Lord of the White Hell Book One

Chapter Eleven

It took Kiram a few days to fully realize the importance of Javier inviting him to the third table. It wasn't just a matter of better servings of meat or glasses of red wine every Sacreday. It signified his allegiance with the men at that table. It meant that the other students at the academy, from first year to fourth, now considered him one of Javier's circle, one of the Hellions.

No one attempted to trip him as he passed and no one taunted him to his face. At the same time, some youths who had been cautiously friendly towards him no longer engaged him in debates during law class. Watching two of them slink away as he sat down at a study table in the library, Kiram couldn't help but feel uneasy about his new alliance.

Nestor was delighted. The fact that his mother would have been incensed seemed to make it all the more exciting.

"She'd be furious if she knew Elezar and I were called Hellions." Nestor smiled as he glanced up from his sketch of a man in armor. "She's a very religious woman, you know. Doesn't allow anyone in the household to have sweets the entire week of Our Savior's Misery. She would piss blood if she found out."

Kiram's own mother had apparently laughed when she received his letter informing her that he was now considered a Hellion.

Along with her letter, Kiram's mother had sent a package of fresh pen nibs, dried tea, and hard candies. Beneath the satchel of candy was a note from his father.

It congratulated him on making friends and fitting in so quickly with the Cadeleonians, but also warned against getting any tattoos that he would regret later. Apparently one of his cousins was now wearing long sleeves to hide the bare breasted mermaid emblazoned on his forearm with the words 'wet fuck' written beneath her. His uncle Rafie was looking into the removal of the image.

Then, in closing, Kiram's father had encouraged him to keep up his good grades.

Kiram sucked on one of his apple candies and scowled at the thought of grades.

He was doing very well in most of his classes. Now that he was training daily with Javier, he was even beginning to improve in the war arts. Master Ignacio no longer scowled at the mere sight of him. But in history he seemed unable to score the kind of grades he was used to.

He had worked harder on his essay analyzing the reign of King Nazario Sagrada than he had ever worked on any assignment. He'd spent a week combing through the library for original source material. He'd searched through old diaries and ancient tax records.

It had been with a sense of triumph that he had detailed and documented, on page after page, how Nazario Sagrada's excessive violence and persecution of even his own nobles had set in place all of the elements of the civil war that unseated his heir. He had even felt confident enough to point out that the divisions that Nazario had created had later contributed to certain noble families choosing to support the Mirogoths against their fellow Cadeleonians during the invasion nearly a hundred years later.

Kiram had never been so proud of an essay. It seemed nearly as perfect as one of his mechanisms.

And then it had been returned with the lowest mark Kiram had ever received. The ugly red note scrawled across the last page informed him that his lack of understanding of his subject obviously revealed the failings of his earlier Haldiim education.

A month before, such a comment would have made him want to weep. Now-he didn't know if this was a result of constant battle training or just the extent of his outrage-he wanted to beat Holy Father Habalan to a pulp.

He had been so angry that he had paced through the room ranting while Javier sat at his desk, looking on in amusement.

"Would you like me to kill him?" Javier offered offhandedly.

"No, I'd like to kill him myself."

"Ybu can hardly wrestle Nestor to the ground by yourself," Javier replied. "Holy Father Habalan is about three times Nestor's weight."

"I'll roll him into the lake."

"He'll just float on the water like a bloated pig bladder," Javier said. And Kiram laughed in spite of his anger.

"You've got to consider these things when you plan a murder, you know," Javier had added.

A little later, after Kiram calmed himself by bolting together a small housing for a miniature glass boiler, Javier had tossed him an essay of his own.

"What's this for?"

"To keep you from failing Holy Father Habalan's class." Javier hadn't looked up from the book he was reading. Calixto Tornesal's diary. Again.

"I can't just copy one of your essays."

"I didn't say that you should. Read it. Then write your own."

