Young Writers Society

“Councilman Rose, fifth to be given the honour”, Elrick said. “It does have a certain ring to it.”

“Youngest Captor to wear a Council’s mask in the history of the Palace,” Myres added, raising his glass.

Reiner smirked, saluting them back. “You’re getting ahead of yourselves.”

“Perhaps.” Elrick gave a sideways look to Myres. “If he doesn’t hurry up, he may lose that youngest title.”

“Oh, we couldn’t afford that,” the other Captor agreed. “The day Reiner Rose doesn’t perform beyond the highest expectations—“

“Expectations are there for us to strive to surpass them,” Reiner cut, and the other two chuckled. He took a sip from his glass and licked his lips. The liquor was dark and red, close in colour to his uniform, and sweet enough to turn bitter. The light of the candelabras revealed tiny bubbles forming in it. He tapped his fingers against the glass, watching a pair of Captors across the room show their child the view from the window.

“I thought you maybe would’ve brought Brinn along.” He turned: Myres was looking at the Captors and their child too, and now gave Reiner a pointedly inquisitive look.

“I considered it,” Reiner admitted. He heard Elrick huff behind him.

“You’re right,” the dark-haired Captor said. “Perhaps better not to remind them of your siblings.”

Reiner slowly turned towards him. “Meaning?”

Elrick shrugged and emptied his glass. “Aren’t you ever worried he’d grow up just like your sister?”

Myres went very still, like a man expecting to have to break up a fight, as Reiner narrowed his eyes at Elrick.

“If what you’re suggesting is that I’m raising a traitor,” he hissed, pausing for effect, “reconsider.”

They just stared at each other for a moment — then Elrick held up his hands in surrender.

“No,” he said. “You’re as likely to raise a traitor as I am to become an Academy Master tonight.”

“Good.”

The door opened, cutting their conversation just as Myres was about to add something.

The Council walked in without a sound, their footsteps inaudible against the polished floorboards. Reiner let his eyes travel over the masks that hid their faces: eleven perfectly fitted artworks with facial features forever frozen in time, under which eleven pairs of sharp gazes assessed the room. One of the Councilmen’s eyes caught Reiner’s, and Reiner thought he got the tiniest nod in response to not looking away.

Next to him, Myres and Elrick were smiling the same smiles he could spot on some other faces around the room. Masked men and women — some of whom he’d known since the Academy, like the two Captors next to him, and others too old or too young to have been his classmates — gaped at the Council members with dreams and ambitions written all over the still-visible bits of their faces.

Across the room, Reiner’s eyes caught sight of a familiar figure. Tall and gracious as ever, Superior Sazhey stood leaning back against the wall, openly keeping her gaze on him. He raised his glass to her and she responded in kind, gesturing for him to come over. He gave a small nod.

“I’ll be back,” he told Myres and Elrick, and made his way across the room as the crowd slowly returned to their chatting. The voices were lower now, though, laughter hushed, conversations most carefully crafted.

“It’s a surprise to see you here,” he told Sazhey as he reached her. Under her golden-rimmed mask, her eyes were excited.

“I’m invited every year,” she said.

“And I attend every year,” Reiner welcomed softly. “This is the first time I’ve seen you since I was your student myself.”

She grinned at that. “And some student you were, Mr Rose. I was equal parts sad and proud to see you graduate.”

“Likewise.”

She wrapped her arm around his, her rune ring catching the light, and led the way towards the southern window.

“Your brother did well on his Preliminary, did he tell you?”

“I haven’t seen him,” Reiner said, shaking his head. Something — pride? — weighted on his chest as he heard her praise Brinn’s performance. “How well is well?”

She gave a catlike shrug. “He passed through the second door.”

Reiner hid a smirk in his glass. “I passed the third.”

Her hand squeezed his arm. “And no other new student did it since.” She looked up to meet his eyes, and he was sure her eyebrow shot up behind her mask.

He gave in to curiosity. “What were his questions?”

Sazhey laughed: an outright, honest laugh that attracted attention and forced Reiner’s lips into a smile as well.

“He kept them for later,” she said.

He frowned behind the mask and admitted: “I wasn’t aware that was an option.”

“Not an often chosen one,” she agreed with another shrug, “but not against the rules, either.”

He stood next to her as she stopped walking, and they looked out together. The window gave a clear view to the Rose residency, no lights on at this hour, and further on, the harbour. The lights were on over there, tiny dots on distant rooftops to alert the nearby ships. Reiner remembered standing among them nearly a decade earlier, watching as the Captors searched for his sister.

“Do you remember Captain Vane?”

Reiner looked back at Sazhey. “Arcus?” The image of a young Captor, three or four years older than Reiner, flashed through his thoughts. “Of course.”

“He’s coming back to the Palace within a week,” the Superior told him. There was a hint of pride in her voice, and Reiner knew why: the Captain had passed his graduation exams with flying colours, and if he hadn’t chosen the seas he could’ve posed a challenge to Reiner’s Council ambitions. Sazhey was there for him the same way she was there for Reiner — sometimes, Reiner couldn’t help but wonder if she was in fact much older than she appeared. Every Captor he knew seemed to have learned from her at some point or another.

“What brings Vane here?”

She shot him another grin. “He’s bringing a gift. A practitioner.”

Reiner narrowed his eyes at her. “Had I known they were considered gifts now, I would’ve ordered to have them wrapped nicely before lighting the torches.”

Superior Sazhey said nothing for a long minute, the familiar patience-testing smile curling her lips. When Reiner didn’t react or ask again, she gave him another meaningful look.

“You’ve only ever encountered this kind of practitioner in literature, Mr Rose.” She turned to look at the Council members, and Reiner followed her gaze. They had scattered across the room, some standing together and others nodding solemnly to conversations they’d joined. Sazhey leaned close enough for her breath to tickle his neck.

“Look at them, Reiner,” she whispered. Her voice was almost too quiet, even mere centimetres away. “Look carefully.”

He complied, narrowing his eyes again. The masks the Council members wore were as delicately expressionless as ever, hiding any trace of emotion or thought. Their clothes, their hair, their completely silent yet inarguably dominant demeanor — nothing was different.

But their eyes, those sharp gazes that so few people dared to look up at, were not calm. They criss-crossed the room and searched for each other, shining under the candlelight, filled with knowledge they couldn’t or didn’t want to share.

“A Storyteller,” Sazhey whispered next to him. He felt her eyes on him. “Vane is bringing home a practitioner who bends the rules of time itself.”

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