AKI:

I awoke in my own room. A soft wind blew in, sweet with the scent of flowerbeds. Peeking into the room through the open window, a young sunset dressed the room in pale oranges. I sat up and rubbed at my eyes, the soft material of my heavy quilt sliding down my naked chest to fold about my lap.

“News has traveled far and wide,” came a familiar voice.

“Good or bad?” I asked.

“Depends.” Brittle stood from the desk chair she had placed beside my bed. “Good insofar as you’ve earned your reputation this day, bad insofar as the reputation you’ve earned comes with various pitfalls. I trust our arrangement will continue regardless.”

I breathed in and welcomed the flowery fragrance wafting in through the open window. Something about the scent of nature always calmed my nerves. A rotting corpse is natural, came the thought, and I knew whatever part of me longing for the company of my witty and frivolous friend had conjured the reply. True, I thought at my mind’s construct of Merkus.

“I hope you do not mean for me to keep to our schedule tonight,” I said.

Brittle turned to look out at the burnished view of the courtyard, and the haze of light made a trick of her soft smile. “Consider your evening free. So too was my aid.”

“You have my gratitude,” I said. “Whatever my reputation has or will become, I do not doubt my circumstances would be worse if others had witnessed the bout.”

Brittle, without looking away from the sunset, waved her hand at me. “Not the aid you requested. I am not one to revisit settled matters.”

I wondered what aid she’d provided since and noticed there was no lasting pain from the hard-fought battle, only fatigue. I reached down under the covers and found my nakedness incomplete—my underwear was intact and undisturbed. With my modesty verified, I slipped out of bed and inspected myself more comprehensively. No injuries were apparent. None. Many I’d accumulated before my time at The Academy had long since faded into faint discolorations, with only the most egregious of them having persisted against the healing that came from attaining better control over one’s sensus. They, too, she vanquished.

“Again, you have my—”

“Ironic, is it not?” Brittle interrupted. “That the cold retreat of the sun should warm its colors.”

I glanced over at the dipping sun, then went about clothing myself. “A promise, perhaps.”

Brittle turned to find me hopping on one leg, the waist of my trousers around my knees as I tried to tug its stuck leg past my heel. Brittle chuckled at my uncoordinated antics.

“Of what?” she asked.

I slipped in my leg and buttoned my trousers before I spoke. “Of its return.”

“Do not be ridiculous, Aki. It is a ball of fire, nothing more.” Brittle returned her gaze to the sunset as it slowly aged into dusk. “I have more aid to offer.”

“And news, I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

“Apologies, but I presumed you would inform me of the reason I need your aid.”

Another tug of her lips. “Did you know your bout with Vignil recorded you as the instigator?”

“Why?”

“Because it was you who requested I arrange the match.”

“So my accepted challenge for this moon cycle remains undone?”

Brittle nodded. “There is a line of curious, ambitious, and irritated students waiting for you to leave this room to offer you just that challenge.”

“Who?”

“Only two I know by name: Samiel and Zalzii. I believe you know the former.”

I nodded, already having expected Samiel to be among them. “Who is Zalzii?”

“Do not accept her challenge,” Brittle warned. With eyes narrowed and jaw tensed, her expression was grim. “That little hellion is the strongest Bainan Leaf in your cycle. You are not ready to face her.”

“How do you plan to help me with this?”

“Advice, and the means by which to follow it, should you choose to do so, of course. One of your challengers is a third-cycle student. Face him.”

“Who is he?”

“I do not know his name. An ugly brute of a fellow—the boy looks as if he was built from bricks of flesh. I suspect you’re already acquainted. From all the vitriol he was spewing about his right to face, there’s little chance he hasn’t made his intentions known before your bout with Vignil.”

“Wrelick,” I said, remembering the Bainan who’d confronted Vignil. “You think I can?”

“Yes. The fool, like many others, thinks you won by luck or interference.”

“Will he accept a closed bout then?”

“With a little convincing.”

