Academy

Chapter Seven : Woke Up Hurting

‘Daybreak comes with the devil’s hum

A carcass starts to breathe

Wakes one more time to try and find

A place to count its teeth

And scrub the cuts from yesterday’s

Hot scuffle in the street

Show me the door

I need somewhere to go’

Frightened Rabbit, Woke Up Hurting

If Gabby was a slow burn through every defence Raven had layered around herself then Pandora Read - Pan as she liked to be called - was a battering ram. It would be impossible to describe just exactly what the Spirit felt like. Maybe because she was only fifteen and had yet to discover her manifestation - but there was just something other about her.

For example; Rowan was like a pond. Utterly still until a stone dropped in its centre and he became an outward ripple effect of rolling power. Connor was a light breeze that sharpened every now and then, smelling of mint and lemon. Max meanwhile was a tornado, a storm whipping and raging - he smelled like rain and tea leaves - lively and wild.

Gabby, though, was a wildfire, an inescapable, uncontainable heat.

But Pan was other.

Raven couldn't place her finger on the sensation but it made the darkness coiled around her bones writhe and snap almost defensively. For all those barriers Raven was surrounded by Pan was like a white-hot poker tearing through the shadows and exposing her onyx heart.

So Raven kept three steps ahead of them all.

While they walked Max told stories, making sure to include their littlest member in conversation - whether she wanted inclusion or not. But his attention span was short, he was constantly bouncing from one story to another; Professor Whitmore was a hard-ass with no sense of humour - Avery was a sadist for sure and - oh look, that kid was on my first Squad, crazy guy that one I'll introduce you sometime- Spirit is my favourite class, it's always cool to be left to your own devices - by the way I've already claimed one of our dorm room desks, sorry but I've got a lotta stuff - I mean feel free to use it whenever of course, what's mine is yours and whatnot.

Frankly Raven thought he was talking to hear himself talk.

Gabby was softer, waving to old friends and flashing bright smiles at adoring fans while Connor stared after her unabashedly - not that she noticed. She and Connor exchanged holiday stories in excruciating detail and asked questions of both Pan and Rowan that were always met with short, abrupt answers from him and a dialogue of useless babble from her.

For all their attempts to make the first year feel comfortable - Raven couldn't help but notice that Pan was out of place. And maybe the two of them had that in common, for now at least.

A few steps away someone pointed and muttered to their friends. Raven grimaced beneath her hood, shadows curled from her fingertips. She hadn't missed this; the staring, the gawking and the whispering despite the fact that all they saw when they looked at her was her last name. a name that was nothing more to Raven than a target on her back. But to them, to trainees and Guardians and the whole damn country, Elex was a legend.

Well, she supposed, Jaro was an heiress and Read was a legacy. Maybe she'd share the infamy a little this year.

It clearly wasn't a coincidence that Abrahim had thrown them all together. For the life of her though Raven couldn't see why. Gabby was dedicated and thorough, Pan was… well untrained, unprepared, flighty. But it was too tiring, too frustrating for her to wonder about now. She'd given him one last year, against her will, one more year of the training and the staring and the pressure. Next year she'd disappear. Crawl into a cave somewhere on the other side of the world and let them all forget she ever existed.

Raven turned to watch Max playfully nudge Pan. "Lighten up kid," he said in a softer voice than he'd used all night. "It's not as scary as it seems."

Her little heart shaped face was downturned, her moon-white skin blanched as she took in the crowd moving around them.

It must be difficult, to be that small in a sea of soon-to-be warriors. To be the only one amongst them who just didn't know how.

Raven's first year wasn't so daunting, the monks had already taught her enough about her Spirit that she was never the most vulnerable person in a room. But she remembered that feeling, she remembered feeling small and alone.

She turned away again.

Flighty. Untrained. But Abrahim had known all that when he chose Pan for her squad. It was the eyes, those unnaturally bright eyes, whatever they symbolised, whatever they hid, it was all in the eyes.

"Raven," Gabby called, fishing her from her thoughts.

She'd wandered too far from the squad. Max and Connor were leading Pan into a crowd, a fire show performed by Ashbourne graduates.

"You coming?" Gabby asked. She had a sing-song voice that Raven guessed distracted most people from the emotions churning in her fiercely green eyes.

Beside Gabby, Rowan was still staring, his hands shoved in his pockets and his jaw locked shut.

Raven shook her head, animatedly enough that the movement could be seen beneath her hood. "I'm tired," she said lowly, her voice carrying, amplified by the power she floated toward them. "I'm going back to the dorm."

