I. Jharna’s Story

 

            First, the ending. They died, I failed, and the world turned to shit. The web holding our world together burned away and the Aphradia sunk back into chaos. At the height of its power and size, the Dokan Empire, collapsed, rupturing and breaking into a thousand factions. And whatever order there was disappeared. Though perhaps the Empire’s sense of order was always a lie. It sure felt that way in the capital. The façade of control simply a thinly spun thread held together by veiled words, espionage, and hidden political agendas, which burned away far quicker than it took to spin.

            Once I understood the way of the world, or I thought I did. I was a recent graduate of Firelite Academy, educated and refined. A finely sharpened blade with a scholar’s mind and a soldier’s sense of duty. I was top of my class, trained for war and leading. I knew my place. I belonged. I was strong and driven, in my prime, and the only problem—my only problem—was that I had been assigned a job I didn’t want. Can you imagine? What I would do to go back to that; a world where I had only one—one!—thing to complain about. One thing to make life difficult.

And the job itself, in Dia’s name. It was one of the most powerful positions across the entire Aphradia and I was ungrateful partly because I was ignorant and partly because I was inept. How young I was. How incredibly obtuse.

            And here I am today, before you. Washed up like a pile of decomposing kelp with only a story to my name. A story that I desperately need you to believe. Without your trust, well… I know what will happen.

I only request that my end is swift.  

 

            The story, right. It is difficult to find a beginning. It feels as if I was always bobbing along to an unknown current, completely unaware of the debris hurtling my way. Do I go back, farther than the edge of time? Before beginnings could even, in a literal sense, begin? Do I place my story’s start there, give it full context, give it space and time and a depth of true origin?

Make it clear how very little my story matters in it all.

 

            I have come to you for help, you know, but you have chained me to this chair, caught in another net, and what I knew yesterday no longer exists; so yes, I’m allowed to be cynical. I’m allowed to feel jaded. You! You were at fault in this too. We all were. And the Jharna of yesteryear, Jharna the Bear, the Jharna that studied and schemed and fought—she no longer exists anymore. She’s gone.

 

            Yes, the beginning. Which one do you want?

            Should I start with Firelite? Tell my journey of how I found myself amidst the world of military education and training? How I found my calling through scrolls and young love and betrayal and overcoming my childish fears? How I never doubted myself again?

           Hah!

           No, I’ll begin a little later, when the real self-doubt kicked in. When reality showed up and sank its teeth in. I’ll start with her waking and what happened at the end of my time at Firelite, when I still believed in the integrity and truth of the stories I’d been told. I’ll even suggest the history of the Aphradia. Oh yes, I’ve been given the real story there.

           If I must tell my story, then I will tell it my way. I will say everything, including those old secrets he doesn’t want dragged up.

           The truth…

           You sure you want the scribe to stay?

 

           I’ll be a good orator, like Dimitar Draginev or Phan no Nitoka. I will go through the motions, follow the proper format and order of things. I’ll take a moment to think of my words and my language. Remember what Phan said: “You must begin with poetry; the rest can be prose.” I can wax poetic. It doesn’t happen often, but I can do it. I’ll even begin the traditional way.

           I’ll go first into the water, deep down below, start with the cave that opened again. With her. It’s fitting.

           I’ll give a beginning to our end, a beginning to our chaos.

 

           Between sky and sea, my story…

 

 

II. The Amano

 

            I always thought that the Amano, the abyss, was a myth. A bedtime story to frighten children from climbing up the rigging of their parents’ fishing boat. A story of dark waters and mystery and the unknown.

But I was shown it.

​

            Later. Much later. After the fire and death. You know, all the things you think I did.

 

            She did it, she showed us.

 

           Yes, of course, she did.

​

           It is hard to imagine, perhaps, that place of unfathomable depth and water so dark and still. We humans after all, swim where the sun still reaches. We go where light still touches. So, it is hard for me to even describe that place. But I will try. Try to explain what was shown to me.

