THE NEXT SIX WEEKS ARE among the most frustrating I can remember.
It’s clear from the outset that in some ways, Class Six isn’t going to pose much of a challenge. While the Sixths are more willing to engage in work than the Sevenths, what they’re being taught doesn’t seem to be any more difficult; half the time, the lectures cover things I learned before fleeing Suus. And when we shift to tasks of a more physical nature—sparring in the gymnasium, mostly, interspersed with running the limits of the Academy grounds to test our endurance and speed—I consistently prove to be better conditioned than most of the rest of the class. Of the forty-seven others, in fact, only Eidhin, Ianix, and a girl called Leridia push me in either discipline.
None of that seems to matter to Dultatis.
Class Six’s Praeceptor is large and round-faced, most of his hair having fled the crown of his head, the scant remainder a close-cropped black. Despite his paunch there’s no doubt he must have once been a strong man, and the hardness hasn’t left his demeanour: from the moment I join his class, it’s clear he doesn’t like me much. When I attempt to answer questions, he ignores me in favour of others; when no one else is willing to speak and he’s forced to listen to my responses, he derides them, quibbling over wording or implying that I haven’t given him anywhere near enough information. Even when he simply looks at me, his eyes are cold. Angry. It feels like there’s a special enmity there, though aside from my not being Catenan—and there are others in the class who match that description just as well—I cannot fathom what I’ve done to earn it.
The remainder of Class Six seems to pick up on the Praeceptor’s disdain. Combined with Iro’s lingering influence, it means I rarely hear more than two words from them in my direction. Certainly none of my friendly overtures go anywhere.
I bite my tongue, though, every day. Accept the isolation, the disregard and pedantry, as gracefully as I can. Technically, I’m not being wronged, and there’s no ignoring the fact that my introduction to the Academy was far from poised. I can’t afford to be seen feuding with a Praeceptor, no matter the man’s attitude toward me.
So instead, I try to focus on the small positives.
I fall into a comfortable routine of pre-dawn sparring and spending the two earlier meals of the day with Callidus, whose company I increasingly value. He’s charming, quick-witted, and affable, and my conversations with him become a balm against the wounds of class. He’s also far too smart to be a Seventh. I can tell there’s more to the story of his fall from Class Three; more than once it seems Callidus is about to elucidate on his position, only for him to abruptly change the subject. As curious as I am, I don’t press.
Emissa materialises several times more to help me while I muck out the stables, too, claiming a sense of obligation. I can’t deny I enjoy the company. Those nights, when I go to sleep, I find myself replaying my banter with her and smiling. There’s no harm in it. I need to find joy in this place somewhere.
But that warmth in my chest has always faded by morning, and I fast return to feeling like I’m stuck. Without options.
Which is why, halfway through my second month, I finally break.
“OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS,” announces Praeceptor Dultatis once everyone has assembled, “we will be running the Labyrinth.” His small, faded brown eyes glare around at the class, which has gathered at the base of the Curia Doctrina’s stairs in the quadrum. I get the impression he’s not angry, particularly. It’s just the way he always looks.
I lean forward in anticipation. My abilities manipulating the Labyrinth at Villa Telimus had come a long way by the time my training with Lanistia came to an end. I’ve been quietly eager to measure myself against the other students here.
“This will be our only access for the trimester. So we need to make our time there count.” His voice booms across the massive square, which is otherwise unoccupied. “Perhaps someone can remind me why this is such an important assessment?”
There’s a heartbeat of silence, and then I call out. “Because it tests the same skills that are needed for using Will.” I’ll be expected to know all about the Labyrinth, by this point, even if I’m not supposed to have seen anything like it before.
Dultatis’s eyes roam the crowd, as if searching for someone else to answer, before sliding unwillingly to me. “That’s an overly simplified—”
“It tests memory, which is needed for any long-term imbuing; physical strength for capacity; speed and precision for efficiency; logic and split focus for Harmonics and Conditionals.”
“Vis?” I nod. “Don’t interrupt me again.” There’s a titter of amusement from a few of the students.
Dultatis is already moving on. “Your results will also contribute significantly to your standing in the class. So make sure you give your all.” He’s watching me while he says it. I tamp down my irritation, make sure I look nothing but polite and attentive. As usual.
The Praeceptor’s speech apparently done, he strides off and the class trails after him, down a narrow path past the Curia Doctrina and out of the quadrum. There’s excited chatter among the students, but nobody directs conversation toward me. In fact, I’m a somewhat notable island amid the crowd. I do my best to ignore the deliberate isolation. At least Eidhin, toward the front of the group, commands an equally apprehensive ring of space around him.
