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The gnawing at my insides pushed me to look for my friends in earnest. My stomach screamed for something to eat and walking for hours on end only made things worse. Patting my pockets, I searched for the food I knew was not there. The rest of what the man had given me was somewhere back on the mountainside and I knew it was no use trying to find it. I was not willing to go back that way either. The thrasher could still be out there looking for me. With weak and wobbly legs, I slumped against the nearest wall.
Using the building for support, I rounded a corner and stumbled into another open courtyard. An enormous cathedral towered above me, blocking out the sun. A sharp spire pierced the sky, acting as a beacon to the rest of the city. This was what I had been catching glimpses of as I traversed the numberless streets. A large, circular garden spread out before me with a line of benches promising rest.
I crashed down on the nearest one and stretched my legs. Rubbing my sore muscles, I fought against the knots that were forming with my knuckles. In front of me was a large stone statue standing in a wide basin of water. I stared at it, mesmerized by the incredible detail. An enormous lizard-like creature wrapped its protective wings around a sword-wielding woman. The emotion on the woman’s face was not fear but peace. She felt safe in the creature’s embrace. I studied it for a while, hypnotized by its intricate patterns.
The longer I rested, the heavier my eyelids became. The rays of the sun enveloped me like a warm cocoon, making it harder to stay awake. Sleep called out to me, promising me relief. My head fell forward, bouncing back up when my chin hit my chest. I didn’t even realize I’d closed my eyes.
“Is there something I can help you with?”
A young man, maybe seven or eight years old than me, stood in front of my bench. His clothes were pressed and his black hair was slicked back, flat against his scalp. Small dark patches dotted his chin, resembling an attempt at a meager beard.
“Are you lost?” he asked when I didn’t respond.
“I’m sorry. I’m tired and starving. Do you have any food?”
“Having some troubles at home?” the young man asked.
“I don’t have a home,” I said.
“You must be one of the new students then?” he asked. “Do you have your papers?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
The man sat next to me, leaned back, and spread his arms across the length of the backrest.
“This is the Institute of Arden. It’s a school. Most kids your age are here for classes.”
I shook my head, catching myself when my eyes drifted closed again. “No, I’m not a student. Some of my friends are though, I think. I was trying to find them.”
A smile appeared on the man’s face. “That’s good news. Maybe I can help you. Do they attend classes here?”
“Maybe. We really didn’t talk about it.”
“Hundreds of students attend classes at the Institute and they come from all across the Six Cities. Do you know their names?”
“Kya and Thena.”
The man scratched his head and then quickly bounced off the bench and onto his feet, a silly grin on his face.
“Tell you what. I’ll give you a quick tour of the Institute. It’s not really one of my jobs, but I’m more than happy to do it. On the way, we’ll look for your friends and maybe find something to chew on. How does that sound?”
“It sounds great,” I said as I pushed my ragged body off the bench as well.
“Follow me. We’ll start the tour right here with our very own courtyard. The main attraction is The Formidable Maiden.”
“The what?” I asked.
“The fountain,” the man said, pointing at the statue. “And by the way, my name is Russ.”
He threw out a hand for me to shake, which I happily took.
“Jaxon.”
“Good to know you, Jaxon. The Formidable Maiden was crafted from the white stone quarried from our very mountains. Cecil Thatcher sculpted it as an alumni gift to the Institute. It has stood here, in this very courtyard, for more than a century.”
I stepped closer to the fountain, getting lost in the detail carved into the stone. This Cecil fellow had a gift.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“What does what mean?” Russ asked back.
“The statue. Why is the lizard protecting the woman?”
Russ laughed and crossed his arms. “That is no lizard, Jaxon. It’s a dragon. The fiercest creature the world has ever known.”
“Those are real?” I asked in awe. I would hate to run into one of them. It looked like it could eat a sand crab for lunch.
“Not anymore. They died out hundreds of years ago. How about we head inside?”
Russ danced up a short flight of stairs to a set of large, wooden doors. Resting his hand firmly on the handle, he pushed, pressing his whole body into it. The door slowly creaked open, sending a breeze of cold air into our faces. Sneaking inside, Russ let the doors boom shut behind us.
