First Year (6 page)

Seriously?
Not again.
Why was fate so determined to make me continuously cross paths with the one person who so clearly wished he’d never met me?

The prince tightened his lips and bent down to pick up the pieces of parchment he’d dropped. I reached down to help him, but he snatched them up before I could offer a hand.

Straightening, Darren made way as if to pass, but I stood my ground. I had to apologize about earlier. Even if Ella were right about him —and she probably was, judging from our encounters thus far—I still owed him an apology. If someone had questioned my being here, I probably would have reacted in much the same way.

“Your grace,” I began anew, “I want to apologize for earlier—” Darren glared at me, but I continued on hastily: “It wasn’t right. You deserve a chance just as much as anyone else, especially since you are not the heir—”

“Thanks,” the non-heir cut me off sharply, “but I don’t need some backcountry peasant asserting what I can or can’t do.”

My whole face burned in indignation. “I didn’t mean—”

“Look,” Darren began, with as much irritation-free politeness as he could muster. It wasn’t much. “I didn’t come here to socialize with commoners and learn about their feelings. I came here to be a mage. So, if you don’t mind, I’ve got more pressing affairs than listening to you apologize for your own incompetence.”

Darren pushed past me as I stood, dumbfounded. Any initial guilt I had felt earlier was gone. I wasn’t sure exactly how I had expected the apology to transpire, but certainly not the way it had. Even the highborn children back home hadn’t treated me with as much hostility.

There was nothing modest about this prince, this
non-heir.
Ella was right: there was no way I would want someone like that on the throne wearing a crown
and
a mage’s robes. What had compelled the masters to make such a blatant exception?

You’ve never had one before because nobody was good enough!
That’s what Darren had yelled at Ella and me. Was that why Master Barclae had decided to make the distinction between an heir and someone who was second-in-line to the throne? Because Darren had shown exceptional talent?

If he chooses Combat, I’ll wipe that arrogant sneer off his face the first chance I get,
I decided.
How exceptional can a non-heir be, really? He wasn’t even good enough to be first-born and get a throne.
It was a cruel thought, one that didn’t even play out logically, but I welcomed it all the same.
I hope you lose out on an apprenticeship to many, many commoners.
 

Arriving at the large wood-paneled building that served as the Academy’s armory, I found Alex and Ella at the back of a crowd facing its doors. The two of them were chummier than before, and I began to wonder if introducing my brother to Ella had been a mistake. If she fell for him, I would lose the one friend I had gained since coming here. I’d certainly lost enough back home.

Joining the two, I noticed that Ella seemed to be more entertained than enamored. I held onto the hope it would last.

“Welcome first-years,” a booming voice roared.

Immediately everyone stopped talking and looked to the entryway of the armory.

Out stepped the most intimidating man I had ever seen. Extremely tall with bulging muscle, the man seemed to crunch the ground with each step that he took. His hair was cut short, and his eyes were an almost disconcerting green. His dark skin was glistening, and he had several white scar lines that reached down across his arms.

The man wore the livery of a knight, not a mage.

Was there some sort of mistake?
 

“No, I am not one of your masters here,” the man boomed, registering the crowd’s shock.

“But don’t you be getting any ideas. I will still be involved in
every
step of your development this year. I served on the King’s Regiment for twenty years, and the last ten I have spent training young mages here alongside Master Cedric.” I noticed a thin, wiry man in red robes that had stepped out behind him. “I am Sir Piers, and I will be leading you in the physical conditioning needed for your factions.”

“I
thought we were to be sorcerers, not pages!”
someone hissed behind me.

A chortle of quiet voices voiced the same irritation.

Sir Piers heard them and glowered. Instantaneous silence.

“Many of you might wonder what use I am to your precious studies. Can I have a volunteer please?” No one moved. “I have my pick then,” he announced almost gleefully, dragging forward one of the boys that had been whispering behind me. The boy was shaking, and I really couldn’t blame him. Sir Piers was a big man and clearly enjoyed scaring his charges.

