The Academy [BOOK ONE COMPLETE]

The rest of the lunch with Frederik was fine. The wine had made me talk more than I normally would, but about nothing of importance. Frederik had listened to my stories so raptly that he almost forgot to eat. He asked me at least five times if I was pulling his leg when I told him more about Boot. To be fair, the guy had been pretty stupid even by thug standards.

When I finally walked down the stairs, Falar stood before a throng of skeletons, scowling at them. There had to be at least fifty of them standing in neat rows. Most of them were carrying something: satchels, two bundled up tents, enormous wooden boxes. Some had long poles, at least twice as tall as Jextor. They had a crook at the end, with a lantern hanging on each crook.

“How do they see where to walk?” I asked, pointing to a skeleton holding a box that rose much higher than than its skull.

Falar scoffed. “Give your bags to these two,” he said, waving a hand. “I’m happy to see you kept to the amount I ordered.”

Two skeletons stepped forward, reaching out their hands to Grit and me. I shrugged, and handed off my satchel. It was a simple bag with a single strap that went over my shoulder. I had managed to squeeze in note-taking implements, the book about reanimating undead, and some extra undergarments, but not much else.

Four skeletons wobbled past, lugging a massive chest with a skeleton at each corner gripping a thick iron ring.

Falar glared at it. “Some, obviously, did not.”

“Ah, our intrepid students!” Jextor shouted, pushing his way through banks of snow. “I scouted ahead! No roads where we are going, I’m afraid. It’ll be good exercise for us all. You all look like you’ve spent far too long inside stuffy lecture halls.”

“I’ve been here for a month,” I said.

“Hah! That only proves you’ve taken to this place like a corpse to soil!”

“Chancellor, please,” Falar said. “The whole point of us being here is to take the corpses from the soil.” Jextor started to answer, but Falar raised his voice. “And it doesn’t matter in the first place! Away!”

The skeletons started marching in perfect rhythm. At the front of the group were some zombies, wearing ludicrously large boots. They stomped on the snow, pushing it down to make a path for the rest of us.

Jextor grinned and pulled the straps of his backpack tighter. If he had a whole chest of stuff, what did he need a backpack for?

Grit nudged me in the side. “What were you smiling about at the lunch?”

“Nothing,” I said, setting off behind the skeletons. Their bony feet sank into the snow, even with the zombies stomping it flat.

“Were you smiling at Minnelil? You two’ve been acting funny.”

“Speak for yourself. Want to go talk to Falar?”

She coughed, gaze flinching away from me.

It was a low blow and I grimaced. “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand anything anymore.”

“You seem to smile more than before.”

I was. Even now. A bit. The doubt and the fear that hung over everything were back, but they couldn’t sweep me away for now. Could I just try being happy? Once Falar’s ward spun itself out, would the fun twisty feeling in my stomach turn into nothing but fear of being hurt, losing something again?

I pulled the silly conical hat lower on my ears. We had reached the edge of the Academy and for the first time in a month there was nothing but clouds and the moon above me. Warmth shot up into the open sky, vanishing somewhere between the stars. It was so cold my breath caught in my throat. “I have no idea what is real,” I said slowly.

Grit turned to look at me. She was even whiter than the snow, skin glowing in the dim light of the moon.

I tried to out-wait her, make her say something, but she didn’t. I sighed before starting to speak. “My life has changed a lot. I could already be dead, if it hadn’t. I had nothing, no food, no clothes…”

“How about friends?” Grit said.

I scoffed. “Least of all. I’m not used to it, but I’ll try.”

“You’re odd, but you’re okay.”

I tilted my face up, breathed in the freezing air. The wind wasn’t as bad here as it seemed from the inside of the Academy. Maybe it had more room to blow, or wasn’t angry about being shackled by the wards.

If someone would had said a couple of weeks ago that I wasn’t angry about being shackled by a ward, I would have punched my fist right through their face.

“Lina!” The voice rang like a bell. I hadn’t seen her when I was leaving, but now she ran across the dark ground, the sleet turning to snow further out.

“I wondered where she was,” Grit said.

“Me too,” I muttered.

Minnelil waved something white in her hand. By the time she reached us, she was breathing hard, cheeks flushed. “I was afraid I’d miss you. Falar wastes no time.”

