Chapter 24_Misbegotten Memories

Volithur returned to consciousness after about three hours of sleep. Not the wisest strategy to prepare for an academic competition, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop the previous night. He had cultivated. Not the sloppy pass-out-after-a-single-round mental cultivation. Real cultivation. He did it well enough and long enough that he could notice a difference to his soul. He felt on the precipice of something significant, as if just a slight push would break him through to a level one soul.

If he wasn’t already running low on mental stamina, he would have made the push at that moment. As it was, he could cultivate after he won a spot in the cosmic chamber.

He managed to wake up the whole way with a quick circuit of calisthenics in his room before joining the rest of his team for the breakfast their servant brought them. Ulysses scrutinized him carefully, then nodded in approval. The boy’s esteem brightened Volithur’s morning further. He was finally making progress in his endeavors.

The first match of the day brought a shock with it as after Volithur ascended to the stage, he turned to see a limping form working her way up the steps. Jemmi smirked as she shuffled to her place beside him. At the dance she’d claimed that her subject was recital, yet here she was facing him at calculations.

Volithur rallied his nerves, ignoring his opponent, and refocused on the problems set before him. With laser fine focus, he solved everything placed upon his board. They went an entire forty-seven rounds before Jemmi finally made a mistake by failing to handle an exponent properly.

On the walk back to their seats, Jemmi made a casual comment. “I won the other night, you won this morning. I assure you, I will be more than equal to a commoner in next year’s competition.”

Hazen lost his competition, which soured Volithur’s mood further. He wasn’t quite sure how he had lost to Jemmi the other night, but her demeanor had been anything but pleasant after they competed. Ulysses won his debate handily, largely due to the fact that his opponent constructed a rebuttal on an incorrect assumption – otherwise the other boy had given a more impressive argument. And then Khana lost her recital.

Volithur turned to Hazen. “Are we tied?”

“It’s too early to know,” Hazen replied. “If we tie in a match, like we just did with the Thrush Team, then the outcome will be flipped based on future matches. If we beat Team York, but Team York beats Team Thrush, then we retroactively become the winner of the tied match.”

“And if both Shaocheth and Thrush beat York?”

“Then they go to points accumulated through the duration of the entire tournament. Every individual win at an event is counted as a point, and the team totals are compared. Whoever has the higher number receives the superior placing. If there is still a tie, then the judges will make a determination.” Hazen lowered his voice. “That would go in our favor. While on the surface this is a straightforward competition, the politics of the situation dictate that Shaocheth be favored. The Thrush family hasn’t had a living lord in eighty years.”

Soon Volithur had to step forth again to face off with someone from the Evergreen Institute. The heavyset man studied him curiously before their match began, not a hint of concern in his expression. Then began one of the longest hours of Volithur’s life. The math problems began hard and became harder. Each question had a one minute time limit, and on the fifty-first problem, Volithur failed to finish in time.

Fortunately, his opponent had also failed. They went six more rounds before Volithur once more could not finish in time. His opponent, sadly, had just managed to finish. The man made a show of bowing to Volithur on stage, and the etiquette training immediately kicked in. Volithur returned the bow and held it for twice as long as his opponent had – necessary because the winner had initiated.

When he settled back into his seat, the Head Scribe leaned across Hazen to whisper “a loss to the Institute was expected, you did quite well prolonging the match so long”. In quick succession, each of his team mates lost their respective matches. None of them received a bow from their opponent, which Volithur filed away as food for his ego when future events made him feel inferior.

Then came lunch. Master Rowan and the Head Scribe graciously complimented their performance thus far and assured them that they had already done everything they needed to honor the household. After that came the casual observations about how beating York versus losing to York could lead to drastically difference placings. Fortunately, most of the subtle eye contact was directed towards Hazen.

For a final time, Volithur stepped onto the stage. He knew from the start that he would beat this opponent as the short boy he faced appeared utterly dispirited. They only solved thirty problems before Volithur was able to step off the stage as the winner.

