Chapter 68

Chapter 68: Chapter 68

Nobody tells you that swallowing three hundred marks’ worth of royal ember-quartz makes your sweat smell like a blacksmith’s quench tank.

When I woke up at five on Monday morning, the dormitory room was freezing, the tall arched windows crusted along the bottom panes with the first real frost of November. Across the room, Nia was sitting on the edge of her mattress in her flannel nightshirt, shivering hard enough to make the brass rings on her bed curtains rattle while she scrubbed at her collarbone with a wet washcloth.

The water in the porcelain basin beside her feet had turned the color of weak tea, filmed on top with a greasy grey residue.

"How’s your stomach?" I asked, swinging my legs out from under the quilt and pulling on my wool socks before my bare feet hit the cold floorboards.

Nia jumped slightly, dropping the cloth back into the basin. Her dark curls were plastered to her forehead with damp sweat, and the whites of her eyes were faintly bloodshot, though when she looked up at me, her pupils were sharp and steady.

"Like I swallowed a hot horseshoe," she rasped, reaching for the tin pitcher on her nightstand and drinking straight from the spout until it was empty. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist and looked down at her hands. "It stopped hurting around three in the morning. Then I started sweating out whatever this grey stuff is. Look."

She held her right hand out toward the grey morning light coming through the glass and snapped her fingers.

Before today, it took Nia nearly ten seconds of deep breathing and a wrinkled forehead just to summon a flicker of orange warmth the size of a matchstick. Now, a neat, solid tongue of yellow-orange flame three inches high sprang up from the pad of her thumb on the very first snap, burning without a sound and casting a warm glow across her damp cheekbones.

"No headache?" I asked, walking over to refill her water pitcher from the brass pump in the wash alcove.

"None," she said, closing her fist to snuff the flame and staring at her knuckles with a grin that looked almost drunk with relief. "Yesterday, pulling heat up my arm felt like dragging a bucket of wet sand up a well rope. Right now it feels like the rope is greased. If Professor Maren hands out those stupid glass leaves today, I’m going to melt the brass ring in ten seconds flat."

"Don’t melt it in ten," I said, setting the full pitcher back on her table and tossing her a dry towel from the rack. "If you improve too fast the Monday after the Purge, Maren will figure out somebody slipped you crown minerals, and the bursar’s office charges a twenty-percent transfer tax if you don’t fill out a family gift form first. Give it thirty seconds."

Nia caught the towel and laughed, burying her face in the clean linen. "Yes, Lieutenant. Tax evasion first, glory second."

Down in the dining pavilion, the November chill had changed the breakfast menu from fresh fruit and cold milk to massive iron cauldrons of mutton-fat oatmeal, smoked herring, and mugs of hot cider spiced with cloves.

Luckas and Kaelen were already sitting at our usual corner table near the glass wall overlooking the lake. A thin skin of slushy grey ice had formed around the reeds along the shoreline overnight, and the ferry boats down by the docks were leaving long dark wakes through the frost.

Luckas had a thick wool muffler wrapped twice around his neck inside his coat collar, his hands curled tightly around a mug of hot cider. Next to him, Kaelen wasn’t wearing a cloak or a scarf at all. He sat in his plain black shirtsleeves, methodically spreading cold salted butter onto a slice of rye bread.

As the flat steel knife touched the hard yellow square of butter, the metal steamed faintly, melting the dairy into liquid gold on contact without Kaelen even looking at his hand.

"I see the medicine worked on your side of the building too," Nia said, sliding onto the bench beside me and pulling a bowl of oatmeal toward her.

"Worked?" Luckas groaned, gesturing toward Kaelen with his chin. "The bastard radiated heat like a brick kiln all night. I had to open the window at two in the morning so I wouldn’t roast in my blankets, and now I have a stiff neck from the lake draft."

"You sleep with four feather quilts like an old grandmother, Vance," Kaelen said calmly, taking a bite of his buttered bread. He glanced across the table at me, his storm-grey eyes lingering for a fraction of a second on the pink scar tissue along my left cheekbone where Mercer’s halberd had scraped me on Saturday. "The mineral cleared the blockage behind my left shoulder blade. My draw speed is up by about fifteen percent."

