Page 8 of Trivium

“Why? You interested in joining?”

“I am joining. I was accepted,” she boasted.

He tilted his head, curious. “A wannabe Clever, no doubt.”

She frowned. How did he know that?

“You’re working in a library, it’s pretty obvious,” he answered, reading the concern on her face.

“Have you graduated?” She changed the subject away from her.

“I’m a student. Second year.”

She nodded, mirroring his body language with hers.

“You’re going to need more than memorization to make it as a Clever.”

She knew this, of course. “Obviously.”

He studied her for a moment. “You ever heard of the lost cities?”

The lost cities were an urban legend claiming that a continent of thriving cities had fallen to the creatures, with only Jarrah remaining. “Of course.”

“So, what’s your theory then?”

“Excuse me?” No one had ever asked her that before.

“Do you believe the legend?”

Everyone believed the legend. She had studied every book on ancient history and all of them said the creatures left a path of bloody destruction in their wake. But that seemed too… straight forward to her. “Some of the cities didn’t fall.” She eyed him to gauge his response, worried he would judge her perspective. But he listened openly, and she stood up a little straighter. “I believe that some merged with the creatures.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Merged?”

She nodded, “Yeah, you know, like co-living in harmony. It would make sense, I think. Something more complex that we can’t understand because we’ve never experienced it.”

“Huh.” He rubbed the stubble on his jaw.

“Either that or the creatures enslaved the humans and took over.” She said it in jest, using humor to break the tension of him analyzing her theory.

A slight smirk crept up his face. “You’re the only person who has ever said that… who’s had that perspective, I mean.”

“You’ve asked a lot of people about the lost cities?”

“I have.” It felt like time stopped and they were there for an eternity, his eyes locked on hers. Eventually, he turned to leave, looking over his shoulder as he did. “See you at initiation, Clever,” he teased, “Oh, and don’t tell anyone I was here, or I will be forced to kill you and throw your body to the Hydra as a peace offering.”

He smiled at her with the most boyish grin and then was gone in an instant. The door clicked into place again, leaving Ahmina frozen where she stood.

Hydra: a mammal creature with a jaw that could fit an entire human body and rip it to shreds in seconds. Magical ability: Physical. Burns body from the inside out, turning it to ash. The illustration in her Encyclopedia came to mind: its furry, strong body, long scaled neck, multiple heads, and deathly fangs.

He was joking, right?

She swallowed down the lump in her throat as a thought rang like an alarm bell she couldn’t silence: he was looking for a book that the library didn’t have.

And they had every book.

5

ZEINA