I had just enough time to grab another quick meal of tack and dried meat before our afternoon's class in Beastlore began. Based on Chalisa's warning yesterday, I assumed that the class would involve Void Beasts in one way or the other. I hurried back to our shared room, dipping my head in greeting to a group of three students passing by. They ignored me.

My left hand was set upon the qi seal leading to our chambers, when the jade bracelet on my wrist vibrated vigorously enough to shake my whole arm. The strength of the shaking woken a sleeping person or even injured a small child. I forced my hand to remain motionless in the air while the buzzing sound continued, finally touching the Index to stop the noise.

Message from Euleban:

This afternoon's class is canceled. What you experienced now was the alarm that will trigger in the event of an actual Void Breach, or a Breach Drill like now. Following any such alarm, you are to return immediately to your secured quarters and wait for further instructions.

My heart raced for a few moments before I instinctively calmed myself with the rhythm of my core. Other than the brief demonstration during the exam, the threat from the Void had been nebulous, less of a concern than the Academy's system itself. Judging from the violence they had inflicted, however indirectly, I would have said that the Swordgeists were the larger threat thus far.

I unlocked the qi seal and quickly stepped inside, shutting the door behind me. I stepped over a garment of dark blue satin on the floor, then a white ceramic bowl. The nobles' belongings were breaching our half of the room. I quickly shoved the various items back across the floor, leaving a clean divide in the middle between our side and theirs.

I removed the jade selector from the folds of my tunic and placed it in my storage locker before grabbing two sticks of dried meat. Behind me, the room's door clicked with the sound of unlocking, then opened. Five entered first, followed by Alanna and Naisha. The girls quietly slipped inside their half of the room, closing the sliding crystal partition behind them. Five sat in the corner, holding the jade selector in his hand.

Since no one else was remarking about the Breach Drill and there was no indication how long we would need to wait, I climbed up onto my bed and began practicing Ikari's qi condensing exercise. I could have repeated my success with the jade selector, but something about the nature of Geistech and its similarity to human alchemy made me wary of pursuing it further at the moment. I had Terminus, but that was different, a simple chamber for storing and releasing qi. What Yoxu had done, and the Empress, when they stole my qi was disturbing, a violation of everything I had learned as a sword artist--a kind of spiritual cannibalism. How far would I progress in Geistech? I idly wondered whether the minor success with the jade selector counted as progress. Classes.

Classes

Swordcraft I: 0%

Qi Shaping I: 0%

Geistech I: 1%

It had. That didn't change my mind, though. Chalisa had left us with no exercises. On the other hand, even if I couldn't be a disciple of Kizen, the prospect of condensing sword qi was certainly more in line with my traditionalist background. I could think of a dozen immediate ways to incorporate even a small needle of sword qi into my attacks.

I sat on my bed with my right hand facing upward, circulating a small disk of qi within its palm. I compressed the disk into a tighter and tighter formation, but, as I expected, the qi disk collapsed and dissipated as soon as I removed my spiritual force. I tried a small spherical shape next, then a cylinder, then cycled the qi clockwise versus counter-clockwise, along different axes, and every geometrical configuration I could think of. Halfway through my practice, I thought I heard a high-pitched noise in the distance, but it quickly faded. I returned to the exercises but made no progress, even as the minutes passed quickly by.

The crystal partition on the nobles' side of the room shifted. Naisha's dark hair fell freely alongside her face as she peeked out of the opening.

"Has it been an hour?" Naisha asked. Her eyes went to Five, then me. "You two are still practicing?" She disappeared behind the partition again, which slid shut.

Shortly afterwards, as if in response to Naisha's question, a new message appeared.

Breach Drill training.

For this first Breach Drill, select a group task to complete as a team.

A) Wait in your current location until notified that the drill is completed. N.B. A minimum of two Grandmasters is recommended before venturing beyond the Quarters in the event of a Void Breach.

B) Guard the entrance to the Academy. Prevent the escape of any Void Beasts.

C) Survey the hallways for signs of intruders. Capture or eliminate any Void Beasts you encounter.

D) Locate the source of the Void Beast incursion and end the breach.

Group answer (0/4): none

The sliding door to the crystal partition immediately slammed open. Alanna and Naisha both stepped out into our half of the room. I leaped to the floor. Five didn't move from his seated position.