A man strolled in, tall and imperious and deific, as though he was sculpted by a coalition of the best artists in all of history. A cloak of mustard fell around his shoulders, matrix-imprinted gold hung from his neck and wrapped about his long and thick fingers, each studded with crystallized sensus the yellows of Reaper and Surgeon Arts. My mind screamed danger, the most primal instincts I possessed simultaneously rooting me in place and urging me to flee.

“This here is Yabiskus,” Brittle introduced. “His presence will assuage your opponent’s concerns.”

“How goes it, Aki?” The man said. The Fiora. The Leaf. And not a candidate, but an actual Leaf, a Titled who presided over a ruling house.

“Yabiskus?” I composed myself and leaned forward. “Froxil’s father? Edon’s?” The resemblance was there once I knew to look for it. Whatever aspects of their appearance that gave Froxil and Edon their divine bearings were amplified in this man.

The Leaf chuckled. “Indeed.”

I frowned, only just noticing the familiarity with which he uttered my name. “Have we met before, Lord?”

“Ah, apologies, my old friend.” The shell that was Yabiskus made way; golden hair turned to shadow, alabaster skin greyed, and blue eyes turned the color of a moonlit forest, though few had the senses to tell it apart from black. The transformation darkened the room, and though Knite’s figure was a fraction of Yabiskus’, his true presence dwarfed his disguise. “Needs have forced me to cloak myself in the guise of a fallen enemy.” He raised his arms, looked upon the silk of his clothing, the gold of his jewelry, and the matrixes of his armor, all of which had grown too large for him, and snorted. That gesture alone convinced me he was indeed my friend.

“Merkus!” I rushed to him but stopped a pace or two away.

Knite frowned but did not comment on the misnomer. “How’ve you been, Aki? Grown a fair bit, haven’t you?”

I took a moment to smile at the fact that I stood taller than him. Wider, too. “Why are you here?”

“To see you, of course. And to help, now that I know you have need of it.”

“How?”

“By being present for your next bout.”

“When did you arrive?” I asked.

“In time for your previous bout.”

“You saw?”

“Half blind.” Before I asked what he meant, he added, “It’s rather difficult to see past the webs of sensus layering the chamber, particularly when they fluctuate.”

“She was there.”

“I know.”

“And she didn’t see you?”

“She saw Yabiskus.”

“Then why not—”

“She and this disguise had crossed paths a while back. It did not go well, and so I thought it best to keep a little distance.”

“How long will you be staying?”

“I have business elsewhere. On that note, shall we?”

“Now?”

“You defeated a Leaf?”

“Barely.”

“And you’ve been healed?”

“Of injuries.”

“Then yes, now. From what Brittle here tells me, this shouldn’t take long.”

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I swelled with pride, then went about finding my boots and jacket. Knite resumed his disguise as I put them on. The transformation was odder when I had the presence of mind not to be surprised by it. It started all over and all at once, a shimmer of color and shapes brightening and enlarging Knite into Yabiskus. Stranger still, my sensight agreed with my mundane sight, registering a different man.

My friends were in the common room. Dako seemed the most concerned, pacing back and forth. Sil sat with Malorey. Illora sat alone. Wiltos stood, arms crossed. Sil and Dako rushed at me the moment I entered. A barrage of questions followed in their wake. Wiltos and Malorey were close behind. Illora stayed back, aloof as always.

I held up my hands and smiled reassuringly. “All is well.”

“All is not well,” Dako said. His eyes shifted between me and the man he thought was Yabiskus. “Do you know what’s out there?” He pointed to the exit. “The hallway is full. And do you know who fills it?”

“Eager students,” I answered nonchalantly—Knite’s confidence had sparked mine, and the prospect of another duel against a godling did not seem so daunting when I had his confidence.

“Is he here to force you into something?” Illora asked, glaring at Yabiskus. There was no love lost between House Bainan and House Lorail.

“Why are you here, Brother?” It was Dako who asked the question.

