Rulisa’s father was a prime example of this. As one of the most powerful witches in the world, he was easily bored, so he spent most of his time coming up with clever-yet-petty swindles and teasing the guards in every kingdom at every opportunity.
Of course, transforming into a nightbat was impossible for Rulisa, since the familiar talisman she was wearing around her neck wasn’t her own. She kept hers out of sight at all times. But she’d learned a lot from her con artist father about how to fool people, and the fact that nightbats were naturally skilled in illusion, while also being nimble and slippery, gave her the perfect way to do it.
All she had to do was illuse herself invisible beneath a second layer of illusion that showed herself transforming into a nightbat — a nightbat which would then battle the other transformed student while Rulisa simultaneously tossed fire with perfect aim to wherever the nightbat’s burning eyes were sending lances of flame at her opponent.
A difficult combination of spells, to be sure, especially since she had to keep them all unnoticeable, especially from the teacher. But she’d practiced the combination on the sly for years, and nobody seemed to come close to suspecting.
“Witch Fyrailn, it’s not fair!” Elkan complained after the third time Rulisa beat her. Elkan’s familiar with a strong and stupid ogre, which reflected her intelligence level accurately. “Nightbats are native to the Forest Beyond. She has an advantage here!”
“So?” Witch Fyrailn asked coolly. “If you can’t win when you’re at a disadvantage, you don’t deserve to win at all.”
“But I can’t even hit her once!” Elkan whined.
“Maybe consider the possibility that nightbats can use illusion,” Witch Fyrailn snorted. “She might never be where it looks like she is.”
Rulisa smirked, highly amused. You have no idea how true that is.
Some of the other students were significantly more challenging, such as Akihah, a witch with a griffon familiar who seemed determined to make sure Rulisa didn’t beat her for one of the two top spots that would advance girls this week.
More than once in battle with her, Rulisa had to illuse terrible talon slashes on her nightbat and then grimace and inflict the same wounds on herself, so that they’d be there when she “detransformed.” It was less than her favorite thing to do. But she could hardly go to Witch Fyrailn to fix the damage without any real wounds.
This would all be much easier if healing magic were taught at the Academy, because then Rulisa could simply pretend she had healed her wounds herself and not have to actually inflict them. But no — while that branch of magic wasn’t technically forbidden, there were no books on school grounds that taught even the most basic healing spells, and the healing brews the teachers used were specifically designed to be excruciating.
The supposed reason for the unnecessary pain was that it was meant to be a deterrent from allowing yourself to get hurt. But Rulisa was fairly sure the actual reason was that the school didn’t want any of its students to get the dangerous idea that white magic could be valuable and worth studying.
At the end of the week, Rulisa was pleased to see that she had ranked six out of thirteen in Familiar Talismans. She was fourth in Deadly Spells, which she had started only last week, and either first or second in all her other classes. That meant she was very, very close to advancing in all eight of the top classes at once.
Rulisa clenched her fist in silent triumph.
Two more weeks. Just twenty-six more days. I’ll definitely graduate before the end of the year. And then I’ll get home, I’ll marry Kyre, and nobody will ever be the wiser that I have a white magic familiar.
Her father had insisted that she couldn’t do it. He’d insisted that she wasn’t wicked enough for the Academy to allow to graduate, much less become a valedictorian, a long-term pride of the school. That was why he’d given her her mother’s talisman in the first place.
Well, she’d show him.
To her great annoyance, she was ranked as third, rather than second, in Familiar Talismans at the end of the next week. Since she was first in all her other classes, that one evaluation singlehandedly stopped her from graduating this week.
Tunan was ranked above me? Tunan?! I beat her in every match! Rulisa clenched her teeth.
But she still had one week left to graduate before the end of the year, so it wouldn’t make a significant difference. She just had to focus and make sure she was not only in the top two, but first in every class this week.
