Chapter XXXIV
Year 2049
Six Years Ago
Nova’s shout sliced through the infirmary’s sterile hush: “What happened?!”
Harsh overhead lighting illuminated a spartan room crammed with cots, shelves of tinctures, and alchemical instruments that glinted like predatory eyes. A pungent mix of antiseptic and crushed herbs stung the air, coiling around Yoki’s nose. His stomach churned. It always smells like dread in these places.
In the center of it all lay Ethan, features pale and unnervingly still, while an audience of tense silhouettes hovered over him—Nova, Enrique, and Ethan’s three older brothers: Puck, Otto, and Simon. Puck, whose grin usually crackled with playful menace, looked grim now, as if he couldn’t decide whom to throttle first. His auburn hair, only a shade darker than Ethan’s, seemed to bristle with his coiled rage.
His ire, however, found its mark in Yoki.
After all, you aren’t from an aristocratic lineage and you have a slug family after all.
My father attended the Academy, Painkiller! He was a tearing.
So he did attend the Academy, interesting.
A brusque snap of Puck’s fingers yanked Yoki out of his private exchange with the being nestled in his consciousness. Puck was studying him—scrutinizing him like a scientist dissecting a curious specimen—while Otto and Nova whispered with conspicuous secrecy. Simon, jaw tight as a vise, crouched at Ethan’s bedside, gently clasping his brother’s limp hand. The tension in his dark eyes told Yoki he wants answers.
Enrique cleared his throat. “I tried telling them everything I could,” he muttered, voice low. “But I couldn’t explain fully—there wasn’t—”
Yoki, feeling Simon’s gaze on him like a dagger, cut in, “So... you told them we found Ethan in the Colosseum?”
Enrique nodded, flicking his eyes to Nova, who watched them with predatory alertness. “Yes, that we found him lying in the arena. Didn’t get into specifics beyond a possible culprit. A certain—”
“That’s right,” Yoki interrupted, raising his voice just enough to intercede. “We spotted his absence and, worried, checked his room. We found a letter—he’d gone off without explanation, so we followed. When we reached him... well, it looked like he’d been assaulted by a—”
“Student,” Enrique blurted, voice wooden as a puppet’s.
A pregnant silence gripped the infirmary. Otto half-turned, eyes narrowing. Nova’s gaze flickered, but she asked no immediate questions. Simon, on the other hand, seethed. His knuckles whitened, and that glare of his screamed You’re lying. You’re hiding something.
Yoki’s pulse hammered behind his ears. Despite the thick swirl of antiseptics, he could taste fear on his tongue, sharp as acid. He forced his shoulders into a calmer posture. Don’t show weakness.
“Anyway,” he managed, voice hoarser than he liked, “I’ll let you get back to taking care of Ethan. If anything else occurs to me or if I uncover anything new, I’ll share it immediately.”
He slipped away from the sickening glow of the infirmary lights, Enrique at his back. Only when they had passed through the heavy oak doors into the corridor beyond did Yoki draw a shaky breath.
“What in all the blood-moon hells was that?” Enrique hissed, leaning close. His breath smelled faintly of mint, likely a leftover from some booster herb. “You almost let Caspian’s name drop in front of Nova!”
“Keep your voice down,” Yoki snapped, glancing back at the door. His own chest felt constricted, as though a band of iron threatened to squeeze the life out of him. “We can’t go throwing around Caspian’s involvement—especially not with Nova in the room. Might as well announce we’re helping him steal the Starlight Elixir and seal our doom.”
Enrique groaned, raking a hand through his hair. “I panicked, all right? It’s just—where did Caspian go after that abomination appeared? He vanished like smoke on a windy day.”
A bitter taste coated Yoki’s tongue at the memory of that nightmarish creature. His mind flickered back to teeth and stench and the wet sound of something unnatural. He swore he could still hear it slithering in the recesses of his mind.
You said it was a part of you?
The Painkiller answered only with mocking silence.
Damn you.
Stepping outside, they faced a wide courtyard flanked by statues of Academy founders. A bracing wind whipped across the open space, carrying with it the scent of impending rain. Yoki inhaled, letting the crisp air scour away the lingering stench of medicine from his nostrils.
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They both pulled compasses from their cloaks—small discs of metal with swirling needles that functioned not just by magnetics but by arcane code. The dials jittered, seeking direction.
“What now?” Enrique asked, voice subdued against the wind. “We can’t just stand here like enthralled mannequins.”
“I’m going to the library,” Yoki said, adjusting his stance against a sudden gust. “I need to scour the archives for anything that might explain Ethan’s condition. And I want to learn more about this Convergence—the actual details, not rumors. If there’s any mention of it, it’ll be in the restricted section, buried behind a mountain of texts nobody wants to talk about.”
Enrique grimaced. “Wish I could join, but Lila roped me into training in the Colosseum. We’re also supposed to... well, spend some time together.” An apologetic shrug. “I’ll try to catch you for dinner?”
Yoki clasped arms with Enrique. “If I’m not halfway drowned in dusty ledgers by then, sure. Just don’t hold your breath.”
Enrique let out a breathy laugh, though worry still pinched his features. “Be careful in there, man. You know how they handle trespassers in the restricted Archives.”