“Now, what is your name?”

“Ralph.”

“Well, Ralph, it’s your lucky day. Which faction do you want to end up in?”

“Combat,” Ralph squeaked.

“Yes,
always
with you first-years.” The man laughed.

“Now,” Piers continued. “Show me what you can do.”

“It’s n-not much,” Ralph stammered, snatching a twig off the ground. He began to stare at it intensely, and I knew almost instantly what he was going to do. Seconds later, the familiar sprout of tiny flames encompassed his stick.

Great,
I thought darkly. Ralph didn’t even need to hurt himself to get it burning. A twelve-year-old showed more promise than me.

“Now,” Piers said after the twig had turned to ash, “I want you to run a mile—the course of the stadium’s circumference.”

Ralph’s face fell.

“What are you waiting for?” Piers barked.

Ralph took off like a jackrabbit, but about two minutes into the run, his pace slowed. I could sense his discomfort. None of us had dressed with a strenuous workout in mind. I was still wearing my dress.

For the next seven minutes, poor Ralph ran around the track huffing and puffing as the rest of the class watched, careful to avoid meeting eyes with Piers and becoming his next “volunteer” victim.

Eventually, a sweaty, shaking Ralph returned to take his spot in front of Piers.

“Light fire to another stick,” Piers ordered him.

“I—” Ralph choked, “—need… a moment…”

“NOW!”

Ralph scrambled to find another branch and tried to repeat the same casting, to no avail. He was too busy taking deep gulps of air to concentrate.

“You just gave the enemy an opening, boy. You are now dead on the battlefield. Take your seat.” Piers eyed the boy unhappily and looked around. “Do I have another volunteer? Someone with more prowess in mind?”

Everyone looked to the ground quickly, except for the non-heir who seemed unperturbed as he met Piers’s eyes dead on.

“Alright, princeling, have at it.”

Darren stepped forward and picked up a twig. I breathed out a sigh of relief. He
was
normal like the rest of us. It would have killed me if he put on some sort of supernatural display.

Darren clenched one end in his palm, eyeing a nearby tree.

You’ve got to be
—

The entire trunk exploded in a blaze. Branches with crackling leaves crashed to the ground as the tree became a charred black torch.

The non-heir cracked the twig in his palm.

The fire instantly abated.

Dead tree limbs scattered the grass. Darren looked to Piers for instructions.

I glanced at Sir Piers as well to gauge his reaction. Both the commander and the wiry Master Cedric had approving smiles on their faces.

“Well done,” Piers boomed. “Now, do the same to that tree— there.”

We all looked to see where he was pointing. A similar oak stood half a mile off at the other end of the stadium.

I braced myself, knowing better than to hope the prince would fail miserably.

Darren reached down to grab one of the small charred branches from the first tree he had lit fire to. Part of the stick still looked red-hot beneath its gray exterior, and I wondered if it burned. Still, Darren showed no sign of pain as he rolled it back and forth between his palms, keeping his stormy gaze on the target.

Moments later the tree caught fire.
Not as dramatic as the first, but still impressive,
I noted dryly. The fire quickly died out on the trunk, but continued on in most of the higher branches.

“You may take a seat now,” Piers told the non-heir in a much friendlier tone than he had addressed the previous boy.

Darren nodded curtly and then made his way over to the bench where Ralph sat.

Piers addressed the rest of us. “What did those two have in common?”

Nothing.
 

“The dynamics of war,” Piers continued when none of us spoke up, “show us what may not be openly obvious to you magic folk. You think you can blast your enemy with sheer force, and maybe you can. But the further you are from your opponent, the less power you are able to exert. We can’t waste all this time training you to be powerful mages and have you faint at the first sign of battle. Not one of you will be sitting in an ivory tower pointing your finger and making your enemies crumble. You will need to be close to your enemies to do damage, but you need to be able to maneuver in and out of battle to safely engage.