"You think we'll have to fight Void Beasts?" Alanna asked.

"Ew, remember those snakes?" Naisha asked. "I hate snakes. We could stay here..." She bit her lip.

Five snarled. "We choose the last option, or the one before that. I won't cower."

"It's not cowering," Naisha said. "Running, or in this case, hiding, from trouble is the smart choice. We don't know what we're facing."

"Guarding the entrance sounds like a reasonable compromise," Alanna said. "We might fight these creatures, but we won't be actively seeking them, either."

Everyone looked towards me. "Talen?" Alanna asked.

Naisha was right that we knew little about the strength of our enemy. If these were the same pythons that Chalisa had mentioned and that had appeared at the exam, we knew that they could easily overpower a Master sword artist. The Swordgeists had given no indication that they actually cared for our well-being, and neither had the instructors. The danger of the unknown was all too real.

Yet I couldn't walk away from the challenge. The instructors wouldn't thrust a task upon us where they expected us to fail, would they? I clenched my right fist tightly, a reminder of the last hour attempting to compress a piece of qi. Yes, they would let us fail--but with disastrous consequences? If we were gravely injured, I would at least have to pay the cost in exam points to acquire the healing elixirs.

"The risks are too great to ignore," I said slowly.

"Huh," Naisha said with an approving smile. "Imagine that. Me and him agreeing versus you two."

Five's eyes brimmed with scorn.

"But..." I began.

Naisha's smile flipped into a frown. "But?"

"We're all Grandmasters, unlike some of the other teams," I said. "If we don't test our strength against the coming threat, who will?"

Five snorted, but otherwise stayed silent.

"Still, Alanna's right," I continued. "Guard duty's the right starting point."

Alanna nodded. Naisha threw her hands up into the air. Five started scowling, then raised an eyebrow.

"Starting point?" he said. "I see."

"Yes, a starting point," I said. "There's nothing in the instructions that says we can't escalate the task if we decide to later. Depending upon how any initial battles go, we can always pursue the matter further. The rewards may differ, but it's safer than pursuing the final option without knowing more."

"True," Alanna said. "It's agreed, then."

The blue letters of the question still hung in the air before my face. The last line changed abruptly.

Group answer (1/4): B

I added my own choice. Final answer, B. The last line changed again.

Group answer (2/4): B, B

Group answer (3/4): B, B, D

That had to be Five. He stared back at us defiantly.

"Uh, no," Naisha said.

Group answer (4/4): B, B, D, A

A new line appeared below the choices.

All team members must select the same answer to proceed. Failure to reach a mutual decision will result in a penalty.

Alanna gestured to the others. "Come on. Five, like Talen pointed out, we can always pursue your option later. Naisha, if you're scared, you can stay in the rear."

"I'm not scared of snakes. I said I hate them." Naisha stamped her foot. "Fine."

Group answer (4/4): B, B, D, B

There was a rumbling sound from outside our room, the sound of something heavy dragging across the floor. Alanna rushed to the door and tugged on it, but it didn't budge.

"It's locked?" Alanna said. She looked to Five. "Five? Hurry."

He shrugged.

Group answer (4/4): B, B, B, B

There was an audible click, and the next time Alanna pulled on the door, it swung open. We stepped outside.

The blue alchemical lights from above were as strong and steady as usual. The dark gray stone floor remained smooth and unmarred as well. There was no sign of anything having changed, or any threats, for that matter.

I held Terminus in my hand, sending a stream of qi into its chamber to ready it. The others had also drawn their weapons. We approached the large double-doors that separated the Quarters section from the main hallway. Alanna and I hesitated, but Five shoved his way between us and pushed the heavy doors open. They creaked open with a soft whine.

Beyond them was nothing.

I had been imagining all kinds of vicious horrors born of fangs, scales, and serpentine curves, but only the empty hallway stretched out before us. Even Five paused now, waiting on our side of the doorway.

"They called it a Breach Drill," I said. "Yet we're to keep Void Beasts from leaving, not entering. Curious."

"Which begs the question of who's breaching what," Alanna said.

