Daughter of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 4) (14 page)

Rummaging through his backpack,
Tam groaned. "That's because no such magic exists. Her mother
probably only told her that to get her to go to sleep."

Neekeya
stomped her feet. "My mother is a great warrior! She wrestled
crocodiles every day before breakfast. She wrestled a
magic
crocodile once, and—"

"Oh Idar's beard, here we
go again!" Tam said, raising his hands in indignation.

Standing at the door, Madori
cleared her throat. The others turned toward her, noticing her for
the first time. Neekeya reacted first. She raced forward, her
necklace of crocodile teeth jangling, and pulled her into a crushing
embrace. Madori—almost a foot shorter—nearly suffocated in the
swamp girl's arms.

"Air!" Madori gasped.

Neekeya only squeezed her
tighter. "I'm glad you're here! I was worried. So much blood . .
." She stepped back, holding Madori at arm's length, and
narrowed her eyes. "Are you all right?"

Madori nodded. "Bit
peckish."

"I have some frog legs. And
toffy!" The Daenorian reached into her pockets and produced both
items of food. "Would you like some?"

"I was hoping maybe for
some Ardish fare. Or maybe Qaelish food. Bread?"

Ignoring the request, Neekeya
touched Madori's cheek. "Madori, you listen to me. I'm a
warrior. A real warrior. I used to wrestle crocodiles with my
parents. If Lari attacks you again, you step back and let me fight
her." She snarled, revealing very white, very sharp-looking
teeth. "I'll wrestle her good! I'm not scared of her. She and
her friends . . . they think they're so mighty, what with their
beautiful golden hair and blue eyes, proud Magerians in their
homeland. They don't like us outsiders, do they?" Suddenly tears
filled Neekeya's eyes. "But we're just as good as they are. We
passed the same trials."

Suddenly Madori felt guilt pound
through her. She had spent the past few turns focusing on her own
misfortune—pitying herself, the girl torn between day and night. For
the first time, Madori realized that Teel University was probably
just as difficult for Neekeya. The swamp dweller—with her dark brown
skin, heavy accent, and foreign ways—probably felt just as alienated
here, just as threatened by the Radians.

Madori patted the taller girl's
arm. "Thank you, Neekeya. You're right. We all passed the same
trials. Every one in this room is just as smart, strong, and worthy
as the Radians. We're all outsiders here, all far from home. And
we'll face Lari and her gang together."

When she left Neekeya's embrace,
Madori took a closer look at the chamber. It was small, no larger
than her old bedchamber back at Fairwool-by-Night. Four beds took up
most of the floor space, each carved of pine and topped with a
mattress and woolen blankets. A large desk held scrolls, books, ink
pots, and quills. A vellum scroll bearing an Elorian prayer hung upon
a wall—presumably Jitomi had hung it up. A golden crocodile
statuette, its emeralds eyes gleaming, stood upon the window sill—a
Daenorian artifact, no doubt belonging to Neekeya. Meanwhile Tam was
busy hanging up a painting from home; it showed the towers of Arden's
royal palace.

Madori had no charms to add to
this room, no mementos from her own home, nothing to make this
chamber a new home. There was the dagger she kept in her boot, the
one with the antler hilt, but she decided to keep this weapon hidden;
she might yet need it, roaming a university rife with Radians. She
reached into her pocket and fished out a copper coin, change from the
meal she'd shared with her father at The Dancing Wolf tavern. It was
a coin from Arden, showing Queen Linee—Tam's mother—on one side,
and a raven—the sigil of Arden—on the other.

This
is my memento,
she thought.
A
meal with my father, a last memory of my old life.
She placed the coin upon the shelf beside Neekeya's crocodile
figurine.

Three of the beds already seemed
claimed; her friends' packs, cloaks, and other belongings lay upon
them. Madori made her way to the fourth bed, which lay under the
window, and sat down. The straw mattress crinkled but seemed
comfortable enough. Tam's bed lay to her one side, Jitomi's to the
other.

Again,
she
thought,
I'm
between night and day.

She was about to kick off her
boots and change into her sleepwear when chants rose from outside.

Madori froze. Her fingers
tingled and her pulse increased.

