CHAPTER 1

Gideon Eldridge, in his final year at the Grenfield Combat Academy, brushed the biscuit crumbs from his blue and white uniform as he walked away from the mess hall. His best friend, Frederick Krass, who was normally on the other side of campus in the morning, caught him in the hallway.

“Are you nervous?” Frederick asked, as they walked towards the courtyard, flicking a tetraherb cigarette butt into a small fountain. The enormous open space was at the heart of the academy, and a central hub for the main classes recruits needed to pass before they would be given their career assignments. It was Autumn, and the gentle breeze that rippled through the courtyard was a relief compared to the previous few months of stifling classrooms. Thankfully, both Frederick and Gideon were Knights of the Silver Moon, and with it came privileges; having their class schedule skewed to outdoor combat training being their favorite perk. Some professors still didn’t cave to the demands of the Knights’ leader, Bernhard Dorian, one of which had just posted the results of a recent exam.

The two men, who had come to the academy as boys, reached their destination, a scroll pinned to a post outside the door of Practical Defense. Gideon shook his hands in a jittering motion, as if he knew he hadn’t passed and was trying to shake off the disappointment.

Gideon sighed. “Yes, I am,” he replied. “Professor Corvo told me that while it was great I was ‘so great with offensive stances’, I had to work on my blocking and ripostes.”

Frederick let loose with a hissing, light laughter through his teeth. “That old man has a stick up his ass. You’re a Knight, and the way you fight…you don’t really need to even use defense. And your ripostes are just fine; your Stance relies on them. What even is defense, really? Some big blocky shield you’ll have to carry around?” he said, mockingly.

“I tried to tell him,” Gideon responded with irritation, brushing a bright orange leaf from his shoulder as he stood in the back of the small crowd that had gathered at the post, before hunching his back to pretend to be the professor.

“Young man!” he mocked, in Corvo’s trademark raspy voice. “If your combat is not balanced, then you will fall. Remember Asherami the Great?”

Frederick rolled his eyes. “Always talking about that guy. Didn’t he die of food poisoning over 300 years ago?”

Gideon nodded. “He doesn’t like hearing that. But apparently, he was the ‘master of the blade’ so we have to study him.”

“Let the professor study him then. We can learn from someone who is still alive, like Master Dorian,” Frederick proposed. “By the way, can you get a clear view of the scores?”

Gideon, at a height of slightly over six feet, tapped into the golden amulet of Avara around his neck. It was a family heirloom, and his Parsell, which powered his Gift of Sight. Going into an ethereal focus, he mentally swam through the flow of Whispers from the necklace, and latched onto the power. His vision was instantly trimmed with gold, and even the slightest inflection of muscles in his eyes allowed him to zoom in and out wherever he wished. The man had to bob his head around for a few moments, but was able to get a look at the scores, written in the professor's tiny, chicken-scratch handwriting.

“You have a…78 percent and I have…76 percent,” Gideon said, before shaking his head to clear the connection to his Parsell. It could only contain so much Whisper, so he had to budget its use. That, and it gave him a headache if he used it for too long.

“Good enough!” Frederick smiled, his trademark devious grin crossing his face. “And who said your Gift is useless outside of combat?”

“...You did, the first day we met. Remember?” Gideon answered, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “You thought it was great that I would never have to buy a spyglass”.

Frederick’s eyes darted as his grin turned from happy to sheepish, his arms moving as if pondering some great problem. “I can’t be expected to remember everything I’ve said…there’s so much to learn and retain, that and the lempies causing their own problems at home and abroad.”

“The lempies…” Gideon responded, not particularly in the mood for his friend’s usual babbling nonsense. “Those dumb animals grazing just outside the campus grounds?”

“Exactly,” Fred answered, pointing behind Gideon. “For example, there’s one right there.”

“How could there possibly be…” Gideon asked incredulously, turning around to see the creature. Only a small fountain occupied the space. When he turned back around, Fred was gone, and in his place stood Torvald, Dorian’s second in command. Gideon exhaled from his nose, rolling his surprise into disgust as he stood, tight-lipped. Torvald was a brute, which he could deal with, but he was also famously cruel, and Gideon had seen him break bones unnecessarily during sparring matches on more than one occasion. He was stunned that the large man could have made his way through the crowd so quickly.

“Master wants to see you,” the bulky, stone-faced man croaked. He was wearing the standard Grenfield uniform of blue and white, with a slate gray cloak given to all Knights of the Silver Moon draped over his shoulders.

“Why?” Gideon asked, irritated. He had another class soon and didn’t want to go all the way down to headquarters. He could tell from Torvald’s sneer at his response that he didn’t appreciate his tone.

Torvald glared at his underling, his dark brown eyes not breaking from Gideon’s.

“You know better than to ask that,” he growled. “Do you need an escort, your highness?”

Gideon took a step up to Torvald, using an arrogant swagger that he’d never use on his own, knowing that it would anger the cruel man even further.

“Does it look like I need it…little man?” Gideon asked, tilting his head to one side, his eyes furrowed in an ultimate gesture of pity.

Torvald, only an inch shorter, fumed as Gideon could see his mouth clench in anger. Both Knights knew that killing each other outside of a duel was grounds for expulsion, and Torvald valued the organization too much to give into his current rage.

Gideon walked briskly past his Master’s messenger, and through a door on the other side of the courtyard. Immediately after shutting the door behind him, Gideon let out a sigh of relief and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.

“Wooo, I have NEVER seen him that mad before!” Frederick said in awe, appearing through the wall a few feet down from Gideon. His Gift, Ghost, let him pass through any solid object or person he wanted.

“What do you think the Master wants?” he asked, the exciting situation causing him to bounce in his shoes slightly.

Gideon shrugged. “The term is almost over, maybe he has a job for me?” he suggested.

“That would be nice,” Fred thought out loud. “He’s always sending Torvald out on secret missions, I’ll bet he pays well, too.”

“It does sound better than a post in the middle of nowhere,” Gideon thought out loud. “But I have no idea; I need to get down there.”

Fred nodded, giving his friend a two-fingered salute, a personal gesture of their friendship that meant “see you later, and good luck”, as he Ghosted backwards through a stone wall. As much as he admired his friend’s Gift, Gideon worried that one day he’d run out of Whispers and get stuck somewhere dangerous. But this time, the Gift seemed to work as intended, so Gideon found the secret door for their part of the campus and descended the stairs beyond it.

The secret stairs, as they were called by members of the Knights, were the only way to get in and out of the Academy’s underground storage, and as far as anyone outside the Knights knew, they didn’t exist. Usually hidden in plain sight as a locked doorknob sticking out of an inconspicuous wall, or a trapdoor under a rug, they allowed Knights to get to their headquarters quickly and quietly.

Gideon traversed the damp, spiral staircase and through a maze of underground rooms, eventually coming to a wall marked with a single, unlit sconce.

Gideon looked around, then knocked nine times in quick succession, then pausing briefly before a final tenth knock.

“Password…?” a voice hissed from the other side.

“Falchion,” Gideon hissed back, before the wall opened up. A tuft of air hit him as soon as the door opened, and it was immediately refreshing compared to the dank and stuffy smell of the labyrinthian storage rooms. He took a big inhale of that air, grateful that it smelled like life, before stepping inside. He had always found a “secret password” for entry to be amusing, like something children would do for a clubhouse made of pillows and sheets. But his Master was perpetually thinking several steps ahead, and relished the extra security.

The Knights of the Silver Moon’s headquarters had been Gideon’s home for the past several years, and although he didn’t sleep there, their influence gave him his own private room near his classes. The decor was simple, but clean, with bookshelves lining the spotless wood-paneled walls. Paintings of landscapes, wild animals, and Dorian himself adorned those walls, looking down at the ample amount of comfortable furniture. The absence of candles reminded Gideon of how, through his influence in the academy, Dorian had enlisted the help of several Light Gift users to illuminate the area. They weren’t allowed inside, but were paid well to keep balls of light maintained at “random coordinates”, which coincidentally happened to be inside the secret headquarters. Gideon was just grateful that as a young recruit, scrubbing ashes from walls wasn’t part of the hazing. He had always hated that chore as a child.

The student found his master with his feet up, looking into a crackling fireplace as he sat on a plush couch. The man turned his head to greet Gideon before he had come within ten feet of his place of respite.

“Gideon!” Bernhard Dorian smiled. “I see Torvald passed along my message. I’m sorry to bring you down here in the middle of classes.”

“Not at all,” Gideon apologized, his hand waving dismissively. “Although I’ll get in trouble if I’m late to Economics of Vintelli.”

The Master nodded. “I’ll get you back in time, there’s just something we need to discuss. Please, let’s talk in my office.”

Bernhard Dorian, the Master of the Knights of the Silver Dawn, escorted Gideon to a hallway nearby. The man, for as long as Gideon had known him, was crafty, wry, and loved this position of authority. Slightly shorter than Gideon, his thin frame betrayed a body of lean muscle; he had seen it during sparring practice several times. His slicked, well-manicured dark brown hair topped a head full of plans and schemes Gideon couldn’t comprehend, and his pale blue eyes made anyone looking at them think, “good luck figuring it out.”

The man had taken Gideon, a naive boy and son of a low-level noble from a less-desirable part of Morwell, under his wing near the end of his first year at Grenfield. Through merciless training, Dorian had shaped Gideon into what would pass as an adept of all nine combat stances, plus a tenth forbidden stance he had developed himself.

Once the pair had come to a simple, unassuming door, Dorian pulled a key ring from his pants pocket, then deftly cycled through them until he came to the one he had been looking for. Gently inserting it into the lock, he opened the door with an obnoxious creak. Gideon winced.

“Would you like me to ask the academy’s engineers for some oil?” Gideon asked, pointing to the door’s hinges as they stepped through into the office.

“”No need, son,” Dorian replied. “The noise prevents anyone from sneaking in quietly.”

Always a step ahead, Gideon thought.

Dorian made a gesture towards a set of overstuffed chairs near a fireplace, and while Dorian calmly searched through a bookcase along one of the walls, Gideon started a cozy fire and sat down in one of the chairs. He had been to this office only a few times; he had never ranked very highly up in The Knights of the Silver Moon. But he felt that with this summons, that just might change.

Gideon rose from his comfortable chair as his Master approached, who motioned for him to sit back down. They both did, with Dorian rigidly holding, based on Gideon’s judgment, a very strange and old book. He looked at the tome, then at his Master expectantly, trying to contain his excitement with a mask of stoicism. His controlled breathing brought in the sweet smell of burning sage through his nose, which helped to calm him down.

“So, Gideon,” Dorian began. “How do you like my little club?”

Gideon was slightly stunned at the question’s simplicity. He quickly gathered himself.

“The Knights? They’re great!” he replied eagerly.

I have to be professional, he thought. This is important.

Dorian made a brief, approving nod.

“That’s good to hear,” Dorian continued. “Although I’ve heard from sources that you aren’t particularly happy with certain…aspects.”

Gideon gulped, his mind beginning to race.

Where was this primal fear coming from?

“It’s true that while I do love the Knights and what they stand for, I feel like we could do more to help people.”

Dorian leaned forward, his hands tented in front of him, the book on his lap.

“I see. I appreciate your honesty. Torvald said he had heard you complaining about me specifically, and about wanting to leave,” the Master informed.

“Absolutely not!” Gideon corrected, his mouth remaining open in an unbelieving expression.

