Kingmakers, Year One

19. Leo

19

LEO

T he weeks after the first challenge are a strange mixture of accolades from my fellow Freshmen and thinly-veiled hostility from the upperclassmen.

Surprisingly, Kasper Markaj is the only person not holding a grudge—he came up to me right after the challenge and clapped me on the back saying, “You did well. Your team trusts you.”

I said, “It was bad luck that you were first out.”

He shook his head, his broad, friendly face resigned. “There’s no luck in competition. Only good and better strategies.”

We only placed third in the challenge, but we managed to steal Pippa Portnoy’s flag, an affront that didn’t go unnoticed.

I often find her watching me now, sly and silent, her lips quirked up in a perpetual smirk. When she’s not actually around, it’s almost worse, like when you lose sight of the spider in your room. I’d rather have her in plain view where at least I can see what she’s up to.

I’m drawing glares and mutters everywhere I go on campus, and a couple of not-so-joking threats.

Miles seems to find it all hilarious. He couldn’t care less that his own Sophomore team is out of the challenge.

“They don’t know what a desperate little psycho you are,” he tells me, cheerfully. “They don’t know you’d literally rather die than lose.”

“Right,” I say dully.

Winning has always been the most important thing in the world to me. When we arrived at Kingmakers, there was nothing I wanted more than to get the Captainship and be the first Freshman to ever win the Quartum Bellum.

But with each week that passes, I struggle to feel even basic enthusiasm about the next challenge.

My competitors don’t share my ennui.

Calvin Caccia has gone from friendly rival to all-out enemy. He didn’t appreciate my stunt in the dining hall, which fulfilled the terms of our bet, but not quite the spirit.

For me, that was the last day I felt anything approaching happiness.

The cheers and back-slapping from my fellow Freshmen gave me a burst of triumph. But it faded away almost immediately, and I sank back into the gloom that’s been suffocating me for the last two months.

I feel dull and drained, and I’m finding it hard to care about what I’ll be facing next.

“The first one was sort of a warm-up,” Matteo says, “but they won’t go so easy on us next time.”

“You thought that was easy?” Ares cries. “We almost lost.”

“Yeah, well it’s gonna get a lot worse,” Matteo says darkly. “Last year in the second challenge one of my brothers broke his leg so bad they almost had to amputate it.”

“Why in the fuck are we even doing this?” Ares shakes his head in wonder.

“Why did we come to Kingmakers at all?” Matteo grins. “To live a life less ordinary.”

“Ordinary life was nice,” Ares says wistfully.

Since I’ve been in such a low mood myself, I’m becoming more cognizant of the fact that Ares isn’t always as cheerful as I thought. What I’d first taken for a laid-back attitude, I’m now realizing might actually be a carefully-cultivated sense of calm to conceal the more turbulent emotions underneath.

I thought that Ares disappears into our room or the library because he gets tired of the constant socialization required to live, eat, sleep, and study on campus. But now I think it might be something else. I think he might be depressed. When I come across him unexpectedly, when he doesn’t know anyone is watching, he sometimes looks discouraged or even upset.

When I try to talk to him about it he brushes me off, smiling and telling me I’m imagining things.

“I’m just tired,” he says, pushing his hair back out of his eyes with a sweep of his hand. “It’s all this homework. I never did that great in school. Probably never wrote so many words in my life as I did last semester.”

I can tell that Ares isn’t going to open up to me. He doesn’t want to confide in me. And that makes me realize I’m not as good a friend to him as I thought.

Maybe I’m not that great a friend to anybody.

I was blazing through life with me at the center of my own universe, and everybody else in orbit around me. I took for granted that they were all as happy and content as they seemed. I never bothered to look that deep below the surface.

I thought of myself as the star of the show, and honestly, Ares was a sidekick. I hadn’t really considered him as a person with struggles as acute or complex as my own.

The same was true with Anna. I made assumptions about her feelings and her goals. I wasn’t careful to find out what she really wanted. I took her for granted.

I don’t think I can win her back, but at least I can treat Ares better. I try my best to help him with his schoolwork, introduce him to pretty girls, and ask him a hundred questions about his family and his home, hoping I can figure out what’s bothering him.

It’s probably too much, because after a week or two of this, Ares says, “Do you need a kidney or something? You’re being too nice, and it’s freaking me out.”

“No,” I say, embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m just trying to . . . you know. Be a good friend.”

Ares laughs softly, shaking his head at me. “You’re the best friend I’ve got here.”

“Yeah?” I smile. “Alright. I’ll take it down a notch, then.”

I try to buckle down and apply myself to my classwork instead. It’s the only way not to constantly be staring at Anna, who likewise attends most of my classes, usually sitting only a few desks away from me.

Every time she speaks or laughs with any of her other friends—even her female friends like Chay and Zoe—I burn with envy. And when she talks to Dean, I want to set the whole school on fire.

Dean is some kind of dark doppelg?nger who managed to switch places with me. Now I know exactly how he felt the first few months of school when it was Anna and me sitting together, Anna and me exchanging glances when the teacher said something amusing, Anna and me casually leaning against each other as we walked across the commons.

