Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance) (41 page)

Firia nodded, and gathered her robes
about her. She’d get wet she figured, but perhaps not if she
used her telekinesis right.

Hesitating, she focussed her abilities
before she leapt onto the water spout. A field of telekinetic energy
shielded her from the damp spray, but up she went all the same. The
force of the jets sending a spritzing of water all about until she
was sent up high, on the level of the mushroom peak.

She tried to reach out for it, but its
spongy, slippery surface was awful for grasping hold of, so instead
she had to leap across.

Her boots nearly failed her when she
back stepped after her landing, but a heartbeat later and she was
secure. Safe.

With a laugh she looked down and saw
Mae’lin smiling up at her. “My turn now,” he said.

It was all going so well, just
according to plan, though she got an odd feeling that she couldn’t
quite place.

“Firia!” came a familiar
voice, and she turned about, seeing Ala’nase a few mushrooms
over.

The nimble elf leapt closer, coming
nearer still. “Wait up!” she cried to Firia. Though the
feeling of discomfort only grew the stronger.

The gasp and cry she heard from
Mae’lin’s direction sent her spinning back around, just
in time to see the lanky elf’s spell go awry. Or rather, him to
go awry.

He jumped as if into the spout, same as
she did, but his leap was off. Oddly so, he had far too much
wherewithal to mess it up so badly. It caused his own jet of water to
flip him over and send him careening into the inky water of the
underground lake.

“Mae’lin!” Firia
cried out as the elf sputtered to the surface, spitting water and
flailing about. Something about it all sat so badly with her, and she
was reminded of the curious display of misdirection that Bran had
done during his trial to get into the academy.

She looked back to Ala, searching some
aid or help, but that off feeling didn’t dissipate. She didn’t
have time to understand it, and instead she desperately tried to cast
her magic, to tug Mae’lin out of the infested lake.

As she nearly finished her casting,
Ala’nase tumbled into her, knocking her over and ruining her
casting. “Sorry,” she muttered.

But Firia was only concerned for
Mae’lin. She got up to resume her spell casting, but saw the
outline of that bizarre underground fish moving towards him on the
surface of the water. “Mae’lin! Watch out!” she
cried.

The elf saw the danger, and began to
move away with the aid of her spell helping him.

That feeling of wrongness only grew,
however, and just as Mae’lin reached safety he went flying up
and back as if struck a blow on the chin. The mystery made sense as
she caught a flicker of something; a dark augmented spell had made
Bran invisible to their eyes by some illusory magic.

It was a competition. They were being
turned on one another in their pursuit of the prize.

“Mae’lin!” she cried
out again, but this time she was casting something different.
Something more her speed. Quickly she summoned Luka, her fox
familiar, and sent him towards Ala’nase. She needed protection
from her friend, though she had little reason why. With that, her
fingers began working again in an intricate frenzy, her sights
instead set on the glimmer of the attacker.

“Firia! Why?!” cried her
friend as the fox slammed into her, knocking her over onto her back.

Though beneath her she watched that
fish thing rise up out of the water. Firia had little time to act,
and her telekinesis was not strong enough to pull Mae’lin out
of the water.

It was however, strong enough to knock
someone in.

With a deft sweep of her wrist, she
sent Bran tumbling into the murk directly before the monstrous
fish-creature. It took the bait and lunged for the human.

Before she could do any more, however,
she heard the yelp of Luka being knocked away and the force of some
dark magic.

When Firia looked behind her, she saw
the spectral fox upon its side, the victim of some sort of magic
amplified through a dark crystal which Ala’nase held on a
chain. “You–”

The elven woman lashed out, but not
with spells, instead it was a swift kick that set Firia off balance
and took her quite by surprise.

They were mages, not brawlers, the
physical blows seemed too off. So very wrong. But most importantly,
unexpected.

“You stole everything from me
that crossed your path!” cried the elven woman, and she was
upon Firia’s back before she could get up, twining her dark
hair about her caramel fingers.

