The Brotherhood: Blood (15 page)

You’re going to have to bathe eventually,
he finally decided.
Just ignore the difference and act like you’re just like them.

Though he knew in truth and sympathy that he was not like any of these royal children, he could push those differences aside and make his way into their midst.

After pulling his shirt off, he bent to unlace his shoes, then slid down his trousers and loincloth before wading into the water.

Hardly any of the boys took notice. Some, curious or interested, glanced at or watched him, but their eyes didn’t stay for long. Their whispers, however, outnumbered any other physical acknowledgement, for it seemed as Odin waded deeper and deeper into the water that he was taken notice of even though he was nothing more than a commoner given a higher degree. It made him feel special, in a way. He’d never had any boyhood friends. Maybe now that he’d grown up a little he could make some.

Just when he thought someone would begin to approach him, they returned to their own conversation, to the friends they already knew.

Odin sighed.

Amidst all these young man with muscles and stubbles, with structures and care and hair in places he hadn’t, he couldn’t help but feel like the ugly duckling of the dest.

“Hey,” the boy named Herald Monvich said, taking notice of him almost immediately before wading through the water and toward him. “You stirred up a lot of shit over the way I took you out.”

Dumbfounded and unsure what to say, Odin merely stood there, watching the bigger boy with eyes clouded and a bit dazed.

“Are you going to answer me,” the bigger boy growled, “or are you too little to do that to?”

The majority of the boys chuckled. Odin’s eyes darted over them, calculating their motives. He could see the greed in their eyes, the desire that willed them to fight and spill blood in water otherwise clean. Any sort of physical conversation would have surely satisfied them.

“
Shut up!
I’m not going to listen to some
boy.”

“You’re younger than I am!”

“At least I’ve got hair on my chest. By God, a girl has more hair down there than you do.”

This sent the group of boys into fits of laughter. Some even stumbled and fell into the water, where they emerged to splash others as if no sort of violent confrontation was just about to happen. While the event set off their continued play, Odin and Herald merely stared at each other, eyes ablaze with hate so vast and strong it could have burned the world down.

Got you,
he thought.

“Bastard,” Herald growled.

Monvich lashed out and grabbed Odin by the neck.

When he tried to kick out and disarm the boy, Herald slapped the back of his neck, grabbed his long, untended hair, then forced his head underwater.

Herald repeated the gesture, but this time Odin managed to take a quick breath before the boy submerged him. He fought with all his might—tossing, turning, kicking and slapping the water as desperately as he could—but nothing seemed to come from it. Herald then straddled his hips and forced a knee into his lower back, pushing him deeper underwater.

I’m going to drown,
he thought, and would have possibly began to cry were he not submerged in the liquid his body would so willingly like to provide.
I’m going to drown and no one’s going to know who did it.

He tried to fight, but the strength had left his lungs, the aggression from his heart and the agony from his mind. He closed his eyes and continued to hold his breath for dear life.

Come on,
he whispered.
Help me.

His fear, his anger, his hurt, pride, sorrow, tears—all strung together in but one single moment to create something so strong and fierce no mortal man would have ever been able to deal it.

Clawing his way to the surface, his breath all but lost and his eyes stung by pond water, Odin emerged just in time to see a geyser erupting out of the center of the pond, its height vast and its subsequent rain so heavy it surely would have trapped anyone beneath the water had they been there. Boys screamed, ran, grappled for their clothes as they rushed toward the castle and away from the obvious source of magic that had just occurred. Throughout all this, Odin struggled to push his way onto land and to all fours. He pounded his chest, coughed water from his lungs, then turned his head up just in time to see the tall, stocky form of Herald Monvich turning from his flight to face him.

“This isn’t over!” the bigger boy screamed, naked and shivering in fear. “I’ll kill you for this, Karussa.
I’ll kill you!”

Water continued to spill from Odin’s lungs as the last of Herald’s taunts faded.

For a brief moment, he thought he would simply pass out on the pond’s shore, left to his own devices and possibly to the death that would soon follow.

When the last of the water was expelled from his lungs, Odin took a long, deep breath, then turned his head to the sky.

The sun seemed to be shining down from the heavens to mark his passage.

Despite the pain in his chest that seemed to swell constantly like the flow of the ocean, Odin went to his afternoon lesson without a second thought. Seated upon a long, wooden bench in the back of the room, where a desk before him extended to the far wall to allow a multitude of boys to sit upon, he turned his attention down to the book before him and realized, with a nervous bout of pride, that he would actually be studying in a situation unlike that of the homeschooling his father had given him.

This is different,
he decided.

