Fate’s Pawn

The next several days trickled by. It wasn’t so bad for Raziel. He liked being around other people. But the rest of them weren’t so lucky.

After the first day it was almost impossible to even find Roland. Raziel had no idea where he disappeared to, but mealtimes were the only times he could be regularly found. Hoeru was easier to find, but only because constantly he stalked the halls. Raziel caught him more than once staring intently out a window with his hand pressed against the glass. Miles was perhaps the most boring. He just sat in one chair or another, reading most of the day.

That left Keira and, while Raziel couldn’t help but be happy for the excuse to be around her more often, the experience was not as pleasant as he could have hoped for. With each passing day, her irritation grew, and it wasn’t very long before that was all she would talk about. He listened for as long as he could stand to, nodding along with her points. He agreed with most of what she said, but it wasn’t long before he started finding excuses to be elsewhere. It was easier for him to bear being cooped up the less he thought about it, and talking with Keira about it was like picking at a scab.

Consequently, Raziel found himself spending much of his time on the roof. He could usually get one of the others to join him and, even if their company was less enjoyable than usual, the open air made it more bearable. Dietrich had been right about there being a theater nearby. It was at an odd angle to the roof so Raziel could see into one of the wings where the actors hung around waiting for their cues and the wind almost never blew in just the right direction to carry their voices to them clearly. But he could pick out most of the words and generally follow along.

Still, it was only a few days before his patience was beginning to wear as thin as the others’. He didn’t know if it was the boredom, the ever-growing grumpiness of the people around him, or the simple need to be in his own room, but he found himself often wondering what the consequences would be if he were to sneak away. By the end of the third day, his boredom had grown so bad that he went to the library thinking that Miles might be able to find something interesting for him to read.

That went surprisingly well. Even in the limited library the hospital had, Miles was able to find books that were interesting to Raziel. It was much too quiet for Raziel’s liking, but over the next few days he found himself spending more and more time there with Miles. Things were still a little awkward between them, but knowing that his father’s book hadn’t actually been destroyed meant that the greatest source of tension between them was gone, at least on Raziel’s end. He might have been more worried about Miles saying something about Kusa’s visit, but it had been several days since then. If Miles hadn’t said anything yet, then he probably wasn’t going to. Probably.

On the fifth day of their confinement, Raziel was heading to the library when he heard a strange noise. It sounded like someone groaning in pain. Concerned, he picked up his pace.

Miles was on the ground with his glasses askew, cradling his nose as blood trickled from between his fingers. Lucas, Alban’s son, was leaning against a table, rubbing at red knuckles on one hand and grinning. He caught sight of Raziel and his grin widened.

“Your friend is so clumsy, Raz,” Lucas said. “Looks like he fell. You should probably help him up.”

Anger boiled up in Raziel chest. Before he knew what he was doing, his feet were carrying him across the room. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he was sure Lucas wouldn’t enjoy it.

“Raz, no!” Miles said, clumsily getting to his feet and putting himself between them. “You can’t.”

“The hell I can’t,” Raziel growled. “What’s he even doing here?”

“I volunteer to take care of the library here on the weekends. Didn’t you know?” Lucas said jovially.

“I don’t know what he’s doing. But we need to just go. You can’t do this.”

Raziel tried to listen to Miles, but the blood still streaming from his friend’s nose spoke louder.

“Raz!” Miles shouted in his ear. Raziel shook himself and found that Miles was using nearly his full bodyweight to push him back.

“You. Can’t. Do. This,” Miles hissed at him. “Think about where we are. Who his dad is. We need to go.”

The words got through. Raziel stopped pushing and forced himself to count in his head. Miles was right. If he fought with Lucas now, Alban might keep him here even longer. Perhaps because of what it would say about the possibility that he was corrupted or maybe just out of spite. Miles didn’t need saving. He was begging Raziel not to do anything.

It was like swallowing bile, but Raziel let Miles turn him around and push him toward the door. Raziel could still imagine Lucas’ smug smile. Knowing he’d gotten away with this too, like he’d gotten away with so much just because of who his father was. Raziel tried to tell himself he was doing the right thing, that this was what he should do. That it was what Miles, the person who had been really wronged, wanted. It didn’t help. It only made his outrage swell.

“Say, Raz. I hear you lost something out in the forest,” Lucas said, the grin on his face plain to hear in his voice.

Raziel froze. Miles continued trying to push him out the door. If anything, his efforts only redoubled. But Raziel couldn’t move, couldn’t be moved anymore.

“Oh, that touched a nerve. What was it? It must’ve been important.”

Raziel’s head turned of its own accord. His eyes found Lucas. The grin on his face was gleeful.

“Did it belong to your parents? Whatever happened to them?”

Raziel was moving now. Stalking towards Lucas. Miles was saying something but Raziel couldn’t hear him.

