3

ARIENNE

To be a first-year student studying at the Division of Sorcery in the Imperial Academy was to live in fear. The Academy had so many rules it was impossible to remember them all, and you could be punished for any infraction, real or imagined. And not only by the housemaster; the upperclassmen acted as enforcers too. A majority of your first year was spent cowering, terrified of leaving your dorm room except for classes and meals.

But eventually, as you numbed to the terrifying reality of your everyday, it would slowly become clear that this was all bluster. The Academy’s harsh reputation was just that: reputation. By the start of your second year, you would realize that you could stay out all day and night, you could partake of anything and everything the Capital had to offer; as long as you were back by morning, there would be no consequences. In everyday life, it would be not so different from the mundane divisions of the Academy where non-sorcerers studied.

Still, the inkling of fear you felt at the start would never quite leave you; it helped you remember that being here was not a choice, and that there were some rules that must not be broken no matter what year you were, or even if you were a professor: You must not try to escape. You must not enter the underground chamber where the Power generator resided.

In her sixth year at the Division of Sorcery at the Eleventh College of the Imperial Academy, Arienne found herself about to break both rules at the same time.

Late in the afternoon, Arienne put her boyfriend, Felix, under a sleeping spell in his room. Making sure nobody was in the hallway, she slipped out of the dormitory through a back window, unnoticed. As far as anyone knew, she was still in that room with him. Arienne felt a slight pang of guilt—confusion and chaos awaited him when he woke up. Maybe he would even be dragged away to the Office of Truth. If she hadn’t already been dragged there before him.

The sleeping spell wasn’t anything her professors had taught her. The Academy never taught them spell —such were un-Imperial relics of the past. She had learned it from Kaya, a Bachrian girl one year senior who liked to show off the beautifully crafted scars on her shoulders. Kaya had told everyone that she had learned a smattering of hedge magic from an old grimoire she discovered in the library and subsequently lost, but she later confessed to Arienne that her teacher had been a rogue witch hiding from the Empire, back in her southern home province.

Unlike Kaya, Arienne had not known any spells at all when she took the mandatory admission test at the age of ten. Among the half dozen Arlander children suspected of magic, only she was ordered to the Imperial Capital that year. It was the duty of all sorcerers to enroll in the Imperial Academy. In the fringes of the Empire, where the Office of Truth was unable to administer regular testing, undetected magical children grew up to be feral sorcerers, or so the rumors said. But since Arland was a small province firmly under Imperial rule, she had always known such a life would never be hers, ever since the moment she felt the first violet thrum of magic in her. But still.

Her parents were compensated generously for handing Ari- enne over without complaint. The villagers put on a grand party for her, as if she were going to the Capital to get a fancy job. There was a cake shaped like an old woman sorcerer wearing a conical hat and a long robe with star patterns, striking a dramatic pose. The baker was repeatedly stroking his bald head, looking pleased with his work. After that day, Arienne never spoke to her parents again.

She had already known what kind of life was waiting at the Imperial Academy, and hated her sorcerer’s fate for it. If she had ever tried to escape, she would have been hunted down and killed. Even that would have been no escape from what the Empire had planned for her, for all sorcerers. But things had changed recently. She now had a chance at a different fate, something undreamed of till now.

Arienne crossed the courtyard, the hood of her robe pulled low to avoid recognition, and entered the library in the main build- ing. She waited there like a mouse for hours, crouched between the dusty corner shelves no one visited. When the librarian finished reshelving and finally went home close to midnight, Arienne crept out of the library to the other side of the building where the entrance to the basement was. No one stood guard; no one needed to stand guard with the eye insignia of the Office of Truth hanging above the iron door, dissuading her from what she was determined to do.

The Office of Truth oversaw sorcerers, along with all things magical. Most Imperial heartlanders thought of them as the sorcerer-engineers who manufactured and operated Power gener- ators. For provincials, they were the inquisitors who would take you away at night if you were found practicing the old faiths. But to all sorcerers, they were the lords and jailers, in life and in death, never to be defied. Arienne knew enough horror stories involving hapless sorcerers and macabre inquisitors to bite her thumbnail in hesitation.

