A lot had changed for Amarl in the last year. He’d gone from being an orphan and outcast in the tiny mining village of Tem to being a student of Askula, the academy that trained the ithtaru who safeguarded the Empire. He’d discovered that he had a power so rare it was unknown, and he’d trained until he unlocked a part of that power that helped him grow in strength and skill at what was quite frankly a ridiculous rate. He’d made friends and enemies, and he’d journeyed to entirely different worlds to find new people who wanted to kill him just for the crime of existing.

One thing hadn’t changed, though. He still hated waking up naked in a strange place to a hostile person.

“What the FUCK?!”

Amarl rolled sideways as the wooden door leading into the room crashed open. In his mind, he moved like a cat, spinning gracefully off the bed and landing on his feet in the opening stance of his combat form, ready to face whatever threat appeared. He would move like lightning, striking swiftly to disable rather than to kill, ending the threat in a properly heroic fashion.

Sadly, it seemed the gods had other plans for the young hizeen. As he rolled, the sheet draped over his naked body wrapped around him, tangling his legs. Instead of landing nimbly on his feet, he thumped heavily on his ass, hissing as he bruised it on the hard stone floor. He kicked his feet, trying to dislodge the thin cotton twined around his limbs, but a flicker of motion warned him of danger, and he rolled swiftly sideways again. He swore as his head cracked into something hard and wooden, and he reached out to grab his attacker before realizing it was nothing more than a bedside table.

A crack caught his attention, and he glanced sideways to see a short, half-reach-long javelin skip across the stone floor where he’d been lying. The weapon twisted sideways, struck the side of the bed, and clattered across the floor to whack him in the shoulder. It wasn’t a dangerous blow, but it still stung. His head throbbed from where he’d hit it, his ass ached, and now his shoulder would probably have a bruise. He was still tangled in the sheet, and from his position on the floor, he couldn’t really see his attacker.

All in all, it was a shitty way to start a day.

“Gowen!” A female voice shouted from the bed above Amarl, and he knew that it came from a round-faced third-year with almond-shaped eyes, deep olive skin, soft lips, and a pair of heavy breasts that would probably have felled a lesser man than he. “What the hells are you doing?”

“I think I’m the one that should be asking that, Nolla!” a male voice shouted back. “What the fuck’s going on here?”

“If you need to ask that question,” Amarl thought wryly, “maybe you’ve just answered why Nolla was so ready to take me to bed.”

“None of your damn business, Gowen! This is my room; what I do in it is my concern, not yours!”

“What? Nolla, how can you say that? I thought—I thought we…”

Amarl winced as he pushed the sheet off his legs at last, freeing himself from it, and wrapped it around the lower half of his body. He rose to his feet and finally got a look at his assailant.

Gowen was tall for a nalu, half a span over a reach in height, with dark brown hair and slightly pale olive skin. His face was long and lean, with an extended chin, and matched his whipcord body. He wore the same purple outfit that Nolla had been last night before she and Amarl began their—festivities, colors that marked them both as members of Baqena, the school for students with Tier B abilities. He had a long, slim blade strapped at his hip, but fortunately it seemed like he only had the one javelin—unless, Amarl realized, his ability let him conjure the things out of nowhere. He’d seen an older student named Veter do something similar with ice and had no idea if someone could do that with wood and metal. He edged sideways toward his own clothes, the green shirt and trousers of Sabila, the school for novices; hopefully, he could slip out while the two fought, dress in the hallway, and escape this situation without finding out exactly what Gowen’s ability was. Sadly, that wasn’t to be.

The tall boy glanced sideways at Amarl and pointed a finger. “Don’t move!” he commanded. The boy’s voice echoed in Amarl’s mind, blotting out his thoughts and freezing him in place. His body suddenly felt encased in stone, trapped and helpless. He strained against the command holding him, though, and a tiny surge of power rose from just below his heart. That energy flooded his mind, burning away the web of power holding his muscles in place, and he sighed in relief as his body once more responded to his commands.

