The Cadet of Tildor

CHAPTER 16





Renee staggered back. He was a mage. Alec was a mage. Her shy, steadfast, loyal best friend wielded the power to Control life forces. Her ears rang as if from a blow.

Alec turned to Diam. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Khavi does.”

Alec nodded and knelt to grip the dog’s shoulder. Blue mage light engulfed them both, pulsating like a beating heart and illuminating the forest around them. Diam groaned.

Renee gathered the boy in her arms. His small body pressed into her while sweat and fire consumed Alec and Khavi. When Alec’s hand dropped away at last, his clothes soaked despite the cold, Khavi climbed to his paws.

“You Healed him?” Renee’s voice sounded hollow.

“Yes. Well . . . no. It’s simpler with animals, but I wouldn’t know how to Heal a wound like that. I offered Khavi my energy and his body guided it.” Alec sank to the ground. “I think it’s instinctual with him . . . with the mage beasts. They can’t Heal themselves any more than human mages can, but once I gave Khavi my energy, something in him took over.” Wisps of blue flame scurried about his fingers like bits of lost lightning. Gasping, he clawed at the lining of his coat. The mage fire flared up over his hands, died, and flared again. He ripped at the cloth. “Help me,” he whispered.

She knelt beside him and patted the jacket. Something inside crinkled in response. With the nimbleness her friend’s fingers now lacked, Renee found the opening to a hidden pocket and suddenly knew what she was about to extract.

Dry orange veesi leaves crumbled into her palm. The bloody cursed leaves that affected mages so differently. She bit her lip.

“Please, Renee.” Alec’s shaking hand extended to her. “Please. I need it.”

Renee stayed where she was, her jaw tight. It wasn’t fair. He was making her a part of this and it wasn’t fair.

“Renee.”

She stood and flung the leaves onto his lap. “Take it yourself.”

He did, trembling as he placed the orange bits into his mouth, cringed, chewed, and swallowed. Nausea contorted his face, but the blue glow died. His shoulders drooped in relief.

Renee hugged her chest and studied Khavi, now cuddling against his boy. It hit us, Diam had said. And Khavi . . . mage animals were rare . . . and wild. Hawks. Bears. Lions . . . “He isn’t a dog, is he?” Renee whispered. “He’s a wolf.”

Alec nodded. “He’s so friendly, you wouldn’t think it, but . . . Maybe mage animals act different when they bond?” Alec chuckled without humor. “I guess they’d have to, if they are to keep from eating their partner for dinner, right? And the partner’s family . . . I guess we’ve proved bonding is more than legend.” He offered Renee a weak smile.

Rene didn’t smile back. “Is Diam too a mage then?”

“I think he’d have to be. He’s too young for it to show yet, though.” Alec’s shoulders slumped farther over a bowed head. He prodded the dirt with his knuckle, bracing for the question they both knew she had to ask.

“How long?”

“Four years.” He looked up, holding her eyes. “I’ve never touched a human. I swear, Renee! Never. Not once. I wouldn’t even know how to get past the Keraldi Barrier in a person. Just animals, sometimes, sick ones who I can help a little. But almost never that even. I keep it down.”

With veesi. An illegal drug to hide a power so dangerous, the Crown mandated its supervision. She kept her face blank.

“Now you know,” he said, hushed.

“I . . . yes. Now I know.” What should one feel upon discovering that her best friend is a felon? Betrayal? Sympathy? Fear? All Renee felt was a humming silence filling her mind with a single, monotonous note. She chewed the inside of her cheek. “Why?”

“I chose freedom.” Alec’s eyes strayed to the boy and dog curled up together, asleep on the ground. “But not at the expense of their lives.” Alec’s head shot up with borrowed strength. “I asked you to say behind!” he yelled, but the fight left him as quickly as it had come. He lay down in the dirt. “I asked you to stay behind.” His gaze rested on the ground. “What will you do?”

Staring at him, Renee found neither the will to answer nor the desire to help him sit up. Debating whether to arrest a hypothetical mage in Seaborn’s class was nothing like standing across from a friend. If she told, Alec would face a noose.

Her fingers curled into tight fists. King Lysian waged war against crime while Alec, the king’s own Servant cadet, was himself a criminal. And Renee . . .

She had never thought herself capable of betraying the Crown.

She could not, would not, betray a friend.

And that loyalty meant treason.

Renee pushed herself off the ground. “Damn you.” The words squeezed past her gritted teeth. “Damn you, Alec!”

“Renee . . . ” His hand reached for her, but she stepped back, turning away.

A gust of wind blew in, howling through the trees. Renee walked into the wall of air, holding on to her jacket, trying to think of nothing but placing one foot in front of the other. The evening moved on, at a distance. The guards called all’s well. A clique of cadets hurried to reach the barracks before curfew. A stray cat brushed her leg and scurried up a tree. Renee walked. Just walked. Nowhere in particular.

The midnight bell tolled.

“Renee?” Savoy, flanked by his two sergeants, turned into the small quad between the barracks buildings, where Renee realized she now was. With all the increased security, she should have known she was bound to run across an adult sooner or later. “Is all well?” Savoy asked.

Another instructor would have punished her for missing curfew. He wouldn’t, she knew. Savoy asked direct questions and took her at her word. And she was about to lie to him. Another betrayal. “I thought I saw a horse loose.” She gestured behind her.

“All the way over here?” Cory’s voice carried surprise, not doubt.

Her fingers toyed with the hem of her coat. Catching herself, Renee stuffed her hands into her pockets. Gods, how did Alec stand it, lying to everyone—lying to her—all these years?

“We’ll check,” said Savoy. He crossed his arms, his eyes penetrating hers. When she remained silent, he nodded. “Very well,” he said, and they walked away.

Hanging lanterns illuminated her walk back to quarters, and unfinished notes welcomed her home. Alec’s materials had disappeared. Sasha, asleep in her bed, pulled her blanket over her head in response to the creak of the door.

On the heels of the evening’s events, the impossibility of finishing her essay by tomorrow throbbed like a drip of water against a wound, simultaneously trivial and unbearable. She chuckled bitterly. Seaborn would down-rate her, and the lowered academic standing would pull her further along the spiral toward losing an already tenuous hold on her Academy slot.

Renee walked to her roommate’s drawer. There lay the assignment she needed. If caught, she’d still be down-rated and likely spend every evening for the rest of the year digging latrine holes. But the consequences of doing nothing were little different. The past four hours saw her become an accomplice to treason because of her friend’s choices. It would serve nothing to jeopardize her own for the sake of a few sheets of homework.

After she finished copying Sasha’s words, Renee spent the rest of the night washing the ink from her hands.