Kingmakers, Year One

8. Dean

8

DEAN

T he first few weeks of class are the most difficult.

Just learning the sprawling layout of the castle is a challenge. The teachers have no patience for us showing up late and will lock the doors in our faces if we can’t slip inside before the class time starts.

Slowly but surely I’m learning which passageways will take you where you need to go, and how to avoid the bright expanses of open courtyard on the hot, sunny days when I don’t want to arrive at class sweating through my uniform.

The broiling days don’t last for long. By the time October rolls around, there’s a bite to the air in the morning, and the sea breeze shifts from refreshing to chilly. More students make use of the pullovers and academy jackets that came with our uniforms.

The curriculum is more rigorous than I expected. It’s a good thing I like to read, because we’re constantly being assigned projects that involve visiting the vast and cavernous library stuffed with dusty leather-bound books older than Charlemagne.

For those students who thought we’d only be learning how to count our money, the exacting research into poisons and explosives, psychological analysis, international finance, and the endless examination of legal loopholes is a bit of a nasty shock.

The students are divided into four divisions.

The Enforcers will work as soldiers and consiglieres. They take the most combat classes of anyone, as well as learning the practical skills to be “fixers.” Their curriculum includes negotiation and interrogation classes, and also anatomy so they can learn to strike efficiently, and how to dismember and dispose of a body if required.

The Accountants focus primarily on finance: investment, money-laundering, asset diversification, and payment structures. That’s what my father would have learned, had he come to Kingmakers. Instead he was trained by the bookkeeper who held the job before him.

The Spies are the smallest division, and the least-trusted. Every mafia group needs Spies proficient in information systems, hacking, counterintelligence, liaisons, and security. But one of their primary purposes is to root out moles and traitors inside their own organization. For that reason, there’s an Inquisitorial tone to their studies.

The Heirs’ curriculum is the most demanding of all. We’re expected to learn leadership and control, but we also have to understand the responsibilities of everyone under our command.

The first few weeks amongst the Heirs are a scramble for power. We all want to be at the top, and none of us are used to taking orders.

Even in my own damn dorm room I butt heads with Bram, who’s the leader of his wolf pack. I think he asked to room with me thinking he’d pull me into his group. Instead, slowly but surely, I’ve been bending him to my will.

The male hierarchy is a true meritocracy. To be the boss, you simply have to be the best.

And I am the best.

I’m the smartest, the strongest, and the most ruthless.

Bram is witty and he knows how to fight. And he’s got all the confidence of a leader. But he’s buckling under the pressure of our classes. He’d be failing if I wasn’t helping him out. And that means he owes me favors.

It starts subtly at first—Bram glancing over at me to see if I agree with his comments or if I laugh at his jokes. The other Penose notice. Soon they’re looking to me for approval, too.

Then there’s our performance in our classes. The Heirs are constantly ranked against each other. It doesn’t take long for everyone to see who’s rising to the top of the lists in exams as well as in shooting, fighting, and infiltrating.

Soon it’s me sitting at the center of our clique. Me deciding what we should do after class or on the weekend.

That’s how subtly power shifts. Bram fights back at first. But eventually he caves, dubbing me his “best friend” and giving over final say in anything important.

Our group absorbs some of the Moscow Bratva, the Armenians, and a couple of Turkish Arifs. Soon I have a pack of a dozen of the toughest Freshmen on campus.

Meanwhile, Leo Gallo builds his own group. He’s more willing to take in the school misfits. That Ares kid, for instance—he’s a fucking nobody. Poor as dirt, with no friends or allies to speak of. His parents are barely mafia at all.

Then there’s Leo’s best friend, a fucking girl . You don’t make a ballerina your right-hand man.

I’d guess the fact that Anna is undeniably beautiful, (despite all the shit she smears on her face), has clouded his decision-making.

She’s smart too, I’ll admit it. We’re battling for the top grade in our year. Leo might be up there too, if he weren’t equal parts lazy and arrogant.

Sometimes they’re joined by Miles Griffin and that Australian punk he pals around with. But Miles isn’t really part of their group.

I wouldn’t call him part of any particular clique. He’s a lone wolf, an agent of chaos. Useful, though—if there’s contraband you want, he can get it. I’ve made use of his services myself, even though he’s related to the murdering, backstabbing scum who killed my grandfather and burned my father alive.

I fucking hate the lot of them.

But I’ve got more important things to focus on.

