Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance)

by Jillian Keep

  Her one chance for success, to leave the life of drudgery behind.

  So why was it so damn hard to focus?

  As the two young women made their way down the hall out of the building the gentle melodies of some hypnotic music carried to them, and before she even realized it, Firia had detoured off her usual course a ways and found herself outside a crowded classroom from whence it came.

  “What’s going on?” asked Ala’nase, looking as entranced as Firia felt. The pair were compelled to prod at the students clustering about the doorway to take a peek inside.

  It was there she saw a familiarly unfamiliar sight. For sat upon the stool at the front of a classroom was the devilishly handsome and fiendishly tricky Gway’lin. He looked serene as he played upon his flute, all the students seeming summoned to him as he swayed and bobbed his head with the haunting melody.

  Firia had, of course, listened to many a musician over the years. Music making and song playing were great pastimes of the humans back home, but nothing they had ever done approached the curiously unworldly tunes that came from the elf’s playing.

  It was almost as if the music itself warped reality about him, his long, billowy black sleeves seeming to lift up and dance with the sounds. His hair rising up like numerous pythons out of some story book, entranced. Yet the moment she tried to focus in on any one of these things she saw it was not so. A trick of the eye? No, it had to be magic that empowered his playing. That made the whole world seem to spin to his whim, that made the lights dim for all the world but its very core: Gway’lin the musician magician.

  Firia had been struck breathless, though it didn’t dawn on her until he finished playing and reality seemed to return to normal. Applause was quick to break out.

  She joined in, though her blue eyes went to Ala’nase. Since when was she concerned with what others thought of her, or what she enjoyed?

  It was so foreign to her, all the changes she’d been struggling against since coming to the Academy. She had friends. People she actually cared for, outside of her father.

  She was letting herself open up. Just a little.

  From out of the crowd, the musician himself came up to her, the students slow to disperse as the lingering effects of his playing dissipated. “Ah, there you are, young madam,” he said with such glowing warmth. “I was hoping to attract you to me this afternoon and spare me a trip.”

  The look of envy Ala’nase gave was palpable.

  Oh firecrackers, this was all she needed. Another person for Ala’nase to make sly jokes over.

  Firia was glowing red and she tried to hide behind her black hair. She’d been growing it out, slowly, and it finally covered most of her jaw and part of her neck successfully. “It seems a bit excessive, if you ask me, to summon an audience just to save yourself a trip.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, his handsome face still practically glowing as he stood before her, hand on hip, looking as confident and sure of himself as ever. “The message was marked as urgent, however. Though it arrived by mundane means.” He reached into his robes and pulled out a scroll. “It’s marked as private, so…” he let his eyes trail to Ala’nase before going back to Firia, “I suggest you read it alone.”

  With that he extended the scroll out to her, smiling pleasantly.

  She didn’t share his enthusiasm and tried to still her hand from shaking as she took it from him. “Well, thanks.” She tried to force a smile, but dread pitted in her stomach.

  There was only one person outside of the school who would contact her, and she prayed for it to be good news. “Ala, I’ll meet up with you later, okay?”

  The young elven woman nodded, then quickly swooped in to Gway’lin’s side. “Hey teach, what was that class you were just instructing anyhow? How to make the ladies wet their knickers?”

  That and the instructor’s joyous laugh was the last she heard as Firia rounded the corner and headed straight back to her dorm.

  Upon opening the door, she saw an empty room. Though once it closed, he seemed to take form out of the shadows itself, his exotic, striking figure standing before her. “What’s wrong?” he asked, though she hadn’t been aware that she’d betrayed her distress. Some subtle cues in her behaviour and appearance betraying her to the charming devil that knew her so well.

  Her lip twitched in annoyance as she walked past him, settling in on the bed. She didn’t want to open it.

  Why was she even dreading it so much? She didn’t have reason to.

  Well, except for the fact that it was marked urgent. What good news is ever urgent?

  She took in a deep breath, feeling out the parchment, trying to will herself to simply rip it open and get it over with, but terror stilled her hand.

  Very gently, Varuj settled in beside her upon the bed, his curiously masculine scent tickling her senses as he put an arm around her. “Here,” he said smoothly, sliding both of his hands up to hers and helping prod her along to open the message.

  The scroll unrolled with the help of his guiding hands, and she saw the very obviously human scrawl written upon it.

  She didn’t need to read it all, couldn’t read it all. For when she saw that her father was being tried as a rebel and a saboteur, her heart skipped a bit and her vision failed her.

  “No, no, no, no,” she kept repeating, and she was only vaguely aware of it. This couldn’t be happening. The man she’d spoken to at the station, he’d seemed so kind. Like he would take care of it. Didn’t he promise her that?

  She felt Varuj’s arms wrap around her, but instead of being a comfort, it was confinement. Confinement like this stupid Academy.

  She was trapped there, kept away from her father when he needed her most!

  It was like her whole world was caving in on her, crushing her under its tremendous weight. Not even the handsome demon’s comforting grasp could take away its awful bite.

  Her father. Her lone family. About to face trial for treason. And wrongly so. She just knew it.

