Post by wordy on Jan 18, 2010 11:35:50 GMT 10
Title: Glimpses
Rating: PG
Summary: Emelan!fic. A few small glimpses into Niko's life.
Author's Note: I was going to include something about Niko's affair with Moonstream, but couldn't write anything that really fit with this. So I might write a separate piece for that another time.
I
Cracking his eyelids open slowly, the boy sighed up at the pale ceiling, reluctant to get out of bed. Somewhere, he could hear his mother calling for him. The headache had not gone away, though it had been nearly three days since he had first noticed the fierce, stabbing pain behind his eyes. He rubbed his eyes now, but the pain remained. Surely this was not a normal headache.
He heard his mother’s voice again, but he ignored her and rolled over to face the wall, throwing the sweat soaked sheet away from his skinny body. His dark hair tickled at his nose, so he raised a sleepy hand to brush it away – his parents were already complaining that he looked like some kind of vagrant or street urchin, though it had only grown long enough to reach his chin.
Just as he was about to close his eyes, something silver flickered at the edge of his vision. Sitting up, he opened his eyes and looked at the wall beside him. There was nothing there. Nothing but the blank wall, the same pale colour as the rest of his room. He lay back down again and closed his eyes, thinking that it must have been his imagination.
The sound of a woman’s voice woke him abruptly, accompanied by her fist pounding on his bedroom door. The boy groaned, trying to block out the noise. His head had started pounding now that he was awake again, the pain beginning as a dull ache at the base of his skull and growing to a sharp, unrelenting stinging behind his throbbing eyelids.
His mother burst into the room at the same moment that he opened his eyes. “Niko, it’s almost noon, why aren’t you - ” She was interrupted by her son’s strangled yelp, and watched in bewilderment as he rolled around on his bed, clutching at his eyes. It looked like he was having some kind of seizure. His screaming only ceased after he rolled off the edge of his bed and landed roughly on the floor, when the explosion of silver light that had suddenly appeared before his vision had faded to grey behind his tightly closed eyelids.
II
Bent over his open palm, Niko frowned at the shiny gleam that flickered across the crystal’s surface. Closing his eyes, he murmured a few words. The cool sea breeze tousled his hair and clothes. He breathed in deeply.
When he opened his eyes again and looked out across the glossy, flat plane of the sea, a multitude of colours flashed before his eyes. Suddenly, he cursed, letting the crystal drop from his fingers to crash onto the rock by his feet. He seemed startled by the sound, looking down at the shards of crystal in surprise before cursing again. Withdrawing another, smaller crystal from the pocket of his robe, he began again.
III
Clear sky, stretched out above like an endless summer of cerulean and sun. The familiar, briny scent of salt on the breeze.
Flapping canvas, brightly coloured. Pavestones. A fountain.
Market Square, Summersea, thought Niko. He paused for a moment to make a note. Returning to the bowl he was scrying in, his thick, dark eyebrows met above his long, angular nose as he peered at the water that lay within. Fresh images flickered across the surface at a rapid pace, almost too quick to take in. At the same time, sounds accompanying these fleeting glimpses reached his ears, amplified by the small clear crystal he clutched in his left hand.
People; talking, bartering. Children. Animals.
The flapping of canvas in the wind. Water trickling at a constant tempo. The sound of coin changing hands.Concentrating his power, he fixed his sight on a child playing contentedly by the fountain’s edge, drinking in every minute detail: thick blonde hair cut to the chin, the red, tunic-style dress, bare feet, and a smile framed by freckled cheeks. Taking this scene, Niko closed his eyes. For a brief second, nothing happened. But shortly, holding the scene firmly in his mind, a splash of colour appeared in his mind’s eyes, growing until it became the image of the child by the fountain. The scene continued to run through his mind, as if a projector was throwing the moving-picture onto the inside of his eyelids.
IV
“Master Goldeye,” the man said wearily, “we cannot change hundreds of years of tradition simply because one man disagrees.” The men and women of the governing board nodded, eyeing Niko with patronising stares.
