Chapter 56

Chapter 56: Chapter 56

The wrought-iron gates of the Imperial Academy closed behind me with a smooth, oiled click, and I was sealed inside a world I didn’t belong to.

If the Crown Jewel was a monument to human ambition, the Academy was its heart. Everything about the sprawling citadel was built to intimidate. Walkways of polished white marble wound through courtyards planted with ancient silver-leafed oaks. Spires of dark granite and glass rose into the sky, joined by high stone bridges. The air felt heavy with the ambient Ember of thousands of students and master scholars.

I stood in the grand entrance plaza in my mud-stained 7th Legion leathers, which looked wrong against all that clean stone. In my hand was a small silver key the administrators had handed over grudgingly, stamped with the number of my assigned dormitory.

I shifted the runic bastard sword on my back and started walking.

The student housing was split into huge, palatial wings. I made my way through the eastern quadrant, past dozens of incoming students. They were the heirs to baronies and dukedoms, and their personal servants carried their velvet-lined trunks. They wore tailored tunics and silk dresses and stood with the careless confidence of children who had never been hunted.

When they saw me, the talk around me died. They stared at the jagged scars crisscrossing my neck, at the silver Lieutenant’s insignia on my chest, at the pale starry light bleeding from the edge of my right iris. I saw disgust in some faces and plain fear in others.

I ignored them. I was here to master the Bud Burst and return to the vanguard.

My room was on the third floor, off a long marble corridor. I unlocked the oak door and went in.

The room was bigger than the whole command pavilion of General Kaelus, and a good deal nicer. Two four-poster beds draped in deep crimson silk stood on either side of a wide mahogany desk. Tall arched windows looked out over the central courtyards and let in the crisp autumn sunlight.

The bed on the left was already taken, a heap of expensive leather travel bags piled at the foot of it.

My new roommate was standing by the wardrobe, a tall, athletic girl with deep brown skin and tight dark curls pulled back into a practical braid. She wore a well-tailored dark green tunic.

She turned as I came in, a stack of books in her arms. Her eyes went over my Swelled Bud frame, the blood-red cloak, the massive sword, and for a moment her pupils widened as she understood what she was looking at.

I braced for the disdain and waited for her to demand a different room.

Instead, a wide, warm smile broke across her face.

"Oh, thank the Ancestors," she said, letting out a long breath and dropping the books on her desk. "When I saw the second bed I was terrified they’d put me with one of those insufferable powdered duchesses from the inner rings. I’m Nia. Nia of House Valerius."

She stepped forward and held out her hand, never mind the heavy leather gauntlet I wore.

I looked at her hand for a moment. The plain friendliness of the gesture caught me off guard. In the mud, a sudden movement meant an ambush. Here it meant hello. I made myself loosen my shoulders and took her hand. My grip was stiff and cold. Hers was warm and firm.

"Elvit," I said, my voice rough. "Lieutenant of the 7th Legion."

"A vanguard officer," Nia said, her eyes dropping to the silver insignia on my chest. She looked awestruck. "My brother did a short stint in the border garrisons before he took over the family estates. He told me the 7th Legion doesn’t breed soldiers, it breeds the best of the best. It’s an honor, Elvit."

The knot of isolation that had been tightening in my chest since I entered the capital loosened a little. Nia was treating me like a person.

"I don’t have much baggage," I said, and walked to the empty bed on the right. I unbuckled my sword and leaned it against the mahogany nightstand, then unclasped my heavy crimson cloak.

As the cloak came off, the pale geometric scars of the Rune of Antiquity lit up along my right arm. Nia watched, but she had the grace not to ask about them yet. Astra, who had flown in through the open arched window, landed silently on the headboard of my bed and clicked his beak.

"A falcon?" Nia said, grinning. "Oh, the administrative scholars are going to hate that. I love him already." She clapped her hands together. "Right. Have you seen the grounds yet? The theoretical spires? The combat pits?"

"I just got here," I said, sitting on the edge of the mattress. It was so soft it felt wrong under my weight.

"Then I’m giving you the tour," Nia announced, taking my arm with such easy familiarity that my tactical instincts twitched before I shut them down. "The inauguration ceremony isn’t until tomorrow. If we don’t map out the citadel now, you’ll get lost looking for the cafeteria, and I refuse to let my roommate starve on her first day."

For the next two hours Nia dragged me through the maze of the Imperial Academy. She seemed to know everything about it, and she talked the whole way while I watched and said very little. She pointed out the Spire of Antiquity, a massive black tower where they taught the history and drafting of Ancestral Runes. We passed the Crucible, a sprawl of reinforced stone arenas where students practiced raw Ember manipulation. Last, she showed me the Vanguard Pits, deep circular arenas filled with sand and iron training posts, built for practical combat.

As we crossed the central quadrangle, five students blocked our path.

They were older, second or third-year cadets by the look of them, in tailored white-and-gold coats. The leader was a pale young man with sharp, aristocratic features and a sneer that seemed permanent. He stepped in front of us. He had the dense build of a Swelled Bud, and his Ember gave off an arrogant, poorly controlled heat.

"Valerius," the noble drawled, looking Nia up and down. "I see they still let provincial border-lords enroll. And what is this?"

His gaze moved to me. He took in my muddy boots, the thick scars on my neck, the bastard sword on my back, and he laughed, a high, grating sound.

"Did you bring a camp follower with you? Tell your servant to wash her face, Valerius. She smells like a swamp rat."

Nia stiffened, and all the warmth went out of her. She opened her mouth to snap back, but I laid a gauntleted hand on her shoulder and stepped past her to face the noble.