A shimmer of golden light flashed around Five. "Enough talk." He stepped forward into the hallway, and we followed him, passing by the Homeroom on our left and continuing onward and upward towards the entrance.

The clear lighting and featureless smooth walls left little chance that an enemy could catch us unaware. Still, we jogged lightly, not going anything close to our full speed. We could see the wide doors of the main Academy entrance when I spotted the shape hanging from the ceiling.

"There!" I pointed to the ceiling about twenty paces away from the main entrance. A dark, compact shape, at least as large as a man, stood out in contrast to the bright blue light around it.

At the same instant, Five dashed forward.

"Five!" Alanna called out, but the soldier sped up rather than waiting for the rest of us.

I hurried after Five, as did the others. He leaped and unleashed his sword's detachable tip. A golden blur slung through the air straight towards the dark figure. The creature uncoiled.

The large hallway must have been at least thirty feet tall. The long serpentine shape spanned at least half that distance as it sprang from the ceiling to the floor in the blink of an eye, dodging Five's attack. The creature was too fast to track by eye.

One moment it had landed upon the ground. The next it was already striking at Five. Five's sword hadn't even retracted yet. He barely sidestepped the vicious lunge. The snake's head whipped past his torso, but its body undulated as it flew by, sending Five hurtling into the stone wall.

I was too far away to intervene directly before the snake struck at Five again. Penalty or not, I struck at the stone floor, unleashing the qi stored in Terminus. A shower of razor-edged stone chips from the broken floor flew towards the snake, which flung itself towards the other wall, opposite from Five.

There was no penalty.

I sensed the aura, cold and lethal, before I could see what was happening with my physical eyes. The snake must have rebounded off the wall, because the next thing I saw was it springing towards me with a gaping maw. Everything had happened too quickly for me to get a clear view of the creature. In that moment, all I could make out were two gleaming white fangs, each as long as a human finger.

There was no time for subterfuge or proper forms. A jolt of qi through my legs sent me flying backwards, the back of my shoulders nearly skimming the floor. The snake shot across the air only two feet above me, its thick, scaly body glittering with a dark greenish hue as it passed.

I slashed three times, desperate to keep the snake from crushing or ensnaring me, as it had done to Five. The snake's length twirled in a corkscrew pattern that neatly evaded all of my strikes. The creature hissed, a loud vicious cry, as it suddenly broke away. Golden flames filled the air above me where the snake had been.

I somersaulted backward and recovered to find Alanna sweeping her greatsword to send large swathes of golden flames down the hallway. A dark streak zigzagged like a streak of lightning through Alanna's flames, bounding from wall to floor to ceiling and back to wall again.

Alanna's flames had been cool when they passed over me, a construct of pure qi rather than an elemental variant. The wide arcs of golden flame spanned nearly half of the hallway's cross section in a barrage of continually shifting attack angles. Alanna was relentless, but I could already see the six-fold pattern of her attacks repeating.

The snake, meanwhile, wove through Alanna's hurried defense, bounding from stone surface to stone surface in a four-fold pattern, growing closer to her with each leap. Five more strokes of Alanna's greatsword, twelve total, and the creature's pattern would line up once more with Alanna's, creating an opening for it to attack her. Five was the closest to where the danger would strike from. Four more strokes, now three.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"There!" I shouted to Five. "Two more strokes! One!"

Five correctly anticipated the pattern and sent his whip-like attack towards where the snake would have landed. The snake hissed again as it broke its cycle of leaps, then shot low across the floor straight towards Naisha. She was clinging to the wall on the far left.

"Naisha!" Alanna screamed.

Naisha was frozen, her aura unfocused and flailing in intensity. I was the closest to her. I dumped all the qi I could muster into my limbs as I lunged forward with Terminus, trying to skewer the snake's body and pin it down before it could reach her.

I didn't expect to strike the creature, but its greed for an imminent target must have overcome its defensive instincts. Terminus impacted against a firm resistance, and I unleashed the small amount of qi I had stored within its chamber. The blade's tip broke through the scaly hide, barely. Terminus was nearly wrested from my grip as the snake's forward motion grated against my blade. I pulled back roughly, trying to tear the wound open wider, but the scales resisted any further damage before Terminus slid free of the creature.