           I do not quite know where it is, that inky black slice that cuts through the ocean floor, but I was given a vision of its darkness, of its depth and stillness. And I was shown the cave that sat at its heart, deep beneath leagues of cold darkness, deep, deep down in the Amano. She said was the center of the world, the heart of the planet, beneath all the islands of the Aphradia.

           In that slice beneath the ocean floor, in the heart of the Amano, a cave sat surrounded by frozen waves of rock held in a tender caress by black water. Rippling and rolling, an exquisite sculpture of rock fixed in time. A natural testament to the powers of a long-ago collision, where the ocean reached up and out and grasped the hand of the sky, and in that moment of contact, the earth bloomed into orange tangles of magma and ash.

           To think that there, beneath our passing ships, for all this time, was the moment of first creation. A moment of matrimony forever encapsulated in sharp edges and swirls.

           For eons, the cave had sat in a world of stillness, a world without light and motion, reminding me of that moment in time, that long pause, after a last dying breath escapes. Nothing stirred and nothing swam. In that strange, muffled space, barren of life, only death floated quietly down from above.

           It is difficult to explain the purpose of that cave. I think my human brain could not quite understand what I was seeing, what seemed to be beyond comprehension, but this cave somehow extended down past the edge of the world.

 

           Yes, she explained its purpose.

 

           Once, long ago, the cave was the gateway between worlds, between the unknown and creation, between life and immortality, between something and nothing. The gods had entered its walls and left, swinging through, passing by, breathing life. The world had pulsated from its mouth. And it was a cave like none other, able to be both a cavern and a passageway, able to move locations. For a while, it had been deep in a mountain, then atop a hill, then on a beach. It had been more, far more than what it was now: a simple cave.

           Well, the cave was not just a cave, it was also a prison.

           Once it had been endless, now it was an end. The same could be said for the prisoner within. Trapped at an end. She was barely a shell, void of it all. Absent. Something less than darkness, for darkness can be pregnant with many things. Something far more empty. Above the world rotated, skies changed, the world went on, but down in the abyss, in the Amano, the prisoner within did not. She remained in a permanent stasis of not being.

           A stasis partially chosen by the prisoner within, I think, for she fully had the power to move. She could change, after all, but she did not. And so, the stillness remained, as it had for eons.

 

           The darkness moved first, it shifted up and around the prisoner, folding and separating like a blanket. It flattened and expanded, rolling out with the curl of a wave. Then her hand twitched and the interior of the cave shivered, vibrating. The saltwater swayed and began to shift, stirring the dust and debris.

           Her other hand moved. An eye opened.

           The emptiness turned into something and the stillness immediately changed too, evaporating into action. The prisoner, who had been permanently at the back of the cave, closest to that other side where there was once a doorway that was now forever closed, turned her head towards the mouth of the cave.

           The Amano came alive with vibrations and energy. With each of her movements, the water quivered, spreading waves and rippling out. The saltwater pushed away from the cave, picking up dust, and rebounded against the far wall.

           It seems strange—this all must sound strange—but as she moved, the cave changed too. It seemed to rear up and roll out, growing larger and wider, expanding its opening.

           Knuckles trailed against the cave interior, creating the first sound. It was a hushed sound of soft murmurs and sighs. She stood at the edge of the cave, placing long fingers on the inside wall of rock at the entrance, greeting her prison like an old friend, just as one greets the wooden doorframe of a treasured home.

           A few happy stalagmites unexpectedly burst forth around her.

The prisoner acquiesced with a gentle pat against the rock, her home for eons, then turned to look out beyond the opening. It was clear that she could not move forward, blocked by an invisible wall of an impenetrable power.

           A power meant to lock a monster in.

           A soft murmur filled the cave. “At last you wake,” another presence spoke from outside the barrier, “Arka.” The voice announced the name of the prisoner within, sounding like a thousand whispers and hushed prayers and quiet snores.

           “Notos,” the prisoner replied, breaking eons of silence. She looked out at the darkness with eyes that were at once calculating, pained, loving, and tired.

