Days passed, but my quiet rage toward the Sentinel trials persisted. The burden left my shoulders tight and sore. The quiet rage morphed between indignation, frustration, and outright anger. The target morphed, too, from Vandagriff Academy as a whole to Naracilla Geisler, Bravery Sansing, Elliot Fletcher, Eleanor Wilson, or the most potent and worthy of loathing – myself. I knew it was unhealthy, but I couldn’t ignore how easy it felt to hate myself. More than unhealthy, it was irrational. The likelihood of getting a Sentinel licence at my age was slim. I could attempt the trials again next year, when I’d surely succeed. I had a short-lived thought: My parents could bribe the Academy to change my result on the trials.
Rage aside, my days of preparation passed in a blur. I packed my bags and suitcases, and our Fornax driver brought them to the Academy. Orientation didn’t interest me; I already knew plenty about the Academy.
After orientation, I carried a duffel bag and pulled a suitcase, while Samara and Dust carried the rest to my room in the dormitory. I’d been assigned a room for two, but my roommate mysteriously never attended orientation and nobody replaced her. Thus, I had a spacious room all to myself. First I felt glad for the privacy, but then I felt guilty. My parents were almost certainly the reason behind my room situation. I’d asked them not to, yet they likely intervened again; I hadn’t called them to voice my irritation because I liked the outcome. It didn’t take a lot of emotional intelligence to know it was hypocritical.
Big or small, having my own room excited me. Yes, I had a room at home, but I lacked the latitude to decorate or engage with the space as I may have wanted. Often, it felt too big, too neat, more like a hotel suite than my personal space.
Now, alone in my dorm room, I jumped into bed and let my tension ease out. All through orientation, I’d felt eyes on me. If there were sycophants at the Sentinel trials, naturally there would be more waiting for me when regular studies began.
Knock-knock. Someone at the door. My head whipped up from the pillow. Speak of the Dusk and you’ll know the dark. My body tensed. I held my breath and didn’t move. Knock-knock. I had to answer. I rolled out of bed and opened the door. A girl with freckles and uneven bangs stood outside, hand raised to knock again. ‘Hello, my name is Carol Darcy.’
‘Hi,’ I replied.
‘I hope I’m not being a bother, but I heard you liked reading, and I brought too many books from home, so I figured, if you’re interested…’ She offered me a leather, hardcover copy of Frankenstein. My family’s library had a copy, which I’d read. ‘You’d be doing me a favour by taking it, since my room is pretty cluttered.’ She had a sharp, rapid laugh, like jingling keys.
I hesitated over the book. Accepting a gift meant too much. But, I couldn’t close the door on her; that went against what it meant to be a Fornax. Instead, I stepped aside and let the girl in. With the smile she gave, you’d think I’d opened the gates of heaven.
I sat on the bed. The girl took a chair from the desk. She placed the book on the bedside table. We talked about the weather for under a minute, wherein there came another knock at the door. I went to answer it.
A boy with a denim shirt and fidgety hands leaned on the doorframe. ‘Hey, Vicky. Can I call you that? Oh, sorry, I’m Theodore. Theo is fine, though.’ Sweat darkened his armpits. ‘I hope I’m not being weird, but I saw a book in the market a couple days ago, and I heard you tell one of my friends that you liked reading, so I picked it up.’ He offered me a copy of Dare the Dusk, a sort of pulpy, post-Dusk, neo-fantasy novel about the clans who lived outside cities. In every book, the hero—Carter Pilgrim—left the comfort of his Melbourne apartment to save someone in the Dusk. I hadn’t read any of them.
Like with the girl, I couldn’t directly accept the book, so I let the boy into my room. He seemed vexed to find I wasn’t alone. He put his book on the bedside table, before sitting on the second desk chair. ‘Hope I’m not intruding,’ he said.
‘Not at all,’ I replied, giving my best approximation of a warm, welcoming smile. The moment my countenance gained that smile, the girl and boy subtly pulled away, as if zapped by static electricity.
