I didn’t know her. I was certain I didn’t know her. I was sure I had never met her in my entire life, so how did she know my name? Granted, it was only my last name, but it wasn’t like I ran around announcing myself wherever I went. My satchel slid off my shoulder as I almost unwillingly reached for my face.
Was it my eye colour? I wondered distantly.
Grandfather had once told me that the reason I had been selected as next heir rather than my father or older brother was because I had inherited the “Sylver family’s eye colour,” but . . . was there more to it than that? I had always wondered, but I had never dared to ask.
I finished off my divine apple crème cake with a satisfied swipe of my tongue and glanced behind me for probably the fifth time. I was sure that I had never told the old lady my name, but she had said it with such certainty. Had I unintentionally told her my name at some point?
My body suddenly remembered how ache-y and tired it was, and I couldn’t muster the brainpower to work the problem further. Resetting my satchel over my shoulder, I moved on.
Blindly following a nostalgic smell, I approached one of the many medieval-looking buildings nestled along the store line. Cobblestones decorated the front yard and plants grew out of rusted watering cans. The weathered sign with Alairan scribbled on it and hanging from two chains meant little to me, but the overall style of the building looked like a restaurant and my nose banked on the sweetly savoury scent of what I was sure was honey-glazed steak.
I hungrily pushed the thick wooden doors open and devoured the sight before me. The inside was dark, stinky, and there was a clear mess of questionable substance beneath my feet. Dotted around were groups of brutish men and a few women armed with weapons. Instinctively, I immediately searched each person for potential threats.
Customers were watching the harsh glow of a holo-vision set on one side of the building, where they whooped and hollered over some recorded game . . . or something. I cared less. In a back corner, sounds of a fight seemed to be sparking from verbal to physical. After a few moments of study, it proved to be a useless drunkard fight and I felt my shoulders sag. There seemed to be nothing exciting in here.
Taking a deep breath, I stood to my full height and confidently approached what looked like the host’s booth. As I walked by, I received a few glances, but they were either curious or confused, so I wrote them off.
A boorish looking man stood behind the desk and asked how many were in my party. When I rose a single finger, his brow twitched. He stared at me for a heartbeat as if confirming that “someone my age” was really entering a place like this alone—even though the reality was that “someone my age” was comfortably beyond the age limit, and I really wished people would stop judging me for it. In the end, he simply nodded and guided me to the back corner.
With my head raised confidently, I followed him to my table, which happened to be only two spaces away from the sparking fight that I had noted earlier. The host-man seemed unconcerned about the growing violence. In fact, he seemed rather interested in it. As he set my menu and silverware down, I caught him stealing peeks at the action and he practically had to peel himself away to go back to work. He even forgot to say the normal customs of “Is this seat acceptable for you?” or “Would you like anything to drink?”
Another host-man came to take my order, to whom I showed the menu pictures of what I desired to consume and informed him that I would like water to drink. Aside from the ongoing tussle in the corner, time passed with relative normalcy.
Buried beneath the stench of wine, beer, and questionable other sources, wonderful scents tempted my tongue. When the aroma had first led me to this place, I had a hope spark in my mind that I might be able taste something that could remind me of my father’s seared meats. His grilling skills were next to none and just by smelling the sweet savour of various meals around me, I got lost in hungered heaven. That is, until the juicy string of gossip touched my ear and brought me to reality.
“Apparently another hopeless went missing. I hear it was the previous Top of the Class this time.”
“Really?” a shocked reply came. “At least the University won’t have to worry about the Upper School being overrun at this rate. I heard only six out of fifteen hopeless made the cut last time.”
The first speaker laughed darkly. “Can’t wait to see how many fail at the Ceremony tonight. What’s your guess? How many?”
“Oh, I bet only five or even four make it this time. There’s no way . . .”
As the two speakers melted into common banter, my meal arrived, and I tucked into it with my gears turning. The two men had said something that caught my interest—the term “hopeless.” I remembered the skinny Bay Keeper calling me a hopeful when I first arrived. Were the terms connected somehow? Were they related to the University? Based on my encounters with the terms, they seemed to be. So then, how were they related?
