Becca Fox - Asta and the Barbarians

Bryn lowered his hands but stayed in the doorway. “I wanted to be sure you were still alive. We lighten the educational load for no one.”

“My limbs feel like wet cloth; heavy and much too supple,” I said with a groan. “Have you any herbs that can help with the soreness?”

Bryn chuckled. “I just so happen to have a sample of my muscle relaxant.” He held out a small glass jar filled with a yellowish-green paste.

I could smell its acrid odor from the bed, but rose to accept it anyway. “Thanks. Once again, you’re my savior.”

Bryn bowed his head with a modest smile.

One of my guards walked up to us as we stood in the doorway. “If your friend is walking you to dinner, I’m going to take a shower. My counterpart is napping, but will wake in an hour.”

“Do what you want,” I said, turning the concoction over in my hands.

“I’ll take care of her,” Bryn vowed, and then we were alone. He leaned in and lowered his voice. “Before we make line for dinner, I have something to ask of you.”

I looked up at him in surprise and a little fear. “Are you calling in your favor already?”

“I must.” He slid his hand into the pocket of his trousers and retrieved a sealed envelope. He turned it several times, those glowing eyes somber. He eventually held it out to me. “Would you give this to Viggo after I’m gone?”

“Why don’t you give it to him yourself? You owe him a proper goodbye after all you’ve—” I snapped my mouth shut when a group of stragglers came down the hall.

They greeted Bryn in passing. He nodded and smiled in response, but the smile was gone as soon as they had descended to the next story.

He gave me a severe look. “This is the only thing I’ve asked for since you came here and you’re refusing to do it?”

I shook my head. “He’ll be furious. With you gone, he’ll have no one left to take his anger out on but me. Are you trying to put me in harm’s way?”

“You’ll be in no danger of Viggo’s temper. I would leave it in his room if I wasn’t so afraid of someone accidentally finding it before him.” His eyes grew pleading. “I don’t have the heart to say goodbye in person, even indirectly. Please, Asta. Please, do this for me.”

I looked down at the envelope, proof that my only ally on Holger really was leaving, and bit my tongue. I took the letter and shoved it under my mattress along with my dagger.

A relieved smile broke across his face. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Don’t look so forlorn,” he said with an affectionate nudge. “It’ll still take many more weeks to plan and execute my escape.”

I laughed a little. “That’s good to hear.”

“Come,” Bryn said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Let’s eat.”

I left his muscle relaxant on my chest of drawers and closed the door behind me.

“You’re assimilating perfectly into the academy,” Bryn said, walking me down the hall. “You’ll do just fine on your own.” He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. “It’s Viggo I’m concerned about…”

“I’ll take care of your friend,” I said, but only because I felt like he was looking for some reassurance.

Bryn smiled again. “He won’t thank you for that, but I will. You’re a jewel among women.”

I snorted. “He says to the girl who is just as smelly as he is!”

He laughed all the way to the Feasting Hall.

Hurried footsteps woke me out of a dead sleep before the bell could chime. Rolling over, I determined to go back to sleep. But then there came a knock on my door. I sat up, ignoring the protests of every muscle in my body, and groggily went to open it. Bode the errand man stood before me, his clothes disheveled, his hair unkempt, his eyes bloodshot, his skin wan.

“Get dressed, girl,” he hissed. “The director wants to speak with you.”

I shut the door in his face, stomach squirming in fear. It had to be about Bryn. The director of the academy wouldn’t wake me before five in the morning to congratulate me on a good first day. Had he perhaps found out about Bryn’s plans? Had Bryn been dragged out of bed and punished? Even if that were so, why would the director want to see me ? Viggo had been his friend the longest.

I rushed into the new undergarments that had been purchased for me and threw on my clothes. I slipped into my lounging shoes, which looked suspiciously like leather slippers, and joined Bode in the hallway. The guard who was keeping watch gave us a strange look as we left.

“What happened?” I asked, struggling to keep up with Bode’s brisk pace.

“Later,” he said. “You’ll wake everyone.”

I scowled at him but kept my questions to myself. I wasn’t ready for the bitter cold of night. It seeped through my lounging shirt and trousers the moment we set foot outside. Wrapping my arms around my torso, I shivered.

“Now can I ask what’s happened?” I said once we were halfway across the square.

“Keep your voice down!” Bode took a deep breath and attempted to regain his composure. “It’s Brynjar. He’s fled.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, unable to believe it. I had just spoken to him at dinner. We discussed my classes, compared scars we knew would be gone in a matter of days, gossiped about our instructors… Even Viggo and the others had chimed in once or twice. Hurt and shame made me feel sick. He lied to me!

“Come along,” Bode said over his shoulder.

“How?” I sputtered, hurrying after him. “When?”

“I don’t know! Sometime this morning or perhaps in the dead of night. He broke into the safe, took his academic file, and stole his father’s signet ring. We can only assume he means to forge his expulsion.”

“How did he get past the security guards?”

“With a sleeping draught of his own concoction, no doubt. Our men are scattered throughout the grounds, having suddenly fallen asleep where they stood. The sneaky little bastard must have slipped it to me as well. When I awoke to the director’s shouting, my mind was in a haze and it was hard to concentrate. I was still dressed in my clothes and couldn’t remember falling asleep. Brynjar must’ve stolen my keys, let himself into the main office, and picked the lock on the safe, which is supposed to be impossible.” Almost as a side note to himself, Bode murmured, “I’ll have to complain to the locksmith.”

I made a sound of outrage at the back of my throat. “How could it have been so easy for Bryn to—?”

“Do all this without arousing suspicion?” Bode chuckled. It wasn’t a pretty sound. “That boy may be smiles and kindness on the outside, but he is devious. He’ll use anything and anyone for his own purposes. He might have even used you without your knowledge. What did he tell you? Did he ask anything of you?”

I thought about the envelope. Bryn said it was his goodbye to Viggo. Could it be something else? Perhaps instructions on how to follow him? But why would he give that information to his friend? Viggo wouldn’t go looking for Bryn and risk expulsion. Bryn would know this. It had to be as innocent as he said it was. Still, I couldn’t help but doubt his true character. What I saw could have been only what he wanted me to see. I hadn’t known him long enough to say with confidence that he was as kind and innocent as he had appeared to be. I couldn’t betray him without real cause, however, not after all he’d done for me.

I cleared my throat. “He said he was planning on leaving but he didn’t tell me how.”

Bode scoffed. “He was trying to protect you. Perhaps he cared for you after all.”

“Why does the director want to see me?”

“Because Viggo would rather die than betray the trust of his friend,” Bode said as if it were obvious. “Brynjar wouldn’t risk giving his brother in arms any useful information for fear of Viggo being harmed for it. You, on the other hand, we aren’t so sure about.”