“I entered the ring expecting to win easily. Your brother barely worked to deflect every thrust of my sword, so I chose to use magic.
“He let me throw a fireball... once. Then Sebastian let me know that he was toying with me. I’d try another spell and he would make sure to interrupt it before I could finish after that.
“I may have been the bully, but he learned all the lessons well enough,” he laughed deprecatingly.
“He beat you?”
“Easily,” Magnus agreed. “I had to work with him again in the field and eventually learned to just get along him, but also along the way I saw what a battle mage could do. Like our soldiers, they are the ones who keep us safe. Our magic is a powerful weapon and can be used to protect, but working together we are strongest.
“So after the summer, I returned to White Hall and asked to learn how to cast like a battle mage. I devoured all their spells. Admittedly, it wasn’t hard. I don’t say that to brag. Battle mages simply have fewer spells than we do.
“A single school of our wizards probably has three or four times more simple spells than their corps, or at least that was the way it was before Sebastian came along. Now he’s added quite a few spells, and those mages who brought you here are still trying to teach everything they learned from him.
“I guess that I will have to study with the mages again. Your brother continues to teach me lessons even from afar, I guess,” he finished with a laugh.
“And now you are pushing for wizards to learn battle mage spells?”
“Most wizards will tell you. Our true mission in life is to learn as much as we can. Knowledge is literally power for a wizard.
“You will see with time. A coercer’s magic...,” he stopped wincing at his choice of words and changed them to, “A diplomat wizards’ magic has variations and those most skilled never get caught using their magic. With your strength, I bet that you will be among the best. You are also very intelligent. Since you are young, I suspect you will grow a lot.
“Diplomat wizards tend to learn most of the elemental schools. Some will become white wizards because they master some, but others just keep wearing the black robes with their silver trim. They learn a minimum amount of combat spells, but work harder on their craft at manipulating people.
“One path or another, you will learn and wish to continue learning; if you are like the rest of us anyway.”
“Do you know much of diplomat magic?”
“Just a little by word of mouth really. I have been a full fire wizard for under a year and will finish mastering it before I try anything else. In the end, I do want to become a white wizard, perhaps ending my career leading from Hala. Anyway for now, I will teach when they need me to or go back north to fight; and all the while I will continue to study to become more powerful.”
The girl was unsure if she should ask more and wasn’t positive she could put what she wanted to say into words anyway. Instead of pushing on, the pretty little blond smiled and thanked him for his time as she excused herself.
One thing Katya thought as she walked off to go to her room to study, Magnus seemed to be holding back something from her as they talked. She wasn’t positive what that was either, but maybe the respect he had for Sebastian didn’t mean that he still didn’t have a bit of hatred for her brother in spite of his words.
The girl was finding that her magic came with more subtleties than the other kinds of wizards realized. While a strong diplomat wizard was proof against the magic of coercion, it was her uncanny ability to read people that seemed to grow as her magic did.
Magnus was smart and had an ego, even though than he tried to cover for it with his jokes, Katya thought. A man like that might say that he didn’t feel a need for revenge or hate his rival, but they were also determined to win out in the end. That was what the girl thought might be behind the smiles and pleasantries Magnus showed the world.
With a sigh, the novice began to climb the stairs.
Chapter 19- The First Test
Katya looked up from her spell book at the opening of her dorm room door. The familiar sight of the little blonde haired girl, who was really a che’ther, entering their shared room made her smile at her friend.
The dragoness wore a yellow smock that stopped midway down the girl’s thighs with just an inch or so of her brown skirt peeking out beneath it. Even the skirt’s length was on the verge of scandalous on the school premises, which had even more strict rules on the dress of its students. Luckily for Cheleya, she was considered an exception to those rules, since the girl seemed to enjoy picking clothing that was both beautiful and often daring as well.
She kicked off her short leather boots after reaching down to use her magic on the encircling leather. With just a touch of her finger, Cheleya magically unzipped the back of her boots making them easy to remove.
Katya always watched the dragoness and marveled as seemingly seamless leather just opened at her touch. It was part of a type of magic that most people hadn’t even heard of in Southwall, let alone practiced. If you couldn’t use it in combat, a spell was often forgotten or left hidden on the page of some book. Alteration magic, as Cheleya referred to it, was an entire line of magic dedicated to changing material into what suited her. If leather needed to be soft like cloth, the dragoness could exert her magic to change the very nature of the material into satin or silk or whatever she wished.
While there must be limits to it, Katya had yet to see the girl stymied by anything; though Cheleya did keep such things simple for the most part. There was the bundle of black swords the dragoness kept in the wardrobe, however, which the girl had briefly mentioned she had formed using the magic from a component that was not steel. She hadn’t gone into detail about it and, as her friend; Katya honored her secrecy about the swords.
The smock was tossed on the bed revealing a pink silk top the girl often used for sleeping. It was thin and short enough to reveal Cheleya’s trim stomach above her skirt for several inches. The dragoness had a nearly flawless body; though some might say she was almost too thin. It was a form created to fly and being busty with large curves would only have hindered her in flight; but Katya often wondered if it was simply a true expression of the girl’s soul as well.