“You could, if you wanted to.” Niko managed to retain his composure, though his insides were burning with barely withheld fury.
The chairman answered coolly, “If we wanted to, yes, perhaps it could be done. But we choose not to.”
“You’re stifling the education of our students,” cried Niko. “Lightsbridge University has been the innovative force in magical education for as long as anyone can remember. So why are you so set in your ways, when a new type of magic is revealed? We should be studying it, incorporating it into the university’s syllabus. Academic magic - ”
“Is the only type of magic that Lightsbridge recognises, Master Goldeye,” the man interrupted. “Students will continue to be trained in Academic magic, and only in Academic magic. If you wish to pursue this...other type of magic, we will willingly accept your resignation from the governing board.” He stared at Niko from across the boardroom table, grey eyebrows furrowed menacingly.
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Niko replied quietly. “But you’re lying to the students. And denying that such magic, and such mages, play an equally important role in Emelan is something I never thought I’d see the members of this board lower themselves to.” He sat back in his chair, large hands folded in front of him. Some of the other members shifted uncomfortably in their seats, looking from Niko to the chairman.
“Well,” the man said, clearing his throat. “Now that that’s settled, let’s move on to our next topic of business.”
V
Niko was forced into wakefulness, startled from his sleep by images of bare legs, sweat-soaked bodies, and a face that was too familiar to ignore. He licked his dry, cracked lips, rolling his tongue around the rim of his teeth, trying to return some moisture to his parched mouth. The moon looked in on him through the window, bathing his small - but finely furnished - room in a cool blue glow. Rising wearily from his bed, he rubbed his eyes in a useless attempt to erase the images from his memory. But the images would not go, and the more he tried to forget them, the clearer they became in his mind.
Leaning against the window frame, letting the subtle breeze blow cool air against his clammy skin, Niko silently cursed himself for slipping: on nights when he did not desire to See in his dreams, he usually ingested a brew that Rosethorn had made specially for him, which allowed the drinker to sleep deeply without dreaming. Unfortunately, Niko had stayed up later than usual this night, trying to perfect a scrying technique he had read about recently. Exhausted, both physically and mentally, he had collapsed on his bed without taking the brew, or without even changing out of his clothes. He looked down at his rumpled clothes now. They were practically ruined; it would take days to remove the hard creases and smell of sweat. Perhaps he could take them to Lark in the morning.
Well, he would worry about that tomorrow. He washed his hands, twice, in the small basin by his bed, and his gaze fell to the small bottle that sat beside it, labelled sleep-fast in a neat hand. Taking out the stopper, he raised it to his lips. But even as he drank, the association was too much to handle; he let the bottle fall to the floor, where it cracked into three pieces and lay unmoving, the dark liquid seeping slowly from its glass shell. The images returned at full strength, rushing his mind with shadowed glimpses of her heaving chest, soft skin, and dark hair. Letting himself drop back onto his bed, he pressed the palms of his hands against his eye sockets, trying to ignore the images that continued to run through his mind, until welcome nothingness suddenly enveloped him.
He woke, this time, to the piercing rays of the early morning sun through his window. The night had passed peacefully after he had taken the brew, though he looked down at it now with regret, the liquid having seeped into the carpet and only the broken shards of the bottle remaining. Walking toward his small wardrobe, he opened it to survey the collection of finely tailored clothes that hung within and decide what he would wear that day. After a moment, he chose a plain white shirt embroidered with a pattern of silver curls around the collar, paired with a pair of dark breeches. He tied back his hair in a horsetail, combed his moustache, washed his hands, and his morning routine was complete. After another glance at the broken bottle, he pulled on his stockings and boots, and set out for Discipline cottage, ruined shirt in hand.
“Niko,” smiled Lark upon opening the door. “What an unexpected surprise.” Her short, curly black hair was wet, and she smelled delightfully of jasmine scented soap. She ushered him inside and closed the door, leading him back to the small, neat kitchen. Niko followed obediently. “I hope I’m not being a nuisance to you,” he said, taking a seat at the kitchen table. “Turning up on your doorstep this early, uninvited.”