It’s only a few minutes before our destination appears ahead: a long, sleek, flat-roofed building, almost temple-like in the way its entrance is adorned with a colonnade. It’s a uniformly dark grey stone, though, without any of the friezes and artistic additions meant to flatter the gods. A dark, strangely hollow shrine if there ever was one.
I’m caught up in the general feeling of anticipation as we pass between the towering triangular-cut columns and start descending a torchlit staircase. Even if Dultatis hadn’t already stated as much, this is obviously a rare event for Class Six. The lightly polished, charcoal-grey stone continues below, and the sound of our footsteps clatters off the walls, mixing with the enthusiastic babble.
I’m prepared to feign awe when we enter the main chamber—there’s no telling who will be watching my reaction, after all—but I don’t have to pretend.
While the layout of the Labyrinth is comfortingly familiar as soon as we file onto the platform overlooking it, it’s the only thing that feels the same. Where there were rough-hewn walls at Villa Telimus, here there are smooth dark panels, polished to a mirror-like sheen; where there were barely visible symbols carved into doorways, there’s now artisanship on display, each representation large and inlaid with burnished bronze. The sparse torches of the Telimus Labyrinth are here replaced by a line of fire that rings the entire arena, unbroken flame dancing red and reflecting vividly against the dark mirror of its surroundings. The control bracer sits atop a triangular pedestal of polished black, silhouetted, the smaller gemstones studding its surface giving it a vicious aspect.
My surprise at the ostentation of it all causes me to stumble, and I look up to see Dultatis smirking, though he’s not looking directly at me. Good. The more overawed I appear, the more effective my performance here is going to be.
“Praeceptor Dultatis.” The call comes from off to the left, farther along the platform, and the press of bodies spreads out enough for me to see Veridius striding toward us. The excited conversation around me quietens to a surprised murmur as others register his presence, too.
“Principalis?” Dultatis looks as taken aback as his students. “I was told the Labyrinth would be ours today, but if I’ve been misinformed—”
“No, no.” Veridius waves his hand in genial dismissal. “I simply discovered some extra time and thought I might watch this morning. If you have no objections?” He comes to a stop in front of Dultatis. He’s a head shorter than the man, but Dultatis feels the smaller of the two; Veridius’s presence is charming more than imposing, yet it commands the space in ways I suspect Dultatis can only dream of.
“Of course not, Principalis.” Dultatis’s answer is less than convincing.
Veridius amicably takes his response at face value. “Wonderful. I’m eager to see how your students have progressed since last trimester.” The matter settled, he steps back, gesturing with a flourish to the Labyrinth. “Please! Pretend I’m not here.”
Dultatis nods brusquely, turning to face us again. He doesn’t bother to conceal his irritation once Veridius can’t see, and his glare searches me out before moving on. He obviously considers me the source of the Principalis’s intrusion, no matter what Veridius just told him.
“We’ll proceed according to class standing. Top ten and bottom ten run today, everyone else tomorrow. If you’re not running today, you’ll be a hunter at some point,” the balding Praeceptor announces. “You all know the rules. If you’re responsible for injuring someone while using the control bracer, it’s immediate expulsion from the Academy. There’s no combat here, and no trying to just run past people, either. If the hunters corner you, you lose. That’s all. Now: choose your partners.”
The instruction’s an anticipated one; students around me immediately begin gravitating toward one another, and within moments most are standing in pairs.
All, in fact, except myself and Eidhin.
I hesitate. I’ve successfully avoided interacting with the large southerner for almost the entire time I’ve been in Six. His nose has long since healed, and he’s never threatened me. Even the one time Dultatis paired us in sparring—deliberately, I’m sure—Eidhin never tried to do more than the practice demanded.
That doesn’t mean his glare doesn’t burn whenever he glances my way, though.
I sigh, then walk over to the square-shouldered boy. “Looks like it’s us.”
He grunts, looking about as pleased as I feel.
We shuffle over to the edge of the balcony, joining the others overlooking the Labyrinth as the first pair is chosen. It’s Ianix, who’s ranked first in Class Six, along with Leridia, the girl with the curly dark hair and generally unpleasant attitude. Along with them, a half dozen other students are being directed to head to the other side of the Labyrinth. They leave at a brisk jog.
The Praeceptor takes the control bracer from its position atop the pillar. It looks smaller than the one at Villa Telimus. Lighter. He signals to Ianix and then, as the boy descends the gleaming stairs to the maze’s entrance, starts affixing the bracer to Leridia’s arm.
“They don’t wear the control bracer while they run?” It’s not how Lanistia described it to me.
I direct the question to Eidhin, but it’s a girl off to my right who answers. “They only do that in Class Three.” She opens her mouth as if to say more, then registers who she’s talking to and snaps her mouth shut again, turning away.