Cheleya was almost always a happy girl, in spite of the circumstances which had led her to White Hall. Her blonde hair could be changed with alteration magic, but the dragoness had decided that she liked the sunny color; she had once told Katya who had asked knowing of her ability to change it. Katya had even let Cheleya lighten her hair closer to the lighter blonde it would become under the summer sun. Winter had removed much of the summer highlights, but with alteration magic, the dragoness could change that in a matter of minutes.
To go along with the light blonde hair, Cheleya had green eyes that had the luster and color of emeralds. They seemed to gleam even when she wasn’t using magic. Her body looked long and lean, though she was a petite girl and below the average height of most women in Southwall. Katya was the same height for now, but at only thirteen that could still change.
Both girls were slim, but that again was a concern for Katya. Her sister was especially busty and the younger girl always hoped that she wouldn’t grow so big. Those breasts seemed cumbersome, though she had to admit that her sister had been very popular with the boys in Mera when they grew in.
Brushing at her skirt, Cheleya changed the brown with each touch towards a warm, dark red before moving to sit on the lower bunk. The upper bed was built high enough for her to cross her legs and not have to hunch as she looked at her friend curiously.
“How was the healer wing today?” Katya asked trying to break the silence. She had watched the other girl forgetting to read, but part of that could have been the sweet scent in the air given off by the dragoness’ human form. A protection given by the spell of the amulet which remained even though the shards had been removed. The magic continued to help Cheleya make friends and influence others to like her instantly, which could he
lp her as a healer as well. Even knowing it was there, didn’t mean a human was completely immune.
“A trainee soldier came in with a broken arm and Saenic let me heal him by myself,” the girl replied though she looked a bit disappointed as well. “I still can’t seem to help people with any diseases. There was a patient with the flu, but Saenic had to work with another apprentice to help him get rid of the main symptoms. They still give him vitamins and some other medicine to help keep him from getting sick again.
“I guess magic can only do so much, especially with diseases.”
Katya considered the problem and said, “Healing wounds leaves a patient a bit weak. Maybe curing a disease gets rid of the main problem, but requires the body to strengthen again?”
Tilting her head slightly as she mulled over Katya’s idea, Cheleya finally nodded, “Perhaps that is it.”
Katya glanced down towards her book, but couldn’t bring her mind back on track to study. “So was that all that happened this morning? I hope that you are actually learning more about healing. It would be sad if you found that we couldn’t offer you anything and you decided to leave.”
Smiling warmly at her friend, Cheleya replied, “Oh I still learning things. If nothing else, Saenic has helped me learn more of the medicines used to help humans. If I am to be trapped in this body as a human until I die, then it would be best to understand it, right?”
Katya tried to look positive as she nodded. Cheleya seemed upbeat about her condition, but sometimes there were those looks she let slip which made the younger girl understand that the dragoness felt the pain of being trapped.
“Piotr and Niklaus were there again today,” the little blonde informed her friend with a curious look on her face that Katya couldn’t decipher.
“Are they still being tested by the healers and research wizards?”
The boys had been required to go to the hospital and endure test after test for the last few days. Other wizards had come as well with questions and would use their magic in various ways to explore the twin’s unusual tie to each other.
Piotr had looked exhausted at dinner each day and had begun to talk less. Lyssa seemed the most disappointed by that as the girl had been trying to get closer to him almost from the first day of orientation. While he had been close to Iris, the apprentice rarely made any appearances to the novices she had helped escort to the school now. If the girl still had any feelings for him, she hadn’t done much to make them known; but Piotr didn’t seem to care that much either, though Katya doubted a boy would admit more to her anyway.
Their group had grown with the other novices as they went through many of the same obstacles. Niklaus had begun to integrate his trio of mages into their loose group of friends as well. With the wizards continually exploring the relationship between the boys, he and Piotr had actually become closer and appeared to stay together a lot almost like a defensive mechanism.
“I think they are nearly through the worst of it,” Cheleya said of the ongoing testing. “From what Niklaus said, the wizards mostly want to see what connection they have and are using these tests as a baseline to check on them in the future as they continue to learn.
“Still I have seen what they have gone through and it looks tiring. They are made to cast spells separately or find similar ones to cast at the same time. Magic is cast on them and the research wizards seem to have an unending amount of questions. I am glad that I don’t have to be part of it.”
The dragoness’ eyes seemed to drift for a moment and Katya picked up on at least part of what she was thinking as the younger girl said, “I hear that High Wizard Darius plans to leave for Windmeer in a couple days.”
Cheleya nodded as her eyes lifted to her friend and said in disappointment, “He said that he would continue to keep my condition in mind, but didn’t have any answers for now. We don’t know the extent of Malaketh’s curse and the magic used isn’t easily identified even for Darius.
“Saenic and some of the other healers checked to see if they could find what is stopping my transformations now that the amulet has been removed, but no one can find anything.”
