The Cadet of Tildor Read online

  The Cadet of

  TILDOR

  ALEX LIDELL

  DIAL BOOKS

  an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  DIAL BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Published by The Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Copyright © 2013 by Alex Lidell

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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  Book design by Mina Chung • Text set in Adobe Jenson Pro

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lidell, Alex.

  The Cadet of Tildor / by Alex Lidell. p. cm.

  Summary: At the Academy of Tildor, the training ground for elite soldiers, Cadet Renee de Winter struggles to keep up with her male peers, but when her mentor is kidnapped to fight in illegal gladiator games, Renee and best friend Alec struggle to do what is right in a world of crime and political intrigue.

  ISBN 978-1-101-59235-9

  [1. Military cadets—Fiction. 2. Military education—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 5. Crime—Fiction. 6. Political corruption—Fiction. 7. Fantasy.] I. Title.

  PZ7.L61613Cad 2013 Fic]—dc23 2012026612

  DEDICATION

  To my dive buddy, riding partner, and best friend

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  Lady Renee de Winter turned her back to the parlor, where her father’s clerk counted gold crowns into the visitor’s waiting palm. The coins’ melodic ring turned her stomach.

  “Please thank my lord Tamath de Winter for his donation,” the visitor said, bowing. “His generosity keeps the roads well guarded.”

  Renee wondered how long the man practiced that sincere voice, or how her father’s clerk tolerated the farce. For that matter, whose benefit was the show for at all? Calling extortion “charity” fooled no one.

  She knelt on the carpeted floor and opened her travel trunk. With luck, the visiting thief would see her Academy of Tildor uniform packed inside. Once she graduated, these Family thugs would think twice about making their demands on the de Winter estate. Or on any other estate.

  “Your pardon, my lady.” The approaching maid worried her skirts, waiting until Renee shut the wooden lid. “Your father wishes for you to address the tenants tomorrow.”

  Renee closed her eyes. He knew she was leaving for the Academy today, just as she had done at the end of every summer since turning ten. Renee wanted to protect Tildor, to serve its people and the Crown. Her father wanted her to stay home and count goats. In gods’ names, they had discussed it—again!—over breakfast that very morning.

  Blood boiled beneath her cheeks as she stalked down the wide hallway to her father’s study and slammed the door hard enough to topple accounts books from their shelf. “The Family’s demands will only grow if you keep indulging them, my lord.”

  Lord Tamath dipped his pen into the inkwell and continued writing. The dark wood of his furniture matched his strict woolen tunic. “With a mere boy now holding the throne, the danger to us doubles.” His pen scratched over parchment. “It costs less to give coin than to lose wagons. A fact of which you, of all people, should be well aware.” He didn’t look up, didn’t even acknowledge the sting of his words.

  Ten years ago, a Family-rigged accident crushed a wagon carrying Renee’s mother and older brother to a market. It would have carried Renee instead of Riley, had she not fallen off a horse that morning. The scar on her palm pressed her to honor their memory; Lord Tamath honored it by feeding their killers.

  “Recheck the crop figures before tomorrow, if you please,” he added.

  Renee took a breath to steady her voice. “By tomorrow, Father, I will be in Atham, in the Academy barracks, preparing for classes. Surely this isn’t news.”

  He dipped his pen again, as if meeting her eyes was beneath him. “Your desire is not news, no.” His curled mustache twitched. “This is.” He held out a folded sheet of parchment with a cracked Academy seal, his lips pressed into a taut line.

  She tugged down her tunic, took the three paces from the door to his desk, and tried not to seem as if she reached for a poisonous snake.

  Cadet Renee de Winter,

  The Academy of Tildor has reviewed your record and found that your competence in the Combat Arts Track falls on the borderline of acceptable levels. As such, the Academy will scrutinize your performance in the coming year and, should we find a lack of sufficient progress, dismiss you from the program. Consider this your Formal Notice of Warning.

  Signatures followed the text. Renee looked away, her world trembling. She trained every day. Each and every one. And she was so close. One last year in the Academy’s schoolrooms and two in a field trial and then she would be a Servant of the Crown. “I will work harder, Father,” she said quietly. “During meals if I must. I will get stronger. You know I will.”

  Lord Tamath snorted. “No quantity of training will make a wolf from a cockroach. You’re sixteen. If you had any hopes of growing strong enough to compete with the men, you would
have by now.” He jerked the letter from her hand and nodded with satisfaction. “I have indulged this Servant of the Crown fantasy long enough. No, you will not attend the Academy. You will remain here, pursuing an occupation that you have some chance of not failing. I will not have you disgrace these estates or my name.”