“Relax,” Dorian calmed, his hands pushing down air. “I knew Torvald hates you, and for good reason.”

“That’s a relief,” Gideon sighed, before his eyebrows furrowed at the realization. “Wait, what’s a ‘good reason’?”

Dorian smirked. “He hates you because he thinks you’ll take his position at my side. And he’s right.”

Gideon blinked. “...huh?”

“Torvald is…well, you know the man”, he began. “He’s strong, but lacks finesse. He can’t see the bigger picture, he just lives in the moment. He completely dominates the moment, but that’s all he can do. You have shown to not only be trustworthy, but that you think before you take action. A little too long sometimes, but that can be remedied with experience. I have a project for him that will take him out of the country for quite a while, and I need someone to step up and take his place. I was hoping…it would be you.”

Gideon’s mind felt incredible relief, like he had just received what he always wanted.

Did I really want this? Of course I did. He’s always been there for me, and has so much more to teach.

“I…I would be honored,” Gideon stuttered, his mind still struggling to come to terms with the present. “What do I need to do?”

Dorian leaned back in his chair, gently stroking the cover of the book in his lap. “You must swear to secrecy, and to the Knights,” he stated sternly.

Gideon nodded. “Of course, I would never turn my back on the Knights, or tell any of our secrets.”

The Master tilted his head slightly, one eye narrowing a hair’s width as it seemed to bore into his student’s very soul.

“I believe you,” he said, the tone in his voice turning away from the serious one he had been using. “Now…do you know what this book is?”

Gideon took a moment to catch his breath, then focused on the spine of the book, which had the only writing he could see.

“Not particularly, no,” he answered. “The letters look familiar, but I can’t read them.”

“That’s okay. This book was part of a historical collection, an artifact from Garesh,” Dorian said proudly, his eyes drifting to the cover. “I procured it years ago, and couldn’t decipher it until recently.”

“Incredible,” Gideon amazed. “Garesh fell over a thousand years ago, and anything from that culture is extremely rare. What does it say?”

Dorian chortled. “You know your history. This is a book on Proximancy.”

“Oh,” Gideon deflated. He had the history of magic drilled into him since he was a child.

“So it talks about how Whispers are gifts from the gods, filling our Parsells every morning so we can use our Gifts. That’s…history, all right,” Gideon rattled off, bored.

“Is it?” Dorian asked, a wry tone accompanying a raised eyebrow.

“What does that supposed to mean?” Gideon asked, curious but slightly defensive.

“It’s all…a lie,” Dorian announced in a breathy, dramatic voice, not being able to contain a full-toothed grin. He popped the knuckles on one hand, a habit he employed when he became too excited.

Gideon’s face contorted as his mind puzzled, not understanding what his Master was telling him.

“Ooooh yes,” Dorian continued. “This book is an example of the reason as to why Garesh and its culture was destroyed. They were there…when magic first came. And this book is heresy.”

“But we’ve always had Proximancy,” Gideon protested, his hands shakily moving to accent his argument. “The gods give us Gifts and the Whispers to use them; we become tied to a Parsell when we experience powerful emotion. And Garesh fell when the king’s brother led a coup d'etat against him for the country’s resources, taking it over to create Morwell. What else could that book possibly say?”

Dorian nodded, then looked down at the book before opening it. He carefully turned a few of the pages, which were somehow not crumbling, before stopping at one and showing Gideon. One side of the page was scribbled with the same type of text as the spine of the book, but the other had a diagram of a box full of wheels, rope, and what looked like more wheels with teeth on them. Gideon’s mind went to the machines of the artificers in the country’s capital, with their complicated gadgets that could do so many wondrous things.

“Even before the kingdom of Garesh, explorers found this device. They said it was bursting with power, and transformed the gold coins they had with them into items that held that power. When they held the gold, they discovered they had gained the capacity to use incredible abilities.”

“I…wait…” Gideon retorted. “This item on the page created the first Parsells?”

“Now you’re catching on,” Dorian answered. “The Parsells created were capable of holding an immense amount of power, and could turn objects made of gold into new Parsells as well, although not as strong.”

Gideon balked. “Incredible. What about the emotional connection to Parsells?” he asked eagerly.

“That aspect of Proximancy survived the purge of Garesh,” Dorian replied. “To connect to the Parsells and use their power, Gifted have to be in a highly emotional state to bond with Parsells, even with ones created directly from that device.”

“So the Whispers of the gods aren’t from the gods at all…” Gideon mourned, his heart aching at the thought. “It’s just a mysterious power connected to that device.”

“Yes and no,” Dorian said. “Maybe the gods fill up the Parsells at sunrise or it’s something else, and we still don’t know what determines who receives Gifts, but it all traces back to this machine. The way Parsells are made is like how a sickness spreads through a town.”

Gideon was starting to feel sick himself.

“So…what does this have to do with me?” he asked.

Dorian closed the book and placed it back on his lap. “I want to find this device. The ancients of Garesh called it the ‘Wheels of a Thousand Beginnings’, and if the Knights could find it, then we could create as many strong Parsells as we want! Imagine, never running out of Whispers, no matter how much of your Gift you used.”

The man popped his knuckles in excitement before collecting himself again. Gideon could never seem to get used to the unnerving sound.

“This book tells us that if we collect enough of these ancient Parsells, the ones created directly from this device, their collective Whispers will lead us to it,” he continued. “But I need the help of Gifted like you, Knights I can trust, to find and secure these relics.”

Gideon sat, staring at his mentor while stunned. The fireplace nearby gave the side of his face a pleasant warmth, while casting his Master’s visage into a mask of half light, and half shadow. The gentle crackling of the fire filled the void of silence between the two men, as Gideon thought out his Master’s plan.

He needs me, he thought. But my Gift isn’t very useful. And where are these ancient Parsells anyway?

“I must know,” Gideon began, breaking the silence. “Where are these Parsells you’re talking about, and why me? My Gift isn’t very strong.”

Dorian grinned at his student. “Well, if I knew where these Parsells were, I wouldn’t be here, would I? I have some leads…but since these items are powerful and probably large, I assume most of them will be guarded. And as for your Gift, I can’t think of someone more suited to scout locations before the rest of the Knights come in. For safety, of course.”

Gideon had trained thiefcraft, although Knights were only taught to use it as a last resort. “So, we’d be stealing them,” he said flatly. “From their owners.”

Is that so bad?

“I’d say we’d be ‘liberating’ them,” Dorian corrected. “With enough gold and emotion, new Parsells can be made if they’re needed badly enough. The Gifted linked to them just see an old, large Parsell; they don’t have the big picture like we do. Plus, you wouldn’t let some backwoods people in the middle of nowhere stop you from following orders, would you?”

They would just stand in our way.

Gideon’s fingers tapped subconsciously on his belt buckle. “No, I suppose not.”

“That’s one of the reasons why I want you to do this,” Dorian said proudly. “I saw what happened at the sparring ring last year. Killing eight Knights in a rage before I finally got through to you. That level of ambition is exactly what I need.”

Sparring match, what?

Yes…the weak would stand in our way.

The idea of this quest seemed to be getting better, sitting more comfortably in his mind.

The gods decide who is weak, not you, another voice flowed into Gideon’s mind.

“What match? I killed someone?” Gideon asked, puzzled.

“Oh! I’m sorry, that was a slip up on my part,” Dorian soothed. “I was thinking of someone else. It was before you came to the academy, a very sad state of affairs.”

They all died.

“I see,” the student replied. “I just thought for a second…nevermind.”

Your moment of triumph.

Gideon shook his head to clear it.

“And what happens once we make all these new Parsells?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “Do we sell them to fund the growth of the Knights?”

Dorian chuckled, which seemed highly out of place to Gideon for the serious conversation. “No, money isn’t an issue. We would just use the Parsells to make the world a better place for the Gifted. A world where we can use our powers as much as we desire, to make our dreams come true.”

But what about mother, and Xander? Gideon thought of his unGifted mother and older brother. If the Gifted have unlimited power, there’s nothing to guarantee the safety of everyone else.

The unGifted are weak.

Those who abuse their power are the weakest of all, the calmer voice chided.

Gideon blinked, trying to clear the intrusive thoughts from his head.

We could rule them. It’s only fair.

Fair to whom?

“Is something wrong, son?” Dorian asked, after noticing his student had started to stare at nothing.

“Uh…I’m fine, Master,” he replied. “I’m suddenly not feeling well. I should probably visit the doctor before my next class.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dorian comforted, standing up. “I need you rested and ready to take on some amazing responsibilities. But I know you’re up to the task, don’t worry.”

Gideon nodded, standing up and leaving the headquarters to the Knights of the Silver Moon the same way he came. A borrowed lantern helped him to see his way back, his mind clashing between light and dark like the flame dancing through the underground maze. By the time he had reached the surface and felt the warm afternoon air hit his face, his mind cleared and he knew that he had to escape. His soul had never felt as conflicted as it did in that moment, and it made him realize what he was doing: taking ominous orders and discussing insidious plans in secret, one that will mainly benefit those in power. He didn’t like the thought of it, and knew he wasn’t raised that way. The thought of his life with the Knights being a lie made him ill, but his medical classes taught that an infected limb sometimes had to be removed.

With the long walk back to the academy proper, Gideon couldn’t explain the tug-of-war that was raging in his mind. Dorian’s Gift, Leadership, had allowed him to make those under him feel good about following him. It had always made sure the Knights were rife with loyalty at all times.

But this… he thought. This feels wrong.

CHAPTER 2

After returning to the main campus, Gideon attended his class, albeit a few minutes late, sitting in the back row next to Frederick and Richter, one of the academy’s cooks. Richter had never shown any level of martial prowess, but free classes were included in his meager pay. In truth, he loved the kitchen, but didn’t want his mind to stagnate after a long day of menial labor. The cook was splattered with flour, but his bright face, which he had recently washed, was eagerly listening to the professor talk about economics.

“Gentlemen,” Gideon whispered, before sitting down next to his friends. “Did I miss anything good?”

“Professor Teale is lecturing about the importance of free trade in Vintelli ports conflicting with their shipping unions,” Richter said, not even looking up. “Fascinating.”

Gideon looked for hints of sarcasm on Richter’s demeanor, and found none.

Frederick rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s what it is. So what did the Master want?”

“He wants me to step up, and spearhead some projects,” Gideon answered, worried about sharing too much. “But I’m not getting a good feeling about the whole thing.”

“What do you mean?” Fred replied, ditching any attempt to pay attention to the lecture.

“I mean…my mind is having a hard time understanding what happened at the sparring ring that day,” Gideon continued. “I have memories, but then they’re gone. And I feel like my spirit is conflicted on what Master wants me to do.”

Frederick stared at him, confused. “Sparring ring?”

“Don’t you remember? I went into a rage and killed eight Knights before Master was able to talk me down,” Gideon said, his heart aching. “I remember, but it’s like the memory is trying to hide…I don’t know.”

“I remember one match, in our third year,” Frederick pondered out loud. “You were ready to spar, but all of your opponents got sick just before the match. They ended up having to go home.”

Gideon’s mouth twitched. “But…Master Dorian just told me about it. He said it was ‘ambitious’”.

Frederick shrugged. “If you had slaughtered that many Knights, even if it’s not against our rules the school would have probably expelled you and handed you off to the constables. Are you sure that’s what happened?”

“I…must be misremembering it,” Gideon dismissed, after he saw another Knight of the Silver Moon tilting his head towards their group. “Maybe I need to take a holiday.”

