Soul Fire (5 page)

Nothing happened. Any upper body strength I’d had at
the beginning of the course had gone. My chest heaved,
water dripping from my braid and I knew I was done.
Eleanora reached the wall, and without glancing in my
direction, picked up her rope and started climbing. I
slumped against it, absolutely defeated.
“It’s alright, Sky, you got an excellent time on
everything else,” Jett stuck out his hand to help me up. I
ignored it, dragging myself to my feet, my legs shaking.
“The wall is the hardest thing in the course.”
I walked back to the group, utterly defeated, just as
Dena and a red headed girl started the course.
I’d given up on a lot of things, but for some reason this
stung the worst.

“Are you alright, miss?”
“Exhausted,” I managed to mumble through my arms.
It was evening, and Larni had just brought me my

“Don’t worry about it, miss, that course looks terribly
difficult.”
“The other girl could do it. Eleanora.” I rubbed my face
on my arms, determined not to go pink with
embarrassment.
I’d never thought of myself as unfit. It was mighty
embarrassing to have that fact uncovered in front of
classmates that I’d be studying with over the next three
years.
“She’s most likely been training for it,” Larni pulled the
cover off the platter on the table and began spooning the
casserole into a bowl for me. “She’s grown up in this
world, you have to remember. She’s been training for the
Academy since she could walk.”
I started eating, ravenous after the day’s exertions.
“Apart from the training, how was your day?” Larni had
found a hairbrush and was beginning to pull it through my
matted hair.
“It was alright,” I answered, tearing a bread roll in half
and offering it to her, but she refused. “My magic is green,
I found out.”
The hairbrush stilled for just a second, before she
resumed.
“Green like what?” she asked, and I noticed an edge to
her voice that hadn’t been there before.
“Like this,” I snapped my fingers, visualising the match
in my mind again. A small green flame erupted from my
finger tip like a lighter.
The hairbrush had stopped completely.
“You picked that up fast, miss,” she said quietly.
I put the flame out and resumed eating.
“I guess I finally found something I’m good at,” I
replied, and didn’t think any more of it.
~

The next day I was woken by the bell again. I clapped
as soon as I opened my eyes, wincing with pain; my
muscles were aching worse than yesterday. The bell
dinged once anyway, and I climbed out of bed, groaning at
the movement. The bell, seeing me up and about, fluttered
towards the door just as Larni opened it with my uniform
for the day. I dressed and ate quickly after she told me that
my first class would be history – I’d always wanted my old
school to introduce history to the curriculum.

Still munching on the pasty that was my breakfast, I
was one of the first to the classroom that my timetable
specified. I brightened when I noticed Dena.