Fortunately, by that point, Gowen had dismissed the hizeen and turned back to Nolla. “How dare you cheat on me?” the older boy demanded. “And with this—this thing?” He gestured sightlessly toward Amarl, who remained still, waiting for his chance to move. Being called a thing didn’t much bother him; he’d been called far worse by people whose opinions he cared about a lot more than Gowen’s. As a half-spirit, half-nalu, he was basically mistrusted on sight, and even the people he’d grown up around treated him like a piece of trash more often than not.

“His name is Amarl!” Nolla said hotly. “And he’s twice the man you are, Gowen! Besides, you don’t own me! I can lay with anyone I want!”

“What’s all the racket…?” A new voice at the door froze the pair in their argument, and everyone glanced toward the open doorway. A young woman in Baqena purple stood in the door, her face frozen in surprise that turned quickly to understanding as her eyes darted toward Amarl. “Nolla! This is why you wanted me out of the room last night?”

For a moment, Gowen’s gaze was fastened on the girl who was apparently Nolla’s roommate, and in that moment, Amarl struck. He whipped the sheet from around his waist and flung it at the other boy, catching him in the face and wrapping the sheet around his head. He snatched up his clothing, uncaring of his nudity, shoved Gowen toward the bed, where he tripped and fell, then raced toward the door.

“Stop!” Gowen screamed, his voice echoing in Amarl’s mind, but the hizeen shoved the command aside with a minor effort. The roommate glanced down at Amarl’s nether regions before stepping back, grinning openly as she allowed him to pass.

“Good morning,” he said to her politely as he slipped out of the room.

“Seems like it was a better night,” she murmured, glancing down once again. He ignored her and stepped into the hall, realizing quickly that the racket had disturbed half the residents in the passageway—and that most were now standing outside, watching him with expressions that ranged from open amusement to anger and disgust.

“Get back here, you half-breed bastard!” Gowen’s voice screamed from the room, rousing Amarl from his moment of awkwardness. Once again, the power of the boy’s voice flowed over him, but it lacked the force it initially possessed. Either the boy was running low on ithtu—the stronger an ability was, the more power it drained from an ithtar’s tak, their central well of power—or his ability didn’t work as well when he was out of direct sight. Either way, Amarl ignored the command. He considered stopping to pull on his pants, at least, but the sound of a blade being drawn and Nolla screaming behind him convinced him it was time to go.

“You’d best get out of here,” the roommate suggested, glancing into the room. “Gowen’s getting his javelin again.”

“Thanks,” Amarl smiled at the girl before turning and sprinting down the hallway to the stairs at the end of it. He ignored the outcry behind him, leaping over an outstretched foot that tried to trip him and ducking under a grab intended to hold him, presumably for the older boy to stab. He knew that if any of the students really wanted to, they could stop him easily—they all had at least some use of their abilities, and he had access to only the simplest passive aspect of his—but he suspected they wouldn’t go that far. The racket was sure to draw the attention of the school’s awal, whoever that was, and if they were anything like Tekasoka, Awal of Sabila, bothering them would result in swift punishment. As it was, Gowen faced the possibility of expulsion—meaning public execution by beheading—for using his ability on Amarl at all. None of them wanted to add their heads to that chopping block.

He reached the end of the hallway and yanked open the door, glancing backward once. Gowen stood in the hall, his face purple as he screamed profanities at Amarl, but his voice lacked any sort of power to compel obedience. Either his tak was empty, or Amarl had moved out of range of the boy’s ability. He clutched a javelin in his right hand and held his rapier in his left, but with the hallway relatively crowded, he didn’t dare throw. Amarl paused and gave the boy a dramatic bow, drawing a new scream of rage, then flashed the hallway a grin before disappearing into the stairwell.

He paused a floor down to pull on his clothing and straighten his long, silver hair as best he could before stepping out into the ground floor of the school. The noise above didn’t carry through the stone floors, so the hall was thankfully empty when he emerged. It was Akio, the day of rest, the final day of the eight-day-long week and the only day most students got to sleep in. He’d been counting on that to let him slip out of the dormitory undetected in the morning, but he hadn’t anticipated being woken up by Nolla’s apparently jealous lover. Hells, he hadn’t even known she had a lover. If he had, he—probably wouldn’t have done anything differently, really, except that he wouldn’t have stayed the night. After all, he personally didn’t owe anything to Gowen. The older boy’s issues with Nolla where just that: their issues.