She doubled her efforts and made sure she not only got every question on every test correct, but also won every battle in Familiar Talismans, taking no damage whatsoever.
Akihah’s screams of frustration were highly entertaining.
At the end of the last day of the week, which was also the last day of the year, Rulisa sat impatiently at a table in the library, trying to reread History of the Forest Beyond while she waited for the paper to appear by her hand that would either have her new class schedule, or announce that she was graduating.
The door opened, and High Witch Tractia strode in.
Rulisa’s breath caught. The High Witch was a terrifying figure, a woman who moved more like her shadow-panther familiar than a human. Not only was she the most feared witch in the Four Kingdoms, she was one of the few people Rulisa’s father respected.
High Witch Tractia stopped at the table where Rulisa was sitting.
“Congratulations,” she said softly. “You’ll be graduating.”
Rulisa’s pulse raced. I did it! I’m the valedictorian!
“Thank you, High Witch,” Rulisa murmured, bowing her head in deference.
“But first,” High Witch Tractia said, reaching out and plucking the familiar talisman from beneath Rulisa’s neckline and tapping it, “you’ll be our honor student this week. I want you to summon a nightbat for the Academy to eat.”
Rulisa’s triumph died in her throat. No. No. No . . .
She couldn’t refuse. It was an honor to be chosen, and there was no logical reason to say no. There were only two honor students every year, one for each new moon, which was when the Academy had to be fed and then lulled back to sleep.
If her familiar actually were a nightbat, she’d be ecstatic at the final opportunity to show off.
But her familiar was not a nightbat. She had no power over those creatures of fire and illusion. She couldn’t summon one out of the Familiar Grove, she couldn’t provide one for the Academy to eat, and she certainly couldn’t summon a creature of her actual familiar’s species instead.
“Thank you, High Witch,” Rulisa said, bowing her head. “I am honored at your magnanimity.”
There was nothing else to be said. She’d just have to find a way to make them think she was summoning a nightbat successfully.
A plan was already evolving in her mind.
High Witch Tractia smiled. “I look forward to it. It’s not often we have a valedictorian who’s the ninety-seventh fastest in school history.”
Eighty-seventh fastest, Rulisa wanted to say, but she didn’t think that correcting the High Witch would be a wise survival move.
“Thank you, High Witch,” Rulisa said instead, raising her chin with a hint of cocky arrogance in her eyes.
High Witch Tractia laughed, and took her leave.
As soon as the High Witch was gone, Rulisa raced to find the Coercive Spells textbook and set to work rapidly redesigning a lust spell to make it work for animals, rather than humans.
She had to provide a real nightbat. There was no question of that. She couldn’t feed the school with an illusion, and it would be obvious if she tried.
However, nightbats were native to the Forest Beyond. She didn’t have to summon one out of the Familiar Grove. If she could just lure one in from the right direction, she could illuse the portal that the nightbat should be emerging out of and fool them all.
Then the rest would be easy. She’d just drive the nightbat towards the dragon’s gaping maw, also known as the school�
��s entrance, which would slam shut to accept the meal.
The dragon’s eyes would glow and open, the High Witch would bellow the appropriate sleeping curse, and the dragon’s eyes would drift shut again. After some rumbling, the mouth would then yawn open, revealing a brand new nightbat statue that they would probably move to a corridor somewhere, like all the other thousands of meals collected over the centuries.
Rulisa may not have studied the ceremony in detail, having had no reason to, but she’d witnessed four, and she knew how everything was supposed to go. It was always the same.
So all she had to do was not mess it up, while also making sure nobody in the whole school noticed there was anything out of place while all of them were watching her every move intently. That should be easy, right?
Rulisa tried not to scowl, in case anyone was watching her now. Why did I have to get a final trial right before graduating?
Lights blazed in the middle of the room.
“Wake up, if you were foolish enough to be sleeping!” High Witch Tractia’s voice barked from the ceiling. “It’s the witching hour of the new moon! Everyone outside, now!”
