Free The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) by Aidan Harte

philosopher, is that it?’
    ‘So I’m ambitious! I want to be Apprentice one day, yes, of
course
I do – but Third when you’re Second, Second when you’re First. I don’t want to compete with you. I
won’t.’
    She started to reply, then turned back to the Wastes. Torbiddaturned to see what she was looking at. He saw only clouds of loose dust burling over the barren soil. When she spoke again all anger was gone. ‘I wanted to be the first female Apprentice. I thought – it’s stupid – I wanted to prove to my father I was worth a damn.’
    Torbidda realised she was looking beyond the barrenness to a faraway farmstead that probably didn’t exist any more.
    After a moment, Leto said, ‘Didn’t he sell you?’
    Agrippina laughed, and she wiped her face. ‘I wanted to prove it to myself, then.’
    ‘You will,’ said Torbidda. ‘Listen, even if I could, I wouldn’t take the Apprenticeship from you. I’m young enough to wait. The other Apprentices don’t have to die of natural causes. We’ll train together, so no other Candidate has a chance against you.’
    ‘What about me?’ said Leto with mock outrage. ‘When you’re Third and she’s Second, where will I be?’
    ‘In Europa, winning Triumphs.’
    ‘Getting scalped by some gruesome Frank, you mean. If one of you does make it, I expect a soft posting: some backwater where nothing happens any more, like Rasenna.’ He did a Flaccus-like growl: ‘Cadets, are we clear?’
    Torbidda and Agrippina saluted. ‘Yes, Sir!’
    Below them sunlight made New City shine like polished ivory. It even penetrated the smoke plumes drifting lazily from the gloom of Old Town. While the Molè’s shadow fell on the far side of Concord, a child could believe that Fortune dealt fair.

CHAPTER 12
    Flaccus marched proudly along the top of the aqueduct, one of the many that fed the canals. The day was windy and getting dark, but hardly enough to merit the flickering torch he carried. The twelve children followed the Grand Selector like a trail of mourners, their robes and yellow ribbons fluttering. The aqueduct was the oldest structure above ground in Concord – only the sewers rivalled its antiquity – but Torbidda knew enough about Etruscan architecture to trust its stability.
    He had less faith in his new classmates. He felt conspicuously vulnerable beside the third-years, a songbird in an eagle’s eyrie. A competitive tension had already settled over the small group, but for him they reserved special hostility. They had put in their time, won their position by merit; he heard them arguing about what species of cheat he was, whether it was patronage or skulduggery that had enabled him to join their table.
    Only Agrippina spoke directly to him. ‘You don’t like heights?’
    ‘Heights I don’t mind. It’s the water. It doesn’t care for me.’
    Agrippina took this as a joke. ‘I’m the same with dogs, got bit once. You fell in?’
    ‘Not technically. My mother, before she had me, she got … sick.’
    ‘How so?’
    ‘Her mind was ill. She claimed that a pseudonaiad visited her to warn her that the child she carried was “dry”. The best thing, it advised, was to kill herself. She jumped into the canal. They pulled her out half-drowned and raving. I protected herfrom my father, and when I was older from herself, but no matter what I did she said I was an abomination. She got rid of me as soon as she could.’
    Flaccus had stopped by a set of narrow steps that wound around one of the aqueduct’s massive supporting pillars. ‘If you’re quite finished, Sixty?’ He looked around the class and brandished his torch in an apelike manner. ‘Fire is a club. Water is a scalpel. Engineers can increase that power by funnelling it into narrow canals, by letting it fall from heights. Our task is to harness that pressure by older means. Some of you are too sceptical, some insufficiently so. Water Style is about force, precision and – yes, belief. As we descend we