Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance) (40 page)

There were more than simply giant
mushrooms about, though; strange flora of various sorts were all
about. Great purple blooms, some of which were bigger than her. And
more disturbing still, they undulated and moved of their own accord,
more like an animal than a plant.

She took the time to study her
surroundings, to become more familiar with the strength of the floor,
the way she breathed. All of the little things could affect how
quickly she moved, how fast she’d finish this, and she didn’t
want to rush off willy-nilly.

Be one with the arcane
. She
didn’t know if there was a hidden meaning, but she tried to
obey, opening her mind to the unseen.

It came to her, albeit gradually. She
could feel the flow of the magic about her, and realized it permeated
the whole of the cavern. It was strong there, even more so than at
the academy. Though there was something odd…

When she reached out with her ethereal
self to the cavern walls, she was immediately forced back away. The
walls were barriers, not just against the physical, but the magical.

Slowly Firia began to make sense of it.
The immense concentration of magic, it was all contained there by
those stones. It was no ordinary cavern, but hewn out of stone with
some sort of anti-magic properties, which kept so much arcane energy
bottled up inside.

It was as she pondered those mysteries
that she felt something else so very odd. The giant blooming flower
beside her emitted some odd aura, it–

She jumped back away from it, scarcely
a moment too soon.

The great plant had moved closer! It’s
great fronds reaching out like an abductor in slow motion. And within
its great, pitcher-like bloom she saw something that looked like hard
teeth. Razor thin and sharp near the entrance, but others for
gnashing deep within.

Her heart beat fast with the close
encounter, but then something more dawned on her: there was something
else in the mouth of that plant. It was a scroll, and must have been
enchanted, for its papers looked pristine, as if straight from the
scribe. Yet it sat in a murk of mucousy goo.

She could do this. Varuj had taught
her, and though she struggled with it, her confidence was renewed
just knowing what to do.

The other students would have to find
more creative ways to get at such a clue to the test, but she was
able to hold out her arm and draw out the magical energy within
herself and manipulate the object from afar.

It resisted the movement, the arcane
energy that imbued that plant-animal not giving up the possession
within it. Not without a fight at least.

Firia had to twist her fingers and
augment the spell as best she could, funneling her energy through the
ring she wore to amplify its power. Her brow creased, the
plant-animal shuddered, but she saw the scroll drag along its gooey,
fanged maw.

The creature tried to bite and gnaw on
the scroll, to keep it from getting away, yet whatever magic that
kept it pristine also kept it from harm.

She had to take a step back to avoid
the approaching thing, but at last the scroll popped free of its hold
and then careened towards her before landing upon the rocks and
rolling to her.

With a deft grab, Firia scooped it up
then moved away, back to the relative safety of the sheltering
mushroom she’d appeared under.

Undoing the seal upon it, she rolled
open the scroll and saw but a simple drawing there. It was a great
tree, not like the ones in that underground “jungle”, but
more like those she knew above. Yet not, all the same.

She didn’t understand, and her
fingers traced over the strange scroll as if reading it another way.
She was still so excited at having figured out the first test so
quickly that her mind was racing and she had trouble slowing it down,
focussing on the next piece of the puzzle.

There was nothing for her to do but
calm down. Explore.

Rolling it back up she moved through
the curious underground jungle, avoiding the slowly lurching
plant-creature as she wound through the giant mushrooms.

The ground had such a strange feel to
it. At times hard and rocky, at others spongy and soft, like the
fungus around her.

It made for such bizarre footing that
she almost didn’t notice it when the ground gave way entirely
and she very nearly toppled over a cliff.

Desperately she reached out and clung
to one of the mushroom stems beside her, heart thudding at an
incredible rate as she stared down the rocky incline. The jungle
continued down it at a steep angle, and she found herself worried how
she would climb it safely. Jagged rocks stuck out of the fungus at
weird angles, and she knew if she missed her footing even once, it
could be the end of her. Or at least the end of the test.

