~
The next day I was woken by the bell again. I clapped as soon as I opened my eyes, wincing with pain; my muscles were aching worse than yesterday. The bell dinged once anyway, and I climbed out of bed, groaning at the movement. The bell, seeing me up and about, fluttered towards the door just as Larni opened it with my uniform for the day. I dressed and ate quickly after she told me that my first class would be history – I’d always wanted my old school to introduce history to the curriculum.
Still munching on the pasty that was my breakfast, I was one of the first to the classroom that my timetable specified. I brightened when I noticed Dena.
“Morning,” she said cheerfully. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore,” I admitted. “Have you ever studied history before?”
“Just normal history,” she replied. “Human history,” she explained to my questioning look.
“Oh,” I hadn’t even thought about it, but of course the magical realm would have a different history to the world that I was familiar with. “This ought to be even more interesting than I thought then!”
Jett let us into the classroom, and we all sat down, some more eager than others.
“Welcome to History,” he began. “This class is also one that I take, so you’re stuck with me, sorry. Right,” he picked up a bit of chalk and set it on the blackboard, where it stayed as though magnetised. “Let’s start from the very beginning, shall we?
“At the beginning of Time, there were nine Ancients; nine beings that were once human, but were no longer. They were transported to this realm, and together, started building it. They planted the forests, raised the mountains, filled the seas and built the cities on every continent. They had their world, now they just needed a population.
“So they shared their gift with the mortal realm, and the first generation of mages came into existence. But the amount of power it had taken to gift the magic to the humans weakened them all, and they became sick.
“The last Ancient, Beltanna, lived long enough to see their world begin to divide; dark and light, good and evil. And so she turned to the Academy, where students were learning their craft, and cast a curse over the students and those to come.
“Beltanna was so lonely in her final years that she decided to create a bond between students; a bond so unbreakable that they’d never be alone again. She divided the soul of every mage, so that each half would be able to find each other, and every mage would always have a partner.”
“Which brings us to our next order of business,” everyone jumped as Iain spoke; no one had heard him enter the classroom. “The soul mate ceremony will be held tonight. Obviously it is compulsory for everybody to attend.”
He left before anyone could ask anything. My heart was beating unnaturally fast – I thought I’d done quite well on my own. I didn’t need someone by my side for all eternity.
“Next week we’ll go over some of the finer details of history,” Jett was saying, trying to bring everyone’s attention back to him. “But I’m letting you go early so that you can be ready for the ceremony tonight. Eat and dress; someone will come to collect you.”
I left the classroom and headed back to my room before Dena could catch up. My thoughts were racing furiously, and I needed to be alone.
A soul mate? I was doing perfectly well with only half a soul in my opinion. I didn’t like relying on other people, full stop.
I bathed quickly, avoiding the other girls as much as possible. After a while I remembered that someone was supposed to be coming up to collect me, and clambered out of the bath tub, dressing in leggings and a tunic for the trip back to my room. When I returned, I noticed that someone had laid out a white dress bag on my bed. I picked it up and untied it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
A plain white dress hung on the wooden hanger. I was mortified. I felt like throwing it back down on the bed, but I decided to obey my instructions - for now.
Wincing, I pulled on the dress and laced it up. There was a long mirror beside the dresser and I approached it warily. After the bath, my skin glowed and my green eyes were highlighted by the cream colour of my skin. My long brown hair hung loose from its plait, adding contrast to the stunning pure white of the dress, which was sleeveless with a laced bodice and a flowing skirt that stopped just past my knees. I searched for shoes but couldn’t find any, and eventually came to the conclusion that I was supposed to go barefoot.
There was a quiet knock at the door and I pulled it open. Jett stood there, and upon seeing me in the dress, broke into an enormous grin.
“I wouldn’t have figured you for one to wear dresses, Sky.”
“I’m not, but I get the impression I’m supposed to wear this,” I replied. “Tell me more about these soul mates.”
“All mages have soul mates. Not anything romantic like, just best friends. They're your partner through life; nothing can deter a soul mate. It would happen naturally with time, but to speed things up we have a ceremony, to help soul mates find each other.”
“How so?” I asked, dreading the answer.
He grinned again, proving my apprehension to be spot on.
“Dancing.” He replied.
“No.” I said, half in disbelief and half refusing to.
“Yep. Don’t you love tradition?” He chuckled.
