Without another word, Ya Syaoran turned and stormed away. In a moment, he had disappeared from the clearing, leaving a shocked Abrial and Wu Dafu standing next to a beaten and bloodied Dieter, all of the other students hollering excitedly about whatever it was that had just happened.
Abrial shook out of her daze, turning to look at Wu Dafu. Immediately, she averted her eyes and stared at the grass beneath her feet instead. Wu Dafu was staring after the direction Ya Syaoran had left in with a helpless expression, and when she looked over, he caught her eyes with his doe-like warm ones.
Great, she thought fiercely. Now it’s even worse! What am I supposed to say after all that? What the fuck even is going on?
Dieter groaned and rolled over in the dirt. After a long moment’s hesitation, Abrial trudged toward him grudgingly. As she crouched down to poke him and see how conscious he was, something strange happened.
Gasps broke out across the clearing.
The sky had…gone dark?!
Not just dark, like the gray darkness that arrives with heavy rain clouds. No — it was dark.
Night-time dark.
The kind of navy blue darkness from deepest part of the night.
Abrial’s head shot up. She vaulted to her feet.
“What kind of sorcery is this?” she muttered, staring at the darkening sky.
“Look!” a nearby student gasped, pointing upward.
Small showers of what looked like silver rain had started sprinkling down from the mysteriously dark sky above. They sparkled and shimmered like real silver, bursting here and there and trickling down overhead, dissipating once they reached the grass.
When Abrial squinted, she saw that each burst was an explosion of tiny, five-pointed silver stars. They reflected in her wide, extremely bewildered dark eyes like constellations strewn across a black night sky.
All around, students began hopping to their feet and clapping, cheering, and whooping.
“All right! This means Niklas is back! Woo-hoo!”
“Let’s go greet him when he comes!”
“Another successful raid! What a man, Sir Niklas Braun!”
Abrial whirled around as students began to run out of the clearing, streaming through the gaps between tents and rushing off to who-knows-where — presumably to go to greet this ‘Niklas’/’Sir Niklas Braun’. Who was…well, Abrial had no idea who the heck he was.
She looked down at Dieter, who was groaning, blood staining the whole bottom half of his pale, freckled face as though he’d spilled scarlet paint over himself.
“What’s going on?” she asked him. “Who’s Niklas? Why the stars? Where is everyone running?”
Dieter coughed up a gob of what looked like bloody spit with hopefully no organs in it and spat it spitefully into the grass as Abrial’s feet, nearly staining her new shoes. He glared at her with the cold emerald eye he could see properly out of.
“Really? You’re going to ask something like that to me when I’m like this? Ask him, for god’s sake! He’s not on the ground choking up his fucking guts!”
He stabbed a bloody finger at Wu Dafu, who was alternating between staring helplessly down at Abrial and dazedly up at the small bursts of silver stars still falling from the darkened sky, as though unsure of where he was.
Abrial’s face paled.
She suddenly wanted to get out of here as fast as possible.
“Actually, I’ll just go and see it myself. See you guys later!” With that, she rose and sprinted off in the direction everyone else had disappeared, leaving a disoriented Wu Dafu and a swearing Dieter alone in the clearing.
“Hope I fucking don’t!” Dieter screamed after her, spewing blood. “Hope I never see you again!”
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At the south edge of camp, an enormous crowd had gathered. When Abrial squeezed out of the tents to join, there were at least a few hundred members of the Wei camp crowding and bustling, trying to get a clear view of whatever was approaching from the south. By now, the bursts of stars had petered out, and the sky had begun to lighten again, gradually returning to the soft blue of morning—which was comforting, because it was utterly disorienting seeing a night sky in the middle of the freaking day.
“Coming through!” Abrial called. “Watch out!” Using her elbows, aggressive pushing, and no manners at all, she managed to squeeze through the thick crowd to the front.
From this viewpoint, she could finally see what all the commotion was about.
Galloping over the hills some distance away was a group of people on horses in a triangular formation, all wearing river-blue cloaks. The hoods of their cloaks shadowed their faces, obscuring their features. They were riding very quickly, fast enough that the wind whipped the fabric of their robes and cloaks around their bodies. There were maybe forty or fifty people total — they were moving too quickly for Abrial to get a good sense of how many.