Lark merely smiled and took down a small kettle to prepare tea. “You should know by now that Rosie and I are fair used to nuisances turning up on our doorstep unannounced.”
Unsettled by the mention of Rosethorn, the other Dedicate who lived at Discipline cottage, Niko cleared his throat awkwardly. Lark didn’t seem to notice his sudden discomfit, her back turned to him while she made the tea. “And have you any...nuisances, as you call them, staying here at the moment?” he enquired.
“Not at present, no. It’s been, oh, months since our last charge left us. He had a bit of difficulty fitting in with the other children, but he seemed better when he left us. Though I’m not too sure what use living with two women like us really did him,” she laughed, and Niko smiled in reply. Setting two mugs down on the table, Lark slid into the seat opposite him, sipping the tea carefully. Niko raised his own mug cautiously to his lips, the sweet smell drifting up to his nose while he almost burnt his tongue on the hot liquid.
“Well,” he said, putting the mug back down. “I should tell you why I’m here, I suppose. It’s rather trivial, but I was hoping you could do me a favour.” Lark’s eyes immediately went to the folded shirt that sat on the table by his elbow, and Niko smiled, pushing the shirt toward her. “It’s rather stained,” he went on, “but I was hoping you could do something for it.”
The crumpled cloth of the shirt shifted under Lark’s expert hand, flattening itself out until it looked as if the wrinkles and creases had never been there in the first place. Picking it up, she examined the stains with a careful eye. Niko watched closely, unconsciously clenching his hands into fists.
Finally, Lark smiled once more, folding the shirt and placing it back on the table. “I’m sure I can have it fixed in a few minutes,” she said, rising from her chair. “The stains look worse than they are. I’ll just pop into Rosie’s workroom and see what I can find.” With that she left him. Niko watched as she walked away, her dark green robes shifting about her as she moved. He looked down at his mug, feeling better. His shirt could be saved. Now, if he could somehow get some more of that sleep-fast without seeing –
“Oh, it’s you.”
Niko felt his shoulders tense at the voice, afraid to turn around and find his worse nightmare had come true. But, ignoring his better senses, he did turn, and his nightmare was standing only paces away, drying her short auburn hair with a towel, looking down at him with interest.
“I was wondering who it would be, at this time of morning,” Rosethorn continued, walking toward him and tossing her damp towel over the back of a chair. She got a mug out of the top cupboard and turned back to him, taking the chair that Lark had left only moments earlier. Niko watched uncomfortably as she drew the kettle toward her and raised the lid to sniff at its contents. Smiling in satisfaction, she then proceeded to pour herself a mug, unaware of the silent struggle that was consuming Niko across the table from her.
He tried averting his eyes, turning his attention to the tea that sat before him, but it was useless. Sitting across from him, oblivious to his thoughts, Rosethorn stirred her tea, while Niko’s mind was bombarded with an incessant flow of images that had plagued his sleep last night, images he had tried to push from his thoughts. He looked at the floor, but that only led his eyes to the pleasant curve of her leg, visible beneath the edge of her robes. He raised his eyes, looking past her ear at the line of cupboards behind her, but that did not help either. Nothing helped. Those sights he had seen in his dreams seemed etched in his memory forever.
“Niko!” snapped Rosethorn suddenly. Niko was jerked from his thoughts to find her observing him with a concerned expression. “That’s the second time I’ve called your name, and you hadn’t responded at all. I’ve been talking for these past two minutes and you’ve just sat there with the oddest, blank look on your face,” she said. Her dark eyes swept over him, and he couldn’t help but shudder. “Are you ill?” she asked him.
“Ah, no, no – I’m fine.” He tried to smile, but it felt forced, so he stopped. Rosethorn continued to look at him, unconvinced. “No, really,” he said. He even took a sip of his tea, as if that proved it.
Rosethorn still seemed unimpressed. “If you say so.”
“About what?” said Lark, having chosen that moment to return to the kitchen. She held a small bottle in her hand.