“Not particularly. So what happens?” I was beginning to drag my feet, reluctant as ever. It felt the same as having to go to the doctors to get an injection; you knew you had to, you just really didn’t want to.
“There will be a short speech, and then there will be music for the dancing,” he saw me cringe. “Things happen naturally, don’t worry. You’ll be pulled subconsciously towards your soul mate and will end up in pairs. Soul mates can be any two people, no matter what age, gender or race. There’s just one thing you don’t do.”
“Which is?”
Jett glanced at me, and then looked away.
“Never fall in love with them.”
“What? But you said it wasn’t anything romantic like.”
“Some people have a tendency to disobey tradition. Trust me, the repercussions aren’t worth it.”
We walked quietly for a few seconds. I let the information sink in and watched Jett stride along the corridor. I was practically running to keep up with him, eager to keep up the conversation but not reach our destination.
“Who’s your soul mate?”
“I don’t know you that well… through here.”
He pushed a pair of double doors open and swept inside. I scrambled after him.
It was the same hall that we’d been tested in the previous morning, filled with my classmates. As I walked to Dena, I noticed the dark haired boy standing apart from the rest, leaning against the wall, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His arms were folded but his gaze was centred on me. I looked away and just kept walking. The room went quiet as Iain walked to the centre of the room.
“Welcome to the soul ceremony. Your escort should’ve told you what this is, so I’m not going to waste any more time.”
He strode to the side of the hall and raised his arms. My skin prickled as I realised he was using magic. As he slowly lowered his arms, the atmosphere inside the hall rose, the torches died down and the lone sound of a flute rang throughout the hall. The air was charged with tension, and beautiful music filtered from somewhere unseen. Flutes, cellos and a lone acoustic guitar rose and fell together in a magical harmony.
Just as I was beginning to think that this wasn’t so bad, a blindfold was slipped over my eyes.
“Sorry,” Jett whispered in my ear. “Souls are blind and so are you.”
He moved away and I heard him murmur the same thing to Dena.
Now very disorientated, I stood very still and held my arms out, lest I bump into anyone.
I heard the others move away from me. My fingers picked at the blindfold and the music continued to play, but the knot wouldn’t come l
oose, and I let my hands drop.
I would play it by their rules, but I would not, could not, dance.
Instead, I began to walk. Across the hall, through my classmates. I should’ve been buffered by the others, but I moved through them unhindered.
I could sense someone doing exactly the same thing, heading straight towards me. Turns out my soul mate had had the same idea.
I stretched out, entwining my fingers with theirs. For one crazy moment I thought it was Dena until I realised how rough the hands I was holding were.
Suddenly, I felt flames race down my arms. They ignited on our entwined fingers, and I felt their magic respond in kind. The power and ferocity of this unexpected magic took us both by surprise and before I could control it, the music stopped, and Iain spoke again.
“Mages, you’ve found your soul mates… Congratulations.”
The blindfold around my eyes unravelled and fell to the ground. I blinked, disorientated by the sudden light in the room, and realised I was holding the hand of the dark haired boy with the fire eyes, flames of orange and green burning together over our fingertips.
For the tiniest second, something sparked in his eyes as he looked at me, but then he dropped my hand, our combined fire extinguishing immediately and I knew I’d imagined it.
“Pairs line up.” Iain continued.
Everyone else, I now noticed, had also gathered in pairs. Eleanora was paired with a young man with blonde hair, who she obviously recognised.
Netalia spoke to them quietly and then moved onto the next pair; Dena and the red headed girl she’d run the course with yesterday. All of the other soul mate pairs were standing close together, but mine stood away from me.
Netalia reached us, and I suddenly realised I was about to find out his name. As she looked upon us both standing together, her eyes widened slightly, and she looked over her shoulder at Iain who stood immobile. After a few seconds, she looked back at us and smiled nervously.
“Phoenix and Sky, congratulations on finding one another.”
“Phoenix, huh?” I asked, speaking for the first time since the blindfold had been removed. He barely glanced at me. “A legendary bird of flame is a pretty awesome namesake.”
“Maybe,” he replied simply.
I frowned but didn’t respond. My heart was beating rapidly and I felt slightly sick, but it was over, the dancing was over, and I could relax.
Outside, the sun began to set, bathing the hall in orange light. I chanced a glance at Phoenix and noticed his eyes were exactly the same colour as the sun burning on the horizon.
And I realised that my own heart was burning in sync with both of them.
Soul Fire Page 11