Gabby's gaze narrowed but she smiled that flashy white-toothed smile. "Well, good night," she trilled turning to Rowan, "Oh no mister," she taunted, prying his hand from his pocket. "You missed the first half of the night, I'm afraid you're stuck with us until bedtime."

Raven strode away, lest she be dragged back into the festivities. Without an entourage three steps behind her the staring and whispering dimmed. Without the bombardment on her senses the writhing in her gut eased a little.

Across the country all four of Arcadia's Guardian academies were celebrating the start of the new training year. The largest congregation of Guardians in the country. Raven always viewed the Placement Festival as Arcadia's most vulnerable night of the year. Abrahim argued that one vulnerable night was worth the year of sacrifice and heroism it inspired. She'd seen and heard enough.

But escape was never that easy. She sensed the famed Headmaster before she heard him. "I hope you're not leaving already. The night is young after all."

"Sorry old man," she drawled, slowing to allow him to match her pace. "I've had more than enough revelry for one lifetime."

Abrahim was an ocean of energy with hot and cold currents, with waves and lulls and storms. All of it concealed behind sharp blue eyes and a congenial smile.

"My dear, if you only tried to connect with your teammates, I think you'd rather enjoy their company."

Raven knew they were being watched. Like the grandfather who made her surname legendary, Headmaster Abrahim was a hero of the country. A story told in reverent tones - a living myth.

And Raven had heard it all before. During her reign on top of the leader board last year Raven became accustomed to the claims that it was all thanks to the grand Headmaster.

He was her legal Guardian, had been since she was nine. Theoretically he was the closest thing to a parent she had. And all her classmates, all her teammates and a good majority of her teachers assumed that in itself was a godsend, a gift. In reality Raven raised herself. Abrahim picked her up at the start of each Academy year and dropped back at the temple at the end of the year and thus was the extent of his parenting.

Abrahim fancied himself a mentor. He pulled strings and gave lectures. He toyed with her life, her future, like she was one of his chess pieces.

Raven tolerated his presence. If only because he had the capability and the petulance to make her miserable life more difficult. And because she was scared of what might happen to her when she finally lost his protection.

"What are you playing at?" she asked him after too long a pause. "What's so special about her?"

"Aside from the fact that Pandora is delightful company?" He teased, eyes sparkling.

Raven ground her teeth and glowered at him. They strolled past the guide stand where a few first years were excitedly peppering the staff with questions.

"All in good time my dear," Abrahim purred.

Raven rolled her eyes but managed to breathe a sigh of relief, they'd escaped the Festival lights. "At the moment Pandora is nothing more than a student with great potential."

"Why her though?" Raven pressed, edging back her hood to breathe the night dark air. He followed her along the cobblestone path, keeping a close eye on her - on her every movement, every twitch of a muscle or flicker of shadows. When he did not reply for far too long she snapped, "What?" she demanded, glowering at the footpath.

When he replied he was quiet, tense, "Are you ready to tell me," he asked softly, "What happened at the temple?"

She stiffened, her bones tightened. This was always how he operated, a trading of information. But even Pandora Read's quirky eyes weren't interesting enough to force that confession.

"Raven," He turned into her path, stopping her in her tracks. "I need to know."

For a heartbeat they stared each other down; ancient blue and depthless black eyes. Raven grasped her shadows, her darkness and she drew them in, holding tight to keep it all from lunging at him. And she faced him, bare and proper.

"The temple is gone," she replied blandly. "The monks are dead."

His eyes trailed over the plains of her face, beneath the hood. Her pale olive skin, the dark circles under her eyes, the scar. "It's important," he repeated, "That you tell me exactly what happened."

She tilted her head. It was impossible to gauge his sincerity and more than likely that he was toying with her. Either way, she had no intention of recalling those memories, especially not in the detail he was demanding.

"Good night old man," she murmured stepping around him. "So begins our last year together."

She stalked off and he didn't follow after her. "Maybe," he muttered to the wind.

The Jupiter Squad dorm was on the top floor of the Rosewood building. It comprised of a common room with two sofas in the middle of the room, separated by a coffee table. A window spanned the far wall looking over the forest lining the northeast edge of campus. There were two desks in the common, one in front of that window, currently bare and unclaimed. The other lined the wall beside the door, it ended maybe three feet from Raven's bedroom door and was already littered with Max's computer stuff.

The right of the door was the storage closet for whatever didn't stack neatly in their rooms. Beside that was the bathroom. Then two bedrooms claimed by Connor and Gabby. The other wall had the four other bedrooms. Raven's was the smallest, the one next to the hall.

