Darcy snorted a laugh. “I wonder if he really does stink of bourbon?”
“Well you can find out in your private class with him tonight,” I joked and she winced in response.
We made it to a counter where so many meal choices lay waiting for us that I felt like I’d walked into a restaurant instead of a school cafeteria. A sign informed us that we could take anything cold from the display or order hot food for table service.
As I was deciding what kind of meal I’d prefer, a squeal of excitement caught my ear quickly followed by a cry of, “Your majesties! I’ve secured a table for you!”
I began to turn my head but Darcy yanked on my arm, making me duck into the group of juniors again.
“It’s that crazy A.S.S. girl again,” she hissed. “Let’s just grab something and get out of here before the Heirs hear her calling us her queens!”
I snorted a laugh as Darcy grabbed a couple of huge subs for us and let her guide me through the crowd towards the exit.
I paused at a wide refrigerator which seemed to be made out of a huge block of ice and grabbed us a couple of drinks before glancing back into the room. A tall girl with long, brown hair was waving maniacally in our direction and I bit my lip as I ducked outside after my sister.
“The people here are all insane,” Darcy grumbled as she picked a path at random and we began the hunt for somewhere to enjoy our food in peace. “They’re either ecstatic to welcome back their long lost queens or furious at us for coming back to steal some throne.”
“I know. It’s like it never even occurred to them to ask if we want their stupid throne. I mean, the fairytale version of finding out you're a princess is great and all but in reality I imagine there’s a hell of a lot of work involved with running an empire. And we have zero qualifications to take on that role.”
“Yeah. Let the stupid Heirs keep their damn throne,” Darcy agreed. “I just want my magic.”
“And our inheritance,” I added with a grin.
“Yeah, and that. Even more so since Darius burned everything we owned,” she replied darkly and I had to grind my teeth to stop myself from stringing together yet another line of curses about the Ignis House Captain. Darcy had had to listen to over an hour of it last night anyway and calling him any more names wouldn’t bring our cash back.
Darcy handed me the sub she’d snagged for me in The Orb and I swapped it for the bottle of pink lemonade I’d gotten her.
We ate as we walked and I couldn’t help but groan aloud at the amazing flavour combination which danced across my tastebuds. There was cheese and salad and some kind of sauce that was sweet and salty at once. On our meagre income, meals were plain and semi-nourishing. The best food I’d eaten recently was the odd dinner Joey had offered up at the bar. And as much as I’d loved the greasy burger and fries at the time, it really couldn’t hold a candle to this.
“Holy shit, I’d stay here for the food alone,” I moaned as I licked the last of the sauce from my fingers and tipped the delicious lemonade down my throat to follow it.
“It sure puts Pete’s efforts at sausage and mash to shame,” Darcy agreed with a laugh. Our former foster parent had the skills to cook precisely three meals under his belt and the other two were frozen pizzas. If I never ate a sausage again it would be too soon.
Our walk had taken us into an area to the north of the Academy grounds which was marked as ‘Earth Territory’ on our maps. We were surrounded by every shade of green imaginable and stunning flowers blooming in every colour under the sun. The map showed the grounds were divided into four sections, one for each of the Elements and I was beginning to realise that the division was about more than just a name. The entire landscape was moulded by the Element which named it and stepping between them was like moving between different continents.
To our left, a sloping green hill filled with wildflowers curved away from us and I fell still as I spotted a creature swooping from the sky to land on the soft grass.
I grabbed Darcy’s arm, unable to form a word as my lips parted at the sight before me. A whole herd of stunning winged unicorns landed before ambling through the meadow, their coats gleaming in sparkling metallic colours from silver to bronze and gold to pinks, yellows and even green. Their coats were sprinkled with glitter and their long, golden horns caught the sunlight like they were made from polished metal.
“No freaking way,” Darcy breathed.
A small stallion looked up at the sound of her voice and we froze, worried we’d startled him but the beautiful, silver creature simply looked at us curiously.