Kiram had read the paper and several others of Javier's since then. They were the funniest and most scathing criticisms that he had ever encountered. Javier described King Nazario Sagrada's reign entirely in terms of the advances made in chastity belts and dog breeding during the king's lifetime.

Kiram remembered snorting with laughter as he read the conclusion:

While other rulers may have contributed more to the art, science, medicine, law, irrigation, architecture, agriculture, political stability and economy of our great nation, it is Nazario Sagrada to whom so many a virginal girl owes her greatest happiness as she cuddles one of this nation's many three-to-seven pound lapdogs.

The genius of it was that it was all true and all written glowingly, as though Javier were really in awe of the literally miniscule contribution of lapdogs.

Kiram couldn't manage the same level of sarcasm, but he had realized that if he wanted to pass Holy Father Habalan's class then he would be wise to resort to minutiae.

Since then he had turned in an essay on the advances in saddles during the civil war and was rewarded with his highest score so far. Another paper detailing the numbingly dull history of the southern warhorses brought his overall grade back up to passing.

But now the class had reached the era of the Mirogoth invasion and Kiram was determined to write his next essay on Yassin Lif-Harun. He already suspected that he would receive low marks for his efforts.

Holy Father Habalan didn't really understand Yassin Lif- Harun's contribution to astronomy or navigation, and he always looked annoyed when the subject came up. There was a chance that he would fail Kiram simply for making him aware of his own ignorance.

It frustrated Kiram that he could write a perfect essay and still be failed, simply because the scholar grading him didn't like his ideas or worse yet, just couldn't comprehend the subject. Things were so much more straightforward with machines. Either they worked or they didn't. Anyone using one knew which it was.

Kiram flipped through the pages of an old diary, scanning for any mention of Yassin. He'd found only one reference so far and it was buried in a list of men who had joined Calixto Tornesal's boar hunt.

"Yassin Lif-Harun was an acknowledged genius at the age of sixteen, and all this idiot can think to write about him is that he wears his hair a little too long for a proper gentleman."

"I'm telling you," Nestor gazed at Kiram over the rims of his spectacles, "Calixto Tornesal is the one to write about."

"Everyone writes about Calixto."

"That's because everyone wants to pass the class."

"I know. But honestly, what's left to say about Calixto? He killed two of his own cousins in duels, opened the white hell, killed every Mirogoth within a hundred miles, fathered a son, and then killed himself. Every other action he took seemed to be killing."

Nestor shrugged and studied his drawing, then he glanced back up at Kiram. "You think Javier wrote about him when he took the class?"

"No, he probably wrote about the nation's brief but shining romance with hard-ball candy, or something."

"You think?" Nestor asked. "That almost sounds…you know…obscene."

"Yes, then I'm positive that's what he wrote about."

Javier loved to provoke the people around him. His jokes could turn quite cruel if he disliked the person, particularly another student. Often Master Ignacio and other instructors turned a blind eye. They expected malice and audacity from Javier; after all, he had no soul.

"Oh, speaking of candy." Nestor interrupted Kiram's thoughts. "You don't have any more of those delicious apple candies left, do you?"

"Dozens." Kiram handed one of the gold candies to Nestor.

"I'd write an essay on these if I knew anything about them," Nestor commented as he sucked on the candy.

"I'd tell you everything I know but it isn't much." Kiram scanned through a long description of dice tricks Calixto Tornesal could preform. "My mother will only share her recipes with my sister."

"That's stupid, isn't it?" Nestor asked. "You're the one who will be inheriting the business, aren't you?"

"No. We Haldiim pass property and businesses through the women. So my eldest sister will take over the candy shop after my mother."

"Doesn't that leave you out in the cold, then?"

"My father has money of his own that he gives to us boys but eventually I'll have to support myself."

"Or marry a rich wife," Nestor suggested, though even as he said it he frowned slightly as if the idea sounded wrong even to him.

"I'm planning on supporting myself."

"That's probably a good idea," Nestor agreed. "Not that you couldn't attract a wife, but you know, if it didn't work out."

