The Lightning Knight

A LAST FIRST DAY

A LAST FIRST DAY

The sun had not yet risen, but the faint dusk light from the planet above provided just enough light to guide a path. This path would take me from the edge of the Narrows and the outer wall, through the alleyways and compact streets that lined the shantytown, and even past Roc’s home. At this hour he would most surely be asleep.

Sweat dripped off the small hairs on my chin as I raced around corners, over obstacles, and past the inner wall of Starfall City. Ever since our return home, I had been unable to sleep. Restless nights gave way to running as a means to physically exhaust myself. Some nights it worked, but others not so much. It was as if some energy I had never felt before was coursing through my body, depriving me of normal weariness.

Or maybe I was running away from something. I didn’t quite know. Ever since Mercyhold, I couldn’t quiet the thoughts in my head, of magic or of this mysterious Po. I hadn’t even been able to muster the courage to see Iris, though I’d had plenty of opportunities. Instead I hid in the shadows, away from her and away from the world. However, today I could no longer hide. The Institute beckoned me.

I finished my run and arrived back home at the top of Nobleman’s Hill. The easternmost edge of the city sat upon a hill and cliff overlooking Starfire Bay. The most powerful and affluent families lived there, and my home was at the very top, both literally and metaphorically. Being one of the oldest and wealthiest families in all of the South meant that in a kingdom with no king, as was the South, we were the only family with an actual castle.

As I began to ready myself for the day, I could hear the city below come to life. The sun broke the horizon and faint sounds of birds and sailors danced along the sea breeze. I enthusiastically put on my uniform, a Southern-style outfit, and stared at my reflection in the mirror. The ease I felt in the sword ring translated to other fields of battle. A formal dinner or a meeting with the City Council or even the Institute. Each of these was a different arena, each with a different purpose, and each with a different suit of armor. If they could see only a Quartermaine, they might not see who I really was underneath: a kid with no idea what he was supposed to be. If I could just survive this final year at the Institute, maybe I would find a purpose.

The Institute at Starfall was attended by high and low noble families from not only the South but also the rest of the country. Noble families from kingdoms as far as the Northern Tribes or as far west as Kandaheart would send their children every year for instruction and education. Well, all kingdoms except for Romir, because that kingdom was the worst. The Institute was the premiere educational organization in all the world, and no private tutor, maester, or other teacher would ever compare. Some royals through the years had even attended, though for the most part they stayed in their own kingdoms, with their own instructors.

The Institute worked simply enough. If you were wealthy or lucky enough to be sponsored, you would attend five years of curricular instruction on a variety of subjects. After five years, you were expected to do something with that knowledge and the connections you made along the way. For many, it meant continuing their family’s fortune well into the future, instead of squandering it. For others, it meant making a mark on the world in their own way. For quite a few, it was just another box to check off on their list. Uneducated nobles weren’t noble for very long. But for me, it meant I finally had to decide what it was I wanted to do with my life.

Theoretically, I could do nothing and be one of those “checklist” nobles. My family’s wealth would last a hundred generations, as it had a hundred before. I could live my life competing in tournaments, attending parties, being a royal in all but name and responsibility. But even as I contemplated a life of decadence and debauchery, I shook my head. I was a Quartermaine, and that meant certain expectations were set for me. I was expected to do something great, be someone great, just as everyone else in my family had been.

My father, the famed inventor, as his father was before him. My uncles and aunts, all of whom either held attendance in royal courts or were famous for any other variety of reasons.

But I didn’t know if I could be great. I just wanted to be Oliver.

I made my way downstairs, walking fast. The paintings passed and I stared at a slightly askew portrait in the hall. It was an answer to a question I had posed during the night. My father may have been known for his metalwork and his inventions, but few knew of his more obsessive eccentricities. A slightly crooked painting was my trap for him, knowing he could never let it remain so. I sighed. He had not come home once again.

