The Chronicles of Faylon: Saahira | Chapter 26 (Patreon)

“We often see stress manifest in debilitating ways in many of our first-year students,” Miss Matsutoya said. She pressed a metal tool down against Saahira’s tongue and peered into the back of her throat.

Beside her, a male student around Caerulea’s age held a notebook propped open in one hand, his pen flying across the page with Matsutoya’s words. White streaks twined with his black hair in small, tight braids pulled high on the back of his head. Silver cuffs and hoops glittered in his ears, and his colorful robes held similar geometric patterns to the decorations in Professor Moborí’s classroom. On his shoulder perched a hairy orange spider larger than Saahira’s hand, and that had given her quite a shock before she realized it was a demon.

Caerulea had ushered Saahira to a single-floored building on the far side of the dormitories. Modest accommodations housed a meeting room for the block mentors, an administrative office, and a small infirmary—the room Saahira sat in now. Caerulea had quickly explained that Shoji Matsutoya oversaw the dormitories in urgent cases. Crossing through Odalric to the sanctum’s larger infirmary simply wasn’t feasible in certain circumstances.

The space was sparsely furnished. One short table against the wall beneath a locked cabinet held alchemical tools. Another had stones, gems, and closed pouches arranged on tiered shelves. Paper spread across its surface suggested that it doubled as a desk. Outside of these were three narrow beds fitted with crisp white sheets. Saahira occupied the bed in the center. Another student was curled up on a second bed beside Saahira’s, their breathing even and steady.

“It wasn’t stress. It was a hex,” Saahira repeated.

Miss Matsutyoa hummed. She was a short woman with sharp eyes and dexterous fingers. Red robes with golden embroidery swished around her ankles as she walked, and her dark hair was tied in a bun at the nape of her neck. She held Saahira’s wrist and looked at her watch. “The symptoms of mental anguish can simulate the effects of a hex. Fatai, would you please share a list of symptoms our patient may have experienced?”

Matsutoya’s charge nodded. The hoops in his ears lightly clinked together with the motion. “Difficulty breathing, fainting, tremors, insomnia,” he replied in a thick Aṣálian accent. The spider on his shoulder tapped its two front feet together as if in applause.

“Very good.”

Saahira worked her jaw. “Why don’t you believe me?” she asked. Her throat still burned, echoed by the pain in her chest from forcing her lungs to their limits.

Matsutoya released her wrist and folded her arms behind her back. “Students so rarely dare to attack one another with a hex in the first week of class. Professor Lodovico distributes wards in the second week for this reason. I am sure you are well-informed of the consequences of hexing another student.”

“Expulsion,” Fatai added without prompting.

“Of course,” Saahira replied flatly.

“I have seen many fledgling spells used in my time here during the initial days—wind to lift skirts, sudden rainclouds to ruin homework. Trivial magic in the hands of children. I have also witnessed countless students blaming others for more serious spells in the hopes of seeing their rivals expelled.” Matsutoya peered at Saahira over her glasses, letting the weight of her words hang heavy in the air.

The liars are always punished, Matsutoya’s expression said.

Fatai’s pen scratched paper in the silence. His spider crawled down his shoulder and onto his forearm, craning its body until its many beady eyes were fixed on the page.

“Who would have hexed you, Saahira?” Caerulea asked gently. She stood at the foot of Saahira’s bed, the golden pin on her coat sparkling in the dim lighting.

When Isa was just five years old, she had started to understand the concept of “snitching.” She and Saahira had made a pact not to turn one another in for any reason. Not for sweets stolen from the pantry, not for playing tricks on Barclay’s farm, and not when Isa accidentally broke Mother’s favorite bowl.

Saahira wasn’t a snitch. But no one had ever tried to kill her before.

“Dimitri Centofanti or Talia Chavadieu,” she murmured.

Caerulea’s eyes widened, and the wings on her head rustled. Fatai stopped writing and peered over his notebook at Saahira. Even the spider seemed to look up at her. Miss Matsutoya took off her glasses and tapped them against her arm.

“This is a grave accusation indeed, Miss Montarac. To blame such powerful names…” Tap tap tap. “If you are proven otherwise…” Her thin lips pulled into an even thinner line, and she looked at Caerulea. “Will you excuse us, Miss Perrin?”

“O-of course.” Caerulea bowed her head. “Would you like me to wait for you, Saahira?”

Saahira shook her head, but before she could reply, Matsutoya said, “That won’t be necessary.”

“…Very well.” Caerulea nodded and hurried out of the infirmary.

After a few heartbeats of silence, Matsutoya looked at Fatai. “Will you wait outside as well, Fatai?”

Fatai blinked and looked between his mentor and Saahira. It was the briefest moment of pause before he closed his notebook and nodded. “Of course, Miss Matsutoya.”