Cheleya stood up and summoned a smile for her friend, “Well, Kel’lor will need my help here soon anyway.”
“They’ve set up a class for dragon magic?” Katya asked only slightly surprised. She had heard Cheleya speak of the school council trying to decide how to create the class and to whom it would be offered. “Do you think I could get in one? I would love to be able to fly, if nothing else.
“Sebastian wanted me to understand that having magic was actually a good thing when everyone else was saying that it was a curse. The first thing he showed me was wind riding. Do you know that air magic?”
“I know of it, but my choice was to really ride the winds. Though I would love to show you that world, I doubt that you will be among those chosen for the first class.
“Kel’lor has met with a few of the teachers as well as people in charge like High Wizard Herrol. In Mar’kal, I don’t think anyone went straight to that discipline. Most went through the usual elemental magic honing their ability first.”
Katya frowned at her friend’s assessment, but asked, “How will they determine who will be a candidate for the magic?”
A slightly wicked smile crossed Cheleya’s face and she asked, “Do you truly want to know?”
Frowning at her cryptic answer, the younger girl put her book down and stood up to face the dragoness. “I wouldn’t have asked, if I didn’t want to know.”
Cheleya took her hand and said, “Then follow me. I’ll show you the first test. Then if you ask and can pass it, maybe your teachers will let me teach you.”
As she was pulled towards the door, Katya asked, “Don’t you want to put your boots on or maybe something warmer? It might be considered spring but it isn’t that warm outside yet.”
Cheleya looked at her and shrugged, “My people don’t wear clothes at all, since we have scales. Frankly, I mostly wear them because your people frown upon walking around bare and I also like wearing pretty things.” The girl finished with a giggle.
One thing Katya had noticed about the dragoness was that she did like clothes and playing with her appearance as well as using her magic to do it to others. She had let Cheleya brighten the color of her hair because the dragoness had asked one day when she had been bored. The girl had offered to change the colors of some of her clothes, though that had been declined since Katya had so little time to wear something other than novice white.
Getting her thoughts back to the main reason she was wearing an apprentice dress and short boots even inside the school, Katya asked, “You really aren’t cold?”
Laughing at something that the other girl missed, Cheleya stopped before opening the door and said, “I have told you how Malaketh threw me from the tower and tried to interrupt the use of my magic. That was more than a month and a half ago, in the mountains to the north where it is colder and Mar'kal is still feeling winter most likely.”
Not seeing her point, Katya asked, “And?”
“Before I was forced to be human, I would use my magic to force the illusion of clothing. Kel’lor and my other classmate could do the same and it wasn’t built into the amulet’s spell, but that of our magic.”
She held up her arm and a glove looking like it was silk appeared over her hand and forearm. Moving her arm back and forth quickly a couple times it always looked attached to the arm, Cheleya added, “It looks real, but this is an illusion. Our bodies don’t really feel the cold.”
The illusion dissolved as she gestured towards her torso. “When he disrupted my magic to try and kill me, the illusions were disrupted as well and I initially had to flee naked into the snow and cold. I didn’t notice the cold as much then and I still don’t have the trouble with it that true humans do.
“I kept that much of my heritage at least, so I could have ridden here in nothing and been fine on the trip from Hala to White Hall,” she giggled at the thought, �
��but I don’t think people would have appreciated such a thing.”
Katya sighed thinking of the boys’ prank to look through their window when all the girls were nearly nude as they changed. “Some might have less of a problem with it than others. Certain perverted boys might say otherwise, but they would probably have enjoyed that.”
Looking a bit confused a moment; Cheleya shrugged and opened the door. She nearly ran into Neira returning from where she had probably been studying. The other novice appeared surprised and looked at Cheleya’s state of attire disapprovingly.
“Where are you two going?”
The dragoness grinned and said, “I am going to show Katya the first test for dragon magic. Would you like to come?”
Neira whitened slightly as she asked, “You mean the story about the flying girl was true? I don’t think I am ready to try such a thing. I will just study what the school wishes me to right now, thank you.” The brown haired apprentice brushed back her hair trying to remain aloof from the idea, though Katya could tell that it was more likely a fear of what the test was that worried her most.
If she could pass Cheleya’s test, Katya wondered if she could get the dragoness to teach her to fly, if nothing else of the magic.
Shrugging her shoulders the little blonde replied, “Well then I guess I will just show Katya then.”
“Shouldn’t you get dressed before running around school like that? You’ll catch your death of cold,” Neira sniffed trying to appear older than she was. The girl often seemed to forget that Cheleya was the one who was actually older, though the dragoness was a mere child to her people and barely out of her egg at seventeen years.
“I will be fine. See you later, Neira,” Cheleya stated nicely and pulled Katya after her.
The younger girl was half dragged to the nearest stairway in a blur of blond hair before they began climbing the stairs. Katya only wore her apprentice dress and boots feeling the chill emanating from the stone used to make the massive school building. It was a virtual castle, even if it was used for higher learning.
White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10) Page 29
