Summoner 4 Read online

  Nia flicked my nose and scoffed. “Don’t push it, farm boy.” She smirked and went back to her dinner.

  Suddenly, Sleet stood up from his seat above us all and clinked his spoon on a crystal flute. The sound was soft, but its ringing echoed across the hall. It effectively silenced the chatter, and he cleared his throat before he spoke.

  “Thank you all for your attention,” he started, and I couldn’t help but notice his voice seemed tired, strained, even.

  “As I am sure many of you are aware, there was a very laborious battle in the north outside of Bathi Highlands some weeks ago.” There were a few murmured confirmations amongst the students before he continued. “This evening, I am happy to report that the town is back to business as usual, and there were no casualties amongst the villagers.”

  A loud cheer erupted from each table, but Sleet raised his hand to silence them once more.

  “Furthermore, I should like to recognize the first response team responsible for destroying the catalyst. When I call your name, please stand. Nia Kenefick, Orenn Vascarti, Varleth Prost, and Gryff of Njordenfalls.”

  We all stood. Everyone’s eyes were on us. Claps, whistles, and cheers were all thrown at us in appreciation, and it felt good, like having spent the last few weeks in a hospital bed was worth it.

  “I would also like to recognize their pilot, Erin Lindblum, for her quick response to the situation and riding for half a day to request backup in defending the outlying areas of the village.”

  Erin tossed her orange hair back with a flick of her fingers and stood as well, and I thought back to the kiss we had shared. Mimics were an interesting breed of mages. I wanted to know more about her. Everyone gave her a round of applause as well, and as we sat down again, our eyes locked. She smiled and winked at me, and a hot rush crept up the back of my neck. I sheepishly rubbed at it as I turned my attention back to the food, eager to change the subject before anyone could notice or say something about it.

  “I can’t believe this,” I pretended to pout. “They have a feast in honor of our victory, and you bring me soup and chicken.”

  “You are more than capable of getting up to get something else if you want,” Nia shot back. “In fact, you’ve said multiple times that you were.”

  I gawked as I looked between her and Layla. Both of them held smug smiles on their faces as they waited to see what I would do. I bristled, then huffed. It would be wrong of me not to eat what they brought me, especially because it wasn’t as though I didn’t like it.

  “I’m going to eat this,” I told them with conviction, “and when I’m done, I’m going to go up to that line and get myself the biggest piece of roast they have and six spoonfuls of potatoes, and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

  Nia’s smirk grew wider as she giggled, and Layla snorted as she grinned and crossed her arms.

  “You do that, Gryffie,” she teased, and I couldn’t help but grin back. I really missed our banter. I had missed my friends.

  The rest of the feast was relatively uneventful. A few people stopped by the table to ask how I was, and to congratulate Nia and me, but aside from that, I was happy to enjoy a regular meal with my friends. I hadn’t realized how ravenous I was until I’d started putting food in my face.

  It wasn’t until the doors to the dining hall swung open, and Layla’s head jerked around a moment before her eyes opened wide. I twisted my head around immediately and saw what she saw. He looked different, but there was no mistaking his face. He still held the same sneer, and the same general air about him that made him think he was better than everyone else.

  “Is that…?” she trailed off, and Braden and Nia looked in his direction, too. In fact, most of the students did. It’d been months since anyone had last seen him, and suddenly he was back.

  “Gawain,” Nia gasped softly.

  “What the hell is he doing back here?” Layla grimaced and turned to me like I had an answer.

  “Beats me.” I shrugged. To be honest, aside from his absence in class, I had hardly noticed he was gone in the first place.

  His cold eyes landed on Nia, who sat up straighter and shot him a fiery glare. Her fingers curled around her fork, and she clenched it like a knife in her hand. Her knuckles turned white from her tight grip. There was something unspoken there like a silent challenge was offered, and Nia refused to back down. She was mine, now in more ways than Gawain could ever imagine.

