First Year

by Rachel E. Carter

  “Yes, well, I am not a beginner.” Darren exhaled. “Now think back to how you would light a fire naturally. This image you are describing is the flint. You need to focus on its details in your mind. Block out everything except the image you want to cast out. The steel that you strike this ‘flint’ with is your will. That’s the easy part because it is rare for someone to cast something they do not want. If you have desire, you have will.

  “It all comes down to those two things: steel and flint. The resulting spark is the physical manifestation of your magic. If you have potential, it should be effortless. If you are struggling, it’s a safe bet you are wasting your time trying to practice magic in the first place.”

  I glared at him. “Maybe I struggle because I didn’t have a lifetime of mage tutors like you.”

  Darren stared at me. “I never even considered becoming a mage until four years ago. I hardly consider that a ‘lifetime’ of training. The only reason my father relented was because the palace mages insisted he would be a fool to overlook my powers. It wasn’t privilege that got me the training. It was my potential.” Darren narrowed his eyes at me. “You can’t tell me your family wouldn’t have tried harder to get you a tutor if you’d shown a great aptitude for magic.”

  I took a deep breath and told myself what Darren had to teach me was more important than mauling the non-heir to death.

  Darren was watching me closely and seemed to recognize that I was not going to respond. “Well, it appears you have self-control after all.”

  I stayed silent.

  The non-heir gestured to the candle. “Now, light the taper.”

  This was it. I rolled the candle in my palm, letting its smooth, waxy surface calm my racing nerves. I felt self-conscious with Darren watching me, but I hastily blocked out those thoughts, letting them trickle away until all that remained was a vision of fire. I felt its searing heat in my mind. I saw the sputtering flames. It smelled adversely sweet, and my tongue recoiled at the taste of scalded flesh. I reached further into my mind and heard the sharp sound of crackling flames against wood.

  I stared at the candle’s wick with the image of fire concrete in my mind. I imagined the cotton string being embraced by its flames, all of the senses engulfing the candle’s end, a tiny flame sputtering that would carry all of my fire’s features.

  Please!

  The sting of scalding wax hit me all at once, and I shrieked excitedly. The candle in my hand had a flame protruding from its tip. Wax was spilling over onto my palm, but I couldn’t care less.

  “I did it!” I looked to Darren, eyes alight with exhilaration.

  “Yes,” he agreed, stepping forward to close the distance between us.

  My breath caught.

  The prince leaned closer, and I froze, heart beating wildly in my chest.

  And then Darren blew out the flame and took a step back. “Now do it again.”

  “What did you do that for?” I sputtered.

  “That was too easy. I want to see you do it under duress. It’s much harder to concentrate when you have distractions.”

  “Like what?” I was instantly suspicious.

  A slow smile spread across his face. “How about I repay your favor from last night?”

  What favor?

  Darren snapped his finger. I glanced around frantically but did not see any changes to the room. “What did you—” The words caught in my throat as I noticed a long shadow quickly making its way across the dark marble floor. As it trailed closer, I cried out involuntarily.

  The shadow was a herd of very large, very hairy brown spiders that were very quickly coming toward me.

  How did he know? My legs went numb with fear.

  “I’ll stop them the moment you light that candle,” Darren said, eyes dancing wickedly.

  I swallowed as I looked to the incoming mob. “Can’t you try something else?”

  “Stop making excuses” was his only reply.

  My eyes shot to the extinguished candle in my hand. The tip was tinged with black from the previous flame, and I willed it to light once again. Please.

  I tried to visualize a fire using my senses, but it was much harder to actualize with the loud pounding in my ears and the fear of spiders just inches away.

  Why did he have to choose them? The anxiety had my blood racing, and I kept losing focus to peek down at the ground.

  “Ignore the spiders, Ryiah!”

  I bit my lip, and inadvertently my gaze slid down to the insects again. They had just reached my boots and were beginning to climb. My insides froze.