She closed the door behind her, didn't bother with the light. She sat, on the floor, with her legs crossed in the middle of her tiny bedroom. Darkness and silence, a rare combination at Ashbourne. It soothed her senses. Calmed the cold, heavy monster inside her.

Inhale.

Raven emptied her mind. She wound everything, all the stress and tension, the fear and anger, all of it balled up within her.

Exhale.

Utter emptiness. Empty mind. Empty body. And that vast darkness began to unravel. It bled out of her, into the world, it swallowed her bedroom. And there it sat. Unmoving and indifferent - all that pent up aggression that it had been grumbling with slipped away entirely.

Her stomach slowly sunk. The floor dropped away. She drifted into the air, floating on an onyx shadow of her own creation, the centre of her focus. She was suspended amongst the all consuming darkness which she often thought smelt faintly of black liquorice.

Raven let go. Of everything. The barriers that numbed and shrouded her senses. The fears that churned in her gut. The stress and anxiety. All of it. The release took a weight off her aching bones and worked the cricks out of her muscles. Relax.

Inhale.

Clear mind and body and soul.

Exhale.

It was the primary lesson of the Scorpion Monks. Balance. Each day at the temple began and ended with meditation. Balancing her mind and her spirit, tying them to her body. All to keep herself - her Spirit - in check. Meditation had been her punishment and reward at the temple since she was nine.

Her very first day there the monks sat her down and had her focus on her breathing until her mind was empty and open and the ravenous darkness had settled.

Meditation is what she'd been doing when Abrahim finally picked her up from the wreckage.

In her bedroom the darkness lurched.

The temple was still smouldering when he arrived - three days too late - having broken almost every promise he'd ever made to her.

Three days too late to save the famous monks and their ancient home. Too late to stop the screaming and fight off the-

Her eyes flew open.

"No," She groaned, rubbing her eyes with her palms. As if that would diminish the memory.

She wouldn't go there. That path in her mind was sealed. Even in meditation it was off limits. That path only lead from bad to worse. From one disaster to the next.

The darkness shuddered in response.

Day one of her third year was immeasurably worse than the two previous Ashbourne orientation days she'd attended.

She woke, sweating and choking on shadows, a whole half hour before dawn. She meditated until the first stirrings of her new squad shattered the peace. Then she dressed - her long sleeved white button down shirt was too baggy on her bony shoulders. Her grey plaid skirt too loose at the waist.

Then her cloak, clasped at the nape of her neck with an onyx buckle, made of sturdy black material it hung just below the platform of shadows that she walked on. The hood she kept pulled up to hide her face. She tugged the fabric over her shoulders and wrapped it tightly around herself.

Then she slipped out of the dorm to the campus outside. She ducked her chin beneath her hood to hide from the warm morning sun. The Azalea building, the kitchens and the dining hall, was a short walk from Rosewood and the other dormitories. And it was almost empty so early in the morning, meaning her usual table was free. It was a special table, it had nothing over any other table - except, perhaps, its proximity to the buffet. But she had sat right here, around this time of morning, on her very first day at the Academy. As a creature of habit, it became the table she'd returned to for every meal since.

She read Baldor Hackett's 'Migration of Malnova' while eating her cereal and sipping herbal tea. Students began rolling in, their voices bouncing around the cafeteria, hitting her like rocks of hail, hammering into and bouncing off the shadows wrapped loosely around her. Sharp and hard, pinging at her ears. She breathed deeply and stared hard at the words on the pages in front of her.

A test, she reminded herself. This was all one big test of her self-control. Balance. Shut down her senses, become numb. The only lesson this school was capable of teaching her.

A heavy body sat across from her, the bench creaked beneath him. Raven didn't look up from her book. She didn't have to look up to know it was Connor, panting and sweating. His breakfast tray stacked with eggs and toast and bacon.

"Morning," he announced in a deep baritone, perhaps worried that her lack of response meant she hadn't noticed his arrival. A guy of his size was kind of hard to miss. "You're up early," he remarked before taking a sizeable bite of his eggs. "Are you normally up this early or is it first day jitters?" he pressed on despite her decided silence and intense focus on her book.

Raven turned the page and slowly sipped her tea. "I like to rise early," she replied quietly, "While the campus is still calm."

Connor grunted through a mouthful of food. "yeah, I get it, I like to start my day with a run."

Raven murmured wordlessly - a half-hearted response - and shoved her bowl of cereal away from her.

"I mean," Connor went on, "Now I gotta eat quickly so I can shower and change before first period." he shrugged his massive shoulders, gulping down half a cup of juice in one go.

