by Raine, Eliza
I chose to go left, and began following the path around the tower. I had only gone a few paces when I saw a stable door in the tower wall. I crept up to it, gripped the top and peered over. The pegasus inside was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Ever. It was laying down, like a normal horse would, white coat gleaming in the dark. But wrapped carefully around the flank facing me was an enormous wing. The feathers at the top were as big as my arm, tapering down in size until they were as small and delicate as a hair at the bottom. I let out a long breath, awe flooding my system. It shifted slightly, and I let go, stepping backwards. I didn’t want to disturb the creature. Adrenaline surging through me, I moved on, peeking over every stable door I passed. There were animals of every shade of brown, black and cream, as well as a few all white ones. Eventually I reached a stable where the pegasus inside was awake. He was a rich chestnut brown and he was standing, eating from a hanging bowl, when I looked over the top of the stable door. He froze, then turned slowly to me. I froze too, staring back. He gave a little whinny, and shook out his massive wings, making me gasp aloud. For the second he had them extended they almost filled his little stable, but he folded them back quickly, his dark eyes fixed on mine. Was he warning me off?
‘Hi,’ I whispered. ‘I’m new here. I’m Pandora.’
He stared at me a little longer, then flicked his tail and went back to his food. The interaction left me giddy. Friday afternoon - when I actually got to ride one of these amazing creatures - couldn’t come soon enough, I thought as I stepped back from the door. I kept walking along the path around the tower, sure there mustn’t be many doors left now before I got back to the corridor, when I heard voices and stopped. Where were they coming from? A low, whispering chant carried on the wind and I crept towards the source of it. There was a light flickering behind one of the stable doors. I made sure my steps were silent as I reached the door and slowly peeked over it. A boy and a girl were sitting cross legged in the middle of an otherwise empty stable, either side of a small fire. They both had silver-white hair and I was sure I had seen them around, but there were so many remarkable people at the Academy that I hadn’t paid them much attention. They must be related, I thought, as I looked at their shared high cheekbones and thin lips. What were they chanting?
‘It’s no good, Vronti,’ said the girl, suddenly, breaking off the chant. ‘He’s not coming.’
‘You don’t know that,’ snapped the boy, who must be Vronti.
‘I do, because we’ve been here for nearly an hour and he’s not here. I’m getting cold.’
‘Astra, you’re always cold,’ he answered, rolling his eyes. ‘Zeus told us we had to tell him if anything important happened at the academy, so we need to keep trying.’
‘He probably already knows. He is the lord of the gods. He must know everything.’ She reached out, warming her hands over the fire.
‘He trusted us with this, Astra. We’re not going to let him down.’
‘Fine,’ she sighed, and they started chanting again.
A chill ran through me. If they were trying to summon Zeus, I should get out of there, quick. Dasko said Zeus wouldn’t be my biggest fan. But… what did they want to tell him? What weird thing had happened at the Academy Zeus needed to know about? The paranoid part of my conscious spoke inside my head.
You. You’re what they need to warn Zeus about. Another Titan to imprison in eternal torture.
I shook my head. There was no way I was important enough to talk to Zeus about. I was being silly. A loud neighing sound and a huge gust of wind made the brother and sister stop chanting, and I ducked as they both looked towards the stable door.
‘Why are the pegasi making all that noise?’ Vronti asked.
‘I don’t know. Go and check it out,’ answered Astra. I heard the shuffling sounds of the boy getting to his feet and I ran, as quietly as I could, along the path to the corridor. I didn’t stop until I skidded into the hauler, pulling the grate across behind me. It started moving down quickly and I let out a sigh of relief. The little voice in my head stayed with me though, all the way back to my dorm room, warning me of Zeus until I finally fell asleep.
12
My first class the next morning was Geography of Olympus. And although it wasn’t anywhere near as exciting as the magic classes, I was looking forward to it as I wolfed down the last of my toast. Olympus sounded like the most fantastic place, and the little bits I’d heard about it had just made me want to know more.
I checked my timetable for the color of the curtain I needed to find, then found the correct arch on the left hand side of the room. When I pushed through I wasn’t surprised to see the classroom empty, except for Icarus. He sighed when he saw me.
‘Great. Another lesson for babies,’ he grumbled.
‘Why are you even in this class? Didn’t you grow up in Olympus?’ I snapped, setting my bag down and sitting as far away from him as I could. His face darkened and he didn’t answer me. The classroom was identical to the one we had been in yesterday for History of Mythology, a huge flame dish in front of us.
‘Good morning, students,’ Chiron’s voice rang out and I turned happily to see the centaur entering the room.
‘Chiron! Do you take this class?’
‘I certainly do, young Pandora. How are you settling in?’
‘Good, thank you,’ I answered.
‘Excellent. Now, if I recall, you had lots of questions about Olympus when you arrived.’