           “Why now?” Notos asked. If there was any light, they might have become the shadow of a supplicant, begging for an answer. There was hurt in their voice, similar to a child abandoned or a lover cast aside.

           Again, Arka did not respond. She waited patiently, boiling with conflicting emotions. Her eyes looked up through the darkness of the abyss towards the far-off surface of the ocean above.

           “I cannot help you.” Notos was small, a lonely owl on a midnight hunt or a dog in a cage. “I am nothing without Lhos.”

           At this, the prisoner glanced at Notos.

           “You are yourself, Notos, and that is more than enough,” Arka replied. She spoke in all tongues, in all languages and voices, a cacophony of sound and song that was at once discordant and harmonious.

           “You cannot escape,” Notos hissed from the shadows.

           “You have forgotten who I am; there are many ways I can escape.” She examined the invisible wall for a long time, then placed her hands on the border, which pulsed with energy under her strength, shaking the sides of the cave.            A few pebbles slipped off a nearby ledge.

           Concerned, Notos spat: “There are rules now, order—” They changed tactics. “Would you be the world’s destruction? The end of all life? There are whole civilizations up there. Humanity is spread out on nearly every island, with stories and lives to live and deaths to incur. Would you destroy all of that?”

           “I am change.”

           “You are the madness that curls in my nightmares. The insanity that aches to shred everything apart. I know what you are,” Notos accused, “but your role is played out. We—”

           “Enough. It is time. Things are ready.” The prisoner lifted a hand and there was enough authority in her voice that Notos fell silent. Again, Arka’s hand moved forward and rested on the invisible wall, which began to hum as if straining against her power.

           “What are you going to do?” The humming increased, filling the depths of the Amano.

           “I cannot fully escape—yet—but some of me will.”

           The humming became to scream against the barrier and the hand. Volume continuously rising, ricocheting up and around, over and over, gaining in intensity. From where the hand contacted the wall a crackling occurred, a breaking of matter, a fracturing and splintering, and then light pooled through, burning a space through the invisible barrier. A flash of white, blinding light.

           It was the first time light had radiated against the volcanic rock in millions of years, its prayer of warmth and radiance dazzling against the walls of the abyss and the entrance of the cave.

           Then, when the sound and the brightness were hot and loud enough to almost break reality itself, a force of energy burst through a tiny hole in the barrier, pushing through the darkness of Notos. Barely the width of a thumb, the single bolt of radiant energy shot through, leaving the prisoner and Notos behind. It swarmed over the swirling rocks and dust and then upward it moved, away from the cave and the darkness and the prisoner.

 

           How did she look when she told me this part? Well, she smiled. A wild, gleeful smile. An image I’ll never forget.

 

           The pulse of light, of energy, shot forward like a lightning bolt. Up along the Amano’s walls, up and out of the trench, past shelves of rock and volcanic vents. The bolt moved faster, further, speeding out into deep ocean, where leviathans swam and nightmares lived. Up and up and up, zigzagging far away from where it began, past whales and squids and krakens, past stingrays, sharks, shrimp, and octopi. Up past debris and schools of fish. As if cheered on by the first trickles of true sunlight, the energy zipped forward, gaining even more speed.  Then like a shooting star, it met the surface.

           At the point where the sky and the sea met, the bolt exploded into a great burst of wind and a sprinkle of sea turtles and guppies and a sudden surge of water. The energy and creatures spread far and fast. Deep-sea currents picked up, abruptly carrying the waters of the Aphradia in many different directions. The air above jolted into action too. A great storm brewed and formed and rolled out, spreading across the horizon.

           The sea and the air changed course, and the world followed after.

 

           This is not a happy story, you know. This is a tragedy. My tragedy. But I am thinking too far ahead. How do you tell the story of before when all you can think about is the schism, the great hacking fissure of events that nearly broke me? I’m overthinking, as usual. I need to, as you just muttered: “get on with it.”

           So, I will. Just for you.

           My story, or at least my part in it, begins on a warm, late spring day, before my whole world turned over.