The cut I had made was shallow, but it was enough to send the snake retracting into a protective coil, its scaled body now a compact shape. Twin golden chains shot out across the hallway. Five's sword wrapped around Naisha's waist and dragged her backwards to safety.

Naisha finally screamed, although she sounded more angry with Five's abrupt handling than anything else.

"Let me go!" Naisha yelled, but Five had already withdrawn his sword's chains, leaving Naisha in a heap on the floor besides him.

The snake sat in the middle of the hallway in a mass of writhing coils, hissing softly. While my attack had likely done little damage to the creature, the small injury seemed to have made the snake more cautious. Unblinking black eyes gazed at us, and a forked dark tongue flicked in and out of the closed jaws.

The four of us stood a good thirty feet away from the snake, still not far enough for me to feel any measure of safety. The snake had crossed that span faster than any of us could manage.

"The scales are harder than steel," I said. "A simple strike won't pierce it." I risked a quick glance to Terminus' tip, which had a small stain on it.

"It's aura..." Five said softly in almost a whisper. He shook his head. "Its aura precedes its attacks. It doesn't make sense."

"I noticed the same," I said.

The creature's aura foreshadowed its strikes, which was the opposite of what a trained sword artist would do, or, I imagined, a successful predator. Even ordinary prey would sense the cold chill of such a threat. It made more sense to mask one's intent before attacking.

Alanna brandished her sword from side to side. "I can't tell what you two are talking about. Can you use it to your advantage?"

"No," I said. "The sensation is too formless and fleeting."

Five grunted in agreement.

"What do we do then?" Alanna asked. "Hurry. I don't like the way that thing's looking at me."

The snake shifted its head from left to right as if surveying us, its tongue still flicking in and out as it scanned one way, then the other. Sure enough, the snake rested its gaze on Alanna. It opened its mouth and bared its fangs.

"Why me..." Alanna muttered. A surge of golden flames ran up Alanna's greatsword.

Naisha spoke with a small tremor in her voice. "I can see the attacks before they happen. It's my Scrying technique."

"Technique?" Five asked.

I was as confused as Five. Since when did Naisha have a technique? There was a Scry command, but that was for the Index--no matter, I didn't have time to dwell on it at that point.

"Can you match its speed?" I asked. "Block its attacks?"

Naisha took a deep breath. A second passed by in silence without an answer from her, while the snake lowered its head, tightening its coiled body in preparation for a strike.

"She's useless," Five said. "Dead weight." He stepped between the snake and Alanna, a surprisingly selfless gesture. Or he was just eager for blood on his blade.

"I wasn't scared," Naisha snapped. "I was testing my technique. Move!"

Naisha shouldered Five aside, her twin short swords crossed above her head in the empty air. The next instant, the snake was hurtling forward, the transition from resting to attacking too fast for me to follow.

But Naisha's swords were already in place. She shrieked as the snake's fangs collided with her blades, holding her ground as the snake bit down on metal instead of flesh and bone. Five was out of position from Naisha's shove to counterattack, while Alanna was still behind the others. I was the only one free to attack, so I slashed at the snake just behind the creature's man-sized head. The snake released Naisha's swords and twisted away to avoid my blow, then lashed its tail at Five.

Naisha wasn't able to block the attack completely this time, but she landed one strike of her short sword against the snake's tail before it struck Five in full. The snake must have abandoned the attack, because the blow that landed on Five's shoulder barely moved him. The snake retreated and returned to a coiled position.

"See?" Naisha said in a brash tone, but her voice was still unsteady. "What did I tell you?"

Naisha suddenly moved to block the space in front of me with her blades, but the snake remained where it was, instead hissing loudly.

"Huh?" Naisha frowned. "Oh, that's not good."

"Your technique failed?" Alanna asked.

"It was a feint," Naisha said in a rush. "I sensed the attack, but it held back at the last moment. It tricked me."

I held back a groan. The deadly creature was learning. "We need to kill it quickly. Before it gets too clever."

I was already filling Terminus with my qi once more as I eyed the snake. I could pierce its hide, but I didn't trust that a single strike would fell the creature. Perhaps a well-aimed thrust would work, but its speed was too much for me to land more than a wild blow on my own.

