Inside, the rooms were dim and cool, the white stucco walls bare of adornments, windows or decorations. We marched down a corridor in silence until we came to a heavy wooden door at the end of the passage. Benedict knocked twice, and a quiet “Enter” drifted through the wood. Pushing the door back, we stepped into a small, equally bare office, where two men waited for us in the dimly lit room.
The first man who rose from behind a desk and came forward was dressed in flowing black robes, a simple rope belt tied around his waist and an iron cross hanging at his throat. He was tall, even taller than Benedict, with a long gray beard and a narrow, angular face, eyes peering down at me with the intensity of a hawk. The sleeve of his right arm had been folded and pinned to his shoulder, the fabric hanging limply at his side. A string of wooden beads were entwined in the fingers of his left hand, and they clicked softly as he approached and loomed over me like a grim specter of death.
“Ah, Garret Xavier Sebastian.” His voice scraped in my ears like a pair of knives. “We meet at last. I am Headmaster St. Julian, and I have been anticipating your arrival for a very long time. Do you know why you are here?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, keeping my voice steady and my eyes glued to a point over his left shoulder. “I’m here to learn how to kill dragons.”
St. Julian laughed, a raspy sound in the small room. “Right to the heart of the matter,” he said, looking at Benedict, standing behind me. “I see this one has no illusions. Have you told him everything?”
“I told him everything about the war, and what the Order does, sir,” Benedict replied. “I’ve prepared him for this day as best I could. He knows our enemies, and he understands what is at stake. Now, I leave him in your capable hands, to turn into a true soldier for the cause.”
A quiet chuckle came from the second man in the room. “If I know you, Lucas, the boy can already outshoot and outfight every recruit in his class,” he mused, gazing at me with piercing black eyes. “I hear he could reliably hit the center of a target at fifty paces when he was eight. How old is he now?”
“Eleven,” Benedict replied.
The man shook his head. “He’ll already be singled out, coming in late and being younger than everyone by at least a year. You’re not doing him any favors.”
“That can’t be helped,” Benedict replied. “I’ve been assigned to the South America mission and I leave the country in a week. They’re not certain how long we’ll be gone—better that he’s here, learning, and not sitting on his bunk, staring at walls. Sebastian is old enough to begin training, and he knows what he has to do. The Headmaster has agreed to take him a year early. He’s learned everything he can with me.
“Besides,” he continued ruthlessly, “I’ve never done the boy any favors. I don’t want things to be easy for him—I want him to be the best. So make it hard for him. Push him beyond what everyone else can take.” I felt his gaze on the back of my head. “When his training is done, I expect him to be the perfect soldier.”
The perfect soldier. I swallowed hard. I had to excel, to be the best. The better I was, the sooner I could go to war and start killing the monsters that slaughtered my family.
“Very well,” the Headmaster said, nodding slowly. “If that is what you wish, Benedict. We will see what your recruit can do.” He turned to me, and there was a new interest in his expression now; a master sizing up his latest apprentice. “I’ll have someone show you to your room,” he said. “Dinner is at five thirty in the main hall, and classes begin promptly at eight a.m. I expect you to be early for both, Sebastian.”
“Yes, sir.”
The door opened, and a monk appeared as if summoned by magic. “Please show our newest recruit to his quarters,” the Headmaster told the monk. “I believe there is one room left. The chamber closest to the outer wall. Put him in there.” His hard gray eyes fixed on me once more. “You have until dinner to familiarize yourself with the grounds,” he told me. “Tomorrow morning, if I don’t see you in the correct room on time, your entire class will receive a punishment detail. Succeed or fail together. That is how we do things here, recruit.” He gave a humorless smile that was a clear challenge, an invitation to impress. “Welcome to the Academy of St. George.”
The monk didn’t take my bag or make any gesture to follow. He simply stood just inside the door with his hands clasped before him, waiting. I turned to Benedict, who gave me a short nod.
“Work hard,” he told me. “Remember what I taught you. This is what you trained for, what you were always meant to do.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied simply, and turned away. No goodbyes, no sentimental farewells. I followed the monk into the hall, but paused when my mentor called my name. Lucas Benedict stood in the door frame with a peculiar expression on his face, one that seemed torn between defiance and an almost angry pride. My gut prickled. It wasn’t the first time he had looked at me like that. Every so often, when I did extraordinarily well, or when I recited the St. George teachings I knew by heart, he would smile faintly and nod. As if, despite everyone’s misgivings, I was coming along just fine.