I work my ass off studying during the week, and on the weekend the divisions throw secret parties that can be pretty fucking fun, sometimes on campus and sometimes in hidden nooks and crannies around the island.

I’m beginning to feel secure in this place. In fact, I’m actually starting to like it.

I never liked my father’s house and I fucking hated Moscow.

Visine Dvorca is beautiful. So is the castle. It’s old, but not filthy and musty like my father’s house.

Here, it smells like stone and clean sea air, and sometimes warm yeast from the bakehouse and the brewery. There’s fresh oranges, warm bay leaves, wild mint, and sweet sorrel all growing all over the grounds. The sun always comes back after cloudy days, and the castle is cool and damp, with no fucking snow, no slush or ice.

No father, either.

I wondered if I would miss him. I used to see him every day, after all. He’s my only family.

But I haven’t missed him at all.

I barely even think about him.

He sends a letter once a week. It’s cold and formal, asking how my grades have been, telling me that he hopes I’m making a name for our family here.

I write back to him in the same way, listing off the exams where I took top marks, telling him in the blandest possible terms what we’re learning.

The only time I don’t feel entirely at ease is late at night when I can’t sleep, when I’m lying on my bed with Bram snoring on the other side of the room, and the waves hitting hard against the limestone cliffs.

Then I think of my mother.

I miss my mom. I fucking miss her. I know you’re not supposed to admit that. You’re not even supposed to feel it. I’m eighteen, I’m an adult now, a grown man. I shouldn’t give a fuck about my mommy. Especially not a mother who’s a drunk. Who left us.

But I miss her anyway.

And I hate that even worse.

It’s been eight years since she packed a bag in secret and got on a plane. Five years since the last card she sent for my birthday.

I was only ten when she left. She could have taken me with her.

I know why she didn’t. My father would have hunted us down. I’m his only child, his only son. His heir.

But she didn’t even try. And I’m so fucking angry at her for that.

The birthday cards came from Barcelona, Lisbon, and London. Then they stopped.

My father never commented on the cards when they arrived, or when they ceased. He’s never spoken about her at all since she left.

I wonder if he knows where she is.

I wonder if he knows what happened to her.

As soon as the Freshmen get into the rhythm of their new classes, the most popular topic of conversation switches from occasional mentions of the Quartum Bellum to a fixation on nothing else. Anticipation is high, as the new students allow their fantasies of glory to run wild.

It doesn’t help that the upperclassmen relish in tormenting us with gruesome stories of competitions past. It’s impossible to know which tales are accurate, and which are embellished for the pleasure of seeing our faces go pale. What’s certain is that every year, at least one or two students suffer some grievous injury, and several have been killed.

“Why in the fuck are we competing in this thing?” I ask Bram.

He’s been determined to become the Freshman Captain since day one, and he brings up the Quartum Bellum more than anyone.

“Because the winner is a fucking legend!” he says. “Nobody cares what your grades are, not really. This is the chance to prove your superiority over every other mafia family—the only way to do it outside of an actual war.”

He drags me over to the trophy hall in the annex of the Armory.

“Look!” His eyes gleaming with greed.

The hallway is lined with a double row of plaques, listing off the winning teams of years past. Each framed plaque includes a photo of the team Captain, in crisp black and white, giving them an air of timeless grandeur.

Bram points to the most recent winner: a black-haired boy with a ferocious expression of triumph, whose picture tops the last three years of winning teams.

“Adrik Petrov,” Bram says in an awed tone. “He won the last three Quartum Bellums —every year but his Freshman year. He’s a fucking legend.”

“Who is he?” I’ve never heard of this guy. “An Heir?”

Bram chuckles. “That’s the best part—he’s not an Heir at all, he was an Enforcer. He’s one of the St. Petersburg Petrovs. But he’s such a savage that he’s practically taken over the city since he graduated.”

Bram lowers his voice, even though there’s no one else in the corridor with us, leaning over so his hot breath tickles my ear.

“Some people say he’s going to take over from his uncle, in place of Ivan Petrov’s actual son. That’s the power of proving yourself here.”

Interesting.

I don’t have a place as boss assured in Moscow, either. If winning the competition means something outside the walls of Kingmakers . . . it might be worth something to me.

And there’s another reason I want it.

I’ve seen how badly Leo Gallo wants to win. He’s an athlete, with all an athlete’s idiotic obsession with hitting arbitrary goals. He wants nothing in the world more than that stupid Captainship. Which means I want nothing more than to take it away from him.