  Renee swallowed. “The Academy does not require a father’s permission, my lord.” In point of fact, the Academy was Tildor’s sole establishment to ignore lineage. Noble or not, all cadets studied together and graduated—or not—on merit alone. A Servant’s uniform could not be bought. “You cannot stop me from going,” Renee said.

  He did look up then, and the fire blazing in his eyes threatened to burn through her. “I can stop you from coming back.” He rose, bracing his palms on the table, and spat his words at her in short, venomous breaths. “Should you ignore my wishes, do not expect a welcome here.” He sat back down and resumed scratching with his pen as if he had not just stuck a dagger into his daughter’s life. “Either come to your senses or live with the folly of your choices. That will be all.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Cadet Renee de Winter strode down the long corridor of the Academy barracks, each step carrying her farther from home. She trailed her fingers along the walls, enjoying their cool, uneven surface.

  Hanging lanterns bathed the hall with dim, yellow light. Soon the walkway would fill with dozens of rushing cadets, future Fighter and Magistrate Servants of the Crown dressed in black uniforms with the colored trims of their career tracks; magistrate red, fighter blue. Black and blue, yes, that fit Fighter Servant cadets well.

  As in any army, most of Tildor’s warriors were common soldiers; uneducated weapons-bearers who’d never lead units. Officers—whose skills and studies reached beyond weapons-handling to strategy, law, mathematics, and more—were leaders.

  And then there were Servants of the Crown.

  A unique type of officer, a Servant attended a school—the school—the Academy of Tildor, instead of apprenticing in the field. The very few cadets able to endure the Academy’s rigorous regime and fortunate enough to graduate formed an elite cadre, destined for the most vital assignments and missions. Servants were the Crown’s champions. As Renee strove to be. Would be.

  Renee took a breath and pushed her father’s ultimatum to the back of her mind. What was done was done, and she had at least been able to carry some coin away with her. Enough to survive the year. Many were less fortunate.

  Renee halted by the most beautiful sight in the building, her name etched into a wooden nameplate mounted on the door. Her door. Tucking an escaped wisp of brown hair behind her ear, she fumbled in one, then another pocket for the key. It had to be somewhere.

  She was searching still when the door swung open, and a tall, grinning girl let her inside. “I recognized the footsteps. No one in their right mind has so much energy.”

  “I never claimed sanity, Sasha.” Renee laughed, embracing her roommate. “Try spending a summer with my lord father, if you wish to know why.” She stepped inside and groaned. Books already lay scattered everywhere, a natural hazard of rooming with a magistrate cadet. Not that sharing quarters with another fighter remained an option; the cuts had left two girls in the fighters’ senior class, but the other had developed mage’s Control last spring. A late bloomer. Renee did not know where the Mage Council placed the girl.

  Renee maneuvered around a teetering pile of books and dropped her bag on her bed. “Did you rob the library, Sasha?”

  “Being the Crown’s cousin has its advantages.”

  “You are a corrupt abomination.”

  Sasha picked out a leather-bound tome and held it so its title, Battlefields of the Seventh, was visible. “You do not want this, then?”

  Renee snatched the treasure from her friend’s hand. The book’s thin pages bent under her touch. Seven years ago, the Seventh’s leader, Korish Savoy, was a fighter cadet her age. He trained in the same salle, worried about the same exams, followed the same rules. Maybe he opened a book like this too and counted the days to the year’s end, to the two years of field trials, to turning nineteen and graduating. Maybe in another seven years, some other cadet would open a book about Renee. If she made it.

  A knock interrupted her musing. Her best friend loitered awkwardly in the open doorway, his hands buried in his pockets. For him, this was positively outgoing. “Alec! The door is wide open.”

  “Mmm. Didn’t notice.” He bowed to Sasha before stepping inside.

  Renee ran up and hugged him, rising onto her toes to get her arms around his neck. The differences in their physiques had grown pronounced within the last year, when soft curves shaped her previously boyish body. The summer apart accentuated it. Resentment pricked her before she could stop it, and her father’s words bubbled in her mind like a disease. The boys grew. And she did not. Even Alec, who once had looked wide-eyed at her superior swordsmanship, started powering through her parries last spring.

  He lifted her off the ground for a momentary hug and then retreated to hide in a corner.

  Sasha smiled like a cat with a bowlful of cream. “Your new instructor will come a week late.” She cut her gaze at the book on Renee’s bed. “You may have heard of him.”

