The Thorn Path
Part 5 The Fall of Westred Episode 33 Invaded
The next day, as I arrived for my first class Magic from the High Renaissance, the teacher called me over. Standing beside her was a large man in a Legion uniform of gray and gold, with the Legion’s black triangle on his hat. He turned to me gruffly. “Lucianna Arthur-Dalca? You will come with me.”
I froze up, unable to answer with even a ‘yes sir’. Not that it mattered, because he grabbed me by the arm and hauled me off. It happened right in front of everyone. Several Tower students called out, but I shrugged. I didn’t know what was going on.
There were Legion troops everywhere on campus. How did I miss this? Was I half asleep? Of course, I usually took back routes to avoid people, ducking into buildings and downstairs to the connecting tunnels. But now there were checkpoints. Men and women in the Legion uniforms of black-gold and white-gold and other shades of tan and darker browns. Triangles on hats and chest plates. Guards at the doors checked IDs. Knights in full armor marching along, intimidating and noisy, compared to all students in their crisp white or sturdy black. The seas were contaminated, you could say.
This time of year, everyone should be getting ready for Finals. Scrambling to finish their papers and make-up tests and not dealing with an army. Thanksgiving was around the corner and that meant a short holiday before the big tests. I didn’t expect Grandmother to call me home, even if she did I wouldn’t go.
The decorations from All Hallow’s Eve were still out and looking ragged. Pumpkins sagging and strange shadows that hung on the walls. I swear I saw puppets in the bushes, and tiny little dolls, but when I looked closer they disappeared.
My escort took me to Main Hall, which the Legion had invaded and turned into their headquarters. A row of guards saluted the man dragging me in. What was this? My heartbeat raced. I felt like dragging in my heels and demanding some answers. I was a Westred student. Not Legion, a Hunter through and through, like Tavven or my dad, and a thorn student in my heart, if not yet on paperwork.
What did they want with me? What were they doing here?
Conducting interviews, I guess. I saw other students taken out of class and sitting at desks. We marched into the building, and passed the Admissions and Student Records office, where Miss Fairweather was overwhelmed by two huge Legion men. Her blond hair was all loose and poking out like a hedgehog. “These are private records! You can’t just barge in here and demand to see student records!” Her hands flailed as she tried to prevent them from getting in her space.
I was dragged further into the wing where teachers had offices, like Mr. Floros, whose door was tightly shut. Another teacher was being bundled out of his office. “You can’t do this! My rights!”. We passed a door where I saw a familiar blue head. Azure? The office doors all had glass windows, and she noticed me too. She rushed forward to bang on the window. I could just barely hear her voice as she shouted, “Don’t tell the bastards anything! Damn Legionnaires. Damn you all to hell!”
I winced. The man ignored her.
What would they want with Azure?
Did they find out about her investigation of the nihil attacks? Did they want to know how I was involved? A coincidence? I’d saved Fay Persimmons, but… did that count when both Lief and Tavven were gone? What if they found out I’d lost time? I couldn’t remember what I did the other day at that party… it would sound bad.
I gulped and clenched my hands to my side.
The man dropped me off in a room and stood guard outside. There I waited, feeling hopeless and hungry. I’d skipped breakfast. I needed a granola bar. I had to start carrying them again.
The office had shelves with math books and papers, books about coding and calculus. The desk had a complex spell inscribed to make the surface writable. I saw equations and symbols scribbled on it. I wondered how they saved them. Write them down again? Did the spell have some kind of copy and transfer? I needed a desk like this.
I squinted at the spell layers, hoping to gleam something and distract myself from whatever mess I’d gotten into. I found the first string of the spell when the door burst open. Azure came running inside and slammed it shut.
“What are you doing?”
She glared at me. “Shut up! No time for that. I broke out of my room to come talk to you.”
“Why would you?”
“This is life or death. The Legion can’t be trusted. Don’t tell them what you learned about the synthetics. The nihils. Keep it a secret.”
“I’m not going to lie to them.”
“They’ll frame you if they can. They’ve taken over the school in order to ‘protect Westred’ and their position in the Borderlands. But making everything worse. Lockdowns? Students under arrest? Are they trying to ruin everything or find the one responsible? This will just make the masterminds go underground even deeper. It won’t expose them. Damn Legion. Don’t tell them anything. Not about matchsticks! Don’t think about them either. Mind tricks! Don’t let them get you!” Azure warned, her eyes deadly serious. “They already tried to go after Mr. Dalca. Scum.”
“My dad? Wait — what?”
“Didn’t you hear? He’s been—”
The door snapped open again. This time two Legion guards stood in the door. One held a bandage to his head and pointed at Azure.
She pointed back at him. “You won’t take me. I demand a lawyer. You’re denying me my rights.”
The guards came inside and grabbed her.
Azure shoved them off and stormed from the room. “Remember what I said, Dalca. Give ’em hell. See if I don’t. You can’t get anything out of me. Not even by torture!”
The guards gave me a look of apology as they closed the door. I had a feeling that Azure was blowing things way out of proportion here. But then again… I felt cold now, like both of my arms had been numbed by that dodge-um magic from yesterday.
Dad? What had happened to him?
By the time my door opened again, I felt so sick I could barely stand up. I tried, and he waved me back into the chair. He was tall, not a bulky military man, but had broad shoulders. I felt like I knew him, or I’d seen him before. Was he famous? I’d never met anyone from the Legion, though.