Dejected, I picked up a weekly news periodical that was funded by my family and entered the kitchens. The chef was hard at work, his culinary artistry unnoticed by my sister, Reagan, who perched on his prep table. Legs swinging playfully, she swiped a biscuit and tossed it with a smile.

I caught the soft bread. “He’s still at the Forge?” I knew the answer, but I asked anyway. Maybe one of these times I would be wrong.

But I was never wrong.

She beamed. “Still working on a project, I believe. You know how he gets. One moment he’s here, the next he’s not around for weeks. Then comes some life-altering invention that changes the world.” I never quite understood how Reagan could be so understanding of his absenteeism, but then again, I never quite understood Reagan. I could go with one fewer invention if it meant more time with my father.

I looked like my father, whereas Reagan looked like a fifteen-year-old version of our mother, and the sight of her would sometimes remind me of what I had lost. It wasn’t Reagan’s fault. She was beautiful, with sharp features and a sharper tongue. She wasn’t quite a woman, but neither was she a child, and the thought of all the boys I’d have to beat up who came calling for her hand lifted my spirits. It’s what brothers were for, after all.

“We received a letter late last night with the Imperial Seal. It was about—”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” I snapped, a quick simmer of unbridled anger and resentment bursting out. Seeing her expression, I apologized immediately. “I’m sorry, I just don’t want to talk about him.”

Reagan hopped off the table and picked up her pack, gesturing toward the door. “It’s been over four years, Ollie. He’s still our brother.” She was right, of course, but my emotions never allowed for rational thinking when it came to him. The coming spring would mark five years since my brother left Starfall. Five years since he split up our family. Five years since I said his name aloud.

Reagan and I left the house, letting the morning sounds of our city guide us toward her heart. A cascade of feelings rose alongside the sun, clouding my thoughts with bitter emotion. For a shred of a moment, I imagined myself in a different life, a different family. My father would be here, on my last first day at the Institute. He would have visited me this summer, bearing witness to my victories or at least feigned interest at a bland recount of my adventures. My mother would still be alive, wishing me the very best while also making sure I pushed myself as hard as I could. My brother would be working at the Forge instead of fighting whatever war the High Queen was waging currently.

I tried to take my mind off my family, instead focusing on a story I had read in the Starfall City Journal. “So what’s this about a ‘Knight Angel’?”

Dang, that was a great name.

“A vigilante of some sort,” Reagan answered gleefully. “The City Watch is none too happy about it.”

“I wonder who he is?” My eyes darted to the side, trying to discern Reagan’s body language. She always had her pulse on the mysteries about our city, but how she did it, I had no idea.

“Who said it was a he?” she replied, before changing the subject. “So,” she said, skipping backward beside me, “have you seen her yet?”

“Seen who?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe...” She imitated an exaggerated and passionate kiss, taking many liberties in the pantomime.

“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,” I lied, choking back laughter while conceding a small smile.

“I thought that might cheer you up,” she retorted, but her voice abruptly dropped. “Ollie...”

“Yes?” I replied as we approached Merchant’s Square. Reagan became uncharacteristically quiet.

She hesitated, looking out at the buildings surrounding us. “It’s been a long summer.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure it’s been as long as all the other ones.”

Reagan scowled. “No, you don’t understand, just listen. I mean, you’ve been gone for months and… and we aren’t kids anymore and I don’t think you’ve noticed how different everything is. How different everyone is. People change.”

“People like you?” I shot back. She did seem different. More mature, and less of the kid I had left behind. She may have only been a year younger than me, but it wasn’t until this moment that I really noticed those changes and how she carried herself differently.

“People like people,” she snapped. “People like Iris.” I stopped walking. What was she trying to say? I had thought of Iris every day this summer, and surely she had done the same. I could feel it in my bones and in my heart. We were connected, and more than that, we were meant for each other.

“What do you know about it?” I snapped. “I think I know her a little better than you do, and it’s not even like that yet. And... it wasn’t even that long a time.”