  “Nia,” Layla whispered, and Nia glanced at her. She motioned to the fork in her hand, and when Nia realized what she’d done, she set it down and clasped her hands in her lap.

  “Apologies,” she muttered.

  “Don’t let him rile you up.” I put my arm around Nia’s shoulders and shook her lightly. “He’s just out for the attention. You know that.”

  “Yes, of course.” She nodded, and I dropped my arm back to my side.

  “I heard he went to train under some monk far off in the mountains.” Braden tore his eyes from Gawain and put his attention back on his food.

  “It would not necessarily shock me,” Nia scoffed. “His father will buy him anything, including some fabled monk that can teach him long-forgotten magic.”

  “Does such a thing exist?” I asked as I pictured grumpy Maelor in some sort of clean white robe.

  “I cannot say that I know anything about mythical monks in the mountains with obscure magic,” she said with a shake of her head, “but I do know that there are more reference materials to arcane magic than what the Academy has in their library.”

  “Really?” I pressed, excited. “That’s so cool!”

  “Keep it in your pants, farm boy,” she scolded, but I saw her smile anyway. “If anyone knew where they were, we’d have them here, or at the very least, a copy of them.”

  “I wonder what kind of magic is in them,” Braden pondered, and I could see in his eyes that he was just as curious about the prospect of ancient magic as I was.

  “Probably some old dragon lore or something.” Layla waved it off. “Origin tales that have no use in this modern age.”

  “And since when have you taken an interest in magic lore?” I asked. Layla hated to study. In fact, she would find any excuse not to.

  “I don’t,” she replied and sipped on her glass of juice. We left it at that.

  “Pardon my intrusion,” a familiar voice came from behind me. When I turned to see Varleth there with his hands casually in the pockets of his pants, I grinned.

  “What? Do the bats not want to hang out with you?” I teased, and Varleth chuckled at my joke, thank the Maker.

  “They don’t make for interesting sparring matches,” he replied, and a smirk crept onto his lips. “What do you say, summoner? A match to get ourselves in shape again?”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Varleth Prost, mister dark and broody himself, wanted to challenge me to a friendly match? I nearly hopped to my feet, and I had to look down to meet his eyes. Varleth was at least a head shorter than I was.

  “Name the time and place.”

  “Arena, eight o’clock,” Varleth said, and I nodded enthusiastically.

  “Get ready to lose,” I mock threatened him, but he simply turned and walked out of the double doors of the dining hall. His cloak billowed in his wake.

  “You sure you’re up to that?” Braden questioned, and I nodded as I waved him off. “You were in the infirmary for three weeks. I don’t think Meriden wants to see you again anytime soon.”

  “What? Meriden loves me,” I joked, and then I walked down the line of tables with confidence.

  “Gryff, where are you going?” Nia called after me, and I heard her slip a giggle into her words.

  “I’m getting meat,” I called back, and my friends laughed as I strode to the food line. If I was going to go hand-to-hand with Varleth, I was going to have a meal worthy of a man.

  After I finished my final meal of the salted beef and buttery garlic potatoes, we all left the dining hall, and then I used the rest
rooms before I headed to the arena to meet with the banisher. I showed up a little early and was a bit surprised to see that my friends were waiting for me.

  “I thought you all were going to go to bed?” I asked.

  “We’ve got nothing better to do,” Layla had grinned after I asked what they had planned for the evening. “Might as well watch you kick someone’s ass.”

  I had to laugh at that. I’d seen Varleth fight, and he was good. His skills in hand-to-hand combat were definitely nothing to sneeze at. Still, I doubted he could keep up with me. I walked further into the arena and saw that Varleth was already there doing his stretches.

  “Hey there!” I called out to him and waved, but Varleth merely glanced at me without so much as a nod. Typical. I joined him on the ground and did my own stretches.

  “Come here often?” I asked it as a joke, and Varleth sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “Are you going to talk like this the whole time?”

  I grinned. “Yeah, probably. I’m in a good mood.”