 

 

III. The First Death

 

            The bench was designed to punish. Straight and rigid, it had that austerity of uncomfortably thats marks any waiting experience with a small measure torture. My fingers traced the myriad carvings of others who had chipped away at the wood, a testament to all the students who had ever waited outside the Headmaster’s office. Scores of savvy students had somehow quickly carved their names or phrases of protest or even the creative expletive or two. While it had been a while, I was no stranger to this straight, unbending, and terribly uncomfortable bench.

            I could remember the first time I sat here—not exactly whatever I did to elicit such fearsome punishment—but I could recall my impatient feet kicking in the air, an argument of defense already building inside me. And all the times after that, how many times had I been dragged up here? Called out for my choice words or disobeying the rules or, more likely, fighting with someone. Hung up here to dry while I waited on Headmaster Bakalov to dish out his stern lecture and whatever consequence he deemed appropriate. His measured brown eyes assessing me with some degree of disappointment and exhaustion and the slightest sparkle of humor. He was always precise in whatever concoction of the three was needed to mediate each student’s infraction. And if anger was required, his cold, unwavering fury could cast any unrepentant student into a groveling mess. He was fair if strict, and for that the students respected him.

            But it was his courses, that made students love him. His lectures on history, in which he wove hilarious anecdotes into an impressive amount of information created some of the most rigorous but rewarding classes at Firelite Academy of War and Profession of Arms. And for the select few that had the opportunity to attend his upper-level classes, well, they became a favored group of zealous and intelligent students, devout in their faith in his lessons and exclusive in their privilege. His upper-level course on how the Dokan Empire dismantled and ultimately dominated Rudo was a favorite of mine. There was something about deconstructing how the Empire had conquered our home that felt at once horrible and fascinating and yet somehow important and rebellious to learn.

            “It shouldn’t be too long,” the familiar secretary said as she passed into the waiting room to stack a few scrolls and wax tablets into cubby holes. Like Headmaster Bakalov, she was also a pillar of the Academy. An obscure age, she had long worked his correspondence and been a familiar face around campus. There were even rumors that she was immortal. The kind, heartwarming front to Bakalov’s door, she tittered around her desk, relighting a candle to heat wax for seals.

            Behind her desk, painted in a great fresco on the stucco wall was the list of Firelite Majors. Bears, Vipers, Wolves, Eagles, and the rest. Each with its distinct animal and symbol in a circle, reflecting their subject of study. While I was partial to the Bear, being one myself, I always enjoyed the twin snakes twisting around the poison-laced knives of the Vipers or the quaintness of the Otter resting between a compass and a craft scissor. The Bear, surrounded by its laurel leaves, carried a sword, symbolizing victory, triumph, and its role as a leader.

            My eyes flicked over to the left wall, which carried hundreds of tiny wooden plaques and centuries of student accolades and achievements. A wall of names. A wall of legacies. And somewhere on that wall was mine. “Jharna the Bear,” it would say, “First female Bear and youngest to ever graduate.” How heavy the mantle of expectation. How heavy the weight of my goals blighted and smashed against the weather-beaten rocks outside.

            I readjusted in my seat, picking up the parchment of the letter beside me. The sweeping curve of its cursive letters trembled as I bit back the ache, the rising feeling of stuffed anger and dissatisfaction. How hard I had worked and studied. How much I had climbed and overcome. My name was on that wall. My name. And all of it for nothing.

            “I wonder what’s taking him so long,” Mrs. Petrova, the secretary, pondered aloud, passively pressing the headmaster’s seal into the warmed wax, sealing a folded letter. She took her stylus and erased some note on her checklist from the wax tablet resting on her desk. Her eyes lingered for a moment on the sunlight dazzling through the alabaster windows, one of the few rooms to feature such wealth, before roaming to the letter in my hands. Her expression brightened. “I hope you are excited for your new role.”

            “You know?” I asked, surprised.

            She snorted. “I’m the one that wrote that.”

