The Cadet of Tildor (15 page)

CHAPTER 20

R
enee checked one useless piece of padded armor after another. Panic and disbelief made her hands tremble. Her gaze scoured the room for something she could use. Spare gear. The salle usually housed crates of old, but mostly serviceable, items.

“Where did the common pads go?” she asked, unable to find the stash.

“We moved everything out to the stable,” a junior cadet volunteered in a cheery tone. “To give you more room.”

Alec shot her a questioning look. His eyes widened when he saw the damage. “We run to the stable,” he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her to the door.

They made it halfway to the exit before the bell sounded, ordering everyone to their place. Verin entered the salle and strode to the dais like a king ascending his throne. An elaborate blue and black velvet cloak trailed behind him, basking in its own dignity. Savoy and another Servant whom Renee didn’t know followed at the headmaster’s heels.

Renee lined up with the others in front of the judges and watched in fear while Verin took out a roster and began to call roll. No title but “Cadet” preceded the name of each student, noble or not—another reminder that Servants of the Crown made up a class of their own. When “Cadet Renee de Winter” sounded, she knelt on one knee.

“Did you develop a craving for broken bones, de Winter?” Savoy’s voice cut through the room.

“Equipment failure, sir. May I get spares?”

“Inspecting gear is your responsibility. The battle started—make do with what you brought.”

She met his cold eyes with ice of her own. Verin continued reading roll. Once the entire class knelt in front of the judges, he nodded to Savoy.

“On your feet,” their instructor called, wasting no time on speeches. He ordered two students to the front, and all scrambled to obey.

Renee rubbed her arms for warmth and glared at Tanil.

He smiled, bowing to her. He could not see Alec coming up behind him until the larger boy had his wrist folded in two.

Tanil rose on his toes but wisely kept his mouth shut. A fight would disqualify him alongside Alec. Renee shook her head to prevent further damage for her friend’s sake and forced her balled-up hands to open. Most likely the cadets would be paired by size; she’d deal with the weasel in the ring.

The first bout ended and Savoy called out new names. Renee’s muscles twitched expectantly each time he spoke. During her classmates’ fights, she shivered. Between them, she held her breath. At last Savoy cleared his throat and turned in her direction. Bile bit Renee and she rose to answer the call she knew was coming.

“Cadet Alec Takay,” Savoy said, motioning him to take a spot in mid ring.

Renee sank back down.

She had just pulled herself together enough to congratulate Alec on a clean victory, when her own name sounded across the salle. Cold gripped her face. It was time.

“Fighters enter the Service of the Crown by the sword,” Verin intoned the ritual words for the sixth time that day as Renee and Tanil faced each other across the sand. “The Crown seeks not good fighters; it seeks the best. May your skill prove your worth.”

“Salute!” Savoy called on the heels of the declaration. His voice held the steel of war. “Ready blades!”

Renee brought the practice blade forward, raising the tip to eye level and the bevel at the height of her navel. Across the sand, Tanil did the same.

“Fight!”

They moved, circling each other like hungry animals. He swung first, wild and hard. She blocked the blow before it could shatter her. In her side vision, she saw blue mage light dance around Grovener’s hand. The Healer’s certainty that his services would be needed did nothing to boost her confidence.

Her attack thumped Tanil’s chest-pad but failed to wipe the grin off his face. She was stronger than before, yes—but still not strong enough to hurt him through the pads. Any points she scored would be irrelevant if he disqualified her. As if to underline the thought, a missed parry opened her ribs to a strike. Burning pain shot across her chest. Her breath faltered. Panic returned. She had no options. If she attacked, she left herself vulnerable to crippling strikes. If she stayed defensive and, by miracle, blocked every blow, she’d lose on points.

His blade cracked against her sword arm. It went numb. The blade streaked toward her head next, a full swing of polished wood intent on cracking her skull. Tanil’s nostrils flared with heavy breaths. His fevered eyes glimmered with full intent to follow through with the blow. Her life rested on the parry. She locked weapons shaft to shaft with the boy’s. Her muscles cramped from the strain, and she was forced to kick his middle to win distance. He growled, but she couldn’t spare the energy for a reply.

“How long do we let this continue?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“Until she gives up,” Verin answered, with no hint of emotion.

Savoy said nothing.