“Pretty impressive, huh?” Russ said. “Since we have students from all over the Six Cities, Arden has the privilege of owning the largest building in Odrana.”
I gawked at the entryway. The ceiling was so high I could hardly see it. The gray stone slabs of the walls kept the interior cool and there were only two sources of light that I could see. Narrow windows high up the walls allowed sunlight to filter through but it never seemed to reach the ground. It only illuminated the rafters. The rest of the light came from the candles and torches burning in sconces along the walls.
Russ laughed when he looked at me. “That’s a fairly common reaction from the first years. Come on.”
We continued down the hall, passing several open doors. I peered into each of the rooms they exposed, hoping to catch a glimpse of either Kya or Thena, but they were all empty.
“These rooms are for visiting dignitaries. When council members or chancellors from other cities visit, they use these as their offices and sleeping quarters. The palace is too small to house them.”
I nodded but didn’t bother asking what he meant. Russ seemed to like explaining everything so I let him continue uninterrupted.
The rooms eventually turned from empty and disappointing to being full of noisy and rowdy students. I lingered at each door as I searched for my friends.
“What kinds of things are taught here?” I asked as I pulled myself away from another classroom.
“Interested in knowledge? We teach almost everything. Science, math, language, astronomy, and a lot of basic trades. You know, things like weaving, trading, and blacksmithing, among others. We don’t get a lot of students for those ones because trades are usually taught in the home and are passed down from parents.”
“You said almost everything,” I asked. “What things don’t you teach?”
Russ kept walking but turned around to face me. “We don’t worry much about the smaller trades, like gardening, cooking, and midwifing. Those things are always taught at home. We also don’t mess around with elemental manipulation, as we call it.”
“What’s that?” I asked, stepping to the side to avoid running into a boy reading a book.
“Magic and things of that sort.”
“What’s magic?” I asked.
The question caught Russ off guard. “Oh, you’re putting me on, right? What’s magic?”
I stared at him, waiting for an answer.
“Are you serious? You’ve never heard of magic before? It is mentioned in all our history classes.”
I shook my head. "I've never heard of it before."
“Let’s see,” Russ said, stroking his chin. “How should I put this? Magic allowed people to do some pretty bad things. One guy changed the entire course of a river to flood a city once. It’s still flooded, actually. When bad people use magic, they can do some pretty unspeakable things.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “How could a man do something like move a river? I’ve seen one before and there is no way I would ever be able to move it.”
Russ opened a door and stuck his head in before answering. “Magic, Jaxon. Magic moved the river, not the man. Well, okay, the man did, but by using magic. Does that make sense?”
“Is magic some kind of machine?” I asked.
“What’s a machine?” Russ asked.
We both stared at each other in confusion.
“The important thing is that magic was banned hundreds of years ago and we don’t teach it anymore,” Russ said after a moment of awkward silence. “This is the kitchen. Let’s see if we can’t find some snacks.”
Before we could go in, a large bell, hidden somewhere in the building, rang out, startling me.
“That’s the class bell,” Russ said. “It announces the end of class. If one of your friends is here, right now will be the best time to find them. A lot of students spend their break time in the courtyard.”
Russ led me back through the halls, following the same path we had taken. I glanced back at the kitchen before it was out of sight, my stomach rumbling. This time, the halls were overflowing with bodies, most of them close to my own age. I looked around for Kya or Thena but there were far too many people. I got lost in the sea of faces. When we made it back to the entrance, I still wasn’t sure if they were here.
“Did you see either of them?” Russ asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
“I’m sure you will soon. Sorry I couldn’t get you something to eat. Good luck with that.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Thanks for telling me about this place. Maybe I can come here someday.”
“I’m sure you will. If you want to learn about admissions, come back anytime.”
I slipped through the open door before it closed. Russ was right. The courtyard was overflowing with students. Standing on my toes, I looked out into the crowd, hoping to get lucky. No one looked familiar.
