First Year (12 page)

“What are you—
stop!
STOP!”

My vision cleared, and I saw Darren madly shaking the sleeves of his tunic, flames spouting from its edges. The flames were getting bigger every second and perilously close to his arms.

“Don’t just stand there!” he shouted. “Make it stop!”

I looked down at my hands, which had since unclasped. There was no more pressure or pain. The fire should have snuffed out on its own like it had that time with the moss.

Only it hadn’t. Just like that other time, with the bandit.
What was wrong with me?
 

“I can’t,” I exclaimed, panicked.

“Well, I can’t get it to either!” he shot back. “My magic isn’t—” He cut off mid-sentence and swore as a flame nicked his skin.

“RYIAH!”
 

I raced over and bit back a cry of pain as I helped hold his sleeves while he pulled his arms out one by one. As soon as he finished, I hurriedly lifted the tunic off and tossed it to the floor, stomping out the remaining flames against the black marble.

“You fool!” Darren declared as soon as the fire was extinguished. The sleeves of his thin undershirt were scorched in several places, revealing painful red swells on both wrists and part of his forearm.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Of course, you didn’t mean to!” the prince snapped. “You have no control over your own magic!”

I winced. “Is there anything I can do?”

Darren lifted one arm at a time, testing the extent of his injury.

“Do you want me to help you back to your quarters?” He needed to soak those burns before they started to blister. I didn’t have to be my brother to understand that much.

Darren laughed hoarsely. “I’m staying right where I am. I didn’t come all this way just to turn back.”

I gaped at him. “You can’t be serious. Your arms…”

“I’ve experienced far worse than this.” The prince picked up his books and paper and carried them over to his usual chaise. He noticed my stare and added wryly, “You don’t become the best if you aren’t willing to stick your hand in the fire.”

“I always thought that was an expression.”

The corner of his lip twitched, and for a moment I thought Darren was about to smile. “I think it was… until tonight.”

For the rest of the evening I remained on the first floor of the library with the newly-injured non-heir. I could have retired to my alcove, but there was a certain amount of guilt—and curiosity—that prevented me from leaving. Whatever I thought of Darren, he was never what I expected.

I wondered what he had meant by experiencing “far worse than this.” Darren was a prince. How much suffering could a child of the Crown have had? I bit my lip. He must have been jesting, trying to appear valiant, though he was wasting his efforts on me. I was hardly the one he needed to impress.

Still, he hadn’t sounded like a braggart or appeared remotely interested in my reaction. If anything, there had been an edge of bitterness to his tone. It was unsettling.

What did a
prince
have to be bitter about?
 

“Are you done staring?”

Dropping my quill in surprise, I flushed and met Darren’s amused gaze.

“I-I didn’t realize I was,” I mumbled.

He fingered his burnt tunic. “You know, I was wrong about you earlier.”

I gaped at him.
Was Darren apologizing?
 

“But I hope you understand why I wasn’t wrong to assume it.”

I bristled. “What are you talking about?”

Darren pointed to the book in my lap. “We’ve been down here for thirty minutes, and you have yet to turn the page. For someone so bent on Combat, you sure are making a lot of mistakes.”

“How did you know I was going to pick Comb—”

“Please.” Darren rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen you in the practice yards. No one spends that much time trying to impress Sir Piers for his charm. It would be admirable, if you actually knew what you were doing.”

“Pray, enlighten me,” I growled.

He cocked his head to the side. “Hard work doesn’t mean anything here if you don’t have the castings to back it.”

I glared at the prince. “I have magic. You saw it.”
And you just admitted that.
 

Darren raised a brow. “I know. But you aren’t trying to develop it.”

“I am trying!” I resisted slamming the book in hand.

Darren shot me an incredulous look. “You spend all your time in those books and drilling with your friends.”

“What does that even mean?” I demanded.

Darren smiled wolfishly. “If you really want an apprenticeship, I am sure you’ll figure it out.”

