by B. T. Narro
I held in my anger. “I plan to learn from Kataleya just like I will from everyone else. I even hope to learn something from you, when you let go of this grudge. I could give you sword lessons in exchange.”
The idea of working with Reuben actually turned my stomach. It was my last attempt at trying to make friends with the ass, and it hurt my pride to even offer after the way he’d spoken ill about me to Leon and the king.
Reuben rolled his eyes. “You honestly think you can teach me anything?”
I couldn’t take it anymore. “Here’s something: Roll your eyes as much as you want, you won’t find a brain back there.”
I regretted it even before I finished speaking the words. He shot out of his chair and grabbed at me, but I jumped away. He fell onto the floor as I made some more distance. Everyone stopped eating to stare. Even the king looked over. He sat at his expensive table on the dais with his daughter and the queen, who I had never met.
Reuben quickly got to his feet and spun around to face the rest of the room. Everyone seemed to be waiting for a reaction. Unfortunately, the fool gave them one.
“He insulted me, sire! I demand he be punished.”
The king looked more than irritated as he set down his napkin and slowly made his way over. The room was silent save the thud of his boots against the floor.
“What have you done?” I grumbled to Reuben.
“Everyone mind your own business!” Nykal announced, and all quickly found great interest in their plates.
The king stopped in front of us. “The two of you need to stop acting like children. You aren’t required to be friends, but you will have to work together. Is that something you can both manage, or should I look for new sorcerers who know how to act like men?”
“We can manage it,” we both answered at the same time.
“There will be no more incidents. I don’t care whose fault it is.”
We nodded.
The king walked back to his table. Reuben had a hateful look in his eyes.
“Look,” I told him. “The king’s right. We’re going to have to work together. If you can’t even eat with me and the others, how are we expected to trust you?”
“I want you to promise that you will stay away from Kataleya.”
I was so frustrated that I laughed. “I’m not interested in her that way! You must remember that I knew nothing about sorcery before coming here. I’m just trying to learn all that I can.”
Reuben shook his head at me as he sat down in front of his plate. He took up his fork and said, “You complained about trusting each other, and all you do is lie to me.”
“Reuben—”
“I will be eating alone. Good day.”
“It wasn’t a lie—”
“I said good day!”
I felt another insult ready to jump out of my mouth, but I managed to keep it to myself as I went back to Charlie and Michael, who were certainly close enough to have heard everything. I was glad the women had been too far. Hopefully, they knew I wouldn’t insult Reuben unless pushed to do so, though I had no doubt that he would be acting as the victim whenever he spoke to any of them.
The most aggravating thing about Reuben, I realized then, was that none of what he did was an act. He really thought he was acting properly and that I was not.
I sat down next to Michael, Charlie across from us. “I could teach a pig to bathe itself faster than I could teach Reuben how to stop being an ass,” I told them.
“Let him eat alone,” Michael suggested. “If he ever does change his mind it will be because he’s decided to, not because of anything we do. Many of the nobility are like that. It’s something you’re going to have to learn, Jon.”
“Kataleya seems different,” I said. “Not that I’m interested,” I figured I’d add just to avoid further confusion.
“Aye, Kataleya is special. What about you, Charlie? Any of the women strike your fancy?”
He looked over, I thought for just a glance, but he stared for so long that Eden eventually turned to gaze back at him with an odd expression on her face.
“Charlie, stop staring!” Michael hissed.
“I’m trying to decide.”
Eden was now setting down her fork and standing up. “What are you looking at Charlie?” she shouted across the room.
To my amazement, Charlie started shouting back. “Michael asked me—mmnn, agh!”
Michael practically dove across the table to throw his hand around Charlie’s mouth. “Shut up, you idiot!” he whispered.
“What?” Charlie asked as he pulled away.
“You can’t let them know you’re talking about them if you ever want any of them to like you back.” Michael stood and gave a little wave. “It’s nothing!”
Fortunately, Eden was smirking. She sat back down and said something that brought out a loud laugh from Aliana and Kataleya.
“I like them all,” Charlie said.
“Even Remi?” Michael asked. “She scares me.”
“She scares me too,” he agreed. But the way he said it, with no emotion as he took up his fork again, made me curious if he was just agreeing for the sake of it.
The rest of the meal was pleasantly uneventful. I hadn’t even noticed Leon eating alone in the corner of the large room until most of us were finished and looking around wondering what to do now.
“Back into the courtyard!” Leon commanded.
Michael groaned. As we passed by Leon, Michael asked our instructor, “When will we have some time off?”
“Your cranny hunter stays in your pants from sunrise to sunset every day. You will either be training or taking care of some business. Get used to it.”
“We’ll never have a day off?” Michael complained.
“You will when you earn it.”
We separated from Leon and slowly made our way back out onto the courtyard.
“This godforsaken wind,” Michael muttered. “I can’t train with it every hour of every goddamn day.”
I felt his pain. Wind seemed like a rough force to deal with. “Maybe it won’t be so bad once you have more control,” I suggested. “What will you be able to do with it eventually?”
