CHAPTER 18

The Path Back

A Grievar shall become neither arrogant in victory nor broken in defeat. This is the path to complacency. A Grievar’s opponent is their greatest teacher; one learns more walking the path of defeat than one does on the road to victory. Such a balanced spirit will give a Grievar the continued purpose to strive for combat mastery.

Fourth Precept of the Combat Codes

Cego opened his eyes to a glowing sheet of white.

He heard Dozer snoring loudly, so he knew he was still in Quarter D with the rest of the Whelps, and yet he couldn’t see a thing. He felt a familiar warmth spreading across his face.

Only when the brightness began to dissipate could he see a glowing form floating just beyond the tip of his nose. His spectral had returned.

“Hello again,” Cego whispered. He reached out and felt the spectral’s warmth on his hand as it playfully flitted between his fingers. He sat up in his cot to check if anyone else was awake just as the spectral flew across the dark room. It stopped and hovered in front of the door.

“Not again…” Cego mumbled, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He knew this spectral, and somehow, it knew him. It had stuck with him from the little cell in the Underground to his first year at the Lyceum.

He thought about waking one of the crew. Sol certainly might be helpful in a pinch, depending on where the little thing decided to lead him this time. But Cego decided against it. The spectral didn’t seem to show itself when anyone else was awake or watching. It would likely disappear as soon as he tried to alert his team.

Cego pulled up his drawstring pants and padded out of the room into the long hall that connected most of the dormitories. He heard chatter coming from the Rocs’ door, likely Gryfin Thurgood entertaining visitors, and the grunts of bag work from the Bayhounds’ dorm, where the team was likely getting in a late-night training session.

Cego passed Tefo’s classroom, absent of the daily thud of shins against pads. The grappling mats of Sapao’s class were also empty, the moonlight reflecting on their freshly swept surface.

“Where are you taking me?” Cego whispered.

Finally, the spectral stopped and hovered in front of a familiar doorway with a ring symbol on the front. Professor Larkspur’s Circles classroom. The spectral slid through the crack in the doorframe.

“You know, I can’t get through there like you,” Cego complained. “How do you suppose I’ll—”

The door slowly creaked open. Cego shook his head. Had it already been ajar? The hairs on his neck stood as he slid into the darkened classroom.

He half expected to see Professor Larkspur inside, studying some history book or watching old fight footage, but the room was completely empty. Even the spectral that had led him here had conveniently disappeared.

The mimicry Circle was flat on the ground at the center of the class. They’d trained in its auralite form just earlier today. Two students had stood at the center and the rest of the class around the edge, yelling, hissing, and booing. To the class’s amazement, the more energized the spectators were, the more bluelight spectrals had formed above the Circle, goading the students within to attack each other.

Cego and Shimo had been the only students able to resist the auralite effect and hold their punches. Cego shivered thinking about staring into that strange boy’s eyes for five minutes straight. Next time, he’d rather take a punch to the face.

Cego stepped over the flat edge of the Circle and felt nothing. No spectrals rose. The alloy didn’t take on any specific form without Larkspur there to activate it.

“Why am I here?” Cego whispered, searching for the spectral that had brought him. He knew if he was caught sneaking into any classroom during unauthorized hours, the Whelps would face severe penalties, lowering their chance of climbing the scoreboard and graduating as Level Twos.

Cego was about to turn and leave when he noticed one of the closets in the classroom was ajar. Larkspur normally kept all the closets locked. He’d once seen the tall lady lean into the storage space to pull out a musty stack of books about fight history. Treasures, she’d called them.

Cego crept to the closet door where a diffuse light shone from the crack. He peered in and found his spectral hovering in the middle of the space, which was far wider than Cego had imagined, nearly an entirely different room. The spectral pulsed, as if saying What took you so long? before it drifted toward the floor. The wisp landed on an object raised off the floor. A pitch-black ring. A Circle of onyx.

Cego stumbled backward in surprise, as if he’d just intruded on a stranger. He tripped and slammed his head against the closet wall before pressing his back up against it. He caught his breath and stared at the glistening, dark surface, his heart pounding in his chest. The spectral had led him to this onyx Circle.

Cego put a hand to the back of his head and brought back blood, but he barely noticed. He couldn’t pull his eyes off the onyx. He caught a subtle movement on the surface of the ring. Shadows were rising off it. Cego knew the name for those shadows now. Blacklight.