Reagan stopped abruptly, hands planted firmly on her hips, lips pursing into an all-too-familiar expression. She had somehow acquired a gift for knowing exactly how and when to exploit any weakness in your argument, a gift she had grown to use judiciously in our family. I had to put an end to this and fast.

“Just shut your... all the holes... in your face,” I eventually fumbled. For all the books I had read and all the years of education at the Institute, my inner thoughts were complex and often eloquent, but when it came to turning those thoughts into real words for real people to hear, I always seemed to revert to speaking like the teenage boy I was.

Reagan’s expression softened and she leaned in for a hug underneath my tensed arms while my defenses crumbled.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt. I realize how close you two were...”

“Are.”

“... and you’re not kids anymore.”

“We’re only sixteen! When did life suddenly become so serious?”

“Why are you being so hostile?”

“Why are you being so, so... so YOU!” I retaliated, forcing us both to burst into violent laughter.

“Maybe you take this year to work on your insults, huh, big brother?”

“Maybe,” I quipped. “You know, I’m the one who should be looking out for you, right?” I planted a kiss on her forehead. Hoping she’d infer the apology and move on, I questioned her upcoming school term. “Who’s your Head Professor this year?”

“Professor Harwich,” she replied absentmindedly.

I gave her a wry smile. “Bring him a candied pear and you’ll be set for the year. He loves those.”

“Where did you learn that trick?”

Without responding, I turned and left in the opposite direction toward the Narrows, the memory of candied pears lifting my spirits.

The city was buzzing as I reached the Narrows, dawn finally breaking over the horizon and filling the streets and alleyways with a faint blue-green glow. Roc lived in a communal living space above a variety of shops in an enormous three-story building. I always imagined the fun of living in such a frenetic space, but Roc often described it as “a crap place full of crap people who’ll steal your shoes, but for some reason, not your socks.” Thinking of it, that’s probably why Roc’s feet always smelled so bloody awful; presumably, he never removed his shoes, not even to sleep.

Though his uncle was a knight, he wasn’t afforded a custom of wealth and station. Rather, Sir Roclan’s lord had died on his watch many years ago, and a knight without a lord to serve was lost to bid his talents to anyone willing to pay. It was a sad affair, especially for someone as great as Sir Roclan. The old knight never made any excuses for it, though, and neither did Roc.

“How was your morning?” Roc asked, initiating our handshake ritual.

“More of the same.” I sighed. “Yours?”

“More of the same.”

We continued on our way, his long strides outpacing mine. He was by far the largest student at the Institute in both height and breadth, a measurement wholly unique among his family, or so he told me.

Walking through the Narrows and back toward Merchant’s Square, a small smile crept across my face. Roc and I had made this same walk to the Institute every day for the last four years; the idea of this fifth and final year was already proving to be bittersweet. We’d become nigh inseparable since we met eight years ago.

By happenstance, my mother had run into the lowly hedge knight Sir Roclan and invited him to one of her famous Black Sunday dinners. Yokel and I were right in the middle of one of our more complicated pranks, desperately trying to rig up a system to drench my brother with a bucket of water as he passed through a narrow doorway and into our gardens. True to fashion, I was entangled in an elaborate net of ropes when in walked a towering eight-year-old, his quizzical gaze meeting mine as I dangled in the air.

“Hey, kid, you wanna do me a favor?” I asked as I spun around uncontrollably. The kid glanced up, following the rope and tracing its path into Yokel’s less capable hands. The rope started to slip and burn against Yokel’s skin. Without warning, Yokel yelped and let go, sending me and my bucket hurtling toward the unforgiving ground below. With mere inches separating my head from the cold stone, I miraculously jolted to a stop. I turned my focus from my certain death to the benevolent giant holding my tether. He lowered me down gently and turned toward Yokel, who looked equal parts embarrassed and amazed.

“You’re strong,” I said, picking myself up and looking at the bucket as it sloshed water over the brim.

“Thanks,” the kid said. He c****d his head like the dogs would when we asked them a question. “What are you two doing anyway?”

