Jacob looked back at Darren who was trying to keep himself from laughing. Jacob sniggered and looked at his watch. Five more minutes before the open training was to start.
The doors opened again, and this time two Asters stepped inside. Jacob had less of an aversion to these two. On the left was San Francisco-born Nathan Radbourne, the Aster of Flora. He had brown hair and brown eyes. He was tall and muscular, but didn’t have the big shoulders, arms and chest that Matu had. Two broadswords were strapped across his back in an X. Nathan was quite a mystery. The boy seemed to have two personalities; on the training grounds he was cold, clinical and fierce, while outside of training he was extremely quiet, on the edge of unsure and insecure.
“Now he’s cute,” one of Grace’s friends breathed as Nathan walked over to the centre of the arena.
“No, I like Matu better,” another girl said.
“I hear he’s taken,” Grace said. “Sky on the other hand…”
Will sleep with you once and never call you again, Jacob thought to himself. Sky Mayne had that reputation, and it was astounding that these girls didn’t know about it. Or maybe they did and they just didn’t care. Sky was an Aster after all, a prize in itself to some girls.
Jacob grunted at the thought, though when his gaze settled on the girl walking beside Nathan Radbourne, his frustrations about Sky seemed to disappear.
Sophie Griffiths, the Aster of Health and Knowledge, was originally from London, the same as Jacob. She didn’t have a particularly pretty face, but her thunderstorm grey eyes were something to behold. She had her long blonde hair tied in a single plait down her back. Her signature miniature crossbow was tied to her left wrist, and her deadly rapier sword was in its sheath at her right side. Jacob tried not to stare as Sophie walked up to the three male Asters. Though they were all taller and much more muscular than her, she was definitely not cowed by them. On the contrary; she radiated a quiet self-confidence, and Jacob knew that she had all the Aster boys wrapped around her finger.
“Now there’s a bad-ass woman,” one of Grace’s friends breathed in awe. Finally, something the girls said that Jacob could agree with. He looked over his shoulder to the straight haired, mousy-faced girl on Grace’s right.
Grace put an arm around the girl. “I’m sorry to have to tell you, my friend, but I don’t think she’s into girls.”
From the corner of his eye, Jacob saw the girl look at Sophie for a moment longer. “How are you so sure?”
Grace snorted. “Trust me on that one. Remember Manuela? The Spanish girl from our second year? She tried. And she didn’t fail because she was unattractive, because… well, you’ve seen her.”
“She came on to Sophie? Seriously?” the girl asked.
“Tried and failed, my friend. She was convinced Sophie was like her. Trust me, she’s not. Plus, she dated Arthur Kelly for a few months last year.”
Jacob turned his attention away from the girl-talk behind him, for the doors opened one last time. Two figures stepped through. The first was Lian Fai, the last of the Asters. Originally from Tokyo, Lian had short, spiky, black hair and dark brown eyes. He was the Aster of Analgesia. In other words: he could feel no pain. He would die as soon as anyone else, but no matter how extensive the injury, it wouldn’t hurt him. He could keep fighting until his body physically couldn’t anymore. It made him deadly and unpredictable, because he could surprisingly keep coming at you while sporting an injury that would’ve stopped other opponents right in their tracks.
A hush fell over the crowd when everyone recognised the second figure walking onto the grounds. It was Jackson Kelly, the Commanding Chief, and the personal trainer of the Asters. He was also in charge of all the combat trainings for the Affinites, but he rarely ever gave those himself. The Asters were his main priority, for they were the first line of defence if any of the Kings would ever come crawling out from the Underworld, where Aiyana and her army had banished them, and make a play for the Surface of the earth.
The five Asters stood in a straight line and faced the Commanding Chief. The arena was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Jacob glanced at his watch. Nine o’clock. Bang on time.
The training was about to begin.