It was such a savage maneuver, but
Ala’nase yanked back on her hair, and the sharp move –
though painful – gave her a brief glimpse of below. The
fish-monster had ripped a large piece off of Bran’s robes, and
the human sorcerer tried using his dark crystal to ward it off.

Before she saw more, Ala’nase
slammed her face down onto the mushroom top. “You had to have
it all!” cried her former friend in a shrill voice, slamming
her face down again, giving her another brief glimpse of Bran tossing
the amulet away. But why?

The third slam of her face into the
mushroom brought her another reprieve and she saw the creature lunge
for the crystal and snap it up out of the air. It
was
drawn to
whatever magics inhabited that trinket.

Firia was dazed, her mind reeling upon
things other than breaking out of her former friend’s assault
in the confusion. Though it passed; the spongy, flesh-like material
of the fungal bloom was not hard enough to cause her any serious
injury.

She hardly had any idea what Ala was
talking about. She knew that the woman had been upset and withdrawn,
and that Varuj had likely told her that Firia was the reason they
couldn’t be together. That would cause her friend pain, but not
like this.

She began casting, her hand growing
warm though not hot enough to scorch. Just enough to let a spark of
flame fly toward Ala’s face as Firia rolled onto her back.

The spark sent the elven woman back
screeching. Despite her efforts to not seriously harm her friend, the
fire did ignite a few strands, and she rolled about trying to douse
them.

Firia, however, was already turning her
attention back to the struggle below, her worry for Mae’lin
outdoing her own troubles in her mind.

And what she saw troubled her deeply.
The fish-creature was bigger, more freakish than before. It had
sprouted long, hideous limbs, and was growing in size. She didn’t
need to wonder what was happening, as she felt the tainted arcane
magic warping its structure. Perhaps some combination of the dark
crystals and the curious makeup of the cavern itself.

It slashed out with its claws and
struck Bran, the human falling into the water face down.

Mae’lin, however, went to his own
attacker’s rescue. He dove back into the deeper water, and
grabbed for the human. He pulled him out of the water, gasping for
air and bleeding from his revealed chest through several claw marks.

“Mae’lin!” cried
Firia, but it was too late. She saw it all unfold.

Heroically, when he saw the monster
coming for them both, he shoved Bran to the shore with all his
strength, and the monster got him and him alone. Its long,
dagger-like fangs sunk into the lanky elf’s shoulder and he let
loose a terribly cry just before vanishing from the testing area in a
burst of arcane energy.

He had failed.

He had been betrayed.

Sabotaged.

Attacked.

Firia’s fury grew at what had
happened to the noble man she loved, but before she could unleash it,
the blow to her back knocked her forward.

She went spinning, and should’ve
careened off the side of the mushroom. Yet somehow she came short,
and slid to a halt just along the edge, able to look up and see the
approaching Ala’nase in a rage of her own.

“Why won’t you just go
away?!” Ala’nase cried, and the smell of smoke in the air
was too pungent to be the small singing Firia had given her. She’d
been hit by a fireball! The same sort that had been flung at her
earlier.

Yet, when she looked back, she saw no
signs of it, but a light blackening of the fabric on her robes. What
had happened?

“You’re done taking from
me,” Ala’nase reasserted, and Firia watched as the woman
struck out with her long, shapely leg to kick her in the face.

Firia’s eyes closed in
anticipation.

Yet the blow never came.

Instead a yelp filled the air, and when
she looked up she saw the elven woman in a pair of dark arms,
confined.

Varuj held her restrained, and with a
prick of his nail and a muttering of an incantation, he caused her
whole body to go limp and unconscious before letting her fall to the
spongy mushroom top.

She’d not been so relieved to see
him in so long. Her head felt so full, so heavy, but she smiled
tentatively at the demon before looking at her friend with concern.
“She hates me…”

If it had been nearly anyone else, she
wouldn’t have been too surprised. But the friends she made, she
was dedicated to, and Ala is…
was
her best friend.

