The World

  She turned the page.

  Silence.

  “Theo,” she whispered, feeling her blood run cold as she stared at the back cover. “I’ve seen a pale red aura on him before. In a dream. A dream where I die. But I—I’m not supposed to see auras on anyone other than Ancients.” Raising her head, she met the physician’s unflinching gaze. “Bondless…is that why Emrys picked him? Is he supposed to follow in his footsteps? Is that…is that why I could see it?”

  Chel, expression unchanged, confirmed stonily, “What you’re doing right now will eventually corrupt you, the same way it corrupted Krastoff and Emrys.”

  Ty knew how many Ancients she had felled, and it far outnumbered what had been mentioned in the book. She looked down at her right hand. “It’s the sword, isn’t it? It’s taking the auras instead of me. That’s why it turns black.”

  Nodding again, Chel opened her mouth to speak.

  “If I take those souls, I can live forever, can’t I?” Ty blurted quickly before any words could leave the physician’s mouth. “I can just choose to live, w—”

  “No, Ty,” interrupted Chel sternly and loudly, impatience written all over her face. “No, you can’t. The world will sooner end before you get that chance.”

  Unfair. So unfair.

  Her hands balled into fists before she retracted them back into her lap. She stared at them, feeling a mixture of emotions swelling in her chest again. It was this close. Happiness with her friends, a normal life—if only she had been born in a world with neither conflict nor purpose. A child who lived against all odds.

  When Chel spoke up again, her voice was filled with rare compassion. “If you’ve seen the dream where you die…then you must know what must be done with the souls. Why you can’t take them.”

  “What, so they’ve all just now realized that they’ve sinned? After wanting to live forever?” laughed Ty bitterly to her lap, fists still clenched and voice wavering.

  “It’s only recently that there’s…there’s something happening,” mumbled Chel quietly. “What we’re seeing now—what’s not in the news or textbooks—is that there are a lot more anomalies in the Ancients than ever before. More and more children are being born without auras, children who are killed before adulthood. Elders are disappearing at a rapid pace, and MATS is scrambling for an answer.” The physician-historian’s eyes wavered, as if trying to hold something back. “And that’s not to mention the far-extreme states’ roles in all this—you’ve attended class, you know what they’ve done to the Ancients and to our people. They’re sorcerer-killers, which is what we’ll eventually have to become to eradicate magic and MATS, but we’re not exactly their allies because we’re using magic to achieve that end. Meaning that there’s no one we can trust but ourselves. No one else is on our side.”

  Ty half-nodded, knowing full well the horrors that many Ancient populations faced at the hands of commoners over the course of history. MATS was not an exception. “So…with all the conflict and broken auras…the Ancients, watching their population dwindle, watching the war continue…must see all this as divine intervention for their wrongdoings.”

  “And then we arrive at the magic community’s role.”

  Ty looked up at Chel and searched for an answer in her expectant gaze. “The Circles. MATS reversing time to preserve the Ancients.”

  Chel nodded. “Their declining population is a threat to magic. It threatens our everyday lives; it threatens the way we live, our purpose. Without it, we would have to start from the beginning. Centuries of advancements, gone. Just like that. No more spell-candles, no more purifying water with a few words, no more tomecarts. That’s why MATS is trying to preserve the Ancients at all costs. Even if it means turning back time.”

  “Which used to be what the Ancients wanted…but before they learned about the consequences of going against…Mother.”

  “Correct.”

  With everything that Chel was telling her—it felt like she had been cornered. “The only alternative…is doing what they want and killing the sanctuaries and sinned like they’ve been asking? What about those who have done nothing wrong? They can’t move from place to place forever.”

  For the first time, she hesitated. “Well, as long as Ancients exist, as long as they can be profited off of, as long as there are people greedy enough to drain every one of them of their blood to sustain magic on Chloris, there will never be peace. So if you die, and MATS keeps turning back time to keep the sanctuaries from burning down—because of you—and preventing the Ancients from dying or disappearing, then the world will be beyond saving. They’ll have the Souls of the Earth Mother, they’ll have the Ancients. Do you really want to condemn the Ancients to this kind of life?”

  There…there has to be another way, Ty thought soberly to herself.

  “The more you delay, the closer we get to the point of no return,” Chel scolded her sternly. “That’s what’s on the line when you insist on staying at school instead of carrying out your purpose.”

  Your purpose. The words hurt Ty more than she had expected them to, especially after having committed most of her time this semester fulfilling the student council’s wishes.

