by N. M. Howell
“Fine, but if you change your mind, the offer stands.”
They reached the apartment and Andie unlocked the door. The repairman was gone, but he’d left some things in the corner, which meant he’d probably be back. Andie took the food from Raesh and placed it inside the fridge. She walked over to the window, back to that great view, and sat on the windowsill. Raesh came over.
“I don’t remember inviting you in,” she said, smirking.
“Well, I know you needed help bringing in the heavy plate. Plus, I’m not a vampire.”
“Oh, can you even imagine living with vampires?”
“Absolutely not, I bet it was terrifying. I’m so glad they got wiped out. I don’t know which was worse: the mind controlling or the flying.”
“I vote mind control.”
“Yeah, but you know what? I’d have fun with that one.”
Andie laughed, glad of having made at least one friend. Nothing could ever truly take her mind off her father or the task ahead of her, and she definitely couldn’t be distracted from the danger, but Raesh was just the person she needed to meet on the first night. He was kind, friendly, welcoming, and in a way, he reminded her of home. There was something about him that was patient, deliberate. She knew he liked her and he wasn’t shy at showing it, but he wasn’t pushing himself on her. He was sweet.
“You know, even after the vampires, our parents’ generation faced terrible times,” he said, his smile fading into a grave expression. “They were all brave. They had to be.”
“You mean the terrorist attacks in Taline?”
“And the other thing. The Quelling.”
For a moment, Andie stopped breathing.
Not this. Any subject in the world but this. Something in her chest constricted, tightened beyond belief at the thought of what she’d lost and what her father had suffered. Even after eighteen years, it still hurt. There were a lot of things about her family before the Quelling that she had forgotten, but she could never forget the night itself. Never.
“I… I don’t even know how to ask this,” Raesh began. “I don’t even know if I should, but looking at you now, I think I have to. I’ve heard stories about your father my entire life. Are the rumors true? Was it really a spell that went wrong?”
“I really don’t want to talk about that, Raesh,” she snapped.
Raesh looked away, embarrassed or ashamed, she didn’t know which. She instantly regretted what she’d said and how she’d said it. After all, there was no way he could’ve understood the emotional pain that she had to endure ever since the accident. Even she could barely understand it, and it was her own pain.
“Look. I’m sorry. I’m just really tired. All the trains I’ve been on today, I guess. Can we please just continue this conversation later?”
“Ah, the old ‘later’ ploy, right? How original.” He laughed. She laughed, too. Neither of them meant it.
Raesh turned and headed to the door, and Andie watched and wished there was something she could say to make up for the mood she’d ruined. He really had been great to her, and after the dizzying reception she’d gotten when first arriving in the city, she really needed Raesh’s comforting presence that night. He turned back at the door.
“We don’t need to continue this,” he said. “I can see on your face how much it hurts. We can talk about whatever you want. We don’t ever need to discuss this again.”
He turned to leave and was almost out of the door when she stopped him.
“Raesh. Thank you for sharing with me earlier. About your family and how much you want magic. That was really nice.”
He smiled that warm smile of his and left. Andie sighed and leaned back against the wall. She was alone again with her thoughts. Always alone with her thoughts.
Andie sat in bed and prepared to lay down as she watched the reflection of the setting sun bounce off the shining glass walls of the building across the street. She’d gotten everything ready for the next day, and there was nothing left except to be anxious and to implant her icon. She wasn’t in a hurry to have the university monitor every move and magical use, but there was no way around it. If she was going to commit to her studies at the University, she had to conform to their rules.
“Here goes my freedom,” she said to herself.
She held the icon in the palm of her hand and took a deep, shuddering breath.
“I, Andie Rogers, of sound mind and spirit, do take the oath of the Academy and accept my duties, responsibilities, and limitations as a student of this great body.”
As the final syllable passed her lips, the icon rolled over in her hand and vanished under her skin in a soft flash of golden light. At first, she didn’t feel anything, even after turning her hand over and making a few fists, but then the cold set in. Then the heat. Together, the impossible sensation of hot and cold flowed through her veins and to her heart, and from there, it was sent through her entire body. She opened her mouth in a silent scream as a violent convulsion made its way from head to toe. The feeling only lasted a moment, though, and it faded with every beat of her heart until she felt perfectly like herself again. She laid back in bed and kicked herself under the covers.
Sleep didn’t come easy, but that was unsurprising, and tonight she had even more on her mind. She tried to suppress the memories of what happened to her mother and her father’s accident. She tried to trust Mirth, the healer who was staying with her father back home. Of course, there was also her new life in the city to consider. This city that didn’t seem as welcoming or as promising as she had hoped. She’d given up trying to see the silver lining in Arvall City after she’d picked up the rest of her books earlier. Thinking of the books made her remember.
She rolled over and reached under the bed to retrieve the bag she’d hidden there earlier. She opened it and then uncovered the secret compartment in the bottom of it. She dropped the bag and opened the book on her lap. It was dusty. From Dragons to Men. A history of dragon-blooded people and their magic. She wanted so badly to flip through it with relish, as she did almost every night, but she had enough on her mind. She closed it and locked it away in the cabinet of the nightstand, and slid the key into her pocket.
