Then again, I had just used a large span of magical force to knock over a girl easily the weight of four barley sacks at once. And attempted a new casting. So maybe my exhaustion wasn’t all that abnormal, in the given context.
With a violent gesture, Priscilla halted my blades and let them fall to the ground harmlessly. She stood, breathing a little unevenly, brushing off splinter fragments and dirt.
“It’s time I end this, lowborn,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
I braced myself for the attack, envisioning a shield as before, but this time her casting came before I could create a substantial projection.
Her force field slammed my defense. My head spun wildly as I tried to maintain my casting’s spectral form, holding the shield for as long as I could. For the longest ten seconds of my life, I held my ground, shaking violently and fighting the sharp, searing pain that was filling my head.
Then, all at once, my shield shattered, splaying into billions of tiny pieces as I was sent staggering backward.
This time when I fell, I did not get up. I did not look to Piers or the masters. I already knew what their expressions would say.
This girl does not belong here.
Half of our class had failed, same as I. That was to be expected in a tourney of one-on-one competition. The difference was that my unsuccessful classmates had put up a good fight. I had humiliated myself.
“Will someone please help her back to her seat?” Sir Piers finally asked after I had finished retching onto the grass.
Ella and Clayton rushed forward and grabbed my arm on either side. The two helped me off the ground, and then Clayton ran off to fetch some water while Ella pushed my hair back so that its strands no longer stuck to my sweat-soaked face.
“Thanks,” I said quietly when Clayton returned with a flask. I took a long swallow and then glanced up at the masters and Piers. As soon as the commander noticed my gaze, he looked away grimly.
So much for no consequences, I thought bitterly. I had just disappointed the one teacher that had been rooting for me. The commander had paired me with Priscilla so that I’d knock the overconfident girl off her high horse. He’d told her that I could be the one to beat her one day, but instead of validating his declaration, I had just made him seem the fool for vouching for me in the first place.
Swallowing the sinking feeling that had set in my throat, I watched the last two matches in a melancholy silence. My friends had already participated in their own rounds.
Ella had won her bout against a boy who usually tagged along after the non-heir’s crew though he wasn’t a part of it himself. The boy had started strong, but my dark-skinned friend had persevered and delivered a harsh blow at the end when the boy had been foolish enough to engage her in swordplay.
Clayton had lost to a quiet boy Ella and I had hardly spoken to since the first day of class. Their match had been a pretty even exchange, until the boy had conjured a glaive, feigned an attack to the left, and held the curved blade to our friend’s throat.
The last pairing to go into duel was none other than Eve and Darren. Watching the two of them engage, I wondered if this was what Ella had meant when she described Combat as a dance…the dark, detached prince and the fragile, almost translucent young girl with violet eyes. Their exchange carried on for fifteen minutes, each serving a series of crippling assaults that the other deflected with startling precision. I had seen the two of them practice often enough in class, and today was no exception.
A shower of flame was greeted by a wall of ice. A powerful exertion of force was met with a large metal-embossed shield that deflected and sent the other’s magic crashing into the forest behind. The ground beneath Eve gave way, and she used the same force she attacked Darren with to send herself back upon solid ground. An exchange of blows played out between two spectral blades, until the two ended their castings and held in their hands their personal weapons of choice.
Clutching the hilt in both hands, Eve held a long sword that almost reached the entire length of her frame. We had briefly practiced with that type of sword during our sessions with Piers, but the way she confidently held the weapon now made me believe she’d spent a lot of time with it before the Academy.
In contrast to his partner’s double-edged sword, Darren clutched a single-headed battle-axe in each hand.
The two of them circled one another wordlessly. Eventually Darren jumped in, swiping at his opponent to engage. The two continued to feign and parry, metal on metal thundering across the field.
Suddenly, Eve swung out, and Darren hooked her blade with his off-hand axe while his other hand’s axe struck out, the barest of inches from her neck.
Eve dropped her blade, and Darren lowered his weapons.
The entire class burst into applause. Even the masters.
I kept my hands at my sides, seething with envy. Ella was the only other not to join in.
We were all dismissed then, and as I limped back to the dining commons, I heard snippets of conversation all around me.
“…Definitely not a mistake to let the prince join the Academy…”
“…Might as well announce the apprenticeships already. I think today was indicative enough of who the five for Combat will be.”
“.Probably the best performance I’ve ever seen between two first- years.”
“.That girl, the one with the red hair, I heard her family runs an apothecary.”
“Shame she didn’t choose Alchemy since Combat clearly is not her calling.”
It was too much.
Fighting back unwanted tears, I broke free of the crowd.
“Ry?”
“Don’t follow me.” I spoke sharply so Ella wouldn’t hear the tremors in my voice.
My friend nodded and turned back with Clayton trailing close behind.
I couldn’t face another person after what had happened in class today. I felt as if my entire world had come crashing down, and someone had ripped my dreams away just as fast.