“Don’t you think he looks ill?” asked Rosethorn.
Lark looked at Niko. “He looks a bit pale, I suppose."
“That’s what I thought,” said Rosethorn. “And I was talking to him just now and he didn’t hear me at all - ”
“Ladies,” Niko interrupted, rising from his chair. “If you could please stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here - ”
“We’re just trying to help,” said Rosethorn, folding her arms. Lark looked at him with a pleading smile, resting her hand on Rosethorn’s shoulder in a calming gesture. “Please sit down Niko.”
But Niko’s attention was focussed on Lark’s hand, which was resting comfortably on Rosethorn’s shoulder. He looked at the two of them. They looked back at him, Rosethorn sullenly, Lark concerned, their wet hair shining in the early morning light. A droplet of water trickled a path down the side of Lark’s neck, and Niko’s heart seemed to constrict in his chest as the most horrifying realisation hit him.
“Niko, where are you going?” asked Lark, following him to the door. He wasn’t completely sure what he was doing, but he managed to turn and stop at the door. “I just remembered somewhere I have to be,” he managed to stammer out. He walked down the path and out the gate of Discipline without a backward glance, trying to block out the images that were now hammering at his mind with a new intensity, and with a new possibility.
Lark followed him to the gate and watched his back departing down the path. “But Niko,” she called after him, “what about your shirt?”
VI
“Do you think,” Tris paused, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “Do you think it will work?”
Niko looked at his former student. Never before had he felt what he felt for this girl, that strange mix of concern and pride that only a father knew.
They stood on the beach, looking out over the ocean. Tris had her back turned to the wind, though she still twitched irritably every now and then.
Niko thought carefully before he answered her. “Do you want it to work?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped. She raised a hand to fiddle with one of the braids that hung by her face. “To be able to study magic, and learn how to use it, like an ordinary mage...”
The yearning look on her face made his heart break. She would succeed, he knew, in hiding her true identity when she went to Lightsbridge. But it would be harder still - despite her desire to be regarded as an ordinary mage - to hide how extraordinary she really was.
Rating: PG
Summary: Emelan!fic. A few small glimpses into Niko's life.
Author's Note: I was going to include something about Niko's affair with Moonstream, but couldn't write anything that really fit with this. So I might write a separate piece for that another time.
I
Cracking his eyelids open slowly, the boy sighed up at the pale ceiling, reluctant to get out of bed. Somewhere, he could hear his mother calling for him. The headache had not gone away, though it had been nearly three days since he had first noticed the fierce, stabbing pain behind his eyes. He rubbed his eyes now, but the pain remained. Surely this was not a normal headache.
He heard his mother’s voice again, but he ignored her and rolled over to face the wall, throwing the sweat soaked sheet away from his skinny body. His dark hair tickled at his nose, so he raised a sleepy hand to brush it away – his parents were already complaining that he looked like some kind of vagrant or street urchin, though it had only grown long enough to reach his chin.
Just as he was about to close his eyes, something silver flickered at the edge of his vision. Sitting up, he opened his eyes and looked at the wall beside him. There was nothing there. Nothing but the blank wall, the same pale colour as the rest of his room. He lay back down again and closed his eyes, thinking that it must have been his imagination.
The sound of a woman’s voice woke him abruptly, accompanied by her fist pounding on his bedroom door. The boy groaned, trying to block out the noise. His head had started pounding now that he was awake again, the pain beginning as a dull ache at the base of his skull and growing to a sharp, unrelenting stinging behind his throbbing eyelids.
His mother burst into the room at the same moment that he opened his eyes. “Niko, it’s almost noon, why aren’t you - ” She was interrupted by her son’s strangled yelp, and watched in bewilderment as he rolled around on his bed, clutching at his eyes. It looked like he was having some kind of seizure. His screaming only ceased after he rolled off the edge of his bed and landed roughly on the floor, when the explosion of silver light that had suddenly appeared before his vision had faded to grey behind his tightly closed eyelids.