"Of course," Raven drawled, turning her page again.

Connor ceased his attempts at conversation and Raven delved back into her book, tucking the shadows in tight so he wouldn't find them threatening.

She had no measure of how long they sat in silence, him eating inordinate amounts of food, her ensconced in a book. She was so at peace, in a shroud of darkness, that she did not notice Rowan's arrival. Normally she would have felt the presence of another Spirit so close, but Rowan's was so controlled, so contained, that not a whiff of it pressed up against her buffers.

She did, however, note Gabby's arrival. Like stepping out of an air-conditioned building to desert summer heat.

Raven slammed her book shut, downed the last dregs of tea and strode away ignoring Gabby's greetings.

Every year the same routine.

Last year she had a winning team. A team full of sixth years with the best results and highest grades. She'd been the Pandora Read of that squad - the inexperienced kid - or, at least, everyone had thought so. It didn't matter, not to her, the first day it had been all about polite introductions and kind smiles and in a few weeks none of it was real any more. It was a game, a competition, one that would determine the future of each and every student here - something she had no interest in participating in.

She had no intention of getting to know any of them - teammates or no she didn't need their presence or their help or support or whatever Abrahim claimed that they offered her. She just had to get through one more year, one more squad.

So she set off for Orientation. Day one would be spent with Professor Avery who oversaw Jupiter squad, along with nine other squads. She was known as their Tutor, she was their disciplinarian, their counsellor, whenever they needed anything they went to Professor Lian Avery.

Avery was a tall, thin woman with beady eyes and a grave face. Raven met her years ago, the first time she came to this Academy when it was empty for the holidays. It was after her aunt was… after her aunt's death when Abrahim had to take her in, he'd had work to do here and he'd brought Raven with him. She'd hardly strung two words together until she met the dour teacher.

When Raven had met Lian Avery she was a frightened, weak child with no talent, no control and no discipline. And Professor Avery had little tolerance. She'd made Raven brush her hair and clean her face and put on fresh clothing - something Abrahim hadn't bother with in the days since acquiring her.

It was hard, to take her teacher seriously when she remembered that teacher scolding her Headmaster for her appearance. It was hard to take any of it seriously having grown up here. Hard to strive for this.

So she didn't bother.

"Welcome, old students and new," Avery called over all their heads. They had gathered in Avery's classroom, the large dome sparring room in the heruieh training building. "To another year at Ashbourne Academy. You are all aware that this is a prestigious school, it is an honour to attend Ashbourne, to study under Headmaster Abrahim who was himself a member of Holland Ashbourne's Phoenix squad in the Rebellion that founded our country. I trust that you will all take this year very, very seriously as such, and I hope to have as few issues with my Squads as possible."

Raven could have sworn that, sitting at the desk behind her, Gabby was scoffing at their Tutor. There was so much more to the beauty queen and northern heiress than people saw, Raven wondered just how long they had before Gabriella Jaro snapped entirely. And she would, Raven knew, because people who sneered and smirked and tolerated their situation always broke down at some point. Even at the temple Raven had seen monks who couldn't handle the pressure, had seen them break. It happened everywhere. Most often, it happened to Guardians.

Raven blinked back to her teacher. Avery stood in the sparring pit, a circular floor dropped below the colosseum style pews of desks. The domed ceiling was made of tinted glass so the entire room was bathed in a soft morning sunlight. The room, being circular, was designed so that Avery was constantly turning, constantly moving, to ensure she looked at each of the sixty students packed into the room.

It didn't matter that'd she'd missed some of the speech, it was the much the same as last year's anyway. "Your Squad is your new family," she announced to them all, "And there will be no swapping, no exchanging, you are where the Placement board deems you belong. And there you will stay. You may hear of exceptions being made by other Tutors for other students - I am not one of those Tutors. There are no exceptions to Placement. So try to get along with your teammates - be friendly, be considerate, you will be learning, living and competing with them all year long whether you like it or not. If you are having issues within your Squad feel free to address them with me - it is my job to make this year go as smoothly for you as possible. But your experience this year will depend upon you. Your dedication to this program, to your Squad and your studies."

Beside her a sixth year murmured something to her teammate that had him stifling laughter behind his hand. On her left Max Marcomb was carving his initials into the desk with a pen. But, Raven almost smiled at the tiny, bouncing kid in front of her. Pan, with her foot tapping and knee bouncing, was following the Professor with a focus that was unbreakable.

At least someone on Jupiter Squad was excited to be here.