I quenched my burning thoughts for a moment. Silver metal pierced a small bite of soft, seared steak. Raising the morsel to my mouth, I could feel every muscle in my body relax as the savoury juices coated my tongue. Oh, it was good. It wasn’t as good as father’s steak, but it was good. Second-best.
As I chewed my mouthful of food, I went back to work and searched the voices around me for another conversation ripe for eavesdropping. If I was lucky, maybe I’d figure out where exactly the University was located so I could avoid talking to any more people.
Acting like I was fixing my bangs, I touched my finger to the unassuming red devices set in my ears. Rolling a miniature dial on the Rednail cuff, I poked and prodded at the voices around me until I found another thread worth listening to.
A gruff voice was slurred and muffled. “What time do they make their rounds again?”
“They should be nearing here soon,” came a frantic, hushed reply. “You better hurry up unless you want to get caught slacking again.”
I stopped my finger on the dial, honed my ears on the conversation, and continued to enjoy my meal like nothing was out of place. No one would imagine that they were being heard by a Nightshade enforcer right now, and a step away from death, depending on what I heard.
Sometimes, being under the Nightshades and given access to Pre-Purge technology had its perks.
“Slackin’? Who said I was slackin’?” the drunken voice retorted. “All I have ta do is stop a ruckus worth my time and she’ll be none the wiser. There’s always a fight ta break up here anyway, y’see?”
I glanced at the fight still ongoing in the corner and wondered if that fight would be considered “worth his time.” The two brawling men looked nearly ready to stab each other with forks and knives. They had already started smacking each other with plates and napkins like five-year-olds. It was a wonder to me why they didn’t just draw the swords by their sides.
Of course, right when I finished that thought, one of the men drew their sword with a yell. From a different direction, I felt the presence of someone approaching the scuffle. The bite in my mouth went stale and all my senses focused on the lumbering steps coming from behind me.
I guess this fight is worth that man’s time now?
I swallowed my bite and carefully prepared for any potential battle. When I reached for one of my swords, my hand froze. The dark-skinned Bay Keeper’s voice about weapon-use being disallowed to outsiders rang in my head.
Not that I got a chance to use my weapon . . .. Let’s just say it’s not every day that you get to see a full-grown man fly over a booth and squash your steak. And I had barely touched it too . . .
The owner of the gruff, slurred voice I’d listened to had grabbed one of the brawling men by the collar of his coat and chucked him head over heels and directly onto my table. I was startled, but not because the buffoon of a man had tossed the other like a ragdoll, but because my steak stuck to the back of the tossed man’s coat when he sat up in a fit and then plopped back onto my plate like a deflated balloon.
The buffoon who chucked Tossed-man slurred a few words, “Alright, break it up. Stop causin’ trouble for the folks around here, ah? Don’chu know how ta be civil? Be a man.”
“Be a man?” Tossed-man echoed. He hopped off my table and squared up the buffoon. “What’r you buttin’ inta our business for, ah?”
“You want ta take a closer look and see why?” The buffoon sneered and pressed a sword hilt against his chest. Tossed-man glanced at the weapon in his hand and then his eyes darted to the yellow sash wrapped around his waist. It signified that the buffoon was a practitioner of the Universal Arts—which, if my debrief before leaving Grandfather was correct, likely meant that he held a position in a local clique.
“So what? I didn’t do nothin’ ta nobody,” Tossed-man finally said.
The buffoon sneered and shoved the man bodily to the ground, and that was all it took. The two drunken men began screaming and shouting and scrabbling at each other like debilitated children, rolling on the floor like cats. In the corner, Tossed-man’s earlier fighting buddy had curled himself into a ball and was snivelling in the shadows. I would never have had assumed that he was fighting tooth and nail with Tossed-man just a minute ago.
What a child. I thought contemptibly.
While the wrestling ball of fury continued by my side, I gazed gloomily upon my flattened steak. I had put my hopes and dreams of hunger satiation upon this meal. Alas, I supposed it was not meant to be. With irritation wicking a flame in my soul, I glared at the fumbling war beside me. If I was being provided tableside entertainment, I would have wished the calibre of fighters were higher. Two drunken men slugging it out would not be my definition of “quality entertainment.”