His hair was silver, parted severely on the left, and his eyes eagle-sharp. His uniform was pressed crisp with sharp edges, and had the Westred crest, as well as the Legion triangle on his front chest. His gold coat had white trim, which marked him as a Tower trained Legion. He wore an arm guard over his left arm, with a silvery magic script wrapped around it — shielding magic. His hands were smooth and the fingernails meticulously groomed.
“My apologies, Miss Arthur, for keeping you waiting so long.” He set down a tray with a cup of coffee and a large blueberry muffin, the berries ready to burst out of it. My stomach tightened. I was hungry, sure, but this felt like a bribe. And that made me lose my appetite. I picked up the coffee cup to warm my hands.
“My name is Wolfe Stroud. I’m a lieutenant in the Legion’s fourth division. I am not here about Lief. I hold no grudge. I know you only started at Westred a few weeks before his accident. You were not familiar with the Thornwood and he should have taken precautions. He knew the dangers there, the unexpected and the risk. As your senior… well, he knew the dangers. You’re a sophomore, I see from your records. And done well in your classes, which is very impressive. Considering what you’ve been through. The well-being of Westred students is one of our top priorities. Please, have the blueberry muffin. You need to keep up your strength.”
I couldn’t refuse the muffin now. He was related to Lief’s family. What was I supposed to say? I’m sorry for your loss. That hardly covered it, but Grandmother would expect me to say something. I opened my mouth, but didn’t get a chance to speak.
The Lieutenant continued, “I will do everything in my power to protect your school life here at Westred, as I couldn’t protect Lief’s. His situation notwithstanding, there is a crisis on campus. That is why we came here. I’m certain of it. We will need your cooperation, Miss Arthur. First, a few questions. Do you know where your father is?”
I felt a gob of blueberry muffin catch in my throat. “My dad? What about him?”
“We’re looking for him. Nothing to worry about, Miss Arthur. Just some routine questions. Unfortunately, his current whereabouts are unknown. Nothing for you to be alarmed at. Do you know where he is?”
I shook my head.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
My mind went completely blank. How long? “I guess a few days ago, he came to my dorm room — no, I was in the hospital.” He arrived with a suitcase, telling me we needed to leave now. I swallowed that part. I didn’t want to tell Lieutenant Wolfe. I could still feel muffin sticking in my throat.
“Can you recall his behavior at the time?”
Paranoid. A little distressed. Nervous. On a razor’s edge. None of that sounded very good. “He was upset about the attacks.”
“Hmmm. I see. It’s true you’ve had several encounters, after only being at Westred for a month and a half?”
I swallowed.
Wolfe Stroud watched me with his eagle-sharp eyes, although I was beginning to think of them more like a wolf now, a piercing gray blue. Why did they want to question my dad? What did it mean that they couldn’t find him? “What’s this about? Why do you need to talk to my dad?”
“Nothing for you to be alarmed about. Routine questions, that’s all. We need to verify some information. Perhaps you can tell me about the attacks. The more recent one involved a member of the Luukal family.”
We spent the next hour going over the events. He would ask the questions and I’d answer them. I let him do most of the talking, and my answers got shorter and shorter. Both attacks occurred at night, after most of the students were back in the dorms, and there were guards on the walls. “Did you have any contact with your father that day?” He asked that question twice. Both times I had to answer: I don’t remember. Another question about Dad came out of nowhere. “Now, your father taught you everything you know about nithgast and hunting them. You handled both these unusual strains like an expert, Miss Arthur, very impressive. Did your father train you against something like these nihils? Have you fought similar creatures? Did he teach you about them before or after you enrolled?”
Almost everything I knew about nithgast I’d learned from my dad, and my grandmother, and only lately from Westred. I didn’t know much about the synthetic nihils, not beyond the fact they’re man-made. Now would have been a good time to mention the matchsticks I found, but Azure’s warning rang in my head. What did Lieutenant Wolfe suspect my dad of? Creating demons? Absurd. He was the most fanatical nithgast hunter I knew, and the best. Everyone in Westred knew that too. It was better to say nothing.
Lieutenant Wolfe wrapped up his questions. “Did you need anything else? Another muffin?
“No, thank you.”
“Any questions for me?”
I had a million, but I’d already talked too much.
“Then, if you don’t need anything else from me—” Lieutenant Wolfe stood by the desk when it sounded like someone slammed their head or a ten-pound hammer at the wall. The picture frames and awards on it clattered and most fell and shattered on the floor. The impact actually put a good sized dent. Wood splintered outward. Azure. Oh god, now what?
“Remain here,” Lieutenant Wolfe said, heading out.
No way. I was two steps behind him.
to be continued…
The Thorn Path
Lucianna is a goody-goody who wants to attend Westred Academy, an elite school in the Thornwood. She’s a girl who lives with a monster inside. A Jekyll and Hyde kind of story, of living with demons and demon hunting. (They’re called Nithgast!) It’s about control. Not having it. Losing control. And what it takes to regain it. Do you remember how you got to Westred? Nope. Neither do I. And you can’t survive without me.
Read the entire adventure on Vella. The Thorn Path by Ava Clary. First 3 episodes are free! Search on your Kindle app, or here’s a link to the website where you can read new episodes weekly.