The next morning I awoke with a sense of dread. My stomach was in knots, and Darren’s mocking counsel had done nothing to assuage them. The best first-year in the school had insinuated I was making a huge mistake. And instead of telling me how to fix it, he had left me to fend for myself.

You spend all your time in those books and drilling with your friends.
What was wrong with that? I devoted more time than any other student, with the exception of his highness himself, to my studies. Wasn’t that what I was supposed to be doing?

And what did Darren mean when he said he had been right to assume I was one of “them,” the ones with no
real
magic or potential? We hadn’t even started casting yet. How could he even discern who the ones with potential were without seeing them cast beforehand?

He
had
to be alluding to Master Cedric’s lessons. His were the only ones I continued to struggle with. But it was meditation. Who hadn’t fallen asleep during it?

And, sure, I hadn’t exactly tried to improve my standing there. But I only had so much time. I couldn’t do well in everything. What more could Darren expect of me? Surely learning to fight and Master Eloise and Isaac’s lessons were more important than focusing on a blade of grass for two hours?

And why did it matter anyway? Why was I so upset over something the non-heir had said? He wasn’t a master. He was a first-year, a very,
very
opinionated first-year.

I shoved my blankets off my cot and stood resolutely. Darren didn’t know what he was talking about. He was just trying to unnerve me. Maybe my potential scared him. I wouldn’t put it past the prince to try and intimidate me into leaving.

Determined not to give Darren’s words another thought, I hurried to the dining commons to join my friends.

“Ready for a change?” Ella greeted me.

I smiled weakly. “Would it make a difference either way?”

Alex chuckled.

Ella elbowed my brother. “Well, ready or not, you two, we are about to embrace the magical realm of blood and bandages.”

I groaned. “Lucky us.”

It was bound to be a long, arduous week.

CHAPTER SIX

The first day of Restoration did not want to end. If I had ever complained of lack of time before today, I regretted it now.

Four hours were spent staring at complicated diagrams of human anatomy. Thousands of foreign sounding names for the parts of the vessel and the various rules one was expected to understand in order to mend. We learned about the most common complaints during a knight’s service, and I was surprised to see how much time was spent going over natural maladies. Battle wounds were, apparently, too advanced for the week’s orientation. Instead, we were to focus on the most common inflictions: jungle rot, frostbite, burns, and dehydration.

Alex and I had an advantage thanks to our years in the family apothecary. Unfortunately, most of that knowledge was lost to some frazzled recess in the corners of my mind. Darren’s warning from the night before kept invading my thoughts, destroying any semblance of concentration I had.

The next few hours were even more disheartening. Piers had kept our regular conditioning, with its various laps and lunging and stretching between, but he had traded our staffs for heavy, weighted sacks of grain.

We were instructed to carry, lift, and drag them up and down the field. Repeatedly.

“Those are your patients,” he barked. “Don’t think you’ll always be able to treat a victim in the middle of a battlefield. If there’s still a fight going on, you’ll need to get them to safety first. So pick up the pace, children!”

By the end of the exercise my arms were too weak to even reach up and adjust my ponytail.

Master Cedric’s exercise wasn’t any better. I had thought our first week of actual casting would change things, but it didn’t. At least not in the way I had hoped.

With the help of the his assistants, Cedric had us divide into several small groups and take turns healing one another from the maladies we had studied earlier while the rest of the group watched. We were given two tasks, name the remedy and then cast out your magic using the projection of that cure to heal your patient. If you failed, the next person in your group would start his or her own attempt.

I did well enough during the first half of the lesson. Both Alex’s and my background in the family apothecary helped with remedy. But when it came time to cast the cures for our patients, I was useless.

“What do you think you are doing, first-year?”

I whirled around to find Master Cedric frowning. I glanced at the small hand knife in my palm. It was my turn to cast.

“She can’t cast without injury, sir,” my twin quickly said. “She’s tried, but for some reason—”

“Is this true?” Master Cedric stared hard at me.

I reddened. “Yes.”