Over the next half-hour, four more people knocked on my door. Each had a book, and I allowed each inside. Seven people was pretty cramped. I sat on the bed, two sat on chairs, two on desks, and two leaned against the wall. This seating arrangement gave a sense of vertical gradation, like I was a performer in an amphitheatre.
I remembered the name of each person who entered my room. Imagine a bubble over my head. The names filled the bubble, but rather than push old ones out or burst, the bubble continually expanded, until it distended and pressed against the ceiling. The bubble’s thin membrane should’ve popped. Failing to pop went against its very nature.
Nobody said it, but we all understood why they’d come to my room. Early bird got the worm. Befriend a member of the Fornax family and see if you can form a lasting connection; do that, and a good life after the Academy will be guaranteed.
The six gifted books formed a tower on my bedside table. I discovered that when I inspected the books, the sycophants found it easier to speak, like they preferred me in a lulled, distracted state. Or, perhaps, there really was something unnerving about my face. It wouldn’t be the first time the thought crossed my mind.
At one point, the sycophants stopped talking, and I didn’t feel like finding a new topic, so the seven of us sat in silence for a few agonising minutes.
I couldn’t keep going. The tightness in my stomach hurt with a stabbing pain. I felt sick. My mouth had gone dry, tongue heavy and swollen.
The warmer I tried to be, the less comfortable they appeared. Their agenda to befriend me clashed with an instinctive unease, though I couldn’t discern the origin of the latter. Yes, I was the origin, but what specifically?
I needed to escape, but I couldn’t find the words. The sycophants were going to stay until one or all of them got what they wanted. And, worse, I was supposed to handle it. My parents taught me to perceive the useful assets from the useless. They had warned me things like this would happen, and it would be my duty to find kids of the upcoming generation who could truly help the Fornax family. But, how? I wasn’t a people person. I was barely a “me” person.
An impulsive, foolish thought had its talons in me. The silliness of it made me want to try, so I did: I crawled under the covers of my bed and closed my eyes.
‘Victoria?’
‘Are you feeling alright, Vicky?’
‘We could bring you something, if you’d like. Tea? Your family drink tea more often than coffee, yes?’
I stayed quiet. Yet…the six didn’t leave. Their voices fell to audible whispers.
‘She might really be ill.’
‘Why’re were ya’ll crowding her?’
‘I was here first.’
‘I got her a signed copy of Dare the Dusk.’
‘Why’re you bothering? Fornax don’t deal with Libra-class magic.’
‘Not yet, they don’t.’
I was a corpse in a morgue, and the six argued about who had the honour of performing the autopsy. If they opened me up and found my soul, they’d find a small, fickle flame of the Fornax variety. Not the noble, stable flame of Octavia. Not the colourful, passionate flame of Samara. Not the deceptively thin flame of Dust. My flame was barely enough to chase the dark from a closet.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The door opened. They were surely leaving. I opened an eye. Nope, a new person entered the room. The new arrival ducked to avoid the doorframe. I recognised him: Elidred Griggs, from the Sentinel trials. I felt a sudden, odd affection for him. He had an otherworldly quality. More than his height, his face and stance left the impression he existed beyond present time and present space, as if a marble statue that would survive and be studied well into the future.
‘What’re you doing?’ one of the sycophants scolded. ‘You can’t just wander into someone’s room.’
‘I heard voices,’ Griggs replied, low and monotone.
‘So you figured you’d interrupt?’
‘Is Victoria asleep?’
‘She isn’t feeling well.’
‘Then, you should let her rest.’ Intentional or not, Griggs had a way of speaking that implied his words should be complied with. And the sycophants did. They, followed by Griggs, left my room.
I was alone.
My muscles relaxed and I really could fall asleep.