‘She has lots of questions about everything,’ muttered Icarus. I glared at him. Chiron continued on, ignoring him.
‘As I told you before, Olympus has twelve realms.’ He waved his hand and the flames in the iron dish leapt to life, flashing white, then a map appeared in their place.
‘Zeus’s realm is at the centre, as befitting the lord of the gods. His and Athena’s realms are in the sky. Poseidon and Hephaestus have underwater realms, and the rest are islands. Hades, Artemis, Aphrodite and Hephaestus only let certain races or people in their realms, so they are known as the forbidden realms. Ares realm is exceptionally dangerous and is populated by many barbaric warrior tribes.’
I squinted at the map, making out the names of the realms.
‘Those are star signs in my world,’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes. Mythology has lots of ancient ties with astrology.’
I hunted out my star sign.
‘Taurus is Dionysus’s realm. What’s that like?’
‘Forestland, mostly. The citizens live in houses built into the trees,’ Chiron answered.
‘And get drunk and party most of the time,’ Icarus snorted.
‘Have you been there?’ I asked him. He shook his head, his dark hair brushing across his forehead. ‘How do you know that then?’
‘Everyone knows that. Dionysus is the god of wine, new girl.’
‘It’s true that there are a lot of balls and parties on Taurus,’ said Chiron gently, cutting off my retort. ‘Taurean royal families are quite notorious.’
‘Royal families?’
‘Yes. Most of the realms have kings and queens to look after certain areas, so that the gods have time to do what they like.’
‘Like what?’
Chiron gave a little chuckle.
‘That, Pandora, is a question nobody will ever know the answer to.’
I was given a copy of the map on a piece of paper and then Chiron told us about the flying ships that people used to travel between the realms. I knew a little about them from the dice game we were playing the night before, but they sounded even more amazing when Chiron described them.
The gong rang for the next lesson and I fished out my time-table. Archery. I said bye to Chiron, then flashed Icarus a look as I left the classroom, heading out to training ground. Tak was there already, pulling a bow out of one of the tall stone containers.
‘Pandora,’ he smiled as I reached him. Behind him I saw a flash of white hair and my heart skipped in my chest, nerves fluttering as I rem
embered last night. I stepped around Tak and saw both the boy and girl, comparing bows and chatting. They were even more striking to look at in the day, the girl’s shining silvery hair tied in a high, complicated knot.
‘Who are they?’ I asked Tak, pointing at them. Tak turned to look.
‘Oh, you’ll be wanting to avoid them. That’s Vronti and Astra, they’re twins and Zeus's descendants.’ My heart skipped again.
‘Why should I avoid them?’ I asked, nervously.
‘They’re strange. And really powerful.’
‘That’s no reason to avoid them,’ I said.
‘You’re a Titan. Zeus isn’t fond of Titans, remember?’ Tak said, and turned back to his bow. Like I could forget. The thought of the endless pit of torture gripped at me for the millionth time and I shuddered. Then Vronti looked straight at me, his grey, stormy eyes piercing mine and I looked away quickly. Tak was right. They were probably best avoided.
It turned out Chiron took archery class too. As creatures of Artemis - goddess of the hunt and archery, centaurs were unrivaled with a bow and arrow. By the end of the class I was sure I was getting more of my arrows into the target than onto the floor, and my confidence was a bit higher as we made our way into the main temple for lunch. Zali was raving about being able to communicate slightly with a mouse in her last telepathy class and I was happy to sit and listen to her talk at a hundred miles an hour about it. Her excitement was actually quite infectious. I wondered how good I would be at telepathy when I had my first class on Friday.
After lunch I made my way to the elemental building, unsure what to expect. I didn’t even know which element I would be trying and likely failing to control today. Professor Dasko was waiting by the front of the building, students pouring past him into each of the different rooms.
‘Pandora!’ he waved. I jogged over to him. ‘We’ll be carrying on with water today, as nobody else has water class just now so we’ll have the space to ourselves.’
I was relieved to hear that I wouldn’t have an audience, but a little disappointed that I wouldn’t get to see what my classmates could do.
‘Seriously?’ a sullen voice said behind me. I whirled around. Icarus was standing there, his bag slung over one shoulder, hair in his eyes as always. ‘Are you in all my classes now?’
‘I think you’ll find that you’re in all of mine,’ I replied haughtily. He stamped past me to the water door, and pushed it open.
‘I thought today I’d give you a little demonstration, in the hope that it will motivate you,’ Dasko said once we were inside. The sound of the water running down the back wall was relaxing and I dropped my bag on the floor. Professor Dasko had his back to the waterfall, and he closed his eyes and bowed his head. I glanced sideways at Icarus, who folded his arms. Then suddenly there was a roar, and a dragon, made completely from water flew over the professor’s head towards us. Dasko opened his eyes and laughed as he whirled around, sweeping his arms in a big arc. The dragon followed his movement, soaring around the room, beating its huge water wings. A delighted laugh burst from my mouth and I reached up to try touch the thing as it swooped low over me, spraying me with cool water. It was spectacular. Beyond spectacular. I watched in awe as Dasko turned slowly back towards the wall and the dragon melded into it, becoming the steady waterfall down the wall again.