Pursing his lips, he continued to watch the boys enter through the doorway and seat themselves along the benches, their hands pressed forward and their attentions set to the front of the room—where, behind a desk and almost unnoticed, a professor sat, his name declared as ‘Artlock’ in pure-white chalk that ran across the board.

When the morning bell chimed for the third time that day, the professor rose to greet his audience.

“Hello,” Professor Artlock said, pressing his hands behind his back as he turned his attention toward the still-skittering boys entering in through the doorway. “My name is Professor Artlock, and over the course of the next few weeks and months, I will be outlining a study program that will include all the basic teachings you need to know both as a knight and an individual schooled under the Ornalan study system, including but not limited to: History, Mathematics, the Written and Read word and, of course, basic survival instincts that you should be more than knowledgeable of when you enter the field with your knight master within the next few years.”

At this, the professor turned and began to scrawl a multitude of lines across the board, those of which Odin found almost impossible to read from such a faraway distance. He considered moving forward to be closer, but when the man turned and offered the room a somber look, he decided it might be best were he not to rise instead.

He’ll say what he needs to,
he decided.

When the professor turned to face them, not a word within the entire classroom was spoken.

“All right,” Artlock said. “As you will notice, we have today’s book of study set before us.
General Studies of History
will outline the construction of the kingdom, the Soloman family line’s rise to power and the eventual figures that ruled over our kingdom over the given course of time.

“Why do we need to study?” one of the boys called out. “We’re knights, not scholars!”

“A good knight is not a stupid one,” the professor replied, opening his mouth to reveal bright teeth. “It is for that reason that you will divide your days both with training and general reading, as well as completing the assigned homework and returning it to me each and every morning. Are we understood?”

The boys gave slight, collective nods and murmurs of approval.

“Very well then,” Artlock said, turning to face the board. “Now, I would like you to turn to your
General Studies of History
book and flip to the table of contents, where we’ll be looking over the origins of our country and just how the capital was created.”

Over the course of the next few days, Odin went to weapons training and afternoon schooling without much trouble. With no threat of Herald Monvich’s reappearance anytime in the near future, he found himself settling into a routine that both comforted and settled him despite the unease he felt around his royal, more-prestigious peers. Early mornings before training was spent with Master Jordan, improving his skills in a private, practiced environment, while afternoons lay spread out before him like a grand dish meant to be sampled and tasted. Most homework was done easily and in the hours before dinner, turned in the next day and graded efficiently and without much trouble. He was referred to by Artlock as, ‘Exceptionally well-read’ and praised on almost each and every piece of parchment for his intelligence and the fact that he seemed just as capable as the royal children around him in spite of the fact that he did not bear any royal blood at all.

On one particularly-rainy day, when weapons training was cancelled and replaced with an extra-long schooling session, Odin found himself in a predicament where he felt as though he needed to talk to an authority figure for fear that should Herald try to assault him again, he might end up dead.

But you’re not a tattler,
he thought, sighing.
What are you going to do about that?

Either way, he needed to come up with a solution—now, while it still dwelled on his conscience.

When the extra-long study session reached its halfway point and Artlock allowed the boys to walk the halls and stretch their legs, Odin approached the desk and waited for the man to turn before confronting him directly.

“I was actually wondering if I could have permission to go talk with High Mage Daughtry,” he said, crossing his arms over your chest. “I just don’t know where to start.”

“What reason might you have to talk with Magic-Master Daughtry?”

“I’m one of his students and… well… I need to talk to him about something personal, if that’s all right.”

“Though I’m reluctant to let you leave class, especially when we’re deep into reading on our history, I know you’ll do perfectly well in catching up on your own time. Please—go right ahead. Ask a guard to escort you to the magic offices.”

“Thank you, sir.”

With a quick bow of his head, Odin turned and made his way out into the hall—where, directly beside the door, he approached a guard and asked to be escorted to the magic offices.

The man led Odin through several interweaving halls that over the duration of their walk began to grow increasingly obscure. The windows all but gone so deep within the castle, the halls bearing little-to-no form of decoration and the wallpaper dour and appearing as though it had not been kept up for some time—Odin found himself wondering why, of all the important places within the castle, these halls would go untamed, but regardless, he brushed it off and pushed himself forward, through the hall and toward a series of rooms that lay lit with each individual magic master’s name emblazoned in gold ink upon the wooden doors.

Knowing not in the least how he would return to his afternoon classes without an escort, Odin shook his head, leaned forward, then knocked three times before returning to his original position.

Moments passed without any visible change in his position.

Come on,
he thought.
Don’t have made me come all this way for nothing.