No, she wasn’t quitting. And she wasn’t dying. But what was she doing? Sweat dripped from her hair and stung her eyes. Blinded, she reached up to wipe them, and Tanil rapped her bruised triceps. She muffled a cry and sidestepped the next attack. She shook out her arm. It wasn’t broken, she realized. It wasn’t disabled. It stung. Nothing more, nothing less.

“You don’t hit hard,” she said, surprising herself with the sincerity of the statement. She survived Savoy’s blows. Tanil’s were unworthy of the comparison. All she really needed to do was protect her head and
move
. What did it matter that the boys preferred to break bones and sever heads, when a nick of the artery like Savoy had taught her killed just as well? The realization rushed through her like a sharp wave clearing debris from a dammed stream. She didn’t need to prove herself as good as the boys. She needed to prove she could kill them.

Renee relaxed her muscles. Tanil thought he’d beat her into submission? Well, he was welcome to his delusions. Exhaling, Renee switched her grip to that of her morning exercises. Her sword flowed around the boy’s blade, carving soft lines across his wrists and chest. Tanil’s increasingly frantic movements voiced his bewilderment. She fed off his desperation and grew calmer, surer with each of his wild strikes.
It’s a sword, not a tree trunk, oaf.
Her tip gently sliced his neck.

“Gods,” someone muttered. “She’s killed him five times over.”

“No,” Savoy replied, and raised his voice. “Quit fooling around and finish it, de Winter.”

What more did he want? Renee swallowed. In front of her, Tanil cocked his sword and swung. She pivoted from his blade’s grandiose arc and waited, letting him lose his own balance. Now she danced inside. With another pivot she circled to his back and, from behind, laid her sword across his windpipe. She felt her blade press into the delicate cartilage and knew with sickening certainty that should she pull, her dull wood would crush it forever, like an egg.

“Stop.” His whisper came fast and desperate. “I yield.”

She lowered her blade and shoved him away to face the judges, to whom he had to declare his intention.

“Sirs.” He took a breath, his blade lowering to the ground. “I—” He spun, bringing his blade around to crack Renee’s unprotected head.

The sounds of the world dimmed and returned. She swayed on her feet. Something wet trickled down into her collar.

“Sirs, I claim victory,” said Tanil’s voice.

“No yield.” Renee heard her own voice reply. Her arms brought up her sword and she hoped they knew what to do with it.

“The cadet may not continue,” said Healer Grovener.

Blue mage flame touched her shoulder and Cadet Renee de Winter was disqualified.

CHAPTER 21

T
he salle’s sand saw more bouts. Renee watched them through a blur of shock and ache. She was done. Finished. Disqualified. One cadet had to be cut and it would be her. The Academy, Alec, Sasha—they were her home, and in a day’s time she’d be alone. She had been granted a chance, a second family in place of the one that had been taken. Now it was over.

The last fight ended. The cadets dropped to their knees once more. Renee was grateful Healer Grovener permitted her to do as much, although her stomach fell as she knelt beside Alec for the last time. He reached out to grip her hand, offering a silent comfort.

Verin picked up a folded sheet of paper and showed it to his table mates. The knot of Savoy’s brow suggested the news was neither pleasant nor expected.

“An anonymous member of this gathering brings allegations of misconduct to the judges’ attention,” Verin announced, pitching his voice over the salle. “This party contends that one or more of today’s examinees appeared here under the influence of the leaf of veesi.” His eyes swept the cadets. “The cowardliness of an anonymous report speaks of the author. It does not, however, discount the message. Before sunset today, all senior cadets will report to Healer Grovener. The judges will withhold the results of today’s examination until appraising the Healer’s report. Dismissed.”

Disbelief paralyzed her. Renee didn’t even feel Alec’s hand slip out of hers. When her senses returned, he was gone. A herd of students made their way to the exit, and she was the only one left kneeling on the now scuffed and bloodied sand of the salle. At last Renee stood and walked to the door in a daze, but a hand seized her collar before she made it out.

“We can start with you. Come along,” Grovener said, leaving her no choice but to follow.

* * *

Renee managed to find Alec two hours later, sitting atop a boulder on Rock Lake’s shore. She pulled her coat tighter and climbed next to him. The breath misting from his nose curled to the heavy gray sky.

