by Tom Early
“Being a freshman kinda sucks,” Tyler said. “I mean, I’m doing okay because I have the team to bond with, and I did the wilderness preorientation, but beyond that it’s just awkwardly sitting around at dining halls trying to find other people who look lonely too.”
“That sounds horrifying.” I tried imagining setting out on my own like that. I’d probably have ended up never leaving my room.
“It’s not awful, but yeah,” Tyler said, pulling me a little closer. “I didn’t realize how much I’d miss having people I know with me until I got here.”
“Happy to help,” I said, grinning. Given that it was already around ten thirty, the campus was pretty active, people streaming out from buildings I assumed were dorms and heading to their classes. And despite the fact that Tyler and I were very obviously a couple and holding hands publicly, we didn’t get any second glances, and that alone was enough to make me like this place. Well, my hair got a few looks, but I could tell it was the focus of their attention. We made way for a girl in a black cowboy hat talking and gesturing furiously about the dangers of comp sci with a girl who had her slightly curly hair dyed red, and Tyler gave me a quick tour of the buildings.
“That’s Eaton over there,” Tyler said, pointing it out to me. “I have two courses there for history and mythology.” He glanced at me. “The mythology one is in case we have to deal with another creature that isn’t supposed to exist in our little adventures.”
“Good thinking,” I said, touched that he was planning that much on being with me.
“That’s Barnum. They do movies and I think biology, but I’m only ever there for the movies. The engineers all have to go downhill for class in Anderson, and the computer science students have to go to someplace called Halligan by the gym, and I’ve heard things about that place, Fay. I’m never taking a course there, and….” I watched as he animatedly told me about all the things he’d learned about Tufts so far and enjoyed the knowledge that my boyfriend was happy.
“What?” Tyler asked, pausing in his list.
“Nothing,” I said, smiling. “It’s just… I’m glad that you’re happy here. I’m glad I can see that.”
“Yeah,” Tyler said, smiling back. “I just feel like I made the right choice picking here, you know? I’m not competitive enough to do well at Penn, and I love sports, but I want to be able to do more than that. Tufts lets me be on a team without making it take up all of my time, and that’s about right for me.”
“Tyler!” A short, dark-haired girl with rounded eyes, massive biceps, and a backpack half the size of her body came out of nowhere on the quad and hugged Tyler, who laughed and hugged her back. She beamed at him, then gave me a sunny smile as well. “Who’s the hottie on your arm? Could this be the mysterious boyfriend we had to hear so much about?”
I felt my face heat slightly, but her smile was infectious.
“Hey, Anna,” Tyler said, grinning through his own blush. “Good to see you. And yeah, this is Fay.”
“I was in the area for the morning, and I couldn’t not stop by,” I said, giving an awkward little wave. “Nice to meet you, Anna.”
“Tyler and I had to scare off a bear together along with the rest of the group during the hike,” Anna said mock-solemnly. “I was terrified, but Tyler just kept shouting until the bear went away. When I asked him how he was so calm later, want to know what he said?” I glanced over at Tyler in time to see him turn scarlet and start to stammer a protest. “He said, ‘Fay and I have been through so much worse than a bear. There’s no way I could look him in the eyes if I couldn’t do this much on my own.’ It was really cool,” Anna stage-whispered.
“Really?” I said delightedly, grinning at Tyler, who had buried his face in his hands. “Somehow he forgot to mention any of that last time I saw him.”
“We were all expecting a badass when we eventually got to see you,” Anna said, nodding. “But I have to say, I wasn’t expecting the hair. Nice dye job.”
I considered telling her the truth and settled for a smile. “Thanks.”
“Shoot, I’m gonna be late for psych,” Anna said, checking her phone. “Good to finally meet you!” She hitched up her backpack and started on her way across the campus.
“Well, now I feel like a regular hero,” I said, grinning and nudging Tyler, who was still beet red. “I didn’t know I was dating a romantic.”
“Bullshit,” Tyler said, shaking his head. “You knew exactly what you were getting into.”