The chants echoed outside in the
corridor, dispersed and unorganized, and Madori could not recognize
the words. But soon the voices, one by one, solidified into a single
mantra. Madori sneered and leaped to her feet.

"Radian rises!" the
voices chanted. "Radian rises!"

Boots stomped and the voices
echoed across the hall. The floor shook beneath Madori. Above the
chant rose a high, pretty voice—Lari's voice.

"Fellow students, do you
wish to preserve the purity of sunlight? Do you wish to cast out the
filth staining our fine university? Join the Teel Radian Society!
Join us, receive your pin, and help banish the darkness."

Madori raced toward the door.

"Billygoat, wait!" Tam
cried and tried to grab her. She slipped out from his grasp, yanked
the door open, and raced outside.

Lari was marching up and down
the columned gallery, chin raised. Her cronies marched around her.
Many students had stepped out of their chambers; some gaped in
silence, but others were marching with Lari and her group, chanting
the cry.

"Radian rises! Radian
rises!"

Lari raised her fist. "Join
the Teel Radian Society! We will bring purity to magic. We will drive
out the dark-skinned heathens, the nightcrawlers of darkness, and the
mongrels of impure blood. Radian is purity! Radian is light!"

While Lari spoke, her friends
were handing out Radian pins and papyrus pamphlets. One scroll fell
and fluttered toward Madori's feet. On it appeared a drawing of an
Elorian—the fingers clawed, the eyes cruel—feasting upon a
Timandrian baby, ripping out its entrails with fangs. Below the
drawing appeared the words: "Cast out nightcrawlers, mongrels,
and heathens. Radian rises!"

Lari pinned one of the pamphlets
to the wall. "Join us!" she cried. "Join me, Lari
Serin, at the Teel Radian Society."

Madori had heard enough. With a
growl, she made to leap forward, intending to throttle Lari. She felt
ready to kill the girl, then flee into the wilderness.

Hands grabbed her.

"Madori, please!" Tam
said, tugging her back. She thrashed in his grip, but Jitomi and
Neekeya soon joined him. The three grabbed her arms and legs, holding
her back. They stood in the doorway of their chamber.

Hearing the commotion, Lari
turned toward them. A bright, toothy grin split her face.

"Look, friends!" she
called out to the hall. "A swamp dweller, her skin like coal, a
heathen and barbarian. A nightcrawler boy, a demon of darkness. A
Timandrian boy, a traitor to his own blood. And finally, a feral
little mongrel dog." She laughed. "The Radian Society will
clean our university from their filth."

Madori screamed and tried to
leap forward again, but her friends tugged her back into their room
and slammed the door shut.

"Let me go!" Madori
cried. "I'll knock her teeth in. I'll rip out her throat.
Neekeya, you're with me, right? We'll attack her together."

"And if you do," Tam
said sternly, "you'll only give her words credence." The
prince released Madori and walked over to block the door. He glared
at her. "If you hit her, you know what she'll do. She'll act the
victim, cry fake tears, and trumpet the news across Moth that you're
a menace. And all of Moth would hear that news. You don't know the
power her father has."

"She doesn't know the power
my fist has," Madori said, but she hated to admit it—though she
fumed, kicked, and growled, she knew Tam was speaking truth.

If
I attack Lari now, I turn her into a martyr.

"So what do we do?"
Neekeya said, her voice hesitant. She let go of Madori and looked at
the others, one by one. "Do we let her keep demonizing us?"

The chants still rose outside.
More voices were joining them. Madori's heart sank to realize that,
when she had stormed outside screaming, she had probably just made
herself look like the wild animal Lari was painting her to be.

Jitomi spoke for the first time.
The Elorian boy walked toward their table and slapped the pile of
books. "What we do is study. The other students might call us
barbarians. We will prove them wrong. We will prove that we can be
smarter than them. We'll become more powerful than them. They want to
banish us from their university? We'll beat them at their own game."

Madori heaved a sigh and leaned
against the wall. "How? I can't even levitate a simple
figurine."

"But
I can," Jitomi said. "I know a little bit of magic. Neekeya
does too. We'll work together. We'll learn to perform magic as well
as Lari can—
better
than she can." He gestured at the door. "So let them chant.
While they're outside parading like thugs, we'll open our books and
study."

