First Year (20 page)

Piers had not forgotten that day with the staffs.

“Priscilla.”

I took a large swallow as the raven-haired beauty took her place opposite mine.

“Begin.”

The two of us circled one another, slowly.

Priscilla looked like a wolf honing in on a kill. She smiled, white teeth flashing, and laughed throatily as I stumbled, desperately searching for an opening.

Her muscles gave away nothing, and since we had not been provided any weapons, I had no idea how she planned to initiate her assault.

“You can always forfeit now,” the girl said, voice carrying across to our entire audience. “Save yourself the humiliation.”

I ground my teeth but said nothing. The only way I would win this match was if Priscilla became too confident and slipped up. My magic was no match for her own. I’d seen her often enough in class to know that it would be a mistake to engage her directly. Maybe someday I would be able to beat her outright, but not today.

“Go ahead. Play the coward,” she taunted. “I have no problem leading the attack.”

Priscilla raised her hand. I recognized the move from training right away. She’d always been a fan of extravagant gestures.

Immediately I cast out a shield, clutching its arm holds with all the strength I could muster.

The air whistled loudly, and her magic slammed my defense, splitting the shield and knocking me to the ground in the same breath. I’d underestimated the force she would use. None of us had ever practiced being at the receiving end of that drill.

I quickly scrambled to my feet, just in time to spot a flying dagger headed for my face. I let myself fall to the ground, hands thrown across my face instinctively. A searing pain shot across my forearm. Warm blood coated my wrists and hair, but I was lucky all the same. The cut had missed any important veins.

Wincing, I pulled myself back up, throwing a crowd of flames at my enemy’s feet.

Priscilla cried out as the fire touched her skin, but a second later all that remained was a poof of smoke, an outpouring of sand had drenched what remained of my attack.

“Is that it?” the girl jeered. “Two seconds of flame? How about some lightening?”

Lightening? We hadn’t learned weather attacks yet. Let alone the deadliest of them all. That type of magic was reserved for the apprenticeship, not first-years. We weren’t supposed to know such complicated castings. Panicked, I glanced up at the sky, only to get the air knocked out of my chest as I was sent sprawling back against the grass.

Priscilla was laughing as I doubled-over, unable to get back up.

“Really didn’t think you’d fall for that one,” she giggled.

I spat, blood and saliva hitting the ground as I tried to stand once more. Again, the pain sent me reeling at the core.

She could have just finished me off then, but I could tell Priscilla wanted to continue to drag out my degradation.

“You have no place here,” she said lazily, circling around as she spoke. “
Trying
,” she added, looking directly at Sir Piers, “is
not
good enough. The ones that
need
to learn are the ones
I
am least worried about—”

Priscilla’s speech was cut short as she was sent flying against the fence. Arms flailing out widely in front of her, she emitted a loud shriek as she hit the wood.

As she fell, I rose up, painfully, using a wooden pole I’d conjured for support.

“You little—”

With my spare hand I waved away the throwing daggers she had sent chasing after me and redirected them at their former owner. A chill crept up my spine. I had never tried the casting before, though I had seen it once or twice in practice.

All at once, a sharp, gnawing sensation surged across my stomach, and I realized uneasily I was fast approaching my limit. Apparently, real battle and adrenaline depleted my magic much faster than two hours of practice.

Then again, I had just used a large span of magical force to knock over a girl easily the weight of four barley sacks at once. And attempted a new casting. So maybe my exhaustion wasn’t all that abnormal, in the given context.

With a violent gesture, Priscilla halted my blades and let them fall to the ground harmlessly. She stood, breathing a little unevenly, brushing off splinter fragments and dirt.

“It’s time I end this, lowborn,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

I braced myself for the attack, envisioning a shield as before, but this time her casting came before I could create a substantial projection.

Her force field slammed my defense. My head spun wildly as I tried to maintain my casting’s spectral form, holding the shield for as long as I could. For the longest ten seconds of my life, I held my ground, shaking violently and fighting the sharp, searing pain that was filling my head.