"I understand," Kiram assured Nestor. "It's best to be able to take care of yourself."

Nestor nodded and Kiram returned to his fruitless research. Now and then he glanced up to watch Nestor fill out the details of Calixto Tornesal's cold expression and shining armor.

It was only later that day, as Kiram watched Javier flip through the pages of hellscript that filled his ancestor's diary, that Kiram wondered what Javier actually thought of Calixto Tornesal's decision to bind his bloodline to the white hell.

For the rest of the students, Calixto's decision was only relevant as history. His defeat of the Mirogoths made dramatic fodder for an essay, probably for hundreds of essays. But for Javier, Calixto's actions had personal ramifications. They bequeathed both burden and power to him even before he had been conceived. The very core of Javier's identity seemed forged by the hell-brand his ancestor had taken a hundred years before. Kiram couldn't imagine what it would be like for Javier to know that there was one man who was so directly responsible for all the power and all of the isolation in his life.

"I have to write another essay for Holy Father Habalan," Kiram said casually.

Javier glanced at him, then went back to his book.

Kiram added, "We're studying the era of the Mirogoth invasion."

"From the year 1242 up until 1250," Javier said thoughtfully, "the silky native Cadeleonian thickening agent used for most puddings suffered a significant decline and was almost completely replaced by a clumpy foreign imitation. Some of our best desserts might never have been recovered had it not been for the tireless effort of a short, balding cook named Vences Aniparo. Little is remembered about the man himself but his legacy remains with us today, as a variety of viscous gravies and glutinous desserts."

Kiram laughed and felt oddly sad at the same time. He had known Javier would not mention Calixto.

Even among the Hellions, Javier never spoke of anything that troubled him. Listening to his banter and watching him both bully and amuse the other young men, it would have been easy to believe that Javier lived without a care.

Yet Kiram knew that something drove him to seek penance nearly every morning. And Kiram couldn't forget the pain in Javier's voice when he had spoken of the curse that had killed his father and left Fedeles a half-wit.

There had been one night when Kiram could not sleep and had found himself staring at the white beams of moonlight falling across Javier's pale body. Then Kiram had seen Javier raise his hands over his face and almost claw at his own skull as if he couldn't bear the thoughts inside. Javier had opened his mouth as if to scream but no sound escaped.

But the next morning Javier had sat with the Hellions, taunting and inciting them as he always did. He had bitten Morisio's ear but only hard enough to make the other man flush and sputter. Then Javier and the rest of the Hellions had laughed uproariously. Kiram had realized that Javier would never allow any of them a deeper glimpse of his true self than this.

Elezar aside, Kiram doubted that any of the Hellions would have believed that Javier cared in the slightest about his ancestry. Certainly none of them would have imagined that he spent so many nights pouring over Calixto's worn leather diary. Kiram imagined that Javier had the entire book memorized by now, and yet he returned to it again and again, the way another man might turn to a consoling scripture.

Kiram sighed. Contemplating Javier wasn't going to get him any farther with his essay. Kiram stared down at the page of pitiful notes. After three days of searching through old academy records and decayed diaries he had managed to glean little more than was common knowledge about Yassin Lif-Harun.

He had been widely known as the bastard son of Demolia Helio by a Haldiim mistress. At an early age Yassin had shown amazing talents, particularly at mathematics but also in his mother's holy garden. If his father had not decided to send Yassin to the academy as a study companion for his legitimate son, then Yassin would have become a Bahiim.

As it was, he had charted the courses of the stars while the Mirogoth invasion advanced towards the academy. He finished the last of his calculations only two days before the Mirogoth forces reached the academy walls. They had come intending to seize the last living Sagrada heir and everyone in the academy knew as much.

Yassin had been among the students who volunteered to defend the academy while the war master secreted the young prince to safety. Few of the students survived, though they succeeded in keeping the Mirogoths from discovering that the prince had already fled.

Yassin had died sometime during the second night of the ensuing three-day siege.

