Survival (Sorrowfeld Academy Book 1)

by Bob Dattolo

  Another rub at his head. “I’m a fire mage. You’re all whatever you are. We all have pluses and minuses when it comes to using our power. We all have benefits and penalties. The current frontrunner when it comes to affinities isn’t how we have them. It’s why we have them. And the why? It’s because without them, any of us would be too powerful.” He paused at the shocked looks from the other kids around me. Even Levi had the same look. “Right. We’re somewhat like a game of rock, paper, scissors. We’re strong where others are weak. We’re weak where others are strong. Both mages and dragons.” He let that sink in as he started pacing. “I’m not sure how many of you have lived in the norm world, away from mages or dragons?” No one indicated they had. “I’m not shocked. Yet I’d bet every one of you has at least some inkling about the regular world. We see it with our parents or our peers or our heroes. You’ll spend more time in it when you’re done with school, that’s for sure. The general consensus out there is that we’re pretty cool. Awesome. Dragons can fly. Both sides of us can cast spells. Even the weakest spell is pretty spectacular to most norms out there. Yet a large number of them see and get stuck on the fighting. There have been numerous attempts to pass laws to control the academies and what happens here. To protect the children more.” He gestured to us, “To protect you. Our world is dangerous. We make it more dangerous. Is it on purpose? That, I can’t say. It’s been like this since my parents were your age, and that was a long time ago. Maybe it’s part of us. Maybe it’s forced on us. Either way, it’s our culture now and something we all have to deal with.”

  He took a deep breath and came to a stop. “Back to affinities? As I said, the general idea is that they exist to provide a counterbalance to another. It allows norms to run to a fire mage when an ice mage is causing issues. Or the other way around.”

  I couldn’t help asking, “Is there any way to change your affinity? Has anyone ever done it?”

  He froze for a second and blinked at me before kicking back into motion, “There’s no way that we know of. Some tests and studies have been done with unborn children, but they were useless. It was thought that you could steer your children to one or another. The mother eats foods high in iron and they end up with a metal mage. That sort of thing? None of them have ever worked. Based on the science, none of them will ever work. Genetics for the win, at least with current science. Maybe they’ll be able to do it at some point and manipulate babies and change their genetics. Frankly, that scares me a little, because of the potential for danger.”

  Hmm, “That’s affinities. What about magic, though? The book’s pretty weak on what magic is.”

  The kids stared at me, with a number making snide comments. Colin leaned closer, “Why are you even bothering? You’re gonna be dead before dinner!”

  “Keep talking, princess. I’ll think of you when I’m masturbating while feeling your power inside of me. That’ll be the only way you’ll ever satisfy a girl.”

  He hit the desk and started to stand, only to get stopped by a wash of fire coming off of our teacher. “No! No fighting in this class. Save it.” Colin sat down. He so doesn’t want to. “To at least somewhat answer your question, Maddie? We honestly don’t know what magic is. We know it’s a force that some people can access. We can direct it with our will when we follow the process. Is it quantum energy? What magic is has been studied and investigated ad nauseum, with no one claiming to know for sure either way.”

  Levi glared at me as he spoke, “Can you explain why our power is tied to our eyes? And how a filthy stricken loses everything when mortmagi are used on them? How they scream and cry and beg not to be turned into animals?”

  Every single eye in the place turned to me. Well, except mine. That’d just be weird. I don’t think they were expecting me to laugh. “Wow, took you long enough to ask that, goldilocks. You been practicing the tricky words, so you don’t look like an idiot in front of the others? No, wait, sorry, so you don’t sound like an idiot in front of the others? Can’t do anything about your looks at this point.”

  Parece’s soft, “Jesus fucking Christ!” nearly got me to laugh.

  Kaylee gasped, and I can smell increased fear from her.

  The rest of the group was a solid mix of fear and shock.

  Well, except Levi. For him, his hair lit up as he started working magic like a bitch. He didn’t seem to know I had moved until I stood over him with my chair in my hands. “You go for it, goldie. Hit me with that spell. Then we’ll see how well you do magic with your skull caved in.”

  Another flare of fire from Mr. Briggs breaks us up. “I can’t believe you sat there. Intentionally.”

  My chair went down as Levi’s power outlay reduced, and I sat again. “What can I say? I wanted to be close to my peeps.”

  “Unbelievable.” Riley’s soft addition to the nearly quiet room was loud enough for everyone here to hear it.

  Mr. Briggs didn’t speak again for a bit, although he didn’t move, either. Probably on the off chance we started it up again. “I’ll answer your question, Levi. For now? I want the two of you to ignore each other. No comments. Nothing. Got it?”

  Sullen nod from Levi. I went for a wide smile, “Sure, Mr. Briggs!” It’s easy to sound happy when you feel lighter. Something I hadn’t noticed. That’s too funny.