Hazen pulled off a similar victory. Then Ulysses lost his debate due to being bated into displaying too much emotion. Finally, Khana took the stage. Her opponent went first, opining about the open road of life while making expansive gestures with her arms and play-acting an exploration of a wooded region.

Then Khana took center stage. The girl who at the estate disappeared into Rolanda’s shadow. The girl who loved to dance and make merry. The girl whose future hinged upon convincing a man of superior talent to take her hand. The girl who currently hunched in on herself to create a tiny silhouette.

Volithur stared, entranced, as his team mate began to speak. The poem she recited was about desiring to be worthy of the one she held in high regard. It was delivered with such raw vulnerability that he wanted to cringe. Yet at the same time, he caught her gaze landing upon their group. He knew the reason. He knew with every ounce of neural tissue in his skull that she sought to inflame the emotions of Ulysses for her future benefit. Yet his traitorous heart thundered as her eyes drifted in the same general direction as his while she spoke of love.

I might just be the biggest idiot in this room, he thought, trying and failing to recall what the supposedly beautiful Rolanda looked like.

As the poem ended, silence took the room. Then the audience surged to their feet and the hall filled with thunderous applause. Volithur stood with them, clapping and trying to shake the infatuation that had caught hold of him.

Khana received the win from the judges and returned to her seat, pausing every other step to shake a hand or return a bow. When she reached their row, she slid past Volithur and Hazen as if they didn’t exist before pulling Ulysses into a warm hug. Volithur turned away at that point and didn’t see anything that followed.

The room settled and the competition continued. Jemmi from Thrush faced off against the kid from York, eventually losing to him due to a missing negative sign. Volithur clapped a bit more enthusiastically than usual for that. He still couldn’t figure out what her game had been, but he was quite clear on the fact that he no longer liked her.

Thrush lost the spelling contest as well, putting them down two points. Then they won their debate. While the entire room watched in anticipation, Thrush beat York in the recital. Murmuring began as people struggled to recall the exact rules for such a situation.

“I think we’re second place,” Ulysses said a bit louder than proper.

The judges and hosts of the event consulted for ten minutes before Stella Ilvar of the Evergreen Institute took the stage. She flew through the air to reach her mark with casual ease and bowed deeply to the audience. “Friends, the Evergreen Institute thanks you for your presence and participation. We appreciate each and every one of you more than I can adequately express in a short speech. Though you are all precious to us, only three teams can stand at the top.”

The woman held out one arm dramatically and swept it before the audience. “At this time, could our third place winners come forward, the team from Thrush!”

Volithur almost asked if that was good for them, but then he caught sight of the Head Scribe veritably vibrating in poorly restrained pleasure and realized his question had already been answered. They watched as Thrush took the stage, which took long enough that the applause died out due to Jemmi’s lame leg. The chaperon of Thrush accepted a trophy and then the entire team received a small paper bag – the four participants, the instructor, and the chaperon all included as prize recipients.

Stella Ilvar turned back to the crowd. “Next, we would like to welcome our second place winners to take the stage: the representatives of the famous Shaocheth family!”

In the excitement of the moment, Volithur almost started towards the stage without concern for proper decorum. Fortunately, he remembered himself in time and stood aside so that he could take his place at the rear of their procession.

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On stage, Master Rowan stood before their group and accepted the second place trophy with such pride you would have thought he participated in the tournament himself. Then an assistant from the Evergreen Institute stepped forward to give Master Rowan a reward bag. The man proceeded down the hierarchy in order, giving a bag to Ulysses, then Khana, then the Head Scribe, then Hazen, and finally Volithur.

Then they stood aside while the team representing the Evergreen Institute came forward to receive their rewards. Stella Ilvar didn’t even present the trophy, simply caressed it in passing. When all rewards had been distributed, the woman led a round of applause for those on stage.

“And for the final reward, the four team members from our top three placers will be led to the Evergreen Institute’s cosmic chamber for a full hour. I wish you a productive cultivation session, winners!”