‘Please tell me you can teach me to do that,’ I whispered. Dasko smiled at me.
‘If you have any of the power of Oceanus, we can sure try.’
I stood in front of the waterfall for an hour, closing my eyes and doing exactly what Dasko told me to do. He said I was to imagine the water running through my own veins, becoming a part of me, reacting to my will. I’d never been able to meditate, my mind was always too full of ideas and questions, but I imagined what I was doing must feel similar. There was something so calming about feeling the water running over my hands and concentrating on nothing else. A few times I was able to draw the flow of water towards me a little, but I didn’t really feel anything special when I did it, and it didn’t last long. Icarus was able to pull tendrils of water out of the flow towards him, and swirl them around a bit, before they fell to the floor with a splash. I felt guilty for resenting him for making more progress than me, and reminded myself that it was only my second day at the academy.
When the gong sounded I moved reluctantly away from the water wall to get my bag, wishing I had more time to practice.
‘Before you both go,’ said Dasko and we turned to him. ‘I’ve finished translating that clue. I wanted to see if either of you could shed any light on it.’ He handed us both an envelope. ‘Don’t look at it yet, or you’ll be late for your next class, but see what you think later.’
The thought of not being able to open a sealed envelope with a secret clue in it nearly killed me, but my next class was Shifting and Dasko was right, I couldn’t be late. Not for the first one.
I left the water room and headed to the spiral staircase on the side of the building. Other than Icarus, just behind me, I couldn’t see any students around so I took the stairs two at a time, panting slightly for breath when I reached the top. Twenty or so students standing in a group turned and stared at me as I straightened up and I felt my face flush. I spotted Zali and walked quickly over to her and a low chatter started up.
‘Why were you running?’ she asked me.
‘I was worried I was going to be late,’ I answered as I looked around the rooftop. Icarus had just reached the top of the staircase. There was a waist high railing around the whole space, and to my surprise a small pool in the middle, just big enough for one or two people. A couple of massive iron rings were attached to the floor and chains with manacles on the end were secured to them. ‘What are those for?’ I asked Zali.
‘Oh, the vicious shifters,’ she shrugged.
‘What? What vicious shifters?’
‘Some kids turn into lions or manticores or dragons and stuff. It helps to make sure they can’t get too far in case they lose control.’
I gaped at her, for probably the hundredth time since joining the academy.
‘Into pairs, please!’ called a familiar voice and Miss Alma appeared at the top of the staircase. ‘Pandora, with me for today,’ she added, as I turned to Zali. I suppressed a scowl and Zali gave me a reassuring little nod and a thumbs up.
‘I assume you haven’t tried shifting before?’ Miss Alma asked me as I reached her. I shook my head. ‘OK. What animal do you feel you have the most affinity with?’
I thought about that. I really, really didn’t think I would be able to shift into anything, which I guessed was why I wasn’t all that excited about this class.
‘Maybe something in the water?’ I offered, half-heartedly.
‘That’s not good enough,’ she said seriously.
I tried again.
‘Whales are pretty cool,’ I said, thinking of the pod I’d seen the night before. I heard a loud snort from behind me.
‘You want to shift into a whale? What use would that be?’ Icarus said mockingly as I turned to him, my face flushing again. He didn’t have a partner and was standing alone a few feet from us.
‘Icarus, take off your shirt and practice on your wings,’ Miss Alma said impatiently. He screwed his face up and marched off towards the other side of the rooftop. A waving, shimmering light caught my attention as I watched him go and suddenly a huge, silver eagle was perched on the roof with us. It was massive, easily the size of a human and it cawed as it spread its beautiful wings, shining with silver feathers.
‘Very good Astra. You can go and fly if you like,’ called Miss Alma, and the eagle took off, soaring up towards the top of the dome. The teacher turned back to me.
‘Few students can shift with as much control as her. Very impressive,’ she said absently. ‘Right, where were we. Oh, yes. I think Icarus may be right, a whale would be a little awkward.’
Embarrassment burned through me.
‘Why don’t we try a few things firs
t to see if you have any talent for shifting.’
She instructed me to think really hard about one part of my body, and imagine the cells reforming into something else. I stared at my toes until my eyes streamed, willing them to shimmer or go wavy or even tingle, but nothing happened. Giving up, I watched, a little apprehensively, as a boy attached one of the manacles to himself, then closed his eyes and went red in the face as he concentrated. Then, with a roar he morphed, a massive creature with wings and teeth and claws flashing in his place for a split second before he was back, panting and sweating.