  He moved back to the front of the room and leaned against his desk, not taking his eyes off of our little compound of desks. “Magic and our eyes. That’s something that’s been studied nearly as much as what magic is has been studied. Same with our hair and why it is the way it is. Why can we not disguise our hair with magic? Why can’t we dye it? No idea. It seems to be part of our genetics. Something about our access to magic causes it. Just like we can’t disguise our eyes with a spell. We can wear contacts, but that’s a temporary solution at best. As for why our eyes are tied to magic? We don’t have anything definitive. As we all know, losing our eyes means we lose our magic. We lose the color in our hair. At that point, dyeing it works just fine. Wearing contacts works just fine. Disguising with magic works just fine.” He paused, “Well, except for mortmagi. You can’t hide those with magic, either.” Uncomfortable look at me. “Access to magic isn’t necessarily tied to being able to see, though. Those that need glasses? Normal access. We’re a hale and hearty people, so diseases don’t happen much, but something like glaucoma can happen at times, although it’s rare. No loss of magical access. Damage to the eye, though? Loss of one eye, or the full sight in one eye from physical damage, will reduce access to power by more than 95 percent. Healing is problematic at best, up to impossible. Loss of the second eye? Total and complete loss of magical ability. Mortmagi? We have pictures in our books. I have a set here that I can bring in to show everyone if you’ve never seen a set in person. They’re designed to destroy the eyes utterly, back to and including parts of the optic nerve. They’re also designed to never be able to be removed.” He swallowed hard and looked at me as most of the kids looked to me again.

  “Why don’t you tell us what it’s like, stricken?” Colin smiled at me.

  “So cute, water boy. You’re my personal water boy, carrying my powers and keeping them warm for me. Want me to explain what they’re like?” I turned my head back and forth, making sure everyone could see my scars. “You see the scars. I’m not sure how much things have spread, but I’m getting the impression everyone already knows about me. Yes, I was stricken from my family. Yes, my last name is Stricken. I can legally change it now that I have magic but didn’t have time to do it before coming. As for the mortmagi? Think of, oh, the most horrifying thing you can ever imagine, then think about it being hammered into your skull.” Gasps from some of them. “My memories are shot to hell from the spells, but I remember that. I remember seeing the first one coming in. It’s like it’s in slow motion. I can’t see the guy that was doing it, but I’m nearly certain it was my father. I remember thinking that it was a test of some sort. Maybe a joke. That someone would come in and save me. I still don’t kno
w what happened or why they decided to do it. I had my inducement ceremony, then I was down and screaming. So you mentioned screaming and crying and begging, Levi? I did that. I did all of that. I was nine years old. Don’t even pretend you didn’t scream and cry when you got hurt when you were a kid. For me? I begged them. Then that freaking blade poked in. I’d just started feeling my magic, and then it began draining away. He rammed it in until the spikes and screws on the edge hit bone.” I touched my scars. “Then he began hammering. Once the screws bit in enough, the magic in the thing started working, and they began screwing in, pulling it in farther, pushing the other spikes in. My father kept hammering the entire time. Helping it along? Causing more pain? No idea. I can’t even begin to explain the amount of pain I was in. The spell tearing apart my memories combined with my father blinding me and ramming something into my skull? You’re funny. You think I’m afraid of you? Of Levi? You have no clue, zero clues, about what I’ve gone through. I could walk into a burning room and let it burn me to death without making a sound after what I’ve gone through. The very worst has happened to me, yet I’m still standing. Everything else pales in comparison to that. So did I beg and scream and cry? You damn betcha, I did. I won’t even think about pretending I didn’t. If it helps any, I also pissed and shit myself. That’s the level of pain and horror involved. As for being an animal? I told you, I was a pet to a deranged mass murderer dragon for more than four years. Again, you have no clue what I’ve had to endure. What I went through to survive.”

  The bell rang, causing a number of the students to jerk involuntarily. Mr. Briggs didn’t know what to do at first, then called out, “Okay…uhh, no homework. Enjoy your weekend. We’ll, umm, see you…most of you, on Monday.”

  Chapter 14

  The same group of kids were in my second class. I wasn’t expecting that, yet I guess it makes sense. Since there’s three tracks of classes at the same time, it probably makes sense to move everyone along together. Ms. Wade is our earth dragon teacher, and she accepts me in without much fuss. I was one of the first in again, although not the first. She took a look at her listing, “No assigned seats, but I can show you what seats are taken the most?”

  “That sounds good.”

  She showed me, and I didn’t see any that would be fun to sit in or were specifically good to sit in, so that had me taking an empty one closest to the door. It conveniently put me near Kaylee and Parece.

  Kaylee was in her seat first, looking horrified as she looked at my scars again. “You think I should take pictures? Maybe people can play connect the dots?”

  She looked horrified at the joke, “How can you…do you know who those guys are?”

  Parece hit my arm, getting me to turn so that I could see her. “Hey, Parece. We’re roommates and seatmates!”

  Her eyes narrowed as she looked between me and Kaylee, “What the fuck is happening? You’ve been here less than a day and you’re already fighting with five of the strongest guys here? How the fuck…what happened this morning?!? They’re talking about you being killed?”

  “Huh, news hasn’t travelled as well as I expected it to.”

