Kin of Kings (The Kin of Kings Book 1) (13 page)

BOOK: Kin of Kings (The Kin of Kings Book 1)
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Soon into endurance day, Basen realized he’d gravely underestimated the toll it would take on him. Penny called them up in groups of three and demanded when to cast a fireball, what size it should be, and which target they should hit. It wasn’t difficult for Basen to keep up with the speed of her demands, for he could gather energy quickly. What drained his stamina was competing with the mages beside him to gather the same bastial energy in the vicinity.

Never had he tried casting so many fireballs in succession next to other mages, but he soon came to realize that much of the bastial energy he was absorbing came from the very fireballs he and the other mages were shooting. He could feel a surge of it come to him as soon as their fireballs exploded against the training dummies.

He knew he couldn’t be regathering all
of the energy he’d used for the previous fireball, because much of it had to burn to form the fireball in the first place, but he certainly got back more of what he’d just used than he did from his own body. A deep chill came on after his tenth fireball, his body telling him he’d sapped all the bastial energy he could from it for a while.

As the morning went on, more and more people began failing to gather enough energy in time to keep up with their instructor. But Basen managed to shoot every time Penny demanded, never missing his target.

Finally they seemed to be done with endless fireballs, as the last group collapsed onto the sand like all of those before them.

“Effie, feeling fresh enough to go first for the next challenge?” Penny asked.

“That depends. I forget what’s next.” Effie had done exceptionally well so far, but even she seemed tired, strands of her black hair sticking to her cheeks from sweat.

Penny flicked her arm and a stream of fire shot forward, starting just in front of the tip of her wand. It roared as it grew to the incredible distance of a grown man lying down. Thin but hot enough to singe flesh, it still grew to cover ten feet in length as Penny’s face crumpled from the effort. Then she relaxed, and the fire disappeared from the air. Basen had little idea people were capable of such a spell.

But Effie was not nearly as impressed, sighing as she trudged forward. “Might as well get it over with.”

Penny wiped her brow with the back of her hand, breathing heavily. “For the first-years who haven’t already figured it out, the challenge is the length you can make the stream of fire, not how long you can maintain the fire. That’ll be after.”

Basen grumbled with the rest of them. The thought of the endurance challenge to follow took away all sense of fun.

Penny smiled wickedly. “I love endurance day, don’t all of you?”

From what Basen had seen thus far from Effie, he expected her to make the longest stream of fire out of anyone.

Her cute, pixie face tightened as lines formed on her forehead and around her dark eyes. Fire sputtered out from her wand, growing and shrinking rapidly. Then she seemed to get a better grasp on the spell as it lengthened at a steady rate. It stretched, thinning as it extended.

Just when it seemed that she’d reached her limit at three or four feet, the whole stream of fire darkened from yellow to orange as she must’ve increased the amount of sartious energy she was pushing through to be burned.

She heaved out grunts as if trying to expel something from her body. Such a sound might’ve made Basen or his classmates laugh if the sight before them wasn’t so inspiring. The fire grew to six feet, then seven. She let out one last grunt and the tip edged forward another inch before the stream came apart.

Effie collapsed to her knees. The fire dispersed in waves that cascaded down to the sand, where it pooled and crackled for a while.

Basen was thoroughly discouraged. He couldn’t create a stream of fire that length when he’d never practiced the spell before.

“Effie, I’m impressed.” Penny sounded surprised. “You must have a better grasp on sartious energy than I thought.”

Her compliment made Basen realize even more that he was doomed to do poorly in this challenge. Bastial energy was his specialty, not sartious. He’d always had just enough grasp to scrape out the sartious dust he needed for a fireball from the pellets within his wand. But to make a stream of fire longer than his arm, he would need to be drawing in sartious energy from the air like he could with bastial.

He still felt there was a new spell waiting for him to learn based on what had happened at the training center, but the only time he’d had to recreate it was when he’d returned home last night. Instead of practicing, though, he’d taken Penny’s advice to get as much rest as possible before endurance day. He was glad he did.

Effie gasped for breath as she gingerly got back to her feet and shuffled out of the way.

“Basen,” Penny called out to his dismay. “You like competing with Effie, so you might as well go right after her.”

Damn, it’s been that obvious?
Apparently so, though Effie didn’t seem to care as she plopped down on the sand and glanced over indifferently.

He stepped forward so his classmates were behind him and drew his wand. He had yet to wield it without thinking of Alabell and how much he owed her.

Mages could do nothing but move energy, so it was the amount of energy and how they moved it that determined their spell. But the more energy a mage controlled at once, the more difficult it was to hold on, akin to picking up rocks and keeping them steady.

Unable to control sartious energy even half as well as Effie, Basen thought of a strategy more suitable to his skills. He gathered bastial energy as he would when preparing a fireball, willing the hot energy into a cluster just in front of the tip of his wand. The heat of the BE tore down his wand, to the fingers and knuckles on his left hand. The bite of pain reminded him of his recent injury at the training center. An unbidden voice urged him to stop. He ignored it.

He quickly sent sartious energy out from within his wand. It entered the cluster of bastial energy and caught fire. This was the easy part, and no different than casting a fireball except that he now had to hold the burning bastial energy steady, keeping it far from his hand so as not to be burned. He stepped backward for some distance, keeping in mind that the farther he was from the energy, the more difficult it became to hold. The burning ball snarled with rage, trying to escape the grasp of his mind.

“Careful, Basen!” Penny cautioned with more alarm in her voice than he had yet to hear.

He fed his small sun more energy and watched it grow as he stepped farther back. The energy sought freedom like a bull, and the cage of his mind weakened with each breath he took.

As the bastial energy burned, he felt his hold on the swirling fireball diminishing. He couldn’t feed it quickly enough to maintain control.

