Ginn Hale - Lord of the White Hell Book One

"Get to your classes and mind your own business!" Master Ignacio shouted.

Kiram saw Nestor start forward towards him, but when Master Ignacio stepped between them, Nestor fled with the other second-year students.

Master Ignacio turned back to Kiram. "I expect you to take my classes seriously. I'm not instructing you in some nonsense of numbers or dates. I am teaching you how we Cadeleonians make war. These skills have protected and maintained our kingdom for generations. This is how the greatest Cadeleonian men have lived and how they have died! You understand that? My instructions make the difference between life and death."

Master Ignacio had never lashed out at Kiram like this before, despite the fact that Kiram had made far worse mistakes in his classes. In fact during the first weeks the master had ignored Kiram, allowing him to fumble ineptly through his training. But Kiram had not been one of the Hellions then. He suddenly wondered how deeply that must have vexed the war master. A skinny Haldiim mechanist fraternizing with his brutal, muscular favorite students. His great Cadeleonians.

Kiram could hear the voices of men coming closer. The third-year students were gathering for their lessons. Master Ignacio glanced to the doors of the arena. "Haldiim genius or not, I expect you to take my instructions seriously. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, sir," Kiram responded.

"Good." Master Ignacio turned his back on Kiram. "Now get out of my sight."

Kiram was glad to leave. And he wasn't surprised to find Nestor waiting for him outside the stables.

"Are you all right? I thought your head was going to come right off."

"Genimo hits harder," Kiram said. It wasn't true but the lie was the only revenge Kiram could take against the war master.

Nestor grinned. "You've got balls, Kiram. Really."

"Thanks."

Though the rest of Kiram's afternoon classes were less eventful, a feeling of alienation clung to him. The bruise on his face was slow to darken but it ached. Kiram decided that he would rather not see the other Hellions at dinner and instead retreated to his shed to tinker with his mechanisms and feel more in his element.

Blue light streamed in through the small window in the north wall. The smell of machine oil settled around Kiram and instinctively he felt safer.

He turned a long, threaded bolt between his fingers and wondered just who had first realized that the threaded shaft would offer a stronger anchor than any nail.

Someone who could see a place for innovation, Kiram imagined, as he fed the bolt into place and tightened its nut. Someone who knew that he could make something better than anything that had come before him.

Kiram smirked at the train of his thoughts. He was describing his ideal version of himself, of course. His ancient inventor was probably just a thick-headed bastard who wanted to sink a support without bothering to get up and find a hammer.

Kiram stepped back and studied his boiler. It looked good. Its glossy, black, iron mass filled a third of the cramped shed. The secondary steam chamber had yet to be assembled. The pistons and rods lay on a shelf. The condensation chamber only existed as a heap of iron plates leaning against the wall and a series of measurements in Kiram's mind.

But it was coming together, slowly taking shape. For a moment Kiram imagined the finished mechanism. All that fire and steam driving pistons with force and precision. It would be beautiful. He could almost hear the roar of the fires inside the big boiler. He gazed up to where the first steam chamber would sit atop the boiler. It would be.

Kiram frowned. It would be too tall for the shed, that's what it would be.

He would have to remove a huge section of the roof, unless he wanted the pistons smashing through it the first time he tested his mechanism. Doubtless the sight of that would thrill the academy scholars and groundskeepers.

Kiram sighed and sat back on the cool dirt floor. It seemed like nothing would come easily for him here at the Sagrada Academy. Not his classes, not his classmates, and not even the simple, stupid proportions of a damn shed. It was like a curse.

Not a terrible, malevolent curse like the ones that filled so many holy books, but a petty, annoying vexation of a curse. A curse that was like the pain in his jaw and the hunger in his belly, slow growing and persistent.

"Where is Javier with a pie when I need him?" Kiram whispered to himself and then he wished he hadn't, because he knew where Javier was. He was at the Hellions' table, laughing and tossing dice in that hearty, arrogant Cadeleonian manner that doubtlessly pleased Master Ignacio.

"Kihvash to Master Ignacio," Kiram muttered to himself. He returned to working on the valve that would eventually feed cold water into the condensation chamber. It would need to endure intense heat and then sudden influxes of cold. He had used a double casing to insulate the valve in his miniature version but he didn't know how the material would hold up on a much larger scale.

Kiram heard someone knock lightly at the door but he ignored it. There was a second series of much louder knocks. He thought they might even be kicks.

"I'm busy," Kiram shouted. "Go away!"

"You're missing dinner." Javier sounded annoyed.

"I'm not hungry." As soon as the response was out of his mouth, Kiram realized how childish and petulant he sounded. It was the kind of thing a spoiled six-year-old shouted at his mother when he didn't receive the gift he wanted for Solstice.

"Well, that's too bad because I brought you something to eat," Javier responded. "Now open this damn door."

Kiram sighed. He could sulk when he was alone but with Javier standing outside, having brought him food, Kiram just felt petty. He got up and unlocked the door.

A halo of gold afternoon light poured in around Javier, accentuating the hard lines of his body and casting his face into shadow. He stepped into the shed and closed the door behind him.

The shed suddenly seemed dark, illuminated by only the dim light that fell through a small northern window and the few yellow shafts that filtered in from between the cracked planks of the walls. Kiram was very aware of how close the confines were. Javier thrust a warm bundle into his hands and turned to study the completed boiler.

"So, this is what you're always working on, is it?"

"Yfes." Kiram opened his bundle and found, wrapped inside the square of cloth, a stuffed roll and a hot apple pocket.

"Fresh from the kitchen windowsill," Javier commented.

"Thanks." Kiram felt a rush of pleasure, knowing that Javier had gone out of his way to bring these things to him, and embarrassment at the same time because he'd just spent the last hour resenting Javier and the rest of the Hellions.

Kiram bit into his stuffed roll. Thick cuts of pork slid into his mouth along with a warm mustard sauce. He hadn't really realized how hungry he was until he tasted food. He tore into the remainder of the roll.

While Kiram ate, Javier circled slowly around the boiler, studying it. He opened the heavy door where the fire would burn and then peered at the valves that would eventually feed up into the first steam chamber. Kiram watched him move. There was something fascinating about the way the light filtered through his white shirt, exposing the shadows of the body beneath.

Javier turned to the unassembled pieces of the condensation chamber and the cooling valves and Kiram dropped his gaze back down to his own hands. He ate the last of his roll and then wiped the mustard sauce from the corners of his mouth with the cloth Javier had brought him.

"So, what is it?" Javier asked at last.

"A steam engine. At least it will be if I ever get it done."

"You know that the royal mechanist presented the king with a steam-driven engine five years ago, don't you?"