by Ruby Brown
A few minutes later, Blaise opened a door leading into a dark space and pushed Mal through before flicking on the light, revealing a small room with bunkbeds lining the walls. As the room flooded with light, several irritated groans and mumbles came from the lumps sleeping tucked under the covers of the beds. A few of the girls sat up, rubbing the sleep from their squinting eyes, and others immediately reached for their weapons, wincing as they struggled to adjust to the bright light.
“What the hell, Blaise?” said a girl with long brown hair and green eyes. She was clutching a curved dagger in her right hand and looked incredibly annoyed. “We were sleeping!”
“Tell someone who cares,” Blaise said, dragging Mal over to one of the empty beds.
“Go to hell,” mumbled a girl with a black pixie cut. She was lying on her stomach with her face buried in her pillow, one of the only ones who hadn’t reacted to the light.
Blaise ignored her. “You’ll be alright, yeah?” he muttered to Mal, surprising her with the only glint of compassion he’d shown all night.
“Um...yeah. I’ll be okay,” Mal reassured him. Without another word, Blaise turned and walked out of the room.
“Close the door and turn the light off,” said the girl with the black pixie cut, but by the time the words had left her mouth Blaise’s footsteps had faded away.
“Bitch,” muttered the black-haired girl and she buried her head under the pillow.
A girl with bright red hair sat up in her bed and peered down at Mal. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Mal. What’s your name?”
“Hannah. Hang on; are you the girl that blew up the testing room?” Hannah asked excitedly, leaning so far over the bunk bed to get a better look that Mal was scared she’d fall off.
“I didn’t mean to,” Mal said defensively, looking around anxiously at all the curious people Hannah’s exclamation had produced.
“So you did?”
“Well...yeah,” Mal admitted.
“You should be locked up!” cried a girl with the tips of her blonde hair dyed pink. Her brown eyes glared at Mal accusingly as her hand grabbed the gun on her bedside table. “You’re dangerous!”
“I’m sorry,” Mal said, not really knowing how to respond. “I didn’t mean to cause any damage, and I won’t do it again.”
“How can you be so sure?” the blonde girl spat. “You’re like a little kid who can’t control their magic. How do we know you’re not going to set fire to something and burn us all to ashes while we sleep?”
“Shut up Lucy!” snapped the girl with the black pixie cut, raising her head from underneath her pillow to glare acidly at Lucy. “Some of us are trying to sleep. For God’s sake, will one of you turn off the light and close the goddamn door!”
Meekly, Mal hurried over and shut the door, switching off the light as she did so. “Thank you,” said the black-haired girl. Feeling her way through the darkness, Mal found her bed again and sat down.
“Ow!”
“Sorry!” Mal exclaimed, quickly standing up after realising she had sat on a person. In the process, she smacked her head on the bed above her. Hissing in pain, she moved on to the next row of beds and made sure it was empty before crawling under the blankets. She stared at the darkness for hours, colouring it with the intensity of her thoughts, but forced herself to fall asleep before the void swallowed her whole.
Chapter 10
“This is so frustrating,” Thomas groaned; slamming shut the ornate leather cover on the large book he was reading. “We’ve been here for hours and we’ve found absolutely nothing.”
“We’re bound to find something soon,” Trixie reassured him, looking anxiously at his face. Mal ignored them both and grabbed a small red book from the heap on their table. Cass had allowed Rose to tell Thomas, Allie and Trixie the truth about what had been happening so that they could help research. The three of them had been in the library for ages, scanning every single book Allie pulled from the shelves, trying to find something helpful. After hours of squinting at tiny letters on the parchment pages of old books buried in the depths of the library, Mal could feel a migraine building and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could last before she snapped and hit someone over the head with a book.
“I found some more!” called Allie, wobbling over to their table, struggling to keep her balance underneath the oppressive weight of the large stack of books she was holding. With a pained groan, she heaved them up onto their table and pushed her hair back from her eyes. “Any luck?” she asked.
“Nope,” Trixie said, absentmindedly leafing through her book. Thomas reached for a book from the new stack Allie had deposited on the table, and Mal kept her eyes fixed on the words in front of her, unaware of the fact she’d been staring at the same line for the past ten minutes.
Allie paused and glanced at Mal. “Hey, are you nervous?”
Mal’s stomach twisted itself into knots and her chest collapsed like she was wearing a too-tight corset. The sudden rush of thoughts she’d been trying so hard to quash down made her feel light-headed. Her hands snapped into tight fists and she dug her fingernails into her palm, using the physical pain to distract her from the way her heart was beating so hard it was breaking her ribs. She forced a smile onto her face and said “no, of course not.”
“You have no reason to be,” Trixie said. “The initiation is really simple, honestly. And after it’s all over, you’ll be a lot safer.” Mal smiled at her to thank her, but couldn’t do much more than that because she was focusing on keeping her breakfast inside her stomach. When the clock struck twelve, which sounds like a cliché line from a fairy tale, Mal got up and walked to the dining hall with the three of them. Dallas and Rose met them at the library entrance. Dallas was doing his best to be comforting and helpful, but Rose loved just seeing Mal squirm and teased her relentlessly with a cheeky glint in her eyes. In that moment, Mal didn’t think she’d hated anyone as much as she hated Rose.
