Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance) (25 page)

It was a more horrific experience than
one could’ve imagined, and Kanfa would’ve cried out if he
had the ability, except for that moment there was nothing but the
anguish of his soul pouring out of him and into the demon.

When it was done at last, Varuj had
only to touch his hand to the door and intone a single spell word for
it to swing open. Kanfa stood there, looking the same as before,
although the warmth and affection seemed drained out of him.

“We must go,” stated the
demon softly. “I know some people who should take you in. With
some persuading at least.”

Kanfa nodded somewhat dispassionately
and followed after him.

It wasn’t until they were out in
the night air again that Firia’s father could really sense the
emptiness, the notion of having lost something so precious. He
would’ve mourned, but he didn’t particularly feel that
strongly about it. “Where to?” he asked.

“This way,” said Varuj,
pulling back his hood and revealing his stunning yet changed
features. No longer did horns grace his head, and his masculine
beauty, not diminished in the least, seemed somehow more natural.
More of the world he was in. He looked like a dark-skinned elf from
afar rather than a suave demon.

Most importantly, he no longer felt
fear of being detected for what he was. After all, he now had a soul
of his own.

They approached great hall at the
center of the craft district in the dead of night. From nearby came
trotting Luka, the spectral fox reporting to Varuj in silence.

While the rest of the city slept, the
place was clamouring with constables ringing it, the raised voices of
people squabbling inside, orders being barked and chained humans
being hauled out.

“Your salvation,” exclaimed
the “reformed” demon, casting a sidelong look to Firia’s
father.

“Hardly looks like much,”
he remarked in return a bit listlessly, little hope in his voice.

“Not yet,” agreed Varuj as
he looked to the fox. “Go. Return to your mistress, she may
have greater need of you than I, and time is of the essence. Hurry.”

As if he were caught in the wind, the
fox swirled and wafted up into the air, taken away into the sky,
vanishing into the night.

“Now stay close,” remarked
Varuj. “I’ll need to earn you a place in this group, so
they can hide you.”

Kanfa could only study the strange man
with some detached curiosity, unsure of what to expect.

Varuj simply strode forward into the
cordoned off area, one of the constables approaching him. “Turn
around! You can’t enter here, this is official –”

The elf went flying, striking against
the stone wall with a loud crunch, with only a finger laid upon him.

With each step, Varuj swelled in
proportion, his muscles bulging as more attention was garnered from
two constables herding captives along. “What in the –”

“Stop right there!”

With massive fists, Varuj broke their
jaws then kicked a third that came at him from behind, knocking him
into the hall’s door and breaking the mighty wood.

It was like a bee’s hive
disturbed then, and the rest of the constables began to swarm upon
the towering monstrosity. He showed no fear, batting them away like
flies.

A constable came at Varuj from behind,
but Kanfa picked up a baton and struck him with it in the back of the
head, saving the brute from a stabbing.

Varuj noticed and grunted. “Free
them!” He gestured to the staring humans, chained up and given
reprieve from imprisonment.

The fight was slow to wind down, until
the other humans were freed and they joined in.

When all was said and done, the hulking
not-demon breathed heavily, with his robes tugged down, revealing a
sweaty, heaving chest. “You owe your freedom to his man,”
he said, pointing to Kanfa, who looked lost in events bigger than
him.

From out of the crowd of freed men and
women came one. She looked a bit blackened and bruised, but bore the
countenance of someone accustomed to leading. “He was sentenced
to death for treason,” she declared. “And after tonight
we’ll likely be no better off. How can we shield him?”

Kanfa looked to Varuj, the great hulk
of a man licking his lips before answering. “You are rebels.
Your own fate was sealed before we came along. You were going to let
this man take the fall for your acts,” he announced, though
truthfully he was taking but a stab at the truth of the matter based
on but a sliver of divined truth.

Though judging by the looks on some of
their faces, he had predicted right. They were the true traitors,
plotting rebellion against the civil order. And they were going to
let Kanfa take the fall for it.

