THERE’S A DISORIENTATION TO WAKING up somewhere for the first time. A brief disconnect between your memory and the present, as if your mind is refusing to acknowledge that you’re in unfamiliar territory.
Years ago, I liked the feeling. That slow realisation usually meant I was on holiday with my family somewhere.
This morning, it brings a jolt that is very close to panic.
I sit upright, fully awake, terrified that I’ve overslept, that I’ve forgotten some important detail to do with my first day of classes. It’s not yet light outside. The hanging lamps burn low. Everything’s still. The sound of constant breathing fills the room, broken more often than not by sharp snorts and snores. Somewhere several beds away, I hear one of the Sevenths murmuring something in his sleep. There’s the crisp sound of a page turning, and I twist to see Callidus alone is awake, at his desk again and reading by the light of a shuttered lantern.
I glance at the massive Will dial on the wall. Not out of routine; in another hour, it will be dawn. I’m just one of the first to wake.
I think about lying back down, but more than two months with Lanistia has trained my body not to listen to what I want. I’m sliding out of bed and padding over to my satchel, pulling cloak over tunic and fastening my sandals, before I can decide to do otherwise. Callidus’s back is to me; he doesn’t notice my waking, and I don’t disturb him.
The communal latrine also provides basins of water for washing up, so I relieve myself, splash my face, and go through my usual preparations for the day as I try to decide what to do next. There’s no point in studying, as I don’t have anything to review yet. And I don’t have anyone with whom I can train.
It seems like this might be a good time to familiarise myself with the grounds.
Outside the dormitory, the Academy is hushed, covered by a light, damp mist. The ocean hisses in the distance. Clouds diffuse the starlight, though in the east I can see a false dawn beginning to brighten the sky.
Off the path, in the heavier darkness beneath the trees lining it, a shadow stirs.
“Vis.” A slim black shape detaches itself and stands a little way in front of me. “Can we talk?”
“Aequa?” Her skin is almost silver in the dim light, her long black hair shadowing most of her face, but it’s definitely her. I stop short, nonplussed. “What are you doing out here?”
“Waiting for you. My father mentioned you rose early, during your training. I’m usually awake now, anyway, and thought you might be around.” She sounds abashed. “Sorry. I know it’s a bit strange.”
“No. No, it’s fine.” I’m prepared for this conversation, though I didn’t expect to be having it before dawn. I gesture toward the quadrum. “I don’t suppose you’d care to show me around while we talk?”
“Of course.” There’s relief, the release of nervous energy as she snaps into motion, beckoning for me to follow her along the path.
We start walking. I’m tempted to broach the topic first, but if I do, it will feel obvious that I’ve been planning my response. Our breaths mist.
“Isn’t anyone else awake?” I ask.
“Most of the Praeceptors will be. And there are plenty of us studying.” She indicates behind us, back at the dormitory. The windows on the first two floors are dark, but light fills several farther up. “It’s the same for the girls. They won’t be down until breakfast, though. And the Sixths and Sevenths won’t even bother getting up until then.” There’s a measure of disdain at that.
Silence falls between us again. Aequa fidgets as she walks, and I can see my patience won’t be necessary for long.
“I… had a few questions,” she says abruptly, her quiet voice cutting through the still of the early morning. “About what happened at the naumachia.”
“Alright.”
She smooths her tunic. Nervous. “We didn’t pass the sewer entrance on the way in. And you’d never been there before.”
“That’s not really a question.”
She eyes me.
“Sorry.” I smile easily back at her. “I knew where it was because I noticed it on the way to the latrine. And I guessed what it was because that older couple next to us kept arguing over whether the whole thing was worth it, given that the aqueducts had been diverted from their baths.” She’ll remember that. It will help. “It got me thinking about how they were going to get rid of all that water once it was over, and I realised the stairs must have been a sewer access.”
“It wasn’t anywhere near the latrines.”
Vek. She’s looked into this fairly seriously, then. “It was the way I went—I wandered around for ages before I found them.” I chuckle. “Or did you think I spent a full twenty minutes relieving myself?”
Aequa shows a hint of amusement, though there’s also a twist to her mouth that suggests dissatisfaction. It’s not a perfect story—I doubtless seemed too sure in guiding her through the sewers themselves—but that’s the sort of thing that’s difficult to gauge and easy to deny. “Of course.” She bites the left side of her lower lip. “I just… I keep thinking back to it. When it all started. You were different from everyone else. More confident.” When I try to look modest, she shakes her head. “No. I didn’t mean it as a compliment. It was like… you knew you couldn’t get hurt. You were upset about what was happening, but you didn’t seem afraid.”
