Power of Fire: An Academy Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Broken Academy)

by Jade Alters

  Thise sits across from Lee and me at the only thing that makes this place resemble an office at all. A desk, with a chair. Both seem to be made from a dark mineral of some sort. Their slate color is veined with light blue lightning bolts beneath a polished surface of gloss. It is on this exquisite surface that Dragonlord Thise rests her folded knuckles. It is over the glare of this marvelous tabletop that her bright hazel eyes burn through the cracks of her laugh or scream lines, just like the lava in the walls.

  I keep waiting for her to say something. Anything would do just now. At least my high school principals didn’t impose this hell of a wait, when I inevitably fucked up. Lee is about as much help as he was twenty minutes ago, when he landed me here. I suppose it’s not entirely fair to blame the whole thing on him, but I sure as hell feel like it right now. Why can’t he just leave me alone? If he just gave me the chance, maybe I would go to him. All of that, however, is buried pretty deep at the moment under a hard shell of frustration at being pushed. Even if it did feel damn good to let the fire loose.

  That’s it. That’s about all the spinning in circles around my own head I can take. I open my mouth, take a breath, and-

  “Cecelia. I understand why you’re upset with Lee,” Thise stops me short. She even uses my full name, just like my Mom. I’d be pissed if I wasn’t so shocked by what she just said. “This is all new to you. Being connected to others in such a way when your unique experience has left you more isolated than most other people ever feel.” The knife sinks in deep on that one, deep enough that I don’t feel much like opening my mouth anymore. I’m not sure what might come out of it, so I seal my lips. I squeeze one arm in the other without thinking about it.

  “Lee. I understand what you’re trying to do for Cecelia. But you are relatively new to rescue and orientation. It’s not uncommon for mistakes like this to happen,” Thise says to Lee. From the corner of my eye, I see him avert his own to the floor. He absently watches lava roll around a few inches past the outside of his shoe. Try as I might, I can’t help the little pang of sympathy that bubbles through my gut. “She’s not ready. This is for both of your wellbeing.” With this, Thise lazily pops a few fingers from her folded knuckle-basket. Three of them flicker back and forth past one another. A chill dances up and down my every pore. I see Lee’s hairs prickle up, the same as mine.

  I can almost hear something crack, then a lock click. It’s so faint, I think it might be the heat of the office getting to me. But there’s a difference I can’t deny, in the very atmosphere around us. It’s like suddenly, something’s missing from the very air in the room. The longer I try to put a finger on it, the harder it is to pinpoint. For so small a piece, for not even knowing what it is, it’s odd how much I miss it.

  “What…did you do?” I dare to ask when Thise laces her fingers back together.

  “She broke our connection in the Soul of Fire,” Lee mutters. My chest flutters with confusion. I mean, it’s not like Lee and I are best friends. But this hole, this vacuum that’s taken his place inside me… It’s like I’ve lost a part of myself.

  “It can be mended, but only by you,” Thise tells me, “I’ve locked Lee’s end of the connection. He won’t be able to pop into your head any longer, without your permission.”

  “I…” I feel like I should thank Thise, but Lee’s hurt enough as it is. The guy was willing to take the full force of my fire to make me feel better - the least I can do is bite my tongue. “Alright.”

  “Lee. I would recommend some space for Cece. You should know better than most that everyone’s journey here is unique,” Thise tells Lee. He nods in silence. “You may go.” Lee turns on his heels immediately, followed shortly by me. “Just Lee. Cecelia, I’d like you to remain, if you would.”

  “Sure,” I mumble. I force myself to turn back to the stone desk, and the stony face above it. Thise waits until the last of Lee’s footsteps are muffled by the closing of the office door behind him. Then she reaches below the top of her desk for something. I hear the miraculously smooth slide of a stony drawer from below, from which the Dragonlord draws a thick parchment I’ve seen before. It’s the same stacked file the Fey receptionist had been working on - my file. Thise flattens it against her desk and stares down the length of her nose to glide over line after line.

