Book 2

No! No, it can’t be her, I thought, instinctively pushing my back against the table behind me to try to get as far away from the goddess as I could. She looks like her, but…

It wasn’t her. This… girl was just that–a girl. Though Lady Euridice emitted a godly agelessness, she still looked like a grown woman. And this girl standing twenty feet away from me and staring me down with narrowed eyes couldn’t have been more than 18. But the similarities she shared with the goddess were uncanny.

Tucked away behind the shadows of one of the kiosk columns, this young Euridice look-alike twirled loose curls of her white-blond hair between a thumb and forefinger. The locks of her thick hair fell past her hips and curled at the ends like the curves of a dozen hooks. She was slender and small, most likely shorter than I, and the delicate features on her tan face matched her petite size well. She was pretty. Very pretty. But just thinking that churned my stomach into knots. She looked too much like the all-powerful goddess who hated me. Objectively, Euridice was gorgeous. But she was also deadly, deceptive, and evil.

Regardless of the way this girl looked and the way she glared at me, I felt drawn to her for some reason, like an indescribable pull of a string that had been tied between the two of us. I found myself rising from my chair and taking a step toward her, then another, and another. The girl straightened, no longer leaning against the kiosk. Her pink lips drew into an “o” shape as I approached, and she gave me a subtle shake of her head. I read it like a warning… like she didn’t want me to come any closer.

I ignored the shaking of her head and continued forward but was stopped by the weight of a firm hand grasping my shoulder. I gasped as the hand whirled me around to where I could no longer see the girl. Instead, my eyes met with nothing but a dark helmet that hid the face inside of it.

“You,” I whispered to the man I’d seen at the entrance to the academy building–the one I’d sensed had been watching me when no one else in the city had even acknowledged my presence.

“You must come with me,” the tall man said. His words were muffled underneath his head covering, which made it hard to hear him clearly, but something about the deep timbre of his voice sounded familiar.

The mysterious man gave me no chance to argue as he wrapped firm fingers around my right arm and pulled me out of the mess hall.

“Hey! What are you doing!” I cried, making more than a few heads turn our way.

“Quiet, boy,” he scolded.

He continued to barrel his way down the corridor just outside of the mess hall and turned us around one sharp corner, then another. We whizzed past large paintings of old men and women sitting very stoic as they’d posed for the painter, and I caught sight of maybe three portraits of Headmaster Bohin. Were all these paintings depicting past headmasters? They all wore the billowy black robes that I’d seen on Jaeke just the day prior.

But even as we walked by detailed, extraordinary paintings and bits of marble architecture that differed from anything I had yet seen in this building, my main concern was why this mysterious person who didn’t like to show his face was dragging me somewhere. In fact, I was concerned about where he was taking me.

“Who are you? Where are you taking me?” I finally said as he stopped us in front of a narrow wooden door with white paint.

“So many questions. I don’t like questions,” he grumbled back as he turned the brass knob, then threw me into the dark room that lay waiting behind the door.

The man followed in after me and slammed the door shut but didn’t move to do anything that might light the pitch-black space. My back was met with a cold wall, and a few stick-like objects prodded against my ribs.

“I guess I’ll answer your stupid questions now.”

I couldn’t see the man in the dark, but his voice sounded way too close for comfort.

“I took you to a storage closet–somewhere people won’t spy on us,” he said. “And two, it doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is how, by the gods, you got to this planet?”

“Uh…” I muttered, pressing myself against the wall to avoid touching this crazy person. “Why do you care?”

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“You are a clone of Solomon Rohn, are you not?”

“Wh–what? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I sputtered.

“Stop with the ridiculous lies, boy. I know who you are.”

“How?!”

“Another question where the answer does not matter,” he snapped. “Now, how did you get here? Did your Codex take you to one of Solomon’s spaceships?”

I folded my arms tightly across my chest and frowned. This was getting ridiculous and somewhat terrifying. How did he know so much about what it was to be a clone, like the fact that I had a Codex? Was he a spy for Lady Euridice? Did he want to kill me? Unless…

“What clone number are you?” I whispered.

Silence. I’d caught the man off-guard. Maybe he hadn’t expected me to deduce his identity so easily.

“23,” he said dejectedly, his voice lilting with surrendered defeat. “What number are you?”

“52.”

I heard the clone–another me, but I was choosing not to dwell on that too much. It helped that I couldn’t see his face–release a heavy sigh. Through his helmet, his sigh sounded like the sudden halt of a rushing wind.

