by Megan Linski
“Sophia!” Madame Doya snapped one Thursday during class— just like almost every day. She had led us outside to a clearing in the forest. Dry pine needles and leaves littered the ground. We hadn’t even started the lesson and she was already yelling at me.
The sound of my name snapped me out of my thoughts. I'd been focused on how things had changed since Liam took me to meet my ancestors. He had returned to being my partner in our Medical Care of Familiars class, and I’d even caught him smiling a time or two over the past several weeks. For the most part, Haley had left me alone, and the other Koigni in my dorm had grown bored of playing pranks outside my door.
Imogen and I continued to hang out when we weren’t in class. We spent most of our time outside the castle, either walking the mountain trails or scouring the beach for cool rocks. As a Nivita, Imogen could sense the minerals in the rocks and knew where to find the pretty ones before I could even see them. Esis had a blast digging through the rocks to help. He always managed to find the shiniest rocks on the beach. The ledge of my dorm window was filling up with rocks far too quickly.
I was making progress with my Fire, but it was easier in class, where Madame Doya made my blood boil. Still, that didn’t seem good enough for her, despite the fact that I was outperforming all my classmates besides Haley. Two other girls and a guy had since bonded with their Familiars, and their skills were catching up. But until they did, I was maintaining the notion that Doya had absolutely nothing to yell at me about. She, apparently, didn’t get the memo.
I forced myself to hold her gaze. “Yes?”
“I want you and Haley up here in the front,” she instructed with tight lips, as if I was wasting her time. A low growl bubbled up from Naomi’s throat beside her, warning me to hurry up.
The crowd of students parted. I stepped forward. Esis sat cradled in the hood of my sweatshirt but tugged on my ponytail to get a better look. Haley crossed her arms and smirked from beside me. The phoenix on her shoulder held her head high, mirroring Haley’s attitude. Above us, the October sky was overcast, and it looked like it might rain.
Doya projected her voice across the clearing. “In today’s exercise, we will be extinguishing fire rather than conjuring it. You will each be paired up, and each pair will take a turn putting out their fires. You must work together quickly and efficiently. We don’t want to start any forest fires.”
Doya shot a narrowed gaze my way, as if she believed I was most prone to letting things get out of hand. Naomi mimicked her. Anger settled in my gut like a bag of rocks. How much more could I possibly prove myself to her? I’d already shot flames from my palms, generated heat without a flame, and shaped my Fire into a sphere, all before ninety-nine percent of my classmates did. Plus, I was the only one who managed to set my hair on fire without singeing a single strand. Miranda had ended up needing a pixie cut to get rid of the damage, and I was pretty sure Haley had cut at least two inches off her hair.
Granted, I lost one of my good ponytail elastics that day, but that was a small price to pay for the victory. Doya had just looked down her nose at me but didn’t say anything. I considered it a compliment.
“Haley and Sophia, you’re up first.” That was all Madame Doya said before she stepped aside.
In the blink of an eye, a band of fire lit a mere two feet in front of us. Pine needles cracked as the flames licked several feet into the air. The needles burned so quickly that the flames were already spreading across the clearing at an alarming rate before I had a chance to react.
I’d already resigned myself to the fact that Madame Doya would never give us any clear instruction. She used a “throw-them-into-the-lion’s-pit-and-watch-them-fend-for-themselves” type of teaching style. I didn’t bother asking how she expected us to complete this task.
I turned to Haley. “Any ideas?”
Haley’s gaze was already narrowed at the fire, and her brows constricted as if she was thinking hard. “Yeah,” she snapped. “You could help me.”
The more Haley concentrated, the bigger the flames grew. I took several steps back, but I could still feel the heat radiating across my face.
“We don’t have all day,” Madame Doya chastised. “If you let the whole clearing burn, no one else will get a chance.”
I listened to her words, but only to drive my anger at her. It always seemed to help me do better in her class. Behind me, Esis kneaded the back of my neck. I brushed his small paws from my skin.
