“…You were the one that chose him, remember?” one of the men with a scattered mop of hair on his head was saying. “We watched them, paid attention, and when you saw him play at the bar you chose him. ‘a boy that plays like that wouldn’t have much love for combat’ you said. Remember?”
The man was frantic but the one that had led Kilvic’s quarry into the alley calmed him, then turned to the man in the jacket. “Were you followed?”
“No,” Kilvic’s quarry answered.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I used that running away technique you showed me,” he answered. “The one where I use the alleys and cross the roads. I don’t know why I had to do all that, I could’ve been here long sooner.” Then he turned to one of the other men, satisfied with his own answer, and asked, “What happened to your face?”
The man questioned put a hand to his face then turned and drove a vicious kick into the side of one of the students lying on the floor, inciting a pained groa
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Kilvic tapped Ariadne’s cheek, drawing her attention to him, and not just whatever she didn’t like about him. “I need your help Ariadne.” “Go fuck yourself,” she spat. “You never want anyone’s help, let alone my own.” He ignored her rage. “Well I need it now.” “Why should I help you?” “Because we’ll all die if you don’t,” he told her, soaking the words in sorrow and remorse. He could’ve gone over to Moss or Stratin, shaking them from the strong hold of the spell would be easier than shaking Ariadne; he knew them better. But they didn’t possess the skill she did, and he knew nothing about Tudi to help. He looked at Ariadne, eyes pleading. “Please, help me.” She ceased her struggling and looked at him with a frustrated sigh, but he could see she was now willing. “What do you want, mister Rudric?” He ignored the mockery in her voice. “A concordance spell.” “What for?” She looked at him, suspicious. “I won’t help you make Tudi pay
Morning found Kilvic and his friends in the headmaster’s office mere moments after their lesson under Haru’s tutelage. The morning was cold, and while winter was still weeks away, a month at the least, it could be tasted in the air.The room, walled in bookshelves, which though almost imperceptible, were covered in more books than the last time he’d been here, smelled of a type of incense he couldn’t name. The point of the summons was as clear as day. Deidrich, who now stood beside the headmaster’s chair, had come for them at some point during their training, and Haru had ended the lessons rather than release them to the guard’s care and have them miss any other thing he would’ve felt important enough to teach.‘And none of you recognize your captors?” Headmaster Skanriv asked for the second time since they’d entered his office, his old voice weary.Even now, Kilvic had not heard any question directed s
Kilvic’s time at the headmaster’s office caused him grave delay, and in order not to prove tardy to the second lesson of the day, Kilvic was forced to forgo his breakfast, crashing through a quick bath and a haphazard dressing.The lessons for the day proved a bore and a tasking ordeal, as linking sphere, the only class which he attended easily, wasn’t on the timetable for the day. He was forced to bull through the mental class, where the instructor continued to teach them how best to link with each other’s minds without corrupting their targets and themselves, which was all well and good when it was considered that the final test of the semester would involve linking with four students of their choice.Elemental class came immediately after, and like the one before it, Kilvic struggled to excel at the task required of them. Like the linking, summoning, and mind classes, it was the only other class where they actually indulged in practical exerc
Fyodan stood with one of the widest smiles on his face, topless and in Kilvic’s way where he stood a few feet from the door to the head student’s room, obstructing him and delaying his goal. “So tell me,” the hall representative was saying. “Do you think I’m pretty?” Kilvic swallowed his impatience. Being the last of his two friends to leave the training hall this morning, Haru had sent him to find the head student and give the boy a message. This had been his purpose for knocking on the door of a room he had been to only once before so early in the morning. Sadly, it was also the reason he was having to deal with another of Fyodan’s pestering. Gyra hadn’t been the one to open the door after his patience had begun wearing thin. And now Fyodan stood before him, topless, with a boyish grin. His hair was a disheveled mess and he still had his morning breath seeping through each word while he smelled of sex, but despite that, there was an appeal to his ap
The thought that an exercise in mind melding required a pen and a book was a tough concept to wrap his mind around. But the book before Kilvic was as unmistakable as the pain in his back from his morning lessons, and the pen, fueled with blank ink like burned wood twirled between his fingers, holding his focus.The instructor for the class was the same man who’d brought him to Skanriv’s office on his first day; the same man who’d been displeased for having been expecting him. That day, he’d looked mean and old in his robe and wrinkled frown but the first day he’d walked into the class and Kilvic had set eyes on him for the second time, he could have easily been mistaken for someone else. His smooth skin, the glint in his eyes, the smile always teasing his lips as if holding back the most exquisite of allusive jokes was the sharpest contrast to what Kilvic had seen. It was also the most perfected expressive lie he’d ever come across.