Kiram wondered if Yassin had lived long enough to know that Calixto had opened the white hell. Had he seen it happen? Surely someone had documented it, most likely Calixto. And then suddenly Kiram wondered if Calixto might not have also mentioned Yassin in his diary.

Maybe now that they were on good terms he could convince Javier to let him have a look at that book. It was worth a try, anyway.

"Does Calixto's diary mention Yassin Lif-Harun? He was one of the defenders of the academy," he said casually.

Javier studied Kiram over the top of the book.

"I believe I already explained the fee I would require for access to my deranged ancestor's autobiography."

"Don't be an ass," Kiram replied. "I need the information for my history essay."

Javier leaned back in his chair and stretched out his long legs.

"I imagine that only increases the value, then."

"I'm not selling you my soul."

"What about your body?"

Kiram felt his entire face flush red, not because he was shocked by Javier's suggestion, but in shame at his own desire to accept. This was just the way Javier played with the people around him. Kiram knew that, but Javier's slow, suggestive smile still affected him.

Kiram lowered his face, pretending to look over his notes one more time.

"I don't even know if you have anything of value in the book," Kiram said primly.

"My God, Kiram." Javier laughed. "I never expect you to take me up on these things. You seem so demure most of the time."

"I'm not demure. I just have some self-restraint."

"But not, it seems, when it comes to the pursuit of knowledge. You're willing to sell your body for a look at a book." Javier held the diary up as if it were a shimmering enticement.

"No, I refuse to sell my body." Kiram was a little amazed to realize that he'd grown used to these kinds of exchanges with Javier. "Unless you can guarantee that your book has any information that would be of use to me."

Javier bounded up from his chair and sat down on the edge of Kiram's bed, leaning in close. "If that's the case, then I propose a little demonstration of quality on both our parts."

"What do you mean?" Kiram tried to sound calm, but Javier's nearness flustered him.

"I'll give you a sample; you give me a sample." Javier slipped behind Kiram, wrapping his arms around his waist and placing the diary on Kiram's lap. He spread the pages of the book open. "I'll let you read a page and you let me-"

"-have one kiss." Kiram didn't wait to hear what Javier would suggest for fear that he would agree. "One kiss. That's all."

"All right." Javier sounded far too pleased and Kiram suddenly wondered if he'd offered too much. "You drive a hard bargain but I accept."

Kiram pulled away just slightly. "I want to read a page in the diary first. And it had better say something about Yassin."

"Don't worry. It's all there. You'll get to give me that kiss."

Javier flipped back two pages. A diagram of radiant lines illuminated the left side, while crumpled black hellscript filled the right.

"I can't read it," Kiram said.

"Not yet." Javier wrapped his arms around Kiram's chest, pulling him closer. "Relax a little. Lean into me."

"Why?" Kiram couldn't help but suspect that Javier was toying with him.

"You'll be protected while you're touching me," Javier said. "The closer the better."

Kiram leaned back but tried not to simply melt against Javier. The heat of Javier's arms and the scent of his body seemed to soak into Kiram. Javier bowed his face close to Kiram's. His lips almost brushed Kiram's ear. Kiram felt unreasonably aware of where the fine stubble along Javier's jaw brushed against his own skin.

"You're taking advantage-"

Before Kiram could finish his sentence, white bolts of light crackled up from Javier's chest and burst through his own body. Kiram expected pain and he almost jumped away but Javier held him tightly. A hot, liquid sensation flooded Kiram. He felt lightheaded, almost drunk. Strange, unfocused shadows filled the edges of his sight. He could no longer see his desk or even the corner of his bed. Bright white sparks flickered across his skin. The lights sprang along Kiram's hands and spread across the open pages of the book.

Before Kiram's eyes the diagram seemed to spread and rise from the page. What had been flat, straight lines slowly unfolded into the curving, organic form of a stylized tree, with wildly twisting branches and roots connecting through a braided trunk. He had seen a design like this on Bahiim holy books. Across the facing page, the hellscript also stretched out, spreading into beautifully ornate Cadeleonian script.