“Well, let’s see. I could mess up someone’s hair. I could force dirt into someone’s eyes. Oh, I could blow up women’s dresses. That would be nice if it wasn’t sure to land me in the dungeons. Hmm, what else?”
“What can you really do?” I prodded.
He looked at me seriously. “I’ve been told that wind will never be strong enough to throw a man from his horse, but it could startle the beast. It’ll never be strong enough to throw open a latched door, but it could close one. My point is that wind is useless, Jon, until I learn fire or water to go with it.”
“That’s not true at all,” Charlie said from right behind us.
“God!” Michael jumped. “You have to say something if you’re sneaking up on someone.”
“Sorry,” Charlie said. “But there’s much more you can do with wind.”
“I know I can make objects hover and other useless things that aren’t worth mentioning. Without casting Fire at the same time as Wind, it will never save me from a foolish decision, or even a smart one.”
“You can do a lot more than that,” Charlie insisted. “Well you can’t, but stronger sorcerers can.”
“Thanks.”
“They can create wind shields and even tornados, at least in theory.”
“Tornadoes?” Michael asked.
“Yes,” Charlie confirmed. “It’s too bad we don’t live in Rohaer. They have many more readings on sorcery. It is a whole business there, learning and teaching. I’m glad I won’t be the one fighting when their army reaches us.”
“I’m going to politely ignore most of what you just said. How do you know so much about Rohaer?”
“I have spent years trying to find out everything about sorcery. Most of the sorcerers who know something have mentioned Rohaer, specifically the library of the magical arts. It
is a place I wish I could visit.”
“All right, then tell me how to cast a tornado,” Michael said sarcastically.
By then, everyone else had spread out in the courtyard and had resumed their training.
“I don’t know the spell Tornado,” Charlie said, “but I imagine it is complicated. It probably involves a rev.”
“A what?” I asked.
“A rev,” Charlie repeated. “It’s a fancy word for revision, when the spell is changed as its being cast.”
“How does that work exactly?” I asked.
“You change one or two of the notes as they are being used to form the spell.”
“That’s impossible,” Michael said.
I was inclined to agree. The spell formed as soon as I used my mana. There was no time to change anything.
“It takes exceptional strength and precision, but it is possible,” Charlie said.
Leon yelled from the doorway to the great hall, “Why aren’t you three training?”
Charlie answered, “I’m telling them about revs.”
“Then you are wasting your time and theirs.”
“Wait, so it is possible?” Michael called to Leon.
“Of course revs are possible. But they aren’t for you.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are a terrible sorcerer, like everyone else here, and you will be for a long time.”
We seemed to be getting the attention of everyone else as they stopped what they were doing to listen.
Leon lifted his arms. “All right. Everyone gather around. Maybe this will inspire some of you. Come on. Get closer. Kataleya.” He motioned for her as she stayed back.
“Not if you’re going to use a rev.”
“You daisy. Fine. All the rest of you form a circle around me.”
I knew I shouldn’t be smiling. I should probably stay back with Kataleya, and Charlie, who also refused to get closer, but I was too excited to finally see some powerful sorcery.
We formed a close circle around Leon. I happened to stand beside Aliana, but she didn’t look my way.
“Hold onto your clothes,” Leon announced, then made two fists and leaned down with his eyes closed.
For the shortest of moments, wind whipped around the circle before it exploded outward. I ducked as it hit me, my feet sliding along the dirt.
It was over in a second. Everyone had been thrown at least a few feet, all on the ground. I walked back to help up Aliana.
“I’m fine,” she said as she ignored my hand.
“Over here, Jon,” Michael called as he reached out for me in feigned distress.
I pulled him up.
“You’re the only one who didn’t fall,” he commented.
“I’m probably the heaviest.”
“Still, that was…so strong. Look, it even knocked over Charlie, and he was back a lot farther.”
Charlie was getting up with a huge grin. “Remarkable!” he said. “Can you do it again?”
Leon was ignoring him, looking at me with a strange look in his eyes. “Jon, what do you know about magical resistance?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“All right, two lessons for you all here. Oh, stop being daisies. I’m not going to do it again.”
We all moved closer to listen.
“Ah, it’s not going to make any sense to any of you if I don’t write this down. Stay here.” Leon rushed into the great hall. He was gone for a long while as we muttered to each other in confusion. Eventually, he returned with a small piece of paper.
“Pass this around,” he said. “That is the spell I casted. It is called Windburst. Michael, you really should pay attention to this. The dash that you see written in the middle of the spell is what’s called a rev. It is a change to the notes of the chord right as the chord is casted.”
I reminded myself that a chord was a group of individual frequencies of mana—a group of notes. It was basically a spell, because all spells were the casting of notes together. Except for vtalia, I thought a moment later, which was a single note. Perhaps not all spells were chords, actually. I was quickly confusing myself and let it go for now.
“Revs are one of the most difficult techniques for a sorcerer,” Leon explained. “They are dangerous as well. Use them wrong, you’re going to hurt yourself. Fortunately, most of you will never be able to use a rev, so I don’t have to worry about that. For those of you who think you can, you cannot yet. Don’t experiment. You will regret it.”
