Lingering Words

  Like any other typical school day, Theo woke up to the sight of the infirmary ceiling.

  Dark.

  The Graces were no longer above; all the windows where the mosaics had once been were now boarded up, barely leaving enough space for slivers of sun to pierce through.

  Sunless, Callie called it.

  But he could still see the pictures in his mind, as clear as day. All those physician’s shifts spent looking up at them, wondering if they meant anything, if the Graces truly existed, if they were only a story that had been made up a long, long time ago.

  The first Grace, Lycea. In a wasteland, the haloed priestess donned a long, white robe, its back ribbons resembling wings, floating as if she were ascending into the sky. Eyes closed, hands clasped in front of her chest, she held tight onto a majestic sword pointing toward the heavens.

  The second Grace, Noa. Alone on the top of a hill, surrounded by fire below, he kneeled on one leg while clutching onto his immaculate sword with bloodied hands. Stabbed into the ground, the weapon lay stationary while black clouds above heralded disaster.

  The third Grace, Hythe. Between a plethora of colossal trees that looked like the Souls of the Earth Mother, she stood far in the distance, hooded in a dark cloak. Alone and shielded by the forest.

  The fourth Grace, Ethy. Walking through peaceful green plains and a blue sky, they were unassuming and plain like any other common person. Unlike his surroundings, he was the color of a dirty white, almost gray. Nothing else adorned the simple picture.

  The fifth Grace, Caspos. Enormous tidal waves crested over a single rock in the center of a dark body of azure water while she stood with her arms spread out. Wearing nothing but ripped garb, her body marred with white scars, she welcomed the storm.

  The sixth Grace, Sepicas. Unclothed and floating in sparkling blue water, she held her knees close to her chest as if shielding herself. Her dark hair floated freely in the water surrounding her, and her eyes were closed. Biding, waiting.

  The seventh Grace, Sephec. Plummeting to the bottom of a crimson sky, he held an eager hand toward the burning sun and dark waters below, attempting to escape from the icy cold of the dark night above. Yet he was stuck in the center, never reaching the blazing dawn, never escaping the creeping dusk.

  The eighth Grace, Uphes. Back to the world, he held a fiery torch in his left hand, extending it forward while he extended his right hand behind him as if reaching out to the world. His opponent—a faceless, unending darkness. Yet he stood fearlessly to face it.

  The ninth Grace, Eslah. Long golden hair with scarlet streaks that resembled blood hugged her slender body. She sat gracefully upon a throne of books that looked dull in her presence, that she had no eyes for. Perpetually turned to the left, toward Anasot.

  The tenth Grace, Chalsis. Child-like with a white flower circlet adorning her golden head and tears falling from her face. In her hands was the skull of an animal, and behind her, great fires that almost engulfed her entire being.

  The eleventh Grace, Anasot. A dark, thin shadow covered in a cloak far bigger than him. A scepter was in his left hand, and an ornate urn was in his right. The peaceful smile that decorated his face mimicked the distorted, looming shadow created by his cloak behind him. Full of triumph and certainty.

  The twelfth Grace, Thaon. Obscured as he lay in a bed of bright flowers half-blanketed in snow. A sepulcher and twinkling stars in the background. Whether he lay in slumber or had passed, no one could tell.

  “Oh, good. You’re awake.”

  Theo lowered his head just as Head Physician Lundkis arrived at his bedside to hand him a piece of paper. He looked far worse than he had ever seen him, the rings under his eyes dark and his coat dirty with old blood-splatters.

  Silently, Theo reached a hand out and took the piece of parchment embossed with an official MATS stamp. And as he let it fall limply onto the infirmary bed, he looked up at the physician. Knowing what he wanted to say, what he wanted to ask, but lacking the strength to do so.

  The professor, however, knew him well. “Nate told me to tell you it’s been two days since the mission. He passed that letter along to me to give to you. You just barely missed him—he left to go on another urgent mission with Chelsi this morning.”

  Theo nodded absently, looking down at the paper in his hands for a long second before bringing his other hand out from under the sheets to unfold it.

  Then, he remembered something.

  “Nate,” he whispered, staring at the unfocused words in front of him.

  “Professor Moriya?”

  “Do you call him that…because you’re his friend?”

  The professor paused. “Excluding Chelsi, the child has no friends. I call him that out of familiarity.”

  Theo just continued to stare at the black ink, forgetting to continue the conversation when the Head Physician cleared his throat and turned around.

  “It’s been a busy few days here in the infirmary—with all the going-ons and whatnot—so I’ll have to leave you for now. You should have completely recovered from your wounds, so you can leave at your own convenience. Be sure to thank Chelsi when you see her next—she spent a lot of time working on you.”