“After tonight the people will
know you defeated the constables, and freed one of your own from a
death sentence. Use this opportunity well.” With that, Varuj
turned and began to stride off, though from behind him a voice rang
out.

“Why should we trust you? You’re
no human, and you obviously use some… sorcery.” The word
was spat out by the woman like venom.

The great, dark giant turned and looked
back at them. “This man bartered for his freedom, and I care
naught for what you do against the order of this land. Refuse him if
you would and sabotage your own interests if you’re enough of a
fool.” He shrugged and strode away. “I have business of
my own to return to, far away from here.”

With that, he vanished back into the
night as dawn broke, plans of his own in the making.

Deciphering the sorcerous writing upon
the countless doors was painstaking, and Firia was only fortunate to
have brought pencil and paper to take note.

She’d figured out the words,
their meaning, even cracked the riddle to decipher which would lead
her to her friends! Or so she hoped. Though as she focussed her
magical powers upon the glyph and sought to unravel its energies, she
could feel the sweat form upon her brow from sheer strain of anxiety.

Firia had never dispelled a glyph
before, only even understood it in the most basic of abstract terms.
She barely fathomed what had happened with Luka when he’d done
it to unleash Varuj.

Varuj.

Thoughts of the curious demon wafted
back into her mind and made her concentration waiver. She cursed
herself silently, she’d have to start again, but then…

That first night with him. When she had
brought him to the world, it had been such a curious experience. He
had been intimidating, gorgeously masculine but alarming. She’d
freed him from–

She’d freed him. Freed him? No,
she’d summoned him, hadn’t she? But… thinking back
on the ritual, it had been unlike any other summoning.

That was why she had been drawn to him
as her goal in the first place. Unlike other summoning spells, his
was more complex. He was obviously a being of great power, for she
had to perform complex preparations unlike anything else she’d
encountered, she’d had to…

Her eyes flew open at the realization.
She’d had to break through a binding glyph before she could
even begin the summoning. A powerful wizard of some sort had sealed
him away so that he couldn’t be summoned, she realized.

Yet most importantly at that very
moment, she knew she’d done this before. It wasn’t so
mysterious as she’d thought.

Excitement made her pulse quicken, but
it was no longer one of nerves and uncertainty. This was something
she understood, but it wasn’t at the Academy that she’d
learned it. It was on her own, hidden in that library back home.

She cursed herself for pushing away her
initial studies, but it didn’t matter. She had it, she was
positive!

It took careful patience to work
through the magic of the glyph sealing the door, but she understood
it, finally. And better yet, compared to the glyph that was used to
seal Varuj on another plane, this glyph was child’s play.

It was just time she needed, the
increasingly dwindling resource that threatened her future. Yet she
couldn’t let those thoughts interrupt her, cause her to stress
or panic. Anxiety would be her enemy in facing this barrier. A calm,
collected demeanor would be essential to cracking it.

The afternoon wore on, and she fought
off the stray worries. The thoughts of missing her exam, of whether
Varuj could save her father or not.

It all slipped away as she became more
and more involved with the casting.

For the first time since she’d
arrived at the Academy, she finally felt like she belonged there.
That she wasn’t some stray pet taken in out of pity or
selflessness. She deserved to be there, but more than that, she knew
she wanted to be there.

She’d gotten so wrapped up in the
instructors and their worrying statements, so frightened at the fast
pace and how outmatched she was by some of the other students, that
she’d forgotten how much she loved this. How much of a thrill
she got from just the act of casting a spell. The excitement she felt
when she knew it would work.

Startling her, the door crackled and
the glyph flashed. Then vanished from her perception. She’d
done it.

The door swung open, then all around
her the black chamber faded, as if disappearing into the beautiful
surroundings of that familiar grove. Though before her she witnessed
a strange sight.