I glanced backward at Alanna. Her greatsword was even slower, but in terms of pure cutting power, I guessed it would at least match a charged strike from Terminus. I didn't know the limits of Five's strength, but his free-flowing attacks would be better-suited to fending off the snake's coils.

"Can you kill it?" Alanna asked. "Stab it in the head?"

"I doubt it," Naisha said. "I'm barely matching its speed."

"I can't even touch it," Alanna said.

The elements of a crude plan fell into place. We would need to be four swords acting in unison for once. "Naisha blocks. I pin. You go for the killing blow." I nodded at Alanna.

Before I could tell Five his role, Naisha suddenly dropped to her knee and braced herself low with crossed blades once more. This was no feint. The snake crashed into her blocking stance, and Naisha shrieked. I hoped Five would know what to do as I thrust forward at a downward angle.

I released Terminus' charge as I stabbed, and my blade slid into the snake's body, about five feet behind the head. I pushed hard, driving Terminus clean through the creature and into the stone floor itself. With a grimace, I lunged forward and wrapped my left arm about the snake's body, which was nearly as thick as a person's torso. Its body burned with heat, unlike the cool skin of a true snake, and acrid, dark fluid rushed out of the wound Terminus had made. I clung even more tightly to the slippery scales as the snake writhed violently, more brawler than sword artist. Twin flashes of delicate yellow above me indicated that Five was harassing the creature's free end.

The snake jerked violently, and while Terminus remained embedded in the stone, the creature nearly cut itself free. Terminus' edge scraped against a thin flap of skin and scales that stretched and threatened to tear.

A sheet of pure golden light descended, blocking my vision for an instant, and a thunderous crash soon afterwards covered me with bits of stone debris. The body beneath me bucked once more, hard enough to rip Terminus free, but then the bulky weight went slack and dropped to the ground.

"It's dead," Alanna said.

Thick ichor coated her greatsword, but a fresh plume of golden flames ran up the blade, and when the flames vanished, the honed metal was spotless. Alanna had cleanly severed the snake's head, which still clung to Naisha's short swords, even in death.

Naisha made a disgusted sound and flung the head away from her. "It better be."

I watched the unmoving shape on the stone floor for several more seconds, not convinced that the snake, if it was a Void Beast, followed the same rules of mortality as its lesser earthly cousins. Five walked over to where the snake's head had landed. He lined his slender blade up with one black eye, punched into the creature's skull, rolled the head over with his foot, and stabbed the other eye. He walked over to the main body, near the tail, and leaned over his sword with the point pressed into the scaly body. His sword shimmered with a yellow glow, and Five punched a hole in the snake's scaly hide. He repeated the process five more times. By then, I had plunged Terminus twice into the body as well.

Five had the right idea. There was no point taking chances with an enemy we didn't understand. Perhaps the encounter had changed his perception of the task as well.

Alanna stepped in a wide arc around the bloody corpse and towards the Academy's entrance. "I don't think we'll be hunting any more of these down than we have to."

"How many more of them you think will show up?" Naisha asked. "How long are we supposed to wait here?"

Five frowned, but he didn't reply otherwise. He gazed down the length of the hallway, the fingers of his left hand tapping against his thigh. He looked at the dead snake, took half a step down the hallway, then looked back down at the corpse.

I had been wrong. The fight hadn't instilled a new sense of caution in him. The danger had left him hungering for more. My first reaction was to call him a fool, but as I searched my own heart, I found an unexpected truth.

That same hunger also burned in me.

Here was an opponent unlike any I had ever faced. A creature of the mythical Void. A creature of power unlike any I had seen before. Yes, it was terrifying, but at the same time, it was exhilarating to test my sword against something so different. Or was something else driving me forward, pushing me into danger...

Five caught my eye. He smiled. "Wait here? We hunt."

"What? Are you crazy?" Naisha glared at him.

"Five," Alanna said. "We barely survived. Besides, the rest of us won't agree. We have our task. Keep those things from escaping."

"It's a drill," Five said. "No one's actually worried about them escaping. Besides, I'm not the only one that wants to go." He pointed his sword at me. "Ask the clansman."

"What--" Alanna blinked twice when she realized I wasn't refuting Five. "Talen! You're supposed to be the sensible one!"