“How many of them have you told?” Yabiskus asked me, Knite’s smirk plastered on his face.

I pointed at Sil and Dako.

“The gold but not the black.” My message was clear: They know of Lorail but not of you.

Knite nodded his understanding. “Come, Aki. Let’s get this done.”

I opened the door.

Samiel stood closest. His ear had been pressed to the door. He staggered back, nearly bumping into Wrelick. Others were there, too, staring and whispering. Surprisingly, I counted a fair few Roots mixed into the crowd and even a face or two who did not reside in our dorms. Spectators, I thought. Everyone knew me now. A Leaf candidate had died, and to a Heartwood, no less. My story was sure to have spread, and I wondered how many mistold, embellished, and fabricated versions of the truth circulated The Academy grounds. More by the hour, I suspected.

“If I were an Alchemist,” Samiel said, “you’d be one of Silas’ crown concoctions—those forbidden ones he keeps locked away that all Alchemists pine over.”

“Perhaps he keeps them locked away for a good reason,” I said.

Samiel grinned. “But you know Alchemists. Addicts, one and all. None could resist if given the chance.”

“The chance might lead them to death.”

“He’s mine,” Wrelick boomed. “I shall not allow another to delay this upstart’s—”

Samiel glanced back, his amused expression taking on a dangerous edge. “Quiet, nephew. I’ve been known to be a little… erratic. Best you do not expect me to be nearly as diplomatic as Vignil was.”

Wrelick's poorly hidden gulp of fear eased my concerns. If Vignil was on par with Samiel, Wrelick’s distress confirmed it was as Brittle and Knite had said—Wrelick was not my match.

Samiel shifted back to me, the danger replaced by a heedless playfulness. “I shall abstain from the poisoned fruit—for now.”

“So, you’re the Heartwood who killed Vignil,” said a voice. The crowd parted, Roots and Fioras and Seculors alike squeezing a space open. Through the parted crowd came a woman, slight, beautiful, and cold, her lean figure sashaying towards us. I was of the mind to think her a girl, her youth apparent, but the thought was struck down by the mature confidence she exuded, as though she were a lynx in the presence of a husk of hares.

“Ah, sister,” Samiel said. “I see the stories have even piqued your interest.”

Zalzii approached, eyes boring into mine. “I have yet to find a worthy vassal among the horde of ineptitude that is our cycle.” Dako had mentioned Leaves were expected to amass a following; one of the statutes of remaining on the path was to rope in able hands.

“You’d have been here earlier if you were truly interested.” There was caution in Samiel’s tone. Apprehension? I wasn’t sure.

The Bainan Leaf joined us, her presence pushing back Wrelick and the other godlings closest to us. “It took me some time to convince our cousin Leaves that he is mine.”

“Well, you are welcome to try,” Samiel said.

“Try?” Zalzii looked more curious than offended.

“I’ve come to realize that Aki here is full of surprises. Twice, he’s proven me wrong. You know how much I abhor being wrong, and so I’d rather not risk a third.”

She nodded and turned to me. “I, Zalzii kin Bainan, challenge you, Aki au Farian. Do you accept?”

“No.” My answer was immediate.

Zalzii frowned. “I will not kill you, Heartwood. Our bout is merely a means by which to measure your worth. Impress me, and I’ll offer you power and riches to match. Rest assured, however great or small my estimation, you shall not bear the cost of losing—well, besides losing.”

“Whatever the outcome and however rich your offer, I refuse.”

Zalzii shrugged. “So be it. But if I hear you’ve accepted another…”

We watched her leave. All of us. Unmoving and in silence. That is until she slipped out of sight, and Wrelick jumped into the space she had vacated.

“I, Wrelick kin Velusni, challenge you, Aki au Farian. Do you accept?”

“Without an audience?”

Wrelick hesitated. “So you can pull whatever trick you used against Vignil? I think not.”

“Tricks?” I asked.

