First Year (7 page)

Shifting my gaze to the left side of the field, I spotted a group of five that appeared much better off than the rest of the class. At their center was the newfound bane of my existence. Admittedly, the non-heir wasn’t that hard of a poison to swallow when he was far away. He looked so casual, leaning against the fence post, surrounded by laughing companions.

Whether or not he was a prince, Darren had clearly spent a large part of his lifetime in the sun and immersed in some sort of physical engagement. Far from being out of breath and drenched in sweat, the prince made Piers’s drills appear as if they actually were an intended warm-up.

Even his hair seemed unaffected. While most of us, myself included, had hair sticking to all sides of our face, Darren’s had somehow maintained its natural, slightly tussled state. Short, choppy, side-swept bangs and jaw-length locks that could trick a girl into thinking he was attractive.

That is, if you could get over his charming personality. Because no matter how alluring he might seem from afar, up close Darren’s hostile eyes would undoubtedly tell a different story.

Still, as I watched him now, I was not seeing anything remotely unreceptive in them. Possibly,
very likely,
because of the beautiful girl on his right: Priscilla.

Ah, yes. The one young woman who had out-distanced, out-lunged, and out-pressed the rest of my gender. How someone from such high lineage was able to best those of us who had had to actually forage and hunt for our food, I will never know. With her long, silky brown hair, violet eyes, and sinewy curves, I could understand Darren’s interest but not her status. Priscilla looked the part of a highborn lady, and I wondered why she was here at the Academy. Usually, girls like that went to convents. They didn’t bother with magic or knighthood. They had no need.

Priscilla was older than most nobility in attendance too, and I vaguely wondered if it had anything to do with Darren since he seemed to be around the same age. Maybe she had followed him.

The rest of the non-heir’s group consisted of the two burly-looking brothers and a young girl whose skin was so pale it seemed translucent.

The girl was so tiny and fragile, I wondered how she had made it into their little following. She didn’t talk much, and she seemed more interested in something on the ground than her companions.

“Alright children, let’s gather round!” Sir Piers barked.

We all came together slowly, regretfully acknowledging the end of our break.

“Well, well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

None of us dared to contradict him.

Sir Piers chuckled at his own joke, knowing very well what our silence really meant. “Well, you always have tomorrow. I will go ahead and leave you in Master Cedric’s capable hands.” With that, Sir Piers left the field, and we found ourselves waiting anxiously for Master Cedric to begin his own introduction.

Master Cedric nodded to his audience and spoke with a much softer inflection to his tone. “Well then, for the next two hours I am going to be leading some basic exercises that are conducive to all factions.”

I glanced at Alex and Ella excitedly.
Finally, actual magic.
 

“This first month will be spent emphasizing magic’s most important foundation: focus. Without the proper application, you will not be successful in your chosen practice.”

My enthusiasm died.
Focus.
So we wouldn’t be learning how to heal a dying knight or cast a lightning storm. Not today. I had to say I’d had enough “meditation” practice during my time on the road. Two hours of coarse physical activity might actually beat the boredom induced from focusing on a blade of grass for the same length of time.

I heard someone groan to my right.

“You might have great potential,” Cedric interjected loudly over his disgruntled audience, an incredible feat for such a timid-looking man. “But if you can’t concentrate long enough to will the magic you wish to enact, you will never find yourself beyond the basics. The more advanced castings require a greater dedication that cannot come from acts of whimsy.

“Mages die quickly on the battlefield when they can’t summon proper focus. As Sir Piers said, you will not be hidden away in a tower. You will be immersed in an atmosphere full of distractions waiting to tear your concentration apart.

“You will also not be performing simple steps. If you go into Restoration, you will be expected to understand the anatomy of an individual when you are caring for a deep flesh wound. Collapsing a tower in Combat would require you to understand its structure and materials. It’s important to know where to make your magic touch count. You could blindly devote your magic to the entire attack you want to enact, or you could learn to focus your magic on specific components so that your castings are precise and don’t exert any needless energy.