"Do you see?" Javier's voice sounded as if it were coming from inside Kiram's head.

Kiram wanted to respond but he couldn't think of how to open his mouth, how to move his lips or form words. His entire body seemed lost somewhere between the flickering light and Javier's hard muscles.

"You shouldn't stay too long. Read it quickly." Again Kiram heard Javier as if the thoughts were his own. He felt the urgency and slight worry in them and at once he focused on the diary.

^s the weeks pass I pray less and listen to Yassin more. He is not the child I thought him to be. He has seen death firsthand and does not fear it.

Beside him the holy father is a doddering coward. When we speak of death he can only think of the hells and cringe in horror. But I have seen the white void open. I felt its pull at my very soul as I lay bleeding on the dueling field.

Yassin knew what I spoke of at once. He told me that I had been on the threshold of a shajdi. It is a place where death feeds into life and life is devoured by death. It is a place of immense power.

Before Nazario's rule the Haldiim knew a way to hold these shajdi open, but the wisdom is either lost or hidden. Yassin does not know how it was done. But it is enough to know that it was accomplished. It can be done again. We will continue our attempts.

Kiram wanted to turn the page. He tried to lift his hands but he only managed to spread his fingers across the surface of the page.

"That's enough, Kiram."

No, Kiram thought, but he couldn't say the word.

Javier suddenly lifted his hands away from him and all the warmth and light seemed to be ripped from Kiram. The words and image in the book collapsed to unintelligible scrawls. Then the book itself seemed to go dark. The edges of Kiram's vision dimmed and then the whole room went black.

When Kiram opened his eyes he was lying back on his bed. Bright gold shafts of late summer sun glowed across the walls. Javier knelt beside him.

"Yassin was part of it." Kiram's voice felt rough, as if he'd just woken after a heavy slumber. He cleared his throat. "Yassin helped Calixto open the white hell. He was part of the whole thing."

"I know. How are you feeling?"

"You knew. You knew all this time and you haven't told anyone. Why?"

"Calixto never wanted Yassin's name dragged down by association with the white hell and demonic magic," Javier said. "He wanted him remembered for his genius."

Kiram sat up slowly, still feeling off balance.

"So together they found some way not only to open a shajdi, but to keep it open."

"Exactly so."

"Is it always like that? I mean, for you. Is everything so-" Kiram wasn't sure of how to describe what it had felt like to have the shajdi open all around him, "-distant?"

"Nothing about the white hell is distant for me. If you had been directly exposed to it without my protection, it would have burned your senses hollow."

It sounded so dramatic that Kiram half expected Javier to be joking but his expression was serious.

"You still look a little groggy." Javier offered Kiram a cup of water and made him drink it all. A few minutes later Kiram's head began to clear.

The diary lay in its usual spot on Javier's desk. It seemed deceptively small, almost insignificant. Then Kiram's gaze fell to the dozens of hellscript markings drawn all across the floor. What larger forms lurked within those simple dark lines? Somehow he couldn't get the idea of huge sea creatures floating just beneath the ocean's surface out of his mind.

Then he realized that he was remembering an image from a Bahiim holy book that Alizadeh had read to him when he was a young child. The caption had read: A world deeper than the one we know, where great forces move beneath us like sea serpents coiling below tiny boats.

Kiram had the uneasy feeling that many of the superstitions he had summarily dismissed might be more true than he previously thought.

"Feeling better?" Javier seated himself on the bed beside him.

"I wasn't expecting the shajdi to be like that." Kiram noticed his notes lying on his desk and then remembered that he still had a page of equations to go over. The thought was relievingly mundane. Everything was just as it had been. "I'm fine, actually."

"Good." Javier moved closer so that his mouth almost brushed Kiram's lips. "Because I would hate to take advantage of you when you were feeling weak, but you still owe me something."