“Sore,” I admitted. “Have you ever studied history
before?”
“Just normal history,” she replied. “Human history,” she
explained to my questioning look.
“Oh,” I hadn’t even thought about it, but of course the
magical realm would have a different history to the world
that I was familiar with. “This ought to be even more
interesting than I thought then!”
Jett let us into the classroom, and we all sat down, some
more eager than others.
“Welcome to History,” he began. “This class is also one
that I take, so you’re stuck with me, sorry. Right,” he
picked up a bit of chalk and set it on the blackboard,
where it stayed as though magnetised. “Let’s start from the
very beginning, shall we?
“At the beginning of Time, there were nine Ancients;
nine beings that were once human, but were no longer.
They were transported to this realm, and together, started
building it. They planted the forests, raised the mountains,
filled the seas and built the cities on every continent. They
had their world, now they just needed a population.
“So they shared their gift with the mortal realm, and
the first generation of mages came into existence. But the
amount of power it had taken to gift the magic to the
humans weakened them all, and they became sick.
“The last Ancient, Beltanna, lived long enough to see
their world begin to divide; dark and light, good and evil.
And so she turned to the Academy, where students were
learning their craft, and cast a curse over the students and
those to come.
“Beltanna was so lonely in her final years that she
decided to create a bond between students; a bond so
unbreakable that they’d never be alone again. She divided
the soul of every mage, so that each half would be able to
find each other, and every mage would always have a
partner.”
“Which brings us to our next order of business,”
everyone jumped as Iain spoke; no one had heard him
enter the classroom. “The soul mate ceremony will be held
tonight. Obviously it is compulsory for everybody to
attend.”
He left before anyone could ask anything. My heart was
beating unnaturally fast – I thought I’d done quite well on
my own. I didn’t need someone by my side for all eternity.
“Next week we’ll go over some of the finer details of
history,” Jett was saying, trying to bring everyone’s
attention back to him. “But I’m letting you go early so that
you can be ready for the ceremony tonight. Eat and dress;
someone will come to collect you.”
I left the classroom and headed back to my room before
Dena could catch up. My thoughts were racing furiously,
and I needed to be alone.
A soul mate? I was doing perfectly well with only half a
soul in my opinion. I didn’t like relying on other people,
full stop.
I bathed quickly, avoiding the other girls as much as
possible. After a while I remembered that someone was
supposed to be coming up to collect me, and clambered
out of the bath tub, dressing in leggings and a tunic for the
trip back to my room. When I returned, I noticed that
someone had laid out a white dress bag on my bed. I
picked it up and untied it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
A plain white dress hung on the wooden hanger. I was
mortified. I felt like throwing it back down on the bed,
but I decided to obey my instructions - for now.
Wincing, I pulled on the dress and laced it up. There
was a long mirror beside the dresser and I approached it
warily. After the bath, my skin glowed and my green eyes
were highlighted by the cream colour of my skin. My long
brown hair hung loose from its plait, adding contrast to
the stunning pure white of the dress, which was sleeveless
with a laced bodice and a flowing skirt that stopped just
past my knees. I searched for shoes but couldn’t find any,
and eventually came to the conclusion that I was supposed
to go barefoot.
There was a quiet knock at the door and I pulled it
open. Jett stood there, and upon seeing me in the dress,
broke into an enormous grin.
“I wouldn’t have figured you for one to wear dresses,
Sky.”
“I’m not, but I get the impression I’m supposed to wear
this,” I replied. “Tell me more about these soul mates.”
“All mages have soul mates. Not anything romantic
like, just best friends. They're your partner through life;
nothing can deter a soul mate. It would happen naturally
with time, but to speed things up we have a ceremony, to
help soul mates find each other.”
“How so?” I asked, dreading the answer.
He grinned again, proving my apprehension to be spot
on.
“Dancing.” He replied.
“No.” I said, half in disbelief and half refusing to.
“Yep. Don’t you love tradition?” He chuckled.
“Not particularly. So what happens?” I was beginning to
drag my feet, reluctant as ever. It felt the same as having
to go to the doctors to get an injection; you knew you had
to, you just really didn’t want to.
“There will be a short speech, and then there will be
music for the dancing,” he saw me cringe. “Things happen
naturally, don’t worry. You’ll be pulled subconsciously
towards your soul mate and will end up in pairs. Soul
mates can be any two people, no matter what age, gender
or race. There’s just one thing you don’t do.”
“Which is?”
Jett glanced at me, and then looked away.
“Never fall in love with them.”
“What? But you said it wasn’t anything romantic like.”
“Some people have a tendency to disobey tradition.
Trust me, the repercussions aren’t worth it.”
We walked quietly for a few seconds. I let the
information sink in and watched Jett stride along the
corridor. I was practically running to keep up with him,
eager to keep up the conversation but not reach our
destination.
“Who’s your soul mate?”
“I don’t know you that well… through here.”
He pushed a pair of double doors open and swept
inside. I scrambled after him.
It was the same hall that we’d been tested in the
previous morning, filled with my classmates. As I walked
to Dena, I noticed the dark haired boy standing apart from
the rest, leaning against the wall, his sleeves pushed up to
his elbows. His arms were folded but his gaze was centred
on me. I looked away and just kept walking. The room
went quiet as Iain walked to the centre of the room.
“Welcome to the soul ceremony. Your escort should’ve
told you what this is, so I’m not going to waste any more
time.”
He strode to the side of the hall and raised his arms. My
skin prickled as I realised he was using magic. As he
slowly lowered his arms, the atmosphere inside the hall
rose, the torches died down and the lone sound of a flute
rang throughout the hall. The air was charged with
tension, and beautiful music filtered from somewhere
unseen. Flutes, cellos and a lone acoustic guitar rose and
fell together in a magical harmony.
Just as I was beginning to think that this wasn’t so bad,
a blindfold was slipped over my eyes.
“Sorry,” Jett whispered in my ear. “Souls are blind and
so are you.”
He moved away and I heard him murmur the same
thing to Dena.
Now very disorientated, I stood very still and held my
arms out, lest I bump into anyone.
I heard the others move away from me. My fingers
picked at the blindfold and the music continued to play,
but the knot wouldn’t come loose, and I let my hands
drop.
I would play it by their rules, but I would not, could
not, dance.
Instead, I began to walk. Across the hall, through my
classmates. I should’ve been buffered by the others, but I
moved through them unhindered.
I could sense someone doing exactly the same thing,
heading straight towards me. Turns out my soul mate had
had the same idea.
I stretched out, entwining my fingers with theirs. For
one crazy moment I thought it was Dena until I realised
how rough the hands I was holding were.
Suddenly, I felt flames race down my arms. They
ignited on our entwined fingers, and I felt their magic
respond in kind. The power and ferocity of this
unexpected magic took us both by surprise and before I
could control it, the music stopped, and Iain spoke again.
“Mages, you’ve found your soul mates…
Congratulations.”
The blindfold around my eyes unravelled and fell to the
ground. I blinked, disorientated by the sudden light in the
room, and realised I was holding the hand of the dark
haired boy with the fire eyes, flames of orange and green
burning together over our fingertips.
For the tiniest second, something sparked in his eyes as
he looked at me, but then he dropped my hand, our
combined fire extinguishing immediately and I knew I’d
imagined it.
“Pairs line up.” Iain continued.
Everyone else, I now noticed, had also gathered in
pairs. Eleanora was paired with a young man with blonde
hair, who she obviously recognised.
Netalia spoke to them quietly and then moved onto the
next pair; Dena and the red headed girl she’d run the
course with yesterday. All of the other soul mate pairs
were standing close together, but mine stood away from
me.
Netalia reached us, and I suddenly realised I was about
to find out his name. As she looked upon us both standing
together, her eyes widened slightly, and she looked over
her shoulder at Iain who stood immobile. After a few
seconds, she looked back at us and smiled nervously.
“Phoenix and Sky, congratulations on finding one
another.”
“Phoenix, huh?” I asked, speaking for the first time
since the blindfold had been removed. He barely glanced
at me. “A legendary bird of flame is a pretty awesome
namesake.”
“Maybe,” he replied simply.
I frowned but didn’t respond. My heart was beating
rapidly and I felt slightly sick, but it was over, the dancing
was over, and I could relax.
Outside, the sun began to set, bathing the hall in orange
light. I chanced a glance at Phoenix and noticed his eyes
were exactly the same colour as the sun burning on the
horizon.
And I realised that my own heart was burning in sync
with both of them.

