The Awakening of Ren Crown (35 page)

I checked to make sure my headless rock was still holding his pencil and pacing in my backpack, protecting the lavender paint tube I had tasked him to guard, then set off for the fourth circle.

Fortuitously, I ran into Will—who was surrounded by an increased golden glow, making him easy for me to pick out of the crowd. He cast a quick look around us. “I'm on my way to class, but I have something for you. The substance is exactly as described. I tested it against the dust, then converted it to liquid form. I tried it last night.” He grinned, then handed me a capped glass. “And I'm still alive. If you want to risk it, drink it all in one go. It tastes pretty gross.”

I downed it before I could second guess the decision, then shuddered. “I think the word you are looking for is vile.” I could feel the mixture spreading inside of me. I really hoped I wasn't swiping one horrible predicament for another. I used my tongue to swipe all lingering traces past my taste buds as quickly as possible.

He snickered at my facial expression and waved as he jogged off to class.

A student officer popped up minutes later, intercepting my route to the fourth circle. For once, I had actually earned a substance abuse infraction. I wondered if Will had gotten one.

“You have nine firesnake skins to collect?” The officer shook her head, aghast. “I'm not adding more. But there is a note in here that you've racked up too many of the same offense. I am required to take the substance.”

“What?”

The empty glass container flew out of my bag, into the air, and off down the mountain. I lost sight of it when it zipped between buildings one circle down.

“It was sent to the Midlands processing factory for recycling.”

Speechless, I clutched my bag, checking to make sure my rock and paint were still inside. I shakily zipped it. I don't know what I would have done if my paint tube had been taken. I held my bag against my chest, as if she might take it from me too.

Blood would be shed.

“Just so you know, that's going to happen from now on. Please get some help. But more firesnakes?” She grimaced and shook her head. “I'm not adding more. Here, do some cleaning.”

I quickly cleaned the building indicated, bag straps uncomfortably tight on my shoulders, still unnerved by my near miss. I was going to have to be absolutely sure of my warding from now on before using the lavender paint.

Something in me was illogically relieved by this.

I trudged off to my next punishment. The girl's reaction to the firesnake collection made me nervous. It was weird enough that I was going to collect snake skins, I hadn't thought of
why
I had been assigned such a punishment for an upper level offense.

Touching Will's bracelet and thinking about firesnakes produced an image of beautiful opalescent serpents breathing fire.

I mentally scrolled the stats. High level of camouflage ability. Favorite food source—mice turtles. Level Three Danger. Human death occurs twenty minutes after an untreated bite. Non-magicked exposure to freezing temperatures causes skins to shed spontaneously. Unnatural shedding makes them angry.

With great reluctance, I picked up a large bag of ice from Magi Mart.

Dragging the bag of ice behind me, I approached an unfamiliar section of the fourth circle. A patch of trees with red and gold leaves lit with an internal fire that was a little too beautiful and singular in the otherwise green landscape surrounding it. I slowed my steps, the feel of an invisible net tightening around me.

The “pavers” a few yards in front of me rattled and stilled. A vague outline of a thin tail curled into the grass. Then another nearly invisible snake weaved slowly over the blades of grass near the walk, hissing. Only the odd reflection of its scales was detectable, as it successfully camouflaged itself as it moved. It would be a lovely challenge to paint such a beautiful creature changing color in such a rippling, seamless fashion.

Fire streamed out from its tongue in a thin line as it hissed again.

A tree to my left was surrounded by sharp and exotically beautiful flowers and plants. Now that my eyes were growing accustomed to the sight, I could see a serpent lazily draped from the branches and another slithering through the rose vines webbing around the trunk, only careful observation and the fluttering outline as it stretched itself gave away its position. A strange mountainside garden of Eden with venomous guests.

And there wasn't a single shed snake skin anywhere that I could see. I checked the walking paths in the distance. Students were strolling a few hundred yards to the east. I could see a group of combat mages, and a familiar head of black hair. I could only hope that someone
else
would assist me when I died from a snake bite. If I woke up staring into ultramarine eyes, I was going to start thinking fate was seriously against me.