Wrelick glanced at Brittle timidly. “Am I to believe your friendly relations with all three of the judges was a coincidence.”

Yabiskus strode in. His presence seemed to suck the air from the space as if the sight of him, the divinity of his very being, strained the seams of reality. More than a few of the students backed away from his hulking form.

“I shall allow you to take this prey, boy,” he said. “None will interfere.”

“Uncle?” Wrelick said, taken aback.

“On my way to Durum, I was informed that a mortal had killed one of my sons.” Knite played the part of a Bainan Leaf to a fault, his nose upturned, shoulders squared, and a way about how he spoke and refused to allow anyone to meet his eyes that set him apart and above. “We shall see if his victory was achieved with skill or trickery.”

Wrelick bowed as though he was asking for mercy. “Yes, Uncle.”

Yabiskus and Brittle led the procession, and my friends and I, trailed by an excited crowd of students, followed. As we traversed the hallways, it had become clear that those I saw outside of our rooms were but a fraction of the gathering, and by the time we reached the courtyard, the crowd had revealed itself to be several times the size I’d predicted.

As we walked, Knite’s probe of sensus reached for me. I let him in.

‘Can you believe she was so petty as to destroy the statues of me?’ came Knite’s thought, the sensation accompanied by the shadow of his voice.

I looked over at the stump in the center of the courtyard. I had wondered why it had remained broken. ‘The Queen?’

‘Spiteful bitch, isn’t she?

‘Why did she not replace it?’

‘Because it represents my defeat.’

Every student we came across on our way chose to join the crowd. First, they saw Yabiskus, his divinity clear, and all took heed. They entered the trail of students, whispers adding to the murmurs as they enquired about what was occurring. Ultimately, word of why Yabiskus was there, who I was, and where we were going caught them in the net of intrigue, and they joined the school of fish.

Nightfall had completed its descent. Stars and matrix lanterns and the other more fugacious colors of The Academy streaked and drifted through the sky. We came to the first available chamber. Headmaster Ricell stood before it, and the sight of him caused another wave of escalating murmurs. Hundreds were present. Maybe a thousand. I had never seen such a large group, and the number might’ve been more for all the experience I had in estimating such things. There were students of every rung of the social ladder. More servants than I’d ever seen outside the dorms and refectory ostensibly found work to do nearby, sneaking audacious glances. Several Masters waited, clustered by creed—Bainans with Bainans, Gronos with Gronos, and so on.

“Let’s get this underway,” Headmaster Ricell said.

He waved a hand, and the closest of the crowd—Masters included—were pushed back by an invisible hand. People stumbled and cursed. A semicircle with a radius of twenty-odd paces was cleared around the door. Somehow, Yabiskus, Brittle, Wrelick, and I remained untouched.

We entered. None dared follow.

I am a good person, all considered. Not wholly good, for no one is purely so—a truth I have grown more and more confident of. But I am good. If peace was a choice, I’d like to think I’d take it. And if I could help the poor or sickly or unfortunate, I would. I’ve never sought to cause pain flippantly, nor have I trampled on another simply for my own amusement. Are these not the qualities that decide goodness? And when I say I am not wholly good, I think of my thirst for revenge, the hate I hold for those who’ve hurt either me or those I count dear. But most of all, I think of all the fantasies I entertain in the landscape of my mind, of the lives I reap in my dreams.

What I did to Wrelick showed me my thirst was broader, and I was, if not more evil than my estimations, not as good as I had hoped. And after I’d done what I had done, that I felt content with that realization worried me most, testing the latest tenet of my convictions—my promise to bear upon godlings a punishment equivalent to their crimes.

Wrelick was a Reaper through and through. His versatility in that Art was his greatest strength, his raw power far below what I was used to facing. He came at me, the muscles and bones of his legs augmented. I slapped away a kick to my head. He was surprised I did, and then again when my hand showed no sign of suffering any broken bones.