When they reached the dining hall entrance, Mal walked through a smaller door just next to it that led to an adjoining chamber and she joined the cluster of anxious children that had already accumulated there. Some of the kids were surrounded by their proud parents, and her heart twinged as she thought of her own family. As far as they knew, she was still at Claire’s house. But perhaps it was best they weren’t here, they’d probably get all emotional and embarrass her like they did at her primary school graduation. A lot of the other kids were dressed in flowing dresses or crisp suits. Mal wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans and anxiously scrubbed at the stain on the bottom of her jumper before patting down the unruly birds nest that was her hair.
The chatter of the people gathering in the dining hall floated through the wall separating the two rooms so that Mal could hear it. She started to picture the dining hall during the times she’d eaten there and imagine how many people that room usually contained, and then added in the annoyingly supportive but well-meaning friends and family members that would be crowded in there as well. She didn’t want to get up in front of all those people. What if she tripped? What if she said the wrong thing? What if she wasn’t believable enough and her secret was discovered and then someone tried to kill her again and she had to leave Tenebar and she became depressed from leaving Tenebar and failed her studies and dropped out of school so her parents disowned her and she ended up a homeless drug addict living in a cardboard box under a bridge and...breathe, Mal reminded herself. Calm down.
The door leading from the chamber to the dining hall opened up, allowing a warm light to spread across the room. They started walking through, gathering at the base of the stage as Cass addressed the assembled crowd. Mal looked out into the sea of faces. One of her friends told her that a good way to cope with stage fright was to imagine everyone in the audience naked, so Mal tried that, and it was working quite well until her eyes landed on a particularly fat, hairy old man sitting at the front of the crowd and no one wants to see that. Mal diverted her attention to
the stage and noticed that there were four white marble plinths, each one bearing a carving of an elemental symbol. Resting on the plinths were four different objects and a small but wickedly sharp silver sword with a different coloured gem embedded into the hilt depending on the element; green for earth, red for fire, blue for water and grey for air.
On the Earth plinth, there was a grey pot that held a plant Mal had never seen before. Clearly, it was part of this magical universe she’d stepped into, and it didn’t belong to the world she’d mostly left behind. It had curling, silver and bronze tendrils that wrapped around each other in a perplexing puzzle so that you couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began. It didn’t help that the tendrils were moving slowly, twisting round one another and making a strange rustling sound as they did so. Peeking through the tangled mess were small green leaves and red berries that weighed down the small branches they hung from. The plant spiralled upwards and tapered to a point, reminding Mal of the structure of the Christmas tree she had at home.
A massive fish tank rested on the Water plinth, containing three large fish that resembled koi carp in shape and size, but not colour. The first fish was deep purple with a silver underbelly and three large black spots on each side and a gold patch on its head ringed by more silver. The second was a bright emerald green, but when it turned in the water its scales flashed gold. Its fins and tail were as red as blood, startlingly vibrant in the water it was contained in. The body of the final fish was a pale blue, but the fins and tail were the same deep colour you’d find in the starlit sky.
The Air plinth had a granite effigy of a pretty woman with perfectly curled hair slung over one shoulder. Her lips were curved in a cruel yet enticing manner, and looking at her Mal got the feeling that in real life she was just as cold and unforgiving as the stone she was now preserved in. A silver amulet engraved with the symbol for air hung around her neck, suspended by a piece of grey ribbon so that it rested between her delicate collarbones.
Finally, most importantly for Mal, was the object that rested on the Fire plinth. A small, dented golden goblet, not much different to the ones they drank from at every meal. The cup itself wasn’t much to look at, but what it contained certainly was. A ferocious black flame blazed within it, making the air around it ripple. When she listened carefully, Mal was convinced that she could hear a strange whispering coming from the flame, but she tried to block it out. It scared her. Suddenly, she became aware that one of the recruits was climbing up onto the stage, so she forced herself to snap back into reality and stop pondering about the mysterious whispering.
Mal watched intently as the boy that was climbing onto the stage stopped at the Earth plinth. With shaking hands, he picked up the dagger and drew the blade across his left wrist. Then he held his wrist out over the plant and allowed several drops of blood to fall onto it. As the scarlet liquid hit the plant and slithered down its branches, its tendrils started moving towards the boys’ wrist as if it was desperate for more. The boy withdrew his wrist just before the plant could take hold of it, and walked off the stage into another room to the cheers and applause of the assembled crowd.
Cass continued to call out names, reading from a piece of parchment resting on the stand in front of her, and each one of them repeated this process, slitting their left wrist to allow a few drops of blood to fall on the object in front of them before retreating into the next room. Some of them were nervous wrecks, others only winced when the blade bit into their skin, and there were a few that never let a flicker of emotion cross their Before long, the water the fish swam in was stained a deep red and the granite statue was covered in streaks of drying blood that pooled on the plinth below it and dripped onto the floor. With every drop of blood given to it, the tendrils of the plant moved faster and faster and the fire crackled and sparked.