She laid down again, trying to block out the blackness of her thoughts. But she couldn’t suppress them and she knew there was only one way that she would be able to get to sleep. She let it all in, all the worry and pain and memories, and once they rooted themselves deep in her mind, she accepted that everything was her fault. After that, the guilt crushed her into sleep.
She dreamed again. She’d been dreaming the same dream for years and only the way she saw it changed.
It always began the same.
She stared out in front of her, through an odd and exciting haze. Somewhere in the haze, there is a mirror that isn’t clear. She can’t tell if it was because of the haze or if the mirror itself was somehow… wrong. All she knew was that the mirror was really a window—a sight into some other world or other life—and that she must see through somehow. She has to know what’s there to see.
And then a sound. Slight, soft, hardly a sound at all, almost as if it were only made of the most delicate of sounds for certain ears to hear. It was the smallest of echoes.
Over the years, the haze lightened and lifted until finally it subsided. Eventually, she could see a field and a woman standing in the middle of it. Beautiful, majestic, and covered in blood, the woman reached out, maybe to Andie, maybe to the universe, and then fire fell from the sky in terrifying waves of light and flames and brilliant destruction.
The sound cleared as well and revealed itself to be the woman’s voice. Louder and louder it grew. She was screaming. The woman in the field who was drenched in blood, who seemed to be destroying the earth, was screaming for help.
Andie woke violently, sweating and breathing as if she’d just finished a race. She was shivering, from fear or sweat it didn’t matter. The iridescent pattern on her left arm burned as it always did after the dream. She was
thankful that she only had the trace in one spot on her body. For now.
Something compelled her to move, to run, to escape the bed and the room and the apartment. A dark energy that shrouded her mind and made her desperate to clear her head. She jumped out of bed and pulled on her favorite pair of jeans and a faded t-shirt that she had left piled on the floor in her late-night exhaustion, and hurried through her room and into the hallway, slipping on a pair of flats and grabbing a crumpled sweatshirt on her way out. She stopped for a quick breath, a moment to clear her mind and realize that the dream was over. That she was safe.
She didn’t know what made her run from her room. It could’ve been fear, but she was never one to show herself to be a coward. It had to be something more, and maybe she’d never know until she understood the dream itself. She turned and headed down the stairs. Maybe Marvo was up and could make her some coffee at the restaurant. At the bottom of the stairs she halted, shocked by the sight.
The restaurant was completely full; people were everywhere, eating, drinking, or waiting for their order. There weren’t even any open chairs. She wondered what they were all doing there so early in the morning, until she looked to the front of the place, where the giant panes of glass that made the storefront showed that it was late morning. The sun was already halfway across the sky. Then she heard laughter. She turned and saw Raesh, posted in the corner with a steaming cup, taking a break or slacking off. He was watching her.
“I was just getting ready to come up and wake you. You’re gonna be late.”
Andie’s eyes widened with the realization that she had slept through the night. Without so much of a glance at her watch, she ran out the door into the warm late-morning light and raced down the cobbled street towards the direction of the University.
Her arm burned and with a mad panic, she realized the iridescent glow on her arm was visible. She desperately pulled on her sweatshirt and tugged down the sleeves to cover the evidence, panting from the exertion of her sudden and unexpected sprint. She couldn’t let anyone see.
She contemplated turning back to get her backpack when she realized she had left it behind, but her legs propelled her ever forward down the long and winding roads of Arvall City, towards the great walls of the University. She ran her hands down her jeans as she walked, and was relieved when she found her class schedule and University map folded in her back pocket. At least she would be able to find her way to class. She held it tightly in her hand as she trudged onward.
She couldn’t be late and risk expulsion. Not now. Not when she needed answers the most.
Chapter 3
Andie couldn’t miss another day. If she missed even one class today, she would blow her shot at learning to control her powers and discover her abilities forever. Nineteen is the oldest age the Academy accepted without a special letter of recommendation, which she had no way of getting, and the first eleven days are the most a student can miss before they forfeit the year. The Academy opens its door on the two hundredth day of each year, and today was the two hundredth and twelfth day. Crunch time.
She raced through the streets toward SKY 6. Without meaning to, her powers manifested in her haste and before she realized it, her magic was pushing people aside and creating a clear path for her. She stopped and checked the icon; it was glowing faintly, warning her against using her magic, but as long as she kept it to small things - and nothing too frequent - she would be okay. Realizing she would never make it in time at this pace, she tried hailing a cab, but not a single one stopped.
All at once, she felt everything: her tardiness, her new life, her anxiety, her hurry, the sights, the sounds, the hard and steady breath of Arvall City, and she felt overwhelmed with the energy and activity.
“So, this is what it’s like?” she wondered out loud.
As if in rude answer, someone snatched her folded map from her hand and waved it before her eyes. “What’s this, now?” a husky voice taunted her. “An antique, is it? Looks valuable.”
Andie glowered at the man. “Not valuable, but I do rather need it. Hand it back.”