Then, all at once, my shield shattered, splaying into billions of tiny pieces as I was sent staggering backward.

This time when I fell, I did not get up. I did not look to Piers or the masters. I already knew what their expressions would say.

This girl does not belong here.
 

Half of our class had failed, same as I. That was to be expected in a tourney of one-on-one competition. The difference was that my unsuccessful classmates had put up a good fight. I had humiliated myself.

“Will someone please help her back to her seat?” Sir Piers finally asked after I had finished retching onto the grass.

Ella and Clayton rushed forward and grabbed my arm on either side. The two helped me off the ground, and then Clayton ran off to fetch some water while Ella pushed my hair back so that its strands no longer stuck to my sweat-soaked face.

“Thanks,” I said quietly when Clayton returned with a flask. I took a long swallow and then glanced up at the masters and Piers. As soon as the commander noticed my gaze, he looked away grimly.

So much for no consequences,
I thought bitterly. I had just disappointed the one teacher that had been rooting for me. The commander had paired me with Priscilla so that I’d knock the overconfident girl off her high horse. He’d told her that I could be the one to beat her one day, but instead of validating his declaration, I had just made him seem the fool for vouching for me in the first place.

Swallowing the sinking feeling that had set in my throat, I watched the last two matches in a melancholy silence. My friends had already participated in their own rounds.

Ella had won her bout against a boy who usually tagged along after the non-heir’s crew though he wasn’t a part of it himself. The boy had started strong, but my dark-skinned friend had persevered and delivered a harsh blow at the end when the boy had been foolish enough to engage her in swordplay.

Clayton had lost to a quiet boy Ella and I had hardly spoken to since the first day of class. Their match had been a pretty even exchange, until the boy had conjured a glaive, feigned an attack to the left, and held the curved blade to our friend’s throat.

The last pairing to go into duel was none other than Eve and Darren. Watching the two of them engage, I wondered if this was what Ella had meant when she described Combat as a dance…the dark, detached prince and the fragile, almost translucent young girl with violet eyes. Their exchange carried on for fifteen minutes, each serving a series of crippling assaults that the other deflected with startling precision. I had seen the two of them practice often enough in class, and today was no exception.

A shower of flame was greeted by a wall of ice. A powerful exertion of force was met with a large metal-embossed shield that deflected and sent the other’s magic crashing into the forest behind. The ground beneath Eve gave way, and she used the same force she attacked Darren with to send herself back upon solid ground. An exchange of blows played out between two spectral blades, until the two ended their castings and held in their hands their personal weapons of choice.

Clutching the hilt in both hands, Eve held a long sword that almost reached the entire length of her frame. We had briefly practiced with that type of sword during our sessions with Piers, but the way she confidently held the weapon now made me believe she’d spent a lot of time with it before the Academy.

In contrast to his partner’s double-edged sword, Darren clutched a single-headed battle-axe in each hand.

The two of them circled one another wordlessly. Eventually Darren jumped in, swiping at his opponent to engage. The two continued to feign and parry, metal on metal thundering across the field.

Suddenly, Eve swung out, and Darren hooked her blade with his off-hand axe while his other hand’s axe struck out, the barest of inches from her neck.

Eve dropped her blade, and Darren lowered his weapons.

The entire class burst into applause. Even the masters.

I kept my hands at my sides, seething with envy. Ella was the only other not to join in.

We were all dismissed then, and as I limped back to the dining commons, I heard snippets of conversation all around me.

“…Definitely not a mistake to let the prince join the Academy…”

“…Might as well announce the apprenticeships already. I think today was indicative enough of who the five for Combat will be.”

“.Probably the best performance I’ve ever seen between two first- years.”

“.That girl, the one with the red hair, I heard her family runs an apothecary.”

“Shame she didn’t choose Alchemy since Combat clearly is not her calling.”

It was too much.

Fighting back unwanted tears, I broke free of the crowd.

“Ry?”

“Don’t follow me.” I spoke sharply so Ella wouldn’t hear the tremors in my voice.