My lips curved into a smile which grew uncontrollably. I mean, I wasn’t usually a girly girl but this was a goddamn flying unicorn!
I had to stamp down on the squeal of excitement that was bubbling in my chest as the unicorn trotted towards us.
“Omagod,” Darcy gasped as he came to stand directly in front of us.
I tentatively reached out a hand, wondering if the glorious creature would allow me to touch his sparkling coat.
The unicorn’s eyes seemed to glimmer with amusement and he leaned forward so that my fingers swept over his soft nose and into his mane.
Darcy reached out too, running her fingers along the side of his face and down his neck.
The unicorn pressed closer, rubbing the side of his face against my chest and eliciting a laugh from me. He pressed his face against Darcy next and she grinned like a Cheshire Cat as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
A pink unicorn trotted close, eyeing us for a moment before whinnying at the stallion as he pressed his nose against my neck. The stallion snorted in a way that seemed weirdly dismissive and the pink unicorn stamped her foot before moving into the trees to our left.
“Stop it Tyler!” Sofia’s voice came from the trees the pink unicorn had just entered and I flinched in surprise, wondering where the hell she’d come from.
The silver unicorn pushed his face against my chest again and I ran my hand along his neck in response.
“They don’t know what you are!” Sofia said angrily as she stomped out of the bushes with her skirt on backwards and her shirt only half done up. She continued buttoning it as she stalked towards us barefoot, glaring at the silver unicorn like he’d done something to offend her.
“Be careful you don’t scare him,” I began but the unicorn beside me let out a snort which sounded annoyed before suddenly lurching towards me and turning into a boy with frosted tips in his hair and a huge grin on his face. He also happened to be butt naked which apparently didn’t phase him in the slightest. My hand, which had been pressed to the unicorn’s neck, was now planted on his chest. I snatched it back with a cry of disgust and Darcy let out a scream, jerking backwards and falling on her ass.
“Well now we’ve gotten the foreplay out of the way, are you girls going to be coming back to my room?” Tyler asked me and Darcy with a wink.
“You were a unicorn!” Darcy yelled in confusion as my brain struggled to comprehend what had just happened.
“Pegasus,” Tyler corrected. “And you two were all over me.” His grin was widening if that was even possible and I suddenly caught on to what he was saying. The beautiful creature we’d just been petting had actually been him.
“Did you nuzzle my chest?” I asked in disgust.
“Yeah,” Tyler replied, dropping his gaze to my breasts which were thankfully hidden beneath my shirt.
My fist snapped out on instinct and I caught him unprepared, hitting him in the jaw and sending him stumbling back.
“Shit!” he swore, clutching his face.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Darcy demanded as she regained her feet and moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with me.
“Hey, how was I supposed to know that you didn’t realise what I was?” Tyler asked as he started to back up. “You seemed just as into it as me.”
“That’s because we thought we were stroking a wild animal not getting molested by some horse-faced weirdo,” I snarled.
<
br /> Sofia snorted in amusement at my dig and Tyler kept backing away as Darcy raised her hands at him threateningly.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Tyler said placatingly. “I’ll get out of your hair.”
He lurched forward like he was going to fall over but before his hands could hit the floor they turned into hooves and the rest of his body transformed into the beautiful silver Pegasus again.
I couldn’t help but stare as he trotted up the hill towards the rest of the herd and Sofia offered me an apologetic shrug.
“Sorry about him,” she muttered. “Shame you can’t choose who gets to be in your Order.”
“You were the pink Pegasus?” I asked in realisation and she nodded shyly.
“Yeah. We replenish our power by flying through the clouds and I was just charging up before our Fire Elemental Class next,” she explained, like turning into a goddamn flying unicorn was no big deal.
I struggled for something to say about that but I just couldn’t think of a damn thing.
“Actually, I think we’d better get going,” Sofia continued, breezing past our shock like she hadn’t noticed it. “We’ve only got twenty minutes until class begins and the Fire Arena is all the way at the south end of the grounds.
