Morningstar

Slier and East head to Draconic. “He might not be in here,” East says.

“I know,” she answers. She enters Draconic 23 to reveal its emptiness. She picks her hammer from the table where she was sitting. “I will not leave my weapon behind.”

“Right,” East answers as he picks his several belts filled with guns. She waits for him to buckle his belts, which takes too much time for her liking. “You know, I can do this while walking.”

“But then you will whine about how I do not wait for you,” she says.

East grins. “You know me very well.”

“Too much for my liking,” Slier says as she turns around to walk away. She hears East footsteps following her.

“Where do you think that he might be?” East says.

“I do not know, but I am guessing that he might be in his room.”

“Which is… which room?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “We’ll ask someone that we see in there.”

They make their way through Morningstar. Slier knows Morningstar like the palm of her hand. She knows every street and every corner. She knows every spot. For example, she knows about Wraith, where everyone goes drinking and dancing. She knows about the escape route that people take when they steal food from the lunchroom. She even knows the rumors going around Morningstar.

She remembers two years ago when a group of students were planning on escaping. She usually ignores those rumors, but that time, she couldn’t. She was appointed to guard the walls of Morningstar that night, and to her luck, the walls that she was assigned to watch was were the escape was going to happen. She saw them approaching, and she hid. There were seven of them, and apparently, they were waiting for someone else.

She remembers one of them getting mad at the group. He didn’t want to wait around anymore. He was the first one to head towards the wall where Slier met him. He was about to climb it with the rest of the group, except for one, who was waiting for the other person to arrive. She remembers her mind go somewhere else, just like it does when she has to do something against her moral compass. She remembers her hammer smashing arms, smashing legs, and smashing skulls. She remembers killing all seven of them.

Now, she arrives at the mentors’ dormitory. A group of students is standing outside. They are all standing on thin columns of wood, jumping from one to another. They are training for their balance.

She finds someone standing on the floor. It is a woman. She has her back towards Slier. Her long black hair is loose, passing below her waist. She has brown skin. Slier recognizes her. She is Kemba, one of the mentors. She’s been known to create powerful poison and antidotes by just looking at plants and leaves.

“Excuse me, sir,” Slier says. Kemba turns around and Slier bows.

“Slier and East,” Kemba says. “I sense that you are worried about something. Let me guess. Icarus is not training you today, is he?”

“We are taking a break,” Slier says. She doesn’t want any other mentor to know about Icarus’s troubles today.

Kemba hums. “Too bad,” she says. “I wanted you and East on my team. I would have trained you way better than he can, but he won the raffle of the assassin’s trial.”

“Raffle?” East asks.

“It isn’t a literal raffle,” Kemba says. “The mentors, who want to be the assassin at the first trial, tell Morning that they want to. Morning then chooses whoever he wants to. Every mentor knows that whoever is the assassin gets to pick first his team so almost all of us offered to be the assassin.”

Slier nods. She doesn’t know what else to say. “I was wondering. By any chance do you know where Icarus’s room is?”

“Do I? He is one of my neighbors,” she says. “Third floor, fourth door to the left.”

“Thank you,” Slier says. She bows again before leaving to the mentors’ dormitory. She follows Kemba’s instructions. She knocks on the door that she thinks that is Icarus’s. The door opens to reveal Icarus past it. He doesn’t say anything. “Can we talk?”

“About?” Icarus asks.

“Everything,” Slier says. He stares at them both, turning from one to the other. He then steps away from the door for them to enter.

The first thing that Slier does is watch every detail of his room. He has a small kitchen and a small table. His bed is also on the same room but at the end, next to the window. There is another door which might lead to a bathroom. The room is well-kept, his bed is perfectly made and there is nothing out of place. It even smells fresh as if they are in a forest when the spring breeze is blowing.

Icarus closes the door. “Well?”

“We are sorry,” East says.

“About?” Icarus says. Slier likes the way that he can control his emotions. There is nothing on him that can give out what he is thinking about. She wants to possess that ability someday.

“About what happened today,” East answers. “We all are.” Icarus doesn’t react. He doesn’t move from the door. He doesn’t talk. He is waiting for them to continue talking.