“Not now, Esis,” I whispered, but he ignored me and continued to press his paws into my muscles. It was surprisingly relaxing, which was totally not what I needed right now. Like Liam had said, Koigni magic took strong emotions, and I needed to channel everything I had right now.
I concentrated on the fire. Its warmth didn’t just touch my skin— its energy permeated down through my muscles and into my bones. My body buzzed to its frequency, but it was different than controlling my own Fire. Doya had conjured this fire, and though it felt similar to my own, there was something slightly off about it. It seemed angrier and more brutal, as if I could feel Doya’s emotions pulsing through the flames.
The fire continued to spread, roaring and crackling. Dark smoke rose into the air.
“What are you doing, Sophia?” Haley snapped. “Help me!”
I blinked to clear my vision and focused on the fire. My mind raced with possible solutions, but so far, we’d only learned how to conjure fire, not extinguish it. We’d been using traditional means until now.
I imagined the flames dying down, burning to nothing but embers, but they didn’t. I tried to pull the flames together, to create a fireball that would keep them from spreading, but that only separated a fireball from the other flames that continued to rage through the clearing.
“Stop it, Sophia!” Haley yelled as she took another step back, as if it was entirely my fault the fire was growing.
The flames burst higher, like they were exploding with Haley’s anger.
That’s it! I realized.
Fire was made of rage and fury. It thrived off untamed emotions. Extinguishing it would require just the opposite.
I took a deep breath and focused on the soothing massage Esis was giving me. I ignored Haley’s remarks and Doya’s hard gaze, letting everything around me fade until it felt like I was alone in the forest with Esis and the fire.
I willed the energy sizzling through my bones to calm, but it pushed against me.
Haley.
“You have to calm down,” I told her. “Anger and frustration will only make it worse.”
“Yeah, because that’s so easy,” Haley said with an eye roll.
I forced my annoyance down. Haley didn’t deserve any of my energy anyway.
Just stay calm, I told myself. Nothing good will come out of anger today. You can do this. You can control it.
Images flashed through my mind as I tried to focus on the things that would calm me most. I pictured Amelia’s smiling face, which only made me smile since I was wearing her jeans today. I thought of my parents. A pang entered my chest, the same one that hit every time they crossed my mind.
Not working, I told myself.
I quickly switched focus. Instead of focusing on the things I’d lost, I focused on those I’d gained. I thought about Esis, about his soft paws on the back of my neck, the way he purred when I held him in my arms, and the way he looked at me with his big blue eyes as if I were the only person in the world he could ever love. My heart swelled at the thought of him.
My thoughts flickered back to last week when I was sitting in one of the big comfy chairs in the castle foyer waiting to meet up with Imogen for lunch. Esis was jumping from armrest to armrest, tagging my fingers that I wiggled in the air above him. I giggled until my gaze lifted and I spotted Liam passing through the hall at the top of the grand staircase. Our eyes met for a moment, and my heart flipped in my chest when I witnessed a ghost of a smile touch his lips.
The flames in front of me shrank from several feet high to
mere inches. I held the fire back, keeping it from eating away at any more dry debris. It fought against me, the energy pressing against my chest like a snowplow. I threw my walls up, blocking the pressure out and funneling my calm energy into it. The fire eased more and more until there was nothing left but embers. I forced the final bit of Fire energy off my chest with a calming breath, and the remaining embers sizzled away to nothing. A large circle of black, charred debris at least ten feet across stood as a reminder of our exercise.
Haley breathed a sigh of relief. “Whew. I did it!”
She glanced to the other students proudly. Kelsey gave her a thumbs up, but Hudson and Tabitha both looked at me like they knew I’d been the one to extinguish the flames by myself. I looked to Doya, expecting some sort of praise, but she just pursed her lips and looked away from me. Beside her, Naomi shot daggers my way.
“Ben. Kelsey. You’re next,” Doya barked.
