Vayal Academy

I need to be in her head, really — that’s the best way to get something I can use. But Vila’s mind refuses my entry, somehow, and I’m stuck floating over her shoulder like a child’s balloon.

How’d she do that? I slipped into Syrene and Mistari just fine, and they seem a hell of a lot more wilful than Vila.

Her heeled shoes tap-tap-tap on the common room’s pink stone, past friends she’s known a year, and straight to her own quarters. The spartan room still depresses me — just doesn’t sit right — but I’m an odd mixture of relieved, confused, and jealous to see she has, after so long at the Academy, found one decoration for her room: a branching blue fern in a soft clay pot, FOR KITTY engraved across the front. It sits on the small bedside table; the leaves match her nail polish.

She goes straight to her equally barren desk and pulls a copy of Misdirection in Combat: Where Evocation Meets Illusion from the shelf above. She sits, and she reads, lighting the pages with a ball of twinkling orange light over her shoulder.

I’m just about to pull back when there’s a knock on the door. An insistent knock, one that so demands to be answered that Vila’s up and walking in a second.

When Vila opens the door, Princess Indel Endaria barrels right past her, head pointed to the roof in obvious disdain. Vila’s eyes go to the floor. “P-princess,” she stammers, her usual attitude melting in the face of royalty.

“Ah, good. So you understand your place?”

“Of course, Princess. I live to serve, like all good Imperials.”

“Do you?” She may as well spit the words.

“Yes! If somebody alleges otherwise, name their slanders so I might dispute them.” Hastily, she adds, “If it please you, Princess” and somehow turns her face even further downward in submission.

“I allege otherwise, Guardian.”

“N-no! You cannot-”

A raised talon is all it takes to silence Vila. “For weeks, you have deprived me. For weeks, I have slept alone, and cold, without another to warm my feathers. For weeks, I have shivered. Because of you.”

“I-I-I… Princess. You wish me to-”

Indel’s talons aren’t good for slapping, and instead of a loud smack the claws quietly rake flesh, leave three weeping lines across Vila’s soft furred cheek. “Fool. I am speaking of my love — dearest Hattie. You keep her from me.”

Yes! Indel! Once I’m out of here, I need to talk to her. If she’s willing to share me then Godsdamnit she can have me.

Vila, who accepted the slap without complaint, suddenly finds her fire. Her head snaps up and her eyes meet Indel’s in challenge. “I have done nothing of the sort. Her punishment-”

“Has gone on long-”

“No! The Headmistress entrusted me with her discipline. I’ll decide when she’s-”

Even with her newfound defiance, Vila doesn’t dare raise a hand against royalty — Indel slams her into the wall as she keeps her head up but her arms down. “I am niece to the Empress. Whatever relation you have to Headmistress Lyra cannot compare. I demand you release my Hattie.”

“It won’t do you any good! It’s not me. No. No! It’s- It’s Mae, with her spectacles, she’s keeping her from me, her and the Orc.”

“We are speaking of the Orc, fool.”

Vila realises her mistake and screws her mouth up. Gods. Maybe I can sort this out. Telepathically contact Alyx and ask her to spend a bit more time with Vila. Might smooth everything over.

They stare at each other, anger flaring in their eyes. “If you do not return her to me,” Indel begins, but Vila counters with,

“She won’t find any time for you, Princess. If you could hear her… she talks only of them. No matter how long I keep her.”

“Girls.” Nym’s voice is so full and commanding that I’m sure it must come from Syrene, but as they both turn to the door it’s the wood elf standing there, seeming taller than usual. “There’s no need to fight.”

“What are you doing here?” they both ask, a unison so comical it almost tears them from each other’s throats — almost.

“There’s a way we can all get what we want. I just need you to listen to me.”

Whatever this is, it’s no good. Gods. It’s like it’s not her! I’ve never seen Nym so steely and determined.

“First, though,” she says, unslinging a misty purple orb from a pouch by her side. Fog streams from it. She rolls it across the floor like she’s playing bowls, the fog fills the room, and my sight is lost. Their sentences come in fragments, voices now indistinct — I can’t tell who says what.

Find out what the hell that artifact is. Tailina would know.

“...want Alyx… punished… plan that…”

“...hurt her.”

“...permanent… all yours. Yours alone.”

“...Hattie?”

“..No harm…hasn’t done…”

“...willing to...”

“...duel…”

And then the fog’s so dense that nothing escapes it, and I’m shunted back to my body.

