Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance) (14 page)

Firia rolled her eyes behind the other
man as she straightened her sac on her back. Still, she was here, and
not even a trickster could make her forget that as she quickly
trailed after him.

“I’m an assistant professor
in fact,” the dashing elf said with a smile over his shoulder
as they set off across that massive tree-bridge, the wood creaking
and groaning beneath her feet, giving her the distinct impression it
was less sound than was safe. “I’ll officially become a
professor in my own right soon in fact,” he said with a dashing
smile and cursory gaze towards Firia that held a certain curious
feel.

She crinkled her nose at it, but tried
to relax. Seeing her house from so high had affected her more than
she could admit. It was as though she realized just how far away
she’d be, the reality of it sinking in, and it was marring the
amazement and joy of the moment. She felt like running to her room
and hiding in her corner, and she hadn’t done that since she
was a toddler.

She reached inside herself, searching
for some reassurement. Some warmth.

It was faint, so very faint, but she
felt the tiniest of responses inside herself. So vague, but yet so
familiar. Despite how new Varuj and she were to one another, she
couldn’t mistake that feeling for anything else.

The chatty guide led them to the
immense front gates and before them they swung slowly open, revealing
a great courtyard within. The sight of the beautiful trees and
flowers, the intricate carvings of the pillars and archways, then the
doors to the various sections of the magical academy were all so much
to soak in at once.

There seemed no end to the wonders
Firia faced in her new life.

A flock of curious birds, with long
legs and magnificent beaks fluttered past and out the gates, leaving
a wake of glittering powder in their wake.

“You two aren’t carrying
much,” came the voice of their guide again, breaking her
enthrallment with the place. “So if you care to I can show you
around a bit before taking you to your rooms. Most of the new
arrivals are carrying so many bags it’s obscene,” he said
with some amusement.

“Benefits of getting stuck with
the poor kids, I guess,” Firia replied sardonically, winking at
Mae’lin. “I’m up for sight-seeing, I suppose.”
She wasn’t, but at the same time, she wasn’t sure she
wanted to be alone, either.

Mae’lin hesitated, but when he
did smile back it was a warm, tender one.

Their guide carried on, waving them
ahead in his finery. “We’ll just make a quick trip around
to some of the places you’ll need to be familiar with in your
first semester here,” he declared cheerfully, a bit of a hop to
his step.

Leading them to a pair of large
double-doors that once-again opened without his touching them, he
declared, “Here is the most important place of all: the
food-a-torium!” A strange name for so magnificent a hall, as
the beautiful marble floor was simply stunning, with its seemingly
endless pictographed story of ancient magical accomplishments and its
great columns of ancient wood, carved into magnificent shapes and
arches that she’d never seen done with wood crafting before.

The tables, seemingly endless, in so
many different sizes and with seats all about, and booths to the
side, seemed ready to seat hundreds.

She was beginning to feel more and more
out of place surrounded by such opulence. For so long she’d
dreamed of this, envisioned it, but it was never really a place. It
was a library, a classroom at times, but it was never so cohesive and
amazing as all this.

“Food-a-torium?” she asked
after a moment.

“That’s right!” he
declared with a smile.

Mae’lin broke in with
uncharacteristic forcefulness, “You’re just trying to
make us look silly when we say that to someone.”

He looked about to argue but then waved
a hand. “You got me!” He rolled his eyes and sighed,
“Moving on then!” he declared as he began to turn and
take them to the next building.

Firia grinned at Mae’lin, and
felt a genuine sort of affection for the man. He’d been so
decent to her, not like the other elves. It was a nice change of
pace.

She got a bit of a bashful look in
response from the lanky elf, but he smiled sheepishly as they were
taken into the next grand segment of the academy.

It was less impressive than the rest,
but it was still beyond anything she’d known before that day.
It was a massive hallway, with stairways leading up and up. At the
center there was just a big ovular opening that showed the numerous
levels and doorways.