  “Lucky me.” Varleth smirked.

  “See? I knew you’d come to like me,” I continued to jest.

  Varleth shook his head. “Let’s just get this over with, summoner.” He stood and stretched his arms behind his back. “The sooner we’re done here, the sooner we can go back to only seeing each other on missions.”

  I chortled. “So much for ‘liking us just fine.’”

  “Oh, I maintain that,” he retorted, “but for the sake of my own sanity, I’d rather not spend more time with you than I have to.”

  “Ouch.” I winced playfully at that. “This was your idea remember?”

  Varleth snorted and headed out to the center of the arena, so I stood and followed him. I still wasn’t really sure what I was to expect.

  “So what’s the deal here?”

  “We’ll fight as the Major would tell us. Nothing below the belt, no magic. We go for as long as we can without killing one another.” As he laid down the rules, I grew more and more excited. It felt like forever since I’d had a good fight.

  I just hoped that this matchup wasn’t a waste.

  We took our stances, and I recognized Varleth’s as an old, traditional style stance, not unlike Nia’s, who was also very formal, but there was something different about it that I couldn’t place my finger on. We circled each other like animals on the prowl. There was no whistle to tell us when to begin, so I assumed that whenever one of us made the first move is when we’d really kick things up.

  The way he moved was almost mesmerizing. There were several times I could have sworn I was seeing two of him. I remembered our brawl at the bar before we were deployed to Bathi Highlands, and I recalled having thought the same thing then. I never did get a chance to ask him about it. That would be a cool trick if he could do it, but we agreed on no magic use, which was fine by me. I didn’t want anyone to have to suffer my monsters. Some of them were tame, but others, not so much.

  It felt like we had danced around one another forever before Varleth finally gave in and attacked. His punch landed straight into my right side, and I coughed hard. I knew that smaller meant faster, but I hadn’t even seen him move. At least, I didn’t think I had. He jabbed me again and then again until I got my bearings straight and managed to block some punches.

  “Growing up with gypsies comes in handy,” he supplied with a slight smirk as he threw another barrage of punches at me.

  Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that part.

  I smirked as I gamely bobbed and wove through some of his blows and parried most of the rest, but the ones that got through hurt like hell, and I was sure that a return trip to the infirmary would be in my future this evening.

  He kept up his pace, unlike Layla who tired out quickly. No, Varleth’s fighting skill was definitely on par with Nia’s, and she had really been the only one to keep up with me on skill level alone.

  I was loving every minute of it.

  As we moved, I tried to watch his footwork. It was incredible, the speed with which he could move! I didn’t know how I never noticed it before. It was as though he knew my moves one step ahead of me. Did being a banisher make him part telepathic? Maybe that made sense, but it didn’t seem likely. Then again, he’d said he came from gypsies, so I wasn’t going to put anything past him.

  “Did the gypsies also teach you to dodge?” I taunted.

  “You’ll never know if you don’t try to hit me,” he fired back.

  Oh, so that’s how it was? I grinned and blocked the rest of his punches until I finally saw an opening. It wasn’t big, in fact, Varleth’s guard was almost airtight, but it was there, and I took it. I slid my left foot forward, reared back with my right fist, and found the opening in his right side just above his stomach. Varleth huffed as my fist connected, but he didn’t falter.

  He came at me again, this time faster, and I had enough coordination to go step for step with him. It was as though he and I were dancers, and we were performing for our non-existent audience. Each motion was purposeful and fluid, filled with energy.

  “Quit gawking, summoner.” Varleth swung his left around and clocked me in the jaw.

  “You’ll bite your tongue if you keep wagging it,” I tossed back as I countered quickly with a jab to his right. Sweat poured down our foreheads, and our faces were flush. I could taste blood in my mouth and could see it stick to Varleth’s neck. “How long can you keep this up?”

  “All night,” he replied without hesitation, but his breath was ragged. He was low on steam, and frankly, I was, too.