We’re at the quadrum now, as public a place in the Academy as there is. I wonder whether it’s a conscious decision on her behalf, given what she could be implying.
“You know my past, don’t you? I was in Aquiria when it collapsed—but before that my birth parents were killed, my lands stolen, and then my life threatened for months until the Catenans came. I never went to sleep without wondering whether I would wake.” I focus on the Temple of Jovan ahead. Eye contact usually indicates sincerity, but for revealing what should be a difficult truth, awkwardness can come across as more genuine. “It’s not that I wasn’t afraid at the naumachia, Aequa. It’s just that I’m more used to it than everyone else.”
I say it with sadness, then look at her. Driving home the sincerity of the statement. My past, fictional though much of it is, is a powerful tool if I use it right.
“Oh.” Aequa’s quiet, and I can almost hear her probing at the assertion, wondering if there’s some way she can dissect it, investigate it further. “So when you went back…”
“I was terrified.” I shuffle my feet. “But it also seemed like an opportunity.”
“Oh.” I can immediately tell that’s a motivation she can understand. Catenans love their heroes, and making a name for myself won’t have harmed my chances at the Academy.
“I’m sorry for leaving you like that.”
“Given the outcome, I think it’s alright.” Aequa indicates it’s the end of the matter, and I inwardly relax. I don’t think she’s entirely convinced, but she’s not going to pursue it. Not for the moment, at least.
The conversation moves on to the promised tour of the Academy, and we spend a fairly pleasant half hour roaming the grounds as the east begins to brighten. Aequa points out buildings of interest both around the quadrum and beyond. The temples of Jovan and Mira. The large gymnasium for physical training. The Curia Doctrina and Praetorium, which I already know, alongside baths that are apparently open to Fourths and above. She’s a little awkward at first, as if unused to talking, but she warms to the task as we go.
“What’s that?” I point to a long building set well away from the others, almost hidden behind a copse of trees.
“The Labyrinth.” She glances at me, clearly curious to see if I know what she’s talking about.
“Ah. My father told me about that. He said it’s one of the more difficult tests here.”
“It’s not easy.” Aequa’s gaze lingers on the low-slung stone structure. “I imagine you’ll be asked to run it, soon enough. Everyone else did as part of their entrance exam.”
“How did you do?”
“Not well—mainly because of my arm. Only a few people were better than awful the first time, though. Most of us have improved a lot since.”
There’s a pause, and Aequa glances up at the sky, where the sun is threatening to peek over the horizon. “I should get back.” She draws in a breath. “I owe you, for the naumachia. I know that. But the way things are here, with you in Seven…”
“It’s alright. I understand.” Even without Lanistia’s many warnings, my experience with Eidhin has made it clear that differences in class rankings are taken seriously here. Aequa associating too much with me would be frowned upon by her peers, maybe the Praeceptors too. “We’ll talk more when I’m a Fourth.”
She chortles before she can stop herself, then waves a hand apologetically, still smiling. “When you’re a Fourth. Of course. I look forward to it.” It’s delivered with amusement rather than malice, and I accept her incredulity with a grin before bidding her farewell.
She stops after a few paces, though. Turns back, all trace of humour gone.
“I still have nightmares.”
I don’t say anything for a long second, then nod. Just slightly.
It’s all the confirmation she needs. She leaves.
A chime rings out as I’m walking back to the dormitory, a single, crystal, quavering note that invades every corner of the Academy’s grounds. The bell for the morning meal. There are more students about now, and the majority seem headed for the Curia Doctrina.
I square my shoulders, and follow suit.
I SPEND BREAKFAST, UNSURPRISINGLY, ALONE on the lowest level of the mess hall. Drusus and the other boys must have been busy relaying some version of our exchange last night, because I receive nothing but cold looks from the other Sevenths as they trickle in. Callidus sits apart, too; his face doesn’t look as swollen as it did, but the bruises remain painfully obvious. Nobody seems inclined to ask him about them.
I’m not unaccustomed to solitude, but this doesn’t feel like an auspicious start to my time here.