He thinks he’s some kind of golden god. He walks around this campus like he owns it, and sure enough, the other students fawn over him until I could puke.

Even the teachers do it. They think he’s so funny and charming . . . I think he’s soft, like all Americans are soft. He was a big fish in a little pond. He’ll find out soon enough what it’s like to swim with actual sharks.

The most irritating insult of all is how Anna Wilk is always at his side.

There’s a shortage of women on campus. Some are pretty—but none can match the ethereal beauty of Anna.

I’ve seen girls looking at me. Even some of the female students in the years above mine. But I’m not interested in any of them. I want the best, or nothing at all. Anna is the best.

She’s the smartest as well as the most beautiful. She’s top of our class in grades—or she would be, if not for me. Our marks go back and forth, sometimes me on top, sometimes her.

The practical classes are different. There I’m vying with Leo Gallo all the way. Artillery, combat, reconnaissance, even scuba diving . . . if there’s a physical element, then Leo shows a maddening talent that seems to come to him without effort or practice.

Each age group gets one Captain: the Freshmen, the Sophomores, the Juniors, and the Seniors. Captainship will be determined by some arcane combination of scholastic performance, professor recommendations, and student vote.

We still don’t have a clear picture of what the competition itself will look like—until we’re called to assemble in the Grand Hall of the Keep in the sixth week of school.

The Grand Hall is vast and dark, its towering archways like the rib bones of some ancient beast. If we’re in the belly of a whale, then its heart would be the roaring fire in the cavernous grate at the far end of the hall.

The walls are hung with ancient banners of the ten founding families of Kingmakers. I don’t know all their names, but I see their sigils clear enough on the dusty tapestries: a pair of crossed axes, roaring bear, a mountain range with three peaks, a hawk on a field of stars, a golden skull with grimacing teeth, a sly red fox, a burning flame, a unicorn spearing a boar with its horn, a chalice of wine, and a griffin with its wings outstretched.

I wonder how many of those ten families still have descendants at this school? And how many even remember the mottos on their coat of arms.

I’m jealous of the students with a long family history. The only person in my family with any ambition, any honor, was my grandfather. Until he was murdered by Sebastian Gallo.

Sebastian tried to burn my father alive.

I look up at the banner directly over my head, with its deep red flame. If I were going to have a sigil, that would be mine.

The Gallos tried to destroy us with fire, but I became that fire instead. It burns inside of me, and will never go out.

The chatter in the hall dies down as an unseen figure enters the room. The students crane in their seats, wanting to get the first look at the man who strides in front of the hearth.

He’s a little taller than average, powerfully built. His soot-dark hair hangs down to his shoulders, longer than his close-cropped beard. Threads of silver twine like wire through the black. His face is craggy and ravaged, much older than his body. His eyebrows are pointed at the outer corners, and his eyes peer out from under, glittering like two gems set in his ruined face.

When he speaks his voice booms out, silencing the last whispers between students staring at him with awed faces.

“Welcome to Kingmakers. I hope by now you’ve all settled in. I don’t think I need to go over the rules of this place—you read and signed them before you came. I don’t think, either, I need to remind you that the reputations of your families rest on your performance here, or that your destiny may well be shaped by what you learn within these walls. You are all adults, if only newly so.”

He glares out over the crowd of students who look less like adults than ever before, in comparison to this man who appears as if he’s lived a dozen lifetimes.

“My name is Luther Hugo. I’m the Chancellor of this school…the last and final authority of all that goes on within these walls. My ancestor was Barnabus Hugo. He hung the very first banner in this hall.”

Hugo points to the coat of arms depicting the golden skull.

“Of those first ten families, only seven now remain. Never forget that your survival is not secure. You could be the generation that squanders the legacy of your family. You could be the fool who terminates a line stretching back hundreds of years.”

This isn’t exactly the rousing speech the students were hoping to hear. Even Bram seems slightly unnerved. I doubt I’m as surprised as the others, since my family only just survived such an extinction event.

“Over the next several weeks, we will be evaluating your performance in your classes.” Hugo stares us down in turn with those black flinty eyes. “Each year of students will cast a vote for their Captain. The first challenge of the Quartum Bellum will take place the first week of November. That is all.”

Abruptly, Hugo strides back the way he came, right hand tucked into the pocket of his formal double-breasted suit.

The students sit in silence for a moment, then break into excited chatter.

“I want my picture in that hall,” Bram fiercely proclaims.

I don’t respond, because I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of Bram getting the student vote, let alone the endorsement of the professors.

But I could.