They looked…majestic.
“Who…?” she muttered, frowning at this unusual sight. “Who are they? Why do they all have swords and quivers? Are they attacking?”
A man standing next to her grinning with excitement paused his whooping to stare at her in disbelief.
“You don’t know who they are?!” he gaped. He took in her scarlet and black outfit, along with her handsome face, and seemed to come to some realization. “Ah, you’re that new girl everyone’s talking about.” He pointed to the approaching riders. “Them, they’re the Wei camp’s raiding regiment! They had another successful raid — that’s what the night stars falling mean! ‘Successful raid, let’s celebrate!’”
Abrial’s eyebrows raised as she watched the galloping regiment approach, engrossed. Not only did they look serious, but also very graceful, and experienced in horseback riding.
“Raiding regiment?” she puzzled. “For raiding what? Towns, to steal food?”
The excited man made a noise of disbelief, placing a hand on his heart.
“We, the Wei camp, would never steal from a town for rations! We grow our food and livestock ourselves, shouldn't you know that by now?! The raiding regiment is for raiding the Emperor’s magicians’ prisons and freeing as many fellow magicians as possible! They bring back tortured magicians who wish to join the Wei camp, and assist those who wish to join one of the camps in other regions of the kingdom!”
Abrial’s eyes studied the approaching formation of horses with a sparkling new interest. They were not very far away now, only three hills from the camp’s edge.
The man next to her pointed excitedly as the horse riders came into better view.
“See that guy in the front? He’s Sir Niklas Braun! In the armor! What a man, he is!”
Abrial followed his finger to the man atop the horse at the frontmost of the formation, the triangle’s point. Her dark eyebrows raised even further.
The man was wearing what looked like…steel armor? It was silvery and shiny and encased him from head to toe. It wasn’t at all like Gongkuan armor, which was made of thick, stiffened leather plates with bits of steel. No…
That was Roatian armor! It had to be. She’d made Finley tell her all about it when she was younger, about how shiny and fierce it looked, and how nothing could pierce it through except maybe a hellfire.
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She saw now, as the horse riders rose up the closest hill and began to slow down, yanking on the reins of their horses, that the man up front — this ‘Sir Niklas Braun’ that everyone was so excited about — was wearing an enormous, goofy grin. His white teeth shone like polished ivory. He swept off his hood as he jerked the reigns of his long-legged white horse, and a mop of hair as white-yellow as freshly harvested corn flopped out of the river-blue hood. His eyes seemed to sparkle even from this distance, blue and pale as the sky.
Several women and girls in the crowd shrieked with delight as soon as his hood fell back. The men around Abrial also seemed to have stars in their eyes, whooping and applauding.
“Sir Niklas looks so handsome, even after such far travels!” one woman swooned nearby in a high voice. “Roatian men are so attractive! Why can’t Gongkuan men be like him…”
“What a warrior, what a man!” a man’s voice bellowed nearby, similarly gushing. “A charming knight!”
Abrial raised her eyebrows at their enthusiasm. This Niklas Braun did seem to be what people would call ‘extremely handsome’, with that goofy grin and light hair, and his armor made him look like a fierce warrior. But was he really all that cool? He must’ve done some amazing things for people to be falling over themselves like this for him.
At last, the group of horses skidded to a stop not far from the crowd, horses whinnying and neighing as their owners yanked harder on the reins to prevent them from running anyone in the crowd over. At the front of the formation, Sir Niklas Braun raised both hands above his head, his goofy grin sparkling. The whooping crowd silenced.
Dang! He could silence a crowd just by raising his hands?
Just how popular was he?
Sir Niklas flashed his grin around. Several women gasped. From the sound of it, someone had fainted not far behind Abrial.
“Members of the Wei camp!” Sir Niklas boomed. His voice resounded over the crowd like the noise of a drum reverberating through the earth. Abrial though she felt a slight vibration in her knees.
“The Wei camp’s raiding regiment has successfully raided the Tong Detainment Center in the southern regions of Gongkua!”