He took my place, and now he’s basking in the light of the most beautiful girl in school, and I’m the one locked outside, jealously looking in with my face pressed up against the glass.

On January 17th I call my parents like I do every weekend. My mother picks up the phone on the first ring, sounding uncharacteristically excited.

“Leo!” she says. “How are you?”

“Decent. You know . . . tired, but doing alright.”

“We’ve got something to tell you,” my dad says, his voice tight with anticipation.

“What is it?” My stomach clenches. I’m not really in the mood for a surprise at the moment.

“We’re going to have a baby!” my mom says in a rush. “You’re going to have a sibling!”

“I—how?” I stammer out.

My parents tried for years to have another kid. It never worked—my mom never even got pregnant, let alone carried a baby all the way through.

Now that she’s forty-three, I thought they were long past trying.

“It happened in the usual way,” my dad laughs.

I can tell he’s over the moon, but it’s my mom I’m listening to—her shaky breath, the way she’s trying to hold back tears. She’s wanted this so badly for so long.

And she deserves it. She was the best mother in the world to me. I don’t have the heart to be anything but happy for them. Having recently tasted disappointment myself, I won’t say anything to puncture their excitement.

“Congratulations, Mom. This is such good news.”

“You’re happy, Leo?” she asks me.

“Yes,” I promise. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

That’s not a hundred percent true. I’ve been an only child my whole life—the idea of a sibling at this late date is more bizarre than enticing. Also, having just been cut out of Anna’s life and replaced with Dean, I can’t say it’s pleasant to picture my parents centering their whole lives around some bouncing new baby.

But it’s not my choice. None of these things are my choice.

I’m trying not to be selfish and immature anymore.

I’m going to support my parents and see if I can be a better friend to this kid than I was to Anna.

Three days later is Anna’s birthday. I didn’t think to bring a gift to Kingmakers, so I pay the gardener an outrageous sum for a potted orchid and leave it outside her door. I know she’ll know it’s from me even without a card, because orchids are her favorite.

I wouldn’t know what to write in a card. I wouldn’t even know how to sign it. ”Love, Leo” doesn’t seem right anymore.

When I see her in Chemistry class that afternoon, she gives me a small smile but doesn’t mention the gift.

I don’t bring it up, either.

The last week of January is the coldest yet—the air is full of sleet, and the grass is frozen solid on the ground.

Regardless of this, Professor Knox demands that we go outside for target practice.

“How are we supposed to shoot if our fingers are frozen solid?” Hedeon moans.

“Not all battles take place in perfect weather,” Professor Knox says mercilessly.

We all troop out to the shooting range south of campus. It’s a miserable walk over, and even worse when we have to lay down on the frozen earth to set up our sniper rifles.

The shooting range is just a field, at the end of which you can see a row of metal targets in human shape. Or at least, once you’ve put your eye to the scope you can see them. They’re nothing but faint silver gleams to the naked eye.

Ares is acting as my spotter for the first round, and then we’ll switch positions. Anna is off to my right, spotting for Chay. Dean isn’t in this class, thank god.

I feel bad for the girls laying on the cold ground in their short plaid skirts and bare knees. Anna is wearing tights instead of socks, but she’s still shivering with her arms wrapped around herself.

“Wind speed eight to twelve,” Ares tells me, checking the anemometer.

I make the necessary adjustments, then gently squeeze the trigger, keeping my eyes open the whole time. I see a spark as my bullet grazes the edge of the target.

“A little to the left,” Ares says unnecessarily.

“I know,” I grumble.

Next to me, Chay gives a little whoop of triumph as she hits her target dead center.

Once I’ve hit the target four times, Ares and I switch positions. I stand up, shaking out my cramped legs.

Anna is still waiting her turn, hopping in place to try to stay warm. Her lips are turning blue. Without thinking, I strip off my pullover and thrust it into her hands.

“Don’t be silly,” she says, teeth chattering. “You’ll freeze in a t-shirt. I’ve got my blazer on.”

“Your blazer isn’t doing shit,” I tell her gruffly.

She looks up at me—the first time we’ve made eye contact in several days. It’s the first time we’ve stood this close in weeks. I see a familiar glint of gold on her neck—the superfine chain with the tiny moon pendant I gave her so long ago when we were only kids. She’s still wearing it.

“Are you sure you won’t be cold?” she says in her low, clear voice.

In that moment, with Anna standing only inches in front of me, her blue eyes fixed on my face, I don’t feel cold in the slightest. Actually, I’m flooded with warmth. The wind feels like nothing anymore.

“I’m sure.”

“Well . . . thanks, then.” She smiles at me for the first time in a long time, then pulls the sweater over her head. It’s so big on her that she looks like a little kid with her clunky boots and her wind-blown hair and her big blue eyes looking up at me. It’s incredibly endearing.

I have to turn away abruptly before I say something that will only humiliate me.

“You okay?” Ares says, as I resume my position next to him.

“Of course.” I grit my teeth against the cold.

The warmth of Anna has already faded away, and I can tell it’s going to be a miserable thirty minutes to finish this class.

“You want my sweater?” Ares says, trying not to grin.

“No,” I say. “And shut the fuck up.”

Ares chuckles as he presses his eye against the scope. “There’s the Leo I know and love.”