I kept my Ember banked and the Rune quiet and looked into his eyes. I saw a boy who had never gone hungry, who had never felt a giant insect’s mandibles close around his torso. He played at war with wooden swords in clean courtyards.

The silence stretched. The dense weight of my frame, forged by survival, pressed against his pampered ego. The smirk slowly melted off his face. The heat of his Ember flickered and died as primal dread crept into his eyes. He understood, without my saying a word, that if I drew my sword his expensive tutors would not save him.

"Move," I said. My voice was quiet and flat.

The noble swallowed hard and took a hasty step back, clearing the path. His friends said nothing, their eyes fixed on the cobblestones as we walked past.

"Ancestors preserve us," Nia breathed once we were out of earshot. She was looking at me, half shocked and half impressed. "I was ready to shout at him, but you just... you just looked at him, and he folded like cheap parchment."

"He’s soft," I said. "Soft things break easily."

By sunset Nia had steered us to the grand cafeteria. Calling it a cafeteria felt like an insult. It was a vaulted dining pavilion of glass and white stone, lit by thousands of floating spheres of warm light. Long oak tables were laden with roasted meats, exotic fruit from the southern coasts, and fresh bread.

I took a wooden plate and piled it high with roasted venison and root vegetables. My Swelled Bud metabolism never stopped demanding calories.

Nia and I found an empty spot by the tall glass windows overlooking the lake. I had barely taken my third bite when a familiar, confident voice cut through the noise of the hall.

"Lieutenant! I was wondering when you would emerge from the shadows."

I looked up. Lord Luckas of House Vance was striding toward our table, immaculate in a fresh midnight-blue tunic, a charming smile on his face.

He sat down across from me without waiting to be asked. "I spent the last three hours listening to the administrators drone on about uniform regulations. Tell me you brought the wooden stick. I want a rematch."

"You’re Lord Luckas," Nia said, recognition dawning in her eyes. "I saw your retinue arrive at the gates. You’re the heir to the Vance estates."

"Guilty," Luckas grinned, giving Nia a nod. "And who might you be, my lady? A brave soul, clearly, to sit willingly next to the vanguard."

"Nia Valerius. Elvit is my roommate."

"Ah. Then you have my deepest sympathies," Luckas laughed, his eyes warm. "She is excellent company if you enjoy long, terrifying silences and the constant threat of physical violence."

I rolled my eyes and chewed a piece of venison. "If you wanted poetry, Luckas, you should have stayed on the highway."

Luckas chuckled, but before he could answer, a fourth person arrived at the table.

He had come up without a sound. Where the nobles wore bright, tailored colors, he wore a plain black tunic made for use. He was tall and lean, with sharp features, pale skin, jet-black hair and storm-grey eyes.

He carried a tray of food, but his gaze never left me. It went over the scars on my neck and the heavy sword leaning against my bench as if he were taking inventory.

"Ah, right," Luckas said, gesturing at the silent boy. "Elvit, Nia, allow me to introduce my roommate. This is Kaelen. He doesn’t say much."

Kaelen gave a short, stiff nod and sat down beside Luckas. He gave off none of the overflowing heat of a Swelled Bud, but there was a coiled tension in his posture. He moved like an assassin.

"A pleasure, Kaelen," Nia said warmly, trying to fill the sudden silence.

Kaelen nodded again and went back to slicing his meat in neat cuts.

The table settled into a strange, comfortable rhythm. Luckas and Nia carried the conversation, swapping stories about their provincial estates and picking over the rumors of the Academy’s brutal curriculum. Kaelen stayed silent, his grey eyes moving around the room, tracking the exits and the crowds.

I sat between them and listened. For the first time since Elara died in the mud, I was at a table with people my own age. Nobody there was my soldier or my commander. They were just students. The isolation that had weighed on me since my evolution eased. A warmth I didn’t recognize spread through my chest, and the Ember had no part in it.

When dinner ended, the pavilion began to empty as the students went back to their dormitories to prepare for the inauguration ceremony in the morning.

Nia yawned and stretched her arms over her head. "I’m going to collapse. That mattress is calling my name."

"I’ll join you shortly," I said, standing and grabbing the hilt of my runic sword.

Luckas raised an eyebrow. "Where are you going? The campus locks down for the night."

"I need to bleed the pressure," I said.

I left the pavilion and walked out into the crisp night air. I skipped the marble walkways and cut straight toward the Vanguard Pits on the western edge of the citadel. The deep circular arenas were empty, lit only by the pale light of the moon.

I dropped into the center of the sand pit.

I drew the runic bastard sword from my back and kept the starlight and the static electricity out of it. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and began to move.

I ran through the standard vanguard infantry drills I had learned in Shepfold. The heavy blade swung through the empty air, and my footwork carved deep grooves in the sand. I moved with explosive speed, and the mass of my Swelled Bud frame generated enough force to whip the sand into a vortex around me.

I kept at it until my muscles burned, my undershirt was soaked through, and my lungs were screaming for air.

I needed the exhaustion and the pain to ground me. The luxury of the Academy, the soft silk beds and the rich food, all felt alien and unnerving. My feral instincts stayed on edge, waiting for an ambush that would never come. Pushing my body to its limit was the only way to quiet the paranoia I had carried out of the mud.

At last I stopped, the tip of my sword resting in the sand, my chest heaving.

I looked up at the stars over the Crown Jewel. I still couldn’t remember Elara’s face, but as the cool wind washed over my sweat-soaked skin, my head cleared.

Let them call me a monster, or a broken thing waiting to be thrown out. I was a soldier of the Empire, and I was going to conquer this Academy the way I had conquered the dark.