She ignited another fire as soon as they made it to the front of the group. I turned in complete shock and found my way to the back. My mind raced as I watched group after group struggle with the task. Doya had to put most of the flames out herself, save for one group toward the end who’d I’d seen whispering and strategizing beforehand. Clearly, I was outperforming most of my other classmates. What about that wasn’t good enough for Doya?
The calmness I’d felt during the exercise quickly washed away. My frustrations grew the more I thought about it. Doya hated me since the first day I showed up in her class. It was more than just her normal distaste for students, too. Did she hate Amelia so much that she had to take it out on me? What had Amelia done to her? Or was there something else going on here?
I had the entire class period to mull it over in my mind. By the end of class, I was bound and determined to figure out what the reason was. That disappointed look she liked to give me had punched one too many holes through my gut.
I hung back by the edge of the trail we’d come as soon as she dismissed the class. She’d just put out the last group’s fire and didn’t see me standing in the trees until she spun around. Her face immediately fell.
I was going to say her name, but that look sent the words right back down my throat. Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Esis tugged on my ponytail, snapping me back to attention. I was totally doing this, whether it risked her tossing me out of her class or not.
“Class dismissed, Sophia,” Doya said with a sharp edge to her tone.
I forced my voice to remain even. “I know, but I’d like to talk with you.” I purposely didn’t ask her permission. She’d probably deny me the opportunity and tell me to find her during office hours.
Doya sighed and started down the trail with Naomi at her side. “Fine, but make it snappy.”
I hurried along behind her. I only took a second to gather my courage. Anything more than that and she’d for sure yell at me again. Honestly, it was impossible to please this woman.
“Why do you hate me?” I spit out the words before I had a chance to second guess myself.
Madame Doya whirled around, her velvety dress and red hair swirling around her. She spun so fast that I nearly rammed into her. I took a step back, my heart thumping like a bass drum against my chest. I couldn’t believe I’d actually worked up the courage to say it.
“Excuse me?” she bit. Naomi growled protectively.
I swallowed hard, though my pulse continued to pound through my ears. There was no backing down now. “It’s pretty obvious that you hate me. I just don’t know why.”
Madame Doya scoffed and turned her back to me to head down the trail. “Do you honestly think I treat you differently than any of my other students, Sophia?”
I thought about the way she praised Haley whenever she executed a task with precision. She didn’t exactly praise many other students, but most of them weren’t as good as Haley, either. I was certain there was no one else in class she yelled or snapped at more than she did to me.
“Yes,” I stated confidently.
“I’m hard on you because I want to push you to be better, Sophia,” Doya said from in front of me. “I expect much more from you than the others.”
She was lying. I completed most of the tasks she required from us. I had a sure shot at passing this class. What more could she expect? Why would she even care?
“Why?” I pressed. “Is it because I’m bonded? Other people have bonded, and—”
“No,” she said in a clipped tone. “It’s because…”
She trailed off, like she didn’t want to answer. “It’s because you show more promise.”
I couldn’t see her expression as we walked along the trail, but I could hear the lie in her voice. There was something she wasn’t telling me.
“I know that’s not true,” I said, my heart finally slowing. “I came into your class knowing nothing. I had about as much promise as a slug.”
We emerged from the trees and reached one of the staircases at the edge of the castle’s lawn. I took two steps at a time until I was beside Doya. Naomi climbed the stairs on her other side, giving Esis the stink eye as he chewed on the string of my hoodie.
Doya kept her gaze fixed forward on the castle. “That may be true, but look how far you’ve come.”
I wasn’t sure if that was meant to be some backhanded insult or a compliment. I guess it made sense why she thought I had promise. It also made sense why my Koigni classmates weren’t fond of me. I came in with less potential in my entire body than they had in their pinky fingers, bonded with the cutest, most harmless Familiar around, and I still showed them up. I bet they were starting to think there was some truth to that prophecy after all.