Kiram opened his mouth but he knew that there was no point in arguing; he had set his own price for seeing the diary. And it was only one kiss, after all.

He started to lean forward to kiss Javier's lips but Javier drew back.

"I haven't decided yet just where it is I want to kiss you," Javier said. He gently pushed Kiram back down onto the bed. "I want to see what my options are."

"That wasn't what I meant," Kiram protested. Javier placed his finger against Kiram's lips and gazed down at him with a strange intensity.

"When you deal with a Hellion you should know that he'll hold you to your word, no matter what you intended." As much as it embarrassed Kiram, he couldn't think of anything but the sensation of Javier's touch.

"I'm going to take the kiss you promised me," Javier whispered over him. "There's no point in fighting me about it."

Kiram closed his eyes. He could only hope to maintain his dignity, to keep from giving Javier a reaction that he could laugh at and taunt him with. He tried to imagine that this was just another day of battle practice, when Javier's body pressed close against his own, when Javier's warm hands touched his bare skin. But Javier never would have lingered so long or caressed him so gently in battle practice.

Javier's fingers traced the curve of Kiram's lip and then dropped to the base of Kiram's throat. He unbuttoned Kiram's shirt to expose his chest and abdomen.

Kiram shivered as Javier stroked the muscles of his bare shoulders and then brushed his fingers over Kiram's nipples. He hated Javier for dragging this out and at the same time his body ached to feel more than just the gliding hints of Javier's fingertips.

Javier stroked the flat plane of Kiram's stomach. He tugged the loose waist of Kiram's pants farther down, exposing his hips. The feeling of Javier's warm breath so near his groin sent a hot ache through Kiram. He folded his arms over his face in humiliation.

"Don't do that." Javier pulled Kiram's arms aside. "Look at me."

Kiram opened his eyes, expecting to see Javier gloating over him. Instead Javier's expression was gentle and strangely serious. He bowed down and kissed his lips.

His mouth was hot and pungent with the tastes of cardamom tea and honey. Kiram opened his lips to the pressure of Javier's tongue. His entire body responded to the sensation as Javier thrust into his mouth. Kiram curled his hands through Javier's thick black hair and pulled him closer.

He felt Javier's thigh between his legs, and the intense heat of Javier's groin against his own hip. Kiram wanted desperately to arch up against him. But the slightest sliver of common sense fought against the idea. He had promised one kiss and was giving much, much more.

Kiram shoved Javier back, harder than he intended. Javier almost fell off the bed but caught himself. He looked momentarily stunned and then he took in Kiram's expression and laughed.

"Don't glare at me. I'm not the one who interrupted your pleasure."

"We agreed to one kiss. That was all." Kiram pulled his legs up, though he was sure Javier knew just how aroused the kiss had made him.

"That was all for a page of the diary." Javier wrapped his hand around Kiram's bare ankle and slowly slid his palm up along the inside of Kiram's thigh. "But we could have a little more for ourselves, don't you think?"

"No." Kiram pried Javier's hand off his leg.

"And why not?" Javier demanded. He was still smiling but his voice had an angry edge. "You think I can't see that you want me? Every inch of you is up for me."

"Whether I'm aroused or not is none of your business, Javier." Kiram tried to sound firm despite his embarrassment. "I'm not a toy for you to play with and I'm not one of the whores at the Goldenrod whose body you can buy with a few pennies."

"No, you charge much more and put out far less." White sparks jumped across Javier's left hand but Kiram refused to be intimidated.

"I gave you exactly what we agreed upon." Kiram returned Javier's hard stare. "In fact, I gave you better than you gave me. You know I'm not going to dishonor Yassin's name by writing about what you showed me."

"Oh, I see. So, you won't spread your legs unless I can give you something that will get you a better grade."

"No! You are not going to pretend that I'm just a greedy whore." Kiram was shocked at his own anger. "That is not why I stopped."