As she mulled it over she saw one of
the great mushroom tops beneath her. The bizarre purple pattern of a
star there, seemingly growing naturally.

Storing up her courage she took a few
steps back, checked her footing and… ran!

She ran to the edge and with a great
leap sprung out over the cliffside.

There was nothing but air beneath her
cloak as she moved towards her destination. Though as she began to
arc downwards, panic nearly set in.

She wouldn’t make it.

Calling upon all she knew of magic,
Firia reached out with both hands, the telekinetic force she expelled
digging furrows into the spongy fungus.

She never made contact with the bloom,
but the invisible grasp of her arcane magic kept her dangling from
its edge none the less. She hung there, swaying back and forth with
not but the force of her magical power saving her from crashing down
below.

They were torturers at this academy!
There was no room for failure, and she was so grateful to the
adrenaline pumping through her. Without it, she was sure she’d
break down in fright, but instead she took a deep breath, cleansing
her body and her mind.

She could do this.

“Firia!” a cry came from
below, and she instantly recognized it as Mae’lin’s.

From the jungle below he was clamouring
up the cavern side, grabbing onto every rocky outcropping he could
with his hands and rushing forth. His cloak even snagged on a stone
beneath him, ripping a big tear down its backside as he pushed on
heedlessly. “I’m coming for you!”

She didn’t need his help though.
She slowly pulled herself upwards, the telekinetic grip she’d
formed hauling her up at great effort. Her brow sweated, face turned
red, but she pulled herself up further and further. She’d make
it, and avoid the fall below, just another –

From out of the underground jungle a
ball of fire hurdled towards her, and only the deft attunement of her
mind to the arcane from before alerted her to it in time. Yet there
was nothing to do, but drop…

She did, with no other choice before
her.

Firia plummeted downwards, the searing
heat of that fire blast narrowly avoiding her, but singing and cuffs
as she fell. Smoke billowed from her as she fell to her abysmal
failure.

There was no telling how he did it, how
Mae’lin had climbed up that rock face so fast, but when she
fell into his arms she could only be grateful as the lanky elf swayed
and nearly fell over from the force of her impact.

Her eyes went shut and her arms were
around his neck, clutching him desperately. How? She didn’t
care. All she knew was immense gratitude as she clung to him. “Holy
hell, what was that?”

Mae’lin moved back then crouched
down, hiding them behind the mushroom trunk as he breathed heavily.
“It had to be another student,” he said after but a
moment’s thought, the words a struggle to get out, he was so
weary. Though once he laid her down on the spongy ground she saw how
he’d managed his rescue in so timely a manner, his trousers
were torn at both legs, and both hands and knees were bloody from his
climb over the jagged rocks.

“Had to be,” she agreed,
grimacing. How many enemies did she have here anyways? “Listen,
have you seen anything like this?” She grabbed the scroll,
quickly unfurling it for him, her pulse racing. Even if she had
nearly just died, she needed to succeed.

Mae’lin studied her scroll a
moment, “It’s not quite the same as mine, it’s…
a bit different.” He unfurled his own, then put it beside hers,
though it made no more sense.

However, once she looked up, she saw in
the distance over the jungle canopy several great trees spiralling up
above the fungal forest. They were each different, but she
immediately found one, then another, that resembled the images they
were given.

Mae’lin followed her gaze and
said, “That’s them then!” And a big smile crossed
his face, their goal in sight already.

“We have to move, before whoever
just tried to fireball me to my death catches up. Do you see a good
route we could take?” She was in charge, detached, and she’d
never felt so sure of anything. It was wonderful to have something to
take her mind off what she had to do to the sweet elf who had, quite
literally, saved her life.

“I think I saw a better way down
then the one I took up,” he stated, standing up again and
offering her his hand. “C’mon,” he said with a
smile. “We’re gonna do this, no matter who tries to stop
us.”

“Damn right,” she agreed,
and she moved so quickly and with such confidence. Together, they
were unstoppable! They’d been able to work together, studying
almost daily for months now. They knew one another’s strengths
and weaknesses and at his side, there was no doubt of their success.