  I kicked him in the chest when I saw him reel back again, and the blow sent him across the pavement. I rushed him, ready to deliver the final strike, but he rolled out of the way just in time, and my fist nearly connected with the concrete. I swore loudly and swung my leg out again in hopes that I would get lucky and land another chest shot, but he caught my foot.

  He tossed my leg to the side and spun me around. When I faced him again, I barely had the time to duck away from more furious punches. When I came up this time, I landed an uppercut to his chin. Blood pooled from his mouth, but he just spat it out and kept going.

  It felt like hours before my body gave in. I was sore, tired, and had more blood on my body from this fight than any other I’d been in. Well, except maybe that one time in Krandell, but that was one hell of a bar fight.

  “Had enough, summoner?” Varleth taunted me from the other side of the main circle. His chest heaved, but he still had fight left in him, and I knew I had to take him out. Despite my stagger, I took my stance again.

  “You wish, Prost,” I called back.

  “Don’t call me that,” he snarled before he ran at me at full speed. I’d expected him to try to duck under the punch I had pulled back for, but instead, he leapt over me, even used my head as leverage to catapult himself over and land behind me. There was no time to duck, so I purposefully took the hit square to my face and used his overextension to grab onto his wrist. With a hard pull, I swung him around so that his arm was pressed against his back. I held it there as he groaned in pain. It was a small victory in memory of my now broken face.

  “Get off of me,” he growled.

  “Like hell, I will.” I vehemently shook my head as I growled back. The moonlight shifted the shadows on Varleth’s intense face. Based on the position, we’d been at this for at least an hour, maybe longer. It was time for it to end.

  “Damn it, Gryff. Let go!”

  I did so, but only because I was too stunned by the fact that he actually called me by my name. He fell onto his knees and nursed his arm with a soft swear. I moved and stood in front of him, knuckles and face split and bloody, and offered him a hand.

  “Truce?”

  Varleth stared at my hand for a moment before he relented and took it with his own beat-up hand. As I helped him up, he chuckled.

  “I was right to think you’d be able to keep up with me.” He nursed his arm and glanced up at me. His eyes were warm with a smile,
even if it didn’t reach his lips. “You’re the only person, other than Kenefick I’m sure.”

  I barked out a laugh and smeared blood across my chin. “Likewise. Those gypsies really taught you some good stuff.”

  “Thanks for sparing.” Varleth nodded and put his hands on his hips as he tried to catch his breath. From the stands, my friends cheered. I’d forgotten they were there, honestly.

  “It was fun, but we should get checked out by Meriden,” I suggested, and Varleth chuckled.

  “She’s going to love us,” he replied sarcastically, and I laughed as I clapped him on the shoulder.

  Chapter 3

  The infirmary was only lit by lantern light when Varleth and I showed up with my friends in tow. It was ambient in a way, and I felt relaxed by the scent of the fire. I didn’t remember ever having seen it so dim in here before, but most of the times I’d come it had been in the evening when there was still enough sunlight to stream through the windows over the beds.

  Varleth rang the bell, and Meriden, as diligent as ever, clicked around the corner. Her cheeks were rosier than usual, and it was hard to tell in the darker light, but I swore she had done something different with her hair, not that I ever paid much attention to how she styled it in the first place, but I could tell that she had changed something.

  I didn’t pay it any more mind though when she clicked her tongue at us and sighed.

  “I just released you boys! What in the world happened?” Meriden took us both by the shoulders and ushered us to two empty beds near the front, and I heard the girls stifle giggles at the affronted looks on our faces.

  “We were just sparring,” I tried to reason, but Meriden was having none of my excuses tonight.

  “While I admire your tenacity and eagerness to get back into your work, you need to have better regard for your bodies,” she scolded quietly as she set to work with a blue potion and cotton. The potion fizzed before it settled, and she poured it on the cotton before she pressed it firmly to the gash on my cheek.

  “Ow ow ow!” I whined, but Meriden was relentless. “That hurts!”