“Greetings, Headmaster,” the students answered as one.
“Exams for individual subjects have all been graded, and your marks over the course of your tenure at the academy have been tallied.” The headmaster’s gaze slowly roamed over the small crowd of tenth-year students gathered around him. “I’m proud of all you’ve accomplished, and you should be too. As you know, only the ten students with the highest overall scores will be allowed to compete in the upcoming final exam to win the crimson sash and the title of Most Honored at the commencement ceremony.”
The headmaster’s eyes caught Javan’s and held for a brief second before he turned his back on the students and raised a hammer to nail the parchment to his door. Javan’s heart was thunder shaking his chest as he surged forward with the others once the headmaster stepped out of the way. His eyes skimmed the list rapidly, and then the world snapped into sharp focus as he caught the fourth name on the list.
Javan Samad Najafai.
The pressure in his chest eased.
He’d made it. Now all that was left between him and the sash was the final exam—a multifaceted assessment designed to rigorously test students mentally and physically through a series of challenges. There were others on the list—Kellan included—who were better at individual events in the exam, but Javan could hold his own. And he knew that victory wouldn’t go to the student who was most naturally skilled at each of the five tasks. Victory would belong to the student who approached the exam with the best strategy. Figuring out how to win was like solving a puzzle, and there wasn’t another student at the academy who was better at strategizing than Javan.
“I suppose it’s bad form to say I told you so,” Kellan said from Javan’s left.
“Terrible form.” Javan laughed and turned to offer Kellan his hand. “Congratulations on making the cut.”
Kellan shook Javan’s hand and then shouted, “This calls for a celebration! To the tavern!”
“To the tavern!” Many of the surrounding students echoed back, though a few whose names weren’t on the list were slinking away.
“Are you coming?” Kellan asked, even though never once in all of their years of friendship had Javan ever gone to town to celebrate anything. There was always another exam to study for, another weapon’s technique to practice, another goal to hit.
This time was no different.
Javan started to shake his head, and Kellan rolled his eyes. “The exam isn’t for another three days. Are you going to start overpreparing already?”
“You know me.” Javan shrugged as if missing out on a night at the tavern with his friends didn’t feel like another moment in a long chain of lost opportunities that he’d never get back.
He’d have a chance to socialize once he returned to Akram, having brought honor to his family name and peace to his mother’s spirit. He could invite Kellan to visit from Balavata and show him the racetracks, the roasting pits full of pistachios and marinated goat meat, and the dimly lit salons with their citrus-flavored liquor and their harp players whose nimble fingers flew across the strings until you couldn’t help but dance.
A pang of homesickness hit. Ten years was a long time to go without seeing his father. The other students returned home for the winter and summer holidays, but not Javan. He’d stayed to study. To practice. To sit with the headmaster or a tutor and do his best to live up to the expectations that rested on his shoulders.
Soon it would all be worth it. He just had to enter the exam with the best strategy, stay focused, and win.
“If you change your mind, we’ll be at the Red Dwarf. You can come embarrass yourself with your poor drinking and conversational skills,” Kellan said.
“I think you’ll be embarrassing enough for the both of us,” Javan said with a quick smile for Kellan as the other boy crooked his arm through the elbow of the closest girl, flashed her a charming smile, and walked out of the building with a pack of students on his heels.
“You don’t want to celebrate with your friends?” the headmaster asked, pinning Javan with his gray eyes. “Not even for an hour?”
“I can’t. The exam—”
“Isn’t for three days.”
“Only three days to study the tasks and come up with a plan—”
“Only four days before commencement and your friends scattering to their own kingdoms.” The headmaster smiled at Javan, though there was a sadness in his eyes. “You’ve pushed yourself hard for your entire tenure at the academy. No student of mine has ever given more to his studies. But being the best at everything isn’t all that matters.”
“It is to my father.” The words were out before Javan could stop them. Heat flushed his cheeks at the expression of pity on the headmaster’s face. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“We should never apologize for speaking the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it might be to hear.”
“It’s just . . . I’m the only heir. My uncle Fariq doesn’t have any children, and even if he did, he’s my father’s cousin, though he’s been treated like a brother. Only a direct descendant can inherit the throne. I’m the last of the Kadars, and we’ve ruled Akram for nearly two hundred years. I have to bring honor to my kingdom.”
The headmaster moved to Javan’s side and rested a heavy hand on the prince’s shoulder. “No student has brought more honor to his kingdom than you. Taking an hour away from studying won’t tarnish that. If anything, it will improve your ability to be an excellent ruler.” At Javan’s raised brow, the headmaster squeezed his shoulder. “People matter more than competitions and grades. You matter. I hope you realize that you are more to your father than the honors you bring home from school. And I hope you know that you are more to me than any of your accomplishments.”
The warmth in Javan’s cheeks poured into his chest, and he stood a little straighter. Earning his father’s respect and fulfilling his mother’s dying wish were the fuel that pushed him to the limits of his endurance every day. But earning the headmaster’s affection—seeing love and pride in the eyes of the man who’d been like a second father to Javan for the past ten years—was a light that burned steadily in the prince’s heart.
“And before I forget, another letter arrived for you.” The headmaster reached into his robes and produced an envelope with creased corners and a gritty coat of the burned red sand of the Samaal Desert that separated Akram from Loch Talam.
Javan took the envelope, and the light inside him burned a little brighter.
Maybe he hadn’t seen his father since he’d arrived at Milisatria, but the letters his father sent—as infrequent as they’d become in the last five years—kept Javan tethered to the family he’d soon be returning to.
“Thank you, Headmaster. I need to go now,” Javan said.