In the coming months, I pieced together an early assessment of Elidred Griggs: Staid and supremely earnest, as if a soul of stable hands, ready to operate on life’s heart. But his calmness was one side of the coin, with apathy taking the other. His strengths and flaws were one: The balance of caring. He wasn’t immune to apathy, and escaping it was a difficult affair.
I did not know if he cared about my wellbeing, or if he cared so little that he had no reservations about wandering into my room and scaring off a group of strangers. Either way, he had my gratitude.
#
Today, tomorrow, or the next: More sycophants were bound to find me. I couldn’t spend too much time in my room.
Before fleeing my room, a small, velvet-covered box caught my eye. My parents had given it to me as a gift for getting accepted. I had debated whether to keep it or not, but now I unwrapped the ribbon and lifted the latch. Inside, it contained a gold furnace pendant. Unlike my existing pendant, this one had a sizeable amethyst set into the metal, as if enclosed by a furnace door.
Emboldened by my pendant, I peeked into the hall. A few people loitered in the hallway, and a couple moved in my direction. There was a good chance they went to their rooms, but I didn’t want to risk meeting them. I opened my window and climbed out. My feet hit grass and…
‘What’s up, Vic?’
Great. Elliot Fletcher.
My sweater got caught on the window latch. ‘What’re you doing here?’ I asked, turned away, struggling with my sweater.
‘Figured I’d check how you were settling in. The boys dormitory is right over there and—here, let me help.’ He pushed through bushes and supported my back and arm, until I could swing free of the window frame. ‘Wanna walk around? See the Vandagriff wonders?’
I didn’t, but I didn’t have anything else to do. Plus, I figured Elliot might insulate me from people. His situation and mine bore similarities; Fornax and Fletcher were significant names. We differed as people, though: Elliot was handsome, athletic, and popular. Pretty arrogant, too.
We went to see the statues and murals dedicated to the city and Academy’s history, which was irrevocably intertwined.
While we walked the campus, Elliot bragged about Fletcher Railways and how their family’s secret technique single-handedly made the present-day rail networks possible. He wasn’t wrong, but he bragged about it like he’d been personally involved.
It crossed my mind that if I married Elliot, like he wanted a year ago, I may be privy to the Fletcher secret technique. But in turn, he’d expect to learn about the Fornax fire and, by extension, our pre-eminent manufacturing techniques.
Both our families had secret techniques, but the result of each technique worked in tandem. Fornax provided the fire and steel, while Fletcher used our products to propel trains at incredible speeds.
Unlike firearms, you couldn’t dismantle a magic technique. You could kidnap someone for information, but they’d have to consistently and effectively teach you for years, which doesn’t synergise well with capture and torture. Perhaps brainwashing or indoctrination. Perhaps.
Truthfully, I didn’t think much of the Fletcher family’s technique. If all practitioners of magic in their family disappeared, I suspected the technique could be replicated by mine or a couple other prominent families. The only reason we didn’t try is because we had our own fields of magic to develop.
‘Are you nearer your dream yet, Victoria?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Your family? Have they let you get more involved?’
‘Oh.’ I frowned at Elliot’s presumption, but I may have told him years ago, when we dated, that my “dream” was to lead the Fornax family. ‘In a way,’ I answered.
‘Good, good,’ he said, not really listening.
Startling clarity caused me to slow my pace. Harsh wind buffeted me. It wasn’t a total lie that my dream was to be part of the Fornax family in ways that mattered, but I had a private dream, too. I avoided thoughts of my private dream, as if such avoidance was possible to maintain. Put simply: I dreamed of meeting the Man-in-Darkness.
Please, do not laugh. And for the ignorant:
The Man-in-Darkness served as a myth, not unlike Santa Clause. It involved a man living in the Dusk among the Entities. He saved pleasant children who wandered into the Dusk and left wicked ones to perish. Some claimed to have seen the Man-in-Darkness, and others, like myself, were haunted by him in our dreams. Unconscious turned conscious, and at some point in my youth, I decide with childish certainty that I would someday meet the Man-in-Darkness, and he would grant me the power to cleanse the Dusk.
