Familiar Faces

  “Hey, Ty. What did you think about Moriya’s lesson?”

  “Incinerating the sanctuaries has clearly upset some sort of elemental balance.”

  “Mm. Sounds like it.”

  “What will happen when all the sanctuaries are gone, I wonder.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “No.”

  “Come on,” Theo groaned as he let his head fall onto their desk in the empty Reports hall. “You should really start asking questions and stop letting the Headmistress take advantage of you.”

  “It won’t stop me from doing it,” replied a pensive Ty, whose mind had been elsewhere and was now trying to think hard about his questions. “This is what the Ancients want. To free them, to stop MATS…and I’m the only one who can do it because I’m a halfling. No one else can get close enough and harm the sanctuaries.”

  “I mean, except for that first time.”

  “I’m telling you, it was that shadow.”

  “Moriya?”

  “No…no, I don’t think it was Nate anymore. It said something.”

  Theo turned to face Ty seriously. “You never told me about this.”

  “I know. I wasn’t sure back then.”

  “What did it say?”

  Her mouth felt dry. She could recall the words, feel her spine shiver at the memory. “Revenge,” she whispered, still staring straight in front of her.

  “Revenge?” echoed the oblivious student.

  “Yes.” Ty swallowed, remembering the feeling of the dark phantom, remembering how it felt to bask in the light of the Souls of the Earth Mother. “It sounded identical to when I heard it come from the Earth Mother.”

  Silence.

  “Let’s say it was the Earth Mother,” postulated Theo after readjusting himself to sit upright like Ty. “Why would she want you not to burn the trees? That would go against everything you said about her wishes and the Ancients’.”

  The answer was obvious, and Ty suspected he knew it, too. “Because now I have no choice but to finish what I started and help you. I have to burn it all down…to enact her revenge.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “And this is mine.”

  Another long, arduous sigh escaped Theo’s lips again as he deflated.

  A long and heavy silence followed, full of words that both wished they could have said—words that may not have been true but were comforting nonetheless.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to do it,” Ty admitted in a barely audible whisper.

  “Do what?” Theo turned his head so he could look up at her face, only a shadow illuminated by the light of the window behind them.

  “There are ten more sanctuaries. Ten more Graces. I don’t know how I’m going to do it.”

  “The same way you did it this summer, in Caspos.”

  Ty could feel the atmosphere in the room shift as she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “The earliest resets have always been three years in, and we may not even get three years this time to dismantle everything. I keep trying to think of how I’m going to travel across Chloris to destroy all ten before the year is up, and it’s impossible. There’s no time.”

  “You know, we’re just kids.”

  I’m just a kid, wept a faraway version of Ty. I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared.

  She could feel herself faltering—her lips twitched, her hands stiffened. One, two. One, two, she tried to ground herself before blinking a few times. She brushed her cheek with the tips of her fingers as if dismissing phantom tears.

  Theo continued. “It’s only our second year. Are you really going to finish the sanctuaries before the school year is up? While attending classes and doing your duty as our class tactician?”

  Silence.

  Realization dawned on Theo. He sat up straight, and with a deep frown, his face even more pale and sickly than normal, teeth gritted and doing his best to suppress his feelings just like Ty, he barked a single word that was so loud the reports handler peeked over to see what the commotion was.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  “No.”

  Meeting his severe gaze, Ty calmly replied, “You’ll get your third year to figure out how to stop MATS. If the Headmistress’s records are correct…there may not even be another cycle to reset to. This might just be our last chance. Would…that be enough time?”

  Completely at a loss, flabbergasted that Ty was even asking such a thing, Theo sprang to his feet. “What? How—that’s not the issue!” he protested loudly, watching from the corner of his eye the reports handler who was now rushing over. “You said you weren’t—”

  “I know what I said, Theo, please,” pleaded Ty, burying her head in her hands. “I just…I need time. I just need to find a way. I need to find a way.”

  “We’ll find a way together. Could be me, could be the class. You’re not leaving.”

  “I’m here. I’m not leaving.”

  “Ever?”

  Ty dropped her hands and folded them together in her lap, failing to find any calm. “I’m—you know I probably won’t live—”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “People like me don’t live long,” she finished anyway.

  “So you’re just going to end it yourself? You have no idea how long you—”

  Exasperated, tired of trying to keep her composure, Ty finally stood up and yelled back, “Yes, while I can choose what I want to do with my life!” And then she snapped her head toward the reports handler, who had just arrived to reprimand them. “I’m going.”

  Theo did not run after her.

  * * *

  Data. Ty kept on repeating the word in her mind as she ran up the stairs to the tenth floor, where she was greeted by an empty corridor leading to a single ominous door at the end. I should have done this long ago. I should have asked when I had the chance.

