Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance)

by Jillian Keep

  She’d had to put her spells to use in trial after trial, finding creative ways of using the most basic spells. Solutions to puzzles that she scarcely fathomed could be made, let alone solved.

  Through it all, she’d persevered, and yet…

  Mae’lin walked up beside her at the edge of the great ring at the heart of the academy grounds. A broad, warm smile on his face as he reached out and took her hand in his. Nary a word spoken, just that quiet pride in her, in them, for succeeding so far where those far more prepared – far more privileged – had done much worse.

  There was no time for words, however, out over the courtyard the voice of Professor Yae’ra boomed out, amplified by some magic.

  “For the final test of your abilities – and your worthiness to continue here at Gaul’di-mere Academy – you shall all enter into the Grim Jungle. There, you shall face a free-for-all competition. A hunt to find your first awards as students here, your finest accolades thus far.” The fancily dressed wizard stood atop a hovering platform, far above the courtyard, his golden robes not even able to billow in the chill winds, it was so heavily inlaid with precious gems and metals.

  “Once you enter into the Grim Jungle, your only rules are thus: No harmful spells against one another. You may inhibit, stall, or slow your opponents, but outright assault that causes or seriously risks life threatening danger shall not be allowed. Anyone in violation of this shall be expelled.”

  Mae’lin looked to her, a reassuring smile on his face as he squeezed her hand.

  “Go into the ‘arena’, novices. But emerge as genuine mages on the track to greatness. This is your great chance to prove yourself, for take note: The masters of this academy are watching, observing. Making note of who shall be their apprentices someday.”

  “Good luck, Mae’lin,” she whispered, and she meant it with all her heart. She was excited for herself, but she wanted, more than anything, for him to succeed. For him to have joy in his life, true value and meaning, and she squeezed his hand back.

  She’d worn her lightest robe, the one that fit her bodice tightly and didn’t trail much. The last thing she needed was a minor snag to slow her down. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, out of her face, and she’d been practicing all night.

  She knew she’d get this.

  “Be one with the arcane,” came the final words of the dour professor, and no sooner were they said than Firia felt herself pulled through reality itself.

  When she reappeared it was not at Mae’lin’s side. Nor in any place like she had assumed she would end up in with the title of “jungle”.

  All alone, she stood beneath a great mushroom, as big as some houses where she was from. It lifted up into the air over her, sheltering her from the sky… sky?

  Stepping out along the alternating rocky, spongy jungle floor, she looked up and saw only stone above her. Whatever sort of jungle it was she was in, it was within a cave of some sort.

  There were more than simply giant mushrooms about, though; strange flora of various sorts were all about. Great purple blooms, some of which were bigger than her. And more disturbing still, they undulated and moved of their own accord, more like an animal than a plant.

  She took the time to study her surroundings, to become more familiar with the strength of the floor, the way she breathed. All of the little things could affect how quickly she moved, how fast she’d finish this, and she didn’t want to rush off willy-nilly.

  Be one with the arcane. She didn’t know if there was a hidden meaning, but she tried to obey, opening her mind to the unseen.

  It came to her, albeit gradually. She could feel the flow of the magic about her, and realized it permeated the whole of the cavern. It was strong there, even more so than at the academy. Though there was something odd…

  When she reached out with her ethereal self to the cavern walls, she was immediately forced back away. The walls were barriers, not just against the physical, but the magical.

  Slowly Firia began to make sense of it. The immense concentration of magic, it was all contained there by those stones. It was no ordinary cavern, but hewn out of stone with some sort of anti-magic properties, which kept so much arcane energy bottled up inside.

  It was as she pondered those mysteries that she felt something else so very odd. The giant blooming flower beside her emitted some odd aura, it–

  She jumped back away from it, scarcely a moment too soon.

  The great plant had moved closer! It’s great fronds reaching out like an abductor in slow motion. And within its great, pitcher-like bloom she saw something that looked like hard teeth. Razor thin and sharp near the entrance, but others for gnashing deep within.

  Her heart beat fast with the close encounter, but then something more dawned on her: there was something else in the mouth of that plant. It was a scroll, and must have been enchanted, for its papers looked pristine, as if straight from the scribe. Yet it sat in a murk of mucousy goo.

  She could do this. Varuj had taught her, and though she struggled with it, her confidence was renewed just knowing what to do.

  The other students would have to find more creative ways to get at such a clue to the test, but she was able to hold out her arm and draw out the magical energy within herself and manipulate the object from afar.

  It resisted the movement, the arcane energy that imbued that plant-animal not giving up the possession within it. Not without a fight at least.

  Firia had to twist her fingers and augment the spell as best she could, funneling her energy through the ring she wore to amplify its power. Her brow creased, the plant-animal shuddered, but she saw the scroll drag along its gooey, fanged maw.

  The creature tried to bite and gnaw on the scroll, to keep it from getting away, yet whatever magic that kept it pristine also kept it from harm.

  She had to take a step back to avoid the approaching thing, but at last the scroll popped free of its hold and then careened towards her before landing upon the rocks and rolling to her.

  With a deft grab, Firia scooped it up then moved away, back to the relative safety of the sheltering mushroom she’d appeared under.