The repast—some wheat pancakes with dates and a drizzle of honey—is filling enough, if a little cold by the time I make it back to my seat. I eat unhurriedly amid the susurrus of voices, using the time to observe the levels above me. Everyone seems quieter this morning, more circumspect, the excitement of the first day back faded. I catch a few wondering glances from those higher up. Another series of dark looks from green-eyed Iro in Class Three, whom I seem to have wronged somehow. A friendly dip of the head from a red-headed Fifth, a scowl from a lean girl next to him. People I don’t know, don’t recognise. I see one of the Praeceptors present this morning—a ruggedly good-looking man of around forty, with a scruffy beard and black, shaggy hair—openly watching me. He doesn’t bother to stop, even when I boldly meet his gaze.
It’s an uncomfortable meal, all up.
When the next chime heralds that it’s time to go to class, I trail after the other Sevenths into the heart of the Curia Doctrina, then to a side room off the main hall. Most of the students cluster around desks in small groups once we arrive, laughing and talking among themselves. Callidus is already seated, reading something. Alone.
I inhale, then stride over and sit next to him. He looks up at me but doesn’t say anything, quickly returning to his book. I don’t try to interrupt him.
The chatter wanes as a woman all but bounces in, cheerful as she surveys the group at large. She’s plump but not unfit, her easy confidence marking her as the Praeceptor for Class Seven. She signals me up to the front of the room.
“I’m Praeceptor Ferrea,” she informs me as I approach, pushing back shoulder-length red hair that is fading to dark auburn. If I had to guess, I’d say she was in her forties. “You must be Vis.”
“I am.”
“Welcome.” Brisk but friendly. “We’re still reviewing last trimester, so you should have a chance to catch up if you need to. And the rest of this week will be focused on lessons in rhetoric. If you have any questions as we go, just ask.” It’s a dismissal, introduction apparently done.
Once I’m back in my seat, Ferrea stands in front of the class, book in hand. “We’re going to continue with the principles of Will today.”
I squint, fairly sure I misheard. The principles of Will aren’t exactly advanced—the opposite, in fact. I was never meant to wield Will, and I still learned them when I was at Suus.
But perhaps I’m misunderstanding. Perhaps there’s more to it than I realise, some extra level of complexity that would have been too difficult to explain to me back then.
“Imbued Will can be applied in three ways. Can anyone tell me what those are?”
I smirk. But my amusement dies as no one calls out, no one raises their hand. Not one student out of the more than six dozen in the room.
I glance at Callidus beside me. He’s not paying attention, curly black hair hanging over his face as he bows over a wax tablet, scribbling something on it.
“Direct, Relational, or Conditional.” I call out the answer loudly and clearly.
Students twist in their seats, faces turning toward me as Ferrea—surprised that someone has spoken up—nods. “Exactly.” She returns to her book.
“Although Kaspius says that Relational is too general these days, and should be split into two sub-categories.”
I’m taking a chance. It’s the bluntest method possible, aggressively showing off my knowledge like this. I don’t like it, feel uncomfortable doing it. But Ulciscor and Lanistia both suggested it would be the quickest and most effective way to move on from Class Seven.
Ferrea pauses, cocks her head to the side before looking back up at me. “And why is that?”
“Because ‘Relational’ covers too much ground. Harmonic and Reactive relationships are being grouped together by the same term, but they’re vastly different from one another. Given that we use this language to describe every single imbued object, he argues that the lack of specificity hurts development, hurts documentation, and thus hurts advancement.”
Ferrea walks down the aisle between desks, closer to me. “You’re paraphrasing.” The rest of the class is watching. Silent.
“I can quote verbatim if you want.”
“No.” She waves away the offer. “Paraphrasing is good. It shows you understand the material. Anything else you want to add?”
“Not for the basics.”
A small smile plays around Ferrea’s lips as she acknowledges me. Good. She’s impressed.
She turns and walks back to the front of the class. Callidus finally stops writing.
“You sure you want this?” He says it quietly, not looking up. It takes me a second to realise he’s talking to me.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re going to be put up a class if you keep doing that.”
“Isn’t that… good?”
Callidus hesitates. “If it’s what you want.” He resumes his scribblings, almost seeming annoyed at himself for speaking.
The lesson continues, and I make a point of answering every question Ferrea poses—adding more information where I can, making sure I show a deep understanding of the concepts involved. It’s not hard; in fact, it’s fair to say I’m a little bemused by how easy it is. I might be misremembering, but I feel I could have answered many of these questions almost as well when I left Suus three years ago.
As time passes, I can see her interest quickening. The questions become probing—not in the way Lanistia’s were, or even Aequa’s, but definitely increasing in difficulty. And she starts standing in the middle of the room, near my desk, looking at me directly half the time. As if I’m the only one she’s really talking to.