Ala’nase cursed at herself for
missing the woman, her prime opportunity lost because of that
love-struck fool, Mae’lin.

As she climbed down over the cliff
face, she touched the stone upon her necklace, the glow getting
brighter as she approached the holder of the other, matching one.

Bran came into view, looking up to her
in surprise. “Oh, it’s you,” he said with some
relief, a spell upon his fingers. “The stone you gave me was
indicating he was this way,” he remarked, pointing off exactly
to where they’d gone.

“That’s where he went,
definitely,” she muttered to herself in irritation. “But
he’s got company now. He somehow managed to luck upon Firia,”
she remarked bitterly.

“Firia?” he said, his voice
laced with some strange emotion.

“I’ll have to distract her
so you can handle him,” she asserted.

“She can’t know it was me,”
he said, eyes wide.

“Don’t get your nuts in a
knot,” she said irritably. “I said I’d distract
her.”

Seeing her fail and be cast out would
be the utmost distraction, she determined.

The cavern was humid, and getting more
so as they went further down into the valley. Mae’lin had to
keep wiping the perspiration from his brow as he went, but he never
lost his smile.

Firia never lost her alertness.

As they neared the giant trees that
were their destination, a disturbing reality started to come to the
fore: the trees themselves rested upon an island.

In the midst of a great underground
cavern, in a jungle of mushrooms, lay a lake of tepid, dark water.
Worse still, even if they waded or swam across, the island itself
seemed to have sheer cliff faces, that would be near impossible to
climb, if not utterly so.

“What’ll we do?”
Mae’lin bemoaned, resting against one of the fungal trunks with
one palm, the great mushrooms continuing out into the lake even.

“I do not feel like taking a dip
in there,” she agreed, and she knew there must be a way around
it. A way that didn’t involve getting soaking wet. This entire
place reminded her of something Gway’lin would have loved. A
trickster’s paradise, filled with riddles.

Any thoughts of swimming across
would’ve been quickly dashed, as Firia noticed nearby a ripple
in the water. When she pointed it out to Mae’lin, he looked and
together they saw some fanged fish-like creature rise above the
surface, two beady eyes upon the flat top of its head looking about
before diving back beneath.

“Yeah, let’s not go for a
swim,” he remarked, then with a snap of his fingers he grinned
toothily. “I’ve got it.” He patted the thick fungal
trunk by him and said, “These things go right across the lake.
We just gotta get across by using them as jumping platforms.”

“As long as no one lobs a
fireball at us,” she retorted, even as she stood and looked at
the “platforms”. “It’s going to be dangerous,
Mae’lin. And you won’t be able to catch me. And I won’t
be able to catch you either.” Well… maybe. She could try
her telekinesis, but that was asking a lot of her abilities.

Firia thought on it a while, but then
she remembered her search for the missing Mae’lin in his
altercation with Bran. “You can manipulate the water to lift
yourself up!”

A light went on in Mae’lin’s
head, and he grabbed her, sweeping her into his arms and giving her a
big, passionate kiss, the likes of which he had never done before.
“You’re brilliant,” he said, eyes glittering. Then
pressed their mouths together again in his excitement.

Her heart broke.

It wasn’t before. It wasn’t
when she had sex with him, knowing it couldn’t last. It wasn’t
when she’d made her promise to Varuj.

It was then, and it took every ounce of
strength she had to persevere and not break down, utterly. Instead
she gently put her hand on his chest, pushing him away with a
sheepish smile. “We have to hurry before someone finds us.”

Undaunted, Mae’lin smiled and
nodded. “We’ll have a lot of celebrating to do after we
win this contest,” he remarked, and immediately began to work
his own magic.

Since they’d first faced off
together, Firia knew he was masterful with his control of water. He
had an affinity for it that was quite impressive, and he brought
forth the murky liquid into a spout. “I’ll send you up
first,” he said.