Flogging—or worse, since it’s me after all.
“One step at a time.” Yoki turned his gaze skyward, watching the swirl of thickening clouds. “See you around.”
With a final nod, Enrique padded off toward the distant silhouette of the Colosseum, while Yoki refocused on his own compass.
“Library,” he murmured, feeling a peculiar thrum in his chest as the needle spun itself dizzy, then snapped resolutely to the northwest.
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He entered the Academy’s forest by a gravel path overhung with gnarled evergreens. Each step kicked up the rich smell of pine resin and decaying needles, a perfumed rot that clung to his boots. Dappled light filtered through branches overhead, though the day’s brightness waned, giving the sky a sullen glow.
Barely five minutes in, he sensed it—a prickling awareness that he was not alone. He was being hunted or at least followed. Tension flared in his limbs, and he forced himself to keep a steady, unhurried pace.
Where is the Painkiller’s warning now? Yoki thought, a bitter undercurrent licking at his mind. The entity offered silence, as if playing at disinterest. Perhaps it expected Yoki to prove his mettle.
Each pine needle that crunched under his boots sounded like a gunshot in the hush. His father’s old instructions crackled through his memory: Don’t let them see you sweat. Don’t let them know you know.
Yoki drifted toward the deeper shadows cast by one colossal pine, heart thrumming like a wild drum. The forest was still—no birds, no crickets, nothing but the whisper of wind stirring the upper canopy. He inhaled the cold, earthy air, let it settle in his lungs.
Then he shadow stepped.
In the blink of an eye, he vanished into the penumbra hugging the tree’s trunk and reappeared perched on a thick branch overhead. The rough bark dug into his palms, anchoring him as he peered down. His eyes, adapted to twilight, scanned for any disturbance in the gloom below.
Movement. A fleeting distortion, like looking through warped glass. Yoki’s senses, heightened by his Nightwalker blood, honed in on the shimmer. It glided across the undergrowth—soundless, uncanny.
It’s harmless, boy. Shadow step to it.
Why didn’t you just tell me so?
He let out a soft snort, then eased himself back into the darkness, shifting behind the thick trunk. The cool pine-scent enveloped him as he melded with the shadows. With a barely perceptible shiver, he re-emerged an arm’s length from the translucent ripple.
It solidified in an instant: a massive, bearlike creature, shoulders hulking and covered in coarse fur that bristled with subtle bluish hues. Long, graceful horns—reminiscent of an antelope’s—curved away from its head. Up close, Yoki could smell its faint musk, both sweet and earthy, tinged with the spice of unknown flora.
It’s... magnificent.
The beast blinked huge obsidian eyes at him, nostrils flaring to sample his scent. Then it tilted its bulky head and performed a curious wobble side to side, as though greeting him.
Dip and shake your head back at it, pueri.
Feeling his cheeks flush with self-consciousness, Yoki mimicked the gesture. The creature rumbled deep in its throat—a noise that resonated like distant thunder—then dropped onto its backside, rolling onto its back in a strangely playful manner.
What the—
Now rub its belly.
“What?!” Yoki blurted aloud, voice echoing against the trunks. The creature’s ears jerked, and an instant later it became intangible, its edges shimmering into nothingness. The forest swallowed its presence as though it had never existed.
Panting, Yoki dragged a hand through his hair. “Painkiller, what in the realm was that thing?”
That was an Uriorca—a rarity and an herbivore with advanced camouflage. You’ll be asked to track them in your upperclassman trials, should you remain alive and enrolled. They pose no threat, unless you consider curiosity dangerous.
You might have warned me it’d vanish if I startled it.
Consider it a test of your composure.
Yoki sighed, stepping through the undergrowth where the beast had disappeared. The underbrush held a lingering warmth, as if the Uriorca’s very body heat had seeped into the soil. Overhead, a crow cawed—sharp and mocking.
Focus, Yoki. He swiped a bead of sweat from his brow, ignoring the chill creeping down his spine. You have things to be about, get moving.
He continued on the narrow path, the gloom of late day gathering around him like a conspiratorial cloak. Even as the the Uriorca’s presence faded, his mind buzzed with questions about how vast the Academy’s grounds truly were. What else lurks out here, unseen?
Nightfall threatened at the edges of the horizon, smearing the sky with dusky streaks of purple and gray. Through the thinning forest canopy, Yoki glimpsed a distant silhouette—tall, austere, and beckoning—the library. By his estimate, it stood a quarter-hour’s walk away, though the final stretch always seemed longer in the encroaching dusk. He inhaled the lingering scents of damp leaves and faint woodsmoke, trying to steady his hammering pulse against the hush of the woods.
Yet his thoughts kept wandering back to the infirmary, where Ethan lay motionless, to Caspian’s murky schemes, and to the looming specter of the Convergence. Anxiety churned in his gut, crackling like a sparking fuse. He pushed forward all the same, determined that each step would bring him closer to whatever truth waited in those forbidden tomes.
The restricted section—so we are to meet again.
Like lovers, the library and you are, is it so boy?
And as darkness gathered in the corners of the sky, Yoki forged onward, guided by the unwavering pull of his compass—and by the flicker of resolve that burned, however faintly, in his heart.