The other students, thankfully, don’t seem to care that they’re being ignored. In fact, many of them seem blissfully happy that the Praeceptor’s attention is elsewhere; when we began most of them were sitting at attention, but now there are plenty of heads leaned together in casual, albeit whispered conversation.
As the sun peaks outside, we break for lunch in the mess hall. I collect my food and sit at a table by myself. Ferrea seats herself with the group, a little apart, head bowed as she works on something while she eats. Still, I occasionally catch her throwing considering glances in my direction.
To my surprise, Callidus plants himself opposite me a minute later. The lithe boy gives me the slightest of nods, then pulls out his book and continues to read, ignoring me.
I chew my salted bread, surreptitiously eyeing the tome Callidus has been reading most of the morning, then frowning as I recognise one of the diagrams on the upside-down page.
“Some light reading?” The book is Analysis of Pattern Recognition in Will-based Systems. I tackled it at the Bibliotheca. For a month. I’m not sure I understand all of it, even now.
Callidus doesn’t look up. “Something like that.” I can’t help but feel a little concerned. Perhaps I’m underestimating what it will take to move on from Class Seven after all.
“I struggled to understand the principles he talked about in the later chapters. When he gets into Conditional imbuing and the theories behind physical versus mental degradation of linkages…” I gesture, indicating bewilderment.
“You’ve read it?” Callidus, for the first time, looks genuinely taken aback.
“Read. Not necessarily understood.”
Callidus chews his lip. Reassessing me. “I haven’t made it that far yet.” There’s another moment, a held breath, and then something seems to go out of him. Tension slips from his shoulders, and he leans over the table, holding out his hand. “I’m sorry. About being upset last night. I know you were only trying to help.”
“You do?”
“Either that, or you’re even dumber than the Sevenths over there. Only a true idiot would think that punching a gods-damned Sixth was a wise way to introduce yourself.”
I grasp his hand. “I promise I’ll let you get beaten up next time.”
Callidus snorts a laugh. “Fair.” We sink back into our seats, both more relaxed. “So. Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“What they’re saying about you.” Callidus sighs with exaggerated frustration when I look at him blankly. “You heroically stopped the attack at the naumachia. Swam through a lake of blood to kill the Anguis’s leader while ships burned dramatically all around you. Saved the whole rotting city from some mysterious Will-weapon. You remember that, right?”
“Oh. That.” I smile, despite myself. “I’m not really supposed to talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“The Principalis asked me not to.”
He rolls his eyes. “Because the man’s done you so many favours, thus far.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Principalis had to know he was putting you in a difficult situation when he paired you with me.” He shrugs. “He knew I was at the dormitory when he brought you in. And he definitely knew why I wasn’t going to dinner.”
“But he had no way of knowing what would happen.”
“Everyone knew what was going to happen. My father vetoed a half dozen applications for the Senate over the trimester break, which is more than any Censor has in the past ten years combined. Plenty of people here are from families who had years of planning ruined.” He shakes his head. “There were always going to be repercussions. Which means the Principalis put you squarely in the middle of a conflict. Or at least adjacent.”
“I could have stayed out of it.”
“You’re Catenicus. I think that would have seemed unlikely.” He peers at me. “Besides, the bad blood between him and your father isn’t exactly a secret.”
I shift in my chair. “Ah.” Callidus might be right. Veridius couldn’t simply refuse me entry, or even be the one to expel me—my reputation after the naumachia has seen to that. But no one could protest if another, higher-ranked student pressed a case. I’m a little unsettled I didn’t see it myself.
“Ah,” Callidus agrees glibly. He’s intense when he actually talks. Quick and intelligent. “At least you’re still here, I suppose. What I want to know is: how in the gods’ graves did you get Eidhin to accept a Threefold Apology?”
I tell him. When I finish, his unaffected laughter rings across the mess, turning several heads. Including Eidhin’s, who glares down at us through puffy, purple-and-black circles. I know I should care—the Sixth is doubtless assuming we’re laughing at his expense—but I don’t. Instead, I grin along with Callidus. A genuine expression.
“Rotting gods but I wish I’d seen that.” Callidus is still chuckling. “It must have felt good.”
“It certainly didn’t feel bad.” I raise my mug. “To our enemies, and the destructions they bring upon themselves.”
He clinks his mug against mine. “Seriphius?”
I don’t hide my surprise. Seriphius’s philosophies are far from basic reading. In fact, those books were in the restricted section of the Bibliotheca in Letens. “You’ve read him?” When he indicates he has, I lean forward. His current book, casually recognising Seriphius—and yet he never raised his hand today. Never tried to answer any of the questions. “You don’t really belong in Class Seven, do you?”