  “Cecelia Ford. Charged with thirty-six juvenile counts of property destruction. Five juvenile assaults. This was across…four different high schools,” Thise reads off to me. Her finger pokes out across the document to help her track it all across the busy page. “Performed on level or above with your peers before high school. At this point, Cecelia took an academic plummet, despite testing out of any learning disability services. Occasionally disrespectful. Obstinate and uncooperative when apprehended. Anger management issues.”

  “You’ve got all my greatest hits there,” I snort at whatever point she’s trying to make. If she’s trying to put my fire out, she’s on the right track. I shrink a few inches with each trip down memory lane, until I feel about the size of an ant under Thise’s boot.

  “Attended the University of California for one semester. Ejected from program and campus for an act of arson, which resulted in the loss of an entire gymnasium,” Thise goes on, as if I’ve said nothing. As if it’s a script for some terrible tragedy. She nods her head in apparent understanding as she slides the page towards the edge of her desk. “This is what brought you here.” I watch Thise’s fingers in confusion as they press harder, right up until she scrunches my record into a ball and tosses it in a lava creek. The thing is reduced to ash, swept down the hot river, in a second flat. “This is also exactly where it ceases to matter.”

  “You’re…giving me a clean slate?” I marvel. My eyes linger in the lava creek, seeking out the last modicums of my past before they incinerate completely.

  “No one’s slate is clean. Not here, or anywhere else. Yours happens to be scorched in a few places. But what you inscribe on that slate is entirely in your hands,” Thise tells me, “That is what the Academy can offer you that no place else can. A chance to change the story you still have to write. This place doesn’t have to be a prison for you. If you want it bad enough, this could be the place where you finally flourish, Cece.” I blame it on the Soul of Fire - she can speak straight into my mind - but when Thise says it…I want to believe. For the first time in years, I almost feel like I could. If only for one little detail that didn’t appear on her document. One that never had a police report filed.

  “I’m not so sure I deserve the chance you’re giving me. I’m sure everyone here is at least half as much a mess as me. But…how many of your students are murderers?”

  “Cecelia. You didn’t kill your brother,” Thise says. The cracks around her eyes flatten out with the warmth that rises to her cheeks. Her brow curls down. Right. She can feel it to some degree less than I do. We’re connected. Then she should know. That Vampire might have sentenced Jason to die with those wicked teeth, but I was the executioner. Mom and Dad can’t even bury him because I lost my temper. Knowing that, how can Thise sit across from me with that stupid face on? How can she feel pity for me? Then she says, “Your lack of understanding may have played a part in his death. Then, if vengeance is so important to you, wouldn’t the best way to achieve it be to extinguish that lack of understanding?”

  “You think…” Damn, I cut myself off. I didn’t expect it to come out so shaky. Now I’m sniffling, too, like a goddamn six-year-old. I clench my fists until they shake at my side, but I can’t stop whimpering. “You think I could…” I give up trying to say it. Thise can hear it, hysterical in my brain, anyway. You really think I can come back from this? No answer comes from the Dragonlord, either in the Soul of Fire or the world outside. Instead, Thise pulls a new document from her drawers and slides it across her desk to me.

  “This is a roster of basic classes. I’ve started you with three, so as not to overwhelm you. Your first term will serve mostly as an adjustment period,” Thise tells me. I lif
t a shaky hand to take the slip. On it are inscribed Mystical History, Introduction to Scale Science and Basic Transformation. It’s all I can do not to laugh through the tears welled up in my eyes. I’m going to sit in a classroom and take notes on my hidden scales? But when I look up at Thise, her eyes say you’re damn right you will. With a woman so intense, looking at me just that way, how could I not at least try?

  “A whole semester just to adjust? You can do that?” I ask instead.

  “The Broken Academy prides itself on its flexibility. It’s why we don’t enforce a typical four-year structure. Each student stays as long as he or she needs. Some don’t ever leave. Some become Dragonlord, and plan to learn until they can’t get out of bed anymore,” Thise gives me the tiniest little smirk. I reflect the face back at her. Here, Thise straightens up, the wrinkles return around her eyes and she laces her fingers back together.