Chapter 2
A few minutes earlier Sky Mayne was the only one on the grounds of the arena. The stands were filling rapidly as he entered. He held his hand up and waved to the crowd. He caught the eye of a group of girls near the top of the first tier of stands across from him and winked at them. Jacob bloody Henderson was sitting just beneath them, he noticed, sourly. Quite deliberately, to rile him, Sky grinned wickedly at one of the girls, who literally shrieked in Jacob’s ear.
Jacob was the reason Sky had mixed feelings about the trainings the Asters shared with the best Affinites of their age. Sky had made a few great Affinite friends through those trainings, but Jacob was an absolute nightmare. Sky knew the boy was jealous, and wanted desperately to be an Aster. That didn’t mean Jacob had to push all the wrong buttons on purpose. Sky had made a point, long ago, to push all the wrong buttons back in return. And so a searing hatred had been born. Sky shook himself and turned his attention away from Jacob.
Sky always loved these open trainings, where Affinites were allowed to come in and watch as they practised. He enjoyed the cheering, and the oohs and aahs as he flew by. For him that was the best part of his magic of Speed and Flight: flying. Sure, the being able to run super-humanly fast bit had its perks. And he could shimmer to any place in the world in the blink of an eye, which wasn’t so bad either. But the flying… he never felt as free as he did when he was soaring over the tree tops of the old pine forest at the north corner of Saluverus, or when he would let himself drop from the cliffs and only start flying a millisecond before he hit the waters of the Norwegian Sea below.
His magic made him strong—powerful even. The greatest Aster of his generation. That’s what Sky Mayne was. That’s what they called him, and he revelled in it. He made sure no one forgot it.
As he made his way to the centre of the arena, in his black training gear and with his signature short spear resting nonchalantly across his shoulders, he could already hear the whispering. Yes, the blonde one. Yes, the one with the dark blue eyes. Yes, yes, yes, that was the greatest of them all.
Sky flashed his grin to all the admiring eyes looking down on him. He pushed back his blonde hair and winked at another girl near the top. Even from this distance he saw her blush and smile, star-struck, back at him.
“Are you done?”
Sky turned around, grinning, to his brother, Matu Madaki, the Aster of Strength. He wasn’t a brother by blood, but a brother by magic. Where Matu’s family originated from Kenya, Sky’s came from Australia.
“Never, mate” Sky said. For all the years he had lived on Saluverus he had made sure that he never lost his Australian accent. Every Affinite who lived here who wasn’t originally from an English-speaking country grew up speaking with an American accent. So, Sky made sure he stayed his unique self. The ladies never failed to love him all the more for it.
Matu shook his head, a hint of a smile on his face. He wiggled his fingers in his signature knuckle knives. He had a single sword strapped to his belt, but Sky doubted Matu would even touch it. Being the Aster of Strength, Matu’s greatest weapons were his hands. Any blade would just get in the way. If he got a good punch in, he was just as effective, maybe even more so, than if he’d use any kind of weapon.
Sky leaned on his spear. “It’s not my fault they throw themselves at me.”
Matu gave Sky a look over his shoulder. “I’m not having this conversation again.”
“They’d throw themselves at you, too, if you’d let them,” Sky pushed.
Matu rolled his eyes and looked back past Sky to the doors that led into the grounds. “Taken.”
“Josie’s in Canada! You’re worthy of so much more than some long-distance thing,” Sky exclaimed.
Matu cocked his head to the left. “Are you done?”
/> Sky shrugged and turned around to where Matu was looking. “Your loss.”
The crowd’s talking grew even louder as the doors to the grounds opened again and Sophie and Nathan stepped through. Nathan had his usual broadswords strapped to his back, while Sophie was wearing her signature miniature crossbow on her left wrist. In the sheath at her right side was a rapier sword.
Sophie’s long blonde hair was tied in a single plait down her back, and her thunderstorm grey eyes were alert and focused. She paid no attention to the crowd as she strode to the centre of the arena with her head held high. Right now, it was hard to believe she could be perceived as bubbly and witty; she looked so cold and brutal, with her set expression, and in her black training gear. Same as Matu, Sophie and Nathan were like siblings to Sky. He was fiercely protective of Sophie, even though she was more than capable of holding her own against anyone dumb enough to try and hurt her. Sky loved joking around with his siblings, though he picked on Nathan more, because he was two years younger at eighteen, than he would of Matu, who was older.