“She’ll get over it one
day,” he said to her, striding over to her purposefully and
taking her by the arm before helping her to her feet. “We have
no time to mourn lost friendships, however. There is still a contest
on, and we shall make it together. As we always should have,”
he said, giving her a faint little smile that said more than his many
other wider and more charming ones.

She nodded, simply, for what else was
there to do? She recalled Luka back into herself, feeling him nestle
within her soul, as she looked forward to their destination.

“Let’s get this done,
already.”

Varuj took her by the hand, and
together they ran. He made the leap so easy, she could feel his
powerful sorcery projecting them higher and further, carrying them
from one mushroom to the next. Though something caught his eye.

“Competitors,” he said, and
she saw them, two others doing something similar, sorcerously
controlling the wind to propel them forward on their robes. “I’ll
take care of them,” he said, and with a subtle flick of his
wrist he sent them one off course, causing him to land back where he
came from. The other lost his footing just before take-off and
crashed onto his bottom.

Neither was hurt, nor out of the game,
and the demon who held her hand abided by the rules perfectly, she
had to confess.

Though his own focus on the game meant
he didn’t see the slimy, googly-eyed monster climb over the
edge of the next mushroom towards, its fangs and claws ready to gouge
them both.

Firia used the telekinesis she was
quickly becoming a master of, and knocked the thing from its
precarious perch back into the murky waters below. The splash let her
know her job was well done, but Varuj’s appreciative grin did
the trick too. “Well done,” he remarked as they carried
on.

“I told you I studied,” she
shot back, pride resounding in her tone.

When they landed upon the stony island,
she saw none of the spongy fungal growths at all. Instead there was
the oddly out-of-place trees, as if a real jungle lurked at the heart
of the underground fungal version.

Together they walked to the center, and
amidst the greenery a light began to grow stronger.

They had to squint their eyes against
it, but looking up, Firia saw that it came from a hole in the cavern
itself. It was sunlight from above.

With a blink of their eyes, they felt
themselves being lifted up into the light. Hand in hand, together.

The great dining hall was decked out
for a celebration, curiously glowing lights in the shape of the first
students to arrive – Varuj and Firia – graced the center,
while gorgeous streamers and all sorts of other magical displays lit
the place up. Yet the mood was anything but celebratory.

A great disturbance had filled the
hall, and all the occupants clustered around a central area.

Firia immediately thought of Mae’lin
and pushed her way forward.

Before she got there, the booming voice
of Professor Yae’ra demanded her attention. “Someone will
need to explain what has happened to this young man.”

Someone.

The words of the healer still rang in
Firia’s ears.

Mae’lin was unconscious, and
nothing they’d done had changed that. They were out of ideas.

She saw his pale, sinewy form wrapped
in bandages and bed sheets before her. Treated with potions and
elixirs, they did what they could, yet the venom from the creature
that had bit him had been altered in some way they couldn’t
place. It never should’ve happened, they assured her. The
entire cavern was enchanted so that any serious harm would’ve
been extracted, just as any students that suffered it would be
extracted.

“Bran has been expelled,”
came Varuj’s voice as he rested his hand upon her shoulder.

She somehow didn’t feel
mollified. Mae’lin had tried to save the man, his attacker, and
she’d gotten him kicked out. Even after what he did, how
forceful he’d been, she did feel an odd kinship with him that
wasn’t easy to shake.

Getting him in trouble had been
difficult, and she’d tried to paint it as innocently as
possible, but how could she? She had to tell them about the strange
amulet, hoping desperately that it would help them cure Mae’lin.

She’d spared Ala’nase,
though they hadn’t spoken since. What was there to say?

Varuj and Firia had finished in a tie
for first place. Yet there had been no celebration. Not on their end.

Some of the assistant healers came in,
jabbering about violent upheavals throughout the countryside, but she
couldn’t handle it.

“Come along,” Varuj said,
as if reading her mind. He took her hand in his, and guided her out
of the room.