Callidus’s eyes slide toward the rest of the Sevenths, a large group of whom have just erupted at a bawdy joke. “I could probably be higher.”
He seems about to say more when the chime signalling the end of the meal sounds and Praeceptor Ferrea stands, commanding our attention. Within a minute we’re heading back to class, the chance for any significant further conversation lost.
The afternoon progresses much as the morning, the sun creeping farther and farther inside the long archways and across our desks. The Will dial at the front of the class indicates we’re about an hour away from dinner—or, in my case, mucking out the stables—when Ferrea finishes the lecture she’s been giving on the finer points of oratory.
“Now. We’re going to be testing for the remainder of today.” There’s a collective groan from around me, and she waves away the sound with a half smile. “I warned you. I need to reassess you all, figure out how many of you actually did anything during the break.”
“I wonder what number that will turn out to be,” murmurs Callidus, not looking up from his book.
Ferrea walks up, stops at my desk. “Vis, I need to get a baseline for your knowledge, so you can ignore the questions being asked to the class. Answer these ones instead.”
I accept a sheaf of papers. It’s what she was working on at lunchtime, I realise. Her handwriting is neat, precise.
I bow my head and start reading as the red-headed woman resumes her place up the front of the class, calling out questions at regular intervals. There’s the heavy, urgent scratch of stylii on wax tablets in the silence between, and when I glance up, I can see everyone writing furiously. Interesting. The Sevenths aren’t as apathetic as they first seemed, then.
I correct myself as I gaze around: everyone’s answering the questions except the boy next to me. Callidus is writing—but only to take notes on Analysis of Pattern Recognition, which he’s brazenly kept open in front of him.
The questions I hear being asked are very basic; the ones I’m reading are less so. They’re still nothing compared to what Lanistia would grill me on, or even the reading I’d been doing in Letens’s Bibliotheca before that. If anything, some of the most simple are the hardest, as they require dredging fundamental answers from my memory that I didn’t expect to need to recite here.
But I finish within thirty minutes. As the other students answer the latest question, I wave and catch Ferrea’s attention.
“Struggling with something?”
“Finished.” I brandish the wad of papers at her to emphasise the point.
The Praeceptor looks dubious but beckons me forward, issuing another problem to the class as she does so. I hear a ripple of frustrated mutters. She’s moving faster than a lot of the students would like. When I reach her desk, she takes the pages and flicks through appraisingly.
“Hm. I’ll look at this later. You can go back to your seat. Answer the rest of the questions with everyone else.”
Despite her words, once I’m seated again I can see her arranging the pages on the desk in front of her, glancing up only now and then as she delivers the next part of the test. Her face is expressionless as she reads.
A few students sigh in relief as the Will dial slides around to indicate the end of the lesson, Ferrea sending a couple of girls to collect everyone’s answers. Callidus glances up, looking surprised that it’s already time to leave, then starts packing his things away. I lean over.
“Didn’t think the test was worth taking?”
“Did you?” He stretches, considering my answer a foregone conclusion. “Time for dinner.”
I’m blocked several paces short of the door by Praeceptor Ferrea. “The stables are a little to the east of the quadrum, out toward the wall. You can’t miss them. Septimus Ascenia will tell you what to do. She’ll be waiting for you.” From the way she says it, the Septimus probably won’t be waiting patiently.
I carefully keep my face clear of any vexation, giving a polite acknowledgment. After she’s gone, I sigh and glance at Callidus. “Until tomorrow, then.”
He gives me an encouraging slap on the back and joins the flow of students heading to the mess, while I split off into the grand, columned main section of the Curia Doctrina.
I slow, appreciating the view. It’s getting close to sunset and the island is tinted a ruddy, burning orange, though the water beyond still gleams blue. There’s a Transvect approaching; I watch with interest as it skims the waves, moving at a crawl as it approaches one of the white anchoring points before shaking itself into motion again, surging forward and lifting off toward its destination.
I go to keep walking, then stop again. Consider. According to Lanistia, there will be a single Transvect commissioned to run between here and Agerus—where the Necropolis is located—during the Festival of the Ancestors. Going back and forth, returning to the island every couple of hours over the course of two days.
I’ve been wondering how I can possibly reach the ruins Ulciscor told me about. There might be something there I can exploit.
I’m deep in thought for the rest of the short walk to my punishment.
