The Tower Page 2

  “Kind?” Brom said, wondering how anyone could attribute that quality to the masters.

  “You think they’ve given up on us?” Royal said.

  Oriana shrugged. “What else?”

  “Let’s shove it down their throats,” Vale said.

  “Vale,” Royal growled. “Respect them. They are here to teach us.”

  “Respect this.” She stuck her behind in his direction, then smacked it with one hand.

  Royal clenched his fist and started forward. Vale spun and crouched with one hand in her tunic, no doubt on the hilt of her hidden dagger.

  “Enough,” Oriana said in her commanding voice. “We stay together. We stay united. We pass. That is our goal.”

  Royal, red in the face, stopped moving toward the impudent Vale.

  “Are we agreed?” Oriana asked coldly.

  After a moment, Royal spoke through his teeth. “Yes.”

  Vale’s deadly scowl flipped to a grin. “That’s all I want,” she said. Her hand slipped out of her tunic as she straightened. She crossed her arms.

  “Brom?” Oriana turned to him.

  “I don’t know.” He held his palms up like they were a scale and he was weighing a decision. “Gain our writs of passage or watch Vale and Royal kill one another. It’s so hard.... Can I think about it and tell you tomorrow?”

  Oriana rolled her eyes and turned away from him.

  That next week, they doubled down on their studies. Instead of sleeping just a few hours a night, they slept only one hour. Instead of simply catching up with the other first-year Quads, who studied only the internal aspect of their paths to magic, Quad Brilliant studied the first three aspects of each path: internal, external, and constructive. Beyond the paths, they studied their Soulblocks, and discovered each member’s four Soulblocks doubled to eight when the four of them were together, giving them twice as much magic to use. Also, and this astonished them, they found they could actually loan most of their Soulblocks to another Quad mate. If they made a concerted effort, three of them could effectively make one of them a “super-Quadron” by giving them twenty-eight Soulblocks of magic!

  This was the true power of a Quad and, based on Oriana’s research, not something students learned until their third year at the academy.

  The final day of the year arrived. The entire academy gathered on Quadron Garden, the first-years standing at attention by Quads in two lines of thirty-two students facing each other. Between the two lines, four Invisible Ones sat in chairs, and three pyramid weights—one the same size as the pyramid in the practice room, and two even larger—rested on the grass. Tables waited at a distance, filled with browned chicken legs, cooked vegetables, ale, water, and a sugary drink called Fendiran wine.

  The second- and third-years also gathered to watch, giving this end-of-the-year passage a carnival atmosphere. Ale flowed before the masters even began their inspections, and raucous comments were lobbed at the first-years as the masters asked them to perform all the basics required to gain their writs of passage.

  Brom wondered what exactly was the point of throwing shame and ridicule upon the students by having the older students mock them? Of course, many of the older students were respectfully quiet, but those who chose to heckle were loud. Brom spotted Caila, embarrassed and tight-lipped as others laughed at a first-year bungling a recitation. But the masters simply smiled thinly, seeming not to notice.

  It was another reason to hate them, Brom thought.

  Quad Brilliant waited its turn as students earnestly showed their skills and responded to the questions leveled at them. Some failed. Some succeeded. And some buckled under the stone-faced scrutiny of the masters, fumbling to exhibit skills they had long since mastered.

  The Quads had been arranged first to last according to how they had performed at the half-year assessment, and the masters tested them in this order. This, of course, put Quad Brilliant at the end of the line. By the time the masters moved on to them, there were several first-year students crying behind them, having failed, knowing they would be expelled when the exam finished.

  The laughter and catcalls rose to a crescendo as The Collector, a smiling Master Saewyn, the short and stocky Master Jhaleen, and the dour, long-faced Master Tohn Gelu formed up in front of Quad Brilliant. Everyone knew the “Princess Quad” was going to fail, and the most vicious hecklers seemed to draw in a breath, readying to sink their teeth in.

  The Collector cleared his throat. “You have chosen a name?”