“If you’ll cover my expenses, I’ll go with you,” Richter said, his eyes still fixed on the front of the room. “I can cook, if that’ll help.”

“I’m good with that,” Frederick beamed. “Do you remember those sand…”

GIDEON, STOP!

WHAT ARE YOU DOING??

PUT IT DOWN, WE CAN STILL FIX THIS

…All sick, I’m afraid. Sorry, son

OH GODS…ALL OF THEM…

Just go and rest, I’ll find new partners tomorrow.

GIDEON, GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF

“Gideon?” Frederick prodded, shaking the man’s shoulders. “Are you ok? You kind of slipped away for a minute there. What are you staring at?”

“Huh? What?” he replied, in a daze. “My mind…it’s making me relive memories I never had. At least, I can’t tell if they really happened.”

Frederick looked at his friend, worry plastered on his face. “Go back to your room and get some rest. I’ll tell Teale that you had violent food poisoning if he asks.”

Gideon wiped his forehead, and noticed his handkerchief came back wet with sweat. “Good idea. Although I’d appreciate a less embarrassing excuse. I’ll meet you both later.”

Richter and Frederick both nodded, the latter finally turning away and giving Gideon their two-fingered salute.

CHAPTER 3

Despite the emotional turmoil of the previous day, Gideon slept heavily. The familiarity of his room, with the smell of sword oil, leather, and soap, had calmed him almost immediately the previous night. After he left his last class, the student enjoyed a quiet dinner in the mess hall, then watched the stars on his father’s telescope before he became too tired to look through the viewport.

Using the telescope, the large brass and glass tube his family had insisted he take to the academy, gave him a feeling of nostalgia and comfort at the same time that nothing else could replicate.

“Hello, old friend,” Gideon greeted the device, after taking it from its case and setting it up on top of a rarely-used tower at the outer edge of the academy campus.

The telescope, as always, didn’t respond. It stood firm, pointing towards the heavens. Gideon pulled his overcoat tighter, as the wind whipped through and chilled him.

“What do you think I should do?” he asked gently. “I could stay, but if I reject Master’s promotion, no one would ever let me live it down.”

The words hung in the chill air.

“You’re right,” Gideon responded to his own question. “I can’t kill or hurt innocent people, even if they have what Master wants.”

A shooting star flew overhead, the brass companion didn’t chase it.

“I don’t remember it either,” he continued. “No one seems to. And even now, it only seems like a dream. Did it happen, or not?”

“I think…it did,” Gideon said, becoming upset. “And I think Master is covering it up somehow. But why would he do that?”

The telescope, of course, didn’t know either. It continued to stare indifferently up to the speckled black dome above.

Gideon chuckled. “You know, I just want to wash my hands of all of this. The academy, Master, the Knights…but I need to think about it.”

The student peered into the telescope’s viewfinder, seeing the constellations he had always seen. They were comforting; like a family that would never leave, always watching over him.

“You won’t tell, would you?”

CHAPTER 4

“You’re up next, buddy,” Frederick chimed to Gideon as they both stood on the sparring grounds in the next day’s chilly morning. Gideon had been lost in thought, the swaying movements and weapon slashes had almost put him into a trance, his brain weaving in and out with the possibilities of his predicament.

He looked up to see Ned, a short and stocky man holding a wooden practice mace, standing over his unconscious opponent. Gideon didn’t see any blood from his position, but knew that Ned was Gifted with Friction, and could swing his weapon without encountering resistance in the air. It made him a deadly opponent in the ring.

“I saw that!” Professor Barrett squawked as he jammed a finger in the air at his student. “Mister Sturges, I said there was to be no Gift usage. The match is a draw, and be lucky you get that!”

Ned heaved the mace onto his shoulders, with a smug grin on his face as he looked at the professor.

“My opponent and I agreed to use them as gentlemen,” he mocked. “But you’re far from the action, maybe you didn’t hear us.”

Snickers hissed from the class of onlookers, as the Professor sneered before grinning himself.

“Is that so?” he replied. “Mister Eldridge, you’re next anyway. Would you like to show Mister Sturges the finer points of unGifted combat?”

Gideon blinked. He wasn’t really in the mood to fight anyone, let alone a known cheater like Ned. But if he refused, the Professor would give him demerits. Barrett was one of the few teachers on campus who did not back down from confrontations with The Knights of the Silver Moon.

“Yes, sir,” Gideon replied, as he handed his coat to Frederick. He had already retrieved a wooden dueling sword from the rack of practice weapons and drew it from his belt, then swung it in the air for a few moments to get used to its balance.

After he had stepped up to the outside edge of the sparring ring, Gideon turned towards the Professor.

“Are we being graded on touches, or knockout?” he asked, as he tried to clear his head.

“Unless the esteemed Mister Sturges takes a trip to the infirmary, you’ll fail the exam,” the man replied evenly. The professor, who had been standing on a raised chair to view the fights, glared down at the small arena as the wind nudged his gray beard. “If anyone gives you any guff for beating up a student, I’ll take care of it.”

Gideon sighed. He preferred touch combat as a duelist, and full-contact knockout battles were unnecessarily chaotic and angry.

Barrett blew a whistle, which caused Gideon’s mind to wake up. Years of training had conditioned him to immediately switch to his favorite combat stance: Kawarri. Seventh of the Nine known Stances, its teachings made Gideon position his feet apart, his left arm out for balance, his right extending the weapon towards Sturges.

“Watch it, Gid. He’s using his Gift already!” Frederick bellowed from the sidelines. Ned lunged forward, bringing his mace from low to high with a sharp, underhand swing. Gideon deftly stepped out of the way, punching Ned in the upper torso with his free left hand.

Ned Sturges wheezed, before spinning around to face his opponent again.

“Afraid of taking a hit like a man?” he spat, as rage began to flicker in his eyes.

“When you start fighting like a man, maybe you’ll hit me,” Gideon replied. He wasn’t even trying to goad the man into attacking, but his intentions did not matter to his opponent.

Ned roared and ran at Gideon, his mace held overhead. He brought it down supernaturally fast due to his Gift, but Gideon held his weapon vertically at an angle, and the head of the mace skimmed and scraped angrily down the wooden blade. Just before the mace head hit Gideon’s hilt, he jerked it to the side, to fully and completely overextend Ned’s overreach. Gideon brought his weapon around, and slammed the flat edge of the blade into Ned’s face. He could feel the man’s nose break with a sick, wet crunch, and saw him weave to his right side trying to get away from Gideon, who had taken a step back in case Ned was feigning the pain to lull him into mace range.

To Gideon’s surprise, Sturges backed all the way to the edge of the arena, glaring at him as he tried to regain his focus. As far as Gideon knew, Sturges only practiced Stance Five: Zhatt. It specialized in heavy, overhead strikes to scare and bludgeon enemies. It took little skill to master and relied on brute strength.

He won’t hit me, even with his Gift, Gideon thought, as he looked down at his own weapon. My stance is all about cont-

Gideon saw the blood on his wooden blade. A small amount, and he had bloodied weapons before, but the red blotch kicked his brain loose and his eyes went wide.

GET THE CONSTABLES, HE’S NOT GOING TO STOP

There’s no need. Gideon, can you hear me?

WEAAAAAAK

SOMEONE GET HIS SWORD AWAY FROM HIM!

This is all a dream, son. It’s time to rest now.

“AAAAAAH!” Gideon snapped out of his trance as Ned had already gotten right in front of him, shouting with effort. He glanced down to see Ned’s cruel grin, his teeth exposed, just before he felt the force in his side. The blow hit his torso with a thud, and he felt at least one rib crack. The attack expelled air from Gideon’s lungs, and he caught himself from tumbling over completely by landing on a knee.

Tapping into his Friction Gift once again, Sturges wound back his mace for another blow, aiming for the top of Gideon’s head. However, when the mace was raised at its highest point, Gideon recovered and smashed the pommel of his own weapon into Ned’s neck. He heard the mace thud to the ground behind him and his enemy stood, stunned from the blow. Gideon then grabbed the man’s right shoulder and forced it down, Ned’s torso colliding with his braced knee.

With a heavy wheeze and groan, Ned Sturges slumped over and collapsed into the coarse dirt of the sparring ring. Gideon stood up, holding his wounded side, before kicking away his fallen opponent’s mace.

“Did I pass?” Gideon shouted to Professor Barrett, with a grin. He looked around for a moment, noticing money changing hands with the students on the sidelines. Not surprising.

The old man smirked back. “Extra credit, my boy. Go visit the doctor to have a look at that rib. It could have been a lot worse.”

“Gladly,” Gideon huffed, as he walked back to his spot outside of the arena next to Frederick. He tossed his wooden dueling sword at the weapon stand, it landed in the dirt just below it. His friend gave him a light punch to the shoulder upon his return.

“You had me worried there,” Frederick began. “You just…stopped. He could have gone for your head if he wasn’t so short. Are you okay?”

Gideon chuckled, the pain caused him to wince. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I just had a weird dream again.”

“Next up, Murphy versus Lothe!” bellowed Barrett, which prompted two men to enter the arena. Frederick and Gideon didn’t bother watching; they knew Lothe and his spear would win.

“A dream, like yesterday at Corvo’s class?” Frederick asked. “Maybe you should talk to Master about it. If it’s about that ‘incident’ and he seems to be the only one who remembers what actually happened, then maybe he can help.”

Gideon shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. I have a feeling…that he’s the one who made me forget.”

“No idea how he could even do that,” Frederick replied. “Replacing memories is an extremely rare Gift, and I know Master doesn’t have that one. But weird dreams aside, don’t scare me like that. Ned could have killed you out there if you weren’t careful.”

“How much did you bet?” Gideon asked, raising an eyebrow at his friend. Frederick dismissed the thought with a brushing motion of his hand.

“Give me some credit,” he reasoned. “The odds were very much in your favor to win. I don’t have the bankroll to put enough down to make the bet worth it.”

“I’m sorry I make your life so difficult,” Gideon apologized. “I’ll try to lose more often to better the odds.”

“That’s the least you can do,” Frederick mused. “You still haven’t paid me back for your custom dueling sword.”

Gideon remembered the weapon he had left in his locked room that morning. He didn’t want to risk losing it in the day-to-day activity of the academy, so he only ever brought it out to clean, practice, and to fight at ranked tournaments. Frederick came from a long line of esteemed blacksmiths, so Gideon commissioned him to forge a heavier than normal dueling blade on credit.

“My enlightening presence isn’t payment enough?” Gideon suggested, in a mock offense.

“Your presence and two silver will buy a bucket of coal,” Fred retorted. “But…huh.”

“Huh what?” Gideon questioned.

“Have you seen any other Knights today?” Fred asked. “I know there are at least four in this class, the ones that attend regularly anyway.”

Gideon looked around, noticing that his friend was correct; there were no Knights of the Silver Moon nearby.

“I guess you’re right,” he said, slightly confused. “Did the Master call for a meeting?”

Frederick shook his head. “Don’t think so. I haven’t heard anything.”

“Maybe I’m being paranoid,” Gideon said as he shook his head. “I’m going to get this rib taken care of. Are you okay here?”

“Hey, I’m not as strong as you, but I can hold my own in the ring,” Fred replied. “Get outta here.”

Gideon nodded, and made his way to the medical wing of the academy, gripping his side as he walked to the familiar place.