  The pounding in her head and the aching in her chest—she ignored all of it as she headed toward the Headmistress’s office. The windows to her side mattered little to her now, those insignificant ants going about their everyday life, unaware of the impending destruction of their peaceful world.

  I’m doing it for everyone, she had convinced herself long ago. Not just for Theo.

  “You’ve got the roster?”

  Five steps away from knocking at her door, she stopped dead in her tracks to look to the right, down the hallway leading to the student council rooms and special staff dorms.

  “Oh, hey Ty,” said Seth, who was holding a stack of books. Beside him was Halle, who had her head turned to Chel. Pia was in the back, a greatsword in its scabbard casually slung across her back.

  Everyone stopped to look at the tactician.

  “I’m sorry,” she reflexively responded, taken aback at being addressed so informally by someone she had barely had any interactions with. “I don’t think we’ve been acquainted.”

  No one moved a muscle. Seth especially stared at her as if she had suddenly grown another set of limbs.

  “W-well,” she started, incredibly uneasy in the presence of so many of the student council members, “I need to speak to the Headmistress; please excuse me.”

  Turning away, she took three more steps and lifted her hand to knock at the door only to be interrupted again.

  “Wait, she’s not in there.”

  Ty blinked and let her hand drop, meeting Halle’s gentle gaze from not a few steps away. “She’s not?”

  “No, she isn’t,” reaffirmed the fifth-year student. “I saw her leave earlier. Maybe try again later?”

  Ty scanned the faces of the other students. “Really?”

  Before Halle could reply again, Chel took it upon herself to speed up the conversation. “Yes, Halle and I saw her leave when we were heading to the student council office to pick up some materials for the duels happening soon. You’ll probably be better off checking out the courtyard for her than up here.” And with that, she detached from the group and walked over to Ty, who stood at least a head taller than her, and roughly took her by the coat. “Let’s go.”

  This time, Ty could do nothing but be led away by Chel.

  “You all know something I don’t again,” she spoke tepidly at her captors.

  “Honestly, we all figured you would have at least finished reading up on the previous attempts by now,” Seth said with a shrug, more aloof than compassionate. “Nate hasn’t been doing his job.”

  The physician practically hissed at him, her iron grip turning to steel. “Hey, he’s doing the best he can between MATS and the Headmistress!”

  There was a hint of animosity at the end of her sentence that Ty registered as she focused on walking in step with her keeper.

  “That’s what he says,” commented Pia absently, facing the windows. Her voice was soft and carefree, as if she weren’t even talking to them at all.

  “Now, now,” cooed Halle, a patient, sincere smile on her face for once as she chuckled lightly. “Let’s not fight in front of Ty.”

  “He did what none of you guys had the guts to do, three Circles ago,” Chel still muttered bitterly under her breath, every step a tiny stomp with the tactician carefully following every step.

  “What? Didja say something?” teased Seth with a grin, hands in pockets and a gleam in his eye.

  “If only Pia had actually managed to sever your carotid last year.”

  “In case it needs to be said,” Halle chimed in right away, watching her step and holding her cream dress up so it didn’t get dirty, “that is not permission for you to try that again, Pia.”

  Pia said nothing, only adjusted her sword with an unreadable expression on her face.

  “Aw, sis, you don’t have to be so good all the time, you can sever my carotid whenever you want,” teased Seth, earning him a kick from behind that sent him tripping down to the ninth-floor landing.

  Like an innocent dog, Seth stood upright once he got to the landing and shook his head to fix his hair, patting down his arms and legs before continuing downstairs as if it was a regular day, which was far from the truth for Ty. She was being pulled around for no discernible reason, she hadn’t obtained the answers she was looking for from the Headmistress, the reports still weren’t done, Theo was probably still upset with her, and on top of all that, she had been insulted once again for not knowing more than she should have even though she had been trying her best.

  So, so weak.

  “Can you please let go now?”

  Without even looking at Ty, Chel clicked her tongue and then let go of her coat right as they stepped onto the eighth floor.

  Ty smoothed the section of her coat where Chel had held onto—it was crinkled, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed with time. She had to take care of this one, since it was feeling more and more like it would be the last one she’d ever receive. “Thank you,” she mumbled, knowing it would go unheard.

  The rest of the student council continued down to the next floor, almost leaving Ty until Halle looked back, the last to descend. “You should come with us to the courtyard. I’m sure your friends will be there. The event will happen soon.”

  As much as she wanted to listen to her and her singsong voice, Ty shook her head, trying to get rid of the overwhelming feeling beginning to stir in her chest. “I’ve…got to find Theo first. I’m sorry.”

  Halle did not seem surprised at her unwillingness to join. “No, you don’t.” Her smile was unwavering, beckoning. “Come, let’s go to the courtyard.”

  And for a reason that Ty could not immediately explain, she complied, dumbly following the rest of the student council outside to the courtyard as if she were one of them.