by B. T. Narro
“Who would like to go next?”
Basen was too curious about his weakest skill to wait any longer and raised his hand. Whatever it was, he looked forward to the challenge.
“All right, Basen. I want you to meditate.”
Panic seized his heart. “What?”
“Meditate.” She moved closer. “Go ahead.”
“There must be something more difficult you’d have me do,” he tried.
“No, I just want you to meditate.” Many seemed confused as they whispered to each other. Others were audibly annoyed he’d get something so easy.
Shit. What did Nick tell me about meditation?
It was like breathing, but with energy. It went into his body and out, but without his mind working to pull it in and push it out.
Penny held her hand on his back. “Begin.”
He mimicked what he figured meditation would feel like to Penny. He pulled in a low amount of bastial energy, trying to draw it into his chest evenly from the air around him. He held it there for a breath, then pushed it out.
He glanced at Penny for a clue as to how he was doing, but she had her eyes closed with her head down. He continued drawing in the energy and pushing it out, though it was like trying to draw perfectly straight lines. There were times when he pulled the energy quicker than he meant, or pushed it out with too much force. He hoped normal meditation was similar.
Penny soon stopped him. “Basen, do you know how to meditate?”
His heart sank. “Not exactly. It’s not something taught to Tenred mages.”
The sounds of surprise from his classmates only worsened his embarrassment. Penny shook her head as she made marks on her scroll.
There goes my chance at Group One.
He moved to the back where he didn’t have to deal with people staring at him. Effie came to join him.
“I can’t believe you’ve kept up with me without being able to meditate.”
“If only that mattered to my overall rating. Which group will they put me in now?”
Effie rubbed her neck underneath her wavy dark hair. “Certainly not Group One, but I don’t know besides that. You’ve done well at everything, but everyone knows how to meditate, so I don’t know how they’ll score that. How did you do on the written test?”
“That depends. What color is bastial energy?”
“What did you write?”
“Red.”
“That’s all you wrote?”
“Yes.”
She giggled and shook her head. “Penny is not going to like that. Didn’t you hear her this morning? She told us that no matter what, don’t write only one sentence for the last question and especially not one word.”
“God’s mercy, I’m going to be put in Group Ten with the mages who can barely cast anything. So what color is bastial energy?”
“It can be red when it’s at its hottest and most concentrated, which is why we use red to represent the color, but no average mage could gather enough bastial energy to see it as red. It’s clear normally, then it becomes white the hotter and more concentrated it gets. Eventually it darkens to red.”
They watched the others as Penny asked everyone to do something different: cast the largest fireball possible, aim from twenty yards away, shoot three fireballs in quick succession, gather bastial energy and hold it steady at a safe distance.
“You haven’t tried to burn the ribbon yet,” Effie said. “How are you planning to do it?”
Basen chuckled bitterly. “Do you mean how am I planning to fail? Like everyone else. With a fireball.”
She pinched his side hard, even twisting his flesh maliciously.
“Ow!” He didn’t mean to be so loud, turning the heads of nearly the entire class. He apologized as his cheeks became hot, then waited for them to turn back around.
“Effie, what in god’s world was that for?”
“Do you want to be in Group Ten?”
He didn’t answer her rhetorical question, eyeing her fingers warily.
“Don’t you want to be in Group One with me?”
“Not if you’re going to pinch me.”
She slapped him, sending his face to the side.
“What the bastial hell, Effie!” he groused, holding a hand to his stinging cheek. “Damn, how many men have you slapped? There was a lot of practice behind that.”
She grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Enough with the jokes! Are you ready to be serious?”
“Yes.”
She let go of him. “I just realized you finally used a Kyrro expression: bastial hell. You’re learning to adapt. The next step to being more like the rest of us at the Academy is to take advantage of your talents and think differently. Everyone here uses whatever they can to be noticed by their instructors. Now, I might have an idea for a spell you can use. I know that you’re not as knowledgeable as I am about what spells there are, and you’re not as experienced at casting, and you’re skill with sartious energy is still at a beginner level, and your meditation—”
“God’s mercy, can you get to the but?”
“But! You are absolutely exceptional at what, Basen?”
“Manipulating bastial energy.”
“So what spell can you cast that will destroy the ribbon and not the wood?”
“Why don’t you just tell me?”
“Because if it works, you don’t want it to be because I told you what to cast. Penny might even have a rule against it, for all I know.”
He supposed that was true.
“Think about what we were just talking about with the color of bastial energy,” she said as she patted his back. Then she walked away with a smug look on her face.
As everyone finished the final challenge, Basen contemplated what he could do that no one else had tried. What did she mean about the color of bastial energy?
Eventually the day came to an end and Penny gave those who hadn’t yet broken the wood one last chance. Effie glanced at him expectantly.
“May I go first?” he asked Penny.
She gestured at the sticks lining the sand ten yards from the dummy. He took his place.