  “Yes, Master,” Oriana said. They’d all decided she would speak for them.

  The Collector raised an eyebrow when Brom, Vale, and Royal remained silent. Master Saewyne gave Master Tohn Gelu a sidelong glance. No doubt they’d expected a display of discord among the four of them, arguments about who was in charge.

  “You realize,” The Collector said in a condescending tone, “that a Quad must bond first before choosing a name.”

  “Yes, we understand,” Oriana spoke to The Collector’s mind, including Brom, Vale, and Royal in the reply, just as they’d practiced.

  The Collector’s eyebrows shot up. Master Saewyne’s eyes grew wide, Master Jhaleen’s muscular bare arms twitched, and Master Tohn Gelu frowned.

  After their moment of collective stupefaction, The Collector cleared his throat angrily. “You are not to use your magic in this exam until you are asked to do so, do you understand?”

  The jeers quieted at The Collector’s tone. The hecklers suddenly realized something different was happening. A few jibes rose from the back of the group, but the rest of the students were suddenly attentive.

  “Our name is Quad Brilliant,” Oriana said aloud, ignoring The Collector’s admonition. The hecklers laughed raucously at the name. “Please tell us what we must do to gain our writs of passage. We wish to show you what we have learned. And then we wish to return to our studies.”

  The Collector showed teeth this time, seemingly about to spit some epithet at her, but he managed to contain his anger. “How clever you think you are,” he said in a deadly whisper.

  She held his gaze, her face impassive, seemingly unaware of his barely concealed rage. It was all Brom could do not to laugh.

  “Let’s begin,” Master Saewyne said, her unnerving smile back in place.

  They started with Oriana first, intent on humiliating her. They asked her about the five components of mind control, which was part of the destructive aspect of Mentis. A ripple of murmurs went through the line of first-years. One of the third-year hecklers in the back squawked.

  “Of course,” Master Tohn Gelu said. “This is fourth-year magic. We completely understand if you cannot conjure the answer.”

  “The stunning, the infiltration, the quelling, the grip, and the command,” Oriana said without hesitating, as though reading it from a book.

  Master Tohn Gelu’s eyes widened. His frown dissolved into confusion. It was clear he’d expected Oriana to stumble over words or complain that this was fourth-year magic she’d never been taught. He glanced over his shoulder at The Collector as if looking for guidance.

  Oriana looked down her nose at Tohn Gelu, waiting.

  “You speak so confidently.” The Collector stepped forward. “As though you’ve mastered this spell.”

  “No, Master,” Oriana said. “I only took it upon myself to read ahead.”

  “Did you?”

  “I did.”

  The Collector seemed ready to lash out at her, perhaps to ask something outrageous of her. But they’d already done that, and she’d pushed the correct answer back in their faces.

  “Let’s move on,” Master Saewyne said with her stiff smile.

  They asked Royal to lift the three weights—a three-hundred-pound pyramid of steel, a five-hundred-pound pyramid, and finally a thousand-pound pyramid. When he did these with ease, they demanded he uproot one of the trees in Quadron Garden. He tore it out of the ground and laid it respectfully at their feet. Even the most diehard hecklers had gone silent by then.
Everyone was in rapt attention.

  They moved on to Vale. They pushed hardest on her, Brom thought. Perhaps in their stunned realization that Quad Brilliant had bonded and continued their studies on their own, they thought the weak link must be the once-illiterate street urchin, but they had no luck in humiliating her. They asked her questions about the internal and external paths of Motus. She answered them all. They requested she perform a glamour on one of the Invisible Ones. In less than a minute, she had him following her around, hanging on her every word. It was such a powerful glamour that Brom felt it working on him, too. He began to have scandalous thoughts about Vale. Several of the nearby first-years had barely concealed looks of lust on their faces.

  In frustration, the masters told her to fill the four different Invisible Ones with four different emotions. This was second-year magic. They hadn’t taught the practice of it yet, though they had taught the textual learning. Vale set to work.