“Did they die? Or did they just decide to run off and leave your worthless ass behind?”

Raziel’s world turned to ice. He had one purpose. One desire. To wipe that smug smile off Lucas’ face.

Lucas was taller than him, had longer limbs and outweighed him. He’d have to compensate for that by being faster and meaner. That was half the secret to winning fights. The other half was being willing to get hurt to win. Raziel wondered if his cast would break against Lucas’ teeth or not. Still, some small voice held him back by the barest thread of rationality.

Lucas had stopped leaning against the desk. His posture was no longer relaxed; though he didn’t have his hands up in a fighting stance, it was clear he was waiting for Raziel to try something. The sneer on his lips told Raziel that Lucas felt ready for him. As bad as Raziel wanted to see those lips cracked and bleeding, he gave the other boy one more chance hoping all along that Lucas wouldn’t take it.

“Don’t ever talk about my parents again,” he said, his voice quiet and cold as winter wind. Lucas leaned closer and spoke just as quietly.

“But I have one more question. Who do you think was stupider? You dad for believing in flying cities or your mom for staying with him?”

Something broke inside Raziel like ice in a glass of water. Lucas had been expecting an attack, but Raziel moved too fast. The vibration of impact coursed through his arm and Lucas staggered back, blood already streaming from a split lip. He wasn’t smiling anymore and that was good. There was rage on his face, and that was good too. Raziel couldn’t have hit him more if he’d sat down and cried.

Lucas had his hands up now. This wasn’t his first fight. He didn’t swing wildly in anger. His punches were swift, aimed to hurt, to cause pain: a bully’s attacks. Raziel blocked some, dodged others, but as he pressed in closer Lucas’ fists made contact more and more.

Raziel accepted the hits along with the pain and pressed in close. It hurt, but that was okay. Lucas rained strikes on his head and back as Raziel went in low. Where Lucas threw a dozen punches, Raziel threw one.

The cast on his arm was like a gauntlet, and it sunk into Lucas’ gut with a meaty thunk. Lucas gasped and staggered back, bent over double with a hacking cough. He sank to his knees gasping for air that wouldn’t come. The ice-water in Raziel’s veins didn’t thaw, but he felt a trickle of pleasure at the sight. He reached over and took a fistful of Lucas’ mussed hair and forced him to make eye contact. There was nothing but pain and rage in those eyes.

“Don’t ever,” Raziel said, very slowly and very quietly, “talk about my parents again.”

He let go of Lucas’ hair and turned to the door. He walked away, the frost of his own rage still filling his mind. He was nearly at the door when the smell of smoke hit his nose.

“Hey, Raz,” Lucas croaked. Raziel stopped and turned to see Lucas standing again with a ball of scarlet fire filling his palm and a mad grin on his face. “I’d say to hell with your parents, but we both know they’re already there.”

Raziel should have felt a lot of things in that moment. Rage at the words. Fear for the fire. Even hatred escaped him. All he felt was emptiness and surety. There was no emotion. Just the simple fact that Lucas was going to regret those words.

He could feel the magic pouring off of Lucas like heat from a bonfire. The scarlet flames in his hand looked strange, like flapping ribbons or dancing streams of blood. Most people would have been afraid of that, he knew. Miles had run before magic had even come into the equation. But Raziel had never been very good at being afraid. He’d never been good at running away either. Running forward on the other hand, he was great at that.

His feet carried him across the room, his own magic gathering the entire way. Time slowed around him. Lucas took a step forward and pitched the fire at him. It streaked at his face, the fluttering flames chewing up the air in between. He leaned aside as he ran and it passed by him, the heat so powerful it felt like someone was jabbing the side of his face with needles. And then it was behind him and there was nothing between himself and Lucas.

Lucas could see the magnitude of his mistake. Raziel saw his confidence shatter and the fear rushing in to replace it. He saw the sparkling blue of his own magic reflecting in Lucas’ eyes. He knew it was already over. He could stop right there, and he’d have won. A small part of him told him that’s what he should do. But the rest of him remembered Miles’ bloody nose and Lucas’ words.

Raziel’s fist crashed into Lucas’ chest again. There was a flash of brilliant blue light, a sound like tree branches snapping, and Lucas flew. Raziel knew instantly, even before Lucas crashed into the shelves of books lining the wall, that he’d made a terrible mistake.

Emptiness left him and was replaced by horrible, stomach-twisting guilt. Lucas hit the ground. He didn’t scream. He couldn’t seem to get the breath. He just lay there in a tangle of writhing limbs and fallen books with blood pouring from his mouth as he struggled for air.

Help. Raziel needed help. He turned to run to find someone, anyone to fix this.

Alban stood in the door. He wasn’t looking at his son. His eyes were locked onto Raziel.

“What have you done?” he roared, but the look in his eyes wasn’t anger. It was triumph.