CHAPTER 5

The medical wing of Grenfield Academy was a short walk from the sparring ring. Gideon remembered reading about how long ago, it had been located clear across the campus. But since a vast majority of injuries were instigated due to combat, it had been moved. Gideon sat on a wooden stool, in the corner of a room where the walls were covered in shelves full of phials of various liquids. The smell of acrid, medicinal herbs burned his nose, which has a much better smell than that of rotting flesh; another common aroma found in the morgue next door.

Gideon had never liked that a school, even a combat school, would need a morgue. Centuries ago, it fed soldiers into the Morwellian army during the Great War of Yontin Plains, and accidents were common. Now, severely injuring a fellow student was expected, almost encouraged, as strength increased one’s social standing. Gideon never really cared, he just wanted to be trained and go out into the world. But he was here, with what most likely was a broken rib thanks to a cheap shot from a bully.

The doctor, an older woman with her long gray hair tied behind her, stepped into the room. She looked at Gideon for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.

“Mister Eldridge, you’re here…again,” Doctor Miriam Hodge quipped, pointing at the injured side of Gideon’s torso he had been favoring. “I’m guessing that it was a training accident?”

“Ned Sturges,” he replied. That’s all he had to say.

“Mmmmhm mhm mhm,” she hummed. “That boy is a beast. I sometimes wish he’d lose control of that Gift of his and slip down a couple flights of stairs. He got you with that mace, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Gideon answered.

“But you’re still standing…sort of. You got him even better.”

Gideon chuckled, he always appreciated the kindly old woman’s bedside manner. This wasn’t the first time he had stumbled into her clinic to be healed by her Mend Gift. “Yeah, he’s out cold.”

Doctor Hodge smiled, in a slightly wicked way. “It’s too bad that by the time he gets in here for healing, my Parsell will be all out of Whispers.”

“That’s a really inconvenient coincidence,” Gideon replied. “Such a shame when that happens.”

The Doctor raised Gideon’s left arm, then felt his ribs.

“Indeed, quite a shame. Looks like two ribs this time,” she said flatly. One moment.”

Physically tapping the thick golden bracelet on her wrist, the Doctor closed her eyes. Gideon saw her mouth move just slightly, then felt a strange sensation at his side. In a blink, the pain was gone.

The student noticed the Doctor’s way of channeling Whispers to be amusing the first time she had Mended him. Gifted didn’t actually have to tap, touch, or even be in physical contact with their Parsell, but some considered the act as part of the way they channeled; to comfort their brain with a familiar action so the Whispers would flow more easily.

Doctor Hodge exhaled. “There we go. I just need you to sign a form, then you’re free to go.”

Gideon nodded with gratitude, flexing his shoulder and being relieved at the lack of pain. The Doctor left the room, and closed the door behind her with a gentle click of the latch.

The minutes slowly crept by, Gideon attempted to amuse himself by reading various labels. He had thought about studying the medical field at one point, but didn’t think he could study hard enough to understand what he would need to save people.

Huh…where is she? Gideon asked himself, after what he thought was ten minutes had passed. Doctor Hodge was older, but quick. He should have been on his way out by now.

Gideon walked towards the solid wooden door at the other end of the examination room, twisting the knob.

“Doctor Hodge? I’m afraid I need to get go-”

A flicker of frantic movement made Gideon shudder, which kicked in his instincts. The feeling caused him to duck, preventing him from being decapitated by an axe that embedded itself in the door jamb inches from his head.

Gideon blinked, and looked forward to notice Torvald, who had already let go of the axe and was reaching into his belt to draw out another weapon. Adrenaline coursed through him, and he tackled the murderous man. They both rolled on the ground frantically; kicks into stomachs landed before Gideon managed to pin his attacker under him.

“What are you doing?!” Gideon grunted, as he positioned his arms for a chokehold. He strung his arms under Torvald’s chin and pulled.

Torvald gagged and wheezed, his face twisted into a grimace of pure rage. “Finishing…the job,” he coughed out.

Gideon strained his arms to keep the bulky man contained. “What job? What are you talking about?”

The stocky man stopped fighting for a moment, his arms started to lose their strength. “You’re a liability to the Knights, Dorian wants you dead.”

Gideon’s eyes went wide. How did he know I wanted to leave?

Torvald chuckled with a wheeze. “You’re asking yourself how he knew you wanted to leave. Do you even know what my Gift is?”

“No one knows what it is,” Gideon replied. “You’ve kept it a secret.”

“The Master knows,” Torvald choked. “He had a feeling you wanted to leave with his secrets, and told me to spy on you.”

Torvald thrashed with a renewed strength, breaking free of Gideon’s lock and gratefully gulping air. They both jumped to their feet, ending up a few feet away from each other. Torvald pulled out a punch dagger from his belt and tightened his fingers around the glossy wooden grip. With another deft motion, he flung out a piece of metal, which skittered along the floor with a hollow tinkling.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Gideon looked down in horror to see a piece of the brass casing from his family’s telescope, bent and dented, lying uselessly on the stone floor in front of him.

“You should really be careful of who you tell your secrets to,” Torvald smirked, while tapping his ear. “You don’t know who could be Listening.”

Before Gideon could even respond, Torvald lunged forward, shooting the punch dagger out like the strike of an angry snake. Gideon writhed away at the last second, as he tried to maintain some semblance of rational thought while he scanned the room for potential weapons. He dodged a few more quick jabs before he grabbed a bonesaw, which had been hanging from a hook on a nearby cupboard. The weight of the tool didn’t bother him, but the clucky distribution of the weight did. Gideon held it by the handle, extending it with Stance Seven.

Torvald’s feet shuffled, getting into a more rigid stance now that his opponent had a weapon. The stocky, angry man favored Stance Five: Revell, a favorite of fighters who used short-reach weapons. That much, Gideon knew.

Gideon noticed the change in Stance immediately, as he took it into consideration with his own.

Have to close the gap, he thought. He knows my stance, I’m going to need to get creative here.

Torvald let loose with a barrage of quick jabs, which Gideon deflected with the saw. One thrust got through, slicing a clean slit at the top of his left shoulder. It had barely grazed the skin, but Gideon could feel the trickle of blood as it started to run down his arm.

When Torvald wasn’t actively attacking his opponent, he kicked things on the floor towards him, in an attempt to distract and disorient him. Gideon knew better, and steeled his focus on the man’s vicious weapon. He winced as a footstool flew and banged against his shin.

Suddenly, Torvald lunged just where Gideon wanted him to. He went for his right arm, and when he did, Gideon pivoted to the side, pushing the bone saw’s open space between the handle and blade down Torvald’s arm, like threading a needle. Once it reached his opponent’s elbow, Gideon pulled the saw down then towards him again. The action raised Torvald’s forearm, then embedded the back of the saw blade into the crook of his elbow.

The shock of the impromptu riposte made Torvald drop his weapon, which clanged to the floor. Gideon used the saw to pull the man closer, and land a solid left hook onto his opponent’s face. He repeated the attack until Torvald’s legs gave out from under him, then followed him to the floor with his forearm pinning the man’s neck.

Torvald groaned, blood sputtering from his nose and mouth as he tried to understand what had just happened. One eye was completely swollen, the other looked up at Gideon, half asleep.

“Who else is coming after me?!” Gideon demanded.

“I…” Torvald began, confused.

Gideon backhanded the man, sending a spray of blood and spittle onto the floor beside him.

“WHO DID DORIAN SEND?!” Gideon barked, the words growled from behind clenched teeth.

Torvald gained a moment of lucidity, and looked Gideon in the eye.

“Everyone,” he whispered.

Gideon applied more pressure to Torvald’s neck, until he felt him stop struggling. He stood up and stared at the unconscious man, before picking up the punch dagger and dropping it into a waste bin. He bound and gagged Torvald quickly, in case he woke up.

He sent everyone, Gideon thought. He sent…everyone.

The reality Gideon Eldridge had built up for the previous few years suddenly shattered; as his plans for the future, his family and friends, and his mentor all dissolved in that desperate and panicked moment. His mind went numb as it attempted to process what had to be done, before he remembered.

“Oh no, Doctor Hodge!”

Gideon found the Doctor in the next room down the hallway. Dorian must have ordered the Knights to clear all medical staff out of the area, because she would have been found instantly under normal circumstances.

Miriam Hodge’s distaste for a majority of the Knights of the Silver Moon’s brutality was well-known, although she had agreed to treat them anyway; she made herself feel better by giving their injuries a lower priority. Either Dorian’s orders included leaving her behind to let her fend for herself in the chaos, or Torvald had made a last-minute adjustment, but she was no longer a semi-nuisance to the Knights anymore.

Gideon looked at the Doctor, tied to a chair. A single dagger wound had pierced her chest, and the blood still dripped onto the once-spotless stone floor below. The student could still feel that she had Whispers left as he touched her Parsell bracelet, and smiled through tears.

You sly, old woman, he thought. You could have healed through several attacks, but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, did you?

He gently untied her, and placed her reverently on the floor.

One person is already dead, because of you.

I didn’t kill her.

But you didn’t stop the one who did. He was after you, she was in the way.

I had no idea Dorian would try to have me killed.

Really? You knew he had eyes everywhere. That no one leaves. Did you expect him to sit around and think about it?

I just needed more time…

Your decision had been made. Look at the cost.

The hostile thoughts plagued his mind, they wanted him to doubt himself; to lose control. But he couldn’t lose control now, there was work to be done.

Gather supplies, warn Fred, get out, he thought, as he created a checklist in his mind. No one else has to die.

The ones trying to kill you don’t deserve it?

Gideon shook his head. Those…eerie thoughts. They were in his own internal voice, but he could never remember having such an evil and shiftless mindset.

But I couldn’t remember the sparring ring, he argued with himself.

He didn’t want to kill any of the Knights on his way off the campus, they had been manipulated by Dorian just as much as he had. If he destroyed the headquarters, they would be so busy dealing with it he would be able to make an escape.

First step, Gideon thought with resolution. I need to get a weapon.

CHAPTER 6

Gideon sat in a lavatory stall, as he thought about his next plan of attack. He thankfully hadn’t run into any other Knights of the Silver Moon, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know where he was.

Torvald implied my telescope was listening…is that his Gift? He calculated. The Gift of Listening was not terribly rare, but Gideon didn’t know what it was capable of.

It seems like he doesn’t even need to be nearby or within sight to Listen with his Gift…but if he doesn’t know exactly where I am and if I don’t say anything, I may be in the clear.

Gideon assessed his resources and allies. Outside of the Knights, they were scarce.

I need my sword, but there’s no doubt my room is being guarded by this point, he thought. Frederick may have a spare…

His stomach lurched at the thought of his best friend trying to kill him.

I can’t trust anyone associated with the Knights.

You can take them on.

And draw attention to myself?

You’re a marked man already. Might as well take a few down with you.

Gideon shook his head.

I will not be like them.

CHAPTER 7

In Grenfield’s spacious kitchen, Richter started the prep work for the mess hall’s dinner, like he did every day. Peeling potatoes and other various starchy and cheap foods, boiling meat, cleaning and mopping…it was all part of the process that he felt was mindless, yet peaceful at the same time. He relished the quiet time he had, to prepare on his own before the other cooks came in and started getting in the way.

He set some stew to boil in an enormous cauldron in the corner, and checked the level of heat before he covered it and heard the door open behind him.

