by Katie Pottle
The class broke out into a loud uproar. Cadin noticed that not all of it was in anger; curious whispers spread across the room wondering what happened.
“Training starts after morning lessons and will conclude at lunch time. Whether it is before or after lunch will be determined by the amount of effort that everyone puts in.”
Anxiety consumed Cadin during lessons and he was unable to soak in a single thing that was said. Finally, Instructor Kade finished with what may have been a math lesson before erasing the cloud-board and telling everyone to grab some water.
“Alright, everyone outside to Yi Field. You three,” Instructor Kade said pointing to Cadin, Xeno, and Vincent, “stay by me.”
Vincent and Xeno were looking at each other with horrified expressions on their usually composed faces. As they approached the field, Vincent opened his mouth and just barely got out the words “the whole school…”
He hadn’t been paying much attention as he followed behind his classmates, until they came to the open field where the entire school gathered. They approached the formal end of the field where instructors stood on a large stage. Many of the winged students glanced around, looking annoyed.
Hmm, Cadin thought, most of them are looking at this as a punishment for something that they didn’t do. Can’t really blame them there, but they should not go into these exercises thinking like that or it will make the exercises feel like an entire weekend rather than a morning.
“Cadin, Vincent and Xeno—up on the stage with me. Everyone else, join the other students in the field,” Instructor Kade said as he climbed a few stairs to the first level of the stage. The stage had three different viewing levels for the instructors, the second and third had to be flown to. The highest stage reached nearly to the top of the tree canopy of the forest that stretched out just a short distance behind them.
A yellow glow broke up the sea of green. Other people not from the Dire Dragons were staring at Sun, perhaps wondering who she was and what she was doing there. Sun, however, was not looking back at them, but looking once again at Cadin with that half-smile. Cadin felt slightly abashed that this interesting stranger’s first day here had to be the day that Cadin was chastised in front of the entire school, followed by what he guessed would be brutal exercises. Why did she have to pick that morning to join their class?
Cadin wondered about all the cool and clever ways that he might have introduced himself to Sun if she had come one day later and not gotten to know his name through this gathering held for his eventful weekend.
“Welcome and good morning,” Headmaster Tripharian said. “As it was Instructor Kade's students that performed the infraction that brought us all together today, I will let him continue with the assembly.”
Instructor Kade shook hands with Tripharian as they crossed the stage. “As you all know, we are here for disciplinary actions today.” Instructor Kade started in a strong voice. “It is this school’s responsibility to shape all the students within into honest, productive members of society. When there is such a great breach of our society’s code of honor from any of our students, we must respond to the situation quickly so that we all might learn from it and not have it repeated.”
There was a general murmur from the crowd, but Cadin decided not to try and shrink himself up too small for everyone to see like Xeno and Vincent.
“Because of their actions of breaking into the Glade Palace, the whole school will be doing triple exercises today.” Instructor Kade finished, though for all Cadin knew, nobody heard the last part, because once the other kids got confirmation that it was Glade Palace that they had broken into, the whole of the student body erupted into excitement.
“Calm down, please. Before we begin, I am going to ask each of three students that somehow found a way into the most famous guarded safe-house in the Calvarian System to say a few words of apology to you. First let’s hear from Xeno, then Vincent and we will conclude with the leader of the group, Cadin.”
Something wasn’t right with that speech, Cadin thought as Xeno shuffled forward, squinting into the bright sunlight. It sounded almost as if he were praising our success. Xeno spoke softly to the awaiting crowd, “I apologize to you all,” bowing his head as he returned to his spot on stage next to Cadin. Vincent stepped forward, breathing heavily, his eyes darting back and forth, as if searching for an escape route and finding none.
Vincent said, “Sorry,” before rushing back to Xeno’s side.
Grasping his medallion to help collect his thoughts, Cadin took a deep breath and stepped forward, looking out into the crowd. “I am Cadin, son of Talvarian of Ansford and Sara of Air,” Cadin started in a strong voice. He noticed Instructor Kade shifting.
“Listen, I am sorry for putting everybody in the situation where you won’t get any free time today; however, at the very least, it should be some great training." Cadin faltered a bit upon hearing an angry mumble roll across the student body. Cadin waved to the school group, "We might as well take advantage of the situation and think of these exercises as a challenge for ourselves rather than a punishment for something that you guys, at least, didn’t even do.”
“We had no thoughts to hurt anyone, or even steal something that was precious and valuable to someone else. We wanted to see what the inside of Glade Palace looked like, and test our abilities to manage the task of getting inside.” Cadin could see that he had the entire school’s attention. He blushed with embarrassment, but chose to continue.
“I see now that we chose the wrong outlet. I want to say to you all that I will not do something so foolish again...and I'm sorry..." He wanted to say more but was too embarrassed to continue.
He followed Vincent and Xeno off the stage as the entire school moved into somewhat orderly lines. Instructor Nightan stepped to the front of the stage to begin the physical exercises; a nasty smile lit his face as he stared down at Cadin in the front line.
“Well done!” Headmaster Tripharian announced to the sweating group of students “Now go and enjoy your lunch.”
