Chapter 22 – The First ss


    The door creaks open revealing a grand, open room, with vaulted ceilings and a beautiful crystalttice at the centre, emitting a refreshing white glow. Directly to the right of the door is a lightly raised dais with a short podium and a wide ckboard.


    Emily notices the dais is empty and assumes the teacher must not be here yet, so she turns her attention to her left. Stretching out to fill the room are five rows of raised desks, with an empty channel through the centre. upying these desks are four other people, sitting across the front three rows.


    Emily’s attention is quickly drawn to the loud chattering from the only two sitting together. Sat in the middle of the front row on the right-hand side of the room are two short scruffy kids with messy ginger hair and matching bronze crests. The boy is talking without stopping for breath to the girl sitting to his right, who Emily presumes is his sister.


    Pulling her attention away from the noise, she looks at the boy sitting close to the door in the second row. He’s a short, gloomy-looking boy with a bronze crest, staring at the book open in front of him without ncing up at all. Sitting in the row behind him, closer to the centre of the room, is a tall girl with a stern look on her face, calmly watching Emily as she walks in front of the desks. On her chest, proudly presented by her upright posture, is a silver crest.


    As Emily reaches the aisle in the middle of the room, the loud scruffy boy looks over and calls out to her.


    “Hey! Come sit with us!”


    Emily raises an eyebrow in amusement and nces at the girl next to him. Seeing her pleading gaze, Emily asks a question.


    “You gonna talk through the lesson as well?”


    “No, don’t worry!” the boy responds with a toothy grin.


    <em>Well, I do need to talk to some othermoners to work out if they were brainwashed too…</em>


    With a light nod, Emily walks down the row and takes the seat next to the still-silent girl, who nods in appreciation with a relieved smile.


    “I’m Tom Valentine of house Dahlia and this is my sister Hester Valentine, also of house Dahlia. Nice to meet you,” Tom says while extending his hand towards her.


    “I’m Emily Coldstone of house Mandrago, nice to meet you too,” Emily smiles, cing her notebook and quill on the desk and shaking the small, mmy hand she is offered.


    “How long have you been here? We got here two weeks ago but this is the first time I’ve seen you in magic theory lessons. We’ve gone to chants, mana maniption and formation courses already too and you weren’t there, so I guess you probably only came in thest week, right? I''m right, aren’t I?”


    Emily is slightly taken aback by the wall of words presented to her, and before she gets a chance to respond, Hester speaks for the first time.


    “Calm down dumbass, you’ll scare her off.” Hester''s strong words and fierce re surprise Emily even more than Tom.


    “Is he always like this?” she asks Hester with a chuckle.


    “Kind of, he just won’t shut up sometimes. He’s talked non-stop since we were selected,” Hester turns back and answers with a tired sigh.


    “No wonder you looked so desperate; I would have thought you’d be used to it though?”


    “I used to be able to avoid him most of the time. But now I’m kind of stuck with him since we need to go to the same sses.”


    “Hey I’m not tha-“ Tom starts toin but instantly shrinks back when his sister aims another re at him.


    “What did you do before being selected?” Emily asks while holding back augh at the siblings’ antics.


    “We helped Dad with running his museum mostly. Tom did tours and I worked the reception, so he talked at the customers, not me. What about you?”


    “I helped make a few clocks for my Dad’s shop, but mostly I just made stuff for myself,” Emily responds with a sad tone.


    Hester notices and pauses for a second. Tom, however, doesn’t and excitedly asks a follow-up question.


    “Your dad’s a clockmaker? Cool! Do you have any siblings, do they make clocks too?”


    Emily notices a quick movement under the desk, and Tom squeals out in pain, doubling over and reaching for his shins.


    “Sorry,” Hester says apologetically, ignoring her brother.


    “It’s fine,” Emily says before answering Tom with a slight edge to her voice. “He was a clockmaker, and I have a sister called Anna. She wants to be a seamstress so no; she doesn’t make clocks.”


    Tom’s eyes widen as the point finallynds, and he frantically apologises. “Oh sorry, my mouth kind of moves faster than my brain.”


    Before Emily can respond, the door to the room creaks open and she turns to look. A tall, young-looking woman with short, wavy golden hair steps into the room wearing silver crestless robes.


    “What’s with the robes?” Emily asks quietly.


    “Mages working as staff aren’t allowed to show their family affiliation to show their impartiality,” Tom answers her eagerly.


    The teacher walks up to the dais and grabs the chalk next to the ckboard. The room settles intoplete silence till the rhythmic tapping of the chalk begins. Emily watches with bated breath as arge diagram is drawn on the nk te. She quickly recognises the diagram as a twisted version of the basic elements she knows.


    The teacher draws a set of three concentric circles. The centre is split in two, with ‘Light’ written on one side and ‘Dark’ written on the other. The second circle is split into four: ‘Earth’, ‘Wind’, ‘Fire’, and ‘Water’. And the final circle is in four matching segments with thest: ‘Metal’, ‘Space’, ‘Lightning’, and ‘Ice’. Outside the circles, ‘Mental’ and ‘Sand’ are written.