“Just because veesi affects me differently, doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” Alec said without turning. “I took some this morning—I can’t submit to Grovener’s exam.”

“I’ll kill Tanil.” Renee’s fists tightened. “This reeks of him.”

Alec nodded, then offered a wan smile, a mix of deep sadness and deeper determination. “At least you will continue. One student gone. It will be me.”

A shiver ran through her. Alec was right. If he was dismissed, she would remain.

No. She refused to accept it. The Academy was Alec’s family as much as it was hers. “They’ve caught you before. You got through it.”

He shook his head. “I was twelve, Renee, and Verin thought he got me before I actually tried any. If Grovener tests me now . . . I have a history and enough of that sewage in my body and in my room that the guard will hold me. Then, well, without the leaf it won’t be long until I slip and the bigger truth comes out and I wind up at the gallows.” He sighed and allowed silence to finish the story.

A lump formed in Renee’s throat. It wasn’t fair. Alec, who never asked for, never wanted Control, deserved the same rights as everyone else to determine the course of his life. She found no words to say, and no time to search for them either, as desperate barking sounded from below. Peering down, she spotted Khavi clawing at the rock.

“That’s not like him,” Renee mumbled, wrinkling her brows. “Alec?” He had his hands clapped to his forehead. “What’s wrong?”

Alec gasped, still clutching his head. “He’s . . . he’s forcing through my Keraldi Barrier. Gods, that hurts.” He wheezed and shut his eyes. A few seconds passed until he reclaimed his breath. He stared at her. “I think . . . I think Diam’s gone.”

A search of Academy grounds proved fruitless for Diam and Savoy both. When Renee returned to Alec’s room to report her lack of results, she found him stuffing shirts into his travel pack. Khavi whined at his feet. She touched Alec’s shoulder. “Any more luck?”

His eyes flashed. “I can’t read the dog’s mind, Renee! That I got a few images is a small miracle in itself. I didn’t know even
that
was possible unless one was bonded, and until this year, I thought bonding itself little more than my grandma’s tale.”

Renee winced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean . . . ” She climbed onto his bed and, propping her elbows on her knees, studied the stitching on his blanket. The sense that something very bad had happened settled around her shoulders. “Do you think Savoy and Diam left together?”

“No. The images Khavi gave me felt . . . wrapped in cotton, all blurry like.” He rubbed his head. “I think Diam followed me to Atham when I went to buy . . . what I need. People, kids especially, have been disappearing off Southwest streets for months. They say night gangs abduct them in the darkness and sell them to Vipers. If Diam went exploring because of me—”

“It wasn’t because of you.” Renee pressed her finger into Alec’s chest. “It was
not.
This is Diam Savoy we speak of. There’s nothing in the Seven Hells that could scare that boy into staying put.” She bit a loose fingernail and felt her thoughts snap together. “Khavi can follow Diam’s trail, right?” Renee waited for Alec’s nod and stepped toward the door. “Good. Let me know when you finish packing,” she said, leaving his quarters before he could stop her.

By gods’ grace, she found Sasha in their room. It was rather impossible to overlook the boy’s relation to Savoy, and something Sasha once said now bothered Renee.

“I need a favor.” Renee pulled out her travel pack and started to fill it. “Do you recall the beginning of the year, when you said Savoy was here because somebody wanted it so? I need to know who and why, and whether it had anything to do with Diam.”

Sasha sat down and crossed her legs. “What happened at the exams?”

Renee didn’t answer for several seconds. Her world, which had been turning in chaotic, nauseating circles for several months, now screeched to a clarifying halt. “I followed the rules,” she answered. “I did. I followed the code exactly, and . . .” Renee’s voice trailed off as she stared into her travel pack.

Sasha’s brow furrowed. “Are you being dismissed?”

“No.” A chuckle escaped her. No, she wasn’t going to be dismissed. This time. To enjoy her good fortune, all she had to do was abandon Alec and leave Diam’s fate to others. To buy herself another half year in the Crown’s Service—a service that was ready to choose the cheating Tanil over her—all she had to do was shut her eyes and disavow those who mattered most at their moment of greatest need. And if she did
that
to protect the possibility of a career, either the career was not worth having or she was not worth a Servant’s title.

“No, Sasha, I haven’t been dismissed. I’m dismissing myself.”