  He lived a simple life, and though he was not a simple-headed man – she knew that for certain – he was not a violent or conspiratorial man. He remained focussed on their life, on getting her out of their cycle of mediocrity, enforced by rigid social standards.

  “What does this mean?” asked Varuj curiously.

  Her lip trembled and even as she tried to form the words to let him know, she couldn’t. Her mouth simply wouldn’t let her say such horrid, terrifying things.

  How could she say it?

  Instead she looked away, down to the floor, slumping in the bed lower and lower.

  “I have to do something,” she finally managed out between sobs.

  “But what?” he asked, his arms moving about her waist, supporting her, keeping her from slumping down too low. “You have your exams to be concerned with. We have not even begun our training as of yet.” His voice laced with concern for her, though her own mind was worried for her father.

  “And what’s that all matter, huh? When dad’s…” She couldn’t say it. “I’m just supposed to forget about him and move on?”

  “You would throw it all away to go to his side then?” he asked so calmly, though the implications weren’t necessary to state. Her father had gotten himself into trouble just trying to give her an edge in the competition so she could one day be an independent sorceress, and not a groundskeeper.

  But it didn’t matter.

  All the stress, the pressure, the confusion, it was all too much to handle. She thought back to the simple life she could have led, and it seemed so much sweeter for that moment. To give it all up, to throw it all away, to retire herself to mediocrity.

  Would she do that for her father?

  She pulled away from the demon, rolling onto her side as she curled into a fetal position.

  Even then she could see through the haze of torment and know she didn’t want that. She didn’t want his life.

  But that didn’t mean she didn’t want to save his life.

  Silence hung
in the air, and finally Varuj stood up. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” he asked with such certainty. He had such an ability to see right through her. See her true feelings, sometimes even before she did.

  It was getting obnoxious, and she kept shifting so as not to look at him. “I’m going to do what’s right,” she agreed. Her father had sacrificed so much to get her in here, but she wasn’t going to let him sacrifice everything.

  The calm charm upon the demon’s face shifted. He was distressed; that much was obvious.

  He bent one knee and came close to her. “If you do that, you will destroy yourself. All he worked for. And set us both back so far, Firi. Do not act hastily, please.” Normally his charms could cut through her so deeply. And he poured it on thick as he pleaded with her then, but when it came to her father…

  It was her only weak spot. The only thing from her human life that she truly loved and cared for.

  She knew her father wouldn’t want her to sacrifice the Academy in order to save him. She knew it.

  Yet in her grief, she didn’t care.

  “Then find a way for me to do it without destroying myself.”

  Varuj rose up and turned away from her, his long, glossy black hair swaying behind him as he clasped his hands and began to walk up and down the length of her room.

  He looked for all the world like some dignified foreign ambassador, struggling over some matter of earth-shattering importance, rather than the decisions in the life of one human girl.

  “If I go in your place to save him,” he began as if each word were a dangerous blade, “you risk being unprepared for your exam.” Failure of an exam meant being kicked out. She knew that.

  “I could surprise you,” she retorted bitterly. “I’ve worked quite hard to get where I am in your absence.”

  He looked down to her and nodded. “I know you have. But so much hangs in the balance… each risk–” he cut himself off then gave her a soft smile. “I will do this for you. If you promise me one thing, Firi.”

  She sat up, her skeptical gaze upon him. “And that is?”

  Kneeling down before her again, he took her hands and stared into her eyes with his own, almond-shaped gaze. “Promise me you will focus on naught but success, and succeed in this test whatever the cost. We have so much more to do together, and we must not falter now upon our first steps together, Firi.”

  His plea sounded so heartfelt.

  She stared for a long time, trying to find the hidden meaning. Even when he seemed to speak plainly it always felt as though there were layers to his words. Something hidden and cryptic that she wasn’t knowledgeable enough to understand.

  “I won’t be leaving this Academy willingly, if you will take care of my father.”

  Squeezing her hands he nodded. “I will see to it that he is freed from custody. One way or another, I swear it to you.” Before she knew what was happening, he swept in and pressed his lips to hers with a passionate kiss.

  Her mind was buzzing with so many thoughts that he took her utterly by surprise. The taste of another person’s mouth on hers was so foreign, yet so welcome. She needed comfort. She needed something simple, yet logically she knew this was anything but.

  He was a demon.

  So how did he manage to chase away all her fears and insecurities, just with a kiss?

  She forced herself to back away, but her eyes were half lidded as she stared up at him, aghast.

  “You have to go now,” she managed to murmur softly, concern for her father winning out.

  Varuj pulled back and gave a lopsided grimace. “I will have to take Luka with me,” he said grimly. “He is made from your soul-stuff, and I will require that to mask my departure from the academy. There is no way around it.”

  She tugged in her lower lip, her brows furrowing.

  She wouldn’t admit it. Not then, not to him, but the prospect of having them both gone from her would be like missing a body part. Something so important.

  Yet still she nodded, for there were no other options. Sink or swim, she’d be getting her father free.

  “I need to be able to trust you. That you won’t lie about his safety.” It sounded so silly. She needed to trust a demon. A demon she no longer had control over, no less. A demon she gave freedom.