  By the time one Invisible One was howling with rage, one sobbing on the grass, one laughing hysterically, and one gibbering in fear, The Collector brought things to an end.

  “Enough!” he said through his teeth. He threw back his cowl and his glittering black eyes found Oriana’s. “You have earned your writs of passage.”

  “What?” Brom spoke up. They hadn’t even tested him!

  Oriana reached out and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Stay silent,” she said in his head. “It is over. We have passed. That is all that matters.”

  “But they didn’t even test me!” he thought back to her.

  “Let it be.”

  Reluctantly, Brom held his tongue.

  In the graveyard quiet that followed, the masters silently handed out writs of passage to half the Quads, including Quad Brilliant, along with the little golden pins to be worn on their academy tunics. The moment they put the fanciful scrolls and the accompanying pins into the hands of each Quad mate, the masters turned and left Quadron Garden.

  The gathering was silent until the masters were gone, then one of the first-year students let out a great whoop! Cheering rose now from the second- and third-year students. And while those first-years who hadn’t passed slunk off to Westfall Dormitory, those who had emerged with their writs began the celebration. Flagons of ale were passed around.

  Oriana looked at the sudden revelers, then turned back to the Quad. “Well done,” she said, and her mouth quirked in the barest of smiles. “Brilliant, some might say.”

  “Though with Oriana doing all the talking, we’re the Princess Quad forever,” Brom said.

  “They’ll remember the name Brilliant,” Royal said.

  “I was kidding, Royal.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve never felt this way before,” Vale said, her eyes alight with victory. “We were better than any of the other Quads. Far better.”

  “We have proven ourselves worthy,” Royal agreed.

  “My part was particularly hard,” Brom said.

  “Well,” Oriana said, glancing over at the food tables surrounded by excited students. “I’ve never tried Fendiran wine,” she said. “I think I shall avail myself of a glass.”

  “Avail?” Brom said.

  “It’s delicious,” Royal said. “I’ll get you one.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Oriana said. Together, they moved toward the crowded tables.

  Vale and Brom watched them go.

  “You were amazing.” Brom turned to Vale. “They were stunned. Even I could scarcely believe it, though I’ve been with you these past weeks. It was...” The carnal thoughts he’d had when Vale had thrown her glamour at the crowd flashed through his mind. “It was impressive.”

  She glanced up at him. “They were certain we’d fail. Did you see that? We shoved it down their throats, sure enough.”

  “You three did,” he said, feeling glum that he hadn’t had a chance to stand with his Quad, to show his prowess as they’d shown theirs.

  She laughed. “I’d rather be in your shoes.”

  “What? Why? You were brilliant.”

  “Sure, but by the time they were done with us, they were afraid of you. I’d love to have seen that look in their eyes. Afraid to test me because they knew I’d fly by their expectations.”

  Brom hadn’t thought of it that way.

  “So...” Vale smiled up at him. “Fendiran wine?”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “That sounds—”

  “That was brilliant!” Caila interrupted exuberantly as she bounded up to them. She stopped, out of breath. “I’ve never seen a first year exam like that. Never. The masters seemed... Well, they seemed...”

  “Embarrassed?” Vale asked. Her smile was gone.

  “I couldn’t believe it.” Caila sidled up to Brom with a sly look and took his arm. “You were particularly amazing. You know, the part where you stood there and did absolutely nothing.”

  “Ouch!” he said. “Hey, I was ready to—”

  “Come on.” She tugged on his elbow. “To the victor go the spoils. Let’s drink.” Laughing, she pulled him toward the crowded food tables. He laughed, shrugging as he glanced back apologetically at Vale.

  She kept the smile on her face, but she narrowed her eyes, then she turned away.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Brom

  “You may go,” Oriana told the Invisible Ones as Quad Brilliant finished their afternoon practice. The Invisible Ones stood up and filed out the door.