Cadin’s leg cramped and sweat rolled down his forehead. Instructor Nightan threw everything allowable at them, but the student body as a whole kept up. As the crowd thinned and left for lunch, many people approached Cadin with words or gestures of acknowledgement, greetings or even praise. Some people introduced themselves, while others such as the twin boys in Nightan’s group insisted on high fives.
Cadin and Xeno found Lep and Treven; Vincent had disappeared and Cadin didn’t know where he had gone off to. As the group started walking towards the lunch room, a large boy with sandy blonde hair and looming wings walked right up to Cadin and pushed him in the chest. “I want to talk to you, little turd.”
Cadin jumped back a bit, positioning his feet in a ready stance, surprised by the hostility. Xeno made a move toward the bully, but Cadin pulled him back, not wanting a fight. The odds were not great, as the muscular boy had three large friends watching a few feet away. Better to solve this by talking, Cadin thought as he looked the boy in the face and caught the glint from the veretal that had begun to coat his feathers.
“How can I help you?” Cadin asked.
“Yeah, say that all innocently like you weren’t the reason for the entire school having to do triples today and then trying to cover it all up with a big, fancy speech,” he said mockingly. “I didn’t come to here to get shown up by some little pipsqueak who thinks he owns the school. I am Gregor of Glade and I never get shown up, especially during exercises!” he announced passionately. His cronies behind him gave him some cheers of encouragement.
“But you did today.” Cadin guessed, looking at Gregor’s bulky muscles, guessing that he was strong and often dominated his classmates in regular exercises, but had too little endurance to last through triples.
“Look, you little punk,” Gregor said as he took a threatening step toward Cadin, “I came over here to tell you your place in this school. You are the scum between the toes of the creature that is this school…and
I am the teeth. Watch yourself or you will get bitten.” With that, Gregor spat on the ground in front of Cadin’s feet and walked away.
“Jerk,” Cadin said. Being a bully was not a good way to lead people.
As they entered the lunch room and got their food, Cadin noticed that Sun was sitting by herself, spinning a spoon between her fingers and looking around. Several tables waved them over to sit, but Cadin headed straight for Sun.
“Do you mind if we sit with you?”
Startled, Sun turned to look at Cadin. Her eyes left Cadin’s and glanced at each person in the group which now included Vincent and Jade—both of whom had been loitering at the front of the lunch room. A thoughtful expression played on Sun’s face as she seemed to evaluate the group and weigh her answer. Cadin suddenly felt nervous, realizing that her only impression of him so far was that of a trouble maker—a status that he didn’t want to be known by, especially by this fascinating stranger.
A bright smile lit up her face as she spoke. “I would be very happy for you all to join me. I have been quite anxious to get to know some new classmates; and I must admit, you bunch have been standing out in my mind.”
Cadin released his breath and sat down across the table from Sun. He said his name quickly, but nothing else managed to escape his lips at that moment, and he felt silly planning his cool introduction. She smiled and politely turned to Xeno who was next around the table to introduce himself.
“So, aside from breaking into upper-class establishments,” Sun said with a twinkle in her eye, “what else is there to do around here?”
The rest of the lunch period was spent talking about Glade. Xeno regaled Sun with stories of the forest, Treven talked about town and his parent’s shop, while Lep and Cadin talked about swimming in the lakes. Sun was quite interested in Mist Lake, and the lunch concluded with everyone agreeing to go there after school.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Archery Club
Instructor Kade started the lesson of the day without preamble. “We are on a Cloud System of Earth.” Cadin scrambled to his seat next to Lep, gave him a quick high five and settled in for the lecture. Sun’s waved at them.
Instructor Kade continued after everyone found their seats. “We are tied to Earth, as Earth is to us. There are certain rules and obligations that we have towards all living creatures, but most especially to the humans. They are our brethren of a sort—the land equivalent of angels. We know a bit about humans, just as they know a little about us. Our ambassadors to Land are of course Guardian Angels.”
“Are there human ambassadors to the cloud-lands?” Treven asked.
“Yes. It is different for humans in that they don’t all believe in angels or understand the connection between us. They have a society that receives a Guardian Angel to bring an official human ambassador to the clouds once every fifty years. There have been a few occurrences of accidental visits as well. Two humans named Amelia and Fred accidentally found the passageway between Realms. They lived for forty years on Lark.”
The lecture continued the whole morning—some of the time being filled with Cadin discretely playing a game with Lep under the table. Just as Cadin made a difficult shot and his tightly folded paper ball flew through Lep’s hands, Instructor Kade wound down his lecture.
“Alright everyone, this is as good a stopping point as any for your free time. I encourage all of you to be productive, and I would like to remind you that the first Archery Club practice will start in ten minutes in Yi Field.”
Cadin waited anxiously for Lep to get his stuff and for Vincent and Jade to join them from the other side of the room as he watched Sun and Instructor Kade head out to Yi field to prepare for the Archery Club meeting. He would have liked to walk with them, but the meeting didn’t start for a bit, and his friends seemed slow to gather. Lep was still stuffing his things into his bag, but Cadin started to pull him along anyway towards the group that was headed for the door leading outside. He walked quickly towards Yi Field. When Treven called his name, Cadin turned around, confused at seeing the rest of the group heading off in a different direction.