“Dinner won’t be ready for another hour, at least,” he began. “If you’re hungry, there are rolls in the m…”

Richter turned, to see Torvald menacing the doorway. Semi-dried blood stuck to his nose, and had run down his face a few minutes before. His dark, wild eyes glared at the cook, who had just realized that he had nothing to defend himself with. Richter suppressed a sad laugh; even if he did, there was no way he could have defended himself against this man. In truth, Torvald had always terrified him, he had seen his cruelty first hand while spectating fights with Gideon and Frederick. But his friends couldn’t help right now.

Torvald closed the door behind him, with an unsettlingly low level of noise.

“Where is he?” he growled, then coughed; the blood had made his throat scratchy. The Menders in the medical wing had healed him up quickly, but the blood was still there.

“Where is who?” Richter replied, doing his best to not antagonize.

“Eldridge,” Torvald answered behind gritted teeth.

If he’s the one that did that to the brute, good for him, he thought.

Richter dried his hands on a cloth tied to his belt, before opening a nearby oven and checking the temperature. It was an automatic action he took every day, and the movement was the only thing that kept him from being paralyzed with fear.

Huh…my hands are shaking… he thought, looking down at his calloused fingers. He was used to pain and had accidentally burned and sliced his hands too many times to count, but this situation was beyond unsettling.

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday,” Richter said. “He was acting strangely in class, but he said he was fine. Is he okay?”

“He won’t be when the Knights are through with him,” Torvald spat angrily. “But that’s none of your concern. I know you and Krass are friends…are you telling me you haven’t seen him at all?

A bead of sweat coalesced on Richter’s forehead. He dabbed it carefully with a towel.

“It sure is hot in here. Like I said, not since yesterday,” he answered. “He wasn’t feeling well and Fred told him to go rest. I’ve had to pull a double shift here so I’ve been stuck in the kitchens since late last night. Have you asked Fred?”

Torvald scowled. “I haven’t been able to find Krass, either. Isn’t that strange…”

Richter chuckled nervously. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

In a split second, the cruel Knight rushed Richter, grabbing him by the back of the neck and slamming his head into the wooden countertop. The cook’s vision flashed and spun, the rest of his body going rigid in self-defense.

“I can tell when someone is lying to me,” Torvald whispered with hostility into Richter’s ear. “That’s one of my biggest issues with weak unGifted like you…you think you can get away with it.”

“Get away with what?!” Richter panicked. “I told you, I haven’t seen Gideon all day!”

Torvald, still pinning the cook down with his left hand, reached out onto the countertop with his right and grabbed a meat cleaver. Richter had just set it down to start chopping beef for the evening’s stew, and looked at the gleaming, wicked blade out of the corner of his eye. He gasped and tried to break free, but it was no use.

“I’ll give you one more chance to tell me the truth,” Torvald bargained, tilting the cleaver in his hand and inspecting it. “Well…you have ten chances to tell me the truth, if you understand what I’m going for.”

Torvald slammed Richter’s head against the counter again, and while the cook was stunned, he grabbed his right wrist and jammed it down, fingers exposed on the rough wooden surface.

“Let’s start fresh,” Torvald said with a sneer. “Question one: WHERE. IS. ELDRIDGE?”

The Knight of the Silver Moon raised the cleaver threateningly, using a finger to slide one of Richter’s into an easier angle to hit.

Richter began sobbing uncontrollably. “Please don’t cut it off, I don’t know where he is, I swear! They’ll fire me if I can’t cook and I don’t have any other skills, please!”

“Do you think I’m the type who gives out mercy?” Torvald replied. “That’s a wrong answer. Nine more to go!”

Torvald flexed his torso, pulling back the cleaver for a single, brutal strike. Richter felt what he was doing and couldn’t take any more.

“OKAY OKAY!” Richter cried out in desperation. “He’s hiding in the first year student dorms. There’s a hidden passage to the outer campus courtyard in a closet near the north wall. He came through here a few minutes ago to grab supplies, and is going to leave once it gets dark. Just don’t hurt me anymore!”

Richter heard a loud thud near his hand, and winced his eyes closed so he couldn’t see it. When he opened them, he noticed that Torvald had buried the blade a few hairs away from his exposed finger. His body flooded with relief.

“See? Was that so hard?” Torvald mocked, his face threateningly close to his prey. “Next time, remember your place and answer me. I don’t want to work for what’s mine.”

The man released Richter’s hand, with its now bruised wrist, from his steel grip. The cook let loose a wavering gasp and slid to the floor, gratefully holding his hand with all five fingers still attached.

Torvald opened the door to the kitchen, swinging it wide and quickly looking around before turning his head back towards Richter, who was wiping away tears.

“Coward,” he spat, before leaving and shutting the door behind him.

A blessed silence coated the kitchen, as the cook sat on the floor. He could hear his own heart beat, while the nearby oven emitted a soft crackling noise from the fires within. Wordlessly, he stood up and walked towards the larder, a small room used for cold storage, and opened the door.

Gideon Eldridge crouched resolutely in a corner, holding a large empty sack in one hand and a steak knife in the other. He looked up at Richter, and made a motion with the knife hand. The cook understood, and shut the door behind him.

“Are you all right?” Gideon whispered, he had noticed his friend shaking, and his eyes were red.

“I’ve never been more scared in my life, but I’m okay now, thanks,” Richter replied. “I thought he was really going to mutilate my hand.”

The Knight shook his head. “He would have, if you didn’t give him an answer. How much time do we have?”

Richter sighed. “The space he’s looking for is under a trapdoor in a closet packed full of old books. He’ll have to clear them all to check it, but that still only gives us a few minutes. What do you need?”

Gideon thought clearly for a moment, he hadn’t been able to while Torvald was so closeby.

“Road supplies for a few days at least,” he listed. “I’ll keep this knife, since I can conceal it. Apples, some hard cheese, a waterskin.”

He took a mental inventory, gently rubbing the amulet of Avara he kept around his neck. A keepsake from his mother and his Parsell, now it’s all he had.

“Were you able to get anything from your room before they started doing this?” Richter asked.

“No, I’ve got nothing,” Gideon replied. The Knights are everywhere, I’m surprised I was even able to get in here without being seen.”

His eyes widened. “Wait… did Torvald touch anything while he was in the kitchen?” Gideon asked, worry plastered on his face.

Richter chewed his lip. “The door, a cleaver…” he said, rubbing his wrist. “I think that’s it.”

“Okay,” Gideon replied. “I think he has a Listen Gift, and can Listen through an object if he touches it. I’m not sure, but that makes the most sense. So just in case he did that, you need to act like nothing is wrong once you get back in there, okay?”

“Got it,” Richter nodded. “How are you going to escape?”

“I’m going down to the Knights headquarters,” Gideon answered. “There’s a book there I need to steal from Dorian, then I’ll try to start a fire. There’s a hidden exit, and in the smoke and chaos I’ll get out through that door. The fire will pull Knights from the entire campus, which will give me a clear path to get off the grounds and into a neighboring town.”

Richter narrowed his eyes.

“You’re going to the headquarters of a group that wants to kill you?” he asked, incredulously.

Gideon nodded, solemnly. “There’s a book with very important knowledge that Dorian wants to use to hurt people. The Knights have been my family for years, but if I can at least temporarily stop them from scheming for a while by damaging their base, it’s worth the risk. Plus, it’s the last place they’ll be looking for me.”

“I still don’t like it,” Richter said, shaking his head. “But whatever you need me to do, I’ll do. I’m tired of them bullying this school, they think they’re untouchable…A little humility wouldn’t hurt.”

Gideon grinned. “That’s the spirit. Do you have anything I could use to really get a good fire going?”

Richter scanned the room, which was full of sacks and jars of various shapes and volumes, before his eyes settled on a glass jar, about the size of a loaf of bread.

Lord Varoxis’ Classic Honchardt Rum - 80% Alcohol by Volume

The cook grinned, delighting in the payback of Torvald’s brutality.

“I think I have something that just might work.”

CHAPTER 8

Gideon left the confines of the kitchen, worried about not just his own safety, but that of his friends and family.

Was it selfish of me to hide in the larder while Richter was being threatened? He thought.

Possibly…but if we had fought in that kitchen, my friend most certainly would have been killed. Torvald would have done it just to get a reaction out of me.

He still felt a knot in his stomach, and toyed with the idea of this whole thing being his fault. Maybe it was, for being blind to Dorian's machinations for so long. But could he really blame himself for that?

Gideon shook his head to clear it, then looked down at the bottle of rum he had acquired in the kitchen. He had hoped that not only would Fred be on his side, but that he would appear to help. He had evidence of neither; so he had to keep going.

There was a hidden service elevator that most Knights took down to the headquarters, but he knew better than to use it. Various stairways led down to the area as well, as for years the underground part of Grenfield was storage of old junk before it was finally gotten rid of or forgotten. The only entrance he had never seen anyone use was in the library, but getting there and to the secret stairs inside was going to be a challenge.

The library, arguably the largest building at the academy, had once been a cathedral built at the behest of the founding members of the school. The gods worshiped there had long been forgotten, and despite Grenfield being mostly centered around combat, those wishing to further their knowledge in various subjects had free use of its stacks of tomes. The gleaming white building sat proudly in the central courtyard of the campus proper, surrounded by an immaculate garden.

Gideon found comfort in the vast sea of books when he had first arrived, but once he joined the Knights of the Silver Moon, his education became less about formal book learning and he rarely made an appearance inside.

After he had carefully navigated some less traffic-prone hallways and walkways, he made his way to an alcove that opened up into the central courtyard and stopped to assess his surroundings. He couldn’t see any Knights skulking about, but that didn’t mean anything. Gideon didn’t know of any students with an Invisibility Gift, but Torvald could Listen, so reasoning dictated that there must be someone who could Watch. Sycophantic students who yearned to be a Knight were also liable to tattle on him once seen; so the amount of dangers in what he was about to do was limitless.

“You look a little worse for wear,” a voice came from behind Gideon, startling him so badly he almost screamed. The student turned around to see Professor Corvo looking at him, his wizened old eyes twinkling behind bushy gray eyebrows. The old man, who wore a simple shirt and trousers while less tenured teachers wore robes, shrugged his shoulders and adjusted the book bag at his side.

“Professor, you scared me,” Gideon gasped, taking a moment to catch his breath.

The man snorted. “I wear soft, comfortable shoes. Sometimes that lets me sneak up onto people. But you seem a bit high strung, young man.”

Gideon’s eyes darted back out towards the courtyard, then at his professor. “I’m that obvious?” he asked in the most amused tone he could muster.

“Why yes,” he replied. “All the members of your little club have been on edge as well…a few hours ago, several of them up and left my class without so much as a word. I thought your Master announced some training…although he usually lets the faculty know if he plans on doing that.”

“Have you seen Fred?” Gideon asked, his head still on a constant swivel, looking for danger.

Corvo shook his head. “Oh my, no. That boy’s Gift lets him wisp away to wherever he wants to go, but even when he doesn’t care about being seen, I can usually spot him once in a while. I haven’t seen him all day. Is he in trouble?”

Gideon chewed his lip, not looking at the professor.

“No…you’re the one, aren’t you?” the professor said, as he narrowed his eyes and twiddled the edge of his full beard in thought. “I’ve Sensed an aura of hostility around here, and only the Knights of the Silver Moon are emitting it. All except you.”

The student swallowed, brushing his hair back since he didn’t know what else to do with his hands.

“They’re…going to kill me. I need to leave. Doctor Hodge is already dead, I’m worried Fred might be next,” Gideon whispered, holding back as much raw emotion as he could.