  “Now, I’ll be the last person to advise you on your romantic life, but…do not judge Lee too harshly. Believe me, I know how little it matters to you just now that his heart is in the right place,” Thise says, when she feels my shift in attitude. “Believe me, too, when I tell you that a broken connection in the Soul of Fire is a terrible loss of knowledge. One of the greatest things about being a Dragon, you’ll find in time, is the network of knowledge we all share.”

  “I’ll remember that,” I tell her, which is all I can promise right now. Whether or not I’ll open the connection again or not… Well, I guess what I put on my slate is up to me.

  “Now, go back to lunch with the roommate you like. And try not to set the one you don’t on fire. River Murtagh…has things of her own to deal with.” Thise dismisses. You knew? I almost blurt out. But then I remember, of course she did. Damned network of knowledge.

  “I’ll- uh, try,” I manage to fumble in reply. I share a nod with the Dragonlord, and leave her office. To my disbelief, I have to wipe more than a few beads of sweat from my forehead before I start on my way.

  Mystical History

  Cece, The Broken Academy, Room A1C

  The next morning, when the sun stabs my eyes, I get up right away. I rush through a shower before River gets back for her daily door slam, bag toss and her own record-pushing shower. It’s a wonder the Academy has any hot water left, after her daily work. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some sort of enchanted, eternal spring run by Witches on hamster wheels under this crazy place. I’m out of the room before River even gets back.

  I hear a door slam down the hall just before I close mine, and catch Serge’s butt vanishing around a corner. Great, I realize he’s going the exact way I need to. I give him a few seconds of a headstart so I don’t feel like I’m stalking him, which hardly works. He must be the slowest all-powerful Magician in history. But then, he is carrying around a sizeable tower of books, so I guess I can’t blame him. I creep through the D Wing dorm hall, the Fey Gardens and alleys of classrooms in C Wing as slow as I can, according to the floor chart Stephanie lent me. For my patience, I’m rewarded by watching Serge walk right through the door to my own Mystical History classroom. I tilt my head at the bizarrely frustrating situation. Shouldn’t a Wing Supervisor be long done with rote basics like Mystical History? I’ve got little choice but to find out. I walk through the door to find the room sparsely populated, since I am a little early.

  “Welcome. Sit wherever you like,” announces the tall Fey woman - at least it looks female by human conventions - at the board. She inscribes the words Fey Hartgen and Mystical History across a huge scroll of parchment - not unlike my enchanted record - that spans a whole wall of the room. I pass by her, who I figure to be the instructor, for the seats, and almost bump into a tall slender man along the way. I look up into the brown light of Serge’s smirking eyes.

  “I’d recommend a spot close to the front. Fey Hartgen tends to be a little soft spoken,” he whispers.

  “Thanks a bunch,” I answer him with a smile of my own. Neither of us looks particularly happy, though. It’s more like a baring of teeth, each an answer for the other’s challenge. “You must be a little behind on your classes if you’re stuck here with me.”

  “I must be,” Serge chuckles. He puts a gentle hand on my shoulder to slide past me, to the front of the room. I let him by, and for a second I catch the sweetest smell of spice. Turmeric, maybe paprika? It clings to the ends of his long, dark hair like dew to a blade of grass. Then it’s gone, along with him, to the desk beside Fey Hartgen. Just to spite him, I take a seat dead in the center of the seats for students.

  My chair, along with all of the ones that fill the open center of the classroom, is equipped with a fold-down tray. I make use of it to house my notebook, so I can pretend to doodle while I analyze the other early birds here with me. Serge and Fey Hartgen, the other students in the class look remarkably human. One of them is pretty pale, so I suspect a Vampire. Three others look about as outlandish as I do at the moment, although I catch one of them causing a pencil to vanish and reappear on opposite sides of his textbook mound. Then there’s the guy in the back right corner. Guy is a term I use very loosely for what I see.