There were others who could cast fireballs almost as large as he could, and they’d nearly burned the ribbon by shooting the dummy in the chest and hoping for fragments of the fireball to reach the ribbon. All of them had caught the wood on fire instead, and it burned and broke apart before the ribbon was destroyed.
Basen needed something involving less chance. Whatever his spell was, it had to be just hot enough to burn the ribbon and not the wood.
He came to the grave realization that fire would not do.
He noticed Penny was more involved with making marks on her scroll than paying attention. He cleared his throat and she looked up.
“Yes, yes, go ahead.” But she returned her attention to her scroll. Perhaps this was a good thing, for she might otherwise yell for him to stop if she noticed what he was planning before he finished casting.
Glancing behind him, Basen found the rest of the class waiting with an excited twinkle in their eyes. He was glad to know he still had their faith even if his instructor had given up on him.
He’d never cast a spell like this out of fear of being burned by the massive amount of BE, but there were many things he’d never done since coming here, and he wasn’t about to stop taking risks now.
The first phase of the spell involved gathering BE just as he would when casting a fireball. He completed it in the span of a breath. Holding the energy an arm’s length from the end of his wand felt like holding a heavy rock awkwardly, as if leaning forward with his arms outstretched. But he endured the pain as he began the next phase—power.
His spell needed far more hot bastial energy, enough to give the spell five times the intensity of a fireball. But the more he gathered, the more difficult it was to hold.
Like sucking in a breath of air before a deep dive, Basen pulled all the BE he could reach to a single point: the center of the cluster of energy, w
here he packed it together tightly. A ball the size of his thumbnail burned pure white, the heat ravaging his knuckles as it distorted the image of the dummies behind it. The energy fought against Basen, making him feel as if he were trying to contain an angry giant.
He forced it straight ahead at the ribbon. There was no controlling the speed of bastial energy. Whether pulling it in or directing it outward, BE always wanted to move faster than an arrow. This was what made it so hard to hold and aim, and so dangerous to control when enough of it had gathered to burn flesh from bone, as was the case now.
Penny screamed Basen’s name as the energy shot forward in a beam so white that it seemed to reflect the beige sand beneath it and the blue sky above it. There was a flash as it struck the ribbon, then a quick sizzling sound.
The light was gone in an instant, leaving a black circle in the middle of the ribbon. Flames jumped up, spreading and growing with each gasp of those watching.
But then the wood caught fire. Basen panicked as a race began—the ribbon falling to ash or the wood breaking in half.
Most of the ribbon was consumed already, but the fire took new life with the wood feeding it. Fortunately, this only caused the ribbon to burn faster.
Basen grew a smile as the last of it came off, the wood breaking and collapsing soon after. He had done it. Group One! He was about to throw his fist in the air, but then he saw Penny’s face. She looked scared and mad at the same time, but dumbfounded as well, as if she’d just watched a child jump from the roof of a house to land safely in a barrel of water.
There was no applause, only murmurs of nervousness as everyone waited for Penny to react.
“I told you to warn me next time you were going to do anything dangerous!”
You would’ve stopped me had I said anything. “I didn’t think it was dangerous because I had it under complete control.”
“You might’ve thought you did, but your hold could’ve slipped when the energy was at its hottest! The beam could’ve struck someone in the eye and permanently blinded them! There’s a reason that a student’s regard for safety is just as important in deciding his group as his other talents.” She made a sweeping gesture at the rest of the students. “You might very well do more damage than good if given the freedom to cast what you want!”
Now he was certain she wouldn’t have let him cast if he’d asked for permission. But he knew when to say nothing. She wouldn’t believe that he had the control for an advanced spell like that, no matter how he tried to word it.
He lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Evaluation week is over,” she announced. “Go to the dining hall for supper.” She started to stomp off.
“Isn’t Basen going to be put in Group One for destroying the ribbon?” Effie called after her.
“No,” Penny muttered without looking back.
As Basen stood, unable to move, the rest of the class walked by him. Many offered condolences and compliments about his spell, some squeezing his shoulder or patting his back.
Soon it was just him and Effie.
“Was that at least the spell you had in mind?” he asked.
“It was the exact spell. Now I’m even more thankful I let you come to it yourself, or I would feel guilty for what just happened. Penny can be unreasonable in her regard for safety. I know you had enough control not to put anyone in danger.”
He put his arm around her. “Just hearing that Effie Elegin has confidence in me means more than getting into Group One.”
He was surprised to see her look down and blush at what he’d meant as a friendly gesture. He quickly removed his arm from her shoulders.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After dinner, the realization that evaluation week was over finally settled in. Basen could only hope Penny would put him in a group that would challenge him enough to grow.
There was time left in the evening before sunset. He got the idea to train his portal spell. He still wasn’t sure it was in fact a portal, but it seemed to resemble one closely enough for him to think of nothing else. Or perhaps it was just the excitement of it possibly being a portal that kept it fixed as that in his mind.