  Brom lingered by the wall of the practice room while his Quad mates headed toward the door as well. They were three months into the new school year, and for the first time since their resounding successes, Brom was feeling stuck. His Quad mates had excelled, but Brom hadn’t progressed much since the first month of the year.

  “I think I’ll see if the stewards need a hand,” Royal said.

  The man simply couldn’t stop working. It was all he ever wanted to do. The sun was going down already, and the stewards who managed the livestock and the fields that fed the Champions Academy would have buttoned up their activities for the day, but Royal was going to go find out anyway.

  “Well, I am taking a bath,” Oriana stated.

  “You had a bath yesterday,” Royal said.

  “And?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “You didn’t even break a sweat today.”

  “I must be slathered in sweat to warrant a bath?” she said disdainfully.

  “You have to be dirty first, yes.”

  Oriana rolled her eyes and moved to the door. “Go wallow with the pigs, Royal. May it bring you joy.”

  He shook his head, but there was a smile there. It had been six months since they’d astonished the masters last year and gained their writs of passage, and as a whole, Quad Brilliant was thriving. Their successes drove them to further successes, and the glow of victory hung about his Quad mates. Other second-year Quads had already begun to look up to them.

  “I’m going to eat,” Vale announced.

  Royal chuckled. “Will it be a bean this time? Or a leaf?”

  Vale socked him in the arm, and he smiled fondly down at her. It was true that Vale didn’t eat much when she did have a meal, but she never seemed far away from food. She almost always carried dried jerky in a pocket of her academy tunic, almost always had a half loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese wrapped in an oil cloth in her room. It was as though having food nearby made her feel safe, but the idea of gorging herself was somehow dangerous.

  They headed toward the door, and Oriana—who always seemed to know where each of her Quad mates were—stopped and turned. “Are you coming, Brom?”

  Vale and Royal turned back to look, and his three Quad mates regarded him from the doorway.

  “I’m going to stay here, work on a few things.”

  “Not the Gauntlet,” Oriana said sternly. Brom glanced at the huge killing apparatus with its blades, spikes, and poison darts in the southeast corner of the room. “The first time you try that, I want Royal standing by.” More
than a few Anima students had been killed attempting the Gauntlet before they were ready.

  “No, I’m just...pensive. I’m going to sort through a few things, then go to bed.”

  “You’re always pensive,” Royal said. “Come help me assist at the stables.”

  “No thank you,” Brom said immediately.

  The summer before their second year had been the closest thing to being home at Kyn that Brom had experienced at the academy. The students took an official break from their studies, but as none of them could leave the academy without destroying their Soulblocks, they stayed inside the walls. And the masters made good use of them. They were required to help the academy stewards with the harvest of crops, slaughter of animals, preservation of meat, and the cleaning of all the various buildings. Impetus had been especially coveted by academy stewards during those months, and Royal was the most popular worker by far. He’d done the work of ten men, harvesting, hauling, and stacking with endless endurance. Brom suspected Royal would have done the work of five regular men even without his magic. He just never stopped.

  But Brom had suffered through those months. His magic—seeing into the soul, understanding the nature of people—was little help to him while wielding a scythe or feeding chickens. He’d left Kyn because of this kind of work. It was everything he’d never wanted to do.

  The one bright spot had been that Caila had started up with him again right after Quad Brilliant achieved their writs of passage. During the summer, the masters didn’t seem to care where the students went or what they did, as long as the stewards of the chickens, cows, wheat fields, or barley fields got the help they needed. It made it much easier for Brom to find moments to slip away for the most wonderful form of rule-breaking with Caila.

  “It will get your blood moving.” Royal broke Brom’s reverie. “Work is good for the soul.”

  “Your soul,” Brom said.

  “Dinner then?” Vale saved Brom just as Royal took a deep breath, no doubt ready to press his point further.

  “Not hungry, thanks.”

  “Well, I’m not offering you a spot in my bath,” Oriana said drily. “Good night, Brom.” She left the room.