While Caerulea and Fatai left the room, Matsutoya replaced her glasses on her tiny nose and strode to the bed with the sleeping student. Chestnut, shoulder-length hair fell around their steadily rising shoulders, but they were turned away from Saahira. Matsutoya gently touched an exposed wrist and looked at her watch. After a time, she nodded and returned to Saahira.

“May I ask what brought you to these accusations?” Matsutoya asked quietly.

“They’ve taken every opportunity to demean and humiliate me and my friends during and after class.”

A tiny smirk curled the corner of Matsutoya’s mouth. “Now that is the type of behavior I expect to hear from first years.”

Saahira’s fingers writhed in her lap. She ignored Matsutoya’s comment and continued. “When the hex happened, they were sitting on a bench, watching me. Talia was smiling.”

“Have they ever physically harmed you or your companions?”

“No, but—”

“And this would be the first instance of a spell?”

Saahira squirmed beneath her gaze. “Yes, but—”

“Miss Montarac, a hex is far more serious than a pattern of oral ridicule and mockery—”

“But I broke the hex!” Saahira snapped. “I spoke the counter hex, and it worked.”

“Or your symptoms abated,” Matsutoya replied. “Which is easier to believe than a student in her first week divining the correct words to counter a hex on her own.”

Frustration numbed the pain in Saahira’s throat and chest. “I didn’t come up with them on my own—” The words locked themselves inside her throat. Would she believe her about the choir? Let alone their assistance?

The choir…

She mentally reached for them, begged of them, Who did this to me?

-You ask too much of us without a pact, Saahira.- Their usual low, coaxing timbre darkened to the sharp irritation she’d been met with on the morning that Lillith had threatened to cut them off.

Saahira flinched. She chewed the inside of her cheek and tried a different angle with Matsutoya. “Is there no way to check if it was a hex?”

“Of course there is.”

Then why haven’t you done it? Saahira swallowed the bitter reply. “What do I have to do for that?”

 “You do nothing.” Matsutoya crossed her arms, and her dark gaze hardened. “I summon Professor Lodovico. He verifies the presence of hex remnants inside of your energy signature. Then he confers with the headmaster to compare the energy signatures to the other students in the sanctum.” She lowered her voice even further, her tone as fierce as her frown. “This means that Stavros Centofanti is immediately made aware of the claim against his son, and the Chavadieu family will be notified of the same.”

Dimitri had made it very clear that his father was a partial owner in the sanctum, and her enchantments book did well to mention the prominence of Talia’s family. And yet… “What would they do?”

“If your accusation is incorrect, Miss Montarac?” Matsutoya shook her head. “It is more than just your education that you risk.”

Licking her lips, Saahira consulted her twisting fingers once more. If it weren’t a hex, the choir wouldn’t have given her the right words to say, would they?

You saved me, didn’t you?

A tension clutched her chest. Whether it was her fear with their silence or the weight of their frustration, she struggled to place it. Maybe both.

What if this happens again? she asked, her confidence waning.

-If you wish for our continued aid, Saahira. Let. Us. In.- Each of the final three words was punctuated like a dagger to her chest.

She was on her own, then. Fine. “Summon Professor Lodovico. Please.”

Matsutoya narrowed her eyes and clicked her tongue. “A moment, then.” She strode to the door and ushered Fatai back inside. “I shouldn’t be gone long, but I need you to manage the infirmary in my absence. Should Miss Korhonen wake up—”

“Administer the elixir we prepared and evaluate if she’s ready to return to her dorm room,” Fatai replied with an easy smile.

“Interruptions are discourteous, Mr. Ọnàyẹmí,” Matsutoya said, tapping his shoulder with one finger. She frowned, but the gesture looked familiar and good-natured. “Manners aside, you are correct. I want all four walls still standing when I return.”

Fatai chuckled and canted his head before taking a seat at the paper-covered desk. The spider hopped to Fatai’s wrist, then to the desk, settling in on top of a stack of paperwork.

“Your hand, please.” Matsutoya extended an arm toward Saahira.

The motion held the same snappy expectation as Gallowood’s affinity test on the first day of class. Readying herself for another blood test, Saahira rested her palm in Matsutoya’s and awaited the pricks on her fingertips.

But the pricks never came. Instead, the walls of the infirmary collapsed and blurred, blending Fatai and his surroundings into a murky palette before evaporating into thick black smoke. Saahira gasped, but the sound caught in her throat. A snap preluded a ringing in her ears as darkness swallowed her whole. Glowing red eyes hovered above Matsutoya’s head, just out of reach. They bored into Saahira’s face, and their disappointment pierced through her heart.