The professor’s shoulders slumped, his eyes going wide, in a display of emotion Gideon had never seen from the man before. Corvo and Hodge had eaten lunch together every day for years, and while there never seemed to be anything romantic between them, they were very close and confided in each other easily. The old man gasped, using his arm to brace himself against the wall nearby.

“How…w…when? Who? Gods, please tell me she didn’t suffer,” the sweet old man begged.

“A few hours ago,” Gideon answered. “Dorian had the medical wing cleared out. Torvald killed her for getting between us. Or…just because he wanted to.”

The professor’s other hand clenched in a white hot rage, then relaxed. “She was always telling me about how they always demanded immediate treatment. We all have to deal with them in our own ways, but…”

“I’m an old man,” he said as his voice began to quiver. “What can I do?”

Gideon nodded towards the library. “I’m going to burn the Knights’ headquarters and escape below ground. You can leave, too.”

“I love my students…” he began. “I can’t abandon them, and this is my home. But I have a lot of sway on the school’s board, maybe I can get Dorian expelled.”

“It won’t be that easy,” Gideon mused. “If he catches wind of you doing that, he could try to take you out just like he is with me.”

Corvo shook his head. “I don’t have much time left anyway. I might as well try.”

Gideon sighed. “It doesn’t sound like I can stop you, but maybe you can help me escape. Are there any other Knights around?”

The Professor wiped his eyes, then touched a pendant he kept around his neck.

“There are two in the courtyard, near the main entrance to the library,” he began, his voice almost in a trance. Gideon noticed that his eyes were glazed over.

“The rest are spread out across the campus. Thankfully, you’ve made them so mad that they all have the same aura…they’re easier to differentiate,” he said, as his eyes returned to normal.

“Thank you, Professor,” Gideon replied gratefully. “But if anyone asks, you never saw me.”

Corvo nodded. “Good luck, my boy,” he said in earnest. “Give them hell down there.”

After the Professor returned to his office, Gideon waited in the alcove at the entrance of the courtyard, until a small cluster of students came walking through it. As he kept his head down, he slipped into their ranks, doing his best to be inconspicuous. Thankfully, if they were bothered by his presence they didn’t say anything.

The huddled group reached the middle of the courtyard, then said their goodbyes to each other before they split up. Gideon looked around quickly, noticing that out of the two Knights nearby, one was not within eyesight. The other, a tall and lanky second year named Sebastian, scanned the area as if looking for prey. Gideon turned his face away and shrunk down into his shoulders as Sebastian’s gaze flowed over him.

Gideon peeked out of the corner of his eye, to see if Sebastian had made the connection. At first, the man was squinting, then he tilted his head to focus on his target.

“Mister Charles, while I have you here I need to discuss your recent assignment!” Professor Corvo shouted eagerly at Sebastian, pulling his gaze away from Gideon. Relieved, the student rushed to the library’s outer wall, and pressed himself flat against it.

“Huh…what?” Sebastian said, his quest to find the traitor having been interrupted. “What are you talking about, old man?”

The Professor grabbed Sebastian’s shoulders. “Your assignment regarding the historical uses of shields did not include adequate citations!” he said, much louder than he would normally talk.

Gideon slowly made his way towards the library’s side entrance, as more and more students were paying attention to the Professor.

“I don’t care!” Sebastian spat back, before looking around. “Hey, I thought I saw Eldridge…where did he go?”

“Who?” Corvo asked, his gray eyebrows twisted in confusion. His eyes briefly flashed in Gideon’s direction, then gleamed once he saw that his student was no longer within range of the easily-distracted sentinel. If it hadn’t been for his thick beard, the Professor’s sly grin would have given away his intentions.

“I thought…wait…he was…” Sebastian stammered, his finger wavering at Gideon’s previous location. His quarry by then had slipped into the small wooden door in the sidewall of the library, a few steps down from ground level.

“Well, you seem to be having a hard time,” Corvo said dismissively. “We can discuss your paper later. Good day, young man!”

The Professor left his muttering student standing in the courtyard as he walked away, a renewed vigor in his step as he prayed silently for Gideon to succeed on his journey from this hostile place.

CHAPTER 9

By the gods, that was close, Gideon thought as he carefully closed the library door behind him. The cool air, laced with the smell of dust, old paper, and worked leather, settled on his face like the embrace of a ghost.

The interior of the building was quiet, as it always was. Walls of scrolls and bookshelves full of tomes surrounded him, looming yet unthreatening. Gideon blinked and rubbed his eyes as he tried to get used to the reduced light indoors, before reading the books in front of him to get his bearings. Muscle memory took over as the layout of the library came back, years after he had last stepped foot into his home away from home.

The Fascinating and Biologically Diverse Ecosystem of the Yontin Plains…Vintelli Fish and Wildlife…A Guide to Edible Flora of Freed’s Marsh…ok, I’m in the biology section, he thought.

Running counterclockwise from the side door, Gideon remembered that he had to navigate through the Biology section, then Alchemy, and Histories before he could reach the door to the hidden stairwell. A tall order, getting through the stacks while avoiding any students or the librarian, Sorastra Adame.

A retired Histories teacher, Sorastra Adame (who insisted on being called “Miss Adame” to avoid feeling older than she was) was an ardent defender of the library with its intricate filing system and other various rules. She also happened to be the cousin of the Headmaster, and was known to threaten anyone who stepped out of line.

Gideon worried; he wasn’t troubled about causing a mess, he just didn’t know if the librarian would kick him out or tattle on him to Dorian. Her true allegiances were always a mystery.

The student crouched low, his feet making soft noises if any, as he made his way to the door.

Two more shelves closer. He glanced at the spine of a book at eye level.

Using Mandrake Effectively and Safely - by Dr Winifred Goldfield. One more section to get through.

A robust thud slammed through the air nearby. Gideon pivoted wide-eyed towards the center of the room, where a student stood wordlessly and motionless in front of a table. Based on his position, Gideon guessed that the student had accidentally knocked a book to the floor with his sheathed sword as he turned around. Gideon scanned around, listening and watching for Adame in case he was standing between her and her prey; he couldn’t afford for her to see him.

“Do you realize what you have done?” Adame croaked, after she suddenly appeared behind the student like a vengeful spirit. Gideon released the air he had been holding, thankfully she had been stalking the other side of the library.

“I’m sorry, Miss Adame!” the student stuttered. “It was an accident, I didn’t mean to knock it over! I’ll put it back right away.”

This is painful to watch, Gideon thought, as he continued closer to the stairs.

A few more books hit the floor.

Oh boy, this is going to get ugly. Where am I now? He thought.

Gideon sped up the pace, knowing where the librarian was gave him some freedom of movement. The echoes of the argument bounced off the stone walls of the library’s interior, and became unintelligible by the time he reached Histories.

In a corner just past the section, lying forgotten behind a studying desk, was a single knob and lock that protruded from the wall. Gideon couldn’t even see where the door ended and the wall began. He approached the lock, still crouched over, and brushed his hand over the face. Dust fell away, revealing a lock that hadn’t been used in a very long time.

Gideon cursed inwardly. Dorian had trained him on lockpicking, but two issues that he had procrastinated came blaring back:

One…I was never good at lock picking.

Two…My thief’s tools are under my bed. Currently guarded by Knights, I’m sure. Great.

Gideon looked over his shoulder, then began to work on the lock with the steak knife he had taken from Richter’s kitchen. It wasn’t the best tool for the job; his hand ached at the effort as he tried to see the lock’s mechanisms in his mind’s eye.

CRINK

The sharp sound caused Gideon to gasp, as he pulled back the knife from the lock. The tip of the knife had found its new home deep inside, forever blocking his only way out.

Gideon panicked, using the broken knife to scrape the wall in an attempt to find the door’s edges. Some paint flew off the wall in flakes, revealing the void he had been looking for. He jammed the knife into the empty space, knowing in the back of his mind that this tool would not be enough.

“No…no no no no…” Gideon despondently whispered a mantra to whichever god would listen as he tried to wedge the knife in deeper. Suddenly, he heard a noise and whipped around, still crouched with the broken blade facing outward.

Frederick Krass stood feet away, his hands outward towards Gideon.

“Careful, you could…really do some damage to a dinner roll with that thing,” his friend said softly, a wistful smirk on his face.

“Get away,” Gideon snapped back in response. “I don’t want to kill you.”

Frederick’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “...Why do you think I would?”

Gideon gulped, his knife still standing as a shining menace between them.

“The Knights are trying to kill me because I know what Dorian is doing and want to leave,” Gideon confessed. “Are you still in the Knights or not?”

His friend’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I am,” he replied. “There’s an order for you to be killed, it went out a few hours ago.”

“So you’re here to kill me then?” Gideon asked, not believing his own words, or how this is his new reality.

Frederick shook his head. “The best way to protect yourself from them is to be with them,” he whispered, after looking around for any eavesdroppers. “I knew you would try to escape through the headquarters, and the only way to get there undetected was through this old smugger’s tunnel.”

He jutted a finger from his hands, still up in defense, at the door.

“But I also know you’re shit at locks, so I came to Ghost you through it,” he admitted.

Gideon looked at the knife, still hanging in the air, before lowering it slightly.

“I am shit with locks, aren’t I? He said, defeated.

Frederick chuckled. “Yeah, you are. I’ve had a hell of a time tracking you down, and once you started towards the library, I had a feeling as to what you were doing.”

Gideon looked at his friend. At least, he had been his friend for a long time. Now, he wasn’t sure.

“How do I know you won’t partially Ghost me through and leave me stuck in the wall?” Gideon asked.

Frederick looked hurt, then reached for his belt and unfastened the sheath of his sword and handed it, handle first, to Gideon.

“I’ve known you longer than you’ve been a Knight,” he began. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have snuck up on you at any point in the last twenty minutes. Hold this. If you get stuck, it gets stuck too.”

Gideon took the sheath, then partially pulled out the blade by the handle. The sword was a work of art, with folded steel shimmering even in the reduced light of the library’s dreary and forgotten corner. His friend had forged it himself, and kept it with him at all times, but had never let Gideon use or even hold it before.

“Ready to go?” Frederick asked, holding a hand out.

Gideon grabbed it, and Frederick helped him off the ground.

CHAPTER 10

The pair made their way down the stone steps of the forgotten stair. Frederick had been positioned in front of Gideon, to soothe his nerves about being literally stabbed in the back. The latter held on tightly to the bottle of rum in one hand, and his borrowed sword in the other. Frederick thankfully had a candle with him; a piece of supply that Gideon had completely forgotten about in his limited preparation. The candle flickered quietly as the two men descended: twenty steps down, turn, twenty more.

The only sound augmenting the silence was the crisp grinding of loose dirt under their boots. Over time, some earth must have settled through the school’s upper foundation and made its way down below.

“So tell me,” Gideon began. “What exactly happened earlier?”

Frederick turned his back towards Gideon slightly, still being wary of his footing. A fall would have been very painful.

“You know the outcome,” Fred answered, before turning his head forward again. “Dorian used someone’s Echo Gift to announce to every Knight, except for you, that you were a traitor and needed to be ‘put down immediately’. The call went out about an hour after you left for the medical wing.”

“Corvo told me every Knight up and left in his afternoon class, that explains it,” Gideon pondered out loud. “But what I don’t get is why you were included in that message. Does Dorian think you’d really kill me?”