Rulisa slid a bookmark into the book she’d been trying to read after making her rapid preparations, attempting to stand with a cool, disinterested demeanor. Her attempt wasn’t entirely successful; her hand shook when she placed the book on the sheets, and it slid to the floor.
Shaking her head with evident scorn, Rulisa leaned over, picked up the book, and slammed it on the sheets. She brushed past the two younger girls who were giggling at her gaffe and headed out of the dorm without waiting for anybody.
It’s fine, Rulisa told herself, joining the crowd funneling down the hallway toward the exit. It’s fine. Everything’s all planned. You will do fine. No one will notice. No one will know.
She chanted this to herself all the way down the stairs, following the crowd as it reached the first floor and exited out through the building’s mouth.
“Welcome!” the High Witch boomed to the crowd mulling around outside. “We have only a few minutes to midnight! Everyone here? One hundred and sixty-nine students and thirteen teachers?”
Witch Kanblair, whose turn it was to count the students, finished the head count and called out, “All here!”
High Witch Tractia turned and smiled at Rulisa, her eyes glinting and her teeth momentarily as wickedly sharp as a shadow-panther’s. “It is my turn to select an honor student, and I have chosen Rulisa. Rulisa will be graduating today, and she will be the fastest valedictorian we’ve had in my tenure as High Witch. Rulisa, step forward!”
Rulisa made a conscious effort to turn off the flames flickering around her ears and stepped forward, her face a picture of cool aloofness as her heart hammered with terror.
“Set the wards,” the High Witch said with a sly smile.
Rulisa sent a roar of flame through a ditch around the perimeter of the clearing. Fire wards were the most dangerous because they could spread easily, and the Academy was in the middle of a forest, which was why the school had a ready-made ditch at all times to put them in. She didn’t need the safety precautions, though. Her wards flickered and stayed in place in the center without a hint of straying.
High Witch Tractia strode over to the wards and shoved her hand through the wall of fire, which crackled and didn’t burn her skin at all. She was a fire witch, too.
“Excellent,” she said with a warm smile. “Begin.”
Something strange happened as that word was spoken. Rulisa felt hair stand up at the back of her neck. Something magical had just been triggered, something that she’d never noticed before, not even in the previous new moon ceremonies. Was it because it was the first time High Witch Tractia had done this?
Or was it was always cast on the honor student, and it was so subtle that only the witch who had it cast on her would notice?
The weird feeling spread. Rulisa’s ears were tingling. She tried to ignore that, though, and put her plan into place.
She faced the Familiar Grove, raised her hands above her head, and started chanting. She used the words for summoning a nightbat, raising her voice louder and louder as she reached the climax.
Right as she spoke the last word, she opened and illusory portal outside the Forest Beyond, then made a thrusting motion with her right hand.
There was a high-pitched shriek and a beating of wings, and a black creature with flaming eyes zoomed through the fake portal, entering the clearing against its will at a rapid backward pace. Screaming and thrashing, the nightbat sought to get free of the summoning spell, but Rulisa yanked a hair from her head to turn into a fire whip to drive it into the awaiting maw of the school —
And then a second portal opened.
Rulisa’s ears caught fire in panic, and she looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. If she could just close it before —
No, both High Witch Tractia and Witch Fyrailn were staring straight in the direction of the Familiar Grove with fixed expressions that showed they had never been looking anywhere else.
Rulisa understood in a flash.
Witch Fyrailn figured it out. She knew I wasn’t a nightbat. But she didn’t know what I was, and there was no way to be certain except for this.
Rulisa must have made a mistake. Or perhaps she hadn’t made a mistake that she should have. Or perhaps the unavoidable “coincidence” that her familiar looked exactly like her mother’s had been the detail that tipped Witch Fyrailn off.
The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was why she was here.
Witch Fyrailn had ranked her third last week, instead of second, to make sure she wouldn’t graduate before the new moon. Then she and High Witch Tractia had chosen Rulisa as the honor student.
