Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [14]
Agel’s face whitened with rage. “What you did was unforgivable.”
Caelan shrugged, but doing so brought a faint twinge to his shoulder. “I ran away. What of it? Anything was better than freezing to death.”
“Even now you have no shame, no remorse,” Agel marveled. He sent Caelan a horrified look. “I thought I knew you. But your kind heart and decency are gone.” Shaking his head, he stepped past Caelan. “There is nothing to say to you.”
“Wait!” Caelan said, reaching for his sleeve.
Agel shoved him hard against the wall.
Pain shot a sickly web of yellow and gray across the world. Caelan caught his breath and sagged against the wall, trying to hide how much it hurt. The expression of contempt on Agel’s face made it hurt even more.
“Agel,” he said, making it a plea.
His cousin averted his eyes. “You have shamed your father,” he whispered, his throat working. “You have shamed me. I cannot forgive you. No one can.”
“But—”
Wrenching open the door, Agel stormed out and left Caelan there, too stunned and bewildered to go after him.
Caelan rubbed his face with his hands and slowly straightened himself. Agel was only overreacting like everyone else around here. Running away was a worse offense than most, but it was hardly a calamity.
A faint rustle of sound made him look up. Me saw a proctor standing in the open doorway.
Warily Caelan faced it. “What do you want?” he asked rudely.
The proctor said nothing, but only closed and bolted the door. The sound of the lock shooting home made Caelan bite his lip.
His temper heated up, and he paced slowly around his small room twice before plopping down on his cot. He didn’t care what kind of punishment they handed out this time, he told himself. As soon as he got the chance, he was running away again. And this time he would be properly prepared.
In the morning Caelan awakened to the sound of silence. The usual dawn bell was not ringing. He listened a long while, his body attuned to the regimen of Rieschelhold.
Silence. No work in the courtyard. No shuffling of sleepy boys along to the washrooms. No bell of assembly. No smell of breakfast cooking.
Getting up, Caelan dressed and paced the floor hungrily. He felt stiff and sore this morning, but when he flexed his right shoulder there was no discomfort from his wound.
The continued quiet made him nervous and uneasy. So what were the proctors doing, punishing all the boys for his infraction?
Defiance and resentment hardened in Caelan. If they thought to make him penitent, they had misjudged him. Caelan could be persuaded, but he did not like to be pushed. The more they tried to break him, the more he vowed to defy them.
Outside in the corridor, he heard doors opening slowly, the hinges creaking with hesitation. Boys shuffled out, their queries to each other low and apprehensive.
Caelan listened at his door with derision. No bell, he thought. Without a bell to tell them what to do, the novices were stupid and helpless.
That’s what the masters wanted them to be. But he wasn’t ever going to become mindless and blindly obedient. Rote learning, cruelty, and fear were the tools of lazy teachers. They didn’t want the novices to think or grow. They considered inquiring minds dangerous. Instead, the masters wanted trained monkeys, silent and respectful monkeys, who would heal only the simple cases and be baffled by anything requiring innovation.
He hated them, hated them all.
“Watch out! Proctor on the floor!” called someone in warning.
The voices and footsteps outside hushed immediately as though everyone had frozen in place. Caelan pressed his ear to his door gain.
“No bell. No breakfast,” a proctor’s hollow, unnatural voice said into the quiet.
Voices broke out in consternation and protest.
“Silence!” the proctor ordered, and they quieted at once. “No classes are held. You will remain in quarters until further notification. That is all.”
There came the repeated slam of doors up and down the corridor. Caelan heard the bolt to his own door slide back, and he stepped away from it