Kilvic found it a tad surprising that a boy who’s magecraft was focused on the nature of blood would never have thought to drain a heart off all it had.The exercise on mind melding went on at a steady pace with Havldec supervising, walking amongst the students and checking their works. When he got to Kilvic and Sharmin, he stopped, a crease in his brows. Gently, he took Kilvic’s book, reading its contents.“I thought I said to start slow?” The man frowned then cast his gaze around. “Who’s your partner?”Kilvic poked a thumb behind him and Sharmin offered the man a smile. Even now, their connection remained unfazed.Havldec took Sharmin’s book and read through it, then his frown turned to confusion. He’d instructed they write each other’s thoughts on paper, but Kilvic had written in a mess, his thoughts jumble with the boy’s, and judging from the man’s confusion, so had Sharmin.
Spells were easy enough once the basics were known, though Kilvic wasn’t certain which was the easier of both requirements: infusing the words with reia or finding the words that attended the mind.Lunch had ended a while ago, and following his request, Moss and Stratin had left for their lesson without him. And now he was left to rearrange the things in his possession almost appalled at how he’d waited so long to get things done. He held up the bottle of wine gifted for Drespard’s tale and put it to the side, beneath his bed, before returning to his sack and retrieving three silver coins, the reason he was here. Holding them palm up he wondered if perhaps this was a waste of silver, and if the other options open to him would be better substitutes. He had to conserve his finances, but then again, he had to conserve his reputation. He sighed. That was more than enough to make his decision. And wrapping up his sack, he placed the coins in his pocket and walked
Alone with Gyra, the head student turned to Kilvic.“How long has this been happening?”“Since a month after I arrived,” Kilvic answered simply.“And you haven’t handled it because…” Gyra trailed, giving him the space to complete it.“Because there are three of them and all better fighters than I am.”Gyra shook his head. “There are many ways to fight as a mage,” he said. “And I do recall you hold claim to being a decent spell caster.”“That wouldn’t have helped.”“And why not?”Kilvic let his posture slacken with the pain and answered. “Fan probably throws more punches in a day than any of my class mates, Anuvia has a possible affinity with two elements, and Chazriv can spell cast in four different languages.”“And they’re picking on you?” Gyra asked, flummoxed. “I assume
Moss said nothing for a moment, and Kilvic continued to stare out at the arena, at their hall mates training. Lacra remained powerful, her attacks brutal. But Gyra remained standing, bracing against her charges, casting aside spells where he would, evading where he would. The boy was powerful for one his age.When Moss spoke he sounded more confused than irate. “It’s how you say these things with a straight face that’s creepy. I don’t know if you are angry, bored or worried. Which is it?”Kilvic thought about it briefly. It was a logical question. Why had he said it when he hadn’t needed to? Moss had given him a piece of advice, and he’d given one in return. Was it the reference to the magi that had spurred him to speak. Yes, the magi were what mages were called in the older times when they had engaged in combat from a distance. They were mages who had failed once their opponents engaged them in the melee, something very simila
“Did we win?” Stratin broke the silence that enveloped the arena, voice panting. “Did we?”Kilvic spared him a solitary glance. Did it matter? There had been four of them against one of her. Though victory should be taken in whatever form it came, this was a victory he cared nothing for. If your life was truly at stake you would. Kilvic almost frowned at his own thought. It was right. Still…He sighed. “Yes, we won.”As if released from a spell, Stratin slumped to the ground in relief.Ahead of them Fyodan approached. Behind them, Moss lumbered along damaged bones no doubt mending themselves. The amount of reia required to create, and operate such an arena needed to be greatly vast. Here, unlike the arena used for the winter hall fest, death was not circumvented. But a vast room that could heal wounds on the scale of even broken bones in mere minutes was powerful… too powerful.&ld
Wind magic has always been considered the easiest of them. Why? Because no place existed void of air. And air, unlike most other elements, is flexible, bendable to one’s will. Not much mental strength is required to manipulate it. It is, in theory, the best element to start a mage off with. But not the way Naesir made it seem.Kilvic jumped back with a speed that would have made a peregrine proud. A wind lance struck the sand covered ground where his feet had been a mere breath ago and dissipated almost immediately. He wondered at the verity of the training he was undergoing. His intention had been to learn the basics of wind magic from someone who was proving attuned to it by each growing day. He ducked and rolled almost immediately, his mind not given the time to contemplate the failure of his choice as another wind lance skewered the air where he should’ve been. Each wind lance was condensed enough to almost be mistaken for a true lance. Battle against a wind e