Light flooded her vision, chasing away the darkness and the bloody eyes held within. The room was spinning. Saahira staggered backward, but Matsutoya held tightly to her hand.

“Have you never experienced translocation before?” Matsutoya asked, adjusting her glasses.

Saahira shook her head. She was still trying to discern which way was up while Matsutoya guided her to sit.

“You! Child!” Matsutoya snapped at a blonde-haired girl nearby. Saahira blinked, but the details of her face refused to come into focus. “Fetch this patient a glass of water.”

“R-right away, Miss Matsutoya.” She bowed and dashed out of view.

“I’ve asked you multiple times to stop making demands of my apprentices, Shoji,” a low, authoritative voice called from the middle of the room.

“Saahira, this is Mr. Vivenzio,” Matsutoya said, ignoring the pointed comment. “He will monitor you while I find the professor.”

“Where are we?” Saahira’s vision finally began to stabilize. This room was nearly three times the size of the small dormitory infirmary. Black curtains hung on either side of her, and multiple paintings decorated the high-ceilinged walls—one of which Saahira now knew as the Wisdom Turn. Multiple students in crisp red jackets moved about the room, notebooks and metal implements in hand.

“Oh, thank you,” Saahira murmured. The blonde girl wearing a red coat of her own had returned with a glass of water, and Saahira accepted it before taking a few small sips.

“In the sanctum’s infirmary.” Matsutoya turned away and gestured behind her toward Saahira. “Mr. Vivenzio, would you kindly demand one of your apprentices to draw Saahira’s blood in my stead?”

A tall, lean man whose face and long ears were all sharp angles glanced up from a polished darkwood desk at the room’s center. His crimson hair was pulled away from his amber eyes, resting in a tail on the back of his neck. He studied Matsutoya with the patience of a man waiting for a fly to land so he could swat it. “What is it that you hope to find?”

“That will be Professor Lodovico’s job to answer,” Matsutoya replied.

The corner of Vivenzio’s thin lips sank into a frown. “A hex?” He glanced at Saahira, and the frown deepened. “Shoji, surely this is a misdiagnosis—”

“Just draw the blood, Rafail,” Matsutoya snapped.

Vivenzio bristled, but said no more.

Saahira stared into the water inside her cup. She imagined diving into it, just like she would in the river that ran south of Almaryn in the hot summer months. Away from all the doubting eyes and ears.

“I will return shortly.” With a final glare at Vivenzio, Matsutoya marched out of the infirmary, leaving Saahira on her own with more unfamiliar faces.

Vivenzio sighed, laying down his quill before he closed the book at his desk. He stood and walked straight-backed and straight-shouldered to one of the many cabinets along the wall. Whereas the apprentice students wore short red jackets with an off-center line of obsidian buttons, Vivenzio wore a coat of the same red that fell to his ankles and flared behind him as he moved. Between him, Professor Lodovico, Dimitri, and Raenisa, Saahira was beginning to find many of the same patterns in their mannerisms. Proud, blunt, sharp. No-nonsense attitudes. Extremely particular.

Are all elves like this?

“Mr. Vivenzio? I can take her blood, if you wish,” the blonde girl offered.

“If Lodovico’s inspecting it, I prefer to draw it myself. Make a note of that for the future, Chelsea,” Vivenzio said, setting a tool on a metal tray. Saahira was too far away to see, though she could hazard a guess.

“O-oh. Right. Of course, sir.” Chelsea bowed and made herself busy elsewhere.

Vivenzio brought the metal tray to Saahira’s space, the black curtains swaying as he passed—the other beds are behind the curtains, she realized—and set it on a small table nearby.

“Push your left sleeve up to the elbow,” Vivenzio instructed.

Saahira tugged the grey fabric of her dress to the crook of her arm. She’d had to do the same for her mother when they’d initially submitted her blood to the sanctum with her request for entry. It felt like so long ago that they’d done so, opening the same vein that Saahira had opened to draw the summoning circle that had sent her there.

Vivenzio wrapped a thin leather strap around her upper forearm. “Squeeze your hand into a fist.”

She curled her fingers into her palm and watched as he rolled one calloused finger against the blue vein that bulged from her skin. Satisfied, he reached for a single glass vial and a small, sharp blade on the tray. A lancet, Saahira recalled from her mother’s teaching.

“What is your name?” he asked, drawing a tiny, precise cut over the thin blue line.

“Saahira Montarac.” She hardly felt the pinch of the knife.

“Are you a first year?” Vivenzio tipped the vial against her forearm and guided the slow stream of blood inside. It was nearly the exact same shade of red as his coat.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you say you were hexed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“By whom?”

Saahira crossed her ankles, keeping her eyes trained on the steady trickle. She didn’t want another repeat of her conversation with Matsutoya. “I’m not sure.”

