Ginn Hale - Lord of the White Hell book Two

"This is beautiful!" Nestor drew in a deep breath of the fragrant garland. Even from where he lay Kiram could smell the mixture of spiced candy and citrus fruit.

"What's the card say?" Nestor asked Javier.

"Don't know. I couldn't read the handwriting," Javier replied with a shrug. He handed the card to Kiram and Kiram tried not to feel mortified as his eyes fell across the words:

Most beloved youth, I pray that I do not offend in sending something so simple to someone so much more delectable. I await your return as the tulip longs to penetrate the warm earth of spring.

Ever your admirer,

Hashiem Kir-Naham

Kiram could hardly believe that the polite older man he remembered had written this to him. He wondered what his mother must have told the pharmacist about him.

"It-it's from a friend of my mother's and she hopes that I will share the candied fruit with all my new friends here at the academy." Kiram crumpled the note quickly.

"Really? That's damn sweet of the lady." Nestor eyed the brilliant red cherries and translucent orange curls of candied tangerine peel in a lascivious manner.

From behind Nestor, Javier gave the garland an irritated glower. "Sweets from the sweet, no doubt."

Kiram forced a laugh. What must Javier have thought, reading that note? The low ring of afternoon bells broke Kiram's thoughts.

Nestor straightened reflexively at the sound. "Time for class already." He glanced to Kiram. "Have you got your paper done for history?"

Kiram nodded, then asked, "You?"

"Not so much," Nestor admitted. "There are a few holes between page one and three. Most of page two really isn't worked out."

"Well, give me what you have and I'll work on it during art"

"Thanks so much, Kiram. You're my academic salvation." Nestor bounded to his feet and, with a look of relief, started digging through of his sheaf of drawings. Kiram rose more gingerly. Still, a sharp pang flared through his calf when he placed his weight on it and he flinched. Javier came to him immediately, wrapping his arm around Kiram's waist to hold him steady.

"Are you sure you shouldn't just take the afternoon off and rest?" Javier asked.

For a moment Kiram allowed himself to enjoy the strength of Javier's embrace.

Then Nestor turned back, three crumpled pages of disordered script in hand. "You do look flushed, Kiram. Are you getting a fever?"

"I'm fine. I just stood up too quickly." Kiram pulled away and Javier released him with a mechanical pat on the back. Kiram limped down the stairs to fine art class.

Scholar Casade, their art instructor, was a pragmatic elderly gentleman whose wispy white hair reminded Kiram a little of his own father. According to Nestor, he'd once been the royal portrait painter before a scandal had driven him from the court at Cieloalta.

Not one to waste his energy on lost causes, the scholar had long since abandoned any attempt at improving Kiram's minimal artistic abilities. He doted on Nestor, however. Kiram suspected that, though the scholar knew Kiram spent most of the class period completing Nestor's history and mathematics assignments, he tolerated it for Nestor's sake.

Not that Kiram didn't pay attention during class. In fact, Scholar Casade's lecture on line weight and form had aided Kiram greatly in forging Nestor's square script. He could sign Nestor's name nearly as well as his own now.

An hour later, Holy Father Habalan accepted the paper from Nestor without comment. When Kiram turned his own essay in the holy father studied it, frowning, then said, "In light of your harrowing night I had expected that you wouldn't have a paper to hand in, Underclassman Kiram. I suppose your bear wasn't so terrible as all that, then."

Kiram bowed his head. Just looking into the holy father's face made him almost too angry to think. How dare the bastard taunt him about last night? Was he so sadistic that he needed to see Kiram's fear even now?

Then another thought came to Kiram. The groom Victaro had been murdered for knowing Habalan controlled the curse. Now, Kiram realized, the holy father might be watching for a response to determine Kiram's knowledge. He had to meet Habalan's gaze and seem genuine in his belief that a beast had attacked him. He couldn't allow the holy father to see either his fear or his anger.

"I'm only able to turn the paper in because I completed it the day before, sir." Kiram forced himself to lift his head and meet those cow brown eyes imbedded in that plump, plain face. "I saw very little of the creature, but from the damage it did, it must have been very large. I wouldn't want to meet with another."

"Yes, well, let's hope not." The holy father gazed intently at Kiram for a long moment, which seemed to stretch endlessly while Kiram maintained his expression of earnest indifference. Then the holy father moved on to the next student. After that the rest of the history lecture floated past Kiram. He tried to focus on the Treaty of Crown Hill but memories of that creeping darkness invaded his thoughts. He had to fight to keep from staring at the holy father's shadow as it moved across the classroom floor.

Once the class was over Kiram bolted from his seat only to be called back. Habalan took Kiram aside while the rest of the students filed out of the lecture room. His calf began to ache in hard pulses, echoing the tempo of his speeding heart. His palms felt clammy.

"I understand that you have been working quite hard on a project for the Crown Challenge." Holy Father Habalan's expression wasn't sympathetic, though he clearly intended it to appear that way.

"Yes, I have, sir. I want to make the academy proud."

"I'm sure you do. But with things the way they are, you would do well to refocus your time and energy on your work for this class and let the Crown Challenge wait until next year." Holy Father Habalan hefted the stack of papers in his pudgy arms and gave Kiram a limpid gaze. "Considering your recent setback and the winter conditions, I feel that it would be wholly unwise and most likely unhealthy were you to return directly to your mechanist work in that drafty shed."

Dull malevolence showed beneath the holy father's bland expression.

"Yes, sir. I've locked the shed up and I don't think I'll be returning to work there anytime soon." Kiram's mouth felt dry and his words came out in a kind of rasp.

The holy father smiled and excused him.

Kiram rushed from the lecture room. Nestor raced after him with a concerned expression. Kiram didn't slow down until he reached the library. There he laid his books and papers down on one of the heavy wooden desks and flopped into a worn chair. Nestor sat down across from him.

"So, what did he say?" Nestor asked.

"He wants me to take some time off from the Crown Challenge to focus on my history papers"

Nestor rolled his eyes. "If he thinks you're not focused enough the man doesn't know what the word means. You usually have your papers and mine written days before they're due."

"I'm not taking him seriously," Kiram replied, though the threat of the curse coming for him once more chilled his bravado. "He's just an old bigot."

"You're probably right. He's certainly not fair to you," Nestor said. "All the papers you've written for me he's given higher marks than the ones you've handed in for yourself, but they're all your papers."

Kiram simply nodded. He could vaguely remember a time, early in the summer, when nothing could have worried him more than receiving low marks on his history papers. But now it seemed trivial.

Nestor began sketching, as he always did when Kiram was quiet. Kiram himself picked up a book but couldn't bring himself to read any of it.

Instead he thought of the threat that Holy Father Habalan had made. Men like the holy father had once brought King Nazario's edicts down against the Haldiim here and throughout the kingdom, even as far as Anacleto. Facing terrible danger many Haldiim had fled with the Irabiim into the Mirogoth forests or sailed south to the Salt Islands. But Kiram's ancestors had remained, despite their fear-and Kiram now had a sense of how terrible and real that fear must have been. The thought of them made him proud.