Someone I assumed to be the buffoon’s gossip companion had walked up and tried to diffuse the situation, but he kept his distance as though he was afraid to get into harm's way. He would reach out with his hands and shy away and reach out with his hands and shy away until the buffoon finally cried in triumph.
Tossed-man was plastered on the floor with his arms bound behind his back and a nauseating, beer-drenched groan escaped his lips. It smelled like a diseased fish had swum into his mouth and died.
“Wha’chu lookin’ at, lass?” The buffoon’s bleary eyes glared at me. He was perched upon Tossed-man’s back with his hands forcing his prey down and his head lolled to the side. When he snapped it back up, a crazed grin was on his face.
“You one of his friends, ah?”
Gossip-companion tried to verbally intervene, “Bou, I don’t think—”
The buffoon lashed at the air beside him, failing to hit his companion and slurred, “You shuddap!” He pointed a finger at the shadowy corner behind him. “Look at that man over there! He’s bein’ terrorized by this man, an’ it’s our job ta protect’m, idnit?”
Gossip-companion looked like he lightly doubted that claim, but the buffoon wouldn’t listen. He looked back around and laid his glazed umber eyes upon me. “An’ I don’t like the look in this lass’s eyes.”
Wha—? I thought incredulously. Oh . . . That’s it. If you aren’t on the Nightshades hitlist, you’re certainly on mine now.
“Bou,” Gossip-companion continued nervously, “I really don’t think—”
The buffoon swung wide and managed to shove his companion this time. The timid man stumbled, nearly falling over. Bou stood unsteadily to his feet. I glared at him, and he fell upon me with a sword.
A blade, dull and grey, flashed by my ear. I was shocked by how quick his attack was despite his drunken state. The world sharpened into focus. Glancing around, I decided there was nowhere to run, so I ducked underneath my table. Anchoring myself around the table supports, I reached for the buffoon’s armour-covered leg, cupped my hand around his ankle, and yanked toward me.
The buffoon howled oh-so-pleasantly and crumpled to the dirty floor like a ragdoll. His head lolled side to side as he groaned in pain next to Tossed-man. I actually huffed a laugh at the scene. The sound of my own laughter startled me, and it made me realize something . . . it had been a while since I’d done that.
After toppling my prey, I belatedly recovered from my moment of glee and inched back against the wall to let the shadows shroud me and hide me underneath the table. My breath was quiet and still.
Then the sound of doors slamming open echoed in the building and a commanding cry charged the buffoon’s name a second after. The sound of boots thrummed across the floor and a new pair of legs came into my view dressed brilliantly in white. A dress skirt was pulled between them and gathered to look like baggy pants, but there was something regal-looking about the garment.
“Bou,” a female voice repeated. “Get your sorry self off of this floor and return to your station. You have five seconds to conform.”
The buffoon rocked his head a few more times like he was fitfully shaking away the pain I’d caused him. Then he turned to the female voice. His face grimaced at who he saw, smirked, and then he spat on the closest boot next to him.
I uneasily watched the figure for any signs of reaction. At first, she was crystalline. Then calmly and slowly she raised her spit-shined shoe and slimed the spittle into his ear. The buffoon immediately jerked his head away with a snarl and started cussing her out, raging, and thrashing like a child. The female jumped into action.
The buffoon swung wildly and aimlessly with his back on the floor while the female simply batted his attempts away. He thrashed and kicked and screamed; and when he reached across to grab her, she snatched his wrist, twisted his arm so he rolled toward her and onto his stomach, placed her boot between his shoulder blades, grabbed his other arm, and pulled both arms up.
A long-legged figure snapped into my view, came beside the female, and slipped a droopy, eight-shaped metal rope over the buffoon’s two hands. The figure pressed a little black clasp holding the bundle together and the two loops tightened in a flash. The man screeched in pain and tossed and turned aimlessly.
Two more figures rushed into view and one of them thrust a kind of staff at the drunken man’s bindings. Metallic spider-like claws emerged from the tip of the staff and held fast to the little black clasp. The staff-holding figure heaved backwards, and the other two figures pushed the buffoon’s shoulders to encourage the man to comply. Still kicking and screaming, the three figures dragged the buffoon away from my table and out of sight. His roaring voice boomed across the restaurant, through the doors, and followed him outside.
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