He suddenly found it very difficult to breathe. His body spasmed—it felt like the calf cramps he got after practice, but this time, every one of his muscles clenched up. Cego didn’t want to move, but he was on his hands and knees, crawling toward the onyx.

And then he was sitting in the middle of the Circle, watching the curved shadows on the walls around him shifting slowly, beautifully at first, before they picked up their pace, becoming jagged and frantic as they raced around the closet. Cego tried to shut his eyes as the whirlwind of shadows tore around him, shrinking in, suffocating him. But he couldn’t close his eyes. He needed to see.

A wet, cold object pressed against his face. Cego lashed out with his hand defensively and felt something soft—fur.

He turned and looked into two dark eyes, a shaggy grey face behind them. Arry. She licked him with her warm tongue. He was here again. Home. Arry curled up against him. Sunlight streamed through the wooden shutters of the loft. The wind chimes played their melody outside the door. Just as it always happened, it would be seconds before Cego woke. He wanted to make the most of it.

Cego smiled and pushed his face against Arry’s, nuzzling her. She yelped happily and he wrestled her down, letting her lick his face and head. When the pup drew back, Cego noticed her snout was red. He felt a sudden pain at the back of his skull and reached there to feel wetness in his matted hair.

Cego drew his hand away. It was covered in blood. How could he be bleeding like this? Here, in the safety of the loft—in his dream?

The memory flooded back to him. Following the little spectral to Professor Larkspur’s classroom. Finding the open closet. Falling and bashing his head when he saw the onyx Circle.

Cego slowly stood, patting Arry’s head as she cocked it curiously at him. He was a student at the Lyceum, studying to become a Knight. He lived in Quarter D with the Whelps. And yet he was also here, in the loft with Arry curled up next to him.

Cego’s breathing became faster.

He ran toward the loft door, holding his breath as he pushed it open.

The world exploded into view around Cego, a sudden burst of color and light. The blue sky above him. The stark emerald waters retreating toward the horizon. The dune sloping down to the black sand of the beach below. Everything looked so crisp, so beautiful—just as he remembered. As if the previous world he’d inhabited had been a dull, faded canvas, while here, the world was painted in vivid color.

The ocean air was salty and tinged with the pungent odor of fish drying in the sun. The sweet scent of freshly bloomed calendulas greeted Cego, bringing back the memory of every morning that he’d opened the loft doors to slide down the dune onto the beach. Cego couldn’t help but breathe deeply, feeling the air settle in his lungs.

How can this be?

He was home; that was certain. He was on the island again in all its bright, vibrant texture. And yet he was not dreaming. He could remember every detail of his time at the Lyceum. How he and his team had just formulated a plan to save Knees. How it had felt to sit beside Sol last night as she told him about her father.

Cego’s mind raced as he stood atop the dune. Everything certainly felt real—the throb at the back of his head, the air that he was breathing, Arry nuzzling up against his legs.

He steadied himself as he gazed across the lush landscape. It can’t be real. Somehow, the onyx Circle had transported him to the island, this place in his memory. It was like the Trials, when he’d spoken to Sam in the ironwood grove, except here, he saw no sign of his brothers.

He walked across the cobbled pathway toward Farmer’s compound. It looked exactly as he remembered. The yellow beach grass gave way to smooth pebbles and seashells raked flat around the main house. A base of chiseled boulders bearing dark wooden planks made up the home’s frame. The gracefully curved stone shingle roof glinted in the sunlight. Cego walked past the rock garden out front with its carefully manicured miniature trees and the slow trickle of the waterspout. He saw the translucent walls of the back room where the old master practiced ki-breath.

Cego felt his mind shearing in two directions.

He was sitting in the onyx Circle in the closet, the blacklight engulfing him. He remembered every event that had led him to this place. The darkness of the Underground, Tasker Ozark’s grating commands, Weep’s death, the constant cold, grey rain that fell on the Capital, Murray-Ku’s gruff voice reminding him to practice Codes every evening. He remembered the pain of the Trials, the awe of learning at the Lyceum, the warmth of being near his new friends.

But he also saw the crisp blue skies above, the slow, rolling waves on the emerald waters. He could only focus on the next breath of fresh air and the intoxicating scent of the flowers in bloom. It was as if he’d woken from a dream and was now back where he belonged—on the island, home again.