  If Chel felt any remorse, she didn’t show it. “I know it’s difficult to accept that you have to kill them, but it was and always has been the Fate of the Ancients.”

  Fate. The word struck a nerve she didn’t know she had, and words that didn’t feel like hers poured out. “It’s not fate. It’s punishment for the atrocities they committed in the name of tradition.”

  “If the world is of the Earth Mother’s design—”

  “They didn’t have to, the Ancients.” Anger. All she could feel now was anger. Anger in her chest, anger in the voices in her head, anger from being tied down by the invisible strings called fate. “It’s revenge,” she said through gritted teeth, unfurling her fingers only to dig her nails into her thighs. “This is the Earth Mother’s revenge.”

  I am the Earth Mother’s revenge.

  Chel was silent for once.

  “If it was fate…why…why would she create people just so they can suffer? Why would she—why would she—” The more Ty tried to complete her sentence, the more she felt like her words weren’t true. “What kind of Mother would give life to her kids only to doom them to a life of suffering and grief for something she orchestrated?”

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  When Chel remained silent, Ty slowly looked up, her desperate, watery eyes searching for a reason for all this suffering.

  “The same Mother who gave you life and subjected you to this pain.”

  Ty’s anger wavered, but only for a brief second. “So why am I following the orders of someone who—”

  “Because that’s your fate. You have no choice.”

  There’s always a choice.

  Silence.

  How do you kill a god?

  “You’re going to wipe out the Ancients, release their souls according to their wishes, and then we’re going to try to make your hard work not go to waste. If we fail, we figure out a plan. We keep on trying until we can’t anymore, because we can’t stand idly by while the Ancients get torn apart.”

  “What exactly are you going to do?”

  “We sever the Anchors.”

  Click.

  Chel didn’t even bother turning around as a shadow walked through the door and quietly mumbled the same locking spell onto the door. “Hey,” he exhaled.

  “You left the assembly early,” replied Chel gently, adjusting her glasses and watching the casting professor nonchalantly walk over while shedding his coat.

  He shrugged a shoulder, an unreadable expression on his face as he draped it over the chair beside Chel’s and across from Ty.

  Without even greeting him, Ty stared and blinked. She could not recall the professor ever having taken off his coat before—he wasn’t even wearing academy-mandated clothes underneath. He had a plain white dress shirt on, with two black tome straps hooked onto the front and back of his black slacks. The straps were taut over his shoulders and formed a cross on his back before hooking onto the back side of his pants.

  Nate, catching her puzzled look, turned to Chel with a knowing smile. “She hasn’t seen me take off my coat before.”

  “You don’t have to say it that way,” muttered the physician, a tinge of annoyance in her voice as she propped her head up with the palm of her left hand as she continued to read the book in front of her. “It’s ‘cause you choose never to take it off.”

  The child professor looked oddly pleased with himself as he sat down. “The reactions never get old.” He nodded at Ty. “Especially from her.”

  Ty struggled not to tilt her head in confusion. “Uh…what are you doing here?”

  “I’m usually here,” replied Nate immediately, sitting down and watching Ty from the other side of the desk. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be running midterm duties. With Luci, usually, under normal circumstances.”

  Ty narrowed her eyes. “With Luci? That’s normal?”

  Nate did not hesitate. “Of course.”

  “I was telling her about the Anchors,” Chel piped up, muttering with her palm half-obscuring her mouth and returning to her notebook. “I’ve said enough, and it’s your job, anyway. How long are you gonna play nice for?”

  Nate stared a while longer after Chel broke eye contact with him, not a single word leaving his lips. And then he turned to face the tactician.

  “According to the information we’ve gathered over the years, there is a group of people who are responsible for initiating the resets,” he began in a commanding tone, as if teaching a lesson. “We call them the Anchors not only because they are instrumental to the time-reversals and subsequent creation of the Circles with which you have been acquainted, but because they keep us ‘anchored’ to a specific time. It doesn’t matter whether it’s been one year or three when it happens; we always go back to the same place in time—your first week of school.”

  A chill ran through her. She remembered; she had woken up from a dream drenched in bloody, searing crimson.

  “The reason has, in part, to do with your beginning school…and our first Anchor, the Headmistress.” Nate stiffly tilted his head toward Chel and eyed her as if waiting for an interjection.

  She tightened the grip on her pen but said nothing before Nate continued. “She has this power because of her involvement with Araminta and your biological father, which, in the grand scheme of things, benefits the Ancients and her. What sets her apart, however, is that her motive isn’t the subjugation of the Ancients, protecting magic, or something far more sinister—it’s you.”

  Ty lowered her eyes.