He passed a few older students as he made his way to the entrance. Most looked at him curiously but probably assumed he was acting as a messenger; second-years were often pressed into that duty on Akio, after all, being experienced enough to know how to find everything and everyone but not advanced enough that anyone really cared if they missed their rest day. One student lurched sideways as he passed Amarl, trying to brush into the younger boy and give himself an excuse to bully or even hit the hizeen, but Amarl was used to that trick after a year of it and deftly slipped aside, letting the boy stumble past him.

He emerged more or less unscathed and made his way back to his own dorm, walking quickly but not running. He knew Gowen wouldn’t let the perceived insult go, and he didn’t want the boy running him down in the open. If Gowen attacked him, Amarl would defend himself, but that sort of thing tended to go wrong on him, and the awals were likely to punish everyone involved in a fight just to be safe. Fortunately, either Gowen didn’t pursue or had already run afoul of Baqena’s awal, and Amarl reached his dormitory without incident.

He climbed the stairs to his room and opened the door quietly, hoping not to disturb his roommates. He should have known better; after a year of combat training and the days they all recently spent in the hostile realm of Isolas, his friends were incredibly light sleepers. Burik was on his feet by the time the door was opened—his sheet didn’t tangle around him, Amarl noticed sourly, and the larger, dark-skinned boy stood in a perfect ready stance, his hands raised and his weight evenly distributed—exactly as Amarl had hoped to end up when he was rudely awakened. Burik had been raised in a military family, and he’d always been muscular, but the training regimen in Askula had hardened those muscles and added more to his wide frame. Dressed in nothing more than small clothes, he looked like he’d been chiseled from stone rather than flesh. Not that Amarl was even the tiniest bit jealous, of course.

Meder was on her feet, as well, one hand stretched out toward Amarl. He was more worried about the young woman than Burik, to be honest. While the past year had put muscle on the once-soft noble girl’s frame and tanned her pale olive skin, it was her abilities with sahr that concerned him. He knew she could unleash blasts of fire and ice, and he’d seen her shatter stone with a working. Sahr wasn’t as strong as an ithtar’s abilities, typically, but Meder seemed to be doing her best to make up that difference.

“Whoa, whoa,” he said with a quiet laugh, stepping into the room and holding his hands out to the side. “It’s just me, guys. Calm down.”

“Amarl,” Burik growled, relaxing his body and rubbing tired eyes. “It’s Akio. What the hells are you doing up so early?”

“He’s not up early, Burik,” Meder said, lowering her hand and grinning at the gray-skinned hizeen, brushing her short, black hair back from her face. “He’s back home late. Aren’t you, Amarl?”

Burik’s annoyed frown spread into a grin. “Really? Are you just getting back home?”

“Yes,” Amarl sighed, shutting the door behind him and walking over to his bed.

“Must have been quite a night,” the bigger boy chuckled. “Who was it?”

“It’s not polite to tell, Burik,” Meder said primly, then smiled. “Unless it’s us, of course. Who was it?”

“It’s not really much of a secret,” Amarl admitted. “At least, not anymore. It was Nolla.”

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“Nolla? The third-year from Baqena?” Meder’s eyes widened.

“The one with the big…”

“Burik!” Meder said sharply, cutting the boy off with a frown before turning to Amarl. “I don’t know if that was a good idea, Amarl.”

“Yeah. So I found out when her—whatever he is burst in on us this morning.” He lay back on the bed and draped an arm over his eyes with a sigh. “Made for an exciting start to Akio, believe you me.”

“Did you have to fight him?” Burik asked, sitting back down on his bed but not laying down.

“No, but it wasn’t for his lack of trying. He tossed a javelin at me, and then he used his ability on me to try and force me to stay in the room while the two of them argued.”

“He used his ability on you?” Meder asked, her eyes going wide. “Oh, that’s bad, Amarl. He could get expelled for that! Did Awal Sohathat have to break it up?”

“No, I never saw the awal. Nolla’s roommate…”

“Tefin,” Meder supplied helpfully.

“Okay, Tefin came to see what the racket was, that distracted Gowen, and I tossed a sheet at his head and ran out into the hallway—where half of Baqena School was apparently waiting to see me run outside naked.”