“Fair enough.” I checked my phone. “Shoot, I have to go back. Promise you’ll show me the rest of Tufts some other time?”
“I promise,” Tyler said, holding out his pinkie. “Pinkie promise, even.”
“You’re such a dork,” I said, laughing as I wrapped my pinkie around his.
Tyler grinned. “You know you love it.”
“I do,” I admitted, “and I do love you.”
Tyler groaned and grabbed my hand tightly. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it feels weird to kiss you in the middle of the quad,” Tyler said seriously. “I’d much rather do it when it’s private enough that I can be thorough about it.”
“I do appreciate your dedication to the cause,” I said, letting him pull me in for a last goodbye.
“And hey, text me when you know when your first match is,” Tyler reminded me. “I need to make sure my schedule’s clear so I can do the whole familiar thing.”
“I don’t know why you like getting bruises so much.”
“Because it’s for a good cause,” Tyler said, smiling, and a few minutes later we were back at the room.
“See you soon, Fay.” He opened the door back to Janus, and we embraced one more time before I stepped through and closed it. I still had a smile on my face. Today was going to be a good day.
Chapter Seventeen
I FILED into my seat at the Arena next to Nick and Aiden and Sofia, along with several other members of Obsidian who came to watch one of the top-ranked first-years fight. I gave Sam a thumbs-up when she glanced up at me and received a grin in return. She was already dressed in the same rune-engraved leather wraps we had all worn during the Trials, and it looked as good on her now as it did then. I stifled a grin as I caught Sofia paying special attention.
Over in the stands at the other side of the Arena was Sol House, and it appeared to be mostly girls cheering loudly for the boy who’d just stepped into the Arena as well. Gwaine was in a full suit of armor and, really? He apparently had a supply of roses to throw out to the crowd, all while shining a 100-watt smile. Sam glanced up in time to give me a look, both of us grinning when we realized we’d had the same thought.
Once everyone had settled in and Sam and Gwaine had finished warming up, a familiar silver-haired, silver-dressed woman appeared in the center of the Arena. I hadn’t realized Speaker Sekhmene officiated the regular Arena matches as well, but maybe it was just a first-match thing.
“Are both sides ready?”
Sam and Gwaine nodded.
“Begin!”
Sam didn’t waste a second. As soon as the Speaker had disappeared from the Arena, her form blurred, and she snapped out a kick at the back of Gwaine’s neck, same as she had done to me. The only difference was the shimmer around her leg, like an extra wrap of force that sheared through the metal with no resistance whatsoever. Had Gwaine not ducked at the perfect time, he probably would’ve been eliminated right off the bat. Even so, Sam’s attack still caught him enough to send a burst of blue light up from the edge of his neck, where he must have been scraped.
“She just keeps getting faster,” Aiden said, sounding mildly impressed. “And I’m impressed that she’s still moving. Almost nobody starts with a Burst because of the exhaustion that kicks in after.”
“As long as the fight continues, she’s going to push back any tiredness she feels,” I replied, watching as Gwaine threw up his shield to block the flurry of blows Sam threw at him.
“It’s just how she works.”
I could see the air behind Gwaine shimmering slightly. Sam was mouthing an incantation even as she kept up her attack. I wondered if Gwaine could even tell or if he was too focused on staying behind his shield. Then the seven Minor Orbs crashed into the joints of Gwaine’s suit, pushing him off-balance and sending him crashing forward barely into the path of Sam’s fist. Blue light erupted out of everywhere again, and Sam danced backward as the knight forced himself back to his feet, covering himself in emerald-green light as he managed a spell of his own. Moments later the ground by his right rose up, shaping itself into a massive antlered beast of moving stone.
“Ooh,” Nick said, wincing. “I know that enchantment. Green Knight’s Armor. It’s a bloodline spell.”
“What does it do?”
Sam cocked her head at the now-green Gwaine and the stag. She summoned a single orb and threw it at the armor, clearly testing its defenses. The moment it connected the orb was… swallowed up, it looked like. Small ripples ran across the panes of light before fading to nothing.