“No,” Slier says. East turns to face her, unsure of what she is doing. “That’s not what I need to apologize for. You were right, Icarus. I saw the chance and I took it. Morning offered us a shortcut to graduation, and I took it without thinking. I should have thought about our team. I did not think about how I would slack off because I would graduate if I passed the trials or not. If you will accept my apology, I promise that I won’t slack off. I will work harder and harder and I will carry my team as if they were me.”

Icarus turns to face East. East rises his eyebrows. “What she said,” he says. “There is no way that I can top that.”

Icarus doesn’t speak for a few seconds. “In my trials, I belonged to this team. They were all segregated like Draconic. They all had their own groups inside of the team. I did not. I was like you two. I had only one best friend, and she was not in the group.”

“The woman who died, right?” East asks.

“She didn’t die,” he says. “That was a lie, but it is not relevant now. The team was so divided that they didn’t work together on anything, not even on the trial. Our team failed the second trial. Only a few were spared and relocated to another team that had a member who recently died. I was one of those lucky people.” He places his hands on his pocket. “You see, I passed the trials because I was lucky. If our second trial was not based on turns, we would not have made it. We would have lost because we cannot work as a team.”

“I am sorry,” East says. “We did not see it that way. We only thought about us.”

“But now, I have to teach you about special people and their abilities under Morning’s orders,” Icarus says.

“You mean about witches,” Slier says.

“I do not call them that,” Icarus says. “That’s a discriminatory reference.”

“It does not matter,” Slier says. “They are evil, aren’t they?”

Icarus places a hand on the doorknob. “You have much to learn. Follow me.” He opens the door and steps out.

***

East is following Icarus closely. He does not know where they are headed. Slier does not know either.

“How did you decide to be an assassin?” East says. He doesn’t want them to remain quiet after their unusual conversation.

“Do you mean a rogue or for the trial?” Icarus asks.

“A rogue,” East answers, knowing that that is the correct terminology for what Icarus is.

“I’ve always been fast,” Icarus answers. “And I had an ease on using daggers. Night and the other instructors thought that my strategy would be to strike once and get out. Everyone took advantage from that. All of my parts on the trial consisted of my speed or the ability to blend with the shadows. I knew that my destiny was becoming a rogue, but after the trials all of my jobs were independent. They hired me to kill without being seen. It was obvious by then that I was a rogue.”

“So, did you ever know that you wanted to be a rogue while you were at Nightlight?” East asks.

“No,” Icarus admits. “I had my suspicions, but I did not know my specialty, just like you and Slier know.”

“What happens after graduation?” Slier asks. East knows what she is referring too. Everyone trains them to be stronger and learn how to kill, but they never tell them why. They know that there is a war out there, and they know that they will take part of it, but they do not know what happens exactly after graduation.

“It depends on your skills,” Icarus says. “Some are sent to war. Some are left behind to teach. Some are even left to work personally with the Times.”

“What did you end up doing?” Slier asks.

“Night requested me to stay behind,” Icarus says. “I was his personal assassin.”

“That should not have been easy,” East says.

“Once you get past the killing, it is not bad,” Icarus says. “He didn’t call on me much. I could live at my house, not doing anything for weeks, but when he called me, it wasn’t for an easy kill. The targets were important people, wealthy, people who were constantly protected.”

“You worked? You don’t work for Night anymore?” Slier asks.

“It was a five-year contract,” he says. “I already fulfilled it.” He stops. “We are here.”

East looks to where “here” is. There is a brown square building with several floors. It has several steps in front of it. He knows what this place is. This is Morningstar’s library. He has not stepped in here since before the trials.

Icarus enters before East can ask what they are doing there. The library is completely empty. There is not even one person in there. It seems kind of obvious for it to be empty. There is not any reason to use it. They do not have any more tests that test knowledge. Also, before the trials, Morningstar had more than five hundred students. Now, Morningstar only has two hundred. Chances of someone being at the library are low.

“Why are we here?” Slier asks.

“To study,” Icarus says.

“But Morning wanted you to teach us about witches,” Slier says. “If there is something about witches in here, at least one student would have found it already.”

“There is, but no one knows where to search for it,” Icarus says. He doesn’t stop walking. He continues climbing the stairs and looking into rooms. He stops in front of a bookshelf and pulls several books, handing each one to East and Slier.