  Her blue eyes were wet and she blinked it away. “Just, please do this. I’ll feel a lot better knowing he’s safe.”

  Pushing his shoulders back, Varuj grasped his rope-like belt in both hands and nodded to her firmly. “I will see it done. But don’t you fail us both while I am away. So much counts on you, Firi. The future. Our future.” It was slow to occur, but the striking demon gave a soft smile to her. “Do whatever it takes. You’ve come too far to stop now.”

  Reaching behind him, he pulled the hood of his robe up over his head, hiding his horns and much of his face beneath its shadow. “Come, Luka,” he said, the spectral familiar looking to Firia as if in silent request of permission.

  She hesitated before her fingers moved between the fox’s ears, giving it a farewell before nodding.

  “Hurry back, with my father’s life assured, and I promise that I will pass this test.”

  The spectral fox moved to Varuj, and the demon held out his hand, touching it. The swirl of light created a near-blinding flash as Luka was absorbed into the dark-skinned demon, swirling about his fingers, his arm, before settling in beneath his skin.

  Without another word the demon turned to the door and opened it. He gave a final look back to Firia, his exotically shaped eyes tinged with glossiness before he quickly vanished out into the corridors, the passing women seeming not to be able to see him. At all. As if he were invisible to sight.

  Firia took a deep breath and held it. Was he truly sad? Lamenting that he had to leave her? It startled her how much she wished that would be true, and she took a step back before plunking down on her bed.

  She couldn’t let herself become distracted. Rationally, she knew that, but with everything that had happened the past couple of days her head was spinning.

  And she still hadn’t seen Mae’lin. Her study partner. Her… What was he?

  What did she want him to be?

  She tried to take a deep, calming breath, but it just made her feel more agitated and she swiftly moved to the door. She needed to study.

  Chapter 29

  Awaking with her face in a book was not uncommon for Firia, though she couldn’t help but lament lost hours of study due to falling asleep. The insistent knock on her door was more pressing however, and she had to get up, straighten her sorceress robes and go to answer it.

  When she opened the door she saw someone she wasn’t expecting. Gway’lin, the strikingly handsome elf, stood there in his resplendent instructor robes, the gold and emerald blue seeming to shimmer even in the dull hallway.

  His broad, usual smile seemed to falter, and he looked her over curiously as if noticing some profound change that wasn’t simply seeing her dishevelled after a late night of study. It took him a moment to recompose himself. “Ah, morning.” He hesitated again. “How are you?” His whole demeanor awkward, not at all as she was used to seeing the elf.

  Her brows furrowed. Lack of sleep must have been doing things to her mind, though she suddenly wished she’d glanced at a mirror first.

  How was she? Terrible.

  Hopeless. Despondent.

  “At a disadvantage,” she finally admitted. “Couldn’t you have just played your flute to make me come to you?”

  The stunning male cracked a smile at that. “Who says I didn’t? Maybe you were just in too deep a sleep,” he remarked with casual humour. “But the real reason I am here is somewhat urgent, miss Firia. I could use your help.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “I have an exam to study for. You remember, the do or die one?”

  He leaned in towards her and spoke quietly. “As I said, it’s urgent.” He peered over his shoulder, the hallway empty outside. “Some of your friends are missing, and I nee
d your help to find them before it’s too late. As you say… do or die.” His luminescent eyes locked onto hers, glowing bright like the morning sun.

  Wait, was this the exam?

  She tried to blink the grit from her eyes, even as she grabbed her bag and pushed past him into the hall. “Alright, so what are the clues or whatever?”

  She felt like a ragged mess, but it didn’t matter. She’d do everything she could to succeed.

  Though honestly she was a bit curious who he thought were her friends any longer.

  Gway’lin put his hand at the back of her shoulder, the warm touch gently guiding her along as he lead her down the hall and out of the building. “Two of them, Mae’lin and Bran, were last seen fighting on the roof of the library. An unsanctioned magic battle,” he added ominously.

  “Wait, is this the exam?” Were they actually fighting over her? She felt some heat of rage and pleasure rising within her, the sick emotions wrapping around her heart. She shouldn’t take such enjoyment in needless violence, but she’d never had anyone who cared about her.

  None except her father.

  Her heart panged with worry but she tried to forget it. Forget it all.

  “Focus here, Firia,” the elf said to her as they walked across the campus grounds. “I’ve checked the scene atop the library, and didn’t find anything, but I’ve my own leads to follow. But being close to them as you are, I thought you might be able to discern something I couldn’t. The markings of magicians can be hard to decipher for those not familiar with the caster.” He looked to her seriously. “You’ve studied with them both, I need you to do this. If they’re missing much longer it’ll be impossible to keep secret, and their time here will be over. Regardless of anything else. You understand?”

  “I’ll do this.” Test or no test, she understood that it was important. Still, a shiver went down her spine as she tried to recall all she could about the two men, about how they used magic.

  They were both powerful, but Bran had the advantage of wealth and class. He had access to knowledge that Mae’lin and she were still trying to discover the basics of.