The idea of seeing his clothed and fed father tomorrow comforted him as he came back to his empty campus house, and the prospect of seeing Alabell, too, led him to retire early so he could set out around dawn. He owed her more thanks than he could give, but it wasn’t his desire to thank her that caused his body to thrum with excitement.
It was unlike him to remember a woman’s eyes in vivid detail, but he’d spent enough time losing himself in Alabell’s when he’d shared a meal with her in Oakshen for them to remain in his memory. They were deep brown and as gentle and caring as a mother holding her baby for the first time. With a mouth made to smile, and auburn hair that reminded Basen of sun-scorched clouds during a sunset, Alabell’s beauty was a mirror of her kind heart.
Basen could stand the quiet of his room for only a moment before he drew his wand and gathered bastial energy at the tip of it. As he failed to make a portal, he remembered it could only be done in Nick’s room for reasons he had yet to understand.
He braced himself with a slow breath, then made his way down the hall. He kept Nick’s door closed. He always had the irrational fear that something unsightly would be behind it when he opened it.
Of course there was nothing but a clean, made bed, an empty wardrobe and dresser, and a bare desk. Nick’s family had come by for his belongings, thankfully while Basen was in class.
He stood in the center of Nick’s room and pointed his wand. He was about to cast when his instincts stopped him with such intensity it was as if he were nearing the edge of a cliff.
Why? What’s so dangerous about casting in Nick’s room?
Then he remembered he’d made portals for the first time the night Nick was killed. And I haven’t made any since.
Chills coursed up and down his entire body, raising the hairs on his arms and neck. Was Nick killed because someone thought he was the one making portals?
A knock at the front door scared him so much he jumped up off the floor. He gathered himself, putting a hand against his rushing heart, and went to answer the door. He was delighted to find Sanya there. She was in the midst of a joyful twirl as he opened the door, clearly in high spirits.
“Um,” he muttered to interrupt her, but she went on dancing with an imaginary partner.
“I’m going to be in Group One of the warriors!” she said, then hummed a song as she swayed back and forth, her hands resting on no one’s shoulder and hip.
“Congratulations.”
She grabbed Basen’s hand at the end of her reach and then spun toward him gracefully. Entangled in his arms, she gave him a peck on the nose and then spun out. It made him chuckle.
“If I hadn’t done well enough for Group One, they would’ve forced me to leave the Academy.” She tried to continue dancing, now with Basen. But he dropped her hand, as he was not in the right mood after what he might’ve discovered about Nick.
“Because you’re a woman?”
“Because I’m a woman!”
“Well, that isn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t.” She danced on without him, her hands back on her imaginary partner. “It’s all right, though. There are so many prestigious jobs for women that men aren’t allowed to have, so it’s even.”
He laughed at her sarcasm. “Does this mean women are now allowed to join as warriors?”
“We’ll have to wait until next year to see.” She culminated her dance with a jumping spin, then fell into a graceful bow.
Basen applauded meagerly.
“How did you rank?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet, but it’s not going to be well.”
In response to the thin wrinkles of concern across her forehead, he went on to tell her what had happened earlier that day.
“I’m sorry.” She opened her palm. “Would you like to dance your sorrow away?”
“I wou
ld find it hard to believe that’s ever worked for anyone.”
“Then replace dance with drink. I’ve come to invite you to a celebration at Cleve’s house. He and Alex told me to get you.”
Basen took that to mean that Effie told them to tell Sanya to get him. He offered the crook of his arm, but Sanya gouged it with her nails.
“Ow. Why do women keep hurting me today?”
“I’m a warrior,” she said in a strained low voice in imitation of a man. “I can’t be seen holding a male mage’s arm like some dainty woman.” Her eyebrows arched. “Who else hurt you?”
“Never mind that. Let’s go to this celebration and see if I can go the rest of the night without being slapped or pinched.”
She laughed as they walked. “I see you still haven’t learned that all you need to do is look a woman in the eye and listen. That face of yours will do the rest.”
He put her words to test, staring deeply into her bright eyes. They were green yet speckled with gray, as youthful as they were beautiful. She stopped as she stared back.
Then she slapped him.
He grabbed his cheek, feeling the warmth of his blood rushing to it. “Bastial hell!”
“Not your friend Sanya, you pig!” She grabbed his face, pressing her lips against his for a single kiss. Then she snickered as she started walking again.
He was too dumbfounded to move.
“Come on!” she beckoned.
“You are a confusing woman!”
“I know.”
He caught up and decided to keep an extra step of distance between them from then on. The taste of her kiss lingered, but not as heavily as the pain of her slap.
“Do you ever miss sword fighting?” Sanya asked evenly, as if they’d carried on a normal conversation up until then.
“Not particularly.” A wand had always felt more comfortable in his hands.
“I think that’s because you were the best one at the castle. There wasn’t enough challenge for you, but that wouldn’t be the case here. You could speak to Terren about switching classes.”
“Now I know what your behavior is really about. You’re still upset that you never beat me, aren’t you?”