  Undoing the seal upon it, she rolled open the scroll and saw but a simple drawing there. It was a great tree, not like the ones in that underground “jungle”, but more like those she knew above. Yet not, all the same.

  She didn’t understand, and her fingers traced over the strange scroll as if reading it another way. She was still so excited at having figured out the first test so quickly that her mind was racing and she had trouble slowing it down, focussing on the next piece of the puzzle.

  There was nothing for her to do but calm down. Explore.

  Rolling it back up she moved through the curious underground jungle, avoiding the slowly lurching plant-creature as she wound through the giant mushrooms.

  The ground had such a strange feel to it. At times hard and rocky, at others spongy and soft, like the fungus around her.

  It made for such bizarre footing that she almost didn’t notice it when the ground gave way entirely and she very nearly toppled over a cliff.

  Desperately she reached out and clung to one of the mushroom stems beside her, heart thudding at an incredible rate as she stared down the rocky incline. The jungle continued down it at a steep angle, and she found herself worried how she would climb it safely. Jagged rocks stuck out of the fungus at weird angles, and she knew if she missed her footing even once, it could be the end of her. Or at least the end of the test.

  As she mulled it over she saw one of the great mushroom tops beneath her. The bizarre purple pattern of a star there, seemingly growing naturally.

  Storing up her courage she took a few steps back, checked her footing and… ran!

  She ran to the edge and with a great leap sprung out over the cliffside.

  There was nothing but air beneath her cloak as she moved towards her destination. Though as she began to arc downwards, panic nearly set in.

  She wouldn’t make it.


  Calling upon all she knew of magic, Firia reached out with both hands, the telekinetic force she expelled digging furrows into the spongy fungus.

  She never made contact with the bloom, but the invisible grasp of her arcane magic kept her dangling from its edge none the less. She hung there, swaying back and forth with not but the force of her magical power saving her from crashing down below.

  They were torturers at this academy! There was no room for failure, and she was so grateful to the adrenaline pumping through her. Without it, she was sure she’d break down in fright, but instead she took a deep breath, cleansing her body and her mind.

  She could do this.

  “Firia!” a cry came from below, and she instantly recognized it as Mae’lin’s.

  From the jungle below he was clamouring up the cavern side, grabbing onto every rocky outcropping he could with his hands and rushing forth. His cloak even snagged on a stone beneath him, ripping a big tear down its backside as he pushed on heedlessly. “I’m coming for you!”

  She didn’t need his help though. She slowly pulled herself upwards, the telekinetic grip she’d formed hauling her up at great effort. Her brow sweated, face turned red, but she pulled herself up further and further. She’d make it, and avoid the fall below, just another –

  From out of the underground jungle a ball of fire hurdled towards her, and only the deft attunement of her mind to the arcane from before alerted her to it in time. Yet there was nothing to do, but drop…

  She did, with no other choice before her.

  Firia plummeted downwards, the searing heat of that fire blast narrowly avoiding her, but singing and cuffs as she fell. Smoke billowed from her as she fell to her abysmal failure.

  There was no telling how he did it, how Mae’lin had climbed up that rock face so fast, but when she fell into his arms she could only be grateful as the lanky elf swayed and nearly fell over from the force of her impact.

  Her eyes went shut and her arms were around his neck, clutching him desperately. How? She didn’t care. All she knew was immense gratitude as she clung to him. “Holy hell, what was that?”

  Mae’lin moved back then crouched down, hiding them behind the mushroom trunk as he breathed heavily. “It had to be another student,” he said after but a moment’s thought, the words a struggle to get out, he was so weary. Though once he laid her down on the spongy ground she saw how he’d managed his rescue in so timely a manner, his trousers were torn at both legs, and both hands and knees were bloody from his climb over the jagged rocks.

  “Had to be,” she agreed, grimacing. How many enemies did she have here anyways? “Listen, have you seen anything like this?” She grabbed the scroll, quickly unfurling it for him, her pulse racing. Even if she had nearly just died, she needed to succeed.

  Mae’lin studied her scroll a moment, “It’s not quite the same as mine, it’s… a bit different.” He unfurled his own, then put it beside hers, though it made no more sense.

  However, once she looked up, she saw in the distance over the jungle canopy several great trees spiralling up above the fungal forest. They were each different, but she immediately found one, then another, that resembled the images they were given.

  Mae’lin followed her gaze and said, “That’s them then!” And a big smile crossed his face, their goal in sight already.

  “We have to move, before whoever just tried to fireball me to my death catches up. Do you see a good route we could take?” She was in charge, detached, and she’d never felt so sure of anything. It was wonderful to have something to take her mind off what she had to do to the sweet elf who had, quite literally, saved her life.

  “I think I saw a better way down then the one I took up,” he stated, standing up again and offering her his hand. “C’mon,” he said with a smile. “We’re gonna do this, no matter who tries to stop us.”

  “Damn right,” she agreed, and she moved so quickly and with such confidence. Together, they were unstoppable! They’d been able to work together, studying almost daily for months now. They knew one another’s strengths and weaknesses and at his side, there was no doubt of their success.

