Rising Shards

We regrouped after the test, feeling immense relief that we made it through. Dr. Diast congratulated us for our performances, then let us go back home. It felt cozy returning to the school after long void trips, and this was no exception. We found ourselves wandering the grounds, where a flurry of snow blew in the wind, which actually felt nice after all the running around and battling we’d just finished.

We all had to compare the books we’d gotten to make sure it wasn’t a joke.

“How to Free Yourself from Corinani-nomics for Cani,” Kalei read. “The hell is Corinani-nomics?”

“Her name’s Ms. Corinani…” I said, staring at the cover, which featured the teacher making a painful forced grin. “This book was a smash hit?”

Oka looked through the first few pages. “But she’s the author of Corinani-nomics for Cani, too. Why’d she write a book rejecting her old book?”

Even Lillia was stumped about that. But that was a next semester problem. For now, we had to enjoy the catharsis of finally being done with a long semester.

“That was exhausting,” Oka said.

“I am beat,” I said. “I’m gonna take such a nice shower after this.”

“Can I join you?”

“Uh, what?” I squeaked, my face turning bright red instantly.

“Wait!” Oka said, her blushing even more intense than my own. “I thought you were gonna say take a nap! Ah! Wait, hold on! I didn’t mean. I mean, if you…I rehearsed this in my head! I bet if I said I was beat that you’d wanna take a nap, and then I’d say a cute line about joining you! Ah, sorrysorrysorry!”

As I was overheating and Oka was freaking out, everyone else just laughed.

“Dude, don’t take it back, that was actually kinda smooth.” Marmalade said.

“And then she Oka’d it up.” Kalei said.

I tried to snap back at Kalei, but coherent sentences weren’t coming to me at the moment.

“Still not as embarrassing as Caeda’s speech,” Kalei said. “Or Kitty’s.”

“Or this Corinani character’s book,” Lillia said.

“Or her being Kitty’s lapdog!” Iris said. “She totally gave that vibe, right?”

“Kitty told her to be her footstool, what do you think?” Maia asked.

“That’s exactly what I mean!” Iris said.

And with that, for better or worse, I made it through finals. All that was left was to wait for our grades to come in.

* * *

A bunch of us went to Kalei’s house when we got our grades in the mail a few weeks later. We were celebrating the end of the semester and doing a new year’s party at the same time, though the new year was still a week away. Even some of the parent/guardians were there, invited by Mahina to celebrate the kids making it through class. So if this went horribly wrong, I could run upstairs and cry it out to Stella right away.

We stared at our envelopes, watching the first Victory of the Heroes movie as we worked up the nerve to open our letters. Joining me were Oka, Kalei, Lillia, Aira, Iris, Maia, Marmalade, Michi, the Matora sisters, and Roux.

A man in a top hat and fancy suit walked in front of a group of people as they planned a way to infiltrate the bad guys’ castle.

“Clearly, if we want the queen’s gold, the moats are the way to go.” Top hat guy said.

“And what makes you qualified to order us around?” Someone in the group objected.

“I’m pretty wicked cool and also a wildcard beyond reproach.” The man said as he sat in a chair backwards.

“You madman.” The objecting guy said as he gasped in shock.

“Are they saying he’s a madman for sitting in a chair backwards?” Oka asked.

“I told you the first two are weird.” Kalei said.

“A very sheltered individual wrote this.” Lillia said.

“Whoa, Zeta wrote this movie?” Kalei asked.

“Hey!” I said as Marmalade burst out laughing.

At a long lull in the movie where the group discussed how glue is made, we decided to open the letters and see our grades.

“Alright, if anyone failed for real, you don’t have to say it in front of everyone,” Oka said. “But it’d probably be good if we had some kind of sign so we can like, console each other?”

“How about if anyone for real failed this, just pause the movie,” Kalei said, placing the remote in front of us. “Then we’ll, I dunno, cry it out.”

Oka and I tried to hold hands while we did this, but that made letter opening a bit difficult, so we settled for linked arms. My heart pounded. If I failed, I was done at Rising Shards. If any of us did, we’d be off the Benta Scholarship. My hands shook as I read the letter.