"If we're meant to guard the entrance, that--" I pointed down the hallway "--is the only way anything could approach us anyways. We'd have to proceed extra cautiously."

I paused. The fact that Naisha had acquired a technique was weighing on my mind almost as much as the threat of the Void Beasts. "And no hiding any techniques that might be useful."

"Well, I refuse," Naisha said.

"To go? Or to disclose your techniques?" I asked.

"Both," she shot back.

I ignored her and turned to Alanna. "Like you said, we barely survived. Even if we stay, we can't afford a misstep or miscommunication. We have to function as a team."

I had managed to hold my annoyance in check, but I was hardly happy to find out that the others were even further ahead of me than I had imagined. Naisha already had a technique, likely from Chalisa. I had...the curse of an Assignment. What else had the others accomplished? I cycled my core's qi to soothe the roiling emotions within me. Jealousy, shame, and anger threatened to surface before I drowned them under the steadfast weight of my qi.

No, I wasn't going to be petty. Even Naisha, who came off as carefree and careless, must have done more than me to earn her technique. I wasn't used to falling behind, but if I was lagging behind Naisha, who else had overtaken me?

"That's fair," Alanna said finally.

She held up two fingers. A golden sliver of light flashed between them. She whipped what had to be a thin fragment of sword qi into the opposite wall. The mote of yellow embedded in the stone disappeared after a few seconds.

"I took the chip of sword qi as my bonus," Alanna said. "It serves as a seed. It lets me condense small fragments of sword qi more quickly than I could otherwise."

If the others were surprised, they didn't show it.

"Can you recall it?" I pointed to the almost invisible mark that the golden had left in the wall. "Like Ikari did?"

Alanna shook her head. "I'm far from mastering my sword qi. The only reason it lasts long enough to throw is a gift from Kizen. My Golden Needle technique gives me a quick, ranged strike to complement my greatsword."

A gift from Kizen, she had said.

I would push forward even harder. It was a fine line, though, between stretching your limits and breaking them. Was that why Five always rushed headlong into danger? What had the Empress demanded of him?

It didn't matter. I knew what I demanded of myself.

Five stepped to the wall and touched the spot where Alanna had thrown her Golden Needle. "It can pierce stone," he said. "Can you pierce the scales?"

"Possibly," Alanna said. She gestured to the ruined head of the snake. "Certainly the eyes, if I could hit them, or down the gullet. But at this point, I still trust my sword more."

I was already parsing the implications of what Alanna had revealed. She had taken the bonus without waiting to examine all of her options. Naisha had likely done the same.

"Naisha," I said. "You chose the Scry command, and Theus changed it into a Scrying technique. Is that right?"

Naisha frowned but nodded. "Basically, yeah."

Discipleship changed the nature of the bonus, then. It would be foolish to take one without the other. All the more reason to see this task through and find the elusive Euleban. For reference, I reviewed the bonus selections once more to make sure that I hadn't missed anything. Bonuses.

Bonuses

Bonus question (1/2):

Select your bonus from the list below using the Final Answer command. You may answer this question at another time by invoking the Cancel command.

A) Chip of condensed sword qi.

B) Access to the Scry command.

C) Access to the Alchemical Laboratory.

D) Small morsel of Void Beast meat.

"Come on, Naisha," Alanna said. "Tell the others what you told me."

Naisha sighed. "Fine. Scrying lets me see what technique you're using. Or, really, what technique you're about to use. If you're fast like me, you can catch the qi pattern changing...nevermind. I see stuff."

"The Void Beast used a technique?" Five asked, his tone incredulous. "But they're beasts."

"I saw what I saw," Naisha said. "It's called Serpent's Strike. A speed-infused attack."

I was silently reviewing the blue words before me as I listened to the others. A morsel of Void Beast meat? What was that supposed to do? Especially when there was a large dead beast on the floor before me--much more than a mere morsel. Cancel. The blue words vanished.

I knelt next to a section of the slain snake. The front of my tunic, soaked in dark blood from when I had wrestled with the creature, clung to my belly as I bent forward. I reached into the gory wound, using a thin projection of qi from my fingers to slice off a chunk of the red flesh. I lifted the piece of meat so that it was level with my eyes. The meat was striated with the pattern of muscle, but lean, with no visible signs of fatty marbling.