I paused on the thought, then dug out my campus map and queried the location of the nearest “clinic.” During the last few days, I had observed too many mages deliberately trip their fellows into the path of danger to trust the goodwill of strangers.

Sighing, I popped open the bag of ice at the perimeter of the red and gold trees. The firesnake area was abnormally warm. Thankfully, the weather mages had placed a chill on this circle today, so just outside of the firesnake area it was at least thirty degrees cooler. If it had been balmy like the sixth circle currently, my ice plan would be in deep trouble.

Bouncing an ice projectile in my hand, I gauged its weight, took careful aim and threw. Whack. The snake turned red, hissed a stream of fire in my direction, and spontaneously expelled its skin. The skin curled over the branch, then dropped softly to the ground. Unlike the other snakes, this one stayed a pinkish red, no longer blending into its environment.

Ok, that hadn't been so hard. Though, all of the other serpents were now staring at me, eyes red and enraged. They all started slithering toward me.

Ok, ok. Calm. Calm. One skin down, eight to—

A tall boy with brown hair that was slightly too long strolled by and lifted the fallen skin from the area that was now clear of snakes, since they were all writhing toward
me
. The boy continued strolling.

“Hey. Hey! That's my skin!” I yelled, but the firesnakes were moving toward me faster now.

He threw an obscene salute over his shoulder and kept walking.

“Constantine! Leandred, wait up,” a short blond boy called, huffing as he ran toward the thief, giving the red and gold trees a wide berth. “I want to talk to you about procuring a—hey, is that a firesnake skin?”

I could see them conducting a transaction—selling
my
firesnake skin—but I couldn't see the thief's face, his hair blocking my view. And the firesnakes were fast gaining on my position. I grabbed a handful of ice and darted to the left.

I powered my shield as much as I could, then prepared my black mental paint bucket to gather data on what death felt like. I prepared my ecru bucket to search for information on Christian while I was dead.

Two hours later, I was still miraculously alive, but my throwing shoulder was sore. I had discovered that firesnakes could
air glide
, and I had a dozen bruises and a grand total of four shed skins—not counting the one the thief had taken.

But I was getting a good workout evading “tackles” and my adrenaline was fiercely flowing as Christian alternately crowed at my hits and cursed my misses. It felt like we were in the backyard throwing, catching, and evading invisible opponents again. If I missed a few of the easier shots because I wanted to clasp the feeling of this to me, no one would know of my weakness.

The sudden reverie was a weakness, however, and my inattention allowed a firesnake within striking range. Its jaws opened.

A pencil jabbed past my cheek and into the snake's mouth. The snake snapped through the pencil, but the moment gave me time to evade the second strike. My shield repelled its fire spit. The animated rock in my bag leaned over my shoulder, his rock legs hooked into my bag strap, his rock hands brandishing and shaking the remaining half-pencil at the snake hissing from the branch.

I blinked at the dangling rock, patted him on the top of his...rock...and set him upright.

I made quicker work collecting the other skins, though it still took me four hours to secure the full amount. I deposited nine in a mailbox at the address specified and tucked an extra into a plastic bag in my backpack. As irritating as the theft of the first skin had been, it had taught me a valuable lesson about what things might be worth.

I proceeded directly to the battle building and activated Draeger.

He crossed his arms. “What's wrong, Cadet?” he barked.

“I need to learn everything,” I said, shucking off my backpack. “I want to know how to—”

A square opened in the wall and my backpack zoomed inside. I lunged after it, but the wall closed, and my hands smacked solid marble. “No, no!” My paint, my rock, my snakeskin—my
paint
.

“Ease up, Cadet. You have high level prohibitory items in your bag that aren't permitted in here while the wards are running. Your bag will be returned when you deactivate me. Now, let's—”

I yanked his cartridge from the slot. The wall square opened and I grabbed my pack, breathing heavily until I sorted through the contents and was satisfied that everything was still there. It took a solid minute before I was able to reactivate the cartridge. Draeger appeared, and my bag zoomed back into the holding cell.