Seeing it’s the most response I’m likely to get, I watch curiously as Leridia positions herself on the balcony above Ianix, at the centre of our side. In the distance, four of the six students have reached the far end of the maze; one of them stands opposite Leridia while the other three descend from sight. The remaining two of the group are perching on the east and west balconies, respectively, closer to our side than the other.
Leridia will be controlling the maze while Ianix runs it, then. And the three around the sides must be the spotters Lanistia described to me, there to call out Ianix’s position to their partners down below as they try to prevent him from getting to the other end.
When Dultatis is satisfied everyone is in position, he raises a hand until silence falls. Leridia, Ianix, and the three spotters all watch him. Unblinking. The fire lining the walls crackles. Leridia’s hand hovers over the bracer.
Dultatis drops his hand dramatically. “Begin!”
Ianix is sprinting around the first corner and heading west before the Praeceptor’s echoing bellow fades, Leridia manipulating a stone and a grinding below answering as the first panel rotates, clearing what was previously a dead end. I flinch at the sound; Leridia’s control wasn’t so graceless as to lose the stone from the bracer, but I can almost hear Lanistia’s disapproval at the inelegance of it.
“My side!” The boy on the western balcony yells out, positioning himself level with Ianix and holding up his hand. There are flickers of movement on the far side of the maze as the three hunters start in. Leridia’s walking westward, eyes roaming the way ahead of Ianix, looking for the next panel to move.
The rest of Class Six hang over the balcony, some whispering among themselves as they watch. Those are occasionally shushed by others, who follow with nervous looks over toward the Principalis. While Veridius doesn’t appear to notice, absorbed as he is in the contest, it’s evidently frowned upon to make too much noise here.
There’s a breathless minute as Ianix progresses deeper into the maze, the spotter whose hand is raised keeping level with him and occasionally calling out the specifics of his movements to those below. Leridia stalks around the side and ahead of her partner, silhouetted by the fire, stopping twice to focus on her bracer. She gets a harsh grating from a panel and a flinch from me both times. She’s calling out different numbers to Ianix whenever she alters something, but I can’t see any relation between them and what she’s doing. Some sort of pre-arranged code to avoid helping the hunters, I assume.
A sharp curse bounces around the vast space when Leridia attempts to use the bracer a third time, and I can tell the stone’s fallen off. She immediately shouts out another number to Ianix, who skids and changes direction. Leridia’s skill might be lacking, but the communication between her and her partner is impressive.
I join the crowd as everyone begins trailing around the edge of the maze, the group staying close while taking care not to interfere with Leridia or any of the spotters. I can feel interest around me sharpen when Ianix nears the centre and begins slowing to a cautious jog, increasingly hesitant at every intersection. We’ve still only been getting flashes of the hunters as they close in. They’re keeping low, using the walls to conceal themselves from Leridia as much as possible.
I spare a glance for Veridius, who’s still back toward the entrance. The Principalis is watching—to all appearances intently—but there’s something absent about his expression. Something that suggests his mind is elsewhere.
“Eleven!” Leridia calls, almost a scream, as a blond girl suddenly sprints into sight only a couple of turns away from Ianix, and with no barriers between them. Ianix tears off to the right as the underground chamber explodes into urgently shouted commands from spotters and Leridia alike, the latter fumbling with her bracer, frantically trying to find the right symbols on it. A panel shudders into the blond girl’s path, mere moments before she would have been past, blocking her way. She snarls and wheels, glancing up at the spotters for guidance.
The spotter on the far end of the maze has raised her hand as well, I notice. She can see Ianix, is keeping herself in line with him as he moves. Between her and the spotter on the side still doing the same, it should make it easy for the hunters to calculate where he is.
The two other hunters have broken cover too, now, converging from different directions, and I can see the frustration and panic on Leridia’s face as she wrestles with the bracer. Ianix has seen the dark-haired girl’s struggles and is responding by retreating, looking rattled himself, moving in increasingly random directions and sometimes ducking down to try and break line of sight from above.
None of it matters. A minute later, it’s over, with Ianix trapped against a dead end by the blond girl. There’s a sigh of disappointment, a smattering of applause from the class. Veridius claps as well, but it’s clearly encouragement, not adulation.
“Do the runners normally get caught?” I ask Eidhin, not really expecting an answer.
He watches Ianix trudge dejectedly back toward the stairs. “Always.” The way he says it, it’s a stupid question.
I cough. “Should we work out some sort of code? Like Ianix and Leridia?”
He turns his back on me and starts toward the maze’s entrance with the rest of the class.