Most of the kids gathered in small groups and were deep in conversation. They huddled tightly together, either sharing secrets, discussing lessons learned in class, or talking about plans for later. Picking a group at random, I tried to weasel my way between them. The tallest boy of the bunch brought their conversation to a halt and turned on me. Going against my better instincts, I smiled at him.
“Hi,” I said with a wave.
“What do you want, runt?”
“I’m looking for someone. Can you help me?”
The boy glanced at his friends and started laughing. “What do I look like, your mommy? Get out of here.”
“Please,” I said, standing my ground. “I’m just looking for Kya. Do you know her? Does she study here?”
The laughter got louder and one of the boys started choking. “That little freak has a boyfriend? Makes sense he would be a little runt, too.”
“Looks like a perfect match,” another one said, elbowing me in the chest. “Do you need to save your daddy before it's too late?”
The howling laughter was deafening but hope and confidence bloomed in my chest. “You know her? Do you know where she is?”
“Look, dung heap,” the tall boy said as he gripped my shoulder. “I wouldn’t waste my time with her. And I’m certainly not going to waste mine on you.”
He pushed me away so hard that I fell over, scraping my palms on the cobblestones. The group turned their back to me and walked off without a glance back. The rest of the courtyard had fallen silent to watch our exchange. When I pushed myself up, everyone shuffled away, careful to try and only look at me when they thought I wasn’t watching. I was completely alone in a sea of people. I knew the feeling all too well. Life in the wasteland wasn’t much different. With a sigh, I pressed on, knowing that I wasn’t wanted there.
“What are you still doing here?”
It was the tall boy again. He leaned down and picked up a rock. I’d been in more scuffles than I cared to admit to and did not want to be part of another one. Before he could throw it, I ran away, choosing one of the many paths leading from the courtyard at random. When I was out of sight, my shoulders slumped and my pace slowed. I sighed. It wasn’t the kids that bothered me. I’d seen the worst of humanity already. It was the gnawing in my stomach that wouldn't leave me in peace, which confused me. I’d gone much longer without food before, so why was it so bad now? I blamed the man in the cave. The food he had given me filled me with a desire that even my self-control bowed to. I had to have more.
Meandering through the streets again, I pressed my hands against my stomach to quiet it. The hunger was quickly become too much to bear.
“Excuse me,” I said to a passing stranger. “Do you know where I can get something to eat?”
The woman cringed when she saw me, promptly moving to the other side of the road. I turned and watched her walk away. She looked back once but hurried around a corner when she saw me watching her.
“What was that about?”
Despair was beginning to creep in, deflating the feeling of awe I had felt a few hours earlier. If this was how I was going to be treated in Arden, then I might risk the man’s wrath and return to the cave. I felt more at home in the wasteland. Or I could just live in the mountains. That might not be so bad if I could evade the thrashers.
“Hey, watch where you’re going.”
I had been staring at the ground while I was walking, but the voice that yelled at me sounded familiar. Looking up, joy and relief flooded through me. The hair was the same but the dress was new and pressed.
“Thena!” I cried, nearly throwing my arms around her.
Her eyes grew wide with surprise. She stared at me like she was looking at a ghost.
“What?” she said. “How? We thought you were dead. You went over the falls.”
I patted my body to show her that I was alive, well, and in one piece.
“I thought I was going to die too,” I said. “It was scary.”
Thena glanced around the street. “How did you get here?”
“I walked.”
Thena laughed at me, which I was expecting, but her laugh was different. It wasn’t a high-pitched giggle like before. Maybe she only did that around Kya?
“I need some help,” I said.
Thena appraised me cautiously. When she was about to answer, my stomach growled louder than I had ever heard before. My cheeks flushed.
“Hungry?” Thena asked.
I nodded. “You have no idea.”
“When was the last time you ate?”
“Yesterday before I met you and Kya. And it wasn’t very much. Just some cheese and berries.”
Thena tsked at me, put her hands on her hips, and surveyed the road.
“I guess you can come with me. If you help me, I could pay you with some food.”
“Please,” I moaned. “I’ll do anything. Anything.”
“Calm down, cave boy. You’re making a scene. Mother sent me to the market to pick up some things. If you help me carry it all back, I’ll share a treat with you. Mother will never know.”