“Perhaps next time you will think twice before falling asleep in my class.” The master walked away without a second glance while Alex and Ella gawked after him.

“Did he really just say that?”

“He’s not even going to
try
to help you!”

I tossed the blade to the ground, furious. What good was my magic here if the masters refused to help me?

“Don’t let him get to you, Ryiah,” Alex said softly, aware of the attention Master Cedric’s presence had brought to our circle.

I stared at the girl across from me. Master Cedric’s assistant had given her the slightest bit of frostbite. She was waiting for me to heal her.

I tried to remember what Master Cedric has said at the beginning of class.

Use all your senses. Shut out everything. Focus solely on the projection in your mind…Once you have a strong hold of what you need to do, project your will onto it, and if you have done so correctly, your magic should come through.
I kept repeating the instructions over and over, willing my magic to take effect.

But it never did.

At one point I caught Darren watching me from the corner of his eye. When I whirled around to catch him, he gave me a wink before casting a healing of his own.

I felt like screaming.

“Maybe next time.” Alex gave my shoulder an awkward pat.

The assistant returned to heal my partner, and I looked down to avoid any more sympathetic glances from the rest of our group. No one else had failed this exercise.

“I’m sure once Master Cedric sees how hard you are trying, he will change his mind,” Ella offered. Like Alex, she had no idea why my magic wasn’t casting. None of her suggestions had worked either.

I sighed. Judging from the mild-mannered master’s response, my month of dozing off in his class was irreparable.

Alex, on the other hand, did even better than expected. He grasped Master Cedric’s lesson almost immediately. Even though I’d only seen him cast the most basic of spells back home, he was very apt at putting the new castings to work. When it was his turn, it took only minutes for my brother to heal his patient of sunburn.

It was hard to contain my jealousy.

I tried to tell myself that it was just Restoration, that my castings didn’t matter here, but it was hard to evade the truth.
If I couldn’t cast now, how would my week of Combat be any different?
 

That evening after dinner, Ella did not come with me to the field to continue our nightly conditioning. She needed to spend the extra time studying now that we had moved on from the basics. The rest of our group went with her, including Alex.

When I arrived at the armory, I could see I was not alone. Granted, there were less students now that we had started the first faction’s orientation, but there were still no fewer than twenty first-years drilling when I arrived.

Someone had brought out a pile of staffs and blunt training swords. Glancing at the two weapons, I considered trying the blade. It would be the perfect distraction to my dismal day thus far, but without Ella for proper instruction, I knew the best thing to do would be continue working on my practiced routine with the pole instead.

Whimsy, however, got the best of me.

“Do you even know what you are doing?” a familiar voice jeered.

I jumped and then turned to find myself face-to-face with Priscilla. She was watching me awkwardly clutch the sword handle while Darren and the rest of his following stood only a couple feet away.

She had picked the wrong day to bully me.

“Don’t you tire of playing the witch?” I shot back.

One of the two husky brothers snickered, and I was almost certain I saw Darren smile.

Priscilla, however, was less than amused.

“Go on all you like, lowborn. It will not save you from your pathetic casting. The only good use for that sword is if it ends your own paltry existence.”

“Oh no,” I snapped, “I think it would do wonders for your own. Besides,” I added shortly, “like Sir Piers said, it’s the ones that
need to learn
you should be worrying about.”

“The only thing I worry about is being stuck in the same quarters as a common wench!” she cried.

“What in the name of the gods are you talking about?”

Priscilla looked me up and down. “Tell me where you sneak off to every night. Explain
why
Sir Piers had suddenly started to take an
interest 
in the same halfwit he was so keen on condemning a week ago? Seems to me you must have found a way to earn his praise through your skirts—”

All I saw was red. I felt that same rage from the night before crackling and sputtering its way to the surface. “I would never!”

“Then tell me where you go,” she countered. Behind her, the rest of our audience had fallen silent. There was a malicious smile on her lips, and it took all my self-control to stop from lunging.