First Year (15 page)

I was halfway into my second lap when I started to notice a change.

When we had started the trek, it had been hot and sweltering without a cloud in the sky, but somewhere in the last ten minutes the temperatures had plunged dramatically. Now, I could hear the soft rumble of thunder, and the sky was drenched in a purple haze.

“D-doesn’t… look… good,” Alex panted beside me. “Not… natural…”

I had a feeling my brother was right. Five minutes later, as I was dragging a weighted sack to its designated location, I felt the first drop. Seconds later the entire class was being pelted with rain and small pellets of hail.

Lightning flashed, and I scrambled to make it to the next destination: the climbing rope. My arms were still weak from my last attempt. Luckily, there were three people ahead, so I had a couple minutes to recuperate before the next ordeal.

Grimacing, I bent down and slowly,
carefully,
pulled out a protruding shard from my boot.

“No more sheltered training!” Sir Piers roared over the thunder. “All of you want Combat—no, don’t you dare shake your head at me, Karl! Anybody who says they came here for anything else is a lying coward. You want a black robe, then prove it! I don’t want to see a single one of you stopping unless every bone in your body is broken! If you are waiting in line, you had better be jogging in place, or giving me crunches!”

The class groaned, and I hastily jumped up to begin running in place. This was insanity. I had no idea how I would complete the course two more times.

When I finished climbing the rope, my hands were raw, and my arms were shaking. While the rain felt good on my sweltering skin, it had made the climb especially slippery, and now I had a hefty rope burn to show for the effort.

I made my way over to the next station: the tightrope. The hail was getting bigger, and it felt as though someone were pelting me with tiny rocks. The ground was turning to slush, and my clothes were soaked through.

The rope’s length wasn’t a far distance to cross really, maybe ten feet at most, and no more than a foot or two above the ground. But I wasn’t exactly known for my balance, and now with the rainstorm and my slippery boots, I was especially wary.

“Hurry up,” Jake, one of the two stocky brothers from the prince’s following, growled at me. He shoved me closer, and I swallowed.

Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to take one solid step at a time.

At first everything was fine. I was gingerly making my way across, inching one foot in front of the other slowly. Then the wind picked up and I instantly lost balance. My foot started to slide. I twisted my body awkwardly to accommodate the lost footing.

Somehow, I managed to keep my position on the rope.

I quickly crossed the remaining distance and then hopped to the ground.

The first-years after me charged the rope. As I was walking away I could hear the boy who had shoved me struggling to balance. A second later Jake yelped.
Ha.
 

My glee was short-lived. I had barely taken a step forward when the sound of whipping air alerted me to a danger at my left.

I ducked, only just in time to avoid one of the assisting mage’s magically-steered throwing knives. It was as if someone had read my thoughts. I guiltily made my way to the final station, resolving not to rejoice at any more of my fellow students’ misery.

I picked up a staff and turned to face a swallow-faced manservant. This one looked very thin and wispy, and he clutched his weapon awkwardly. But, like my previous sparring partner, his lack of skill was well-matched for my fatigue.

I made the first move. Feigning a downward swoop and attacking from the left instead, I caught my partner off-guard and managed to place a satisfying hit.

My partner glared at me, no doubt angry at his new bruise, and he lunged at me with vengeance. I hastily put up a defense and deflected his oncoming blows. It was a short three minutes, but it was tiring just the same.

By the time I had started my final sparring session I was at the point of collapse. I was panting so heavily that I was unable to keep my staff level, let alone lead the attack.

As luck would have it, I ended up partnered with the same disgruntled servant as the last two rounds. He had grown confident in my increasingly weak defense, and he seemed determined to take it out once and for all. I had a feeling most of constable’s team was doing the same— seizing the opportunity to take vengeance on all the first-years who had made their lives difficult, even if our only crime was inhabiting the Academy.

“What’s the matter, first-year?” my opponent crooned. He was spinning the staff in his hands as he circled me, looking for an opening.