  “RYIAH!”

  I shut my eyes and tried to picture a fire. The image came swimming back. I took a deep breath and tried to drown out the desire to run screaming and shaking the creatures off my legs. I recalled the taper and opened my eyes, practically throwing my impression at it.

  Instantly the candle’s wick caught fire, but it was fast diminished as a mountain of wax spilled out over my hands. There was nothing left of the candle. I glanced down at my tunic and saw the spiders were gone.

  Thank the gods. I glared at the prince, hands on my hips. “You didn’t have to use spiders.”

  “How will you get better,” the prince countered, “if you are not willing to face your fears? I did you a favor. Maybe now you’ll stop napping during Cedric’s lessons.”

  I peeled the wax off my hands, wincing at the swollen flesh beneath. “I haven’t done that in weeks,” I told the non-heir.

  “Well, I have done my part.” Darren waived a dismissing hand and sat down in his chaise with a wry smile. “So where is that promised solitude?”

  “Can you just answer one more thing?”

  Darren groaned. “What is it now?”

  “How did you know I was training wrong?” I bit my lip. “You seemed to know something was wrong before you’d even seen me cast.”

  Darren gave me a tired look. “I didn’t, not really. But when you attacked me with that fire it was pretty obvious you didn’t know what you were doing. Since I had never seen you practice your casting, there was no way you could have depleted your stamina.” Darren coughed. “I had, otherwise I would have been able to put out the flames myself. It wasn’t hard to figure out the rest.”

  “How come no one knew how to help me?”

  Darren narrowed his eyes. “You really know nothing about magic, do you?” He didn’t wait for a response. “The fact that you can cast using pain is unusual. Most people can’t, which means that your magic operates at a different level. You can’t expect the same rules to apply to us.”

  “Us?” My voice squeaked.

  Darren studied his fingers. “For the weak, castings come easily, but people like you and I have to work harder to project them. Our magic requires better focus because it is more. You will always have to work harder to cast, but when you do, it will be better, stronger too.” He laughed coldly. “Powerful magic requires those concentrated projections Master Cedric was alluding to, not acts of whimsy.”

  I frowned. “But then why is it so easy with pain? I don’t have to build up a projection at all.”

  “Spilling blood is the exception, not the rule.” He gave me a hard look. “It’s not a reliable form of casting. The powers you exert will be unpredictable and much harder to control. Your flames didn’t stop last night, did they?”

  I sighed. “No.”

  “Exactly. The masters here don’t even teach that method to first-years. It’s dangerous, and you should be grateful you haven’t lost a limb trying it.”

  I winced.

  Darren’s eyes danced. “Of course, if that’s your intention, it would be very amusing to watch.”

  I threw my quill at his head, and he caught it with a grin. He has a nice smile. I quickly averted my gaze. That was the last thing I needed.

  The next two weeks of Restoration and Alchemy’s orientation were spent trying to learn as much as I could about casting. Thanks to the reluctant help of the school’s resident non-heir, I f
inally understood what Master Cedric had been saying.

  I was also painfully aware of the warning we’d received on that second day of training: that the skill would not be something I could master “in a day, or even years.” It was a very ominous thought, and it plagued my every waking moment. I became consumed with practicing the meditation exercises whenever I could. It didn’t matter what time of day or where I was. I channeled visualization during walks to the armory, meals, and even once or twice during lessons when I had deemed the material irrelevant.

  Unfortunately though, as I had learned from my time thus far, every choice had a consequence, and it was clear as night and day that my newfound hobby had put an unavoidable cramp in the rest of my routine. I no longer participated in any of the lectures, and I had started to copy Ella’s answers to most of the math. It wasn’t ideal, but it was either that or muck out the stables each night.

  “Whatever it is you think are doing,” Master Isaac had said to me when I handed him the latest assignment, “I’d rethink the decision carefully. Ignorance will not save you at the end-of-year trials.” My response had been a blank stare of innocence.