  “Ah…thank you.”

  “Your coat and bag are in the drawer, by the way.”

  “Mm.”

  Absentmindedly, he watched the professor return to tending to the other patients and scanned the rest of his surroundings.

  Almost every bed was occupied, and there were only two other physicians walking around. One was near the back, browsing through physician’s tomes; the other was in the middle of operating on someone. There were no visitors, no other students. Save for the clinking of tools, the flipping of book pages, and the occasional cough or groan, the infirmary was silent.

  You’ve done this before, haven’t you?

  Yes. Please. Just authorize it.

  You know…you know what this does, right?

  Doing a poor job of shaking away the memory, Theo swallowed and finally focused on the official statement given to him by Professor Moriya, retaining only the salient details:

  Professors are hereby ordered to reconvene at headquarters for debriefing and assignment reshuffling…they will be released from all Academy-related affairs…all classes are indefinitely suspended as of this notice…students who have not been assigned a squad or role should not remain on premises and are advised to return home…should their assistance be required, a letter will be sent to them at their primary address on file…please make sure that student files are up to date…essential staff at the Academy are required to stay on campus, including physicians, food services, and specific administrative members as listed in Note 2 below…professors who do not adhere to the instructions in this notice will be sought, punished, and severed from MATS completely.

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  Without even a second’s hesitation, Theo pulled himself out of bed, grabbing his belongings and putting them on before dragging his aching body out of the soundless, suffocating sarcophagus that was the infirmary and its dead memories and Graces.

  Do you remember when we were happy?

  They couldn’t have left, he responded to the bygone voice while he trudged over to the dorms, ignoring the eerie stillness of the rest of the Academy. Dusty, cold, and not a student or staff member in sight, not a single bird to fill the emptiness.

  Do you think…we were truly happy? Back then?

  The door into the common room clicked, giving way.

  “Who—”

  Propping himself up against the frame of the common room door, Theo let out a long breath upon hearing a voice besides his own. “Thank the Graces.”

  In the middle of heading up to the door, Selene looked at Theo in consternation at first, and then she blurted, “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

  “No,” breathed Theo, holding his swimming head in his hand. “No…is everyone still here?”

  “’Course they are,” responded Korinna with absolute certainty as she kicked her feet from on top of the kitchen counter. “We’ve gotta have dinner together before we go.”

  “R-right…” mumbled Theo, raising his head and lowering his hand, feeling the panic fade as he regarded Kor’s narrow, suspicious eyes. “That’s…that’s good.”

  Crossing one leg over the other and folding her arms across her chest, the chemist demanded, without holding back the judgment in her tone, “Did Lundkis or Moriya give you any meds to take? They shouldn’t have let you go in this state.”

  Theo shook his head, already turning around to leave. “No. No, I don’t need any. I’m okay. I’ll…I’ll see you guys at dinner. Six?”

  “You got it, boss.”

  He cracked a smile at Selene, who had stepped up to hold the door, and continued on his way.

  “Look, look, it worked! He smiled!” he could hear the botanist chattering to Kor before the door closed.

  Ever so slowly, Theo made his way around campus. Unable to help himself from trying to remember every part of it. Parts he loved, parts he hated.

  The inconvenient path he had to take from the dorms to the village because the school didn’t want to make a path through the middle of the dorms courtyard. The benches that were always occupied near the front of the school because there were at least a handful of people at every hour of the day who wanted to watch the rolling, evergreen Lycean Plains.

  It must have been a long time ago, when we were truly happy.

  The beautiful, ornate doors to the library that always opened and closed softly. He was so thankful that he never had to push them open if he had his hands full with books. Rows upon rows of books inside, not as majestic as HQ, but still so infinitely immense and full of information he’d never be able to consume in his lifetime—old books, new tomes, Ancient treatises, student-drafted papers, battle logs. It had them all.

  We can’t go back.

  The study room at the very top that he had first walked into with Cyril and Ty, where he had first seen her cry. Where he had first felt an inexplicable feeling in his stirring chest, that he now knew was a love that had defied time and death.

  There’s no going back anymore.

  Across from the library, the lecture halls where he studied, trained, badgered his professors, and attended private classes with Moriya. Where he was the subject of scathing remarks by his casting peers—remarks that never bothered him that much, that never really faded. The training courtyards, where he taught Faris how to cast spells that weren’t covered in class, where they sometimes sat on the benches together for lunch to recover before practicing again.

  Can you really call it enough? Can you really call yourself happy?

  Up those Graces-forsaken stairs to the very top of the lecture hall building, past the administrative floors and reports, the other lecture halls and study rooms, to the landing right before the tenth floor.