“Now, let’s not waste any more time and begin your first exercise.”

I grudgingly joined the rest of the class in forming a giant sitting circle that spread out across the grass at Master Cedric’s instruction. From this angle we could see not only the master and his four assisting mages, but everyone else in our group as well.

At least I’ll finally stand out
, I told myself. I may not have had practice fighting with staffs or learning the names of Jerar’s eastern seaports, but at least meditation was something I was good at. Years of failed magical attempts could attest to that.

The next two hours seemed set aside to prove me wrong. I wasn’t horrible, but I was at best a little better than the norm.

Master Cedric and his assistants walked around our giant group, each carrying a heavy satchel filled with small, white pebbles that they distributed each time one of us failed the exercise.

For the first half hour we had simply been instructed to close our eyes and keep still. We were to maintain an “air of calm” and to focus on a moment of peace and tranquility. That was easy enough.

But then I realized the role the instructor and his assistants were playing in our meditation—pouring hail one second, thousands of angry bird cries the next. I tried not to flinch when I felt the slimy, wiggling body of a snake against my skin, but I could not suppress the tiny whimper that escaped my lips when I felt thousands of tiny, bug-like wings on my face. I opened my eyes just in time to see one of the assistants set two stones by my feet.

Luckily, most students had a small pile forming next to them as well. Unfortunately, there were still those without a white rock to bear.

For the second part of our exercise Master Cedric had the class keep their eyes open while continuing to practice the same meditative state. Of course, sight only made our practice harder.

It was
not
easy to remain calm when you realized a hoard of angry rodents was headed in your direction.

Whenever I made a mistake, I’d take a quick peek to see how everyone else was faring. Most had as many as I, but there was still a small portion of our class that hadn’t collected any stones yet—Darren and his group of four, plus seven others.

As minutes ticked by, the exercise got increasingly difficult. The small piles began to resemble mountains. My forehead pounded, my muscles ached, and sweat stung the corners of my eyes. I was trying hard not to give in to the distractions Master Cedric and his assistants were casting, but fear and surprise were not easy reactions to ignore. When a small stampede of spiders took over the field and proceeded to climb up several students’ arms, mine included, I lost it, screaming and shaking the vile insects off.

A lifetime of fear could not be erased in two hours.

Eventually, the session ended. We all looked at one another and greedily eyed each other’s failures. No one was stoneless, not even Darren and his cohorts. The pale, blonde-haired girl had only two, and Darren and a couple others had no more than five a piece.

I had twenty. Alex had even more. Ella, fifteen. We were all failures in comparison to the prince and his following.

Everyone waited to be dismissed.

“How many of you have changed your minds about the uselessness of meditation now?” Cedric rasped.

Several of us cast our eyes down, shame-faced.

“As you have just witnessed, we are too often allowing sight to dictate our actions. That’s fine in day-to-day living, but it will not get you very far in your magical studies.

“Most of you were sufficient in the initial stages of your mediation —that is, until you opened your eyes and saw what types of horrors my assistants had cast. Sight is
not
an understandable reason to lose focus. Sight cannot harm you, and it should not be a cause to waiver in your meditation. Sight can only invoke fear, not pain.

“Physical pain is an understandable reason to lose focus. Sight is not. The precious seconds between seeing the snake—a harmless act—and its venomous bite could make all the difference in a casting. Focus cannot be rushed—that is true—but in magic, every second counts.

“If you want to succeed here, you had best master your fears early on because sight is the least of your worries. There are two much more uncontrollable detractors of focus, pain and emotion, which will require much more effort to control.”

Master Cedric cleared his throat: “As I see it, there are many of you who will fail. The Academy is not meant for everyone. Today’s exercise is usually a strong indicator of how the year will end. Thus, if you did not perform well today, keep in mind you will most likely continue to struggle throughout the rest of your study.”