Her heart calmed a little bit at the sight of rust covering the door—and a corner of the Office insignia. Nobody, inquisitor or not, seemed to have been through this door in years. She sighed as she felt inside her sleeve pocket for the key stolen for this occasion.

Arienne had flunked the previous three years at the Academy. She couldn’t focus herself on whatever it was the Empire desired of her. Even before coming here, she had known they wouldn’t be teaching her spells. But she hadn’t expected the sorcery curriculum to consist mainly of weird calisthenics and brainteasers. The Academy wanted her, first and foremost, to keep her body and mind primed for her eventual transformation into a Power generator— the fate of all sorcerers in the Empire upon their deaths. There were also classes on the theory and practice of Power generators, which were not nearly as emphasized unless you wanted to be a sorcerer- engineer. Other subjects, like history, literature, and music, were offered as well, and were taught with the same depth as in other, mundane divisions of the Academy, but such subjects were “academics,” which in the Division of Sorcery was code for “things that don’t matter.” Her third flunking report card had a red note attached saying that she would make a Class Eight generator at best, and such a poor result guaranteed only minimum pension. Nobody cared about her academics scores, which were quite high.

Had this been any other division of the Imperial Academy, her family would have been asked for a large donation, or she would have been expelled. But this was a school for sorcerers, and they were determined to keep her until she died.

Arienne stood before the iron door in the middle of the main hall. The passage leading deep down to the Power generator chamber was said to be rigged with wards and traps. There were rumors of Powered weapons guarding the passage, and the tales first-year students would hear between classes were even more sensational, involving monsters and spirits the Empire had captured in its myriad conquests. Arienne imagined herself hanging by her fingertips over a dark wailing pit lined with hungry bestial eyes, a companion trying to get her to reach out and grab their hand. But as she stood there, about to break one of the deadliest rules of the Imperial Academy, she had no such companion with her. This gave her pause.

Well, she did have an accomplice. Of sorts. The voice that had suggested all this to her. But it had been silent ever since she left Felix in his room.

Arienne slathered both the lock and the key with olive oil from a bottle so slick that half of its label had peeled off. She applied a generous amount to the hinges and the doorframe as well. She tucked the bottle back into her inner pocket and wiped her hands on her student’s robe. She smelled spoiled oil and the tang of rust as the key turned in the lock with a muted clang. Oil dripped to the stone floor as she pushed the door open, and every drop seemed to echo in the deep, deep silence. She stared into the unlit stairway that led to the generator chamber, afraid of taking the step that would make everything irrevocable.

Every student in this school knew what fate awaited them. The Power generators that sustained the whole Empire were made from the bodies of dead sorcerers. These generators lit up the cities at night, drew up water from the rivers, and enabled the Empire’s weapons to wreak havoc upon the world. In a world conquered by the Empire, sorcerers were no longer astonishing beings that shook the heavens with mysterious spells. They were now more useful dead than alive. And the students at the Imperial Academy’s Division of Sorcery were nothing more than living corpses herded together to await their deaths.

Most students numbed to their eventual fate after their third year or so. What the Empire chose to do with their corpses happened after they were dead, after all. Most would be content to live out their lives, as the sorcerer on the lowest pension rank still fared better than the average Imperial citizen.

The day after she had flunked her fifth year, Magnus, an hon- ors student with the most beautiful hair, had offered to tutor her, either out of pity or an inborn friendliness so common to scions of prominent families. Arienne had asked the prodigy sorcerer what spells he could teach her. Naming a handful of minor convenience spells he had learned from his classmates, Magnus looked puzzled as to why he was being asked such things. He reminded her that their formal education was about preparing them for their service after death, and sorting out the students who would serve the Empire in life as sorcerer-engineers or professors, the former of which he aspired to be. He was going to travel the world as an attendant engineer to the best of all the hundred legions. He looked proud when he said it was his birthright and destiny. Arienne refused Magnus’s offer with a polite smile. Magnus, taken aback, made an awkward compliment about the tattoos surrounding her neck. She didn’t explain to him that they were t’laran, clan markings all Arlanders had. After that conversation, she altogether avoided talking about the school, sorcery, or her future.