Student: ZETA FALEUR

ID: 14419814

Age: 16

Gender: F

Fall Semester AB-815 Final Grades

1st Period: Cani Biology 9 A2E3 DIAST — 92%

2nd Period: Literature 9A B3E4 SOLERI — 70%

3rd Period: Social Studies 9A A1G4 ATRAX — 83%

4th Period: Mathematics 9A A1D1 POPPI — 72%

Lunch

5th Period: Physical Training for Void Fields KRANGEL — 90%

6th Period: Void History and Studies C1A4 ORCAS — 86%

7th Period: Void Practice C3C3 ADV — 80%

Overall average: 81.8%

Status: PASSED

I felt like the heroes at the start of the movie when they managed to throw a bomb into the bad guys’ big battering ram, saving a small village. I actually passed.

Silence filled the room as we all waited for someone to reach for the remote to pause the movie. Eyes darted to Iris and Ko, but they didn’t move.

“We all good?” Kalei said.

“I think…we’re good?” I said.

“We’re good!” Oka said.

That felt like the moment we could finally relax. As the characters in the movie droned on about fantasy glue that didn't even seem to have any relation to their castle infiltration plan, we were all jumping and cheering, hugging each other and high fiving. Normally finishing a semester wouldn’t be such a big deal; I’d never celebrated finishing classes before, but I didn’t have dear friends to celebrate with before, nor did any of us ever have classes with such stakes as we did with Rising Shards and the Benta scholarship.

“I could have told you we passed,” Roux said. “My spies leaked that intel weeks ago.”

“Sure they did,” Kalei said.

“They really did!” Roux said. “Don’t underestimate my spies, or I’ll send them to find your dark secrets.”

“Um, if I could just say,” Oka said, standing in front of everyone. “Shoutout to Lillia for saving our butts on this one at least twenty times!”

Lillia, not used to her tutoring skills being praised, blushed as she raised her bottle of pop.

“Yeah, cheers to Lillia!” Kalei said. We all clanked our soda together (Kalei’s mom got us all the fancy root beer we had for our last sleepover at her place).

“Cheers to Lillia!” Ko said. “Hey, I passed, that means…heh, we’ll talk about it later.”

Lillia nodded, looking like she was just jolted with electricity.

“And cheers to you,” Oka said, holding her bottle out to me. “For getting through a lot this semester. And for being a great girlfriend.”

“And the same to you,” I said. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Speaking of getting through a lot, how about for Aira too?” Kalei asked, nodding as if to ask Aira if it was cool to single her out. She looked a bit overwhelmed by it, and by the hugs she got from us.

“You’re not leaving our sight next semester!” Oka said.

“Yeah, no going to Wildfire Hearts business!” I said.

“Alright, alright,” Aira said. She looked to her side, as if expecting Laenie to be there. “Hopefully lots of fixing the Wildfire Hearts business.”

“Yeah!” Oka said.

“I would like to give cheers to Maia,” Iris said. “For, heheh, for you know, for…” She trailed off giggling,

We all ended up giving cheers to each other for a while, complimenting each other for the most random things. It gave a nice boost of confidence that I hoped my friends all felt as well.

“Oh, hold up, this part’s really cool!” Kalei said, grabbing the remote to turn up the volume as the top hat guy climbed into a cannon, preparing to shoot himself at a dragon.

“Is it cool like sitting in a chair backwards cool or actually cool?” Oka said.

“Actually cool!” Kalei said.

“You’re actually cool.” Marmalade said.

“Huh? Thanks?” Kalei said, it taking a few seconds to register what Marmalade said. “But watch this, I’m serious, it’s really cool!”

The rest of the movie was a blast, only made better by our infectious celebratory energy.

Some of the best and worst times of my life had happened over the last few months. I made dear friends like Kalei, Lillia, Aira, Iris, Maia, Marmalade, and so many more. I met Oka, someone so important to me I could scarcely put it into words. I got a new person in my family with Dr. Diast, and moved with Stella out of the big city to a new home. I had a ton of fun, but I also faced so much pain, from Jeans, my parents, all the scary trips to the void where I wasn’t sure I was going to come back from. I could only assume more of the same waited for me in my next semester. At the very least, if I passed and stayed at school, Tik Moonheart would be checking in with me about her mission as soon as classes started again. I’d need an answer there about facing my family’s past. And then there were the Wildfire Hearts students showing up here, the recreant games, and all the other challenges of school life coming. But good times would be coming, too. That filled me with dread and hope in equal measure. Maybe the sense of accomplishment of passing tipped the scales a bit, but I felt more hopeful than afraid that night.

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