Sophie and Nathan came to stand beside Sky and Matu, and waited for the final Aster and their trainer to enter the arena.
“It’s filling up,” Sophie observed as she scanned the stands, her English accent coming through clearly. She was right. The stands were almost completely full now, with Affinites of all ages. The Asters rarely did open trainings anymore and everyone had jumped at the opportunity to see the legendary Asters train for whenever Affinites and humans would need their protection. More than half of the town had come to watch. They could almost feel the excitement and anticipation radiate off of the crowd.
Sky took it all in. “I miss this.”
“We’re not here for them,” Nathan pointed out.
Sky turned to look at his brother who was usually so warm and quiet. The deadly cold had descended upon him now as he clenched his fists by his side, readying himself for the training. “Don’t take all the fun out of it.”
“We’re not circus animals,” Nathan muttered.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Sky breathed.
“Oh, he’s not,” Sophie interjected. “In open trainings you’re dramatic enough for all of us.” She turned her head to Sky and grinned.
Sky eyed his sister narrowly. “I call it theatrical.”
On his other side, Nathan shook his head, but before he or Sophie could say anything else Lian Fai, the Aster of Analgesia, stepped into the arena. He had his bow and quiver slung across his shoulder. A sword hung at his side and two daggers were sheathed to his forearms.
Originally from Tokyo, Japan, Lian was the most skilled fighter of them all. He had to be; his magic caused him not to feel any of the pain that was inflicted upon him. It made him extremely dangerous since, even with life-threatening wounds, he would be able to keep fighting when an opponent wouldn’t expect him to be able to.
Lian raked a hand through his short, spiky, black hair and glanced up at the stands. There was more pointing and whispering, until it all suddenly stopped. Behind Lian, the doors never fully closed before another figure appeared.
Jackson Kelly, the Commanding Chief and the Asters’ trainer, stepped into the grounds.
Originally from Iceland, Jackson and his brother Percy were the strongest Affinite soldiers in the war fought by the Asters’ parents twenty-five years earlier. They both had the affinity for bravery and, after the war, had been asked to lead the training programmes for the Asters and Affinites alike.
The gigantic, broad-shouldered ex-soldier strode into the silent arena. Jackson stopped in front of the Asters, who each inclined their heads in respect. Jackson nodded to the Asters before turning his attention to the stands.
“Welcome,” he bellowed, “to an Asters Open Training. You will watch as I test them for thirty minutes, three times. Don’t worry. A magical barrier will protect you from any weapons that might come your way. And now, without further ado—” Jackson turned to the Asters and said, “—let’s begin.”
Thirty seconds.
They had thirty seconds from the moment Jackson stepped away from them until the first of the attacks would begin.
Jackson vanished into the control room, where he would sit at the control panels behind one-way glass, so he could see what the Asters were doing but the Asters couldn’t see him.
Even so, Sophie knew the first button he would push. A sizzling sound was her confirmation. The magical barrier that protected the onlookers from any danger was going up. When no one came to watch the barrier was never raised and the stands would be used as part of the training. The roof to the arena was closed today, but Jackson would have the roof open a lot during other trainings, too. He would take advantage of whatever Scandinavian weather was raging outside to prepare the Asters for anything they might encounter on missions.
Ten more seconds and the training would start.
In the first thirty-minute session all the Asters were on the same side. They were to keep themselves and each other alive and unharmed for the whole thirty minutes, while also keeping a single, small, red ball from ever touching the ground. For the second thirty minutes they would be divided into a team of two and a team of three, where they would not only have to avoid whatever Jackson threw at them, but they would also have to beat the other team. To beat the other team was to genuinely fight until death, without actually delivering the killing blow. In the final thirty minutes it was every man for himself. Or woman, in Sophie’s case. In that final session it was an Aster’s goal to be the last one standing.