Demonstrating his point, Jitomi
opened one codex and sat down to read.

Madori's body ached. She hadn't
slept in over a turn, and she had spent hours working in the stables.
She longed for a good half-turn of slumber, but Jitomi was right.

Next
class, I won't let Lari humiliate me again,
she vowed. She grabbed a book too. She sat beside Jitomi, opened the
tome, and began to study.

 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE:
CHAINS OF SMOKE

Her eyelids drooping, Madori
began the next turn in a new class: Offensive Magic.

While Professor Fen taught Basic
Magical Principles in a dusty chamber full of scrolls, vials, and
sundry artifacts, this class took place in towering lecture hall with
tiers of cold stone seats. There were no windows here; the light came
from braziers that crackled upon the polished black walls. This
looked less like a classroom, Madori thought, and more like the
temple of a dark god.

She sat at the back of the hall
with her quartet. The stage below was still empty, and students in
the lower tiers rustled, leafed through books, and mumbled spells.
Stifling a yawn, Madori tried to remember what she had studied last
turn in her room, but the knowledge kept fleeing her mind.

"Who teaches this class?"
she asked Tam.

Sitting beside her, the prince
shrugged. "I don't know. Offensive Magic? Must be somebody
angry."

Madori shuddered to remember her
parents' war stories. They had fought the dark mages of Mageria
during the great War of Day and Night. Mother still bore the scar
along her arm, a coiling line like a serpent.

I
saw Magerian magic tear flesh off bones,
Koyee had told her,
flip
ribs inside out, and crack skulls. I fought against siege towers
topped with archers, cavalries of knights in armor, and great
carracks firing cannons, but none frightened me like Mageria's black
magic.

Madori gulped.

"And now I learn this
magic," she whispered to herself.

At her left side, Neekeya was
whispering to Jitomi, "I have a ring of Offensive Magic. If I
punch anyone while wearing the ring, it'll double my strength."

Jitomi tapped his chin. "Maybe
the ring is just sharp."

Neekeya shook her head wildly,
her black chin-length hair swaying. "No! It's magic. My father
gave it to me, and he knows magic. I—"

"Hush!" Madori elbowed
them. "Class is starting."

A door creaked open below and a
shadow stirred. The students all fell silent, straightened in their
seats, and stared down. A tall, balding man entered the room, wrapped
in black robes.

Madori's heart seemed to sink
down to her pelvis.

"Professor Atratus,"
she muttered.

The beak-nosed, hunched-over
figure trudged across the stage toward the podium. The bald crest of
his head shone, and what hair he did have—a ring around his back and
sides like the feathers around a vulture's neck—shone with oil. He
indeed reminded Madori of some great scavenger bird, here to sniff
out rotten flesh. His black robes were so shabby they almost looked
like a suit of feathers. The man's Radian pin shone in the light of
the braziers, and Madori winced to remember their altercation at the
trials.

He
wasn't happy to see me pass the Trial of Wisdom,
she thought.
And
he won't be happy to see me here.

"Class!" he barked
when he reached his podium. He opened a few books and shuffled
through them, then raised his eyes toward the tiers of seats. He
cleared his throat—a horrible, gagging sound like a dying
animal—and spoke in a voice that echoed through the hall. "You
have come to study Offensive Magic. If any of you cannot tolerate
pain, blood, or the gruesome damage our art can inflict upon the
human body, I suggest you leave my university, return to your mother,
and tell her you are a squeamish babe undeserving of true power."

A few scattered, nervous laughs
rose from the crowd. Madori's heart sank even further; she swore she
could feel it beating down in her foot.

Professor Atratus scanned the
rows of seats, passing his eyes over each student in turn. "I
see that this year, we have some students of excellent parentage."
He let his eyes pause over Lari. "Indeed, the children of the
purest pedigree are among us this turn." His gaze moved further
along the seats, finally settling on Madori; that gaze changed into a
withering glare. "And I see some among us are of . . . less
distinguished heritage."

Madori clenched her fists in her
lap. She wanted to leap down and challenge the professor, but Tam
placed a hand on her thigh, holding her in place.