“That’s a no, then,” I mutter to myself, joining the flow. Up ahead, Ianix emerges onto the balcony, exchanging a few terse words with Leridia along with the bracer. A similar changeover is happening between the spotters and the hunters, albeit a more congratulatory one.
Soon enough the contest begins again; though Leridia is a faster runner and Ianix better at manipulating the maze, the combination’s still nowhere near strong enough for Leridia to evade capture. Another smattering of applause once she’s caught. Apparently this is a good showing as far as the class is concerned, though Veridius continues to look more supportive than impressed. That doesn’t surprise me. If Lanistia were here, she wouldn’t be shy about showing her dismay at these performances.
“We’re going to have our lowest rank run next.” Dultatis makes the announcement with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “Telimus. Get your partner and get into position.”
I don’t move for a breath. Surprised to be called so soon, and stung, perhaps naïvely, to be named worst-ranked in the class. It makes a sick sort of sense, though, I suppose. It’s not as if Dultatis has given me the opportunity to prove anything yet.
Eidhin is already stalking toward the control bracer, so I still my anger and head for the entrance to the Labyrinth.
I glance over at Veridius as I walk. He’s watching me thoughtfully. Gives me an infinitesimal nod as our eyes meet.
Once down the stairs into the maze, I have a minute to settle as the hunters and spotters take up their positions. I steady my breathing, calm my nerves. I spent most afternoons of my last month at Villa Telimus wandering the Labyrinth there: partly to practice my manipulation of it on the run, but also to translate my intimate knowledge of its top-down layout into an equally exhaustive confidence while inside it. And the Academy’s Labyrinth is structured identically. Identically. Superficial differences aside, every corner of this place should feel familiar.
I scan the crowd above. Plenty of curiosity up there, but not much in the way of support. Eidhin is in position, bracer strapped to his arm, alternately studying it and the maze. Dultatis is by his side, staring down at me. He looks away when he realises I’ve seen his gaze, checking across the chamber before raising his arm and then letting it drop almost immediately. “Begin!”
And then I’m running.
The Labyrinth is more than a thousand feet long and has more than fifty panels that can be manipulated; if I sprint along the most direct route possible, I can get to the end in less than two minutes. Of course, the most direct route also has the fewest options, the highest number of choke points for the hunters. The only way to slip past all three of them is to choose a path with plenty of potential variability, and trust that Eidhin will make the right decisions for me.
So I angle off to the right, the side of the maze opposite to the one both Ianix and Leridia chose. I move at a good pace, but take care not to wind myself, reserving my energy for when I’ll need it most. Ahead, there’s the booming of panels sliding into place. No horrible, shivering grinding, though. That’s a good sign.
My breath’s hot in my lungs as I proceed, doing all I can to hug the concealing walls between myself and the spotter at the far end. The one on the right has already marked me, has her hand in the air as she keeps pace. I’m about a third of the way through the maze now, and I can feel tension causing my feet to drag, make me hesitate every time I approach a corner. Eidhin hasn’t made a sound, hasn’t communicated once. I use a precious second to glance behind me up at the balcony, where he’s trailing. He’s scanning the way ahead. Doesn’t see my frustrated look.
Another minute passes as I jog, apprehension growing. I flinch when the passageway ahead of me slams shut without warning, closing off the way I was intending to go; I falter and then dash down the newly formed corridor instead as the spotter on my right shouts furious, frustrated information to someone. The spotter at the back is yelling too, his hand raised. I’m sweating, heart pounding. There must have been another student just in front of me. I recalculate my route, try to envisage where they’re likely to go next, especially if they know my exact position. There are only bad options ahead. I whirl and double back, taking a different path.
It’s not panic, though. If there was a hunter that close, they’ve potentially locked themselves in to this route; with a little backtracking, I may just be able to get around them. I feel a flicker of excitement as the corridor rearranges itself again, giving me an opening to the left. More panels boom farther along. Eidhin, still silent, has had the same idea.
Time drags in a breathless, tense haze. A minute. Three. I’ve lasted longer than either Ianix or Leridia. Eidhin’s manipulation of the maze directs me back again, but the third time, I can hear panels slamming behind me. The back of my mind registers a murmur from the rest of the class, quickly shushed. I take the cue and burst forward, lungs burning. I’m two-thirds of the way through.
I’m just beginning to feel a grin split my face when sandy-haired Stult steps out of a side passage. “Got you.”
I skid to a stop. Spin. There’s a slender girl—Tanila—about twenty feet behind me, hands on her knees, dripping sweat. She looks up, damp black hair slapping her face, and gives me something between a smile and a glare.
There’s no way past either of them. The two paths leading out of this corridor finish at dead ends, with no panels to change that fact.
I’ve lost.