  “Don’t even, Maddie! What the fuck happened?”

  “Why do you care? We’re roommates, but as far as I can tell, you, Riley, and Paige hate me. Why should I explain anything?”

  More narrowed eyes, “Don’t give me that! What the hell happened?”

  Riley arrived and took her seat in the back of the row Parece is in. “I’ll tell you what happened. I just heard it. Somehow, she got into an argument with them at breakfast this morning. Colin hit her and she challenged him. They’re doing it before dinner today.”

  Parece paled, “Are you serious? How did you get in an argument with them?! Didn’t anyone tell you to stay the fuck away from everyone here?”

  “They did. They came after me, though. Levi hates me because some stricken guy killed his parents recently. So he came after me. Demanded that I leave the table I was at. I told him to suck my non-existent dick. It went downhill from there.”

  “I can’t believe I missed that!” I can’t tell if Kaylee is happy that she missed it or not. I’m thinking more happy than upset.

  “I can’t believe…this’ll be the quickest attendance probably on record. Colin’ll tear you to pieces.”

  “Maybe he will. I told you. I don’t care. None of you seem to believe that. I plan on winning if I can, but if I die? Good. Too bad, so sad. I won’t be here to worry about it.”

  The guys rolled into the room. As you’d think, they focused solely on me.

  So I blew them kisses. “Hey, goldilocks. I have some dollar bills to stick into your panties later if you want to dance the pole for me again.”

  He nearly stopped, but Shane pushed him from behind, “Leave her. Just ignore her. She’s a ghost in the machine.”

  Colin smiled at me, “I’m gonna destroy you.”

  “You couldn’t destroy a cupcake if I handed you a chainsaw. Keep those powers nice and warm. I’m so gonna enjoy touching myself tonight. It’ll be the first and only orgasm you ever gave a girl.”

  Shane pushed him to his seat as well.

  Ms. Wade jumped in and took over, starting the class. I’ve got no idea how you teach English, history, and social studies at the same time while focusing on supernaturals as well. I swear it’s just thrown in here because they want to be a school. We can learn magic at home, right? So why is it needed here? Hell, coming here without already knowing the basics is a death sentence, so it strikes me as a pretty serious waste.

  The class was over and done before I knew it, and I’m still not sure how we’ll learn anything useful in it. I guess we’ll see.

  Word must seriously be spreading because kids in the hallway were even more focused on me. It probably doesn’t help that Levi and his little cronies are about five feet behind me, calling me names.

  As if calling me names will work. They just don’t listen. Oh no, some kids I never met before think I’m a whore! The horror. Frankly, Wes’s cum soaked gutter cunt was a good one that I have to remember. I bet that’ll piss people off.

  Our practical application class is huge. Far larger than I ever would have guessed it would be. There are desks up near the door, but then larger stations farther back in the space. It’s built to allow people to cast spells, and there are obvious protections in various places. Magical practical application. Sounds promising. I guess we’ll see how it goes.

  Mr. Bailey is an ice mage, and he’s in front of the room as I stop near him. He gives me a look over before nodding, “Maddie Stricken?” His voice is pitched louder than it needs to be.

  “Yup.” Mine matched his level, just for the hell of it.

  “Why are you bothering to come to classes today? Shouldn’t you be writing a will?”

  The guys laugh as they saunter past me. “Why would I write Colin’s will? That’s for him to do.”

  Quiet curses from kids that don’t want to be heard by others along with a growl from Levi and Wes. Mr. Bailey snorts and shakes his head, “You’ve got guts. Or stupidity.”

  “Meh, jury’s still out on that.”

  Outright laughter from him, which is good to see. “Well then, let me get you your seat. We’ll be working on casting light and variations today. Can you keep up with us?”

  “Umm, no idea? I’ve only had magic for about 10 days. The cops have tested me endlessly and weren’t able to figure out if I’m a mage or a dragon. I couldn’t cast any spells, so they couldn’t even test that way, either.”

  Slow nod from him, “Do your best, then?”

  “Thanks!”

  He gave me my seat, and I’m shocked that it’s nowhere near the guys. The desks filled up quickly, and, for a change, not everyone is staring at me.

  Fine, everyone but Kaylee is staring at me. See? I wasn’t wrong.

  The bell rang, and Mr. Bailey pushed away from his desk, “Welcome back, everyone! It’s a lovely Friday, and we have some work to do.
We’ve been talking variations of spells and working through some attempts. I’d like to focus on the light spell again. Everyone head to your workstation and work on what we talked about. I want a ball of light first. Size doesn’t matter. Just a white light. Show me that, then work on your variations. I want a different size. I want a different color. I want it to move.” Kids around me groaned. “Each spell has to be distinct. Show me the different size, I’ll approve it, then you move on. Got it?”

  Kids began getting up and heading for the workstations. It was simple enough to watch them and pick up that we take the same relative station to where we’re sitting. That puts me smack dab next to Parece as I put my book down on the table and began flipping through it to the light section. She watched me out of the corner of my eye as I made a production of reading it as lights began appearing around the room.