East opens one of those books. “Religion?”

“Yes,” Icarus answers.

“What do witches have to do with religion?” Slier asks. “That they both have some magical story?”

“There are more apart from that,” Icarus says. He waits for a few seconds. “Don’t repeat the ‘m’ word. The Times forbid the use of that word.”

“Why?” East asks.

“Because it is a word linked to the people with abilities,” Icarus says. “It should be clear by now that they do not like those people.” He walks away and pulls a chair at the nearest table. He does not sit, though. He indicates for Slier to sit. East takes the one next to her and places the book on the table. Icarus remains standing.

“Do we have to read all of these?” East asks.

“You should,” Icarus says. “Morning wants you to detect when someone uses their special abilities, and to do that, you need to distinguish between them. That’s where religion comes in.”

“Do you believe in all of this?” Slier asks. “No offense, but I think that this is all bogus.”

East is on Slier’s side on this one. No one at Morningstar believe in any religion. It is taught to anyone who is interested, but never forced. Of course, East nor Slier took religion classes. They chose more useful classes to gain more skills.

“It does not matter what I think,” Icarus says. “What matters is that these abilities are linked to these saints. In order to understand how these abilities work, and how to feel them, you will need to know about religion. You will need to know how the saints were, what were their motivations, how they acted, and even what they believed in.”

“I don’t understand,” Slier says. “They are not real. How come ma… How come these abilities are connected to them?”

“Maybe they were not real, but what makes you so sure? You didn’t believe in these abilities until Morning told you and you saw it with Tulle. What makes these saints any less real?” Icarus asks, but does not wait for an answer. “See it this way. Let’s suppose that they are not real, but that does not mean that a person under the same name and with certain abilities did not exist. If you do not want to see them as saints, then see it as historical figures.”

“All right,” Slier says as she nods.

“We can start by using Tulle as an example,” Icarus says. “She manipulated the wind. This was something that Saint Aella possessed. She was who decided how the wind would blow. She could make it a breeze or a gust. She could create hurricanes or tornadoes. This is why she was known as the Saint of Vigorous Wind.”

“A simple person could do that?” East asks. “It is hard to believe.”

“You saw Tulle,” Icarus says. “Imagine what would happen if she had years of practice.”

East stares at his pile of books. He then looks at Slier when she speaks. “No wonder Morning wants to get rid of them. They could destroy anything in their path with proper training. They could wipe us in one swing.”

Icarus does not answer her. “You knew Tulle,” he says, regardless of what Slier said. “How was she?”

“Excuse me?” Slier asks.

“Tell me about her,” Icarus says.

“She was cold,” Slier begins. “She was strong, but she was cold. She hardly spoke. She never argued about any orders.”

“But she could smile,” East adds. “Whenever she was with Odon and Rai, she would be laughing. I think that she was not cold. She simply did not like talking to anyone besides her friends. She was loyal and a little afraid of using her voice. That’s why she did not argued whenever she received orders.”

“So, now tell me, was she human?” Icarus asks.

“Of course,” East answers without hesitating. Icarus looks then at Slier, waiting for an answer.

“Yes,” Slier says, but it takes her a while. East wonders what is going on inside of her head. It wasn’t a difficult question. Why did she hesitate?

“Then why are we getting rid of them?” Icarus asks. “Why are we killing humans? Because they are different?”

“Because they could kill us,” Slier answers. “In this world is killed or be killed. Survival of the fittest.”

Icarus nods. East doesn’t know if Icarus is satisfied by her answer, but he doesn’t ask again. “Every ability originates differently within a person and it is expressed differently. In order to detect it and stop it, you will need to understand it.”

“Stop it?” East asks.

“We can block their abilities and stop them from using them,” Icarus says. “The problem is that there is a specific way for every ability, and some cannot even be stopped. If you want to learn that, you will have to read about the saints.”

East nods. His curiosity has sparked. He has always been someone who is one step ahead. He has always known more than anyone. Learning something new, that he has zero knowledge of, is making him look forward to something else besides graduation. It is making him eager.

“Let’s start with Saint Aella,” Icarus says and begins to search in one of the books.