Mae’lin and Bran were frozen in
place, enclosed within a magical cube of pure aether. Like insects
frozen in an ice cube.

Firia didn’t know quite what to
make of it until she heard applause, and saw Gway’lin dangle
his feet from over the top of the cube. “Well done,” he
said with a soft smile, looking not quite like his usual cocky self.
“Took you longer than I thought it would, but… you did
it, fair and rightly.”

Her nose crinkled at the elf, mildly
insulted. She still wasn’t sure what to make of him, but then,
he seemed so untouchable. So beyond her understanding and experience.

She’d always been the serious
sort and didn’t have much time for pranksters, though. Perhaps
that was all her trouble with him. “Thank you, I suppose?”

Pushing himself forward, he slid off
the aether-cube and dropped to the ground. It was a long fall, and
should’ve been a tough one to make, but he fluttered down
slowly, as if his robes were a parachute easing his descent. She knew
it had to be some sorcery, however.

“Seeing as you’re the only
first-year student to have cracked the glyphs on their room in many
decades, I just figured you’d have blown through the mystery
and got here promptly,” he said, smiling warmly at her. The
tricksters-look in his eyes had melted away somehow, and he looked
like a totally different person. “But I guess you still
struggle a bit on the syllabary. No fault of your own,” he
added.

“I like to ensure I’m doing
things right. Perhaps I’m just more cautious than you give me
credit for?”

Despite the calm words, she felt
anything but. Her face was flushed and her hands trembled beneath her
robe. “Does that mean this was the exam? Or… just a fun
distraction?”

“Neither really,” he said
with a light shrug and a smile. “What I told you was true, your
friends had fought against the rules. They had disappeared. What I
didn’t tell you was that I had already found them and punished
them by locking them in time here.” He glanced over his
shoulders at the pair, “Quite the pair they make.”

“So… you just wanted to
see if I could do it?”

“No, that’s not all it
was,” he said with a wry smile. “You see, any student who
manages to crack the seals on their room so early has to be tested.
To ensure they didn’t cheat by receiving outside help,”
he explained calmly. “It just so happened that the two
instances lined up nicely, and… well, I think you earned your
friends a waiver on this indiscretion of theirs, don’t you?”
He arched a brow.

She looked to them, and once more that
guilt rolled in her stomach over their fight. Over the fact that it
thrilled her for a few moments that she was so important to them.

“I think the Academy would be
losing out if you discarded them this early.”

Firia was trying to push down the shame
and embarrassment that Luka had been truly the one to break the
room’s seal. She would loathe to have it show on her face, and
Gway’lin seemed to see far more than most.

Those bright azure eyes of his bore
through her before he nodded. “I agree. I’ll let them go
so they can take their exam then,” he waved a hand behind them
and the two young men unfroze, looking startled and confused.

“Run along gentlemen,”
called Gway’lin in his musical voice. “Or you’ll
miss your exam.”

The two were slow to soak in the words,
but Firia could see the panic on their faces the instant they each
determined that their futures were on the line. Bran took off
fastest, though Mae’lin gave her a sort of wounded look first
before following.

“No more fighting,” called
Gway’lin casually, not feeling it necessary to threaten.

Why did Mae’lin have to be so
stupid and blind? Why’d he have to come across her at just the
wrong time? Her gaze fell towards the ground and she felt such
embarrassment even though she knew she’d done nothing wrong.

But she’d hurt her friend, and
that was difficult to handle.

“I guess me too?”

Gway’lin walked around her,
stopping at her side and resting his hand on her shoulder. “Go
rest up. I think you’ve proven the test is below your
abilities. I’ll see to it you’re exempt,” he said
with a warm look and a gentle squeeze of her shoulder. “You
look like you need a bit of time to yourself anyhow.”

She tilted her head and looked at him.
For that moment, she felt like there was a real connection and
understanding between them, but then it was gone and she simply
nodded. “Thank you, Sir. I appreciate it.”