Becca Fox - Asta and the Barbarians

Viggo snatched it so fast my fingers tingled. He tore the envelope apart, unfolded the paper, and read. I should have left him alone with his friend’s message but I couldn’t make myself go. I watched his face as he drank in the words. He chewed on the inside of his cheek when he neared the end.

“What does it say?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“He wants us to meet him at his mother’s old herbal store after graduation,” Viggo said. “He says this isn’t goodbye forever, only goodbye for now. He’s convinced the three of us will be able to live and work together again someday. But until then, he… he wants us to look out for each other.” Viggo stared at the words, his grip on the page tightening. Then he took a deep, shuddering breath and refolded the letter. Shoved it back into its envelope. He lowered his gaze, frowning.

It was a good thing I didn’t expect a thank you because he didn’t give me one. He walked away from me with his head bowed, shoving the envelope into the front of his jerkin.

“Asta?”

I lowered the cold slab of meat from my eye and looked up from my lunch to see a group of young men standing at my table. Rainer, Frode, and Brandt were among them. The other three I recognized from my Battle Strategy and Weaponry classes. They cast nervous glances around the Feasting Hall.

Rainer flashed me a smile. “Can we join you?”

I could feel Viggo glaring at the back of my head. I looked over my shoulder at his table. Asger and the other two were trying to engage Viggo in conversation and were failing. He hadn’t spoken to me since that morning. I assumed he still blamed me for Bryn’s departure.

I tore my eyes away from his fiery gaze and smiled at Rainer. “Of course.”

My guards refused to give up their positions on either side of me so the men sat across from me and dug into their fish.

“How did that happen?” Frode asked, nodding at my swollen eye. He had a concerned crease on his brow that caught me off guard.

I pressed the meat against my face, embarrassed. “It was an accident.”

Brandt smirked. “And here I was prepared for a heroic story.”

The others whose names I didn’t know chuckled and nodded as if they had expected the same.

“I’m afraid the tales our peers have spread about me are incorrect.”

“Only slightly,” Rainer said around a mouthful of rice. “I told my friends of our victory in Battle Strategy last night and heard the retelling of it at breakfast. It wasn’t very far from the truth.”

I rolled my eyes. “Good to know.”

“Come now,” Brandt said. “Tell us how you marred your face. It was perfectly fine when we grappled this morning.”

Just yesterday Brandt was determined to be a mute. I wondered what had changed as I explained what had happened during Breaking and Entering class. “Our instructor set up wooden walls of different heights around the room in sort of a maze pattern. All the lights were turned off except for four search lights. We were instructed to sneak from wall to wall and reach the other side of the maze without being caught by the lights. Bags of paint would be catapulted to us if we were.”

The young men snickered and shared knowing glances, as if they too had been forced to do this exercise in the past.

“I hunched down behind a wall when a search light swung my way, not realizing that another man was already crouched there. There was only room for one person behind that wall so we grappled for it. I received an elbow to the face. He received a mouthful of paint.”

The young men laughed.

“Don’t lock horns with Asta unless you want to lose,” one said good-naturedly. As if he had known me all his life.

“I’m sorry to hear about your friend,” Frode said. “I didn’t know Brynjar but, if he was brave enough to befriend you before the rest of us, he must have been a good man.”

The others nodded, suddenly solemn.

I blinked in surprise. “Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.”

“Do you know how he escaped?” asked a man with brown hair and a dimpled chin. “There are rumors that he poisoned the security guards.”

I shook my head. “Bryn would never harm anyone.”

“They say he broke into the safe and destroyed his file,” a man with a shaved head said. “How could he have done that?”

“I…”

They waited for my response, leaning forward eagerly, as if hungry for the facts. Ready to spread the word. Understanding made the food in my mouth taste sour. These men weren’t here to socialize with the female protégé. They just wanted a new story to gossip about.

I swallowed my rice and addressed my plate. “I don’t want to talk about Bryn anymore.”

“But no one in the history of this academy has been able to escape,” the young man with the dimpled chin said. “If you know the details—”

I glared at him. “I know as much as you do.”

A warning glance from Rainer persuaded the dimpled chin man to drop the matter. He averted his glum gaze and lowered his voice. “I’m sorry if I upset you. I was only curious.”

I rose from my seat, taking my plate with me. “Excuse me. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.” I walked away, despite their protests and apologies.

I was rubbing Bryn’s pungent muscle relaxant into my legs later that evening when I heard Viggo stomping down the hall toward my room. I knew it was Viggo because men greeted him as he passed and he grunted in reply. He stopped before my door and waited. I watched the shadows his feet made through the gap under the door, wondering why he was here and what he wanted. My guard asked him the same thing.

“What does it look like?” Viggo snapped, silencing any further questions. Then he stood there and waited.

I finished rubbing the ointment into my feet, and had pulled on my lounging trousers before he finally sighed. “Are you all right, Asta?”

“I’m fine. Why do you ask?” I muttered, knowing he could hear me.

“Because you didn’t come to dinner and Bryn would be concerned.”

“So?” I demanded, scowling at the door.

He spoke as if through gritted teeth. “So I’m honoring my friend’s wishes by taking an interest in your well-being.”

I rolled my eyes. “How noble.”

“Were those men bothering you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” I capped the jar of ointment and stored it in my chest of drawers.

“Those men who came to you at lunch like flies to a carcass,” Viggo said impatiently. “Were they hassling you?”

“And what would you do if they were? Threaten to break their bones? Make them swear to never come near me again? I can take care of myself, Viggo.”

“Yes, I can see that. Your fleeing-from-confrontation strategy scared them enough to make them stay away for good.”

I leapt to the door and yanked it open. “I wasn’t—”

Viggo’s brown hair was still wet from showering. The three buttons of his white shirt were undone, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He carried a tray of food in his strong hands. His trousers were rolled up to his knees, exposing hairy and muscular calves. His feet were bare.

“Fleeing.” I looked away and hoped he couldn’t hear my heart fluttering. Of course, I had to realize he was handsome at the precise moment I was trying to be angry and indignant.

He smirked. “What? Have you never seen a man’s forearms?”

I took the tray of food and retreated to my desk with a huff.

Viggo took a deep breath. “Is that Bryn’s muscle relaxant I smell?”

“Yes, he gave me a jar.”

“Oh, is that all?” he said with a chuckle. “You should see my chest of drawers. He stocked it with every one of his concoctions just last week.”

I turned away from my desk to see his smile slowly fading. As if he were only now realizing why Bryn had so dutifully supplied him with medicine.