I spotted a thick-trunked oak to the side of the field. Immediately, I sank down to its base, hugging my knees and indulging the wave of selfpity I knew was about to hit.
“You should go back to your friends.”
I looked up, recognizing the voice of the person I least wanted to hear from.
“Leave me alone,” I snapped, shame-faced. I must have missed the non-heir in my tear-induced rage.
The prince stepped away from the side of the tree.
“Everyone has bad days.”
I stared out at the grassy field. “I don’t need your rhetoric right now, Darren.”
He stood his ground and continued to watch me, an odd light in his eyes.
“Please,” I said, conscious that I would not be able to carry on a defense much longer. My eyes were beginning to water again, and I did not want Darren to see me cry. “Please,” I croaked, “just go.”
I shut my eyes against the tears that were about to break.
There was a pause, then the shuffle of movement, followed by silence.
I opened my eyes and found myself completely alone. The tears fell freely then. I let them.
CHAPTER TEN
The next morning I woke with the knowledge that yesterday’s nightmare had not been “just a dream.” I didn’t feel any better in the early morning light, and the feeling stayed with me throughout the day.
When I arrived to Master Narhari’s session and saw we were two first-years short, I felt an increasing sense of unease. The master confirmed it a moment later when he announced that two of our own had resigned.
“I would have thought you’d join them,” Priscilla sneered when she caught up with me after practice that day.
I bit my lip, and Ella shoved her way forward. “Go back to wherever it was you crawled out of, Priscilla!”
Priscilla shot Ella a look of contempt. “I am just advising your friend what she is too stubborn to admit herself.”
“Don’t you have other first-years to torment?” Ella retort
ed. “Ryiah hasn’t done anything to—”
“Her very presence offends me.” The girl looked me over coldly. “I am tired of being surrounded by lowborn scum, and as a daughter of nobility yourself, Ella, I am alarmed you don’t share my thoughts. Why not have her leave now? It’s not as if she actually stands a chance.” Priscilla called out to someone who had been standing off to the side.
“Darren, weren’t we just saying how silly it is that the lowborns are here in the first place?”
The non-heir’s eyes met mine, and I looked away. He’d had plenty of opportunities to criticize me in the past, so why stop now?
“No.”
My head jerked, and I looked back to the prince.
“But you said—” Priscilla began.
“I said that they were foolish,” Darren said, dark eyes never leaving mine, “but that does not mean they shouldn’t try.” He turned and walked away, leaving Priscilla, Ella, and me in his wake.
Seconds later, Priscilla left, chasing after the prince, while Ella regarded me curiously.
“That was strange.”
I didn’t know how to respond.
“Well,” she went on awkwardly, “that may be the first and only time I ever agree with a prince.”
In the week that followed, three more students withdrew. This time though, Priscilla kept silent.
We were down to thirty-three in Combat, and Alex and Ruth informed me their numbers had dwindled as well. The exact number was revealed during the final day of our fifth month at the Academy.
“Fifty-nine!” Master Barclae announced over the evening meal. “We are now sixty-three less than when we started! I am pleased to announce that the masters and I have met our goal and disposed of half the waste that was taking up our valuable resources!”
That many? I glanced at my friends. They exchanged looks. None of us had realized how many had left. Or that we had already completed that much time. We’d been conscious of the truth, but we had not yet acknowledged it.
“In celebration of reaching our goal,” the Master of the Academy continued, “the masters and I have decided to include you in our annual winter solstice ball the day before your weeklong reprieve begins. This festivity will be done in conjunction with our apprenticing mages who depart for field training the following day.
“As such, this will be your one and only opportunity to participate in activities with those you would not have the pleasure of speaking to otherwise. Do not waste it.” Barclae raised his goblet and roared: “To fifty-nine!”
To fifty-nine indeed.
“Can you believe it, Ry?” Ella asked me when I returned from the library, much later that night.
“You’re still up?” I asked incredulously. The bell had just sounded for the second hour into early morning.
She watched me put away my books. “I Can’t sleep.”
“I wish I suffered from your affliction,” I told her. “I am pretty sure I drifted off for half my study tonight.”
She tilted her head. “Well, it’s good to see you back at it.”
I shrugged. “I don’t have much of a choice.”
She looked at me earnestly, “Are you feeling alright, Ryiah? You didn’t seem too excited by Master Barclae’s news today—”
“I guess I’m just ready for this year to end.”
“Don’t tell me you are thinking of walking away!”
I smiled, somewhat bitterly. “I’ve made it this far. I’m going to stick it out.” I paused. “It’s funny. I arrived here knowing full well there was a good chance I would not succeed… I guess I just forgot that.”
I looked to my friend and forced a smile. A real one. “It’s okay, though, because I remember now, and I don’t plan on forgetting it again anytime soon.”
Ella shook her head vehemently. “You are too serious, Ry. You never forgot that. You just gained confidence and lost it when Priscilla knocked you down in front of our entire class.”