"Good," I said, cracking a hard-boiled egg against the edge of the oak table. "Because we have three weeks until the December brackets go up, and people are already watching our table."

Luckas didn’t turn his head, keeping his eyes on his cider mug, though his shoulders stiffened slightly. "Second-years at the center tables?"

"And third-years by the bread carts," Kaelen confirmed quietly. "Since Saturday morning, everybody knows you and Elvit are locked into Ranks Three and Four until winter break. Nobody wants to fight either of you one-on-one in Pit One. Which means if they want our resource stipends in December, they have to wait for the Winter Trials."

Nia paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth. "Wait. The Winter Trials aren’t individual challenges?"

"Squad eliminations," Luckas explained, lowering his voice so the second-years at the next bench wouldn’t hear. "Every December before the solstice holiday, the Academy shuts down the individual challenge board and runs a four-on-four tournament in the Bramble and the snow pits. Your squad’s seeding is based on the combined average of all four members’ ranks. If a lower-seeded squad beats a higher-seeded squad in the brackets, the winners take half of the losers’ December mineral allotment and thirty rank points per man."

Nia did the arithmetic in her head and slowly set her spoon down on her napkin. "You’re Rank Three. Luckas is Rank Four. Kaelen is thirty-four. And I’m two-hundred and twelve."

"Which gives us an average rank of sixty-three," Kaelen said. "High enough that every third-year squad sitting between Rank Forty and Rank Hundred is going to try to draw us in the first round, because on paper, they think they can stall Elvit and Luckas for five minutes while four heavy hitters gang up on you."

Nia looked down at her hands resting on the oak table. A week ago, she probably would have made a self-deprecating joke about hiding behind a boulder again. Today, she just flexed her right fingers against the wood, where the lingering heat of the crown mineral still sat beneath her skin.

"Then we have twenty-six days to make sure the paper is wrong," Nia said quietly. "After Geography today, Kaelen, teach me how to throw a knife without hitting it handle-first. And Elvit—if you hold back during afternoon spear drills to keep from bruising my shoulders, I’m putting salt in your tea."

I peeled the shell off my egg and nodded once. "Fair deal."

At two o’clock, the wind off the lake turned from cold to biting, rattling the loose glass panes in the high cupola of the Old Observatory as we climbed the stairs for Geography.

Professor Orlov was already at the front of the room, standing on a wooden step-stool with a hammer in his three-fingered left hand, tacking a massive, six-foot sheet of heavy linen parchment across the entire width of the blackboard.

It wasn’t one of the printed student maps from the campus press. The ink was faded brown, drawn by hand with a surveyor’s quill, and the lower left corner was stained with a dark, rusty ring that looked suspiciously like old blood or spilled wine.

"Leave your primers in your bags," Orlov rasped, hopping down from the stool and tossing the hammer into his desk drawer. "The textbook Chapter on the western vassal states was written in sixty-eight by a clerk who never went further west than the capital turnpike. Look at the linen."

Nia and I leaned forward at our back table. Even the two fourth-years who usually slept through Monday lectures sat up and squinted at the board.

The map showed a long, boot-shaped peninsula jutting out from the western edge of the Empire into the Grey Sea, cut off from our interior provinces by a jagged spine of high mountains. Across the center of the peninsula, written in cramped military block letters, were the words: THE KINGDOM OF SOSPURRO (IMPERIAL PROTECTORATE).

Directly north across a wide, winding river system sat two large territories shaded in cross-hatched red ink: THE SFIRT REPUBLIC on the coast, and THE VIGANATOR REPUBLIC inland along the iron hills.

"For the last eighty years, the Kingdom of Sospurro has kept our western border quiet without the Emperor having to station a full legion there," Orlov said, picking up his wooden pointer and dragging the tip along the mountain range separating Sospurro from the Empire. "Why? Because Sospurro has three things: deep silver mines in the southern hills, forty miles of muddy river marshes on its northern border that bog down heavy wagons, and a royal treaty signed by King Alfonzo’s grandfather that says if anyone crosses the river, the Imperial Vanguard marches through the mountain passes to help them."