I refused to respond and focused all of my senses on the pole in his hand.

“Too good for me, are you?” The man lunged left.

My arms shook from the impact and I gritted my teeth.
Two more minutes, Ryiah,
I promised,
two minutes, and then this is all over.
 

Smack!

My ribcage stung with the sudden impact. I doubled over, cursing my stupidity. I’d stopped paying attention for a second, and the manservant had delivered an especially hard blow to my ribs.

“Don’t know why you first-years bother,” the small man taunted. “It’s the same every year, and yet you still come here thinking you are different.” He positioned himself to strike left again, and I braced myself, too tired to read into the telltale signs that he was feigning the movement.

Wait…
 

Too late I saw where he intended his staff to land. With all the strength I could muster,I cast out an image of the block I was too slow to carry out. It was the same technique I had been practicing with Ella, but I had never tried it in class.

The loud clap of wood-on-wood resounded in my ears. I gave way to a small sigh of relief. It had worked.

The man turned to our commander a couple paces away. “She cheated!”

Sir Piers shrugged. “She used her magic, just as any soldier would use what skills he possessed in battle.”

“Very good,” Master Cedric said, coming to stand beside Piers. “It would seem you pay attention after all.”

I flushed.

“Thank you, master.” I bowed my head and then hurried to set down my staff and join the group of first-years who had already finished across the field.

When I got to the benches I eagerly grabbed a flagon of water and then sat down to watch the rest of the class complete the drill.

In five short minutes the ordeal was over. As soon as everyone had finished, Piers commanded his audience to spend the final hour drilling with the staffs at a more “relaxed” pace.

Only the most injured were allowed to be seen by a healing mage. Apparently, our cuts and bruises built character. We needed to build up our tolerance to pain, not succumb to it. Piers emphasized that unless we had a deep flesh wound or a broken bone, we were not to be treated.

Only two of us fit that category. A chubby girl with auburn curls had a horrible gash on her lower calf. She’d been victim to one of the throwing knives. Seeing how the girl had only finished a couple minutes after me, I was deeply impressed.

The only other to receive medical attention was Darren’s friend Jake, the burly boy who had rushed me at the tightrope. Apparently, he’d twisted his ankle while falling and broken the bone in a clumsy attempt to avoid hitting glass.

“Glad I’m not that chap right now,” Alex remarked cheerfully behind me.

I turned to look at my brother. He looked in far better spirits than the rest of us, despite the fact he’d been wheezing just moments before. I wondered if he had healed himself, though he’d be a fool to try in front of Piers.

“Oh pipe down, you big oaf,” Ella told him, stepping in beside us. “That boy could have been any of us.”

I followed the two of them as we discarded our training staffs and waited for Master Cedric to return and begin the next lesson.

“I wonder what Cedric planned for the Combat castings?” Ella mused.

I bit my lip.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be easy.
 

The next two hours stole every ounce of will from my body until all that remained was the empty shell of a corpse. I honestly have no idea how I carried on from the two hours with Piers prior, but by the time I had finished Cedric’s session, there was nothing left. No strength, no magic, no resolve.

While Piers’s time had revolved around breaking our physical reserves, Cedric’s made sure to tear down our magic’s limits. He started us off with simple castings against one of the various trees surrounding the field. We were to experiment casting various inflictions, whatever magic we so desired as long as it contributed to the practice of Combat.

“Show me what you know! Test your limits, challenge your castings! This is your chance to figure out what you know and what spells you need to improve. If you don’t get the desired effect cast again. Keep casting those ailments until the tree can no longer stand. Don’t worry about the field. My assistants are plenty experienced repairing your messes!”

By the end of the first hour, the pine Ella and I had been practicing on was a crackling tower of flame. I was ridiculously proud, until I saw the giant fissure Darren and his friends had created. Ten pines lay crumbled in its center.