“Solomon’s Realm Academy isn’t what it used to be,” he said. “I learned that the hard way. Everyone here worships Lady Euridice, and there are some people who know of Solomon’s clones–people who don’t take kindly to us and our existence.”

I noticed that was the second time this other clone hadn’t called Lord Solomon, well… “Lord.” It seemed strange because even I still called the goddess Euridice “Lady,” even after everything I’d learned about her. But that mostly came from habit. Maybe I was reading too much into this clone’s speech patterns.

“Is that why you hide away beneath a mask? Because people don’t like Lord Solomon clones?” I said.

“Yes. If you haven’t noticed, there is a wide diversity of species and races here. And I have developed an… eccentric reputation here. Wearing a helmet at all times isn’t as weird to the citizens of Solomon’s Realm Academy as one might think. And now that I am a teacher at the academy, people tend to let me be.”

I had so many questions and no idea where to begin. This was my first time meeting another clone. I knew it was bound to happen at some point, but standing there in front of another me made it all too real, and I found myself at a loss for words.

The only thing I could finally get out of my mouth was, “What’s your name?” A very bland question compared to the millions of others I was dying to know the answers to.

“We don’t have the time to get to know each other. I think you should leave this place before anyone notices who you look like.”

I threw my hands up in the air, annoyed. All of my shock had disappeared in an instant.

“I have nowhere safe to go!” I said. “Lady Euridice said she has ‘plans’ for me, whatever that means–”

“Wait, Lady Euridice?” I could feel the other clone’s body leaning in closer. “She visited you?”

I gulped. “Uh, yeah. Sort of. As a hologram.”

He just called the goddess “Lady Euridice” but doesn’t say Lord Solomon’s title…. I shook my head. No, he was just repeating what I’d said.

More eerie silence that grew all the more uncomfortable in the pitch-black darkness.

“That’s not good,” the man finally said. “You’re right, though. This might be the safest place for you. People above Tier 15, including gods, are still unable to reach this planet. That part of Solomon’s construction of this city remained intact, at least.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say,” I breathed, planting fists on my hips. “Codex thinks I should stay here, too, and he believes it is safe. His scans haven’t sensed any danger.”

I froze, realizing something. “You should have a Codex, too, right? Hasn’t he told you that there is no present danger?”

“I turned that thing off a long time ago.”

My jaw dropped. “What? How? Why?”

The other clone, who still wouldn’t tell me his name, groaned. “Again, with the questions. Look, kid, for now, try not to draw too much attention to yourself. I assume you’re enrolling as a student.”

“I’m trying to,” I said.

“Yes, I noticed the gray rings on your sleeves. You must be lower than they wish you to be. What are you, Tier 3? I was only Tier 4 when I arrived on this planet all those years ago.”

I wrinkled my nose up in embarrassment. “Tier 2,” I muttered.

I hadn’t expected him to laugh so hard. In fact, he guffawed so loudly I had no problem whatsoever hearing it through his face covering.

“You’re lucky they’re considering you at all,” he wheezed.

“Wait…” I said, “So, they’re not giving me a chance because I’m a clone? There’s not something in the system that alerted my presence to the headmaster?”

The other clone gave a little shrug. “I couldn’t answer that for you. There could be lots of reasons you interest them.”

But that didn’t explain why the academy systems sent me to the headmaster before he’d even met me. I’d assumed it had something to do with my DNA matching the man who had created this palace. I’d tried to ask Codex and search his databases for an answer to that mystery, but even my AI’s scans hadn’t determined the reason. And I didn’t like that.

“What are they having you do to prove yourself?” my companion said, distracting me from my nerve-wracking thoughts.

“Duel a first-year student,” I answered.

More laughing. “The lowest any of those kids are is Tier 4. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” I said half-heartedly, which matched his sarcastic “good luck.”

“I’m sure we’ll meet again, kid. But, like I said, try to stay inconspicuous. Those gray sleeves and a duel won’t help with that much, but I’ll see what I can do to help you.”

Those words of his were actually sincere. I nodded, forgetting he probably couldn’t see it.

“By the way, my name is Nic Gerves.”

I smiled, despite myself. “I’m Rayden Grim.”

“Glad to see you go by your given name, too. I hate all that ‘Clone Number So-and-So’ nonsense.”

And with that, Nic left me alone in the dark storage room, leaving me to think about how much I agreed with his sentiment: I hated that nonsense, too.