My friend nodded and turned back with Clayton trailing close behind.

I couldn’t face another person after what had happened in class today. I felt as if my entire world had come crashing down, and someone had ripped my dreams away just as fast.

I spotted a thick-trunked oak to the side of the field. Immediately, I sank down to its base, hugging my knees and indulging the wave of selfpity I knew was about to hit.

“You should go back to your friends.”

I looked up, recognizing the voice of the person I least wanted to hear from.

“Leave me alone,” I snapped, shame-faced. I must have missed the non-heir in my tear-induced rage.

The prince stepped away from the side of the tree.

“Everyone has bad days.”

I stared out at the grassy field. “I don’t need your rhetoric right now, Darren.”

He stood his ground and continued to watch me, an odd light in his eyes.

“Please,” I said, conscious that I would not be able to carry on a defense much longer. My eyes were beginning to water again, and I did not want Darren to see me cry. “Please,” I croaked, “just go.”

I shut my eyes against the tears that were about to break.

There was a pause, then the shuffle of movement, followed by silence.

I opened my eyes and found myself completely alone. The tears fell freely then. I let them.

CHAPTER TEN

The next morning I woke with the knowledge that yesterday’s nightmare had not been “just a dream.” I didn’t feel any better in the early morning light, and the feeling stayed with me throughout the day.

When I arrived to Master Narhari’s session and saw we were two first-years short, I felt an increasing sense of unease. The master confirmed it a moment later when he announced that two of our own had resigned.

“I would have thought you’d join them,” Priscilla sneered when she caught up with me after practice that day.

I bit my lip, and Ella shoved her way forward. “Go back to wherever it was you crawled out of, Priscilla!”

Priscilla shot Ella a look of contempt. “I am just advising your friend what she is too stubborn to admit herself.”

“Don’t you have other first-years to torment?” Ella retorted. “Ryiah hasn’t done anything to—”

“Her very presence offends me.” The girl looked me over coldly. “I am tired of being surrounded by lowborn scum, and as a daughter of nobility yourself, Ella, I am alarmed you don’t share my thoughts. Why not have her leave now? It’s not as if she actually stands a chance.” Priscilla called out to someone who had been standing off to the side.

“Darren, weren’t we just saying how silly it is that the lowborns are here in the first place?”

The non-heir’s eyes met mine, and I looked away. He’d had plenty of opportunities to criticize me in the past, so why stop now?

“No.”

My head jerked, and I looked back to the prince.

“But you said—” Priscilla began.

“I said that they were foolish,” Darren said, dark eyes never leaving mine, “but that does not mean they shouldn’t try.” He turned and walked away, leaving Priscilla, Ella, and me in his wake.

Seconds later, Priscilla left, chasing after the prince, while Ella regarded me curiously.

“That was strange.”

I didn’t know how to respond.

“Well,” she went on awkwardly, “that may be the first and only time I ever agree with a prince.”

In the week that followed, three more students withdrew. This time though, Priscilla kept silent.

We were down to thirty-three in Combat, and Alex and Ruth informed me their numbers had dwindled as well. The exact number was revealed during the final day of our fifth month at the Academy.

“Fifty-nine!” Master Barclae announced over the evening meal. “We are now sixty-three less than when we started! I am pleased to announce that the masters and I have met our goal and disposed of half the waste that was taking up our valuable resources!”

That many?
I glanced at my friends. They exchanged looks. None of us had realized how many had left. Or that we had already completed that much time. We’d been conscious of the truth, but we had not yet acknowledged it.

“In celebration of reaching our goal,” the Master of the Academy continued, “the masters and I have decided to include you in our annual winter solstice ball the day before your weeklong reprieve begins. This festivity will be done in conjunction with our apprenticing mages who depart for field training the following day.

“As such, this will be your one and only opportunity to participate in activities with those you would not have the pleasure of speaking to otherwise. Do not waste it.” Barclae raised his goblet and roared: “To fifty-nine!”