Okay. Weird.

Have to stay focused, though. The goal hasn’t changed — I need to get out of here. I might be more sympathetic to Vila than before, but she’s still the one keeping me stuck in this compound when I’m desperate to see my girlfriends.

If I can contact Alyx, she can give Vila the attention she’s craving, and hopefully it convinces her we can coexist. But for all my practice, I still don’t have the mana for a cross-planar connection to the Academy from within the Diligence pocket dimension. Need to borrow some. But from who?

By this time of night, Diligence is near abandoned. A few of the older students, who I don’t know at all, choose to sleep here in the communal hall, but most everyone is back in their rooms.

A quick survey of the yard reveals it empty of all but the watchers on the walls, and I don’t want to disturb them — they need that mana. Instead, I head for the hall. It’s more a barn than anything, a big wooden building stuffed with straw beds in little stalls. Mine and Svelgi’s are near the back; I walk slow, casting my eyes round. Seems everyone’s in their stall except a grey-furred, blue eyed cat I vaguely remember from the Temple Ceremony — Kivali, I think?

Yeah. Kivali. Syrene’s ex. I never want to wish ill on someone, but Gods, I hope they’re not still friends — no way she’ll help me contact Alyx if they are.

“Hey,” I say, taking a seat on the crate next to her as she whittles some trinket. “I’m Hattie.”

“I know who you are.”

“Y-you do?” I didn’t expect her to fall over herself greeting me, but the cold hostility catches me totally off-guard.

“Yes. You live with the elf.”

“You mean Nym?”

“Call the bitch whatever you want. Could you go now?”

Am I this kind of person? The kind who schemes? Plays people off each other?

No, you’re not, but you did pretty well in Escalation, didn’t you?

And you need to get back to them. You love them.

“Nym’s planning something. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think it’s good. I’d like to stop her.”

Kivali stops whittling. She turns her head up to me, sea-blue eyes full of confusion. “Planning? No. Not her style. She deals in brute force. Everything she does is inartful. Clumsy. Doesn’t plan — just does. You’re lying.”

“I saw her, talking to Vila. She’s up to something.”

There’s a look I can’t parse. “Excuse me. I need to go.” And like that she’s gone, and with her my chance at contacting Alyx. She’s a damn good Illusionist — I see through Nym’s invisibility all the time, but Kivali vanishes.

Fuck. What now?

Screw it. I can do it alone. I bring my legs up and cross them, straighten my back, close my eyes and focus. I know Alyx, I love Alyx; she’s been inside me. Destiny links us.

And yet, despite it all, still it’s like swimming through tar. My body starts to burn as I grope in the dark for her mind, each failed throw costing me more mana than I can spare. By the time I find her I’m down to my last reserves, and there’s only time for a sentence:

Alyx, find Vila; she cares about you and-

I list forward and hit the ground with a thud.

There’s the vague sensation of movement, hazy voices, and then the blissful rest of my soft mattress beneath me. My eyes flutter open and I watch a tall black ram, the only woman I’ve seen here who looks stronger than me, recede.

“Thank you, Elva,” Vila calls after her. She sits across from me, on Svelgi’s bed.

“O-o-oh?” I say, groggy.

“Ah. You are awake. Good. Your punishment is not over; yet, as a kindness, I see fit to release you tomorrow. I shall give you some time with your… girlfriends.”

Holy shit. Alyx did it. I owe her — better not tell her that, though, or I’ll never stop paying it back.

“Thank you, Vila. Thank you so much.”

There’s a twitch in her eyes and a sneer on her face. “Save it. Spend your time well. Perhaps you can convince her to surrender with grace.”

Something’s wrong. “Surrender?”

“Yes. You will have the hours before it — that is the kindness. But principally I’m releasing you to witness the duel. Or to convince-”

“Duel? What duel?”

“Do not interrupt me,” she snaps, all her teeth on display for one terrifying second. “Yes. I am to duel the deer. I refuse to suffer her humiliations any longer. And-”

“You can’t!”

She leaps to her feet. Fire lashes the ground before me and I bolt up, pressing myself against the wall. “Do not interrupt me! If you do not wish to see your girlfriend defeated tomorrow, tell her to surrender and accept my terms. Otherwise, you will watch me destroy her.” Vila stops at the swinging stall door, casts a glance back at me. “Rest well, Orc. I expect you back here as soon as the duel is done — and there will be much to do.”

Don’t know how this happened. But she’s right. I need to find a way to stop it.