“Well, it’s a long story—” Yokel started.

“No, it’s not. I have a bucket of water and I want to dump it on my brother. We’re just running into some—”

“Logistical problems,” Yokel added.

“Lo-gis-ti-cal?” the kid asked.

“He means we haven’t figured out how to get this bucket up there in a way that will fall on my brother when he walks through.”

“Oh,” the kid answered cautiously. “Why are you trying to do that?”

“Because he’s my brother.”

“Oh, right,” the kid settled, looking to Yokel for help.

“What are you three doing?” my brother demanded in all of his thirteen-year-old righteousness.

“Uh...” I started, surprised at his sudden entrance. I glanced at Yokel, the bucket of water still sloshing in my very guilty hands.

“This!” the new kid yelled, deftly snatching the bucket and drenching my brother through his finest dinner wear.

“Was that him?” he whispered, checking in a bit too late on the intended target’s identity.

“Sure was,” I gasped, wide eyed.

“You little... my hair... I’m going to kill you!” my brother howled, coming to the realization that it was only water and he was the largest person currently in our quartet.

“Time to go,” I said, grabbing the new kid by the back of the shirt and sprinting for an escape. “What’s your name?” I asked him as we huddled behind a carriage, watching for any sign of my furious sibling.

“Riley Roclan,” he answered, shifting uncomfortably.

“I’m Oliver, he’s Yokel.” I squinted at Riley Roclan. “What’s your favorite food?”

“Uh, I don’t know.” His eyes lit up, “Ox tail?”

“Favorite knight?”

“Summer Solstice Night, I suppose.”

I shook my head. “No, like your uncle.”

“You know my uncle?” His face lit up.

“Of course, he’s Sir Roclan!” Yokel said. “I have his Knight Card at home!” Yokel was speaking of a card game featuring both real and fairytale knights. Given the scarcity of knights in Soraya, even a hedge knight such as Sir Roclan would be known to collectors.

Riley Roclan’s back straightened at the mention of his uncle’s name. “Oh, uh, then I guess probably Sir Dewie of the Mountain,” he answered.

“The legendary jouster?” I was puzzled. It was a curiously obscure choice. Rare was it to hear a Southerner mention a Northern Tribe jouster as his favorite knight.

“Yep, that’s what I want to do when I grow up.” The boy puffed up his even-then enormous barrel chest.

“Cool, cool, cool.” I pondered. Ox tail, Sir Dewie, and the fact that he threw water on my brother confirmed what I had suspected from the moment we met.

“We can help with that, right, Yok?”

“Y-yes, my grandfather was teaching me some fun things w-with a lance the other day and—”

“Wonderful, Yok. So, what do you say, Riley Roclan? You want to become the greatest jouster this world has ever seen?”

“Wait, you want to help me? Why?”

“Because,” I said with a wry smile, “you’re one of us.”

Riley Roclan stared at me, then at Yokel with a broad smile. “You can call me Roc.”

“Like a rock? Rock? Roc... whatever. Alright, Roc, but we can’t help you if we don’t survive the night.”

“Which knight?” Roc asked, looking around.

“No, I meant... never mind. You know, if there’s more than two of us we’re going to need a name for ourselves.”

“Why?” chimed Roc and Yokel in concert.

“Because all the best teams have names. There’s Ghost Company in the Imperial Army, or even the City Watch here in Starfall. My brother and his friends call themselves the Stonemen, but that’s super dumb. We need something better.”

“Something more dangerous,” Roc added.

“Exactly, something more, more... Yokel, what are you holding?”

“Uh, I don’t know, I just f-f-found it in this carriage.” I crawled over to Yokel and snatched the object from his hands—a bottle of whiskey from Romir.

“Whiskey... danger,” I muttered to myself.

“What?” Roc asked, sliding over to us.

“Whiskey Danger. That’s what we call ourselves,” I said, confident in my thought, the greatest in the history of eight-year-old thoughts.

“I love it!” Yokel proclaimed.