‘I asked because it might be helpful, sharing our dreams, so we can mutually support each other.’ Elliot’s lack of subtlety endeared as it infuriated.
‘Are you nearer your dream yet, Elliot?’ I asked, monotone.
‘Yes, thank you. In fact, those Sentinel trials were a good first step.’
‘You realise we…didn’t pass.’
‘Exactly, and it opened my eyes. I spoke with certain hierophants afterward and, get this: The trials were designed to filter students. The Academy wants combat-oriented mages. Apparently the clans and Entities are getting restless. Therefore, if I am to become a Sentinel worthy of legend, I must approach the task with greater severity. Real zeal, if you will.’
‘Oh yes, zeal. It must be real. That would be ideal, I feel.’
‘Are you alright, Vic?’
‘Never better.’
#
Father often described the world’s surviving cities as an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail. I did not understand until a neighbour’s house decayed too much to be liveable, so it got demolished. Demolitions, despite being common practice pre-Dusk, were today reserved for extreme cases. Even then, it was always a careful process, overseen by skilled specialists and mages. And rather than the pure destruction of pre-Dusk days, it was more like a thorough dismantling. Before it got dismantled, the house would have had a recycling plan, a document that outlined how each part of the house would get reassigned to other construction efforts. For example, patio boards to repair another house’s floor, regardless of if the wood clashed. Stone to repair buildings in the green zone. Separate the metal types to be melted down.
I held this image of recycling when I travelled around the city.
Pictures of the past and present showed a few core differences. The taller buildings had gradually been reduced, with resources being added to surrounding areas, as if gradually levelling out, a rhythmic beating heart of highs and lows. Nature took over, but so long as it didn’t interfere with core systems, the city let it be. With fewer vehicles in operation, lots of major roads got converted into other functions. The air got cleaner, too.
Music considered antiquated in pre-Dusk days gained a resurgence, when people learned they could infuse music with magic. They ate their own tails, so to speak, and grew in the process. In every café of the city, of which there were many, you’d hear blends of magic-altered classical compositions, or amalgamations of pop and country and blues. The magic music triggered tastebuds without food, textures to cross your skin, or abstract memories to arise.
Fiction I’d read depicted apocalyptic scenarios as time for immorality to flourish, and the Chaotic Era lived up to that, but in the following Mage Era and Railway Era, the city seemed much more cooperative. I ascribe a few factors to this. Firstly, food surplus. Food grew to massive sizes in certain farming towns. Vegetables that would have won awards in pre-Dusk days now became the norm. Second, money held less sway. Third, magic. Anybody could learn magic, which helped make people more equal.
With the population steadily rising, the Dusk receded. The red and amber zones need to be extended each year, with new constructions occurring in the resulting inner green zone. School excursions went to the green zone sometimes and used telescopes to show the kids where the old boundaries were. I’d like to think it helped. It gave hope that we’d be able to remove the Dusk to a point where we could travel between cities and towns without the need of trains.
Each person could feel they contributed merely by existing. If people died, the Dusk encroached. If people lived, it got pushed back. Perhaps that is why I had an issue with Father’s orders to execute the Rail Snakes.
Though, it was difficult to refute Father. He had lived beyond the basic struggle of fighting against the Dusk, and he seemed to plan for things much worse. If the deaths of Rail Snakes contributes to his greater reality, perhaps my views were a short-sighted “me” issue.
All my philosophising could have been because, as the semester progressed, certain members of Vandagriff Academy’s faculty told my parents that I was somewhat unsocial. My parents had encouraged me to filter the cohort for future allies, as Fornax had always gained powerful, long-term allies from Academy days, but I avoided the task, as you witnessed earlier.
Besides, the sycophants in my cohort were hopeless. Was it better to gain a dozen allies like them, or a single competent ally…like Elidred Griggs. Well, early in the semester, I decided to let my siblings deal with harvesting fresh allies.
I had dreams to pursue.