Luckily he was as far away as he wanted to be—the same distance Effie had been from the far end of her torrent of flame. He heard the students behind him scurrying to create even more distance, just in case this went awry. Part of him thought to tease them for not trusting him, but he didn’t have the focus.

He split his concentration, one part of his mind holding the sphere of energy still at seven feet from him and the other part pulling it toward him, stretching the burning energy as if it were dough. His concentration was almost broken by a clamor of startled shouts as the fire speared straight at his chest.

“Relax,” he managed to utter, not wanting to worry about another noise that might startle him. “It’s under control.”

“Basen, that’s enough!” Penny warned him. But he was almost done anyway.

The base of the fire stretched as thin as a rope as its tip came at him. Soon it reached its limit and could not be pulled any farther without breaking apart. It looked like a spear of fire pointed straight at his heart. He held it there with his wand out, letting Penny see its full length.

With his last effort, he willed the remaining BE that hadn’t been burned to go the opposite way, toward the training dummies. The spear of fire shot forward and splashed against the center dummy’s chest, not unlike a quick stream of water hitting a rock.

Basen fell to his knees, now drenched in sweat, half from the heat and half from his efforts.

“That cannot count!” Effie complained. “There must be a rule against such a dangerous tactic as pulling the energy toward us.”

“There isn’t,” Penny answered, though she didn’t look pleased as she glanced sideways at Basen. “Because no one has been stupid enough to try.”

Basen mustered up the last of his strength so he could stand and puff out his chest in mock pride. “Until now!”

Although some of his classmates laughed at his quip, Penny just scowled.

“I’m going to let that stand as legitimate,” she said, “but you should be aware that safety for yourself and others is part of what is judged when determining your group number.” She came toward him and lowered her voice. “Basen, if you do something that dangerous again without first telling me of your plan and getting permission, it might be the last spell you cast within these walls. No accident has ever led to a mage’s death at the Academy, and I’m not about to let you change that.”

It hadn’t seemed that dangerous to him. He would never let the energy slip from the grasp of his mind. But he hadn’t considered how it would look to those watching. They had no idea whether he could maintain hold of such a tremendous amount of energy. Of course they would worry.

He apologized and went to join the others.

Although he’d been surrounded by men and women like him since arriving at the Academy, he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that he was different from all of them, that he didn’t quite belong here. He hoped that would change in time, for he could think of no place better where he would belong.

 

 

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

While waiting in line for his lunch, Basen noticed Sanya alone at a table, eating quickly as usual. The need to hurry stirred in his chest. She would be gone soon.

It was up to the instructors when to allow their evaluation group to break for mid-day meals, so Basen never saw the same people in the dining hall. With Sanya always hurrying to get somewhere, the chances of finding her there were slim.

He got his food and walked briskly toward her table. The bruising and cuts on her face were nearly gone, a testament to the healers at the Academy.

His heart sank when she stood to leave just before he reached her.

She threw up her hands. “Basen! You should’ve gotten here earlier.”

He mimicked her gesture “Sanya! You should’ve gotten here later.”

She glanced behind her to check for eavesdroppers. “Yesterday, Annah came back.”

“She’s to live with you still?”

“Yes, can you believe it? They still haven’t figured out why the psychics at the Academy were certain she was lying while the psychics at the castle were certain she wasn’t. So they just…let her return here. I don’t trust her, and there are no locks on our bedroom doors! I need to find Terren and convince him to take a better course of action than putting her back into my house. They should at least stick her with three roommates instead of one. Then more people can watch for suspicious behavior, and she’ll be less likely to do anything.”

This was the first time Basen had seen some of Sanya’s old self come out, though it was only a shadow of how she used to overreact. At least this time there was logic involved. He would’ve been uncomfortable living with Annah, too, after what had happened, though he wasn’t sure he would try to have her moved.

“Sorry I can’t stay,” she concluded.

“It’s fine.” He made a sweeping gesture at the empty table. “My plethora of friends will keep me company.”

She giggled as she touched his arm on her way past him.

He sat with a sigh. At least his food was delicious.

Someone squeezed his shoulder while walking around him. Glancing up, he was delighted to find it was Nick taking the empty bench on the other side of the table.

“How goes endurance day for you?” Nick asked.

“Not as I’d hoped. I made my instructor angry.”

“I told you not to tell that joke about the voluptuous queen!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be sitting here if I had. No, it was something far less amusing.” He described the spell he’d cast and the dialogue that had followed.

“No, you didn’t do that!” Nick said with an incredulous smile. “You’re being serious?”

“I am.”

Nick guffawed. He had to set down his fork as his laughter grew to a howl. It drew the gazes of everyone near them.

“I don’t understand,” Basen admitted. “It wasn’t that funny.”

But for some reason, that only made Nick laugh harder as he tried to get out words. “I can’t believe you pulled the fire toward you…and the other students!”

“They’d cleared out…mostly.”

“I would’ve given anything to see your instructor’s face.”

“Not enough time has passed for me to appreciate the humor.” Basen let out a nervous chuckle. “How goes endurance day for you so far?”

“Perfect. I’m fairly certain I’m going to be put in Group Two.”

“You’re content with second best?”

“Oh…you don’t know. And why would you? Group Two is what you should strive for, Basen. In Group One, everyone’s competitive and dedicated, and they’re all second- and third-years.” He grimaced and shook his head as if those were terrible things. Then he raised his eyebrows and lifted a finger. “But in Group Two, everyone is just as competent, yet they enjoy themselves. They don’t kill themselves over the competition. They relax, and there are more first-years.
Those
are the women you want.”

BOOK: Kin of Kings (The Kin of Kings Book 1)
12.61Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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