            The words of the letter shimmered back into focus. Little more than a request to come back from the fishing village where I had been stationed to receive my next position. Since graduation, I had been tossed around between odd jobs and rudimentary projects for two years, so I was unimpressed by the request. If not for the use of expensive vellum and its urgent plead to go directly to Bakalov, rather than the custom recruitment office, I would have taken my time coming back to the Academy. Instead, I had quickly packed what few belongings I had and said a rushed farewell to the village before catching the next boat that could ferry its way over here.

            “Do you know what it is?” I asked belatedly. She placed a finger to her lips.

            “Bakalov should be the one to tell you,” then as if the secret was too big to hold, she added, “but it is well deserved.”

            My curiosity was now piqued, and I worked to squash the sudden wave of hope. Too frequently had I been to the recruiting and contract office only to be dismissed, or worse, sent off to do new grunt work. There was no reason to get worked up now.

            “I swear, he is never this late,” Mrs. Petrova glanced again at the window.

            I tapped on the letter, my fingernail circling the phrase “цвий изм,” with haste. My eyes flicked again to the wall of plaques and I sighed back my annoyance. I sought out that mental temperament of focused attention and indifference which I used before a fight. That space of quiet meditation allowed almost a clairvoyance with a minimization of emotions. Better to be there than overwhelmed by the tumult trying to pass through me.

            “I’ll go check. He is likely caught up in some grading,” she chuckled, knowing her employer far better than I. She left through the door behind her, leaving it slightly cracked, then disappeared up the stairwell. While I had been in this room many a time, I could never claim I knew the Headmaster well, let alone any of the other Masters. Even as an alum, there was still this impassive teacher-student wall between us. Then again, it still felt strange to be that student lingering around the Academy, not yet sent away to do great things elsewhere. It wasn’t like I had chosen to remain close. I was the one that had been held back. Kept.

            I folded the letter sweetly, stuffing it into my pocket.

            There was a scream of anguish and horror. I jumped up, immediately regretting having left my weapons with my friend Meara, then rushed forward shoving past the heavy wooden door. I raced up the spiral stairs that wound around the Headmaster’s building before reaching the next floor’s door.  I paused, well-trained in following protocol before entering a dangerous room. My sight swept over the space clearing it of any threat, only Mrs. Petrova’s crouched body hovered over the Headmaster’s prone form.

            Warily entering while checking the alabaster windows for any breakage, I crouched down beside the two. The office was in slight disarray as if Headmaster Bakalov had fallen over in a rush, knocking over documents in the process. Contorted in posture, he seemed to have crawled across the floor, briefly vomited, and then collapsed, gripping his chest. We rolled him over onto his back, wiping away the spittle. His skin was waxy, pale, and yellow-tinged. Where once his sharp northern features were lively and intelligent, they now seemed sunken and hollow. His eyes were open, vacant, and entirely lifeless.

            It was clear he was dead. You can always tell.

            With shaking hands, Mrs. Petrova sobbed in shock. Her hands hovered over his body as if searching for something to do. Something to bring him back, but we were too late. Gently, I leaned forward and closed his eyelids. His skin carried only the slightest suggestion of warmth, the barest hint of it ever having been alive. I stood glancing around his desk. It would be illogical to jump straight to poison, but his nausea threw me off. There were no signs of any food or drink, and he was too neat to have eaten in his office anyway. His small drinking cabinet was closed. The door to the next upward stairwell, which I had always assumed led to his bed chamber, was also locked.

            “Why didn’t we hear him?” She gasped, turning to me. I had moved about the room looking for anything suspicious. But I did not know poisons—if that was what had happened. In all likelihood, he could have choked on something or had an attack of the heart or spirit. Maybe even old age had gotten to him, though I never thought it could look so tormenting. He had certainly died in pain. I would need a Viper’s help.

            “Check his mouth,” I ordered, “is there anything in there?” Before he enters rigor mortis, I thought.

            “Why didn’t we hear him?” She asked again, her voice rising in panic. I flowed forward and softly moved her aside. I opened his mouth. It was difficult to tell if any of the foamy liquids suggested anything. Nothing big seemed stuck at the back of his throat.