Five more seconds.
Sophie scanned the grounds. All along the arena walls were a variety of different-sized ledges that the Asters could make use of. A wide range of monkey bars and concrete blocks were distributed around the grounds as well. The Asters had positioned themselves along the walls of the arena equidistant from one another. That was where Jackson always ordered them to start. Where they moved next was up to them.
Sophie flexed her left hand. She grazed her thumb over the small button on the side of her index finger that would release a small but deadly bolt from the miniature crossbow around her left wrist. She put her left foot slightly behind her right and waited.
There was no bell that told them the training had started. The first Sophie knew of it was the knife that shot from the other wall straight at her heart. She spun to the side, the knife embedding itself deep into the wall behind her.
And then the action was everywhere. Weapons fired at them from every direction, obstacles burst up out of the ground, trying to off-balance the Asters enough for one of them to drop the red ball or miss throwing it to someone else. Sophie knew Sky had started with the small red ball, but while she’d spun away from the knife, she heard Matu call “Got it!” to her left.
There was magic in the floor and in every other inch of the arena. Jackson didn’t possess magic of his own, but he could command the magic in the arena with the control panels. Through the magic he could also command a set of mannequins that could move as if alive. They were exactly like mannequins you would find in a clothes store. Except these weren’t actually wearing clothes and they were made of stronger material. They didn’t have hair or any other defining features, not even a mouth or a nose or eyes. Their heads were like eggs: smooth and oval-shaped. They were spelled to have Disciple instincts and they could wield weapons. They couldn’t move as quickly or with as much fluidity as a Disciple, but they were real enough, and they were spelled so they’d only go down if the attack would take down a Disciple in real life.
Sophie climbed up to a high ledge close to where the stands started, by using hand and footholds similar to those used for indoor rock climbing. From her perch she watched as Matu barely broke sweat as he brought a mannequin to its knees with one swift punch across its face. Sophie had fought alongside Matu long enough to expect the sound of bones crunching each time he came into contact with an attacker. She had got used to it by now. The same way as she was used to Lian barely ever
avoiding blows in one-to-one combat. The surprise of him not darting away to miss the attack often gave Lian the opening he needed to make the kill. Though this left him open to injuries that he sometimes didn’t even realise were life-threatening. If it wasn’t for Sophie, Lian would’ve been dead ten times over already. Lian’s blind loyalty and honour led him to often take the brunt of an attack when the Asters were sent out on missions. It was incredibly brave, but could also be fatal if Sophie wasn’t close enough to save him.
And he knew it. Sophie’s magic of Health and Knowledge was why each of the boys could go to their absolute limit. She could heal them when they were on the brink of death. Sophie never thought about how many times one of her brothers would’ve died if she hadn’t been there in time. Each one of those times was a time too many. She herself had to be more careful because she was unable to use her magic to heal herself. For that, one of her brothers needed to use her blood to harness her magic for that purpose.
But it was Lian who Sophie stayed closest to. He was the only one of them who didn’t seem to know the concept of self-preservation. It made him incredibly dangerous to their enemies, but a martyr if Sophie wasn’t close enough.
Now again, Lian was fighting a mannequin while a knife was flying towards the both of them. The mannequin ducked because of the magic controlling it, but Lian didn’t. The knife buried itself in his abdomen, but Lian barely flinched as he brought his sword down.
“Sophie!”
Sophie tore her eyes away from Lian long enough to spot the red ball flying towards her. Nathan had thrown it from where he was balancing on the top of a tall set of monkey bars in the centre of the arena. Sophie caught it with her free right hand; her rapier was still in its sheath at her hip.
She turned her attention back to Lian. The surprise of not ducking away from the knife had given him the time to take down the mannequin. When he was about to step away from his kill, however, he was swaying and looking down at the knife in his abdomen. Sophie knew she had to get there fast.
A Queen To Come Page 2