Ariadne was staring.“He talks in your minds?” she said, again, in disgust. “How do you allow that.”“He’s strong,” Stratin offered mildly. “I couldn’t shake him.”Moss shrugged. “Me neither.”To Moss, she replied, “Any oaf with half a brain could see that. You have the will power of a dead fish, Moss.” She turned her attention to Kilvic. “And you?”“He had something to say.” Kilvic thought about it, then changed his answer. “I thought he had something to say. But he was also helping me spar.”Ariadne raised a brow. “How?”“Pointing out my weaknesses. Showing me where I should’ve capitalized.”“Moss could help you with that. Heck, Lacra would be more than happy if Gyra refuses.”“Gyra has offered,” Stratin pointed out.Ariadne turned to him. &
Kilvic staggered backwards, his body held incline into a fall. His feet were the only things that kept him up. Counting away in multiple minute steps, they kept him up, kept him from the fall as he pushed away, increasing the distance. The deadman’s walk came easier to him now. Of all the moves they were taught, it came the easiest, the simplest. Perhaps it was his favorite now. Perhaps not. It definitely kept him away from the pain. After three breaths he staggered into position, returned into a defensive form.Naralayn had done much to remain his sparring partner, but ever since Stratin had proved more sufficient it had become harder for the young noble to choose him for a partner. Naralayn did not cease in his attempts though, until their instructor determined having Naralayn as a sparring partner was not good for the young noble’s development. So, today, Kilvic found Sharmin as his sparring partner. And Sharmin was an easier opponent to survive agains
Outside, the arena remained its cacophony of training, students panting with the exaggerated stress of those who’d worked themselves. But Vilan did not pant, and neither did Gyra. Vilan sat in the sand, knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, and face bowed in hiding. Around him reia worked. Unrefined lumps of sand the size of an adult’s head hovered about him, four orbs—if they could be called such. And before the boy, hidden from his view, a staff trembled in the sand. Kilvic paused to watch all this, ignoring Gyra’s noted attention on him.Ariadne stopped beside him, turned her attention to what had his, and sucked in a sharp breath. “Four links,” she gasped. Kilvic was not certain if she was impressed or underwhelmed.Seven, Kilvic corrected mentally. Barely perceptible, two clusters of air hovered, struggling to maintain their new nature. Ariadne had not counted the boy’s link to the staff either,
“How’d you do it?”Kilvic turned to Ariadne and did his best not to frown. Most of the expressions he’d trained most of his life were slowly becoming habits. He could school them, but there were occasions such as this when they surfaced of their own accord. He’d lost count of how many times she’d asked. She at least had the decency to ask it in subtlety. First she’d gone about it as if out of combat curiosity. Then she’d moved on to the curiosity of the defeated. She’d tried other methods too. Not anymore.“Do what, Ariadne?” he asked.“That last spell.”“It was a simple wind spell.”“I didn’t hear you cast.” Ariadne frowned. “No. You didn’t chant, did you?”Kilvic turned his attention away from his project. In his hand was a single staff, on the other was a knife. The winter hall fest consisted of a variety of challe
“Same as last year.” Lacra made a grunting sound like gravels scraping. She coughed, turned her head to the side, and spat out a blob of blood stained spittle. “Same as last fucking year.”She was seated on the sand. Her tattered clothes did not leave much for imaginations, but the necessary parts were covered and she cast the perfect look of a warrior from battle. Gyra and Kilvic stood in front of her. Around them the others were beginning to rise groggily. It had been roughly fifteen minutes since Lacra had surrendered and Kilvic noted her injuries were gone, completely healed. He turned his head to Fyodan where he stood, the first to come to his feet. Behind him the crack in the arena wall was also gone. Healing or reconstructive, he wondered. They did not have an arena like this in castle Grey. They did not have an arena that fixed itself… or those within it.Its effects were slow, but each of the students were comin
Everything happened quickly. The boys and girls roared into each other. It was not the skirmish of the non-mages. There was no physical clashing involved. This was a skirmish for those who trained to become great mages in the future. A few fists were thrown, but most of all, spells came flying, and the ambient reia was disturbed as if by the fury of a crashing wave.Trudi was all smiles as she sent spells flying, simple incantations after the other. Unlike the boys, the girls seemed to possess a chosen strategy. Some bought time for the spellcasters, dispensing physical oppression upon the boys. Lacra moved like a force to be reckoned with. Her steps were quick, carrying her across the arena in short bursts. She was everywhere she needed to be to support her team when they needed it. A fist here and there, forcing a boy or the other into defense where they’d been going for offense.Moss forced his way into the enemy, a battering ram in his form, arms crossed over