“By building up your physical reserves, we will be increasing your tolerance to pain and your fortitude. By strengthening your prowess, you will be more capable of focusing during moments that test your will.

“Early on, the Council learned that they were losing too many mages’ lives on the battlefield. In response, we developed a training program that incorporates the physical conditioning we put the pages in the School of Knighthood through. While none of you will be as successful as a full-fledged knight, this program will better prepare you for the realities of battle. It gives you more endurance, whether you are a Restoration mage going from one wounded to the next, or an Alchemist helping with dangerous flasks. For the faction of Combat, it is a little easier to picture the battlefield, but even if you were to never participate in a single war, endurance and fortitude can only help, not hurt.

“So for the rest of the day I will be gauging your physical competence. When you walk away today, I will have a thorough understanding of how badly out of shape you are, and then from tomorrow on, we will be attempting to fix that.

“Oh,” Sir Piers added, almost gleefully, “and if you are wondering when we will train with any of the fun weapons you may have seen a knight handle, keep in mind you have to get through two months of my class first…

“Now, we have a change of clothes for the lads and ladies in the building behind me. Those will be your attire for the rest of your time here at the Academy. After today you will no longer be wearing personal garments or insignia. You will notice the garb is old, ill-fitting, and not particularly attractive. That is to be expected. Year one is not a cause for celebration, and so the masters do not waste coin financing your personal fashions. We will go ahead and let the ladies go first. Lads, while you are waiting your turn, I advise you to start stretching. It’s going to be a long two hours.”

Two hours into the pain and agony that was Sir Piers’s idea of
light
conditioning, I found myself dry-heaving at one of the wooden benches on the side of the field. I heard Alex off to my right making similar noises. All over the stadium, first-years were dropping one by one.

Piers had decided we would run five miles. Five miles, he had added, interspersed with twenty lunges and presses each time we completed a lap. That would have been fine, hard -but fine, if that were all he had asked of us. But it had only been a warm-up.

Once we had completed his first demand, Sir Piers had barked new orders for everyone to line up across from one another. When we did that, he had heaved heavy wooden staffs at us and instructed us to “proceed.”

Since most of the girls and a couple of the lowborn boys had never held a weapon in their life, Piers then had to show us how to hold the poles, where to stand, and which way to lean our weight. We spent just as much time rapping each other’s knuckles as we did the staffs.

When one girl had dared to quietly ponder the usefulness of the drill to her partner, Piers snapped: “You think you’ll never need to use a weapon, girl? What happens when you have used the last of your magic and you are stranded in the middle of a battlefield? When a mage is powerful enough to send daggers cutting through the air, do you think he randomly decides their course?
No,
he studies and practices
exactly
which cutting blows are needed to hit those precious arteries.
Nothing
I teach you here will be pointless!”

For the remainder of our lesson, no one dared to brave a single complaint. Even when he decided to introduce a new routine involving the many flights of stairs surrounding the field.

But that still didn’t stop our bodies from reacting to the horrible circus of exercises Piers was putting us through.

Taking a deep breath, I told myself that it couldn’t get any worse.

We were on a fifteen-minute break before our session with Master Cedric, but for most of us, the fifteen minutes was spent trying to crawl or limp our way to a display of water pitchers on the other side of the stadium. Refreshments had been brought courtesy of Constable Barius’s staff, all of which had decided to take a late afternoon break.

I think the water was just an excuse for their entertainment.

Still, entertainment or not, water was what I wanted. As luck would have it by the time I reached it there was almost none left.

Greedily, I downed what remained and then scanned the bench for any unattended glasses I could finish off. None. Had I really expected anything different? Deciding I had only a minute or so left, I sat down to observe the rest of the student body from my resting place.

Ella stood a little way off, red in the face and a little clammy, but somehow still charming in her disheveled state. She was talking to my brother as he attempted to stretch his calves. The two of them were chuckling at a joke he had just made. I winced. I couldn’t even imagine laughing. My lungs were still burning from those stairs.