“Cadet, we need to work on your fear,” he said pointedly.

“I just threw ice cubes at snakes and dodged vipers for hours because I don't know how to do a—” I waved my hands “—material collection spell, or whatever.”

“Turtle socks! Relying on magic to fix your problems is not a good long term strategy. Some good ducking and diving never hurt anyone. Let's go!”

Draeger observed me for an hour, tapping his lip even when I exploded an entire wing of the complex. I winced to hear the screams. All a simulation, all a simulation...

“Your limiter has been slightly loosened. Strange. But it's not at dangerous levels. If you ever find yourself out of control and in trouble, Cadet, sink into the earth. Bury the part of you that is overflowing or connected, and let the earth take care of things. Got it? All of the layers are part of an intricate network, and even in the First Layer, the earth is filled with life magic.”

We practiced in a dirt pit I had exploded into existence during an earlier exercise. We worked for four hours, which partially removed the shaking, jittery feel I had been experiencing since returning from Ganymede.

Afterward, as I clutched my successfully returned bag to my chest in relief, I didn't think my fear of failure would be so easily removed.

The visualization technique of paint spreading wasn't working as well as it had previously—my control was far poorer than it had been before my limiter had been loosened. I suspected whatever Mr. Verisetti had done to me was the reason for the alteration.

I exited the battle building and my gaze strayed momentarily to the Midlands. I withdrew my reader, and after checking the time and class schedules, I headed to the engineering compound. Slipping into the designated classroom, I took a seat in the back of the large lecture hall and chomped an energy bar.

Alexander Dare sat in front.

Class was awesome. Professor Mbozi, a man with very dark skin and a very muscular frame, was an excellent speaker and made every concept sound exciting. I remembered Will talking about how much he loved his classes.

Everything the professor did was magnified so that even from my seat at the rear of the lecture hall I could see as well as if I was sitting up front. I watched Dare scroll the air in front of him. I'd have to figure that out later. I just sat and absorbed and watched the holograms—and Dare.

Mbozi suddenly frowned and put a finger under his ear, then motioned to Dare, who gathered his things and strode from the room. Strange.

But his absence made paying attention far easier.

Mbozi told everyone to construct a simple ward box that we would use for the exercises. Even though the other students' boxes were far more grandiose—and it was obvious that I was in some upper level class instead of the beginner class I needed—I was ridiculously pleased with my miniature result as I pulled the last line of it crookedly like a beginning weaver interlacing her last thread.

My box wouldn't hold anything bigger than a fly—and wouldn't keep out anything but a fly—but it was functional all the same. All of that studying was paying off. A few more ten hour sessions and I'd have the equivalent of Persian rugs on the sides.

Energy zipped along the lines of Mbozi's box hologram, keeping the image sharp, as he explained the exercise in further detail. Frowning at the zipping energy, I opened my reader and pulled up a magic primer.

Focus, concentration, knowledge, confidence. The cornerstones of bending magic to my will.

Something Draeger had said was brought to mind—“Some mages persist in thinking two of those concepts are the same and never try to rectify that mistake, relying on their cuffs to compensate. Squirrel brains!
Concentration
encompasses measurement as well as the tightness of one's control.”

Maybe in order to gain better control I needed a different way of mentally channeling my magic.

I tapped my fingers on my desk watching the changing holograms that had roses, animals, and objects encased in each box. The boxes were examples of warding designs, but I might be able to use something similar
mentally
. Four sides for four cornerstones...no not quite...four parts building one construct...maybe...

I pulled a pyramid to mind, letting it rotate—considering how I could use it.

The apex would be focus. The point of the pyramid rotated and became prominent in my mind's eye. My focus could be blunt or razor sharp. I made the apex of my pyramid as pointy as the tip of a needle. Ultra focused.

Something very blunt, on the other hand...I let the tip dull, rounding it. Uncontrolled detonation and destruction. I might need to use that someday too. I practiced working with the point.