  The master’s crinkled frown did little to assuage my guilt. I was not fooling anyone.

  It was even worse with Master Cedric, who had yet to see me succeed in a single one of his sessions. I fumbled through the two weeks of Restoration and Alchemy with the grace of a stupefied pigeon. It was true that I could finally cast, but since I had not devoted any time to the study of human malady and combustive potion-making, I had no way of casting a successful projection to invoke my magic in the first place. You had to know what it was you wanted to cast, and I hadn’t the slightest idea.

  I wanted desperately to show my masters I was trying, just not in those first two factions.

  Fortunately, there was one individual I did not have to worry about disappointing.

  Since anything Sir Piers taught was applicable to Combat, I had made it a point to keep up my devotion to his lessons, and I used them as the training ground for the visualization techniques I had been learning thus far.

  I began to notice every little detail during our drills, whether we were heaving large sacks of grain or hurling heavy jugs filled with sand at targets impossibly far off: “For those pesky inferno flasks you Alchemy mages are so fond of,” Piers had noted. I made it a point to study the way the actions affected my senses. I scrutinized what others were doing that made them throw further, pull faster.

  As soon as I had formed a good impression in my mind, I began to cast out my magic and use it to magnify my own attempts.

  Often, I was too exhausted in the midst of performing to actually utilize my powers. But there was once or twice when I was tossing a flask, and it worked, making my vial land farther than my throw alone.

  The best practice, of course, was my self-imposed training after the evening meal. Alex stayed behind with the study group, but Ella had made a habit of joining me since she too had little need to take in all the “useless material of the other factions.” Granted, it wasn’t useless, but it certainly seemed to us given the time we had available.

  During those practices I told her about Darren and how I had finally learned to cast. Ella couldn’t believe the non-heir had helped me, and to be honest, neither could I. I rationalized that it must have been a stroke of madness, or extreme confidence that I was too weak to constitute a threat.

  Though she tried as any friend might, Ella couldn’t argue with the latter. We both knew the two of us were leagues behind Darren in terms of magic.

  In any case it was in no small part due to Ella that I picked up the basics of fencing a lot faster than the staff. By the end of our second week’s orientation, I was confident enough to try my hand at casting with the sword during our evening practice.

  The first time I was in the midst of holding guard when I missed an obvious indicator for Ella’s next swing. My shoulder should have been red and smarting all evening, but as I realized my mistake I cast out a projection for the correct defense. Her blade hit a second sword hovering just above my arm, the familiar zing of metal on metal ringing in both our ears.

  After that, I used the move every chance I got. It was as if I had a blade in both hands, and while I was not savvy by any means, I was certainly gaining momentum. Ella had even started using her own magic, figuring if I was brazen enough to cast and parry without a true grasp of swordplay I deserved any injuries I got.

  My magic didn’t always work, especially if I were exhausted or had cast out too much in one day. Still, it was a clear improvement. I just hoped it would continue to grow.

  It was one thing to have magic, but it was another to have so little to start. I was no longer at the very bottom of our class in terms of casting, but I was also nowhere near the top, or even the middle. Though I had only completed orientation for Restoration and Alchemy, I had seen enough successful castings in the past two weeks to make me worried. Tomorrow we’d be beginning Combat, and given that it was the most popular faction, I had no doubt there would be even more competition to contend with.

  Thinking back to that first day with Piers and Cedric, I saw the magical spectrum I’d be chasing for the next eight months. At one end, whimpering Ralph clutching a twig that struggled to burn. At the other, Darren, and the two imploding trees far out in the distance.

  It was bound to be a very long trek.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Faster!” Piers roared, his booming voice carrying across the stadium. “This is what all of you consider trying? You are pathetic excuses for mages. I’ve seen war horses with more spirit than you!”

  He is trying to kill us.