“I don’t have Fire next,” Darcy said as she glanced at her timetable on her Atlas. “I’ve got Air. I think Diego said he’d be there too though.”
“That’s good. At least there are two normal people in this place for us to talk to,” I said, although as Sofia headed off to find her socks, shoes and blazer in the bushes, I had to wonder if normal really applied to someone who spent their spare time with hooves.
Darcy gave me a knowing smile as she pulled up the map to her next class on her Atlas and she said goodbye to Sofia and me as she took a path that led to the east of the grounds. I was a little disappointed to be heading in separate directions for our very first real magic class but it was one of only a few where we would be separated.
Sofia fell into step with me as we headed towards House Ignis and the Arena beyond it where we were about to have our first Elemental lesson.
It took a while to cross out of Earth Territory and into Fire Territory in the south But Sofia kept me amused with facts about her Order as we went and I slowly recovered from my shock.
The midday sun shone down on the home of the fire students as we drew close to it and my lips parted in surprise. Last night it had been so dark that I’d only really seen the entrance to the building with the multiple fires ruining my night vision and blocking my view of the rest. What I hadn’t realised was that from the first floor up, the building was entirely made of glass in varying shades of yellow, orange and red which all blended together to give the impression of a huge, glimmering fire.
“From above it looks like a star,” Sofia commented, noticing my attention on the building.
“How did they create such a thing?” I asked in wonder. No doubt magic was involved but I just couldn’t picture the amount of work that had gone into it. The design alone boggled my mind.
“Fire magic of course, and I think there was probably some dragon fire involved too. We’ll learn more about magical infrastructure in our sophomore year.”
“You mean we’ll learn to make things like that?” I asked eagerly, unable to tear my eyes away from the magical building. As we walked, the sun caught on different pieces of the glass and it almost looked like it was truly burning.
“Well creating that might be a little ambitious,” Sofia laughed. “But we will learn to use our Elemental magic more subtly for creation, yeah.”
I couldn’t help but grin at the idea of that.
We passed Ignis House and followed the path around through the Fire Territory where the landscape was rocky and dry. I hadn’t had time to explore Air or Water Territory yet but I had glimpsed a huge forest to the east and a sweeping lake to the west on my way to Cardinal Magic earlier.
A creeper filled with bright red flowers clung to a wall of black lava rock to my right and I noticed more plants peppered around too. Although the fire landscape seemed barren at first, the harder I looked, the more beautiful it became.
We moved along a crevice cut between two rock faces which glimmered with yellow and gold minerals.
“That’s brimstone,” Sofia said, noticing my interest again.
“You’re a walking talking encyclopaedia, you know that?” I teased, not that I was complaining. I had zero idea what I was dealing with in this place and her knowledge was invaluable to me.
“I like facts. I’m a Sagittarius which helps; we love learning new things and are usually pretty intelligent,” she replied with a smirk.
The serious way she said that made me attempt to squash the snort of disbelief which wanted to be set loose. I guessed I was going to have to try and open my mind to all this star sign stuff if I wanted to fit in here.
“Is that so?” I asked, trying to keep my scepticism at bay.
“Yep. And I have a damn good memory too which should help me ace the tests and make up for my lack of power somewhat.”
“Are you lacking power then?” I asked delicately, unsure if that was okay to say but she was the one who’d brought it up.
“Yeah. My family are pretty low on the rankings when it comes to power. If you imagine yourself as a ten I’d be like... a three I guess.” She shrugged. “Our world is all about power so it means I’m kinda destined to stay at the bottom of the food chain but I don’t really mind. I mean, at least I don’t have to worry about seizing and holding my position for the rest of my life, you know?”
“Not really, but I think I’m going to find out pretty soon whether I like it or not.”
“Err yeah, I’d say so. Your whole life is going to be a power struggle,” she said with a grin.