Orlov tapped the pointer hard against the northern border river, right where the territory of the Viganator Republic met the water.

"Now, look at the red ink I added to this chart last month from the merchant guild surveys," Orlov continued, his gravelly voice dropping its usual sarcastic edge. "The Sfirt Republic has always had the money and the ships—they’re the ones who buy the alchemical powder and fund the spies you read about in the papers. What they didn’t have was heavy infantry or siege foundries. Five years ago, Sfirt signed a permanent coal-and-iron pact with the Viganator Republic to their east."

He traced three thick red lines running straight from the heart of Viganator down to the northern bank of Sospurro’s border river.

"Viganator doesn’t use ox-carts anymore," Orlov said quietly. "Their engineers spent the last three summers laying crushed-basalt military roads graded for steel-wheeled steam tractors and heavy siege mortars right up to the riverbanks. Meanwhile, old King Alfonzo in Sospurro is seventy-four years old, half-blind with gout, and his three nephews are too busy poisoning each other’s hunting dogs over the silver mines to repair their river forts."

In the front row, one of the awake fourth-years raised a hand. "Professor, if Viganator and Sfirt cross the river when the spring thaw hits, how long does it take the 3rd and 7th Legions to march through the mountains and reinforce Sospurro?"

Orlov looked at the fourth-year for a long moment, then tapped the narrow gap in the mountain range labeled The Whispering Pass.

"In June, when the pass is dry? Three weeks," Orlov said. "In late March or April, when the high snows are sliding and a dozen Viganator sappers with black powder can drop forty tons of granite across the switchbacks? Two months. Which means whoever holds the river forts inside Sospurro during the first six weeks of spring fights alone."

The room went very quiet, except for the whistling of the lake wind through the window frames.

I stared at the brown ink of the map, my eyes automatically measuring the scale bar in the bottom corner. Sixty miles from the mountain pass to the river forts. Broken limestone hills on the east flank, flat wheat plains on the west where Viganator cavalry could run circles around retreating infantry unless you anchored your line on the stone bridges.

Without realizing it, my right thumb was rubbing the sharkskin hilt of Master Bram’s dagger under the desk.

"Why are you showing us this now, sir?" Nia asked from beside me, her voice steady. "We’re first-years. The spring border attachments only take third and fourth-year cadets."

Orlov picked up his tin coffee mug from the desk, looking over the rim at the back row—specifically at the silver Rank Three clasp on my collar.

"Normally, yes, Cadet Valerius," Orlov said. "Except three days ago, the Ministry of War sent a courier up to Headmaster Corvus. King Alfonzo’s youngest brother is arriving in the Crown Jewel during the first week of December with a military delegation from Sospurro to watch the Academy’s Winter Trials. They aren’t just looking for fourth-year staff officers this spring. They’re asking the Emperor for twenty autonomous Knight-Mage reconnaissance squads—any year, any age, provided the squad ranks in the top sixteen of the December brackets and has at least one member above Rank Ten."

The two fourth-years in the front row straightened up in their chairs so fast their boots banged against the floorboards.

"A wartime reconnaissance commission," one of the fourth-years breathed. "That comes with double field merit. You can clear your Bud Burst thesis requirements in six months on the border instead of sitting in lecture halls for two more years."

"It also comes with Viganator mortar shells dropping on your tent while you eat your cold beans, Cadet Vane," Orlov said dryly. "Now open your notebooks to a clean page. I want every one of you to copy the tributary streams of the Sospurro River basin, including the depth soundings at the three stone bridges. If you get the bridge widths wrong by more than ten feet, you’re staying here until supper."

When we came down the Observatory stairs at four o’clock, the early November dusk was already turning the marble walkways grey, and the lamp-lighters were walking through the courtyards with long brass poles to light the oil lanterns.

A crowd of sixty or seventy students was gathered outside the entrance to the Vanguard Pits, reading a fresh sheet of heavy white vellum nailed to the notice board beside the doors.

Luckas and Kaelen were waiting for us by the stone horse trough. Kaelen had his hands tucked into his black sleeves against the wind, while Luckas was holding a printed pamphlet stamped with the War Ministry’s double-headed eagle.

"I take it Orlov told you about the Sospurro delegation?" Luckas asked as we walked up.