  Renee looked at Sasha blankly until her roommate chuckled and mouthed the name.

  Savoy. Servant Commander Korish Savoy. Renee closed her eyes, sending a thank-you to the gods. Her heart beat faster. At least one cadet would be cut after midyear exams, and she would not let it be her. If anyone could hone her skills by then, it was Tildor’s top swordsman. “How did you find out?”

  “I have my birdies.” Sasha nodded toward Battlefields. “Make certain you return that. I may have forgotten to obtain Master Librarian’s permission.”

  Alec shifted and stared at the floor.

  Renee frowned at him. “What bothers you?”

  He glanced up, rubbing his arms. “With Savoy in charge, everyone will be watching us.”

  “True.” Sasha scratched the side of her nose. “Having the commander teach cadets is like, well, asking the palace’s mage to Heal scraped knees. If Savoy’s here, someone wanted it so.”

  Renee shrugged and resumed her search for the missing door key. The Academy always pulled instructors from field duty. Even those permanently stationed at the Academy split their time between teaching and other work. Headmaster Verin, a Servant High Constable in rank, was the Crown’s top military advisor, while Servant Magistrate Seaborn, the cadets’ favorite law teacher, regularly addressed real cases. But Sasha would look for hidden meaning if the kitchens served pudding in place of custard. All magistrates did. The lack of a door key presented the more immediate problem for Renee, since reporting it lost would doubtlessly trigger some official inquiry. She checked her pockets for the third time.

  “I know a smith in town,” Alec said quietly.

  Sasha cleared her throat and rose, placing her own key on the bureau. “If you’ll both excuse me, I think I will indulge in an extended bath before Lys’s welcome address. My dear cousin the now king will be sweating enough for all of us.”

  A smile tugged Renee’s lips. It was good to be back.

  * * *

  By the time Renee and Alec had copied the key, a slow breeze cut the warm afternoon. The trees surrounding the Academy grounds rustled companionably. Inside, servants scurried about the main courtyard, adding final touches in preparation for the Crown’s speech. Curiosity tickled the air. King Lysian III had ascended to the throne barely two months earlier, following his sickly father’s passing.

  Before them, a small boy and his dog ran circles around the dais now mounted on the manicured lawn, while Guardsman Fisker, his horse-face pinched into a scowl, watched from a distance. Renee sighed. Fisker had left his position at the Academy a year ago for a new assignment as a Senior Guardsman in the Palace Guard—much to the delight of most cadets. The man would hunt down anyone who even thought of breaking the rules, if he could. He was likely here to s
afeguard the king, which meant they’d be rid of him soon. Renee sighed again, then staggered back as the boy’s dog, an enormous wolf-like creature, made a dash for Alec.

  Alec dropped to one knee to greet the disaster. The habit was bound to get him bitten one day, but that day stubbornly refused to come.

  “Khavi likes you.” The boy, no older than eight, cocked his head, blond hair ruffling in the wind. He was eleven hands tall or so, temporarily matching heights with the kneeling Alec.

  “Most beasts do,” muttered Renee, staying clear of the dog’s muddy paws. “The courtyard is closed for the ceremony,” she said pointedly.

  The boy crossed his arms. Green eyes came up to meet hers. “How can grass close?”

  Alec turned away in an apparent coughing fit, leaving Renee to conjure a response. “What’s your name?”

  “Diam.” He held out his hand. “I’m gonna be a page and then a cadet and then a Servant.”

  “Young.” Alec rose to stand beside her but continued scratching his new furry friend’s ear. “Few students come before ten.”

  “Korish Savoy came at eight,” Diam shot back.

  Renee smiled. “Are you our next Commander Savoy?”

  He stood up straighter. “I am.”

  “Well, be careful, Master Savoy, because the real one will soon be here,” said Alec.

  “I know. He’s got a huge horse named Kye, who is all black and can kill a man.”

  Alec whistled. “You know all that?”

  “More.” The boy opened his mouth to say something further, when Fisker approached waving his four-fingered hand to banish them from the yard.

  “You let that beast bite anyone, and I’ll cut its head off myself,” Fisker grunted, throwing Diam and his dog a dirty look.

  “Bloody gods, the man’s skull has grown even thicker since getting posted to the palace, and a promotion to boot. You’d think he has half the army—not ten junior guardsmen—under him,” Alec mumbled when they parted paths with the boy and headed to barracks. “What security breach were we possibly creating?”