Michael was passed the written spell next. He held it between us for me to look as well.
It was the first time I had seen any spell written, and it made absolutely no sense to me, at first. The longer I looked at it, the more I realized I knew what it was saying.
It was written out like another language: uC, uE, uG—3uD, 1uB.
I looked at it one note at a time. uC was Upper C. Then there was Upper E and Upper G. These were all high but still lower than most of the range needed for dvinia. I’d forgotten that wind required high vibrations.
Leon had said that the dash was the rev. It was marking the change that was to take place right after the spell was cast. Michael handed it to me as Leon continued. I had looked long enough, so I gave it to Charlie, who grabbed it eagerly.
“After the rev you will see the number three,” Leon explained. “That is telling you which note of the wind scale is the first one to change. These changes occur as fast as blinks of the eye, but there is still an order to them. For this spell, Windburst, you start by casting wind on its own: C, E, G, all Upper. Then you immediately change the third note in the wind scale, which is Upper E, to Upper D. Immediately after, you change the first note from Upper C to Upper B.” He snapped with one hand and then right after with the other. “That’s casting and then making the revs.” He snapped with both hands again, one right after the other. “Just a quick moment is needed between the spell and the revs. The revs need to be done in the time that the mana is still coming together.”
I had not heard the term “wind scale” before. Pretty much everything he’d said after it had gone over my head.
Charlie raised his hand.
“Yes?” Leon asked.
“I’ve always wanted to know how many spells there are.”
“I don’t know, Charlie. I’m sure there are many more than what I know. Any questions should be about this spell.”
“I have one,” Michael said. “When can I learn that?”
“Can you at least tell us all the spells you know?” Charlie interrupted.
“You can’t even cast anything but mtalia!” Leon yelled at him.
Charlie looked down.
Leon then answered Michael, “You will learn it if you ever become ready.”
“What about the spell Tornado?” Michael asked. “Is it really possible?”
Leon grinned and rolled up his sleeves. “You’re going to want to stand back for this one.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I awoke the next morning excited to take a trip into the forest. Not only had I wanted to visit Curdith Forest since I had heard about it many years ago, but Aliana would be there as well.
None of us sorcerers in training ate breakfast together in the great hall. Instead, we had been told it would be delivered to our rooms at sunrise.
I still had some time, so I decided to take a bath. It made me feel a little like royalty to visit the bathing quarters and see the wooden tubs with steaming water and curtains for privacy. I wondered if this was the kind of pampering Reuben and Kataleya were used to all of their lives.
My breakfast was waiting for me in my room when I returned. It wasn’t anything too extravagant, just oats and juice with a side of bread. Considering I wasn’t even hungry because of the enormous dinner I had the night before, it was the perfect way to start my day.
While I ate, I reminisced about Leon’s Tornado spell last evening. It hadn’t been all that exciting. The tiny tornado of wind made by his spell hadn’t been strong
enough to lift anyone up, even if we had been close, and Leon was completely spent after he’d finished. It had been disconcerting to watch the rude and seemingly all-powerful instructor fall to his knees by the time the small whirlwind dissipated. It reminded me of seeing my father fall down just outside our home, after he’d told me he was feeling well enough to work. Leon made it back to his feet on his own, though. My father hadn’t that day.
I’d asked Leon about resistance before retiring for the night. He’d admitted that he’d forgotten he was going to mention it and that I shouldn’t worry about it right now. I let it out of my mind only because there were so many other things to think about. One was my new impression of Leon. Surprisingly, I was beginning to trust him. Although he wasn’t the best instructor, it was clear he knew sorcery well.
When I finished my breakfast, I opened my window and stuck out my head. The day was warm, not a single breeze to be felt. The sun was bright in the clear sky. If this was how winters usually began in Newhaven, then I might be even happier here than I thought.
I took a deep breath. I was smiling by the time I finished.
“Jon?” asked a familiar voice.
Shocked, I looked to my right to see Aliana leaning out of her window with a surprised look on her face.
“How long have you been there?” I asked, a little embarrassed.
“Did you know our rooms are next to each other?” For some reason, she didn’t sound too pleased about this fact.
“I had no idea.”
A moment of silence passed as she glanced ahead of her.
“So, today we’ll—?”
“Are you ready?” She spoke at the same time as me.
“Uh, yeah, let’s go.”
We met in the hall. I wondered how her tanned skin always seemed to shine. She was practically sparkling.
Her features blended together with elegance and grace. The sweep of her chin, the pout of her lips, and even her striking eyebrows, which might look a bit off on some women, just brought out her beauty even more. She had on a leather hood, the top down. It covered her shoulders down to her elbows, leaving the bottom of her arms bare. It was a reminder that she would be shooting a bow today. She had to shed any extra fabric. She wore a sleeveless tunic with a black belt tight around the top of her narrow waist to hold the tunic closed. The swell of her chest was extremely prominent on her thin frame.