The crowd exploded into roaring cheers and applause.
“Another successful raid!”
“Of course it was successful, how could they fail with Sir Niklas leading them?”
Sir Niklas seemed to hear these comments from where he was. His eyes flashed with laughter. When the crowd had quieted again, he called:
“Twenty young and old magicians have been freed and escorted to the Shu Magicians’ Camp of the South! In addition, all of our raiders have returned without fatal injuries!”
He gestured toward the horse riders behind him. Abrial studied them.
They had all swept off their hoods like Sir Niklas, and were gazing out over the crowd now. Some of them were smiling in a friendly way. Others gazed intimidatingly out at the crowd, looking like toughened warriors. And others…looked tired. The dark circles under some of their eyes were as dark as plums. But besides that…none of them seemed obviously injured at all.
The crowd burst into whooping and cheering again, amazed at how the raiders had returned uninjured once again.
“All right!” Niklas lowered his arms, which had been ceremoniously held up as he announced the result of the raid. Abrial thought she saw a flash of tiredness flicker across his glowing face, but it was gone in an instant.
“As you all know,” he grinned, “Following a successful raid is always a feast of celebration. In the main dining pavilion today, there will be a great gathering to celebrate this triumph. And there will be — ” he winked, making a motion as though sipping out of a small cup. “Lots of liquor.”
The crowd rippled with both smitten gasps at that offhand wink and exclamations of excitement at the announcement of liquor and feasting. Sir Niklas and the rest of the regiment dismounted their horses gracefully, and the horses were led off by a group of eager stable volunteers. With the grand return and announcement over with, the crowd parted fervently, allowing Sir Niklas and his regiment to pass through and disappear into the sea of tents. It was the very picture of a glorious return.
Abrial’s sharp eyes noticed that some of the raiders limped slightly as they walked. Others walked gingerly, as though afraid to shatter something if they stepped too forcefully.
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Abrial didn’t return to Instructor Wei’s blade fighting clearing to help teach that day’s lesson. The idea of going back there after everything…um, everything that had happened that morning made her mouth taste sour.
Instead, she tried to find Finley to ask her about this cool Wei raiding regiment and how to join. But she couldn’t find Finley, no matter how hard she searched. Not in the camp gardens, not at Bi Gho’s magic lesson, not at the stables or on the hillsides or even her own tent. It had never been hard to find Finley before; they had a way of gravitating towards each other. It was almost as if Finley was consciously, vigorously avoiding her.
Weird…
With an uncomfortable sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, it dawned on Abrial how long it had been since she and Finley had eaten together, or even had a real conversation. The only time they’d seen each other lately was at night. And even then, only sometimes, since Abrial usually fell asleep the moment her head hit her bedroll, and Finley glided into the tent some time after late into the night.
“I have to go and find her later,” Abrial muttered to herself over a bowl of white noodle soup at lunch as she sat alone. “She should be at the feast. I’ll go talk to her then. Yeah! That’s a good idea.”
There was definitely going to be good food at a feast, so of course Abrial had decided to go. Good food = happy. Plus, the idea of finally sitting down to eat with Finley made the idea of a feast even more appealing, and a bright grin shone on Abrial’s face all day.
When she arrived at the main dining pavilion that night, an enormous open clearing at the center of the sea of tents, it was already full of milling people. The smell of savory and sweet dishes wafted through the air: roasted meat with garlic, chili oil and sugar-dipped dough. Abrial’s mouth began to water immediately.
But first, she needed to find Finley.
Finley had always secretly loved sugar-dipped dough and sweets, so Abrial went first to the long, thin wooden table set at the side of the clearing with rows of steaming dishes. At the end of the table were stacked plates and round dishes of desserts that gave off the enticing scent of fresh honey and hot sugar. Abrial weaved in between bodies, searching for a glimpse of Finley’s pale robes or honey hair.
Sure enough, she spotted Finley’s pale face and hazel eyes flitting by towards the many long tables that had been set out in rows around the clearing.
Swiftly, Abrial swiped two sugar-dipped dough balls and scurried off in Finley’s direction, her excitement comparable to that of a puppy wagging its tail.
