With the wind taken out of his sails, Talynn headed down a wide spiraling staircase to the bottom floor of the academy building and entered the sprawling courtyard where students took their lunches.
“Hey guys,” Talynn gave a half-hearted wave as he sat down at table with half a dozen students, each of them much fresher faces in the academy than him. First-years seemed to be drawn to him, perhaps because he looked as young as they did despite being three years older.
“How are you, Talynn? You look upset,” one of the girls said as she watched him pick at his food.
“I’m okay, Milana. Just a little nervous for the tournament tomorrow. It’s a pretty big deal,” Talynn said before taking a swig of his drink. “If you don’t win two of your three matches, they hold you back and you have to repeat a year.”
“Oh dear, that does sound stressful. But I’m sure you’ll do fine! Besides, if you repeated a year at least you’d get to see us for a while longer.”762Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP1n4zewxUR
“As tempting as that sounds, I’d rather not,” Talynn muttered.
“So, like, I hear a lot of people lose their tournament matches quit the academy. Are you gonna quit if you lose?” asked one of the other first-years.
“Quit? Of course I wouldn’t, why would you quit after spending four years training to be a mage?” Talynn looked at him as if he were crazy.
“Because they’re embarrassed. Everybody knows when you get held back. Then you have to spend every day at school with people who know you failed.”
“Oh. Right,” Talynn said, feeling even worse about the whole thing.
“Well look what we have here, it’s Talynn and the rejects,” Gelusik said with a mocking tone as he walked past their table. He had been a constant thorn in Talynn’s side throughout his time at the academy. While his birth may have noble, nothing else about him was. He was neither tall, strong, or good-looking, which made his arrogance even more intolerable to Talynn. Wealth and his talent as an ice mage seemed to fuel his never ending sense of self-importance.
“Good luck on the tournament tomorrow. Can’t wait to see you get crushed,” he said with a smirk as his clique of similarly snobby students stood over them.
“Get out of here, Gelusik. I’ve had enough of you for one day,” Talynn said before taking a bite of his food, not even bothering to make eye contact.
Gelusik’s eye twitched. He had a special loathing for Talynn. While he wasn’t the only person Gelusik bullied, Talynn was the the only one who refused to be intimidated by him. Instead of floundering in embarrassment after a public insult like most of their insecure peers, Talynn would fire back with his own. And that infuriated him. He shoved Talynn’s food aside and sat on the table in front of him.
“Watch yourself, you little phony,” he forcefully poked Talynn’s chest. “You’re lucky I don’t ice you before the tournament.”
“As if you could. Ice magic is weak against fire magic. I’d have the advantage,” Talynn retorted.
“You’re not even a real fire mage, so you don’t count. You’ve never casted a single fire spell on your own. Or any spell, for that matter.”
Talynn’s clenched his jaw but remained silent, putting forth intense effort not to engage in another fight. Milana, the young first-year, decided she’d seen enough.
“Leave him alone, you’re being a bully!” She cried, attempting to pull Gelusik off of the table by his sleeve.
“Get off of me, you buck-toothed peasant!” Gelusik shoved her away. She tripped over her own foot and fell to the ground. Within a second, Talynn’s fist smashed into his jaw, knocking him off the table and onto the grass. Most of the nearly one hundred students in the courtyard began gathering in a circle around them, chanting for them to fight. Talynn gently helped Milana to her feet and ensured she was taken care of before facing Gelusik.
“Don’t you dare lay a hand on her. You think you can get away with treating a little girl like that?”
“I’m not a poor orphan loser like you are, Talynn. I can do whatever I want!”
A bright blue inscription circle began forming around Gelusik’s hand. A small cloud formed overhead and began raining down shards of ice at Talynn. He quickly stepped out of the way and pulled out his lux chalk, drawing on the stone pathway running along the middle of the courtyard. He activated the inscription circle and launched a small orb of fire. Gelusik made a show of yawning, swatting the orb of fire out of existence with a hand surrounded by ice lumi.
“And this, everyone, is the person who for years has told us that he’d become the best fire mage in the land. Bravo, Talynn. Very impressive,” Gelusik said with a matching sarcastic clap.
A bright blue inscription circle began forming around Gelusik’s hand. The crowd gasped as he conjured a giant five-foot long icicle above Talynn’s head, shrouded in cold fog that slowly fell towards the ground. Talynn went to jump out of the way, but Gelusik had created a layer of ice on the ground around him while his attention had been drawn upwards.
Talynn’s feet met the ice and slipped out from under him. He crashed to the ground, his cheek smacking the ice. The students around them laughed as he struggled to get up but kept slipping. Talynn felt his ears turn bright red, but he couldn’t tell if it was more from anger or from embarrassment. After finally making it off the ice, he took his lux chalk and began drawing an inscription circle on the top of the table he had been eating at.
