Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
"As you should," Typhon growls with a satisfied undercurrent.
Mireen's right. It's hard to get used to having another voice constantly interjecting in my own head. But there's also something oddly comforting about it. I've felt so crushingly alone at times, especially since the storm three years ago. Even when surrounded by people, it often feels like I'm on an island.
Like I'm swimming against a current that keeps pushing me farther and farther from shore, with no one to throw me a rope.
"So," Beck says, not bothering to finish chewing. "I hear the classes in the western wing are particularly dangerous. All about strengthening our tethers and learning to fight side by side with an elemental."
Ambrose nods. "Heard the same."
"I'm just happy they aren't going to let us openly kill each other anymore," Mireen says.
"Yeah that's all well and good, but did you hear Rector Voss? New uniforms," Beck says. "I can't wait. Maybe the aspirant ones won't chafe so much."
"I think that's a personal problem," Ambrose says. "Mine are perfectly comfortable."
Beck claps Ambrose on the back. "That's because you're not muscular enough, yet, brother. How are you so sleight with what they feed us and all the training they put us through, anyway? Is your brain stealing all the nutrition, maybe?"
Ambrose cuts him a look. "I was very thin when I came here. This is actually the largest I've ever been."
Beck nods. "What did you do before this, anyway? It certainly wasn't any kind of manual labor."
"My parents owned a book shop. I was hoping to become an author. Historical studies. Things like that."
Until today, none of us have ever talked much about our lives before Confluence. I can't say why, exactly, except to guess that it's too painful to dwell on what was. Maybe we all decided it's easier to pretend our past lives are like the dead—they're behind us, and talking about or thinking of them will only cause more suffering.
There's a slight pause as everyone else must be having similar thoughts.
Beck speaks, all the humor and bravado gone from his voice. His eyes are distant, but a faint smile touches his lips as he talks. "I was a farmer. We grew all sorts of things. Had the best corn you've ever tasted, too. It had this sweetness you couldn't match anywhere south of the divide."
Mireen chews her lip. "I helped with the wounded. We were so close to the fighting with Red Kingdom that pretty much every girl in my town either helped with the injured from the front lines or worked on supplies—clothing, food, weapons, and things like that. I spent most of my life seeing the kind of damage primals do to people. Especially fires," she adds with a look in my direction.
Is she trying to warn me about Raith?
But my thought cuts short when I realize they're all watching me now—waiting for me to share about my past.
"I'm from a place called Saltcrest," I say eventually. The name of my home feels strange on my lips already. My throat tightens. "I used to fish with my brothers and my father most days. I was always good on the water, so I mostly guided the boat and helped lead us to where the catches were. My oldest brother, Rodrick, used to joke that I was half fish." My smile fades when the memory of crashing waves and the sight of a hand vanishing beneath the water fills my mind. The phantom sensation of water filling my lungs and the burn of salt in my nostrils makes me shudder.
The memory seems to have physical weight—the weight of the water pressing down, the screams swallowed by howling wind, the desperate, frantic reaching for something, someone to hold onto as the current pulled us apart. I blink hard and force the images away before they can consume me.
If the others sense I'm not saying more, they don't push me on it.
Instead, Beck thankfully changes the subject, even if it's not to a particularly cheerful topic. "So what are we going to do about Malakai?"
"We should keep an eye on him," I say. "For now, I don't care what Rector Voss said. We should still assume he's coming for us."
Ambrose, Mireen, and Beck all nod seriously.
“I’m just going to ask the uncomfortable question,” Ambrose says slowly, leaning close and keeping his voice low. “Wouldn’t we be doing ourselves and the rest of the first-years a favor if we struck first? Why wait for them to catch us by surprise. Why not make a plan to…”
I shake my head. “I don’t want us to become the things this place is trying to make us. Weapons. That’s what they want us to be. They put our backs to a corner and hope we’ll turn into killers to get out. But I want us to be better than that. Trying to kill Malakai for what he did would be the Confluence way. It would be the easy way. But I still want to be me when I’m done with this place. Killing Malakai would kill part of me, and I’m not willing to give that up. Not for him.”