II
Bent over his open palm, Niko frowned at the shiny gleam that flickered across the crystal’s surface. Closing his eyes, he murmured a few words. The cool sea breeze tousled his hair and clothes. He breathed in deeply.
When he opened his eyes again and looked out across the glossy, flat plane of the sea, a multitude of colours flashed before his eyes. Suddenly, he cursed, letting the crystal drop from his fingers to crash onto the rock by his feet. He seemed startled by the sound, looking down at the shards of crystal in surprise before cursing again. Withdrawing another, smaller crystal from the pocket of his robe, he began again.
III
Clear sky, stretched out above like an endless summer of cerulean and sun. The familiar, briny scent of salt on the breeze.
Flapping canvas, brightly coloured. Pavestones. A fountain.
Market Square, Summersea, thought Niko. He paused for a moment to make a note. Returning to the bowl he was scrying in, his thick, dark eyebrows met above his long, angular nose as he peered at the water that lay within. Fresh images flickered across the surface at a rapid pace, almost too quick to take in. At the same time, sounds accompanying these fleeting glimpses reached his ears, amplified by the small clear crystal he clutched in his left hand.
People; talking, bartering. Children. Animals.
The flapping of canvas in the wind. Water trickling at a constant tempo. The sound of coin changing hands.Concentrating his power, he fixed his sight on a child playing contentedly by the fountain’s edge, drinking in every minute detail: thick blonde hair cut to the chin, the red, tunic-style dress, bare feet, and a smile framed by freckled cheeks. Taking this scene, Niko closed his eyes. For a brief second, nothing happened. But shortly, holding the scene firmly in his mind, a splash of colour appeared in his mind’s eyes, growing until it became the image of the child by the fountain. The scene continued to run through his mind, as if a projector was throwing the moving-picture onto the inside of his eyelids.
IV
“Master Goldeye,” the man said wearily, “we cannot change hundreds of years of tradition simply because one man disagrees.” The men and women of the governing board nodded, eyeing Niko with patronising stares.
“You could, if you wanted to.” Niko managed to retain his composure, though his insides were burning with barely withheld fury.
The chairman answered coolly, “If we wanted to, yes, perhaps it could be done. But we choose not to.”
“You’re stifling the education of our students,” cried Niko. “Lightsbridge University has been the innovative force in magical education for as long as anyone can remember. So why are you so set in your ways, when a new type of magic is revealed? We should be studying it, incorporating it into the university’s syllabus. Academic magic - ”
“Is the only type of magic that Lightsbridge recognises, Master Goldeye,” the man interrupted. “Students will continue to be trained in Academic magic, and only in Academic magic. If you wish to pursue this...other type of magic, we will willingly accept your resignation from the governing board.” He stared at Niko from across the boardroom table, grey eyebrows furrowed menacingly.
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Niko replied quietly. “But you’re lying to the students. And denying that such magic, and such mages, play an equally important role in Emelan is something I never thought I’d see the members of this board lower themselves to.” He sat back in his chair, large hands folded in front of him. Some of the other members shifted uncomfortably in their seats, looking from Niko to the chairman.
“Well,” the man said, clearing his throat. “Now that that’s settled, let’s move on to our next topic of business.”
V
Niko was forced into wakefulness, startled from his sleep by images of bare legs, sweat-soaked bodies, and a face that was too familiar to ignore. He licked his dry, cracked lips, rolling his tongue around the rim of his teeth, trying to return some moisture to his parched mouth. The moon looked in on him through the window, bathing his small - but finely furnished - room in a cool blue glow. Rising wearily from his bed, he rubbed his eyes in a useless attempt to erase the images from his memory. But the images would not go, and the more he tried to forget them, the clearer they became in his mind.
Leaning against the window frame, letting the subtle breeze blow cool air against his clammy skin, Niko silently cursed himself for slipping: on nights when he did not desire to See in his dreams, he usually ingested a brew that Rosethorn had made specially for him, which allowed the drinker to sleep deeply without dreaming. Unfortunately, Niko had stayed up later than usual this night, trying to perfect a scrying technique he had read about recently. Exhausted, both physically and mentally, he had collapsed on his bed without taking the brew, or without even changing out of his clothes. He looked down at his rumpled clothes now. They were practically ruined; it would take days to remove the hard creases and smell of sweat. Perhaps he could take them to Lark in the morning.