“Where are you going?” Treven asked.
“To the Archery Club meeting of course,” Cadin answered. “Aren’t we all going?”
Jade giggled a little bit, hiding her face on Vincent’s shoulder. Vincent smirked, while Lep wouldn’t meet Cadin’s eyes, Xeno was staring longingly at the trees and Treven shook his head.
“No, mate,” Treven said. “We are going to hang out in the forest today. Remember, Xeno is going to show us where to find tree snakes?”
Cadin remembered talking about tree snakes the prior week, and being really excited to look for them at the time.
“But, the Archery Club starts today,” Cadin said. “We should show our support—we can look for snakes any old time.”
“Sorry, Cadin, but archery does not interest me.” It was Xeno who spoke this time, giving Cadin a little friendly punch to the shoulder before turning and heading toward the forest. Vincent and Jade followed without another word.
Cadin turned to Lep, hoping that at least his best friend would join him.
“Lep, how about it?”
Lep looked up from his shoes and into Cadin’s eyes. “Sorry, Cadin—maybe next time. Why don’t you come to the forest with us today, and go to the Archery Club another time?” Treven nodded along.
“I can’t, I want to go and train. I meant what I said yesterday about finding a better outlet to test my abilities. I have to start somewhere,” Cadin could see that he almost had Lep swayed, but then Treven started laughing.
“Geez, lighten up Cadin. We are just first years. We have plenty of time to train to get into a University or Academy and even the Core. You have to relax a little bit,” Treven said before turning to Lep. “We can still catch up to them before they hit the forest.”
“See you at lunch then,” Lep said.
“Hello, Cadin,” Sun said quietly, snapping Cadin out of his daze. Looking around, Cadin was a bit confused. Instructor Kade was there talking to the only other student in the field besides Cadin and Sun.
“Am I early?” Cadin asked Sun.
“No. Late, actually.”
“Oh, I’m sorry about that.”
“Better late than never,” Sun said, a little more cheerful than she looked.
Instructor Kade walked over to them with the boy. He was older; Cadin guessed in his second year in Commons school by the fact that he had a bright white Aura and large wing calluses, indicating his wings should sprout before the end of the school year.
“Hi, Cadin, glad you made it,” Instructor Kade said. “This is Bartholomew of Galen, he moved to Glade this last summer. I knew his family when I lived there.” The boy had a tall, gangly frame, brown hair and eyes, and freckles on his face and forearms.
“Nice to meet you,” he said as he shook Cadin’s hand.
“And you,” Cadin replied.
“So where is the rest of your clan?” Instructor Kade asked, looking around as if they were hiding behind the only tree in Yi Field.
Cadin blushed, ashamed of his failure to bring his friends. “They aren’t coming today. They said that they weren’t interested in archery, and would rather look for tree snakes in the forest.”
Sun looked shocked, and a little hurt that there were angels that would rather search for snakes than learn how to use a bow and arrow.
“I see,” said Instructor Kade. “We must do something about this attendance. For today at least we can talk and get to know each other, and maybe Sun here can show you the basics of archery.”
Since Instructor Kade already knew everyone, he left to get the targets set up while Sun, Cadin and Bartholomew walked over to the little tree and sat underneath it.
“Well I guess I can start,” Sun said as she plopped down on the ground and began sorting the pebbles in front of her. “To begin with, I just want to say that I am grateful to both of you for showing up today. I had no idea that it
would be this difficult to get Gladers interested in archery.”
“Gladers?” Bartholomew asked.
“Oh, that is the name we use for angels from Glade over in Lance.”
“Got ya,” Bartholomew laughed. “Please continue.”
“Well I am quite disappointed that this club has not started out at all how I had planned,” Sun said. “I thought the Archery Club would be a great way to meet everyone and make friends here while doing something that I loved, but—well, you Gladers are harder to impress than I imagined,” she finished, still playing with the pebbles on the ground in front of her, building a miniature pyramid.
“Hey, kid—no worries,” Bartholomew jumped in. “I know exactly how you feel. I have been here for five months and still haven’t made any friends. And I am not even from a different Quad, just a different Commons. I think that most people are just scared of things or people that are a little different than they are. I heard about this Archery Club and figured that I should make a bit more of an effort to reach out to people and let them get to know me and vice versa.”
“Yeah, but nobody is here besides us,” Sun said, knocking the top pebble off her pyramid.
“I am not disappointed,” Cadin said with a smile. “It is nice to have today to get to know both of you. Don’t worry, Sun, others will come on their own time.” As he finished, Cadin picked a pebble near him and placed it on top Sun’s pyramid, making it whole once again.
“I’m all set up over here,” Instructor Kade called from the field. The trio stood up from under the little tree, smiling more as they made their way toward four large targets, all set up at different heights. Instructor Kade stood a short distance away from the targets next to a stand holding up several old bows that looked as though they were made from old brooms and one shiny new bow that was sleek in shape and nearly white.