  I swallowed back a mouthful of bile and continued heaving my way down the long track. I might as well have been a limping fowl chased by a pack of rabid wolves, only instead of the many haired beasts of the forest, I had Piers’s insults tearing me limb from limb. My legs burned, my arms ached, and my entire chest felt as if it were on fire. I could barely breathe.

  I had fifty more minutes. Fifty minutes of sprints, endless sprints, and the horrible obstacle course we were required to complete at the end of each mile’s lap.

  Today’s drill, Piers had promised, would make it clear whether we were “cut out for the hard life of Combat, or the cushy life of the other two factions.” None of us had wanted to disappoint him with that kind of introduction. Unfortunately, his new routine was proving quickly how difficult that would be.

  I ran my fastest mile ever—seven minutes exactly—only to lose the momentum I had been building during the second portion of the sequence. Running, it turned out, was the easy part.

  The obstacle course was Piers’s worst invention yet. Somehow he, his assistants, and the constable’s staff had created a breeding ground of pain and misery. Now we had giant sacks of barley to haul, a rope to climb, a tightrope to cross, flying arrows to dodge in the pathways between each station, and, last but not least, a quick three-minute joust with one member of the constable’s staff.

  All ten of the constable’s men just happened to have some experience wielding a pole. They weren’t very apt, but after twenty minutes of trying to complete Piers’s course, it didn’t seem to matter much.

  “I am not joking. Pick up the pace first-years!”

  I kept running, trying to block out the scattered curses around me.

  My feet were in pain. Raw, excruciating pain. A couple slivers of glass had somehow made their way through the supple leather of my boots, and it was all I could do not to sit down and pull them out. I’d managed to avoid any flying arsenal, but I was afraid of the three more laps I was still expected to complete. As Piers had pointed out at the beginning of class, we had healing mages on staff to treat us once we completed his program, but unless we were near the point of immediate death, we had “better run fast.”

  “Master Barclae informed me today that no one has left yet!” Piers bellowed. “That, apparently, I haven’t been hard enough. I don
’t agree. I told him you were just a resilient batch. But if the Master of the Academy has declared my course too easy, then it is too easy.” He continued to pace the field and eye us all challengingly. “I promised him that I would break at least five of you by the end of this week. The fact that you are all still here brings a bad stink to my name. I can’t have people thinking I’ve gone soft, now can I? So it’s time to sink or swim, my children, sink or swim.”

  I was halfway into my second lap when I started to notice a change.

  When we had started the trek, it had been hot and sweltering without a cloud in the sky, but somewhere in the last ten minutes the temperatures had plunged dramatically. Now, I could hear the soft rumble of thunder, and the sky was drenched in a purple haze.

  “D-doesn’t… look… good,” Alex panted beside me. “Not… natural…”

  I had a feeling my brother was right. Five minutes later, as I was dragging a weighted sack to its designated location, I felt the first drop. Seconds later the entire class was being pelted with rain and small pellets of hail.

  Lightning flashed, and I scrambled to make it to the next destination: the climbing rope. My arms were still weak from my last attempt. Luckily, there were three people ahead, so I had a couple minutes to recuperate before the next ordeal.

  Grimacing, I bent down and slowly, carefully, pulled out a protruding shard from my boot.

  “No more sheltered training!” Sir Piers roared over the thunder. “All of you want Combat—no, don’t you dare shake your head at me, Karl! Anybody who says they came here for anything else is a lying coward. You want a black robe, then prove it! I don’t want to see a single one of you stopping unless every bone in your body is broken! If you are waiting in line, you had better be jogging in place, or giving me crunches!”

  The class groaned, and I hastily jumped up to begin running in place. This was insanity. I had no idea how I would complete the course two more times.

  When I finished climbing the rope, my hands were raw, and my arms were shaking. While the rain felt good on my sweltering skin, it had made the climb especially slippery, and now I had a hefty rope burn to show for the effort.