Finley’s round plate was half-crowded with sugar-dipped dough, the other half laden with fried dumplings, greens, and a bun. As she set her plate delicately and expressionlessly down at the corner of an empty table, a hand slammed down next to her plate.
“Finley Fellner!”
Finley’s head jerked up, hazel eyes wide. Abrial’s face grinned down at her from a finger’s width away, dark eyes glittering with joy. Her smiling lips glistened in the sun’s setting light.
Finley’s cheeks went pink.
“Abrial,” she greeted, ducking her head slightly.
Abrial shoved a dough ball into Finley’s face, dusted with sugar.
“Here!” she exclaimed. “Your favorite.”
Finley glanced down at her plate that was half-stacked already with hot sugar-dipped dough balls. Then she gingerly took the dough from Abrial and bit into it.
Finley’s expression when eating food she enjoyed was so…what was the word for that kind of thing? Pretty? Cute! That was it! Her expression was cute, which was a rare kind of expression for her. Abrial watched her eyes curve into pleased crescents, pink lips curving up slightly.
Abrial grinned, finding her own cheeks blushing. She popped the other piece of dough into her mouth, chewing along to distract herself from the silly thoughts popping up in her head.
Then she dropped down onto the cushion next to Finley, waiting for Finley to sit as well.
Finley finished chewing the dough and swallowed, looking down at Abrial with an unreadable expression. She moved slightly, as if to sit, then stopped.
Abrial patted the cushion, staring up at her with sparkling eyes.
“Sit, Finley! I haven’t seen you in so long. Let’s eat and talk together today! I looked for you everywhere earlier, but I couldn’t find you. It was weird! But that’s okay — I’m glad I found you eventually!”
Abrial’s genuine grin was like sunshine radiating towards Finley. Finley swallowed again, though there was no dough left in her mouth. She pursed her lips.
“I am also glad to have found you,” she said at last. Then she moved to sit.
Just as she moved forward, someone else slid into the spot across the table. His dark, shining hair swished as he sat, eyes and long lashes glittering stormily.
“Ya Syaoran?” Abrial frowned, still motioning for Finley to sit.
“Abrial,” Ya Syaoran nodded in acknowledgement. His moon-pale face looked even moodier than usual. He leaned across the table, folding his long, pale fingers together. “I want to talk to you about something. It’s serious.”
Abrial’s frown deepened. She was still patting the seat, waiting for Finley to sit.
“Can’t we talk later?” she groaned. Whatever he wanted to talk about, it couldn’t be fun. Ya Syaoran wasn’t a fun person. It was going to be something serious. “Isn’t this supposed to be a celebration feast?”
Ya Syaoran’s stormy eyes darted around. He shook his head grimly.
“No. It’s important. I need to talk to you. Now.” He shot a look at Finley, who was still awkwardly stuck between the positions of sitting and standing, balancing skillfully on one foot. “Can you leave? I’d rather this be private.”
Finley’s hazel eyes flashed. She swiped up her plate.
“I will leave,” she said quickly, though her voice sounded strangely strangled. “Have a good conversation.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Ya Syaoran replied carelessly. Finley turned on her heel and disappeared.
Abrial sprang up from her seat, sprinting after Finley.
“Hey!” Ya Syaoran shouted. But Abrial was already gone.
“Wait!” Abrial called out, forehead creasing in confusion. “Don’t go! I still wanna eat together! Wait up, Finley!”
But it seemed Finley had suddenly become lighter on her feet than air. She disappeared into the hordes of diners and mingling drinkers like a shooting star fading into the folds of the night sky. Abrial slowed to a stop, a miserable feeling gnawing at her stomach suddenly.
She held her abdomen. It felt like a stormy black cloud was slowly expanding and growing denser there, eating away at her intestines.
What is this feeling? She thought to herself, pushing back the pain. Why did Finley run like that? She must be avoiding me, then…But why? Did I do something wrong? Did I run my mouth and say something stupid? She’s never gotten mad at me for saying stupid things before…That can’t be it…Then, what is it?