“I hate it,” a voice from the front of the carriage boomed.

“RUN!” I yelled as we sprinted away from my brother and his Stonemen.

“What are you smiling about?” Roc asked as we walked past a bakery.

I slowly returned to the present. “Nothing,” I replied as he grabbed a pastry from the shop. He left a coin and continued on his way while I added three more coins to complete the transaction.

“You didn’t bring any supplies for school.”

“Nah, with a mind like this, who needs to take notes?” He pointed to his forehead. I grimaced at his compliment and he laughed. “Oh right, me. But, come on, what are the chances they make a mistake for the fifth straight year?” Roc was speaking about the clerical mistake they had been making since we first started going to the Institute. Each year his tuition was paid in full, though he never knew how.

“I’d say pretty good. What odds are you giving?” I asked, amused.

“Ten to one,” he joked back.

“I’ll take that bet, but if I win, I’m not your herald this year, Yokel is!”

“Yokel!? That dinkus is literally the most annoying herald in the entire city. He’ll go on and on, making up grandiose stories—”

“Grandiose?”

“I read it in a book.”

“Who taught you how to read?”

“Your sister!”

I shook my head and we continued on. We approached the Square and made our way past the western side where the merchants set up their shops. Directly across we spied the hundreds of daily workers, or “Rabbits,” that lined up for any number of odd jobs they might secure. We would have seen Sir Roclan, but the hedge knight was usually one of the first to arrive each morning and would be long gone by the time we walked through the now-busy square. It was how he received his sigil of a rooster.

Roc punched my shoulder. “So, you seen her yet?”

I shot him a look from the side of my eye, and he responded with an exaggerated expression. “I thought that’d be the first thing you did when we got back. The way you yammered on about your girl all summer, I thought—”

“She’s not my girl,” I corrected quietly.

“Oliver,” he began, taking a deep breath before plunging in, “you’ve been pining after her for years and you haven’t made a move. How many times did we have to listen about her this summer?”

“Not that oft—”

“Every. Single. Day. Listen, bro, you’re the top student at the Institute, you come from one of the most powerful families in the city, hells, the entire country. You’re Oliver Quartermaine! You get to be whatever you want, have whatever you want, and whoever you want. So, you can be with Iris, and I can be with all the girls you turn down.”

“Obviously,” I replied. Roc had more than enough confidence for the both of us.

Roc smirked. “So... MAKE A DAMN MOVE! Or I will.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, I’ll make a move this year.”

“This week.”

“Today.” I squinted into the morning light. The moment had taken full hold of me, and as usual, I was in over my head. I knew I wasn’t ready to test those waters yet, but for all of my supposed intelligence, Roc had outsmarted me.

Fantastic.

Roc let out a held breath. “Finally! This is going to be great. I’ll be apprenticing with your father at the Forge, win the Homecoming tourney, you’ll be with Iris, and I’ll be with all the rest.” His eyes glazed over in a daydream as we arrived at the gates to the Institute.

“Hey, guys! Guess what, Roc? I’m in all your lectures! We can talk strategy for the lists all day! I’ve been reading up on tourneys since we got back and I think if you—” Yokel squawked, running up to us.

“Yokel, get out of here! We were having an important conversation,” Roc bellowed, clearly not happy about his dreams being interrupted.

“Geeze, Roc, you d-don’t have to yell, I was only—”

“Yokel!” Roc and I hollered in unison. Yokel skipped ahead of us, trying to avoid the reach of Roc’s fists.

“Nine Gods, I hate you, Yokel,” Roc muttered, shaking his head. I knew he could never hate Yokel, which was a very good thing because Yokel would definitely be his herald this year; Roc simply didn’t realize it yet. I was going to win our bet; I had already made sure of that, just as I had these past four years.

“You’re smiling again, dweeb,” Roc pointed out. Uncomfortable with expressing anything more than masculine affection for one another and in the typical fashion of our friendship, he punched me in the crotch.

I doubled over and replied with a groan, “Yeah, I know.