She began to remake the sheets on her bed as she added, “You just need some good weeks to wash away your bad one… and I, for one, think the ball will be perfect for it. We’ll have a whole night off to celebrate and feel mortal for once. And then a week to rest up! It’s just what you need to get your conviction back.”
I crawled into bed, not sharing my friend’s enthusiasm. “I hope you’re right.”
The next three weeks passed by in a sea of endless commotion, thanks in large part to the Master of the Academy’s announcement. Everyone was looking forward to a break after the grueling progress we had been making the past six months. Spirits were lifted, and despite the increasingly difficult sessions in class, the count remained at fifty-nine for better or for worse.
I had to admit that some of the cheer was contagious. As frost began to cover the field and every inch of the Academy’s campus, I started to feel better than I had in weeks. That day with Priscilla had faded away into a distant memory, and as my stamina continued to climb while others’ faltered, I grew more and more hopeful that the pattern would continue on into the new year.
In no time at all, the evening of festivities had arrived.
Ella and I had just exited our barracks, having changed out of our dirty training clothes into more presentable dress, when we caught sight of Alex running down the snowy path to greet us. It was noticeably dark, but the moon was full and gave enough light for us to cringe at the snow he was kicking up in his tracks.
“You two are never going to believe it!” he declared.
“Alex,” Ella scolded, “you just got snow all over us—”
“Just you wait!” He snatched both our arms to drag us over to the Academy doors.
“You big oaf…” Ella paused as she noticed our surroundings.
I stumbled as I took in the same, feeling as dazed and out of place as a girl from the country could.
“I told you,” Alex boasted. “I told you that you had to see it!”
All across the dark gray slabs of the Academy walls were hundreds of tiny sparkling lights twinkling down upon us.
Every inch of the school was covered in the tiny glass orbs, and they shone brilliantly across the white velvet landscape. Even the roof and rafters glowed. It was as if the entire world had been shrouded in the crystalline blue of a flame’s inner core, and then speckled in violet magenta.
It was the most breathtaking thing I had ever seen in my life.
“How did they.?”
“Alchemy,” Ruth answered from behind us.
The three of us jumped, having not noticed our study friend’s soft-footed approach.
“Master Ascillia taught us how to make the liquid glow last week. We brewed a whole batch of the stuff and handed it off to the constable’s team to bottle and string.”
Alex chuckled. “No wonder the servants were in such a foul mood.”
“Look at the trees!” Ella exclaimed beside me.
I turned and was once again overwhelmed by the startling display before me.
The trees were shining. Every pine within a hundred feet of the Academy’s walls was shrouded in the same blue and purple mist as the Academy. It was surreal.
“It’s so beautiful,” Ella said softly. She squeezed Alex’s hand. “Thank you for showing us.”
I watched as my brother turned a deep shade of red. “You would have seen it eventually,” he mumbled, averting his eyes from my knowing grin.
Ruth pushed forward, oblivious to the awkward moment between her two friends. “Let’s see what it looks like on the inside,” she urged.
We were not disappointed.
The servants had lined the sandstone walls with the same combination of lights, and with the absence of torches and the magnification of the black marble floors, I felt as though I was part of a flickering orb myself. The pattern continued all the way through to the grand atrium where the festivities were being held.
Inside the ballroom, long transparent curtains hung almost romantically from pillars at each corner of the roo
m. Twinkling stars glittered out from the many-paned window at the center of the stairs, and the stained glass ceiling shown magnificently against the soft violet lights of scattered globes. There was much less lighting here, and it created an ethereal setting amongst the grandeur of the stairwell and its spiraling rails.
All along the back of the walls were gold-clothed tables with platters of delicacies, cider, and tea.
The entire length of our stay we’d only been offered the barest selection of dishes since first-years were not, as one of the kitchen staff had pointed out, “valuable enough to use the finer stores on.” My tongue salivated at the display. With the exception of today, the servants had been on orders to only serve the array of fresh meats and cheeses to the masters and their apprentices in the private dining room on the second floor.
“Oh, it has been far too long!” Ella announced, dragging me with her to one of the tables. There was a long line of students ahead, but it passed quickly enough with Alex, Ruth, and Clayton following shortly behind.
After our plates had been filled, the five of us sat down to eat.
“Is this what it’s like at court?” I asked. I was feeling out of place among the grandiose dress of most of the Academy students. Out of the fifty-nine first-years that remained, only a third came from backgrounds similar to my brother’s and mine. Ella and Ruth came from outlying regions rather than a full life at the capital, but they were still highborn.
Looking at Alex, I knew I was not alone. My twin was dressed in simple beige trousers with an ill-fitted jacket that was too tight for his burgeoning frame.
My own gown was a simple forest green with a cinched waist of golden thread. It was modest in comparison to the revealing corsets of the others, years behind the current trends of billowing sleeves and extravagant skirts.
When my mother had passed the dress down, I’d been overwhelmed with its grandeur. I’d been thrilled to have such a fine possession. Now, next to Ella’s beautiful violet dress and Priscilla’s dramatic silk, my dress was an heirloom.
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