Blowing Embers

Chapter 5

            The arms shifted with her, preventing her from breaking free. She opened her mouth, but a hand snapped down over it. Kallai was pressed backward into a hard chest as her hands scrabbled at the arms trapping her. Breath stirred the hairs by her ear as a male voice said “Rosh Halor Shina?”

            She shook her head, still struggling against the hard limbs that held her in place. Her captor hissed and spoke again. “Move not. No screams or your air I will stop. Now, my questions you answer or death you will meet. You understand?”

            Kallai, who’d frozen at the oddly accented words coming out of her attacker’s mouth, nodded. He waited a second before slowly moving he hand he had over her face, off, pausing every a second or so, as if expecting her to bolt. “Your side what is?” he said, leaving his hand hovering close enough to clamp back over if she even breathed wrong.

            “What?” she whispered, not daring to raise her voice any higher for fear of angering her captor. She shivered, not knowing what he wanted or how to get away. Worse yet was not knowing what he would do to her if she upset him.

            “Your side of the war,” the voice replied. “What it is?”

            Kallai bit her lip, tears pricking the corners of her eyes as fear of his anger over her response flooded her. “What war?”

            She heard a hiss. “The great war, of air and water! What other would be?”

            “I don’t know of any wars.”

            The arms pinning her in place tightened momentarily, before rough hands turned her around. Kallai found herself face to face with her captor. His features were hard to see in the dark, but he looked younger than she’d thought, closer to her own age than the full adult she’d thought he was. What she could see of his face was oddly familiar. His hands tilted her head back so he could stare down into it, his eyes nothing more than deep wells of shadows in the darkness of the moonless night. “No lies,” he growled.

            Kallai trembled faintly, trying to avoid meeting his gaze. Everything always went so much worse when she met others’ eyes. “I’m not. I really don’t know of any wars. Not near here at least.”

            He frowned, attention still on her, before looking around. The lines in his face deepened as he turned his head this way and that while a cool breeze washed over both of them, raising goosebumps on Kallai. Finally, his gaze went back to her. “Your words and accent strange are. Smells and scenery I not recognize. Farther away than I thought must be. You who are?”

            Her eyes dropped, avoiding his. “Kallai of House Magan,” she whispered.

            “I Shuu Earthturner am,” he said, finally releasing her to cross his arms over his chest. “This place where is?”

            Free of restraints, Kallai’s body responded before her mind had a chance to form an idea of what to do. Years of harassment had her conditioned to a finely honed state of self-preservation. Before Shuu could touch her again, she took off.

            Down the hill she ran, air streaming past her as her usual speed was doubled with the decline. She didn’t turn to see if he was behind her, though she did strain her ears for any sound of pursuit, but heard nothing. Not that Kallai slowed at all. It was one thing to be caught by her usual tormentors. At least she knew what they were capable of and likely to do to her. But some stranger, from far away judging by his accent and odd diction, she couldn’t be sure of. Who knew what he’d do in the dark, far from anyone else.

            She didn’t stop running until she reached the door to the Indigo girls’ dormitory, and even then, she slowed only because she had to to get the door open. Shutting it as quickly as she’d opened it, Kallai made sure the door to outside was firmly closed, not sure if Shuu wouldn’t follow her later if he wasn’t already chasing her.

            Kallai hurried down the hall to her room, not feeling the least bit safe until her door was also shut and locked and she had her back to it. Only then did she drop her forehead to her knees and shudder. She hated reminders that if attacked, all she could do was endure and hope her attackers got bored and eventually left her. Her classmates thankfully had short attention spans, but this stranger, this man Shuu, was different. He’d somehow gotten onto the grounds, something no one should be able to, not with the defenses woven around the whole pace, both physical and magical.

            But he’d done it. He’d managed to get nearly to the heart of the school, the heart of magic learning in the whole country. Only here were mages taught everything they knew to pass the public exams and receive their magic licenses. Only here could you be taught how to be a Magi.

            The secrets here were many, and closely guarded. No stranger should be here. Kallai bit her lip. She’d have to tell someone. Tell one of the teachers and hope they believed her. She knew she should tell Magi Evana, but knew she’d receive little credence and support. One of the other teachers then. Any way she looked at it, this was not going to go well.

            Shaking her head, Kallai rose and went to her desk. She’d do her homework and study more, do everything she could to distract herself from what she was going to have to do in the morning.