  Chapter 52

  Ala’nase cursed at herself for missing the woman, her prime opportunity lost because of that love-struck fool, Mae’lin.

  As she climbed down over the cliff face, she touched the stone upon her necklace, the glow getting brighter as she approached the holder of the other, matching one.

  Bran came into view, looking up to her in surprise. “Oh, it’s you,” he said with some relief, a spell upon his fingers. “The stone you gave me was indicating he was this way,” he remarked, pointing off exactly to where they’d gone.

  “That’s where he went, definitely,” she muttered to herself in irritation. “But he’s got company now. He somehow managed to luck upon Firia,” she remarked bitterly.

  “Firia?” he said, his voice laced with some strange emotion.

  “I’ll have to distract her so you can handle him,” she asserted.

  “She can’t know it was me,” he said, eyes wide.

  “Don’t get your nuts in a knot,” she said irritably. “I said I’d distract her.”

  Seeing her fail and be cast out would be the utmost distraction, she determined.

  Chapter 53

  The cavern was humid, and getting more so as they went further down into the valley. Mae’lin had to keep wiping the perspiration from his brow as he went, but he never lost his smile.

  Firia never lost her alertness.

  As they neared the giant trees that were their destination, a disturbing reality started to come to the fore: the trees themselves rested upon an island.

  In the midst of a great underground cavern, in a jungle of mushrooms, lay a lake of tepid, dark water. Worse still, even if they waded or swam across, the island itself seemed to have sheer cliff faces, that would be near impossible to climb, if not utterly so.

  “What’ll we do?” Mae’lin bemoaned, resting against one of the fungal trunks with one palm, the great mushrooms continuing out into the lake even.

  “I do not feel like taking a dip in there,” she agreed, and she knew there must be a way around it. A way that didn’t involve getting soaking wet. This entire place reminded her of something Gway’lin would have loved. A trickster’s paradise, filled with riddles.

  Any thoughts of swimming across would’ve been quickly dashed, as Firia noticed nearby a ripple in the water. When she pointed it out to Mae’lin, he looked and together they saw some fanged fish-like creature rise above the surface, two beady eyes upon the flat top of its head looking about before diving back beneath.

  “Yeah, let’s not go for a swim,” he remarked, then with a snap of his fingers he grinned toothily. “I’ve got it.” He patted the thick fungal trunk by him and said, “These things go right across the lake. We just gotta get across by using them as jumping platforms.”

  “As long as no one lobs a fireball at us,” she retorted, even as she stood and looked at the “platforms”. “It’s going to be dangerous, Mae’lin. And you won’t be able to catch me. And I won’t be able to catch you either.” Well… maybe. She could try her telekinesis, but that was asking a lot of her abilities.

  Firia thought on it a while, but then she remembered her search for the missing Mae’lin in his altercation with Bran. “You can manipulate the water to lift yourself up!”

  A light went on in Mae’lin’s head, and he grabbed her, sweeping her into his arms and giving her a big, passionate kiss, the likes of which he had never done before. “You’re brilliant,” he said, eyes glittering. Then pressed their mouths together again in his excitement.

  Her heart broke.

  It wasn’t before. It wasn’t when she had sex with him, knowing it couldn’t last. It wasn’t when she’d made her promise to Varuj.

  It was then, and it took every ounce of strength she had to persevere and not break down, utterly. Instead she gently put her hand on his chest, pushing him away with
a sheepish smile. “We have to hurry before someone finds us.”

  Undaunted, Mae’lin smiled and nodded. “We’ll have a lot of celebrating to do after we win this contest,” he remarked, and immediately began to work his own magic.

  Since they’d first faced off together, Firia knew he was masterful with his control of water. He had an affinity for it that was quite impressive, and he brought forth the murky liquid into a spout. “I’ll send you up first,” he said.

  Firia nodded, and gathered her robes about her. She’d get wet she figured, but perhaps not if she used her telekinesis right.

  Hesitating, she focussed her abilities before she leapt onto the water spout. A field of telekinetic energy shielded her from the damp spray, but up she went all the same. The force of the jets sending a spritzing of water all about until she was sent up high, on the level of the mushroom peak.

  She tried to reach out for it, but its spongy, slippery surface was awful for grasping hold of, so instead she had to leap across.

  Her boots nearly failed her when she back stepped after her landing, but a heartbeat later and she was secure. Safe.

  With a laugh she looked down and saw Mae’lin smiling up at her. “My turn now,” he said.

  It was all going so well, just according to plan, though she got an odd feeling that she couldn’t quite place.

  “Firia!” came a familiar voice, and she turned about, seeing Ala’nase a few mushrooms over.

  The nimble elf leapt closer, coming nearer still. “Wait up!” she cried to Firia. Though the feeling of discomfort only grew the stronger.

  The gasp and cry she heard from Mae’lin’s direction sent her spinning back around, just in time to see the lanky elf’s spell go awry. Or rather, him to go awry.

  He jumped as if into the spout, same as she did, but his leap was off. Oddly so, he had far too much wherewithal to mess it up so badly. It caused his own jet of water to flip him over and send him careening into the inky water of the underground lake.