Cego went around the back side of the house as he usually did, toward the Circle. He didn’t know what to expect as he slid the thin wood door open, but part of him knew he’d be there.

Farmer.

The old master sat cross-legged in the middle of the Circle, facing away from Cego. His grey hair was tied into a topknot, strands falling onto his shoulders, and his tattered grey robe pooled around him. His arm flowed back and forth with a brush in hand, painting black curves onto parchment set in front of him. An inkstone and pile of loose scrolls lay at his side. It was just how Cego remembered the old master, always writing when he wasn’t teaching.

“Master, I’m home.” The words left Cego’s mouth without thinking. It was what he always said.

Farmer slowly set the brush down beside the inkstone. His shoulders heaved up and down in a deep breath. As if speaking from a very distant place, the old master whispered, “A boy dreams for a thousand days and nights that he flies among the constellations. The boy rides atop icy meteors; he warms himself on the surface of the sun; he dives deep into the watery depths of aqueous worlds; and he falls asleep on the crook of the moon. His home is in the stars.”

Farmer paused, as he often did, letting the silence that followed his words speak to Cego. The translucent walls of the room grew darker as clouds covered the sun outside. Rain started to patter on the roof.

“Suddenly, the boy wakes. The world he opens his eyes to is different. He no longer can fly among the stars. He stands on the cold, hard earth. The boy feels things he does not remember—pain, exhaustion, despair.”

Thunder cracked above as the room grew darker still and the rain began to fall in earnest.

“The boy tries to live his life. He follows a path, he becomes a man, he finds a wife, he bears a family. Every day, though, the man remembers his dream in the stars and is saddened by his loss. He remembers what it felt like to ride a meteor.”

Cego listened to the story in silence. Atop Farmer’s voice, he could hear the ocean swells growing with the storm outside, crashing against the seaside cliffs.

“Late in his life, as he becomes old and feeble, the man sits outside and looks at the sky. He grieves, remembering his dream in the stars. Out of sadness, the man does not eat, drink, or even move. His family shouts at him, jostles him, cries for him as he continuously stares at the sky. Soon, the man becomes dust, and the wind carries him away.”

Cego knew the question was coming.

“Was the boy dreaming of his time among the stars, or was it the man who dreamed of his time on earth?” Farmer asked, just as a heavy crash of thunder shook the ground beneath them.

Cego understood there was no answer to this question. Just as the storm rolling into the island had no purpose, the old master’s words were not to be solved or puzzled out.

Farmer suddenly stood, his robe straightening around him. A gust of wind broke into the room, whipping Farmer’s grey hair up and tossing scrolls across the floor.

Cego knew what was next. He’d fought the old master a thousand times, and this time would be no different.

Farmer turned around and Cego’s heart fluttered. In the place of the old master’s wrinkled face was an emptiness full of writhing shadows. A void where a face should be. Just as when Cego had unmasked the Guardian in the Trials—this was no man who stood in front of him. This was not Farmer.

And yet, the faceless creature bowed from across the Circle, just as the old master would always do.

Cego returned the bow; he’d done so a thousand times before. He had no choice.

“Who are you?” Cego asked as the room lit up with a bright flash of lightning.

“I am who I have always been,” the creature responded along with the deep rumble of thunder. It approached Cego slowly in a crouch, elbows tight to its body. It had Farmer’s fighting posture.

The creature shot in, its body moving with the unrivaled swiftness and fluidity that Cego remembered of the old master. Cego sprawled back, but its hands were already clasped around his legs, putting him down on his back.

Cego quickly got to his knees, but the creature pressed into him. It fished a hand beneath Cego’s armpit and slid it across to the other side of his neck. Cego tried to turn away from the choke, but the creature tracked him with unyielding pressure and pushed him back to the floor.

Cego sensed his opponent shifting its weight, so he quickly rolled over his shoulder and wrapped his legs around the creature’s torso. He caught an arm and tried to break it, but the thing was always one step ahead, driving Cego onto his neck and swiveling around his body.

The creature popped up and pressed its knee into Cego’s sternum, pulling his neck at the same time and forcing the air out of his lungs. Cego turned his body for a split second to relieve the pressure, and somehow, the creature was already on his back, as if it had teleported there.