“This is the introductory spell
hall. This is where you’ll be going for the bulk of your
studies for some time to come,” he said plainly, looking back
at them. “Make sure you remember your way here, because the
real challenge will be finding the particular room you’re
after!” He crooked a corner of his lips up in a mischievous
manner.

No matter how much she liked magic, she
still had a distaste for pranksters. She took her craft – and
herself – quite seriously, and endeavoured never to lose her
way. She looked around with revived interest, trying to commit it all
to memory.

From there he led them down a narrow
pathway and out into a lovely garden area, “And just through
here,” he stated as she was mesmerized by the cat-sized
dragonfly that slowly hovered on by, “we have… the
library.”

At that she couldn’t help but
tear her gaze away from the startling beauty of the many exotic
flowers, oversized yet harmless insects, and fluttering birds to see
the great gates open and reveal something much closer to what she’d
dreamt of.

The Academy library was bigger than
even the dining hall, so very large and reaching up immensely high,
such that it had to be one of the tallest portions of the whole
castle structure itself, if not the tallest.

The main hall itself was full of people
passing through, great desks and tables about, though even still
there were bookshelves, and up above she could see the next level
where there were only books on display. It kept going up, though, and
she couldn’t really make out the end of it all.

This.

This was where she belonged.

It was as though everything had just
been filler until she finally arrived at her place, and that broad
smile announced to the world she’d discovered it. All her
worries and fears slid aside as she found her place to hide. To live.

“Wow…”

“Wow is right,” mirrored
Mae’lin beside her, gaping nearly as much as she.

Their guide tried to break the moment,
however, and shooed them both back towards the door. “You’ll
have time for this later. The library remains open around the clock.
Though introductory students such as yourselves have a curfew. And
speaking of… we should head back to your residence so you can
get accustomed to it,” he said, sweeping in between them and
back off through the garden.

“Curfew?” She almost
laughed at the thought. She was a perpetual night owl, as much as she
could be with school. Not to mention the idea of being so close to
the library and not being allowed in seemed a bit torturous. “When?”

“You’ll know,” he
said with another one of his mischievous smirks. “The Academy
takes such things very seriously. So it’s not something you’d
need to worry about until the time comes.”

With so cryptic an answer he just
continued to trot along, heading towards another building. This one
looked almost… quaint, when compared to the rest of the great
castle-academy. It had a stone and wood exterior, and looked almost
like a great, faerie-tale cabin, magnified many fold, of course.

The wooden doors creaked open and she
saw a mighty hearth, surrounded by sofas and relaxing seating areas.
“This shall be your residence hall,” he said to them, and
the inviting warmth and calmness in there was hard to miss.

She still didn’t trust the elf
and his mischievous manners, but her curiosity won out over her
caution, as it so often did. Stepping in, she inhaled deeply, as if
trying to acclimate herself to the new smells and sensations of her
“home”.

No matter how strange the whole place
had been, and how jarring the experiences of the day, she couldn’t
deny how very inviting the place was. How warm and welcoming it
seemed.

Until she saw the visage of that
well-dressed human she’d seen steal her thunder at the
competition. He stood up before the fire, looking so calm and
confident, having apparently been chosen for the same academy as she
despite everything.

“With that, I’ll give you
time to settle in,” their guide said with a calming smile.
“You’ll find your rooms at opposite ends of the hall,”
he indicated, pointing down each way. “And yours,” he
looked to Firia, “is up on the second floor. You’ll know
which one, don’t worry.”

She stared at him with a furrowed brow.
“And why’s that?”

“Wait and see,” he said
with a shrug and a half-smile. “The name’s Gway’lin.
Remember that if you need anything!” He abruptly vanished, as
if pulled through some pinhole-sized gap in reality itself, leaving
them standing there by themselves.

Though the display brought the
attention of the sole other human there and the elvish woman he spoke
with, the two moving towards her.

“So you’re the one,”
he remarked, his dark, hazel eyes studying her curiously up and down.
“You put on that big show that had everyone talking, hm?”