It was a test. And a trap.
Because the summoned creature wasn’t voluntary.
If Rulisa’s familiar had actually been a nightbat, they would have shrugged and concluded that the student with the soul of a deceiver must have been trying to make them come to that conclusion in order to be chosen as the honor student. She would have gone up in their opinions, and most likely would have been invited to come back to the Academy as a teacher.
But her familiar wasn’t a nightbat. And now they knew it.
Frantically, Rulisa flung the unwanted nightbat away. It was just a distraction now. It screamed and shot fire at a student, who yelped and ducked, then vanished out into the darkness.
Murmurs and confused questions rose and babbled around her. Rulisa ignored the chatter and hummed a sound-enhancing chant focused specifically on the teacher and the High Witch. She needed to know if they were planning to kill her, and if so, what she should plan to do to escape.
The tip of a white-hot beak was now emerging from the portal.
“A firebird . . .?” Witch Fyrailn muttered. “Why would she be hiding that?”
A wing of feathery flames appeared.
“It’s not a firebird!” the High Witch shouted, her voice shockingly high-pitched. “It’s a phoenix!”
She shot a blast of fire at the portal, and Witch Fyrailn shot a blast of earth, but one was ignored and the other melted in a puddle of glass.
Catching on, the other teachers shouted and started shooting their own attack spells to kill the creature from the portal, but the water wisped to steam, the earth continued to melt, and the wind just made the fire blaze hotter.
Prudently, Rulisa turned herself invisible and walked through the obedient fire wards, standing outside them to watch. She didn’t have a broomstick, so she couldn’t just fly off — and, honestly, safe or not, she wanted to see what the phoenix could do.
All she knew about phoenixes was that they were made from healing fire and were supposed to be “pitiful.”
It seemed the wicked witch community might have lied about a few things.
Ignoring the frantic spells and screaming aimed at it, the phoenix emerged fully and looked straight over at where Rulisa was hiding, apparently unaffected by her
invisibility. With a burble that Rulisa somehow recognized as laughter, the phoenix spread its wings and swooped towards the yawning teeth of the Academy.
Rulisa’s mouth gaped open. Is it volunteering to be a sacrifice?
The teeth slammed closed, and the building rumbled. A pair of glowing red eyes opened. Looking relieved but still wary, High Witch Tractia bellowed the sleeping curse —
And the dragon’s head exploded.
Emerging unscathed from the inferno, the phoenix flapped its wings in a way that looked very pleased with itself. Then it flapped up into the sky, spun around as if to figure out where it was, and zoomed off at a speed faster than any bird or broomstick Rulisa had ever seen.
She stood there, her mouth still open, awestruck.
Phoenixes were so much better than she’d ever believed.
“She killed it!” Witch Andracsa screamed in panic. “She killed the school!”
A babble of hysteria rose up from the students and teachers.
“NO!” High Witch Tractia shouted, her amplified voice the loudest. “Phoenix fire doesn’t kill things! It’s worse! It makes them grow back faster and stronger, which means the dragon’s going to be awake in less than an hour, it’s going to be immune to any curses that have been cast on it before, and it’s going to want revenge! GET OUT OF HERE!”
Hysterical witches trampled the wards in a stampede out of the clearing. High Witch Tractia was the only one who remained.
“Rulisa,” she said quietly, “if you’re still here, be sure we will destroy you.”
A chill ran up and down Rulisa’s spine, but she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut.
“You may escape once,” the High Witch vowed, “but you will not escape the wrath of the Academy forever. We will hunt you down, and we will kill you and your whole family.”
Rulisa’s mouth felt dry. Her father and Kyre . . . she’d just put both of them in terrible danger.
There were only two people in the world she loved, and those were it. She couldn’t bear to lose either of them.
Fantastic Schools: Volume One (Fantastic Schools Anthologies Book 1) Page 5