            Mrs. Petrova stood and rushed over to a corner of the room where she vomited as well.

            “We need a Viper,” I announced.

            “Why?!” Her high-pitched voice coughed into the lime plaster of the corner. I did not answer her obvious question.

            “Where would Master Hristov be?” As head professor of the Vipers, the major of secrecy and assassination, he would know how best to proceed.

            “He’s probably working with your friend…” She sputtered, waving away Meara’s name while swaying as she stood up.

            I could feel the sand passing through the hourglass. I hazarded a guess, “In the workshops?”

            Mrs. Petrova shrugged, leaning against a cabinet. She struggled to stay up, shock overcoming her.

            “Mrs. Petrova,” I crouched before her as she slid down to the ground, “we need to get help. Immediately. We need to collect the Masters; they will figure this. But this room must not be disturbed. Master Hristov must be allowed to examine this room first. Can you do that for me?” I enunciated every syllable slowly and calmly. “If I leave, can you keep people from entering? I will round up as many Masters as I can find.”

            Tears fell from the older woman’s eyes. Her age was now more evident in her wrinkles and lines. Her hands were shaking.

            “Is there anyone I shouldn’t trust?” I asked her. It seemed heinous to ask, but she would know better than anyone if Bakalov had enemies here. There had to be some professors who disliked him. As students, we had always asked for gossip from our Masters, but most were tight-lipped. She did not respond; her eyes had found some faraway place. I gently shook her on the shoulders. “Please, Mrs. Petrova, is there anyone?”

            Petrova caught the gist of my words and briefly resurfaced, her gaze suddenly fiendish.

            “No, no, not here,” she hurriedly, frantically whispered. “Not here.”

            “Did you hear my instructions? Will you follow them?”

            But she was shaking her head.

            “I am going to leave now,” I firmly but gently announced.

            “Wait!” She called, but I was already sprinting out of the room.

 

 

            A sudden spring storm pattered against the building’s exterior walls as Headmaster Bakalov’s office slowly emptied. The few Masters allowed to enter alongside Hristov left, their heads bowed together in quiet speculation. Mrs. Petrova and I remained in the cool, dark stairwell, answering the odd question as each passed by, their faces contorted in consternation and dismay. Beloved by his students, he was equally respected by his colleagues; Bakalov’s death was just as much a surprise as a loss for the whole Academy.

            The quiet scuffle of their rice straw or leather shoes disappeared around the bend, while the rain haphazardly pattered in gusts through the arrow slits in the stairwell’s walls. While it had been some time since Firelite had been under attack—not since it was conquered by the Emperor—there were still signs of its status as a fort made long before the academy or the Dokan empire existed. Through the thin window, I could make out the grid-like layout of uniform, square-shaped buildings, the old limestone outer wall, and the beauty of red-roof tiles slick with rain. Over time the fort had become permanent, its walls replaced with limestone brick and decorative frescos, statues, and colonnades. I could even make out my preferred tower on the southern wall, the one I used to climb as a child to peek out on the end-of-year tournaments in the oval open-air amphitheater. How I had yearned to see those fights, climbing into a nook of a window to peek down on the worst possible view of the duels. Too young at the time, I was not allowed to watch, yet I had found a way.

            Having calmed, Ms. Petrova quietly shuffled over to me, her hand gently resting on my arm.

            “Firelite Guard,” she whispered.

            “What?”

            “Your next contract. That’s where he assigned you.” She swallowed, her reddened brown eyes transfixing on mine. I was so taken aback that I stumbled back a step.

            “Firelite Guard?” I asked, shocked. She nodded. My heart sank, it was even worse than I thought. A boring, schmoozing position, a role normally given to those either close to retiring or knocking at death’s door. The complete opposite of what I wanted. “But they give that to old—” farts is what I wanted to say— “veterans.”

            “He would have explained,” she began, tears beginning to well back up.

            “What is there to explain?”