Why did she suddenly feel like a
cornered rabbit? All of her social anxiety crept back into her and
her cheeks already started to redden. “I don’t know,”
she muttered, wishing she hadn’t put her black hair into a
ponytail. She figured it’d be easier for travelling, but now
she wished for nothing more than a veil to hide herself.

She leaned her head down a bit and let
her bangs shield her eyes. Just a tad.

“She put on an amazing display,”
proclaimed Mae’lin with a smile, as if her accomplishment were
as much his as hers.

“So I hear,” he said,
brushing back his own hair and scrutinizing her a bit. He took his
time, but then he extended his hand, palm-up: “The name is
Bran. Bran Thornson.”

This was supposed to be her fresh
start, surrounded by others just as passionate as her.

Firia’s eyes slowly dragged their
way up his body before resting on his hand. She forced her own palm
into it, surprised by her actions. It was pure force of will that she
was able to grasp his hand in hers. “Nice to meet you. Firia
Tunst. You almost cost me my chance.”

Bran’s eyes went wide with
surprise at her remark.

Her mouth gaped with shock. Why had she
said that? That was the last thing she should have said, and
immediately her cheeks turned beet red. “I mean…”
She tried to recover. “I saw your show. It was awesome…”

To her remark he smirked gently and
gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Ahh, that explains it then,
does it? You had to pull out all the stops to make sure you were
noticed after my little show, is that what you’re saying?”
he questioned with an expectant gaze.

“They thought they met their
token human quota,” she admitted, but her voice was so much
smaller in her embarrassment. She bit her lower lip as if to forcibly
stop herself from saying something stupid again.

Bran gave a derisive curl of his nose
then reached out and patted her hand in his. “Well done, all
the same. I just wish I was there to see it, instead of in the tent
negotiating for my spot here.” He was a confident young man,
she had to confess, and it made his own rugged good looks stand out
all the more.

With a clearing of her throat, the
elvish woman beside him stepped forward and introduced herself.
“Ala’nase,” she said in her sing-song voice, so
very elvish. She gave a short curtsey. “It’s a pleasure
to meet you.”

What a beautiful name. She couldn’t
help but smile at it, though she tried to hide it. Still, it was like
a song. Firia tried to curtsey in return, though it was hard to be
graceful with the sac still on her back. “You too.”

She almost patted herself on the back
for not embarrassing herself again.

The sparkling smile the young elven
woman gave made her more endearing than most of her kind. The long
white-hair that framed her face accentuating her lovely, delicate
features. “I did not take part in the competition, but I must
say I am embarrassed to admit that. It seems all the truly promising
young magicians were out there, showing off their abilities with
daring-do, rather than taking the humdrum tests with me.”

“Humdrum tests?” Firia
grinned, “I don’t know… I think that sounds a bit
better.”

Ala’nase laughed musically and
smiled at her disarmingly, “Kind of you to say. Though I must
admit,” she said, leaning in and playfully batting at her arm,
“I wasn’t expecting the talk of the competition, who
nearly turned her opponent to ashes, to be so… sweet.”

“That’s just gossip,”
Firia said, a bit too defensively. “I mean… Mae’lin’s
right here, and he doesn’t seem mad so…”

As if just noticing him for the first
time, Ala’nase’s gaze travelled up to the lanky elf’s
with some surprise. “It was you she burned?!” she asked
with more than a little excitement.

Mae’lin looked a bit taken aback
at the whole thing. Flustered, he answered, “N-no! She didn’t
burn me at all,” he stated as he adjusted the pack over his own
shoulder. “We both got carried away in our competition, putting
our all into it, and then… well, one of us won and suddenly
all that power she’d conjured needed a place to go.”

Ala’nase’s slender eyes
went wide and she gasped. “What a battle it must’ve
been!”

“It wasn’t really a
battle,” Firia smiled bashfully, shrugging her shoulders. “I
mean… it was exciting but not a battle.”

“That’s not what I heard,”
said Bran with a grin.