“No
cheating,” Gelusik said as he performed an ice element manipulation. He concentrated his lumi around Talynn’s hand and quickly formed a thick layer of ice, trapping it along with his lux chalk against the wooden table.
“Oh no, poor Talynn. What are you going to do without your lux chalk? Cast a spell on your own? Oh wait, you can’t!”
Talynn tugged on his hand as Gelusik’s taunts rang in his ears. The ice was far too thick. He knew he had no other option. It was now or never. He held out his palm towards Gelusik and began channeling his lumi into his hand. The students around them grew silent, watching his hand closely as the yellow aura grew brighter.
“Come on, Talynn, you can do it!” Milana cheered from the sidelines.
Okay. This is it. This is the moment. Fire. Please, give me fire!
Talynn’s fingers curled slightly as he attempted to transmute his lumi into the fire element. The yellow aura around his hand began to flicker. Gelusik tensed and took a step backwards as he saw the lumi begin to take shape. Talynn began to smile at seeing his rival unnerved. Then his transformation failed. The lumi dispersed. His face became flushed as the students around them began to snicker.
“Hah! You still can’t do it! You’re hopeless. You’ll never be a real mage. Just give up before I make you!” Gelusik stepped forward and socked Talynn in the jaw as payback for earlier. Talynn shook off the blow and looked back at Gelusik. His palm was now at point-blank range from Talynn’s face. He began forming an inscription circle, Talynn’s skin tingling as the ice lumi danced around his head. Large spikes of ice began to form in the air all around Gelusik, ready to skewer his foe. “Let me show you what a real spell looks like.”
“Stop!” The dean of the academy shouted with a booming voice from several stories above. She held her dark-wood staff out of the window overlooking the courtyard and pointed it at the quarreling boys. Several different inscription circles formed at different points along the staff, forming a layered spell of light and lightning magic. A brilliant orb of white light that growled with electricity hurtled towards Talynn and Gelusik. They were instantly frozen in place, paralyzed within her stasis field. The crackling of static electricity filled their ears and made their hairs stand on end.
Despite being in her late thirties, the dean had long pearl-white hair that flowed behind her as she walked down the stairs. In stark contrast to her hair, she wore a pitch-black cloak and a matching black mage hat with a golden buckle on the front. Boasting a height of six feet tall with an impressive physique, she easily could have made an intimidating warrior.
“Look out, it’s Dean Levisa,” the crowd of students quickly parted to let her through.
“What is going on here? You know wielding magic in the courtyard is prohibited. Who started this?” she demanded. After a few seconds of nervous silence, one of the students spoke up.
“I saw Talynn punch Gelusik in the face, and then they started fighting.”
Talynn tried to speak up and defend himself, but the stasis spell completely prevented all movement.
“Assaulting another student? I thought you knew better than that, Mr. Sevar,” Levisa’s eyes narrowed at Talynn. She held her hand up and cast a nullification spell, immediately freeing Talynn and turning Gelusik’s army of icicles into harmless water vapor.
“That’s not what happened! Not all of it, at least. Talynn only punched that boy because he pushed me!” Milana told the dean, using her best puppy-dog eyes.
“Is that so? Regardless, both of you need to keep your hands and your magic to yourselves unless you want me to expel you here and now. You’re lucky I don’t pull you from the tournament. Lunch is over, everyone back to your classes. Go!”
The dean released the stasis field and headed back to her office. Gelusik and Talynn fell to the ground, their muscles still numb and tingling from the spell. Milana helped Talynn to his feet while Gelusik’s fairweather friends left him. He exchanged one last glare with Talynn before departing.
“Thanks, Milana.”
“No, thank you, Talynn. For standing up for me,” Milana replied graciously.
“Yeah. Fat lot of good that did me. Now everyone thinks I’m a failure,” Talynn shook his head bitterly.
“I-I’m sorry. You’re not a failure to me,” Milana’s face became downcast.
“No, it’s not your fault, I didn’t mean, I just-” Talynn fumbled over his words, clenching his hands in frustration. He let out a sigh. “I’m just so sick of him. I’ve got better things to do than get in trouble because of that jerk.”
Talynn paused for a moment, something triggering his memory. “Better things to do... Oh crap! I’m supposed to be at Mavence’s fight!”
“Wait, what? Where are you going? Are you skipping class?” Milana called out as Talynn scrambled to grab his belongings before rushing off.
“Yep! The knight academy is having their tournaments today, and I need to be there,” Talynn waved over his shoulder as he sprinted away. “See ya!”
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