“Perfect,” I sighed. “What if I were to say I don’t want whatever power it is that I’m supposed to claim? I just want to use my own magic for my own purposes and have nothing to do with any birthright or throne or Heirs-”
Sofia’s laughter cut me off and I raised an eyebrow at her.
“I wasn’t joking,” I said firmly.
“Oh god, Tory,” she said, reining herself in a little. “You really don’t know anything about our world. I’d love to say that you could just run off into the sunset but... that’s never going to happen.”
“Well damn,” I replied half heartedly. I still had no plans to do any of the things that were expected of me but at least I had my answer about one thing. There was no way I was going to be able to just bow out of the running for power and avoid the attention of the other Heirs as I’d hoped. Maybe I could talk to them and tell them that I didn’t want their power though. They couldn’t be completely unreasonable...
We exited the crevice filled with brimstone and the scent of sulphur assaulted my nostrils.
I looked around until I spotted curling tendrils of steam rising across the land to our right and the glimmer of water in the distance.
“Is that hot springs?” I asked eagerly.
“Oh yeah. That’s where fire meets with the territory of water. I’ve heard it’s the best place to go for a swim and relax. We should head over after class one evening and try it out!” Sofia replied enthusiastically.
“I don’t have a bikini,” I said with a shrug, though the idea of a swim in the springs was definitely tempting. So long as the water wasn’t too deep; a few years ago I’d had a traumatising accident and ever since then, the mere thought of deep water gave me the creeps.
“Didn’t you bring one from home? I’m sure it was on the list of recommended-”
“The only things I brought from home were the clothes on my back and a pocket full of cash and Darius saw to destroying them last night,” I replied darkly.
“Oh, yeah, I might have heard about that after I made it through my initiation last night. It sounds like he went a bit far with you...”
“So he didn’t burn the clothes from your body then?” I asked, fi
guring I already knew the answer. That particular trial had been specially designed for my benefit.
“Umm, no. But then I’m not very powerful, like I said. So I wouldn’t really expect him to take any notice of me anyway.” Sofia dropped her gaze to the path beneath her feet as I let out a huff of irritation.
“Trust me to get on the wrong side of an overgrown, entitled prick within half an hour of arriving,” I muttered.
Sofia gasped, glancing around to check if anyone had heard me. “You might want to keep that opinion to yourself if you don’t want it getting back to him. The Heirs have a lot of fans and I wouldn’t trust anyone to keep quiet on your behalf.”
“I’m fairly sure Darius and his bromance crew know exactly what I think of them without me needing to worry about hiding it. Besides, if he asked me I’d happily tell him to his face that I think he’s a jumped up little ass wipe who needs to get a new hobby which doesn’t involve tormenting people.”
Sofia’s mouth fell open and I could tell she was caught between shock and laughter. I was glad when a giggle finally escaped her.
As we came to the end of the path, a huge building rose up ahead of us. It looked a bit like the Colosseum where the gladiators had fought in Ancient Rome but the brickwork was all black.
Our conversation stalled as I stared up at the stone dragons and gargoyles who glared at us from their positions along the wall above our heads.
We moved beneath an arch and found a female Professor with short red hair and deep bronze skin waiting for us.
“Come along girls, you need to get changed and out into the arena,” she commanded, not bothering with introductions. My timetable had informed me her name was Professor Pyro and I offered her a faint smile as I hurried to comply with her instructions.
Sofia and I made it into the girls' changing rooms where a row of hooks held bags with our names written on them. I lifted the one with Roxanya Vega scrawled across it, my nose wrinkling at the name I refused to accept as my own. There must have been someone I could talk to about changing everything official to say Tory. I could cope with the Vega thing if I had to but Roxanya was a girl who should have grown up in this strange Fae world and I wasn’t her. Tory had been my name throughout everything that had shaped me into the person I was today and I had no interest in shedding that persona now or in the future.
Zodiac Academy: The Awakening: An Academy Bullymance (Supernatural Bullies and Beasts Book 1) Page 11