Chris Wooding: The Fade

I almost protested. I almost forgot who I was and who he was and how much we owed him for allowing this. I almost forgot how much I owed the twins for persuading him.

'You're very generous, Magnate,' Rynn rumbled next to me, and I shut my mouth before I could say what I wanted to. He had seen it coming and headed me off. Every once in a while, he saw right into me.

I swallowed down the bile, took a breath, and said: 'We are grateful for your mercy.'

Ledo nodded vaguely and returned to his breakfast. Rynn took my hand beneath the table and squeezed it hard. And with that, we had saved our child's life by giving it away.

The Academy was all I'd known for four years now, ever since I was accepted at the age of ten, the same age I swore Bond to Clan Caracassa. The cavern that housed the Academy complex was the limit of my world; I wasn't allowed to leave it, and I didn't want to. I'd suffered enough of life outside to last me a long time.

The Academy to me meant shelter and protection. The harsh training, the punishing regime, the way they regulated our sleep, our diet, our activities – all this was a comfort. After growing up a Gurta slave I was used to strict order, and the idea of taking responsibility for myself terrified me. In my more introspective moments, I wondered whether it was fear, and not overwhelming gratitude, that had led me to swear myself into Bond to my rescuers. I put my life in the hands of others so easily.

Here at the Academy all I had to do was excel at the tasks they set me. Life was clean and simple. I never wanted to leave this place.

The complex was set on many levels, across steep slopes. Chthonomancers had sculpted it into an enormous rock garden, with the buildings of the Academy set amid great crystalline formations, fungal glades and arbours, ornamental pools and waterfalls. Light sources were artfully arranged, through phosphorescent stones and plants, lanterns and a single, squat shinehouse atop the circular Gathering Hall. It was always warm in the Academy. The cavern was set deep underground, heated by the fire at the heart of our moon.

I had many friends here, but the first was an older student called Rynn. He was assigned to orient me during my first few turns, and we took to each other immediately. At first, he treated me like a little sister. Even at thirteen years old, he was larger than most boys his age, and I enjoyed the feeling of being under his wing. New inductees were often bullied until they found their place, but nobody dared with Rynn looking out for me.

We had grown since then, and things had started to change. I had no idea how it happened, but there was an unspoken tension between us now. Glances, blushes, awkward silences. We would snap at each other, frustrated by something we didn't understand. He found excuses to touch me, and I wondered if he had always done that and if I was only now noticing it because of these new feelings. He would become sullen and moody, and resist my attempts to winkle him out of his shell; but still I tried, instead of leaving him to sulk as I used to.

It took me a while, but I eventually admitted it to myself. I was attracted to him. More of my time was spent considering him and his needs than my own. I invented reasons to hug him, making it seem like play. I started to have fantasies about him, and felt vaguely ashamed of them.

But his feelings were harder to read. I interpreted everything he did as possible flirtation. Every innocent comment was picked over for hidden meaning. Every time I thought that I had proof, unequivocal proof that he had similar feelings for me, he would confound me by being suddenly cold and distant. His behaviour had become uncharacteristically erratic, without rhyme or reason. He would seek me out and then seem resentful, as if I was forcing him to be with me. I'd cried myself silently to sleep in my dormitory more than once on account of his cruelty.

That was where we stood, when Master Allet announced we would be fighting each other on the sevenhour of that turn.

The news shook me. Combat training had always been one of the most ruthless and exacting areas of our regime, but while I was good at it I was far from the best in my age group. I was an accomplished meditator, and I outstripped everyone in feats of dexterity, stealth and the mental disciplines associated with spycraft. It was already decided where my talents lay, and I was being steadily narrowed towards them.

But Rynn was a consummate warrior. It was not only his size and strength, both of which were formidable, but his technique. He compensated for his slower speed with an uncanny ability to predict his opponent's next blow, and he had developed a natural fighting style that was quite unique and very effective. Fighting was his talent, and he was relentlessly competitive. He was generally recognised as the best in the Academy, even by the older students, many of whom he had beaten in the past.

When we first began to learn, we were limited to sparring and training with our Masters. But we had outgrown that now. Combat was full-contact, and it hurt like fuck when you lost.

I didn't want to fight Rynn for a lot of reasons, but foremost was that I was afraid of him.

The Masters had a tendency to randomly pull students out to fight each other, but so far we had escaped direct confrontation. Master Allet had come across us arguing in one of the communal glades the turn before. I don't know if he thought he was doing us a favour by letting us work out our aggression on one another, or if he was just being spiteful. Students were forbidden to indulge in relations with the opposite sex. It interfered with their studies, and led to situations just such as this. Master Allet was one of our more unpredictable teachers, whimsical and infuriating at times. I suspected that he had paired us up to see how we would react. He would know in the arena if something was going on between us.

The female students flocked to me at the news. They knew that this was more than just a particularly uneven match-up. Rumours had been flying about us for years.

'You can't go easy on him,' I was advised. 'It'll take everything you've got.'

'It's sick, what they're doing.'

'How could he bring himself to hit you, anyway? What a bastard!'

This was somewhat pre-emptive, I thought, but I let it pass.

'He can't refuse the Masters, though. He'll be thrown out of the Academy.'

'I don't see your problem.' This from Clisa, a particularly level-headed girl, whose advice was rarely welcome because she always spoke sense and usually I just wanted sympathy. 'On the battlefield nobody's going to care if you're a girl. If you can't beat a larger opponent you shouldn't be in the Cadre at all.'

'Shut up, Clisa,' snapped one of my comforters. 'Can't you see she's upset?'

'We're training to be the elite forces of our respective masters,' Clisa replied. 'It's supposed to be tough.'

She leaned in, past the disgusted tuts of the others, and addressed me. 'You know what you need to do, Orna? Think of everything you hate about him. Every time he's made you angry or sad. And then go and kick the shit out of him.'

It was good advice, and I took it. I excused myself from the other students and went to meditate. But I wasn't looking for calm as I sat in the Silent Room of the Academy's main building. I was running chants through my head, basic chua-kin techniques for manipulating emotions. Taking my fury, my frustration, all the confusion and hurt I felt when I was around him, and screwing it up to a hard, bitter point. Teaching myself to be angry. It was a fine balancing act, because rage makes you sloppy, but I nailed it by the sixhour of the turn. Anger can be controlled. It can freeze instead of burning. When I left the Silent Room, I had convinced myself that I really wanted to hurt him.