“He has other people do it for him,” I said. Jextor and he were waving their hands at each other, both pointing to different directions. The zombies took one step one way, another step to the other.

Minnelil smiled. She pushed a closed envelope into my hand and pulled Grit into a hug. “Come back safe, you two.”

“We’re surrounded by a horde of undead and dressed to kill. What could happen?” Grit said, patting her on the back.

A lot. A lot could happen.

But I didn’t say anything, instead pushing the envelope into the inside pocket of my coat. My mouth was dry from thinking about what it might say.

Minnelil let go and adjusted Grit’s hat to sit straighter on her white hair. “It’s supposed to cover your ears.”

Grit rolled her eyes and Minnelil turned to me. She reached for my hand and I took her fingers in mine. “I’ll see you when you get back,” she said.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

I waited for Jextor to barrel over me or Falar to shout for us to stop wasting time, but nothing happened, so I kept holding on.

She squeezed my fingers. “I’ll make sure Fek doesn’t get in trouble.”

“You’ll need more luck than we do,” Grit said. “I think they managed to pick a direction. The zombies started moving again. We should follow.”

“Yeah,” I said. “See you, Min.”

I watched her as she walked back toward the Academy.

Grit nudged me. “What did she give you?”

“Who knows?” I said. The envelope burned in my pocket. I never pulled out a dagger in a brawl as that made things dangerous, raised the stakes. Guaranteed someone was going to get hurt.

I hoped Minnelil just hadn’t pulled one out on me.

---

“Hold close to me!” Falar shouted through the snowfall. He walked right behind the zombies in the front of our procession, a dozen steps ahead of us.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Grit said. She grinned at me and jogged ahead.

I groaned and pushed forward to catch up. We had been trudging through the snow for a while. My breath turned into white clouds the wind blew away. Outside of the Academy’s constant pressure, the wind carried hints of mold. Not all of it, but every once in a while some especially cold gust smelled like it blew directly from a forgotten cellar, filled with ice and rot. My head felt like I was going to get a headache, but it never came.

“I’ll explain the course of our excursion,” Falar said as we drew closer to him.

Jextor was a distant figure in the snow ahead. He insisted on stomping ahead of everyone, even when he had to push through waist-high snow.

“Something radiates death on these mountains. The power is old and unfamiliar, even to the Academy. The north is unmapped and unexplored, but we will follow the scent to its source.”

“What then?” I asked.

“Quiet. I said I’d explain, so let me do it,” he said. He wore a coat similar to mine, which puffed him up almost as large as Jextor was ordinarily. “We will travel slowly. The mountains hold ambronite deposits, so keep your eyes on the mountain lanterns.” He waved a hand at the skeletons holding the long, crooked poles. The lanterns shone with a bright blue light.

“Wha—“

Grit nudged me in the ribs with her elbow. “Later,” she hissed.

“Thank you,” Falar said. “Tracking the power isn’t simple, which is why we can’t rush. Additionally, I want to spend the time preparing you for whatever it is we might find, whether it is an opportunity or a threat. Most likely it will be both.”

“How will we prepare, Lecturer?” Grit asked.

“You will learn to protect yourself from the effects of nothingness. I hope you have focused on your channeling, as you’re going to be needing it.”

“I have. Do you know what I learned at the same time? I can take apart your shackle at any point,” I said.

Falar scoffed. “You’re back to calling it a shackle? The ward must be fraying again. Well, be my guest.”

The wind threw snow on my face. The ache in my brain throbbed, familiar and unpleasant. We walked a moment in silence, Grit throwing me a worried look, Falar with his pin-prick eyes focused forward.

He stopped to sigh. “But if you have any sense, you will first learn how to survive once the ward is gone. If you do, I will teach you.”

Grit held her thumbs up at me. She nodded at Falar still standing in place and staring unblinking into the hail.

“Do you?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said.

“Good.”

He started off again, walking across the flattened snow.

“I’m stuck!” Jextor shouted from somewhere ahead.

He had disappeared. I scanned the trail he had left and finally noticed his bald head poking up from the snow.

“We can leave him there?” Grit asked.

“Don’t even joke about that, student,” Falar said, scowling at her. Grit flinched back, biting her lower lip.

Falar sighed, waving a hand. A group of skeletons with shovels started jogging toward the submerged Chancellor. “The temptation might be too much for me,” he muttered.

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