  “Tyche.”

  She raised her eyes and stared at the professor’s cold and detached gaze. The only one who dared to call her by her first name.

  “Once you carry out your job destroying the sanctuaries, she will intervene and prevent the Ancients from killing you. If she fails, she will initiate a reset. It is not a possibility; it is a certainty. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “You must carry on with your duties, despite this. No matter who is involved. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Even if it’s someone you love. Do you understand?”

  Ty did not move. She saw the faces of the people she loved flash past in a blur.

  Everyone she could not save.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Oh, for the love of…!” Chel slammed her pen down and got up, visibly boiling with rage as she packed her belongings. “I…I can’t be here, in front of her. Listening to this,” she seethed before storming out of the room.

  “You asked why,” explained Nate calmly when they were alone, unaffected by his partner’s sudden departure. “The simple answer would be because we don’t know if there’s going to be another Circle to reset to. This is our last chance. If Araminta finally completes the complete context notes—which you contributed to greatly during the Thirteenth Circle, along with Luci—then it won’t matter anymore. They’ll have the means to make and conjure any spell they want. Ancients have always been the only ones who could create spells because they understand the language, but with the translations finally complete, after centuries of research, Araminta believes they can not only save the Ancients from the Earth Mother, but they’ll also no longer need to ask for submission from them, the rest of Chloris, or any of their enemies; they’ll be able to take it themselves with whatever magic they can dream of.”

  With Chel gone, Ty finally felt like she could speak up. “What happened in the Thirteenth Circle?”

  A dry, hollow laugh escaped his lips. “Well, you see…you almost handed MATS what they wanted on a plate. You destroyed the Academy, killed off anyone who stood in your way, which meant the entire student council—” He raised his brows. “Including me at the end, yes—and you doubled down on helping MATS complete their context notes so that they could not only keep the Ancients interned in their own vile dystopia but also eventually do the same for you and your friends. Which, I mean, isn’t impossible once you have the materials for script and have mastered the Ancient language, essentially becoming a Grace—since Anasot, the firstborn, created magic, after all.” He reached into his pocket and produced a tiny slip of paper identical to the one she had seen in that very room, from forever ago.

  But then his words truly sunk in, and deep down, it was what she wanted. The perfect world in her mind that she could not give up, a purposeless one of only her and her friends—she could live out the rest of her days with them by her side. No war, no sadness. It was what she deserved, not what the Earth Mother had laid out for her.

  “See? It’s tempting,” nodded the professor, pocketing the slip. “But it was a lie. They got what they wanted from you and then killed you. Why would they let you live, when you will always pose a threat to them for being the sole person who can destroy the sanctuaries?

  Yes, the Earth Mother would not let go of you so easily.

  “The only reason we escaped from the Thirteenth is because the Headmistress initiated a reset with Narci, Em, and another Anchor whose identity remains unknown to us. And since the Headmistress is instrumental in MATS’s plan to complete the archives and perform the resets, they’re in a difficult situation where they cannot simply exile her, and they have no idea what the unknown sixth Anchor is going to do. Not to mention that performing a reset requires at least four Anchors.”

  “That’s what the context number submissions are for in the daily reports,” Ty thought aloud to herself before meeting Nate’s gaze. “So…the Headmistress. You’re going to kill her, then? Before she can reset, but before I die?”

  “Exactly.”

  Numb, Ty blinked at the professor’s stoic, emotionless face. “How do you remember all this?”

  Nate’s eyes wavered, and he took a deep breath. “Everyone on the student council remembers everything, from before the First Circle until now, because our anima has been completely bound to the Headmistress—we do what she asks of us, and we all have our reasons for becoming her weapons, for letting her use us like a tactician controls their students.”

  Maintaining eye contact, Ty continued to stare at the professor, who stared at her expectantly. “Why not me?”

  He didn’t even hesitate. “Because the Headmistress loves you.”

  Ty looked down. She tried to banish the voices and process what the words meant—the truth she always wished wasn’t true.

  “Because she doesn’t want you to live through the same pain, over and over again like we do, and all to carry out her own plans. All so she can find a way to keep you alive, no matter the cost.”

  Those words, they returned to her.

  “One life for the world.”

  The professor waited until it dawned on her, what the sentence that left her lips meant. What it meant for the mother who had given birth to a miracle. The mother who had continued to love her more than anything else despite that love never being reciprocated.

  Before any excuses or regrets could leave her mouth, Nate spoke. Calmly, slowly, the weight of all their forgotten years together in his voice. “We can save only one: you—or the world.”

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