"No, I'm sure it wasn't the only reason." Javier suddenly stood and glared down at Kiram. "You like to pretend that you aren't afraid of what I am but when it comes down to it, you're as much of a coward as Holy Father Habalan."

"Are you some kind of moron? I'm not afraid of your twinkly little sparks of hellfire!" Kiram was rewarded with a look of surprise from Javier. He took advantage of it to get to his feet. He met Javier's glower with his own unflinching stare. "You want to know what scares me? It's your shallow- minded Cadeleonian law and your bigoted Cadeleonian church. You like to pretend that they don't mean anything to you but you still go to penance every single day." Kiram jabbed Javier in the chest with his forefinger. "I may find you handsome and I may enjoy your touch but that doesn't mean that I want to be lashed or imprisoned for corrupting you with my Haldiim ways. And you know I'm the one who will be blamed if we're caught. No one is going to accuse you. You're the Duke of Rauma. So, yes, I am scared. But I have every reason to be scared and I have every right to refuse you."

Kiram felt suddenly exhausted as if he had expelled all his strength and fury with those last words.

Javier stood where he was, his expression drained of anger. He studied Kiram as if he had somehow become a new person.

"You've got quite a temper," Javier said at last.

"You aren't exactly sedate yourself."

"I know. I'm too used to getting my way." Javier shrugged. "Not many people are willing to refuse the Duke of Rauma, you know."

"Yes, I gathered that."

For a long moment Javier studied Kiram in silence. Then he looked down at his hands.

"So, this is how it has to be between us?"

"I think so." Kiram could no longer meet Javier's gaze. He looked down at his bare feet and at the coiling symbols on the floor. He wanted to say something else, to somehow tell Javier that if circumstances were different, then.

There was no point; the circumstances were exactly what they were.

He wished suddenly that he had never asked about Calixto's diary. The knowledge, like his desire for Javier, did him no good and yet he could not forget it.

"I have to find something else to write about for my history essay," Kiram said at last.

Javier walked back to his desk and sat down. He didn't pick up Calixto's diary. Instead he took out his penknife and cut a new tip for his quill. "f it has to be a biography, you might try Nusrat Kir-Miakah. He was the guide who escorted the Sagrada heir and his war master to safety all the way from the academy to the western hold."

"Was he Haldiim?"

Javier nodded. "There's a little biography on him filed with the hunting and trapping texts in the library."

"I'll read it. Thank you for-"

The rest of his words were drowned out by a loud beating against the door. An instant later Elezar shoved the door open and leaned in from the hallway, though he came no farther, since even he was hesitant to step into the room where Javier slept.

The arbitrary nature of Cadeleonians' superstition was absurd, Kiram thought. They would eat and wrestle, ride and fight with Javier but were terrified of what might lurk in a room where he slept, as if his dreams might leap out from under a pillow and grasp them. Normally Kiram found it all amusing, but this afternoon it only irritated him.

"No need to look so dour, my friend." Elezar's voice boomed through the room. "Master Ignacio has invited us out for a ride."

Kiram rolled his eyes. Javier said nothing but he pulled on his riding boots and began lacing them.

"A ride to the Goldenrod, no doubt," Kiram murmured. Elezar's ecstatic expression told him as much. A week ago Upperclassman Atreau had informed Kiram and Nestor that Master Ignacio's afternoon rides were, often as not, an excuse to visit prostitutes. Apparently, the war master had taken it upon himself to ensure that the older students' physical desires found release, lest they resort to desperate acts of abnormal carnality.

"Who knows how far we may wander in the pursuit of healthy male exercise," Elezar responded happily. "Don't be sullen about it, Kiram. Once you've been blooded in a tournament you may be asked out on a ride as well."

"I just can't wait," Kiram muttered.

He didn't watch Javier leave with Elezar. Instead he sat down at his desk and wrote a letter to his father assuring him that he was staying out of trouble and doing all he could to keep his grades up. After he was done with it, Kiram ripped it apart and threw the shreds into the cold grate of the fireplace.