  How did you know?

  It’s a secret.

  He never told her, after all. That it was the necklace that she had given him, the one that she had made with her anima. How it worked, he didn’t know. But she always felt close when it glowed. It felt like she was still with him, that they were together in the woods again, holding each other. He felt like a part of her still lived.

  You’re my favorite person in the whole world.

  And then down the hall at the very end, where the Headmistress’s office was. He had been in it barely enough times to count on one hand, but it was intimidating as ever.

  He knocked.

  There was no answer.

  He held out a hand and applied pressure to the cold wood of the door.

  It gave way.

  Gazing upon an empty desk, no longer scattered with papers, documents, and notes, he picked up one of the thick, black volumes that always sat behind the Headmistress and flipped it open to a random page.

  After winning today’s battle, the Academy was safely defended against MATS. They’ve let off for the moment and are in the midst of recovery, so I granted Ty some respite. After much resistance, she agreed.

  I found her heading into the forest later in the day, even though it was winter and the paths were difficult to navigate through. Theo, whom Lundkis let take a break from his physician’s duties, accompanied her. They did not return for a long time, and it worried me until Halle informed me of their return.

  I rushed to see her, to see if they were okay after spending so much time out during the peak of the frigid winter, but to my disbelief, she came back with a glowing smile and a bundle of wild winter flowers in her hands. I’m glad she likes them. Ark liked them, too.

  With great difficulty, Theo closed the book. Finally realizing, looking at all the black journals on the shelf behind the desk, that the pieces he had been searching for, the ones he had been so desperate to hold on to, were the very ones that the Headmistress had already collected. She had held onto every piece of her daughter that she could, writing them down so she would never forget.

  Was this what he wanted to do? Was this the end he sought?

  Because the only other option is to repeat this suffering over and over again, knowing that whatever we do, we’ll never return to those halcyon days.

  Yes, those halcyon days. They could not return, no matter how hard he tried. Not even if he had amassed an entire library of her memories and her life. Reality could not be altered, and fate would not change.

  Maybe…the answer isn’t always to keep going up. The answer isn’t always in knowing everything.

  He put the book back in its place and walked over to the back, where he stood in front of the map of Chloris again.

  The colored pins that had once been orderly were now scattered all over the small diorama. Several flags with notes were scratched off, and several villages were marked with a messy red cross. Even the village by the hills of Lycea, Lidell, had been crossed out.

  The white pins remained where he had vaguely remembered them being. But this time, knowing what he knew from the Circle of the Graces, he counted them one by one. Meticulously, making sure not to miss anything. Hoping that perhaps the Headmistress knew, perhaps Ty wasn’t on a quest that bore the fruit of regret.

  Nine, ten, eleven…twelve…

  Thirteen. Only thirteen.

  Thirteen, Theo repeated to himself as he stared at the singular white pin beside Ty’s home that he could swear hadn’t been there before. A thousand thoughts flew through his head as he wondered about the implications of the thirteenth pin, the Earth Mother, his Ancient friend’s words, his professor’s, Ty’s own words to him before she left.

  How do you kill a god?

  Eyeing the black book that was left beside the map, the one that Ty had shown him, he glided his hands over the cover, feeling how soft it was. Wondering if the pages were similar, if there was anything in there that he had missed, if there was something in there that he didn’t know about her life, that he could know if only he turned the pages.

  We were happy back then, weren’t we?

  Hand curling up into a fist, he lowered his eyes and turned away, leaving the memories and the missing pieces behind.

  Yeah. We were happy.

  Without turning back even once, he made his way out of the empty room, across the empty hallway, and back down the steps again when he encountered a familiar face.

  “Tactician Theo,” nodded the reports handler behind his desk.

  It took a moment to register the words, but he eventually nodded. Smiled, even, thinking that this was the last time he was going to see them again before realizing that he had important words to leave them with.

  “You should leave soon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Here. Leave here. Along with everyone else.”

  “Huh.”

  And then he continued down the stairs.

  Hearing the bell toll five times as he crossed the Academy courtyard to head into the dining hall, he felt himself tiring of the voices. Ignoring them as he walked further and further away from the lecture halls, leaving them buried in his chest to fester with another memory.

  Walking past the counters and over to the back, where he nodded to the few remaining staff members responsible for preparing meals, he ducked into a small kitchen and began assembling ingredients, like they had once done as a class to surprise Ty on her birthday in their first year.

  Almonds…milk…sugar…gelatin…

  blancmange. If you ever get the chance to try one or make it at home, I would highly recommend it! I like Stream of Flavors's recipe :)