Frederick scratched the top of his head, then combed his fingers through his dark hair with a sigh.

“I think Dorian severely overestimates the devotion…of some of us, at least. I know Torvald is really into it, and so are a few others. But you and I both know that most of us just wanted to find a place where we belonged, you know?”

Gideon thought about his first year at Grenfield; the loneliness of it. For a combat school, he was surprised to have found it cliquish, and the younger son of a low-tier, no-name noble house didn’t really fit in anywhere…until Dorian sniffed him out. He could see Gideon’s potential, and applied it to the Knights’ only rule: to be strong.

“He’s been acting strangely,” Gideon commented, seemingly out of nowhere.

“How so?” Fred asked.

“His Gift is Leadership, right?” Gideon inquired. “Normally that makes others just feel like following you. It doesn’t necessarily give you leadership qualities. But lately, it seems like…”

Gideon struggled to find the words.

“It seems like he can actually manipulate people.”

“Like the whole incident with the sparring ring you were talking about yesterday?” Fred brought up.

“Exactly,” Gideon replied. “I think he accidentally let it slip the last time I saw him. I only remember shreds of something violent happening, no one else remembers a thing. I’ve felt like I’m going mad since he brought it up.”

“But why would he do that?” Fred asked, puzzled. “If you really killed that many people in the ring, you’d be a liability to the Knights and the school. Keeping you around would be too dangerous. No offense.”

Gideon grunted. “Unless it was a test of some kind”.

Frederick stopped and looked back. “A test?”

“It makes sense if you think about it,” Gideon continued. “I’ve never wanted to hurt people. Suddenly a year after Dorian trains me, I supposedly kill several Knights in the ring in some kind of rage, and that behavior never comes back?”

“Hmmm,” Frederick thought out loud, the candle light casting dark shadows over his face. The man had come from the capital city of Morwell, but something in his ancestry gave his eyes a semi-squinted appearance. They were even more so when he was deep in thought.

“He always said he admired your potential,” Fred said. “And something that outlandish would be easy to explain as a story if anyone actually got wind of it.”

The pair reached the lowest level, coming to a solid oak door.

“Hopefully very soon, I’ll be able to leave all of this behind,” Gideon said with hope. “You ready?”

Frederick pulled out a dagger, still holding onto the candle in his other hand as he used his elbow to push open the door. It gave a brief, groaning creak, then hung open on its own weight. As the men went through the threshold, the full measure of the dank and stuffy underground air made itself known. It wasn’t the best fragrance, but they were both grateful that some animal hadn’t wandered in and died, which they tended to do in forgotten places.

A wide, stone brick hallway stretched ahead of them, the bareness of the walls occasionally interrupted by a cobweb-covered, wrought iron sconce. Lighting them along the way would have made the duo feel safer, but they didn’t want to give an advantage to any pursuers.

“I ran into Richter,” Gideon began, trying to break the eerie silence without creating an echo.

“Is he okay?” Frederick asked, as he pulled out a tetraherb cigarette and lit it with a sparkstone before moving forward.

Gideon sighed. “I hope so. Torvald almost cut his fingers off until he sent him away to look for me somewhere else.”

Frederick grimaced, although Gideon couldn’t see it from behind him.

“That guy has always creeped me out. Torvald, not Richter,” he added. “He really likes showing people who’s boss. Wait, where did you find Richter?”

Gideon sniffled, the dust underground always stuffed him up.

“I went to the kitchen for supplies and something to use to burn down the headquarters,” he answered. “Richter heard Torvald coming and let me hide in the larder.”

Frederick snickered. “Ah, that’s what the rum is for,” he cracked. “I thought you were going to celebrate once you made it alive off campus grounds.”

They turned a corner, checking it carefully before continuing. Gideon didn’t have a map of this area, but knew which direction led towards the Knights’ base.

“I’ll tell you what,” Gideon said. “I bet Dorian has even better stuff than this in his office. I’ll check it out, and we can have some of that once we leave.”

Frederick stopped walking.

“Uh…yeah, I guess we are leaving… Dorian would find out I helped you and have me killed anyway, wouldn’t he?” he said, the almost amused tone of his voice barely hiding the shock. Grenfield was Fred’s home as well as Gideon’s, but it didn’t hit him until just then that at that point, there was no going back to the life he had before.

“I’m…sorry you were brought into this,” Gideon confessed, as he broke the awkward silence of the journey. “If I had just kept my mouth shut, or gone along with Dorian…maybe I would have eventually found a way out.”

Frederick looked back as he walked. “You mentioned at the top of the stairs that you knew what he was doing. I trust you that if it was bad enough, you’d want to leave. But what is it?”

Gideon told his friend about the meeting with Dorian the previous day, how he had alluded to what was essentially ruling over the unGifted, stealing ancient Parsells to find the strange device that could make an untold amount of new ones. Frederick grimmaced at the thought of Dorian achieving what was dangerously close to absolute power.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Fred asked, after digesting the new information for a moment. His cigarette had burned down nearly to his lips, and he had been so concerned that he hadn’t even noticed. He quickly flicked it away, then stomped it out under his boot.

“About how Whispers work, and this machine…I don’t know,” Gideon replied. “He found it in that book, and it does make sense in a way.”

Frederick turned to his right, checking the corridor before proceeding down the dank hall.

“If it is true,” Fred continued. “Then why didn’t he wait until you were absolutely loyal to him before saying anything?”

Gideon shrugged, before the two men came to the door of the Knights of the Silver Moon headquarters. He held Frederick’s blade in the forbidden Tenth stance, one taught by Dorian for use in stealth. Frederick drew his dagger, then carefully wrapped his fingers around the door’s handle and pulled.

The large wooden door opened without hesitation, prompting Frederick to look back at his friend with a look of confusion.

Gideon responded with his own, as if to say, “when is this door ever unlocked?”

Fred’s face replied with “are you really going to complain about that now? The entirety of the Knights are out looking for you”.

Gideon shook his head, then motioned for his friend to step inside. He couldn’t tell if the nostalgia for the place had worn off, or if the aura of the headquarters had changed, but the inside of the base was cold and stagnant. No Lights were on, and the usual sound of scuffling feet was eerily absent. Without prompting, Frederick reached up with his candle and lit a few of the rarely-used wall sconces, which flickered shadows across the soulless main hall. He continued to the end of the room, then pushed a stone, which tripped a mechanism in the wall. The secrets of tunnels used for storage and smuggling had one last useful trick, and a narrow opening allowed the cool night air to gush in.

“Ok, exit secured,” Fred remarked dutifully before pointing to the bottle of rum in Gideon’s grip.

“Are we ready to turn up the heat?”

“I suppose so,” Gideon answered, as he looked around. “But…this is our home, Fred.”

His friend shook his head. “Not anymore.”

Gideon sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

He chewed the inside of his cheek, trying to engrave the image of the place into his memory, before handing the rum to Fred.

“It would be best to lock the door, so no one tries to come in here and burns to death. There’s something I need from Dorian’s office,” Gideon said flatly.

Frederick nodded, taking the bottle and looking towards the main entrance. Gideon walked carefully with a torch, pulled from a wall and ignited, towards Dorian’s office. The door, which he had been escorted through by his Master less than a day before, stood steadfast as it always had.

No reason to be quiet at this point, he thought, as he reeled back his shoulders and kicked the door just to the left of the lock. The first attack only rattled the door, but subsequent kicks splintered the ordinary wooden surface, allowing him access. He stood for a moment just outside the room, peering cautiously into the dark. The torch crackled gently, but its light didn’t reveal anyone hiding inside.

The student stepped over the jagged remains of the door, then made his way quickly to the bookcase.

Where is it?

The book Dorian had shown him the day before was gone. Gideon’s eyes scanned the rest of the spines before him, hoping that his former master had maybe placed it back on the shelf in a different place, but no luck.

Gideon’s mind raced, then stopped cold.

He knows I’d be here.

The door was unlocked.

No guards.

Oh no.

The man bolted out of Dorian’s office, then back to the main hall. He found Frederick leaning against the wall closest to the main entrance.

“Are you okay?!” Gideon spat in a panic.

“Yeah…why?” Fred answered.

“The book I wanted to take, the one that he should absolutely NOT have? It’s gone,” he choked. “This has to be a trap!”

Frederick looked puzzled, his eyes squinting around the room. “I don’t see anything suspicious,” he said with a shrug. “But if the book’s not here, it’s not here. We’d better go.”

Gideon cursed. “You’re right, dump the rum and we’ll light it and run.”

Wordlessly, Frederick pulled the cork from the bottle, and poured the contents onto the shaggy rug below. Then with a deft movement, he pulled out his sparkstone, ignited it and dropped it.

And nothing happened.

Gideon balked in confusion, his mind simply unable to understand as the empty bottle of rum and the sparkstone disappeared in a shuddering of dark gray haze.

Why can’t I smell the alcohol?

“Fred,” he asked cautiously, eyeing his friend. “What are you doing?”

Frederick took in a deep breath, then set his jaw in a tense line.

POP

POP

POP

“It’s kind of disappointing when everything goes according to plan,” Frederick said, bored. “Sometimes you just wish for a little hiccup to make things interesting.”

“Frederick” lifted his left hand, placing his small finger under his jawline, then forced it up with a jolt.

POP

“You should have just told me you wanted to leave, I could have killed you right then and there,” he continued. “That doctor would still be alive…maybe. And the cook, because you know I’ll kill him too. And Fred.”

“You killed him,” Gideon said shakily, barely being able to breathe.

The being in front of him closed his eyes, nodding, as if contemplating the taste of a sampled wine.

“Yes,” he replied, drawing out the word, savoring it. “And how does that make you feel?”

“What do you think?!” Gideon spat through clenched teeth.

“Good,” Dorian cooed. “That’s…just fine.”

Suddenly, Gideon felt a pressure in his head. His mind became split between two sets of memories: one with the slaughter of Knights in the sparring ring, another of victory due to his opponents getting sick. The two scenarios fought viciously within his mind, clashing angrily for a permanent seat.

“You can forget everything,” Dorian offered. “You still have a chance to be my right-hand man. All you need…all you’ve ever needed…is a little push.”

An anger, at a level which Gideon had only felt once before in a bloody shattered memory, began to bubble up from the back of his mind. It burned at the back of his eyes and turned his vision red. He was ashamed at how good it felt, the freedom of losing control.

“I DON’T WANT THIS!” Gideon screamed, his fists clenched. “…I CAN’T CONTROL IT!”

“Yes, you do,” Dorian replied. “You always have. You have been chosen for this.”

“I..always…NO!” the student argued. “I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

“Then why did you kill Fred?” Dorian asked innocently, glaring Frederick’s own light brown eyes into Gideon’s twisted face.

“I didn’t mean to…” the student anguished. “He stood…in our way.”

Dorian nodded. “Yes, he did. But that’s okay, sometimes the weak have to be…let go.”

Gideon sighed, his muscles relaxed. “You’re right, what do we do now?”

“We…AAARHHH!” Dorian screamed. His hold on Gideon’s mind shattered, and the student looked up and saw another Fred, his dagger plunged into the thigh of the standing Fred. From the blood trail, Gideon saw that his friend must have freed himself from a storage closet near the main entrance, and dragged his body silently up to his fiendish clone. He held the real bottle of rum close to his chest, using it to apply pressure to a flaring red wound. After he released the dagger, Fred fell onto the floor on his back, grunting in pain.

