Page 21 of The Space Between Stars

Calver nodded. The two lines adamantly kept eyes from Calver and even more adamantly kept eyes from the not-boy who was distinctly not-allowed at the room’s perimeter. The five facing west clutched wooden sparring dowagas. The four opposite had none. They were continuing the prior day’s practice of empty-handed disarming.

Calver fell into place with the four boys without weapons. He widened his stance, raised his arms, ready for Calisto’s call.

Suddenly, all his senses tilted. The hair on the back of his neck rose; his world narrowed to his very next movement. This feeling was not foreign to him: his body always knew when a physical hit was likely before his brain caught up to how. He listened to the instinct, trying to discern what about this clash felt so appallingly wrong.

Calisto whistled the start of the round, and Calver’s four teammates backed from the center of the room to sit cross-legged against the wall. They’d tapped out. He didn’t even have time to question them. The opposing line moved in quickly. His frustration, which he’d been struggling to quiet as it was, flared at the betrayal.

Calver lowered his stance as Milas, the closest, charged him. He slipped sideways and lashed forward to lock Milas’s elbow and wrist. He got his leg behind Milas and wrenched the weapon from him with a throw—a maneuver as useless as Chaos could make a thing, considering four others waited for him.

In a flash of straining sinew, grunted pain, and bare feet padding against the mat, the others had him disarmed all over again. Calver lunged for Armad, the weakest of those left standing, but Thero brought him to the ground with a throw. The anger he’d restrained since his mother left that morning tore through its feeble cage. He bellowed in frustration and tried to get his knee beyond Thero’s pin to roll away.

“Raise your hand, slumling. If you’re going to lose the match you might as well keep some dignity,” Thero jeered.

Nothing like Thero to make Calver appreciate the idea of getting sent home. The trio behind the boy leveled their sparring blades at him. A blow was coming, he could sense it. He just didn’t know from where.

Then Thero reeled off him, screaming. His cries mixed with Arleena’s ferocious squeal. She had latched onto the boy’s back and lodged her teeth into the nape of his neck. Thero’s arms flailed, trying to beat her away. Calver threw up a hand in defeat and rushed towards the struggling boy to pull Arleena off. Even after prying her free, she continued to thrash, shrieking and snarling with blood dribbling from her mouth.

“Next time you bring your pet to class, keep it in its cage!” Thero shouted, holding a hand over his neck.

“Arleena. St-stop!” Calver pinned her biceps to her sides and latched his arms around her belly. “It’s a g-game!” A few of his peers looked to be holding back laughter. Most stared in wide-eyed shock.

All eyes fell on Calisto, who approached them and slowly bent onto his old knees to become level with Arleena.

She would stop, right? Her knowing how much Calver respected Calisto meant she wouldn’t purposefully say anything impertinent to him, right?

“What kind of stupid game puts five on one?!” Arleena screamed.

Calver was done for.

Calisto’s line-wreathed face broke into a smile. “Hello, Arleena. It is very nice to see you again.”

Calver considered clapping a hand over her mouth, saying something stupid about his sister’s unpredictable temperament, and shuffling out the door. But why had Calisto sent five against him? He’d never done it to any of the others. If they came late, they were simply dismissed or ignored.

“That wasn’t fair,” Arleena spat. “And you made them do it. You don’t deserve to be a leader.”

Unholy Fates. This could not possibly get any worse. Arleena was about to single-handedly ruin his chance at becoming a prominent dowagist.

“I am teaching him to be prepared for any situation. Do you think an enemy will attack him while he is on even footing? Tell me, Calverous, based on your experience thus far, do you expect life to be fair to you?”

Calver’s eyes sought the floor. “No, Mesu Calisto.”

“Tell me, Arleena, do you expect life to be fair to you?”

Arleena’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll make it fair.”

To Calver’s incredulity, Calisto chuckled. “You, young Curtaim, are just like your father. It is uncanny.”

Unprecedented, molten hatred pooled in Calver’s belly. His grip tightened around his forearms where they kept his sister pinned. “T-t-take it-it-it—” He got stuck for only a few seconds. “You c-can’t tell her that. T-take it back.”

Shit. He was now helping Arleena ruin his chance at becoming a prominent dowagist.

“Easy, Calverous.”

Arleena’s fingernails dug into him. Too tight. Calver released her and she spun, pressing her face into him. Her new tears were hot against his stomach. He clutched her to him. From his peripheral vision he saw Pim shaking his head. Darion’s face had gone white.

“She’s not.”

“Let us speak on this at a different time. I advise you to sit at the wall with your classmates. Arleena, I expect you will stay quiet and behave like a young queen until the class has ended.”