The man smiled a toothy grin. “Nah, looks of value to me.” And with a final wink he turned on his heels and ran back the way Andie had just come.
Her mind was still floating in wonder, but luckily her body reacted on instinct. She turned and was chasing him down the street, across the intersection, around two corners, and finally into an alley. She needed that damn map to get to the University, and she wasn’t going to let some petty thief ruin her chances of getting there.
On and on they ran, rounding corners and racing down alleyways. The thief had been tiring steadily, but growing up in a rural area had bred Andie for this moment. She caught him and threw her weight on him. They both came crashing down, but Andie hit her head on the stone of the alley floor. For a moment, she was dazed and the world swam before her eyes while the thief scrambled to his feet and grabbed her map again.
When he saw that Andie had hit her head, he took a moment to catch his breath. He looked down at her and laughed. At least, until he saw the cut on her head begin to heal. He gasped, dropped the map, and took off running as if the great dragon Gordric himself were chasing him. He knew what everyone knew. Healing is a sign of dragon magic. Andie saw the fear on his face and suddenly only that look mattered to her.
“No, wait!” she screamed.
But he was already gone. She cursed herself—her lack of control and her dragon blood—and hoped he would be frightened enough to keep his mouth shut. She stood up and folded the now crumpled map, which was fortunately still in one piece. Why someone would want to steal a piece of paper, she had no idea. She slid it in her back pocket and looked around to regather her bearings.
Now, she had even less time. She turned and started off at a jog, and then she remembered. The icon. She stopped mid-stride and checked her palm. Nothing. It was glowing again, warning her, but no alarm was sounded, no searing pain. It was unbelievable. She couldn’t be that lucky. She waited and waited and waited, but nothing happened.
“They must not be able to detect dragon blood,” she mused out loud. “That’s the only explanation.”
After a few more moments of nothing, she started walking again. She decided to simply see how it acted on her way to the Academy. She kept her head low and ran.
Somewhere along her route, after getting lost in the baffling streets of University Park, Andie caught a cab. It dropped her at the train station and she only just managed to board before the doors closed. While she rode the train up the mountain, almost completely vertical, she gathered her books into her bag and fixed herself.
All the trains were charmed so that the relative gravity inside the cars didn’t change. Everyone could walk around just as they would on level ground. The train seemed to reach the top faster than it had the day before, but she knew it was only her nerves. Once off the train, she was running again, almost leaping to catch the class that started in two minutes. She began to slow as she got closer to the front doors and then she looked up and took a good look at that magnificent black marble.
“You going to come in or just stare at the damn thing?” asked a voice beside her.
Andie turned to face a beautiful girl. She had a familiar smile. It took Andie a moment to realize that it was familiar because it reminded her of Raesh.
“Are you Carmen?” Andie asked. “Raesh’s cousin?”
“Guilty,” she said, looking coy as if she knew something she might or might not share. “And you’re the prodigy girl with the dad who spelled himself into an almost vegetative state.” She shook her head as if watching a kitten try to climb something it couldn’t understand was too tall.
Andie’s jaw dropped a little at Carmen’s complete tactlessness.
“Don’t feel bad, sweetie. This is the city. We’ve all got sad stories here.”
“Do you all say what you’re thinking without any concern for people’s feelings?”
“You’re upset. And you have a ri
ght to be. Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any disrespect to you or your father. I barely have the semblance of a filter. The truth is, that no one in Vall is going to play by your country rules of hospitality and patience. It just won’t fly here. But, for my part, I apologize.”
“Thanks,” Andie said, not quite sure how else to respond to the girl.
Carmen looked Andie over from head to toe, scanning with intense concentration as if she were x-raying her skeleton. Then she looked Andie right in her eyes and smiled that beautiful, warm, familiar smile. Andie could tell that even if she was uncouth, she was genuine.
“I really should get going,” Andie said. “My class is starting practically as we speak.”
“Morning classes? Black the stars, girl.”
“What?”
“Black the stars. It means something like ‘I can’t believe it.’”
“Ah. Well, I’ll have to catch up on the language, I guess,” Andie laughed. “I’ll see you around?”
“Yes, you will. I’ll be looking out for you. Which is a big deal because it’s not something I would normally do, even for a girl my cousin has a crush on.” She winked.
“He doesn’t have a crush on me,” Andie said, suddenly defensive. She looked down at her feet as she felt her face redden, knowing full well that it was true.
“Not sure why you said that or which one of us you think is stupid enough to believe it, but he most certainly does and you know it, don’t you?” Carmen asked with a grin. “Just let him down easy.”
With that she pushed Andie through the front doors.
CONTINUE READING
About the Author
N.M. Howell is an author, publisher, and all-around nerd from the West Coast of Canada. She has an obsession with coffee, spicy food, and the rain, and she absolutely hates sleeves (seriously, they’re like little fabric prisons)! When not working on her latest book - or latest ten books, more realistically - she spends her time designing buildings and fighting with her micro-wolf pup over who gets the best spot on the couch. Hint: the dog often wins.