‘You seem to be making friends,’ Beren said as he led me down the hall towards the grand staircase. He’d yet to tell me precisely why he’d sought me out or where we were going. ‘What do you think of our students?’
The question was innocently phrased, but the narrowed eyes and intent gaze told me this wasn’t idle curiosity. So was he trying to find out what I’d learned about their feelings towards Seneira? Or their feelings towards this school? I decided to play dumb – something I’d learned how to do without any of Ferius’s tricks. ‘They seem nice,’ I said.
He looked a little disappointed in me, and I found myself hoping that he’d seen through my attempt to be vague if only because I didn’t want him thinking I was an idiot. He stopped as we reached the bottom of the stairs and gestured to the throngs of students swirling around the large interior courtyard of the main floor. ‘These young men and women are the future, Kellen.’
‘The future of what?’ I asked.
He pointed towards the high curved wall above the main entrance, where a mosaic made up of thousands of small tiles formed a colourful map of the continent. ‘Tell me what you see, and what you don’t see.’
Despite the artistic rendering, it was like any other map, except that the Seven Sands was set almost in the middle, though a little to the north-east, which allowed a white tower representing the Academy to sit dead centre. I supposed there was nothing inherently wrong with designing the map to make the school the focal point, though it was a bit ostentatious. Since I was assuming that wasn’t what he wanted me to notice, I looked at the map more broadly until I saw what wasn’t there: each of the major countries was labelled, from the Daroman empire to the Berabesq theocracy to the Jan’Tep arcanocracy, but the Seven Sands, sitting between them, was left unnamed.
‘Every territory a sovereign nation,’ Beren said, ‘with its own culture, its own government. All except ours. The Seven Sands isn’t even recognised by our neighbours as anything more than an empty desert to be looted as they see fit. They regard us as just one more part of the borderlands.’ He walked over to stand near the wide open doors beneath the map and beckoned me to follow. ‘Even in my own school I can’t inscribe the name of my homeland on my own map for fear it might trigger a diplomatic incident.’
Seneira had told me something similar when we’d arrived in Teleidos. ‘So what can you do about it?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied as a group of students walked past us, each nodding to him as they went by, paying deference to the Academy’s headmaster. Beren caught my eye and smiled. ‘But they can.’
We walked outside and he turned to gaze back up at the main tower, a look of wonder on his face as if he was seeing it for the first time. ‘The most powerful families on the continent send their best to study here, Kellen. Darome, Berabesq, Gitabria, even a few Jan’Tep … They may look down on my country, but they do not look down on my school!’
I couldn’t imagine any of the great houses in my clan sending their children here, but I was starting to understand where Beren was going with this. ‘And while those students are here, they don’t just get to know each other, they get to know the people of the Seven Sands.’
Beren grinned and clapped a hand on my shoulder. ‘Exactly. They come to realise that our children are not the unwashed backwoods hicks they’ve been told about, but individuals, like them – and just as capable of possessing remarkable intellectual and leadership qualities.’
All of a sudden Seneira’s manner, her wit and intellect – even the way she could be as brusque and rude as any noblewoman – made perfect sense. ‘Diplomacy,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Diplomacy. The kind that could give my people a future, but only if …’ His smile and easy manner faltered, revealing the sorrow and despair underneath. ‘Please, Kellen, find whoever it is who’s trying to kill my family.’
Beren begged me to come visit Tyne with him, insisting that there might be some sign or clue in the winding, twisting markings around the boy’s eye that we’d missed before and that might help us understand the disease or at least find some way to ease its symptoms. The instant I entered Tyne’s room in the Academy hospital I could see the shadowblack markings had grown since the day before, giving even greater contrast to the paleness of the surrounding skin. His forehead was hot and he looked a little feverish, but at least he was awake.
‘Hello,’ he said, his voice tentative. He glanced around self-consciously. I guess no one likes to meet strangers while wearing nothing but linen underpants and lying in a pool of their own sweat. Beren started fussing about there not being enough towels, then left in search of more, which only seemed to further embarrass the boy.
‘I’m Kellen,’ I said. ‘We met yesterday, but you probably don’t remember. The squirrel cat is my –’ I took a perverse delight in finishing – ‘pet. Reichis is my pet squirrel cat.’
‘Is he here?’ Tyne asked.
‘No, but I’ll try to bring him tomorrow.’
I reached into my pack and took out the cloth horse Seneira had asked me to bring. When I handed it to Tyne, he accepted it with both hands and nodded very seriously as if we’d just struck a bargain and the horse was intended to be a down payment on a squirrel cat.
‘How are you feeling today?’ I asked.
The boy shrugged. ‘I get hot all the time and I sweat a lot.’
I pointed to the marks around his eye. ‘Do those hurt?’
‘Sometimes. Sometimes it wriggles around and it burns.’
Ancestors. The poor kid. ‘When your eye hurts, do you … see anything strange?’
He shook his head.
‘Or maybe you hear things?’
Another shake of his head, but then he leaned up on his elbows and whispered, ‘Sometimes they listen.’
‘Listen to what? To you?’
‘No.’ He glanced around as if to make sure no one else was in the room. ‘I think they listen through me.’
‘Are they listening now?’
Again he shook his head and tapped a finger on his eye. ‘Only when it burns.’ His lower lip started to tremble and he asked, ‘Can you make it stop? I don’t like it when they’re listening.’
‘Sure, Tyne, I’ll …’ I hesitated, remembering how Seneira hated being told everything was going to be okay when it wasn’t. How much had it helped me to have my parents lie to me all those years about my own shadowblack? ‘You’re going to have to be brave for now, Tyne. I’m going to try and find out what’s happening to you, but you’ll have to be brave.’
The trembling in his lower lip got worse, but then he asked, ‘Like Senny?’
I nodded. ‘Just like her.’
‘Okay,’ he said.
I stood there a few minutes longer, not sure what else to say or do for him. Beren returned with a stack of towels and started placing them around Tyne. The boy looked up at me. ‘Kellen?’
‘Yeah?’
He started hugging himself and the first blush of fever gave a reddish glow to the skin on his cheeks and forehead. ‘You’d better go now. I think they want to listen again.’
‘Just ignore them, Tyne,’ I said. ‘Think of something else. Think of Senny.’
‘You’d better go,’ he repeated, his irises turning black as his eyes blinked over and over. Then he whispered, ‘They can see you now, Kellen.’