“It basically turns the fight into an endurance run,” Nick explained. “As long as Gwaine still has energy left, it absorbs and negates the impact of anything that hits him, at the price of being hit by all of it at once the moment he can no longer sustain the spell. That pretty much guarantees he’ll be knocked out the moment it does, but he still wins as long as she gets beaten first.”
I frowned. “There’s got to be another way to beat that. No Ward I’ve ever heard of can just endlessly take punishment without a chance of giving in.”
“You’re right,” Nick admitted as Sam tossed three Minor Orbs this time while dodging the stag’s charge. Another cascade of ripples spread across the armor. “But it’s not exactly easy. Most of the Dispels don’t work on it thanks to its unique construction, and you need a massive amount of force to overwhelm it to the point that it actually breaks from stress. Unless Sam has that much power at her disposal, this is a waiting game now.” Gwaine shouted something aloud and the ground beneath his feet roiled, sending out a wave in Sam’s direction like a carpet that had been snapped. Sam timed her jump perfectly, using the momentum of the wave to leap over it… just in time to barely roll out of the way of the charging stag. “And right now it doesn’t seem like she’ll be able to hold out all that long.”
I looked at Sam’s face in the distance, taut with determination. I smiled. “I’m not worried.”
Sam blurred and struck at Gwaine’s back again with her palm this time, dispelling light surrounding it. When that didn’t work and she stumbled from the sudden absence of momentum, Sam cursed and skipped back before Gwaine’s sword hit her. She didn’t look angry or like she’d given up, though—just thoughtful. Then seconds later the ercinee flew into sight, sending its light flowing over the Arena. Sam sent it dive-bombing at Gwaine almost immediately as she started chanting something else, making sure to keep her distance from both Gwaine and the stag.
The moment the ercinee hit Gwaine’s armor, the green light dimmed and started to fade as the ercinee began to glow brighter. I grinned. Of course. As long as it was light, the ercinee could consume it. Gwaine cried out in anger and swung his sword up at the ercinee, only to find his arm couldn’t reach it as transparent chains wrapped around it. Right at that moment the stag also seemed to stumble and fall, and I saw the chains wrapped around its legs become slightly more visible too.
Sam kept up her incantation as she advanced toward Gwaine, more and more chains appearing and wrapping themselves around his arms and legs, pinning them together and effectively immobilizing him as the ercinee continued to drain the green light, which was dimming fast. Gwaine started to say something, probably a Dispel if he was any kind of smart, and Sam’s palm struck his face hard enough to send his head to the right. The enchantment had been enough to absorb most of the impact, but….
“Is Sam actually slapping him to keep him from focusing enough to cast a spell?” Nick asked. “Oh, man, I love that girl.”
I grinned. “And that’s why Sam doesn’t lose. Give her a problem and she’ll always find a way to deal with it.”
“Not that the light-drinking bird didn’t play a part as well,” Sofia said, but she didn’t sound too bitter about it anymore.
“Hey, nothing wrong with using what you’ve got,” Nick said, watching as the green light finally shattered and dispersed and a burst of red light went up. “Especially if it works as well as that.”
Sam let out a victory whoop as the Speaker declared the match over and Gwaine stood up on shaky legs, offering his hand to Sam, who shook it and clapped him on the back.
“Congratulations,” I said, hugging her as she came out of the Arena. “Ew, wait, you’re all sweaty.”
“Shut up.” Sam grinned. “But man, that was fun. Can you believe I get to do this for part of school?”
“Yes,” I said. “Though I’m guessing that’s not such a great thing for people other than you.”
“Well, there’s Aiden.”
I frowned. “Wait, maybe Janus University is mostly people who actually enjoy fighting, and I’m just the weird exception.” A school full of Sams. That was a terrifying thought.
Sam grabbed a towel from the table outside the entrance and wiped off her sweat. “Heaven, minus the evil part. Wanna grab some food now? I’m starving.”