The bell didn’t have a chance to ring once before I was
out of bed. As soon as my feet hit the floor, I hooked my
feet under the bed frame, crossed my arms over my chest
and began to do as many sit ups as I could. Larni entered
the room just as I began to do push ups.

“What are you doing?” she asked, setting my breakfast
platter on the table.
“Next time I run that course, I’m not giving up in it,” I
told her, standing up and wiping my face on the sleeve on
my pyjamas. “Though it might take me a while to get back
into shape; the heaviest thing I’ve lifted recently is my
library bag.”
“There is a library here,” Larni told me, laying out my
uniform. “The students are free to use it.”
“Really?” I perked up immediately.
“Of course. I can show you on the weekend; you get
those off.”
“Do you?”
She looked at me, puzzled.
“Do I what?”
“Do you get the weekend off?”
She gnawed her lip and then sat down opposite me,
something she’d never done before.
“I get every second Sunday off to visit my family,” she
said quietly. “But every other day I’m here at the
Academy.”
“Every second Sunday?” I repeated. I suddenly thought
of something. “Larni, do you get paid?”
Silence fell between us.
“It is payment enough that the Academy feeds and
accommodates me, with my lack of magical blood,” she
said eventually.
I gripped her wrist as she stood up to leave.
“Larni,” she refused to meet my eyes. “Why would you
think that?”
She didn’t pull away but didn’t look down at me.
“Both of my parents are mages. I disgrace them by not
following in their footsteps.”
“Do you get a choice?” I asked, frowning.
“No. I went to the magic tester when I was four. He
said I had none.”
“Then how is it your fault?”
She didn’t answer.
“Larni,” I said, my voice low. “Do you get paid to work
here?”
She pulled out of my grasp then, heading for the door.
She was halfway through it when she spoke.
“No.”