            “I don’t know,” she shook her head. “I don’t know… Something changed in Komi and your predecessor… he…” She dabbed at her eye as she mentioned the capital of the Dokan Empire before switching topics. “You must also pick up a princess—”

           “A princess?”

           “The Emperor’s request. It was in his letter. On your way to the capital, you must pick up the Princess of Kivos and protect her until you arrive.” Biting the inside of my lip, I held back my immediate scorn.

           “Doesn’t seem too difficult.” Kivos was a city-state outside of the Dokan Empire’s jurisdiction, and it often sent its young royals down south to secure marriage alliances. It seemed like a customary guard detail, more fit for a Wolf than a Bear.

           “All I know is what I was allowed to read,” she sighed. “Your predecessor, the Firelite Guard, his name was Aleksander and he wrote to Bakalov all the time. But I was never allowed to read his words, they only ever go to—went to Bakalov.” She stumbled over the change to past tense. “I only read the Emperor’s request.”

            “That makes sense,” I calmly rationalized, as her voice floundered. “The Firelite Guard is an honorary role between the Dokan Empire and this Academy. It is a gesture of goodwill and helps maintain a steady supply of graduates to the Empire’s army.” I quoted from somewhere in the reaches of a lecture learned long ago. Perhaps it had even been Bakalov explaining how the emissary position was a diplomatic one in nature, though its original tenet was to “protect the Imperial family.” Which hardly seemed necessary when there were Imperial Guards and a clear chain of command to do the job. I did not know how much socializing and gossiping were required of the role, but I knew the Firelite Guard played some part in helping send new students to the Academy as well as moving graduates around. That was about all, it seemed. And if they had tacked on some additional guard duty of helping to ship some poor princess three weeks south, well, that seemed sensible on their part, if undeniably boring on mine.

            “There’s more.” She paused again, as if unable to bring up another uncomfortable subject. “Two months ago, we received word that Aleksander had passed away.”

            “Wasn’t he seventy-six?”

            “Something was off. I know it!” She urged, leaning forward so that both hands held my wrist. “Since that day, Bakalov was not his usual self. He spent hours, weeks, in his office, thinking. There’s something going on. Something he couldn’t get over. And he didn’t know who to send as Aleksander’s replacement.”

            “What? Couldn’t find someone willing to be a stylus-pusher?” I asked bitterly.

            Mrs. Petrova’s eyes danced with worry. “I don’t know anymore, my dear, but you must believe me. Something’s not right.”

            “Say that again,” I teased. My beloved Headmaster had wanted me to become a filthy bureaucrat and now he was dead and unable to defend himself. If he had known me at all—at all—he would have known that this was the worst possible choice for the type of job I wanted to do. I wanted to fight and to lead and to be at the southern front, helping the Emperor conquer. “Guess it doesn’t matter anyway.”

            “What are you saying?” She asked as if I had been the one to poison him.

            “Won’t I have to wait for the next Headmaster to confirm?”

            “The paperwork’s already done, my dear. Bakalov and all the Masters had agreed.”

            “Of course,” I sighed. My eyes caught again on the southern tower as a slice of sunlight peeked through the clouds and I remembered that feeling I had so long ago. That eagerness to do more, be more. Be something. “Is that all?”

            Her smile was a brief fleeting thing. “I don’t know what happened, I don’t know what danger there is, but if anyone can survive it, I know you can.”

            I wanted to respond with some retort about how much danger a parchment cut could give, but I swallowed it. Bakalov’s death had stirred some silly mystery out of nothing. Everyone knew the Firelite Guard was given to those who could no longer fight. It was well paid, sure, cushiony and it might even end my debt to the Academy, but it was not a proper role for a Bear.

Master Hristov stood at the office door, waving us up. His arms carried several wax tablets filled with notes. His fixed neutral expression was impossible to read. I helped her up the few steps.

            “It will be an honor,” I said, though the words tasted sour in my mouth.

            “That’s why he chose you,” Mrs. Petrova patted my hand gently, not catching my bitterness.