“Naked?” Burik exploded with laughter, falling back onto the bed. “You—you showed—the whole school…”

“Not the whole school, ass. Just part of it.” Amarl couldn’t help but grin. “Tefin seemed pretty impressed.”

“Down, Amarl. Sit. Stay.” Meder’s voice was tired as she shook her head. “This is bad, you know. Now, the entire school is going to know what happened. Gowen’s going to be a laughingstock by the end of the day—assuming they don’t expel him.”

“They won’t,” Amarl predicted. “First, it’s not likely that anyone’s going to tell the awal that he used his ability on me, assuming they even realize he did. It only held me for a second or so, so they might have thought that he just yelled at me.”

“And even if they know, they won’t say anything unless they have to,” Burik added. “No one wants to be the one responsible for a student being expelled. Everyone would hate you.”

“Second, no one was hurt,” Amarl finished. “So, if the awal even got involved, they’ll just yell at Nolla and Gowen for disturbing them over a lover’s quarrel. They don’t have a reason to investigate further.”

“True,” Meder sighed, finally sitting down herself. “You know, Amarl, you’re going to get into trouble like this someday.”

“Hey, I asked her if she was with anyone,” he protested. “Several times! She flat-out said no.”

“You actually asked her that?” Burik asked dubiously.

“Well, not exactly like that, no, but we discussed it. And she specifically said that she wasn’t with anyone!”

“What will Andra say when she hears about this?” Meder asked quietly.

Amarl shrugged. “She’ll probably make fun of me for running out naked.” He lifted one arm and looked over at Meder. “Andra knows I’m with other people, Meder. So is she. She spent last Akio with a fourth-year named Dopry. She’s not going to get jealous or hurt.”

“You still need to be careful. You’ve got enough problems here without jealous older students coming after you.”

“I don’t really have a choice,” he laughed.

“Of course, you do,” she replied sharply. “You could just, you know, not go around seducing people!”

“No, I can’t. I actually have to. It’s part of my skill training.”

“What?” Her eyes grew wide as she stared at him. “Wait, I thought you were taking classes in biology, anatomy, and social skills for that!”

“I am.” He sighed and rose to a sitting position. “According to Povanac, though—my Seduction instructor—once a skill’s as high as mine is, all that theory won’t advance it. I have to put it all to use.”

“Did it work?” Burik asked. Amarl arched his eyebrow meaningfully, and Burik snorted. “No, I mean, does it work to boost your skill?”

“No clue. I just started the practical aspect a couple moons ago. I haven’t seen a jump yet, but I will say, all that theory is useful. It was a lot easier getting Nolla to invite me back to her room than I thought it would be.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” Meder said, waving her hands before her face and shaking her head. “Not listening to Amarl talk about seducing people!”

“Jealous?” he asked with a grin. She grabbed her pillow and threw it at his head, and he ducked away with a laugh.

“Hardly. I just want to be able to eat breakfast this morning without feeling like I’m going to vomit.” She rose to her feet again and went to the chest at the end of her bed. “And speaking of that…”

“You’re planning to vomit in your footlocker?” Burik asked with mock concern.

“Hah. Hilarious.” She glared at the taller boy. “You’ve been spending too much time around Amarl, you know.”

“Or not enough, depending on your point of view,” Amarl suggested.

“No, definitely too much.” She pulled out a set of clothes that weren’t the normal green uniform. “I meant, speaking of breakfast, since we’re all already up, we may as well eat and head into the village. We can stop by Galiber’s and do some shopping. Now that we’re finally going to start crafting lessons, I want to check out the alchemy components.”

“You’re still set on doing alchemy, then?” Burik asked her.

“Absolutely.” She grinned at the pair as she slipped out of her sleeping shift and began to pull on her clothing. “I can’t wait for this year to start.”