Frederick Krass smiled at the ceiling, as blood spattered from the grin he somehow managed to keep on his face.

“Not the first time I’ve Ghosted through being stabbed,” he coughed. “Just wish I had started it sooner.”

“Fred, get away from him! We can still get out!” Gideon shouted, pointing towards the opening towards freedom.

Dorian gritted his teeth in rage as he ripped the dagger from the flesh of his thigh and drove it into Frederick’s stomach. He slammed the blade in over and over, the blood spraying onto Dorian’s face each time he pulled it back out. The real Fred screamed, his eyes shuttered from the pain as his attacker pressed his foot into the fresh wounds.

“‘Ghost through a blade’, huh?!” Dorian barked, his heel punctuating his words. His Fred disguise fell away, to reveal his regular form. He turned his head towards Gideon.

“Are you watching, Eldridge?!” the evil man asked with a grin.

Gideon had been watching, hopelessness gripping him like a sickness. As he anguished at his friend’s pain, he felt his former Master’s hold on his mind grow stronger.

“There it is!” Dorian said, satisfied. “Doesn’t it feel good to look?”

If he wants me to look, I suppose I should, Gideon thought. He tapped into the amulet of Avara Parsell around his neck, focused the Whispers to his eyes, and powered his Gift of Sight. As his vision went gold, he could see a bulky, flat mass in one of Dorian’s coat pockets.

The book…he thought lazily. There it is. He should keep it safe. I’ll tell him lat…

FIGHT IT, a distance, yet somehow familiar voice pounded in his mind, lacing the Whispers that flowed from his Parsell. A strong, ethereal sound that he swore he had heard before, hard to remember in his mental haze. But it had never shouted at him.

What? His mind croaked.

DO NOT LET HIM DECEIVE YOU, the voice pleaded. HE CANNOT FIND THE MACHINE.

“The machine…” Gideon muttered, as he looked once more to see his old Master torturing his friend. “The machine you want to use…to hurt people.”

Dorian took his foot off Frederick’s torso, turning towards Gideon.

“I never told you about any machine,” Dorian answered, his hands splayed out in a mock confusion. “Now is not the time for stories, I’m dealing with a traitor here. And frankly, it’s upsetting that you would doubt me!”

Gideon felt more pressure on his mind again, mixed memories fighting for control.

Look at what he’s done, the voice said calmly.

The man blinked, looking at the bloodied heap on the floor, behind the approaching form of Dorian. His mind replayed first meeting Frederick, a few days after coming to Grenfield. The times they’ve sparred, argued, helped each other. Going out for drinks at a bar after a bad breakup, getting into trouble, they always had each others’ backs. Gideon’s first real friend.

And he was dying.

The memories wrapped around the inside of Gideon’s mind, pushing out the concussive darkness of Dorian’s deceptions. He could finally think clearly, and he glared at his old Master in a razor sharp, righteous anger as he stepped towards him.

“Good, you’ve come to your senses,” Dorian chirped. “I’m glad you’re not a traitor like this one.”

Gideon raised his friend’s beloved sword, interlocking his steps towards his enemy with those of his chosen combat stance, Stance Seven: Kawarii.

Dorian gave him a sideways stare. “What do you think you’re d…”

He stopped mid-word, looking up.

“I see,” he said calmly. “She’s got him. A shame.”

In a swift motion, Dorian drew his own weapon and leveled it at Gideon. The sword’s flawless silvery hilt led to a brutal keen-edged longsword blade, which reflected the flickering fire of the lit sconces nearby.

“I hate to do this, boy,” he began, the sword’s point hanging steadily in the air. “But you’ve fallen in with a bad crowd. You’re useless to me… I’ll try to make this quick.”

Gideon lunged with his sword, the basket-hilted rapier singing through the air. Dorian pivoted, twisting his torso to the side to avoid the blow. To follow through with his attack, Gideon let loose an uppercut into the man’s ribs. Dorian saw the fist coming, and was able to jump back, but not far enough to completely avoid the blow. A split second after landing, he jumped back and slashed downward with his own weapon. Gideon was barely able to bring his blade up in time to deflect it. The strike was a good deal more powerful than he was expecting, and the deflection threw him off balance. Dorian saw an opening and slashed again, cutting the skin above Gideon’s left eye before he could pull his head away completely from the horizontal attack.

The student took a step back, sword still outstretched, and wiped the wound.

It’s not going to stop bleeding, he thought. But I can’t give up. I could still get Fred to safety.

Dorian continued his offense, with a low strike towards Gideon’s legs to cripple him. The sword’s tip jabbed into his upper thigh as he let out a cry of pain; his Master’s face lined with a dutiful grin as his former student fell to a knee. He wasted no time in grabbing Gideon’s collar in an iron grip, and put the tip of his sword to his throat.

“You said you’d make it quick,” Gideon coughed, his one unobstructed eye making contact with those of his former mentor.

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Dorian replied. “Even if I can’t Deceive you, it still feels great to make you suffer. Those are the conditions.”

Gideon’s brow bunched with confusion. “Conditions?”

Dorian shook his head. “I’m in control here, you’re not going to buy yourself any time. If you want to know, ask her. You two will meet very soon.”

Suddenly, a shattering crash echoed through the room as Dorian jolted. He turned around, annoyed, to see Frederick on his knees, bracing himself heavily with his arms. Arms, which until recently, held a large bottle of heavily alcoholic rum.

“Don’t you ever die, you little shit?” Dorian spat, his nose filled with the acrid smell soaking into clothes.

Frederick smiled, blood caked around his mouth, in a wheezing chuckle.

“I just need…” he answered with a ragged breath, reaching into his coat with a trembling arm. “I just need a light”

With a pained grunt, the dying man pulled his sparkstone from his coat. He pressed his thumb onto a small button, which made the tiny device flicker to life with a magic flame from the top. Dorian’s face realized, then went pale as Frederick weakly tossed the stone through the air. Both of his hands were occupied, about to deal a death blow with Gideon, so he could do nothing to intercept it as it hit him in the back, igniting his clothes.

Dorian threw his sword down, and released Gideon in a shove, both hands slamming onto the growing flames in an attempt to extinguish them. In a moment of animalistic panic, he threw his overcoat away, but the fire had already spread, and the coat landed on a nearby couch, starting a chain reaction of searing heat.

Realizing what he had done, Dorian ran over to the discarded coat, his hands searing as they fumbled to find his precious book. The flames began to spread from the couch, to a carpet, then the wood paneling along part of the wall.

Gideon sheathed his weapon, then limped as fast as he could to Frederick.

“Fred, let’s get out of here!” he begged.

His friend shook his head weakly, his mouth opening, but no sound would come out. His face was deathly pale, Gideon could finally see the whole truth in the light of the blazing fire.

Frederick’s hands shook violently as his eyes focused ahead, then raised his hand up in a two-fingered salute. A sign of their friendship, one that meant “see you later, good luck”, done for one last time.

Gideon’s eye rimmed with tears as he shakily brought his own hand up, to mimic his friend’s goodbye. Frederick’s mouth curved up slightly in a smile, before the pain of the world finally faded, his head hanging from his shoulders as he laid on his side on the stone floor.

Despite the flames working their hardest to engulf the headquarters of the Knights of the Silver Moon, Gideon Eldridge felt his soul grow cold. He had never suffered a loss like this before, let alone one so sudden and cruel. He did his best to not blame himself, wondering how long he’d be able to keep up with such a lie.

Dorian’s guttural screams shook Gideon out of his emotional haze, as he turned to see his immolated former Master running out of the large room, towards the maze of underground passages leading to the headquarters. Completely surrounded by fire, Gideon left his friend’s body and painfully ran through the secret exit and into the cool, night air. Smoke billowed out from the portal, as Lights began to flicker on in the school rooms above. He heard shouts and an alarm bell ringing behind him as he hobbled from tree to tree to avoid being seen. Several times, he had to jump behind a bush or wooden fence to hide from Knights, who had been scouring the grounds for their quarry.

Gideon could barely see Grenfield in the distance when he finally felt safe enough to turn around and assess how far he’d gone. The wind that night carried the faint smell of smoke, as the gray column rose into the indifferent night sky.

The adrenaline started to wear off, although only slightly, until he touched the hilt of Fred’s sword in his belt. Overcome with grief, over the loss of his friend and the life he had built at school, he resisted the urge to heave, until he couldn’t hold it back anymore.

The student was a student no longer, and the impact of what his new reality was started to sink in, as well as a flickering ember of rage for the man that stole it all away.

No, the voice from before admonished him. Not now.

“Why not?!” Gideon shouted out loud, forgetting about being hunted for a small moment.

Rage does not suit you, the voice answered.

Then what does ‘suit’ me? He asked in his mind, not sure where to direct his words.

You must find that on your own, it replied. Take what you have endured, use it to reveal your true self. Like a blade on an anvil, you will be shaped through this experience.

Gideon wiped the tears from one eye, and the blood from another. He prayed to whatever gods would listen, to keep Richter, the rest of Grenfield, and his family back home safe. He had no idea, if he was even still alive, of how far Dorian’s influence spread. It would be too dangerous to check on them for a long time, so he knew he would have to make himself stronger, and lay low for the time being.

He felt like a coward. Someone who’s actions caused people to be killed, and now he was running away. He directed his thoughts towards the inner voice, the one who spoke to him and broke him through Dorian’s control.

Who are you? He asked. Do you exist, or are just another voice in my mind?

Gideon’s mind cleared, the distant chirp of crickets were the only sound for a brief moment. He closed his eyes, and realized just how exhausted he really was.

I am real, the voice answered. At least, I exist. But not in a way you could comprehend at this time.

That doesn’t make sense, Gideon answered.

I know, came the reply.

Gideon worried, it was the only thing he seemed capable of doing.

Are they going to be okay? He asked.

The voice shifted its tone, from wistful to serious.

I have prompted the cook to leave, it began. But I have no control over whether or not he heeds my warning. Your family…the darkness has yet to reach them. But seeing them now would put them in danger.

The darkness? He inquired.

Yes, it answered. Your former Master is wreathed in it. It clouds my vision. But you must look to the future, not the past.

You speak of him as if the fire didn’t kill him. He’s still alive? Gideon asked, frustrated and angry.

Yes, the voice replied. That much, I can tell.

Gideon cursed. So I need to run. He’ll be hunting me.

He vividly pictured his former Master standing before him, sword drawn, ready to cut him down. Instinctively, he began to draw his blade before being hit by a wave of exhaustion. He could still feel the heat of the flames that engulfed his old home and his friend. If only he could rest, for just a moment.

A loud bell rang in his ears, the majestic peal waking him up as he looked around, trying to find the source. The sound was different from the one that kept the time at Grenfield; it was rich, like a single note of heavenly music.

You can’t rest now, the voice told him sternly. Head south, there is a place that needs you. You will become much stronger there.

In a sleepy haze, Gideon was confused; there was no training facility anywhere near Grenfield. Whatever was behind the voice could feel his hesitation, so it rounded the edge from its command.

I will guide you to a safe place to rest for the night, it said. Do not use your Gift, trust me to lead the way.

Gideon nodded, then took a big breath of the cool night air, then looked back one more time at his home he had to abandon. A journey he never dreamed he’d have to take stretched in front of him, and an unknown voice was his only guide. He straightened his back, and rested his hand firmly on the pommel of his gifted blade.

If Fred can sacrifice everything, and have the courage to face the unknown…he thought.

Then I can do it too.