Well, he would worry about that tomorrow. He washed his hands, twice, in the small basin by his bed, and his gaze fell to the small bottle that sat beside it, labelled sleep-fast in a neat hand. Taking out the stopper, he raised it to his lips. But even as he drank, the association was too much to handle; he let the bottle fall to the floor, where it cracked into three pieces and lay unmoving, the dark liquid seeping slowly from its glass shell. The images returned at full strength, rushing his mind with shadowed glimpses of her heaving chest, soft skin, and dark hair. Letting himself drop back onto his bed, he pressed the palms of his hands against his eye sockets, trying to ignore the images that continued to run through his mind, until welcome nothingness suddenly enveloped him.
He woke, this time, to the piercing rays of the early morning sun through his window. The night had passed peacefully after he had taken the brew, though he looked down at it now with regret, the liquid having seeped into the carpet and only the broken shards of the bottle remaining. Walking toward his small wardrobe, he opened it to survey the collection of finely tailored clothes that hung within and decide what he would wear that day. After a moment, he chose a plain white shirt embroidered with a pattern of silver curls around the collar, paired with a pair of dark breeches. He tied back his hair in a horsetail, combed his moustache, washed his hands, and his morning routine was complete. After another glance at the broken bottle, he pulled on his stockings and boots, and set out for Discipline cottage, ruined shirt in hand.
“Niko,” smiled Lark upon opening the door. “What an unexpected surprise.” Her short, curly black hair was wet, and she smelled delightfully of jasmine scented soap. She ushered him inside and closed the door, leading him back to the small, neat kitchen. Niko followed obediently. “I hope I’m not being a nuisance to you,” he said, taking a seat at the kitchen table. “Turning up on your doorstep this early, uninvited.”
Lark merely smiled and took down a small kettle to prepare tea. “You should know by now that Rosie and I are fair used to nuisances turning up on our doorstep unannounced.”
Unsettled by the mention of Rosethorn, the other Dedicate who lived at Discipline cottage, Niko cleared his throat awkwardly. Lark didn’t seem to notice his sudden discomfit, her back turned to him while she made the tea. “And have you any...nuisances, as you call them, staying here at the moment?” he enquired.
“Not at present, no. It’s been, oh, months since our last charge left us. He had a bit of difficulty fitting in with the other children, but he seemed better when he left us. Though I’m not too sure what use living with two women like us really did him,” she laughed, and Niko smiled in reply. Setting two mugs down on the table, Lark slid into the seat opposite him, sipping the tea carefully. Niko raised his own mug cautiously to his lips, the sweet smell drifting up to his nose while he almost burnt his tongue on the hot liquid.
“Well,” he said, putting the mug back down. “I should tell you why I’m here, I suppose. It’s rather trivial, but I was hoping you could do me a favour.” Lark’s eyes immediately went to the folded shirt that sat on the table by his elbow, and Niko smiled, pushing the shirt toward her. “It’s rather stained,” he went on, “but I was hoping you could do something for it.”
The crumpled cloth of the shirt shifted under Lark’s expert hand, flattening itself out until it looked as if the wrinkles and creases had never been there in the first place. Picking it up, she examined the stains with a careful eye. Niko watched closely, unconsciously clenching his hands into fists.
Finally, Lark smiled once more, folding the shirt and placing it back on the table. “I’m sure I can have it fixed in a few minutes,” she said, rising from her chair. “The stains look worse than they are. I’ll just pop into Rosie’s workroom and see what I can find.” With that she left him. Niko watched as she walked away, her dark green robes shifting about her as she moved. He looked down at his mug, feeling better. His shirt could be saved. Now, if he could somehow get some more of that sleep-fast without seeing –
“Oh, it’s you.”
