Just like that, I’d added a spare gas tank to my core. With the rat’s core tied to my own, I had more than enough capacity and wouldn’t have to worry about straining myself. Finally, I’d figured something out.
“Mr. Warin!” Ishigara’s voice sliced through my thoughts like a knife. There was a flash of light in my mind’s eye, and a jolt of pure jinsei shattered the bond I’d forged to the rat.
The professor’s attack stunned me, and I fell back from her with one hand raised defensively. My aura was filled with aspects of fear and anger and frustration, and they fueled the serpents that exploded out of me in all directions.
Ishigara danced back from my reflexive defense, and her fusion blade appeared in her hands. The weapon had a long and slender shaft tipped with a narrow, slightly curved blade like a scalpel’s. The weapon was at my throat in the blink of an eye.
“I yield,” I said loud enough for everyone in the classroom to hear. I didn’t know why Ishigara had attacked me, and I didn’t want to give her any excuse to carve open my throat.
The professor and I watched each other warily. My serpents coiled above my shoulders, ready to strike if she pressed her attack.
Ishigara withdrew her blade an inch at a time, then leaped back out of my serpents’ range.
“Class dismissed,” she snapped. “Except for you, Mr. Warin.”
She’d banished her fusion blade, though it didn’t really matter. In my current condition, there was no way I could overpower the professor even though our cores were at the same level. She had the advantage of speed and experience over me, and she knew it.
We remained frozen until the last of the students had left the classroom. Both of us were ready to fight if it came to that, though I certainly didn’t want to lock horns with my professor again. Even if I won the fight, it would be difficult to explain why I’d killed one of the School’s staff.
“Relax, Jace,” she said when the door had closed behind the last student.
“You attacked me, honored Professor.” My words dripped with sarcasm and venom. “It is fortunate that I am not at full strength.”
“I suppose that it is,” Ishigara mused. “I didn’t attack you, though. I saved you.”
She turned her back on me and stalked over to the bookcase behind her desk. She plucked one of the tomes off its shelf, carried it back across the room, and dropped it on the lectern between us.
“Look at this.” She’d opened the book to a drawing and tapped it with one long nail.
The illustration she’d selected depicted a nightmarish creature with too many heads, too few legs, and more tails than I could easily count. A lolling ram’s head drooped over its right shoulder, while an all-too-human face peered out from between a serpent’s gaping maw and a bird’s beaked head.
“A chimera?” I asked. “I thought those were a myth.”
“They are. This is a cursed amalgam.” She turned the page and read a line from the book. “After numerous attempts to imbue himself with a multitude of beneficial bestial traits, the fallen soulscribe Aaron the Accursed was afflicted with a mutilated core. His body attempted to adapt to the unwholesome grafts. Ultimately, the rapid changes in his physical form led to his untimely demise.”
I took a deep breath and swallowed hard.
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“Obviously,” Ishigara said wearily. “Perhaps I should have warned you not to attempt such a foolish exercise. In my defense, I’ve never had a student attempt anything like that in any of my classes. Let me be clear from this point forward. We do not graft the cores of other living creatures to our own. Nor do we graft the cores of living creatures to each other.”
“I understand, honored Professor,” I said with a deep bow. “Am I dismissed?”
Ishigara sighed and leaned forward onto the lectern. She studied me with a raptor’s gaze.
“We don’t have to be enemies, Jace,” she said. “I don’t appreciate what happened to Grayson, and I don’t think any of us will ever know the full story behind his involvement with the Locust Court. I know I’ve been hard on you because of that. But you have more talent than most students. If you’d stop trying to fight everyone, and focus on your studies, you might realize that. I could tutor you in scrivening if you’d like. It would save us both a lot of grief.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I am honored by your confidence in my abilities.”
Not that I believed her for a second. Ishigara offering to help me was like a spider volunteering to have a fly over for dinner. If I took her up on the offer, it would almost certainly go poorly for me.
She had, however, given me a valuable piece of insight. I needed to learn more about Aaron the Accursed.
“Have a good night,” Ishigara said. “You’re dismissed.”
I left the classroom with a lighter heart than I’d had in days. A soul graft might be just what I needed. It might be possible to bind the peeling layers of my core to one another. A few loops of jinsei, and then—
“Out of the way,” a rough and strangely accented voice barked at me.
A small cluster of students I didn’t recognize was headed in my direction. They wore strange robes with unfamiliar insignias. They also had patches of scales on their faces and the exposed skin of their arms and bare feet. Long, serpentine tails whipped the air behind them as they glared at me with slitted pupils.
“My apologies.” I stepped aside to let them pass.
They were all much taller than I was, their bodies muscular and lithe. The claws on their hands and feet looked sharp enough to shred the meat right off my bones if they put their minds to it.
The backs of their robes displayed large embroidered circles filled with a surprisingly detailed mountainscape. A series of ornate letters