He dashed sideways and threw a punch with his leading arm. That, too, I slapped away. His speed and strength paled in comparison to Vignil’s. How he’d survived to his third cycle was beyond me.

Wrelick maintained the same pattern with minor alterations between iterations, always a quick lateral movement followed by a snapping strike: left, flying knee; right, uppercut; left, a swipe of bone claws; up, an axe kick; low, sweep; and on and on. Then he began to tire. I’d not moved from my spot. Each of his attempts was slapped away, every failure slowing him further with fear and fatigue.

“I did tell you I had other matters to attend to, didn’t I?” Knite called out. “Finish him.”

Thinking the words were for him, Wrelick shouted his defiance, rekindling his lost fury. He bellowed and stormed at me. I slipped into his soul.

A nightmare, not in the perspective of the dreamer, but of the tormentor. I’d have preferred to suffer as the victim. So many dead. Children cried. Women screamed. Men begged. Flickering memories, short and devastating. More.

I stumbled out of Wrelick’s soul. He was on his knees, panting, mind ruined by my fumbling violation.

What followed was torture. I stripped Wrelick’s flesh off bone, each band of skin and muscle thinner than the last. I raped him with his own butchered, bleeding member, hardened and sharpened. I choked him with one of his eyes—the other remained so he could bear witness. And then I performed another dozen tortures. He screamed in pain, a single, stretching note of agony. Six times, I had to heal his voice, to restart the music of his misery. And I’d have kept going if they hadn’t stopped me.

Knite grabbed my wrist as I reached for another rib. I’d flayed the skin and muscle of his chest and pulled three ribs from his left side, careful and slow, so as to minimize the risk of him dying, all for the hope of getting to his heart and showing it to him.

“Enough,” Knite said. There was a look in his eyes. Almost regret. “Enough.”

“Nearly.” I plunged my free hand into Wrelick’s chest and pulled out his heart. His remaining eye flickered to the pulsing mass of meat I clutched in my hand. Moments later, the glint of life he clutched to dimmed to nothing.

I let go, at ease with the horror I’d committed. Brittle and the headmaster watched me. The former was stone-faced and unconcerned. Little wonder, considering her familiarity with violence. The headmaster watched me with a frown, and I remembered his relation to Sil. I doubt any father of honorable character—which I suspected he was despite my friends’ valuation—would approve of his daughter calling a savage like me a friend.

Knite released my wrist. “You’ve… changed.” A mix of pride and that same odd sense of regret mingled in his expression and tone.

“You told me I would.”

“I suppose I did.” He sighed, a hint of defeat in his exhalation. “Well then, I’ve dallied here long enough.”

I was last to leave the chamber. Knite was already gone by the time Brittle and Ricell stepped aside and reintroduced me to the crowd. Silence. I stood there; Wrelick did not. People noticed. Blood ran down my uniform, soaked one sleeve entirely, and marked my steps behind me. All watched, stunned. Soon, the disbelief gave way to other emotions. Some were excited. Mostly Roots, I observed, many of whom had given way and stood nearer the back. Some were amused and watched me as if I were a troupe of dancers who’d come to entertain them. A few of the Masters fell into this category, though a majority watched me with interest. As did a fair few godling students, my appearance convincing them I was a cast-off. The most significant slice of the crowd, however, wore expressions varying between mild irritation and absolute hate. I could imagine the questions fueling their reaction: Who was this Heartwood who dared kill godlings? Who was this commoner to live through the will of his betters? Who was I?

The first utterance was not particularly loud, but in the silence of mass contemplation, it rang clear and far.

“Heretic.”

The utterance—said with much less accusation than it called for—came from an unassuming Root near the front, a short boy in his first cycle with a book clutched to his chest. His slight frame went unnoticed, and he’d found himself among the godlings closest to me.

New voices repeated the word, first in whispers, then louder and louder, growing into a chant. The word traveled like the wind, changing tone as it went, sometimes whistling with adulation but more often booming with anger.

“Heretic! Heretic! Heretic!…”