This was meat from a Void Beast, wasn't it? Drops of thick blood oozed from the piece when I squeezed it.

"Do you think it's edible?" I asked out loud, not to anyone in particular.

"Oh, gross. Not again." Naisha made a disgusted face and turned away.

"Are you sure about that, Talen?" Alanna asked.

No, I wasn't sure, and the uncertainty was two-fold. I didn't know the first thing about consuming wild meat, and I knew even less about the nature of Void Beasts. What if their meat was poisonous and required careful preparation? Wasn't there supposed to be a fish that was deadly when cooked, a delicacy when raw? And I had heard that the brittle bones of a certain bird carried lethal toxins. That much, I knew. What I didn't know, though, was the consequences of consuming a Void Beast. If it carried any element of power, that was even more of a reason to tread with caution.

When we had faced the mysterious Void Beast in battle, at least I still had full knowledge of myself and my sword. Half-blind was a world apart from being fully blind. When it came to trusting my sword arm, I would more readily test the line between courage and folly. But not for this.

I stood and tossed the piece of raw flesh back onto the dead snake, then wiped my hand on my trousers, where a section of relatively dry fabric remained.

Alanna made a relieved sound. "What about you, Five?" she asked. "Anything to share?"

Five smiled, baring his teeth. "Nothing that concerns this task."

And what other tasks do you have, I wondered. From the Academy or from the Empress? "Have you found the Alchemical Laboratory?" I asked.

"All you need to know is that I'm the most skilled sword artist here," Five said, eyeing me. His eyes flicked to Alanna. "The strongest, too."

Naisha huffed. "You think so? You barely did anything against that snake-thing. Even he did more than you."

Five wove his sword in a tight flourish. "I know so." He beckoned with the tip of his sword as if he was motioning to a small child. "Test me, if you like."

Naisha scowled. "I don't like. You."

I glanced down the hallway that led back to the Academy's center. The hallway was level for a good fifty yards before sloping downward. Despite its grand height, the hallway was long enough and slanted at a steep enough angle that the ceiling eventually cut off my view. While I couldn't spot any signs of Void Beasts within the first section, that didn't guarantee that there weren't other creatures just out of sight. We hadn't passed any snakes on the way here to the entrance, though, and there wasn't that much more to the Academy. Actually, we hadn't seen much of anything for that matter...

"We stay or move as one," I said. "I don't think any of us would dare challenge a Void Beast on our own." I looked at Five, who chuckled.

"I'm not waiting for anyone," Five said. "But if find one of these beasts, the first thing I'll do is run straight back here and with it nipping at my heels. So, if you want to make sure I don't bring back a horde of them, maybe you'd best keep an eye on me?"

"That almost sounds like a threat," Alanna said, frowning.

"We're wasting time. I'm going." Five began walking slowly down the hallways.

"Idiot!" Naisha growled.

Alanna looked back and forth between Five and the ruined corpse of the snake. She walked towards Five.

"I'm going because I want to," she said. "Not because you're threatening us. Naisha, stop pouting. Come on. What's the plan?"

I followed at Alanna's side. Behind me, I could tell from Naisha's low grumbling that she was also following us.

"Five," I said. "If we're doing this, we should do it properly. Naisha leads and blocks. You and I harry from the sides to give Alanna an opening." I gestured for the others to change positions.

"We're really doing this?" Naisha asked, but she moved to the front of the formation without any further complaints.

A grinning Five moved to my right while Alanna took her position in the rear. "Let's kill some Void Beasts," he whispered.

We had all lowered our voices now as we backtracked to approach the hallway's descent. Nothing had been in the hallway on the way here, but we had all seen how fast the snakes could travel. Which reminded me of what we hadn't seen.

"Where are the others?" I asked.

I couldn't imagine that they had all chosen to remain quarantined within the safety of their rooms. Surely some of them, like Tycho, would have also chosen to face the threat directly. If so, linking up with them would be to our advantage. But we had neither seen nor heard any signs of the other students.

No one had an answer for my question. We moved silently down the hallway, returning back the way we had come just minutes before. But this time, we carried a kernel of knowledge, a hint of fear, and, if truth be told, more than a touch of eagerness.