“Owen Jackson
Elizabeth James
Malika Jay,” called Cass, her voice echoing loud and clear across the dining hall. Mal felt her stomach clench, but forced herself to stay calm. Feeling very much like the new kid at a school who’s been forced to introduce themselves to the class, Mal climbed the steps onto the stage and walked towards the Fire plinth. She reached for the dagger, stained with the blood of those before her, and placed the edge of the cold blade against her wrist. She winced as the metal bit into her skin, but forced herself to drag it along her flesh, feeling the warm blood starting to flow down her arm as she followed the line of the scar that was already there. It seemed right to her that if she had a Spatium there before, that’s where it should go now. She was slightly light-headed as she held her arm out. When her blood hit the flames, they burned brighter for her then they did for anyone else.
Dimly aware of the applause that echoed across the room, Mal turned and started to walk towards the next room, smiling mildly at some of the people in the front row. Her eyes moved around the room, and then she gave a small start and looked back at the wall. She could have sworn that she saw a figure standing against it, a translucent figure wearing a scowl. But there was no one there. Mal studied the wall for a few more seconds before she decided she was seeing things. Maybe she’d lost more blood then she’d intended to. Shrugging off the feeling of unease that had settled in the pit of her stomach, she stepped through the next door into the next phase of her initiation.
The next room reminded Mal of a tattoo parlour. The walls were lined with large black leather chairs that the new recruits were sitting it, chatting to the person sitting next to them on a stool as they inserted Spatiums into the fresh cuts on their wrists. The atmosphere in the room was one of relief that the initiation was over and anticipation of what was going to happen next. Mal noticed that several of them were in tears, although whether it was from the emotional onslaught or the physical pain of the bleeding gash on their wrists, she couldn’t tell.
Mal walked down the room and found a free chair being manned by a thin woman with tattoos flowing across her whole body, made even more obvious by the black singlet and small shorts she wore. Her bright red lipstick was a bright contrast to the long curtain of raven-black hair that hung from the right side of her head, but the left side was completely shaved to make room for an intricate flower tattoo that weaved its way right down her neck. She smiled as Mal sat down in the chair in front of her and nervously held out her bleeding wrist for a Spatium.
“Hey, I’m Tess,” said the girl.
“I’m Mal.”
“What element are you?” Tess asked as she cleaned Mal’s cut with a rag soaked in cool water.
“Fire.” Mal realised her voice was shaking and tried to steady herself. Her scattered thoughts meant that she almost responded to Tess’s question with the truth. She’d have to watch herself in the future.
“Really? Me too! That black fire is something else, eh?”
Mal smiled and nodded. Tess continued to chat with an easy confidence as she pulled out a Spatium from a box next to her and carefully placed it directly on top of Mal’s cut. As she held it there, Mal felt a peculiar feeling come over her. It was as if the Spatium was knitting itself into her body, becoming a part of her. All of a sudden, the feeling stopped, and the empty bar on the Spatium started filling up until it was completely full. Mal smiled as she looked down at it. For some reason, she felt complete, as if she had been unknowingly missing something her entire life and now she’d got it back. She thanked Tess for her work before she got up and left the room, finding herself in another corridor packed full of the friends and family members of the new recruits.
“Mal!” called out a small voice, and Trixie came bursting through the crowd and flung her arms around Mal’s waist. “Are you okay? Does your wrist hurt?” she said hurriedly, pulling away.
Mal smiled at Thomas, Rose and Dallas as they walked towards her before she looked back at Trixie and said “only a little bit.”
“Let’s see it then,” Rose said, so Mal raised her wrist and showed them her Spatium, slightly smeared with blood. Trixie and Thomas,
too young to have Spatiums of their own, showed a lot more interest than Rose and Dallas did.
“Feels weird, right?” Dallas said.
“Yeah, sort of,” Mal admitted, flexing her hand. “Do you think everyone will believe I can control fire now?” she asked quietly, trying to make sure no one else could hear her.
“They don’t have any reason not to,” Thomas reasoned. “Besides, the whole thing is seen as more of a fairy tale to tell children than anything else. No one is going to think that you can control light and dark magic.”
That night, the celebrations for the initiations began. Excitedly, Kristy dragged Mal outside onto the grounds, which had transformed from a grassy oval to a veritable wonderland. Strings of fairy lights draped across the branches of the trees, glinting even brighter against the dark forest then the stars did against the ever-darkening sky. Tents made from all the colours of the rainbow had been pitched up, containing clothes, food and accessories that Mal had never seen before. You could almost taste the excitement and joy in the air, radiating from the proud parents and ecstatic new recruits as they raced around the grounds, revelling in the free use of their powers and showing off to the wide-eyed younger children. Mingling with the rookies were the clearly more experienced mages, sending up spiralling columns of fire only to douse them with water to create a hissing sound that made the children scream, or suddenly making giant trees grow out of nowhere, blooming with fragrant flowers with their branches perfectly arranged for climbing.
“Trixie! Over here!” Thomas called, waving his arm in the air to get their attention. Trixie grinned at him and hurried over, pulling Mal with her. Thomas was holding two bags of sweets, and shyly he handed one to Trixie. “I got this for you.”