Which reminded me…
No one had actually told me yet what the prophecy said or what I had to do with it. Every time I asked Imogen, she just said she didn’t know exactly how it was worded and didn’t want to give me false information. Which was quickly followed up by “Besides, it’s just an urban legend.”
Which, coming from Imogen, sounded like a complete lie. If anyone believed in the prophecy, Imogen would. She believed there were freaking wolpertingers in the forest, which Jonah kindly explained to me didn’t exist. Urban legends were kind of her thing.
I’d resigned myself to believing that meant the prophecy was bad news for me and that maybe I didn’t want to know what it said. But I was feeling bold today. The question slipped out before I could stop myself.
“What does the prophecy say about me?”
Madame Doya stopped dead at the top of the stairs. I took another step toward the castle before realizing she and Naomi had both frozen up. I turned to her.
Esis dropped my hoodie string and straightened.
“That’s why you’re hard on me, isn’t it?” I asked. “You want me to be better than everyone else— even Haley— so I can fulfill the prophecy?”
Doya folded her hands like she often did, but the muscles in her forearm bulged beneath her sleeves as her fingers tightened together. “That may be part of it,” she admitted, though she kept her emotional walls up as she spoke.
Of course it was.
“It’s going to be kind of hard for me to fulfill this prophecy if I don’t know what it says, won’t it?”
Honestly, I didn’t know where my confidence came from. Usually, I’d avoid Doya at all costs. I half expected her to snap back at me, scolding me for my attitude.
Instead, she glanced toward the sky. “It’s going to rain soon, Sophia. I can’t stand out here all day talking about this. I have another class soon.”
I side-stepped to block her path. “Why are you keeping this from me?” I demanded. Koigni magic tingled through my skin as my anger surfaced. Oh, that’s where the confidence is coming from. “Do the Koigni want me to fail?”
Madame Doya blinked rapidly, as if I’d just slapped her in the face. “No. Of course not.”
Naomi snorted, like I’d offended her.
“Then why aren’t you helping me?” I demanded.
“I
am helping you!” Doya all but roared. “I’m doing what I was assigned to do. I’m teaching you how to use your magic.”
Well, damn. I wasn’t expecting that answer. Yet it wasn’t enough.
I crossed my arms. “Who’s job is it to tell me about the prophecy? Because whoever was supposed to do that screwed up and forgot.”
A muscle fluttered in Doya’s jaw, and she glanced around. The closest people were way across the lawn near the courtyard. They couldn’t hear us from here.
Madame Doya caved with a sigh and lowered her voice. “The prophecy says that you will be the one to bring our House, the Koigni, to glory. The fated Koigni child, born in the Summer Solstice in the Year of the Dragon, shall bring glory to the greatest House.”
Wait. That was a good thing? Weren’t the Hawkei better off with a democracy where all the Houses had a say in things, not one where the Koigni controlled everything?
“That’s it?” I asked. It seemed so simple.
“Isn’t that enough?” Doya snapped.
“I don’t know,” I replied in uncertainty. “I thought the prophecy would be more… dangerous.”
“Of course it’s dangerous,” Doya barked like I was an idiot. “The other Houses don’t want this prophecy to come true. They’re watching you, Sophia. If you value your life, you will push yourself harder in my class— in all your classes. And take pride in the House you were born into. It’s the only one you have.”
My hands shook at her words, and Esis’ fingers tightened in my hair. That sounded bad.
My voice quickly lost its confident tone. “Does the prophecy say anything about how I’m supposed to do this?”
Doya glanced around again to make sure no one was within earshot. She spoke firmly. “There is more, but I expect you will not repeat this part to anyone, as it is for Koigni ears only.”
Naomi glared at me. I swore she raised an eyebrow in my direction. After a beat, I realized Doya was waiting for my response. Honestly, I didn’t know if I could keep the information quiet. Depending on what it was, I would be tempted to tell Imogen.