“If you guys want to stick around for a little bit, I’m about to go up,” Nick said, popping up next to me. He stripped off his shirt, baring sharply defined freckled abs for a moment before he slipped on a rune-covered tunic. “It should be pretty quick, and you,” he said, poking me in the chest, “can quit sounding all doubtful about why I’m Obsidian’s leader.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said guiltily.
Nick rolled his eyes. “Liar,” he said, but it wasn’t mean.
“I’m down,” Sam announced, plopping herself into the stands next to Aiden, who inched away slightly. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Nicholas.”
“Only Aiden gets to call me that,” Nick said with a smirk and a wink as Aiden steadfastly ignored him. “Now watch and learn.” He strode in, looking lean and wiry in his outfit.
Nick was up against someone I recognized from earlier. Percival, the guy from Sol Sam and I had run into on our first day. He was dressed in a suit of armor similar to Gwaine’s, only his had a sun emblazoned on the breastplate, with threads of white and gold entwining on the varying plates, while Morgan, the boy I’d seen with him back during orientation, was currently grinning and flipping him off before pushing him into the Arena proper. Percival didn’t look as friendly as I remembered, more determined than anything. But he greeted Nick with a smile all the same, and the way they clasped each other’s hands enthusiastically made me think that Nick’s friendly demeanor wasn’t restricted to Obsidian.
As soon as the Speaker started them off, Percival’s armor began glowing, sending rays of light off in every direction as the metal took on the radiance of the sun. I had to squint and look away, even from the stands, and I could feel the heat pouring off him. When he drew his sword it began to shine as well, and I could barely see anything in the Arena at all, except for Nick, whose dark form stood out in stark contrast against the light.
“He’s putting on a good show,” Aiden said, sounding bored. His eyes were surrounded by wisps of shadow, and he didn’t seem affected by the light show one bit. “What you’re about to see is what happens when overwhelming force is met by the most obnoxious fighter I’ve ever had the misfortune to face.”
I shaded my eyes with my hands and tried to focus on Nick, who appeared to be yawning and stretching. Percival swung his sword at him with incredible force, and a massive arc of light followed its motion toward Nick, only to be sheared harmlessly by the Ward Nick had set up half a moment earlier. Once Nick had finished stretching, he made a quick series of motions with his hands, whistled innocently, and disappeared.
I blinked
. “Uh. Where’d Nick go?”
“I don’t know,” Aiden said. “Nicholas is one of those irritating individuals who isn’t content to settle for being exceptional at just one Form of magic, but at two. Not only is he the school’s current best student in the Illusion Form, but he’s very highly ranked in Change as well.”
The radiance of Percival’s light suddenly seemed to… bend, first from one angle, then another, until the light he was casting was confined to barely ten feet out from him, and the rest of the Arena was spared from the rays. Where Percival was standing was now a pillar of light so incredibly bright that my eyes hurt just from being near it.
“That fucker’s using mirrors,” Sam said from next to me, laughing. “He’s bending all that light right back onto the other guy.”
The ground floor of the Arena was replaced by a smooth, shining surface, cool enough that I could feel it from here and part of me rejoiced. “Looks like he’s also setting up for when Percival breaks out.”
Just as I finished speaking, there was the sound of shattered glass, and Percival stomped out of the ring of mirrors, the light of his armor much diminished. He made it about two steps before his foot landed on the ice and he slipped, catching his momentum with his shield. He swept his sword in a circle and sent out a wave of fire, melting the ice and revealing the sodden dirt beneath it, but Nick was still nowhere in sight. And that was when Percival’s breastplate suddenly fell off, the ties deftly undone, revealing the suit of gleaming chainmail beneath. The intense sunlight cut off immediately, and for half a moment I thought I could see the outline of a figure dancing away from Percival as the knight swung his sword around in a smooth circle, golden energy crackling in its wake. Then the outline was gone again, and Percival was left standing there, whirling, not willing to take the risk of picking his breastplate off the ground for fear of exposing himself. Percival lifted up his visor, looked around suspiciously, and then promptly fell down to his neck in the pool of mud Nick created beneath his feet. The earth resolidified a moment later, leaving Percival encased in stone and unable to move.