Even in the compromised position, Cego smiled. Though this creature didn’t have Farmer’s face, he now knew it was the same old master who had trained him for so many years. This fight was their conversation. Cego asked his questions with quick escapes and arm bar attempts, and the old master answered with stifling pressure and chokes. He recognized the way the old master moved—at one moment, as light as a feather, and at the next, as heavy as a boulder.

Cego fought Farmer’s hands, each seeming to have a will of its own when snaking across his throat. He twisted his hips to the side, trying to free himself from the man’s hooks. He knew his last efforts were fruitless. He’d been entangled in this web before and there was no escape.

Farmer’s arm tightened across his neck. The edges of Cego’s vision blurred. For a moment, he felt warm as the cocoon of darkness closed in on him. Cego remembered the warmth like the embrace of an old friend.

“Wake up, Cego,” the old master whispered just as the world went dark again.

“Wake up, Cego.”

Cego gasped and tried to pull Farmer’s arms from his neck.

But the old master wasn’t there. Cego was in Larkspur’s closet again, lying just outside the onyx Circle. Shadows were smoldering at the ring’s surface.

Cego was covered in sweat but uninjured except for a splitting headache. He tried to take a deep breath, but it caught in his chest. He’d been back home to the island. It was just as he remembered, in such vivid detail. Everything had been in its right place except for his absent brothers and Farmer’s face.

Cego’s mind raced with a whirlwind of questions. How could the onyx know his memory so distinctly? How could it transport him back to his home?

“You woke up.”

Cego whirled around, expecting to see Larkspur’s towering form, ready to reprimand him for his intrusion. But it was no professor standing there. It was Kōri Shimo. And to Cego’s recollection, those words might have been the first he’d ever heard the strange boy speak. In fact, he couldn’t recall hearing Shimo’s monotone voice before.

“How long have you been there…?” Cego wiped at the sweat on his forehead.

“Long enough,” Shimo said.

Cego thought back to the potential penalty he’d face for being caught in this classroom. Shimo was on a rival team and could easily turn him in to Larkspur. “The door to the classroom was open… I just—”

“I don’t care that you are here,” Shimo said. “What did you see in there?”

Cego’s stomach fluttered. Though it didn’t seem the boy would turn him in, trying to describe what he’d just experienced seemed a whole different obstacle.

“It’s just a big closet, there’s a Circle in there. It looks like Larkspur keeps it in storage. I hit my head and…”

“Where did the onyx take you?” Shimo asked flatly, ignoring Cego’s rambling.

“I… I saw… my home,” Cego said. It felt good to say the words out loud, even to a stranger like Shimo. “Was it… was it your voice I heard calling me back?” Cego asked.

“I woke you up,” Shimo stated without emotion.

“You knew what I was seeing in there, then,” Cego said. “You knew what I was fighting.”

“No,” Shimo said. “But I know what the blacklight does. The toll it can take.”

“The blacklight.” Cego whispered the word as if the Circle across the room might hear him. “How does it know? How can it know what’s in my mind like that?”

Shimo shrugged and turned to leave.

“Wait!” Cego put a hand on Shimo’s shoulder. Lightning quick, the boy clasped Cego’s hand and whipped around to apply a wrist lock. Cego defended the technique by shoving Shimo backward with his other hand.

“Fast…” The boy stared at Cego. He’d made the attack simply to gauge the reaction.

Cego met Shimo’s eyes and remembered seeing Marvin Stronglight floating lifelessly in the vat. He remembered how Shimo had relentlessly battered the defenseless boy.

“You’ve been in this onyx Circle too, haven’t you?” Cego asked. “Where does it take you?”

“The blacklight always leads to the same place,” Shimo said before he turned and walked from the classroom, back into the shadows of the hallway.

Cego stood silently for a moment until he noticed his hands were shaking. He suddenly felt incredibly tired, not with the fatigue that came from a single night up, but a lingering weariness deep in his bones.

He turned to see the door to the closet still ajar. Shadows were pooling around the onyx and slithering onto the floor. Despite what he’d just been through, though Cego felt like he could close his eyes and be asleep in an instant, he had a strong urge to step back into the closet, to sit again within the ring of blacklight.

Instead, he shut the closet door quickly and exited the classroom into the silent Lyceum halls. As Cego walked back toward Quarter D, he couldn’t help but feel he was leaving something important behind.