shai
increased his squirming in a sudden renewed bid for freedom. She
was so tired. If she couldn’t talk her way out of this, she’d have
to cast a passive persuasion spell on Biala. Passive persuasions
were Elle’s specialty, not hers. It was the last thing she
needed.

Jey stood, easing out of her chair and
moving a few steps closer to the woman and her candle. She tried to
do so in a way that suggested nothing more than a desire to stretch
her legs. “She couldn’t sleep, so she went for a walk.” She made
her tone mild and lazy, as if it was the most normal thing in the
world for an 18 year old girl to wander outside, alone, at night,
in the dead of winter.

Biala’s eyes narrowed further. “A walk?” she
said. “At midnight?”

Jey was about the answer, but a sudden stab
of pain in her hand caused her to almost cry out. Shai had flung
his head against her hand with the greatest force he’d managed yet.
The spikes on the back of his head bit into the base of her index
finger. Phril, stirred to anger, leapt forward. He would have
attacked the other tessila had Jey not cupped her free hand over
Shai to protect him. Shai proceeded to pull his spikes free and
drive them in again.

Something of her pain and distraction must
have shown on Jey’s face, because Biala’s eyes softened. She let
out a small chuckle, looking again at Jey, the oil light, the book,
the two empty beds. She winked and turned, leaving the astonished
Jey to stare at her back. “Delari knows, there’s nothing like a
full moon to inspire a late night rendezvous. I wonder who the
lucky young man is.”

Jey didn’t answer, and Biala withdrew behind
the door. “See you both tomorrow,” the woman said. “But warn Elle
there will be no lessening of duties for those who choose romance
over sleep.”

Jey, heart pounding, stood still until the
latch clicked. Then she dropped the passive echo spells and glared
down at Phril, who was trying to claw his way past her protective
hand to get at Shai. “Stop it,” she hissed. “Phril. That is
enough.” She made no attempt to shield him from the frustration and
annoyance she was feeling.

Phril, suddenly sulky, flew across the room
to alight on the windowsill, seething with resentment. Jey removed
her protective hand and looked down at Shai, who was glaring up at
her, his sharp face smeared with her blood. Jey sank back into her
chair. “Both of you need to calm down. You should know the drill by
now.”

But they did not know the drill. Tessili
were famous for their intractability, but it seemed to Jey both
Shai and Phril had been increasingly volatile lately.

She knew Phril was, in part, reacting to her
own stress. The truth was, Jey hated these nights – the nights Elle
crept off through the darkness to break into Tessili Academy.

◈

Lokim tracked the girl with relative ease.
Though she moved through the night with the grace and silence of a
hunting cat, Lokim had gotten used to her ways. He knew the way she
walked, the places she stopped to watch for pursuit, even the
signature of her magic. For the last six months, he’d followed her
every time she left the cheesery.

For the last six months, time after time,
he’d tried to gather the courage to approach her. But he never
had.

The girl, Elle, she was called, paused
before stepping into the shallow stream. She would now walk in it
for a time, making it more difficult for the hounds to follow her
scent. He winced as he watched her step into the cold water. The
night was bitter. Shards of ice had formed along the edges of the
stream. Elle waded along, her dark leathers soaking up the chill
water. Lokim waited until she was all but lost in the darkness
before hopping to the other side, keeping his own feet dry.

About a hundred yards down the stream an
old, gnarled tree grew above the water. Elle paused and jumped,
grabbing a long branch with her gloved hands. She dangled for a
moment, then pulled herself up. She moved along the branch and down
the trunk. Feet once more on the ground, she broke into a steady
jog, heading towards the outskirts of Deramor and the cheesery
where she now lived.

Lokim let out an admiring breath. He’d never
seen anyone so graceful, so smooth, so slender and yet so strong.
This was one of several spots Elle and Jey used the stream to
confuse the dogs and throw them off the trail. So far, it had
always worked.

Lokim waited until Elle was almost out of
sight. He was about to move again, to follow, when he saw
something. It was a faint blur, a shifting in the shadows at the
corner of his eye.

He froze, listening. The flowing of the cold
stream was a silver chuckle in the still night. He waited.

Another girl emerged from the darkness. She,
too, moved with the intent grace of a predator. But unlike Elle,
she was not familiar to him. Although Lokim had never seen her
before, she wore the same dark leathers as Elle, the same twin
knives strapped to her hips. She did not wet her feet, but hopped
the stream and paused for a moment, listening.

Lokim’s hand flew to the knife on his belt,
but the girl was intent on one thing. She continued, tracking Elle
as surely as Lokim was.

As the girl disappeared into the dark woods,
Bliz swept in a sudden, agitated loop around Lokim’s head. Lokim
held out a hand and the orange tessila alighted. He ran a finger
along the sharp edge of her chin. “Shush, brilliant one. It’s ok.”
He said these words in the barest of whispers as he began to move,
tracking the girl who tracked Elle.

What did it mean? Lokim had developed some
theories in the last months, but he had no answers. He didn’t know
why Jey and Elle returned to a place they appeared to loath, time
after time, but he had his guesses. Now, it appeared, their visits
had been noticed.

Around him, the woodland that stretched
between the walled island and the outlying settlements of the
country’s capital was empty and silent. For six months, Lokim had
told himself he would make contact, he would talk to them.
Tomorrow.

But now it seemed tomorrow might be too
late.

As Lokim walked, tracking the ghost of the
movement that was the second girl, he seemed to hear High Mage
Agina’s voice, speaking in his head.
Do not trust your ally. He
will betray you. Allies are more dangerous than enemies, for they
wear a false face. The only true bond is blood.

These words had held him immobile for six
months. They’d held him back, kept him cowering in the shadows,
waiting, watching, hoping for some way to know if it was safe to
reveal himself. He didn’t know if these girls would turn out to be
allies or enemies, or a little bit of both.

Now, he realized with a sudden sense of
clarity, revealing himself would never be safe. Nothing he’d done
since he’d left the Valley of the Mist was safe. But that did not
mean it wasn’t worth doing.

In the darkness, Lokim drew his knife.

Robin has always been enamored with
magic.

When she was a child, that meant reading
books. When she was a slightly older child, it meant trying to
write her own. She produced her first attempt at a fantasy story at
the age of 10. It was an unintentionally blatant (and considerably
less well executed) rip-off of
The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe
.

Fortunately for everyone, Robin's stories
have gotten a little more original over the years. She currently
lives in Iowa City, where she hangs out with her husband, trains
horses, and writes.

learn more at
robinstephen.com

If you like horses, love stories, and the
desert, explore Robin’s work under the pen name Stefani Wilder. Her
book,
A Man Who Rides
is available now.

see
stefaniwilder.com
for
details