As I trailed off to the dining hall with the others, I bitterly acknowledged the reason so many resigned early on.
Why waste a year when it was so blatantly obvious how behind I was?
 

There was no doubt who the most promising first-years were. Not one member of Darren’s highborn following had been below the top quarter of our class for any of the masters’ lessons. Of course, I shouldn’t have expected anything less. The prince’s contemptuous comments earlier on had made it clear that he would only associate with the best.

Now, his group of five had expanded to include seven more. Four of the newcomers were
not
of noble standing from what I could tell either. But all of them had done well, extremely well, in comparison to the rest of our class.

Apparently, the non-heir would make exceptions to be around “commoners.” But I, like most of the lowborn students present, was not promising enough to be worthy of his time.

Glancing around the dining commons, I saw more evidence of changes taking place. At the morning meal, students had sat next to friends or others of similar background. Now more emphasis was spent on sitting with those that had performed at one’s own level during training.

At the far end of the hall, where I had previously sat, were the rejects of our year: those that had not performed well in the first day’s sessions. Toward the front of the room were those that had.

At the very head of the dining hall was Darren’s table. While the prince had yet to arrive, a small cluster of loud highborns sat waiting for him. Their dreams were shattered moments later when Darren and his company of eleven appeared. One sharp look from the non-heir sent the disgruntled nobles retreating to a less prestigious table. They spent the rest of their meal eyeing the four commoners of the prince’s new crowd jealously.

Rather than trying to negotiate a spot based on skill, I sat down in the only available open seating, the far end of the reject table. I was pleased to notice Alex and Ella followed. It would have been difficult if my brother and friend had decided they were too proud to sit beside me. It had been a rough first day.

I spent the entire course of dinner listening to a lively exchange between the two while I pushed gravy-soaked peas across my plate. Alex and Ella seemed to be the only ones that found our entire situation humorous. While everyone else was strategizing or complaining, my brother and friend were more concerned with making me laugh. I felt grateful for their company. I needed more positivity, and while many of their jokes were at the expense of our own mishaps, it was nice to laugh them off.

“Did you see me during our drills with Sir Piers?” Alex was asking.

Ella snorted. “I was too busy breathing to notice anyone besides myself.”

“Well, while you girls were busy attempting to keep up with us men—”

“Hey!” Ella and I both interrupted. We had both done better than Alex in conditioning. My brother might have brawn, but he had spent the majority of his life indoors.

“—I
was trying to romance a lady that was actually performing well during the drill,” Alex continued on, grinning.

“And how did that go?” I interjected.

“Well—”

“And which damsel in distress would she be?” Ella taunted. “I saw you entertain several before class had even started.” It looked like my dark-skinned friend was not enamored after all.

“Hardly,” Alex chuckled. “What you may allude to as flirtation, I call harmless conversation.”

Ella and I exchanged amused looks.

“So I tried to strike up a conversation with that lovely lady,” he finished, pointing his orange to Priscilla from Darren’s entourage. It was at just that moment the girl raised her eyes to catch the three of us staring. I saw her frown and turn to the rest of her table to whisper something, shooting a disgusted glance in our direction.

“Seems like a fan,” I remarked casually.

“Sure it went well, lover boy? That looks more like disdain than admiration,” Ella added.

Alex tore off a bit of rind from his orange and threw it at us.

“Well, it started off well enough. I’d caught her eyeing me a couple of times during practice—”

“Probably in an attempt to avoid you,” Ella laughed.

“—So I figured I’d try my chance at some conversation. I’d just managed to catch up to her when my foot caught on one of those lovely stairs Piers had us climbing.

“So, of course, I did what anyone does when they are falling. I grabbed on to the nearest support which just happened to be the lady in question. She left in a hurry after that little incident. Shot me the look of death, that one did. Now all I can think is that not only did the girl outrun me, she also thinks I’m a complete chump.”