Amarl smiled at the girl’s enthusiasm, but secretly, he wasn’t so eager. His first year hadn’t exactly been a warm fling in a soft bed, after all. All students at Askula got harassed by their upperclassmen—on the orders of the malims, the instructors of Askula, as it turned out—but as the only non-naluni to ever join the Ithtaru Order, Amarl got more than his fair share of abuse. He’d nearly been killed by older students twice, once when his mouth ran away with him, and once when his classmate Herel paid a third-year student to beat him while on a hunt and things got out of hand. Herel himself had nearly ended Amarl’s life by cheating during a sparring match, and the year ended with Amarl and his classmates heading into another world for survival training and getting captured by a race of intelligent insects that wanted to use the students as food.

Of course, things had turned out okay in all those cases, more or less. His first near-death experience taught him a valuable lesson about mouthing off to the older students, and that encounter ended with nothing more than disciplinary duty for everyone involved. When Nihos attacked him and tried to kill him, though, he’d fought back, awakening his dormant ability and nearly beating the older student to death. He’d had his companions on that hunt leave Nihos’ beaten but still living body for the beasts, a decision that still haunted him, but if the awals knew what he’d done, they seemed content with the outcome, and he hadn’t been punished for it. Herel, he’d learned, had been acting under some form of coercion, and once that was removed, he and the former noble got along well enough. They didn’t like one another, exactly, but they agreed to just ignore one another as much as possible.

And, of course, being captured by the assilians—and going back into their hive alone to rescue Andra—had been the catalyst to finally awakening part of his ability. On a whim, he pulled up his status screens and glanced through them, reading through his ability once more.

Stats

Force: 5.5 (165%) Skill: 5.6 (182%)

Speed: 5.9 (246%) Toughness: 5.3 (135%)

Mind: 6 (272%) Will: 4.8 (82%)

Presence: 6.5 (448%) Soul: 9.8 (12,151%)

Quickened Ability: Mez

Tier: F

Level: 1

Current Ithtu: 77.1

To Level: 0

To Stats: 2 (Toughness 97%, 84%)

To Skills: 0

To Tak: 20 (99.9%)

Current Tak: 20/20

Skills Report

Academics 3

Acrobatics 4

Anatomy 4

Animal Care 2

Baking 2

Bear Form 4

Carpentry 1

Climbing 5

Deception 7

Driving 2

Empathy 4

Endurance 5

Escape 3

Farming 2

Hiding 5

Investigation 4

Knife Fighting 4

Lockpicking 6

Meditation 3

Memorization 4

Moon Axe Fighting 4

Nameless Form 2

Perception 4

Persuasion 7

Riding 3

Running 4

Sahr Mastery 2

Scimitar Fighting 4

Seduction 8

Silent Movement 5

Sleight of Hand 6

Spear Fighting 1

Staff Fighting 4

Survival 2

Throwing 4

Tiger Form 5

Tracking 5

Water Form 5

Ithtu Report

Max Ithtu: 2

Quickening Rate: 8.5%

Max Ithtu Rank: Strong

Current Crystals Quickening: 2

1 – Rank: Strong Density: 10 Power: 33.2 Quickened: 88%

1 – Rank: Strong Density: 9 Power: 43.9 Quickened: 0.05%

Power Quickened To:

Skills – None

Stats – 2 (Toughness, 71%, 52%)

Level – None

Ability – 50.1 (0/720)

Tak – 20 (99.9%)

Ability Report

Ability Title: Mez

“Soul Strengthens All”

Tier: F Ithtu Required: 148 Level: 1 (0/720)

Passive Effect 1: Growth increased according to Soul Stat (currently 428% of standard)

Passive Effect 2: Soul stat boosts effects of other stats (Currently 2.3)

Active Effects: Unknown

Thanks to his bloodline, an utterly pure strain of one of the original ithtaru, his ability was ranked Tier F, making it potentially hundreds of times more powerful than a standard Tier A ability. Sadly, it also required ridiculous amounts of power to work, far more than he could even store, much less channel into it. Its passive effect had boosted him this past year—and probably longer, considering how high some of his skills were—letting him improve his skills and stat at four times the normal rate and giving him a boost to his stats as needed. He’d tapped it a few times to survive the past year, and he assumed he’d be doing it again this year but probably more frequently.

He closed his screens and began to dress, unable to share in Meder’s enthusiasm. He had zero hopes that this year would be any better than last. In fact, he was pretty sure that the way his luck ran, it would be much, much worse.