  It’s a body of masculine features that my eyes flit to repeatedly until the class is full of other, less interesting classmates. I’m not sure skin is the right word for what he wears as the shell of his figure. It’s blacker than black, like the tone of obsidian. It’s a similar texture too, not the glossy core but the rugged exterior of lava rock. Where a human would have wrinkles in their skin from bending at joints, this body has cracks that shimmer light red. It has some short-trimmed hair, a faded gray color that makes it appear aged and wise without word or action. Two shimmering red lines like tear streaks split its cheeks. Its eyes being closed makes it look like it might be a statue - a prop planted to fool novices like me. Then Fey Hartgen speaks, and its eyes open. Two neon orange lenses attend the professor with as much focus as everyone else in the room. As much as I should- shit. I flip my notebook to a new page and poise my shaky pencil to jot.

  “Welcome to Mystical History. I am Fey Hartgen. I’ll start by imparting knowledge you may or may not already have about my kind, in particular. Yes, all of our names do begin with Fey. Yes, we do address one another as such. I would request you all do the same,” says Fey Hartgen. Stickler, I think to myself, as I scratch the information across the top of my page. Call them Fey - Whatever. “Serge.” Fey Hartgen says next, and steps aside for my Wing Supervisor to address the class.

  “My name is Serge Dalshak. I’m Fey Hartgen’s assistant. If you ever have a question and Fey Hartgen isn’t available, I’m a reasonable second choice. Feel free to come to me for anything, related to the class or not, no matter where you see me,” Serge announces. I feel blood rush to my cheeks. I try to hold back the embarrassment before I remember Serge isn’t a Dragon, so at least he can’t feel it himself.

  “Very good. I trust Serge to handle any help I cannot provide myself. Now, the basics of what you’ll learn here are very, very simple. We’ll establish it today, and detail each piece of the puzzle more as the term goes on. To start, all students that attend the Broken Academy are broken into six different races,” Fey Hartgen announces. I jot it down, even though it makes a certain amount of sense to me, after standing before the Council of Six. “To get us started, as well as break the ice, I’ll be asking one of you from each of these races to introduce yourself, state your kind and tell us something, anything, you know about the history of your race.” Fey Hartgen’s mauve eyes sweep the class to make sure we’re all following. “Serge, why don’t you lead us by example.”

  “Happy to,” Serge answers, and takes a half step towards the front row of desks. I’m glad I didn’t take his seating advice now. The last thing I need is my Wing Supervisor breathing down my neck in my very first class. Getting his savory aroma all over my books. “Magicians were the race that founded the Broken Academy. My ancient predecessors departed India around the same time the European Colonists left Great Britain. W
hile those pilgrims sailed west to the New World, the ancient Magicians sailed east. Having been an oppressed people themselves for their beliefs and abilities, they formed a relationship of mutual benefit with the tribes of California and established the first school for people with their gifts.”

  “Very good,” Fey Hartgen hums when Serge steps back to take his place infinitely hovering beside her desk. “Now…I’ll call on a student from each of our six principle kinds in the order, chronologically, that they were welcomed to join the Academy. Those of you listening with empty hands, this would be the time to grab a pencil.” She waits about half a second for stragglers to pull their heads out from between their asscheeks. I’ve only just finished inscribing a truncated version of Serge’s account when she starts again. “Second row back from the front, third seat from your left. Yes, you. Why don’t you introduce yourself? Name, then race. And tell us what you know of your race’s history.”

  The poor girl is caught entirely off-guard. She fumbles through her name, but at least manages to get out that she’s a Witch. With how rocky a start she gets, the girl really blows me away with her knowledge. She fires off information at full auto, faster than anyone in the class can jot down. Before Fey Hartgen stops her with a hand of dismissal, she gets out that Witches and Warlocks are ancient relatives of the Ahwahneechee Shifter Tribe. Her ancestors were revered as “Witch-Doctors” for their manipulation of natural energies, with the “Doctor” part later being dropped. Magicians and Witches have a long history of cooperation - pretty much since the Magicians touched down in California. It was the ancient Witches and Warlocks that tethered the Academy to six wellsprings of natural energy, which they used to lift it into the sky.