Page 30 of Cage of Starlight
“Up, Arknett! We’re not finished.”
Rage. The heat of it clears his head of exhaustion and pain. When his senses lash out, hunting for Vantaras, he finds something else.
In the dark, awareness trickles in. Something trails after the rush of the balloons in the air: a presence with all the blunt-force heft of a rock to the chest.
Thedark.Sight was a distraction when he first started healing, too. When he was young, he’d always close his eyes.
These energies are nothing like the wild-warm pulse of life. They’re destructive, without intention.
No wonder he couldn’t find them before.
He rolls to his feet too late to avoid the balloon that nails him in the shin, but herecognizesit before it does. He identifies the clumsy energy of the next projectile the moment it leaves the cannon. It’s a matter of a step to the left. He barely has to move to avoid the one that follows—a dip like a bow, and it sails over his back.
“Stop them, fool boy! Don’t dodge!” Menden’s voice.
“Good.” That one’s Vantaras, voice dripping with arrogant pride.
The wind kicks up, and Tory’s teeth clack in his skull. He extends his hands and reaches for it. The balloon falters midair—he almost tastes the sputtering there-then-gone-then-there of its blunted presence—but it keeps going, splattering over his shoes.
“When you have it,throwit! Preferably not at me or any of your fellow trainees.”
Now there’s an idea. Where’s Vantaras? But while he can sense his fellow Seeds on the field—CFR energy has a unique fizziness to it, and now that he’s looking for it, their presence is like a busy hive on the periphery of his senses—he can’t sense any energy from Menden or Vantaras. The space to his left is a void. He’ll make Vantaras suffer later.
He gets back to work, closing his eyes and extending his hands.
He singles out the energy and imagines moving it, opening his eyes as he lobs it in the direction that offers the least resistance—back where it came from.
Tory wrenches the blindfold off to the sight of one of the cannons spinning wildly on its axis. Triumph pumps through him. He flings the kerchief into the mud.
“You happy?”
Vantaras’ lips twist up.
Tory wants to punch them—once for this whole damn farce and again because it worked.
“I am.” Vantaras bends in a graceful arc to pick up the kerchief as he passes, and a pendant tumbles from his uniform jacket—a raw stellite crystal, star-studded even in the day’s gray dimness. It’s bigger than Tory’s thumbnail, colorful with the galaxy-like glow of nebulescence that only the highest-quality specimens show. It lacks the faceted polish of the Madam’s earrings in Hulven, but it’s five times bigger—magnitudes more valuable and dizzying with its brilliance. Vantaras stuffs the thing back into his jacket before Tory can tear it from his throat. “That’s all I needed to see. I’ll take my leave.”
Tory shakes mud from his arms and stumbles over to Menden. “Can I stop now?”
“Oh, no. Keep going. We’ll move in when you can drop them all without being hit once. Maybe I’ll put you with the midfielders later for maneuvers!”
*
Maneuvers multiply the chaos of type-training by ten. The balloons still fly, but that’s the least of it. Strange, mechanized spheres—polished metal and over half Tory’s height—roll over the field at bone-breaking speeds, and the CFR unit is forced to maintain formation in spite of them.
“They won’t kill you!” Menden chirps. “You’ll only wish you were dead!”
One of them bowls over a nearby trainee, and Healers—lingering at the edge of the field—rush in to drag him away. He’s bleeding everywhere, crying for people Tory doesn’t know.
“What are theyfor?” Tory yells.
“Realism! It’s fine. They only go at half-speed for the midfielders!”
Thisis half-speed?
Menden steps back, humming a cheerful tune, and opens a well-worn book.
“How do I kill them?” Tory yells, but Menden doesn’t answer.