Afterwards, Master Cedric had us drill similarly to how Ella and I had practiced during the previous weeks. Each of us lined up against an opponent, one of us clutching a staff, the other weaponless. While Ella and I had been able to rely on our prowess first, magic second, Master Cedric’s exercise forced one person to depend entirely on their magic to block their opponent’s attack. I was tolerable at first, but after twenty minutes my blocks were so weak that my opponent’s staff kept falling straight through the wavering defense.

During the last thirty minutes the training master had us casting individually with the heavy barley sacks from Piers’s drill. We were expected to blast our targets from afar, by whatever means necessary. Within the first five minutes I had exhausted any left over magic. I could barely budge a sack, let alone cast enough force to knock it backward.

A third of the way into our final drill half the class had run out of magic. Of course, we were still expected to try. But without a magical reserve they, like me, spent the remaining time pretending as they watched the few still casting with unabashed envy.

The non-heir appeared self-assured as he sent the giant sacks flying backward across the field. The castings relied on huge gusts of magical exertion. I couldn’t imagine the power it took to throw fifty pound with the mind. I couldn’t even do that with my hands, and I’d had those all my life.

Darren was not alone either, though he did look the most at ease during the procession. Some of the remaining first-years were even smiling. The non-heir had the most blatant grin of all. From the looks the victors exchanged, it was clear they considered the practice nothing more than a game.

They took turns trying to out-distance one another. Darren was the clear victor, but the blonde girl stood out the most. Darren had cast the most most magic but two of Eve’s castings had gone at least a quarter of a mile further than anyone else’s reach, including the his.

I had a vague suspicion the girl was holding out. I wasn’t sure exactly why but I had a feeling that I would find out at the end-of-year trials. Darren was hard to beat, but something told me I’d be a fool to think he had no rivals here. I suspected Eve was one of them—and hopefully me, if I were to ever catch up.

When the lesson had ended that last impression stayed with me long after I had finished the evening meal.

By the time I had retired to the library’s third floor for the evening I was fighting sleep with every page I turned. My eyelids kept involuntarily falling closed. At some point during the first hour I must have fallen asleep because it was only during the toll of the Academy’s midnight bell that my reverie was broken, and I realized how late it had actually become.

Sluggishly, I gathered my belongings and descended to the first floor study.

“In case you have ever wondered, you snore like a drunken sailor.”

I finished stepping off the ladder’s frame and turned to face Darren. He looked pretty worn out himself, but not so much that I couldn’t catch the wicked humor in his eyes.

I had no energy left for witty banter. “Not that it’s any of your concern,” I said, trying to stifle a yawn, “but I wasn’t asleep the entire time.”

I made my way to the door and was startled to see the non-heir had joined me, books in hand. Usually he snuck out a minute or so after I left, whether as a cautionary measure or to avoid conversation, it was anyone’s guess.

Darren noticed my stare and shrugged. “It’s been almost two months, if you were foolish enough to get caught, it would have happened by now.”

I attempted a frown, but I was too tired to give anything more than a slight grimace. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

He twisted slightly to look at me, the air of mockery gone and replaced with a much more candid light. “I guess I never expected you to last this long,” he admitted, “but you aren’t nearly as hapless as I expected you to be.”

“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?” I asked, affronted.

He smiled wolfishly. “Interpret it however you like.”

I rolled my eyes as we turned the corner of the hall.

I watched the prince reach for the door. “I wonder if you have ever given someone a compliment that wasn’t a backhanded insult.”

Darren’s grasp on the handle stilled, and he glanced back at me, eyes dancing amidst the surrounding shadows. “I prefer not to. It gives people an unsettling impression of self-importance.”

“Me?” I scoffed. “Self-important? Have you checked a mirror?”

He didn’t look away. “You will thank me one day for not filling your head with false compliments. Adversity teaches one more than flattery ever will.”

“A compliment never hurt anyone.”

He snorted. “If I had listened to everything the courtiers sang, I never would have gotten to where I am today. The people that tell you what you want to hear are the most dangerous enemies you’ll ever meet.”