Niko felt his shoulders tense at the voice, afraid to turn around and find his worse nightmare had come true. But, ignoring his better senses, he did turn, and his nightmare was standing only paces away, drying her short auburn hair with a towel, looking down at him with interest.
“I was wondering who it would be, at this time of morning,” Rosethorn continued, walking toward him and tossing her damp towel over the back of a chair. She got a mug out of the top cupboard and turned back to him, taking the chair that Lark had left only moments earlier. Niko watched uncomfortably as she drew the kettle toward her and raised the lid to sniff at its contents. Smiling in satisfaction, she then proceeded to pour herself a mug, unaware of the silent struggle that was consuming Niko across the table from her.
He tried averting his eyes, turning his attention to the tea that sat before him, but it was useless. Sitting across from him, oblivious to his thoughts, Rosethorn stirred her tea, while Niko’s mind was bombarded with an incessant flow of images that had plagued his sleep last night, images he had tried to push from his thoughts. He looked at the floor, but that only led his eyes to the pleasant curve of her leg, visible beneath the edge of her robes. He raised his eyes, looking past her ear at the line of cupboards behind her, but that did not help either. Nothing helped. Those sights he had seen in his dreams seemed etched in his memory forever.
“Niko!” snapped Rosethorn suddenly. Niko was jerked from his thoughts to find her observing him with a concerned expression. “That’s the second time I’ve called your name, and you hadn’t responded at all. I’ve been talking for these past two minutes and you’ve just sat there with the oddest, blank look on your face,” she said. Her dark eyes swept over him, and he couldn’t help but shudder. “Are you ill?” she asked him.
“Ah, no, no – I’m fine.” He tried to smile, but it felt forced, so he stopped. Rosethorn continued to look at him, unconvinced. “No, really,” he said. He even took a sip of his tea, as if that proved it.
Rosethorn still seemed unimpressed. “If you say so.”
“About what?” said Lark, having chosen that moment to return to the kitchen. She held a small bottle in her hand.
“Don’t you think he looks ill?” asked Rosethorn.
Lark looked at Niko. “He looks a bit pale, I suppose."
“That’s what I thought,” said Rosethorn. “And I was talking to him just now and he didn’t hear me at all - ”
“Ladies,” Niko interrupted, rising from his chair. “If you could please stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here - ”
“We’re just trying to help,” said Rosethorn, folding her arms. Lark looked at him with a pleading smile, resting her hand on Rosethorn’s shoulder in a calming gesture. “Please sit down Niko.”
But Niko’s attention was focussed on Lark’s hand, which was resting comfortably on Rosethorn’s shoulder. He looked at the two of them. They looked back at him, Rosethorn sullenly, Lark concerned, their wet hair shining in the early morning light. A droplet of water trickled a path down the side of Lark’s neck, and Niko’s heart seemed to constrict in his chest as the most horrifying realisation hit him.
“Niko, where are you going?” asked Lark, following him to the door. He wasn’t completely sure what he was doing, but he managed to turn and stop at the door. “I just remembered somewhere I have to be,” he managed to stammer out. He walked down the path and out the gate of Discipline without a backward glance, trying to block out the images that were now hammering at his mind with a new intensity, and with a new possibility.
Lark followed him to the gate and watched his back departing down the path. “But Niko,” she called after him, “what about your shirt?”
VI
“Do you think,” Tris paused, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “Do you think it will work?”
Niko looked at his former student. Never before had he felt what he felt for this girl, that strange mix of concern and pride that only a father knew.
They stood on the beach, looking out over the ocean. Tris had her back turned to the wind, though she still twitched irritably every now and then.
Niko thought carefully before he answered her. “Do you want it to work?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped. She raised a hand to fiddle with one of the braids that hung by her face. “To be able to study magic, and learn how to use it, like an ordinary mage...”
The yearning look on her face made his heart break. She would succeed, he knew, in hiding her true identity when she went to Lightsbridge. But it would be harder still - despite her desire to be regarded as an ordinary mage - to hide how extraordinary she really was.