“Hm.” Vivenzio raised the hand holding the knife over her arm and murmured, “Sudhāradin.” Just as it had in Gallowood’s class, the flesh reached across the wound, knitting itself back together. He pushed a cork into the top of the vial and wiped the excess blood away with a square of linen. “What effect did this hex have on you?”

So much for avoiding the conversation. “It stole my air away. I couldn’t breathe.”

“I see.” He methodically cleaned the blade with a clear liquid and a clean piece of linen. “By Miss Matsutoya’s temperament, I assume she already discussed the symptoms of academic stress with you?”

“She did.” Saahira’s reply sounded more disgruntled than she’d intended. She opened her mouth to say something else to defend herself, but couldn’t decide how best to do so, so she closed it again.

“Are you experiencing any symptoms right now?” he asked.

Exhaustion was the first word that came to mind, but that was a compound born of the day’s trials, not just the hex. “No, sir.”

Vivenzio nodded. “Well, then. Call upon Chelsea if your symptoms return, or if you require anything else.”

“Thank you, Mr. Vivenzio.”

As he cleaned his tools and returned them to their shelves, Saahira searched between the paintings and cabinets on the wall for a clock. She found one on each wall; the clock to her right was easier to read. It had been a little over two hours since she’d left Fate and Arcana—she was supposed to meet Cyprus and Melony very soon.

Would that be possible? Would she be able to get a message to them if not?

She touched the satchel at her side, the high-quality leather a constant reminder of Cyprus’s kindness. The voice of doubt that plagued her insisted that her friends wouldn’t worry about her; that they’d have a better time without her. But thanks to the same friends, that voice had grown much quieter as of late. They would worry, and she desperately wanted to tell them what had happened.

Minutes ticked by on the clock. Saahira watched the hand crawl along on its face, wishing Matsutoya and Lodovico would hurry. Chelsea was an attentive apprentice, refilling her water and gently checking for returning symptoms in her rounds. But no matter how much she drank, Saahira’s mouth felt parched.

At last, Matsutoya returned with Professor Lodovico at her side. The professor’s presence was just as intimidating in the infirmary as it was in his own classroom. He met Vivenzio at his desk with only a glance at Saahira. Whispered words were exchanged between the three before Vivenzio handed Lodovico the vial of Saahira’s blood.

Lodovico procured something from his pocket. It was difficult to see just what it was from where Saahira sat, but she could see him uncorking the vial and pouring it across the object. He raised his hand to his chest and studied the blood closely. Matsutoya removed her glasses and tapped them against her arm. Vivenzio’s quill continued moving as if this were all routine.

“Miss Montarac,” Professor Lodovico called.

Saahira started. “Y-yes, Professor?”

“You had class with me this morning, did you not?”

“Yes.”

Lodovico nodded smoothly, but he wrinkled his brow and focused his concentration on the object in his hand. After a few more ticks of the clock passed through the room’s silence, he lowered his voice and murmured a soft string of words that made Vivenzio’s hand freeze over the parchment and Matsutoya’s glasses stop tapping against her arm.

“You’re certain?” Vivenzio asked loud enough for Saahira to hear as he peered up at the professor.

Lodovico’s responding glare challenged Vivenzio to ask the question again. Vivenzio cleared his throat and averted his eyes.

Matsutoya replaced her glasses on her nose and smoothed her robes over her legs. “I’ll retrieve Professor Lillith, then.”

Lillith?

Lodovico nodded and made his way to Saahira’s bedside. It felt strange to see him in such close proximity when she sat so far away in his slanted classroom. There were flecks of gold in his sea green eyes, and his gaze never settled in one place on Saahira’s face. In his hand was a thin circle of glass, no larger than the lens on Matsutoya’s glasses. Saahira’s blood was smeared across it, the droplets glowing a faint purple hue.

“There are two separate remnants of hexes in your blood, Miss Montarac. One is faint, but the symbols read klar tor’vyn, which we practiced in class,” Lodovico said, carefully placing the circle on the table nearby.

“Mhm. That would have been Leon. He was my partner in class,” Saahira said. “I’m sorry, Professor, but symbols? Are the hexes not words?”

“They are both. You will learn in time,” Lodovico said. “For now, we have other matters to discuss.”

Saahira didn’t like how slowly Lodovico was speaking, as if he were working out a difficult puzzle. Her fingers and toes suddenly felt very cold.

“The second set of symbols, however, is far more recent. I will need assistance from Professor Lillith to determine who commanded the cast.”

“Why?” Saahira’s lips felt numb.

“Because, Miss Montarac, the symbol is of Ix’iryon origin. The caster of your hex is a demon.”