"He made us draw the river bridges for two hours," Nia said, blowing on her ink-stained fingers to warm them up. "Is it true about the top sixteen squads?"

"Every word," Luckas said, handing me the pamphlet. "The brackets open December third. Sixty-four squads total across all four years. The first two rounds are objective trials in the Bramble—bridge defense and night reconnaissance. The quarterfinals on down are straight four-on-four combat in Pit One in front of the Sospurro lords and the War Ministry."

Before I could fold the pamphlet into my coat pocket, four third-year cadets came walking out of the locker tunnel behind us, carrying their iron-shod practice spears and smelling of steam and liniment.

Leading them was a tall, red-haired boy with a jagged white scar across the bridge of his nose and a Rank Fourteen silver badge pinned to his lapel—Marcus Redgrave, captain of the highest-ranked third-year squad in the citadel.

Redgrave stopped when he saw the four of us standing by the trough. Like Mercer, he didn’t waste time with cheap insults about my clothes or my legion; the upperclassmen who actually fought in the top twenty had learned better by now. Instead, his pale green eyes went straight past me and Luckas, stopping squarely on Nia’s plain dark grey collar and Kaelen’s unbadged black tunic.

"You’re registering as a full first-year unit, Lieutenant?" Redgrave asked conversationally, resting his spear shaft against his shoulder.

"Squad Seven," I said.

Redgrave nodded once, looking back at the notice board. "Mercer told us about that trick you pulled with the low-voltage nerve shock on Saturday. Smart move. If the December brackets were one-on-one, I wouldn’t bet a copper mark against you outside the top two."

He looked back at Nia, his expression completely matter-of-fact.

"In four-on-four, though, the match ends the second two members of a squad are chalked out or pinned," Redgrave said. "Doesn’t matter if the squad captain is still standing without a scratch on her. You and Vance might be heavy hitters, Lieutenant, but dragging a Rank Two-Hundred cadet into the December snow pits against third-year lines is going to get your roommate hurt. If you want a real shot at the Sospurro attachment, drop the dead weight before the roster locks on Friday and merge with a second-year pair."

Luckas’s jaw tightened, a faint curl of orange heat rising from his wool collar into the cold dusk air, and even Kaelen’s right hand shifted half an inch inside his sleeve toward his wrist sheath.

Nia didn’t raise her voice or puff out her chest. She just looked up at Redgrave—who had six inches and fifty pounds of muscle on her—with a calm, pleasant smile that looked remarkably like her brother’s portrait back in our dorm room.

"Rank Fourteen, isn’t it, Cadet Redgrave?" Nia asked politely. "Which means your squad’s combined average is somewhere around twenty-two. We’re seeded at sixty-three. If the brackets work the way they usually do, we should run into your team in the second round in the Bramble."

Redgrave raised an reddish eyebrow. "Likely."

"Good," Nia said, tucking her Geography map tube neatly under her arm. "Make sure you bring an extra pair of dry boots. The creek beds get awful cold when somebody knocks you on your backside."

Redgrave stared at her for two seconds, gave a short, dry snort through his nose, and walked off toward the third-year dormitories with his squadmates.

Once they were fifty yards down the gravel path, Nia let out a long breath, her pleasant smile vanishing as she looked at the three of us.

"All right," she said briskly, unbuckling her heavy book satchel and dropping it onto the stone bench beside the horse trough. "Forget dinner for an hour. Who’s teaching me how to dodge a seven-foot spear first?"

"Kaelen takes your footwork for thirty minutes," I said, setting my own bag down next to hers and drawing two blunted ash practice rods from the rack beside the pit gate. "Then you and I work on shield-rim parries until seven. Luckas, go bribe the kitchen steward for four loaves of hot bread and a pot of mutton stew so they don’t lock the pantry before we’re done."

"I’m Rank Four in the Imperial Academy, and I’m still the errand boy," Luckas muttered, though he was already turning toward the dining pavilion at a jog. "No mustard on yours, right, Kaelen?"

"Extra mustard," Kaelen called back, already drawing a four-foot circle in the wet gravel with the heel of his boot for Nia to step into. "And don’t drop the stew."