    “Basic elemental theory!” she deres, levitating the chalk up to write the words across the top of the board as she says them.


    “I’m a third circle mage, Jenny Forsythia, and this is the topic I specialise in.” She turns to face the desks and slowly looks over their inhabitants. “I see all five of you are new, so what can you tell me about elemental theory?”


    The hand of the tall girl sitting alone instantly shoots up, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. After a light nod from Jenny, the girl begins speaking.


    “Elemental theory is one of the coreponents of our magic system. The world around us can be split and categorised into several elements that we focus on replicating to cast magic. The two fundamental elements are light and dark. Also known as the elements of creation and destruction. The fourmon elements are fire, water, earth, and wind. And their higher forms are lightning, ice, metal, and space. Outside of the ten main elements are exotic elements like mental and sand. Every mage has a natural affinity with certain elements and will find it easiest to progress while focusing on that element alone.”


    “Very good, what is your name?” Jenny asks while pping lightly.


    “I’m a first circle mage, Alexia Hawthorne,” the girl replies while crossing her hand over her chest and bowing her head lightly.


    Jenny nods and ces her hand on the podium before her.


    “Five points to Alexia Hawthorne.” As her words fall, the podium glows for half a second before returning to normal.


    “d to see the Hawthorne house’s education standard hasn’t dropped.” Jenny breaks her focus away from Alexia as she continues. “As Alexia so kindly put it, elemental theory is one of the coreponents of our magic system. Along with the study of runes and chants, the study of the elements themselves is a fascinating topic that I unfortunately don’t have time to go into in this lesson. All of you are here today for the purpose of realising your own elemental affinities, and to do that we will need to go through a process some of you,” she pointedly nces towards Alexia, “may already havepleted. But I would still like you to follow along with me so I can see your results in full, I may have further insights that may help you. So, first-”


    Jenny is cut off as the door to the hall swings open violently. Tworge, stocky boys walk in with scowls set on their faces. Emily notices two different silver crests on their chests.


    “Ah, Jeremy, Kyle, how kind of you to grace us with your presence just as I finish my introduction. I’m d to know you two have at least learned something from my lessons.”


    Emily raises an eyebrow at the obvious venom in her tone and at theck of reaction from the two young nobles. Ack of reaction until Tom breaks out inughter, and they turn their res on him, Hester, and Emily.


    <em>Oh great, I should have sat alone.</em>


    Emily doesn’t have long to regret her decision as Jenny starts speaking again.


    “Anyway, moving on from that interruption, can all of you pleasee down here and line up on the dais please.”


    Emily stands up and walks along the row, with Hester and Tom following her closely, then makes her way down the aisle. Still ignoring the uninterrupted res of Jeremy and Kyle, she joins the forming line on the dais in front of Jenny, cing herself beside Alexia.


    “To work out your affinity, we are going to use the tried-and-true method of trial and error. I’m going to get all of you to build up your own mental image of each element and attempt to manifest them. We will then judge, from the results, which one you should focus on. Those of you who have done this before, ignore me and use your established image. The rest of you listen to me and I will help you build yours. Once you have a solid image, try to push mana into it to attempt the manifestation. First, I would like everyone to stand in afortable, neutral stance with one hand in front of you, palm up.” Jenny demonstrates and waits for everyone to copy her.


    “Good, now close your eyes and empty your minds.”


    As Jenny pauses, Emily closes her eyes and takes a deep breath through her nose, holding it for a few seconds, then exhaling slowly through her mouth. After ten seconds of silence, Jenny begins speaking again and Emily focuses on her words, shutting out the sounds of breathing around her.


    “We will start with fire. Picture a me, big or small. Focus on its colour. Is it orange? Red? Neither? Watch it move, watch it sway and flicker. Is it strong and deadly, ready to extinguish all life? Or is it fragile and delicate, ready to go out with a slight breeze? Feel the heat emanating from it. Does it scorch? Or simply give warmth? How br- “


    Emily listens to Jenny’s questions and starts to picture a small me at the end of a match. With twisting hues of red and orange, burning strong against the wind with a light warmth.


    <em>Hmm, no. Matches get blown out, that’s not right.</em>


    She clears her mind again and tunes out Jenny’s words.


    <em>Fire. What is fire to me? A tool for warmth? Light? Cooking? Shaping metal? AH!</em>


    An image shes through her mind of a behemoth of metal, brought down from the sky by a roaring inferno. Focusing on the idea, a small spark forms in her mind.


    The spark starts a small dark orange me, so dark it’s nearly red; burning steadily and controlled.


    A small silver piece of steel is ced in the centre of the me, and it bends, forming around the metal to swallow it whole. Slowly the me begins to grow, lightening in shade with the metal. As the two reach a light orange hue, a wind is introduced.


    The wind pushes against the fire, but the fire doesn’t yield. Instead, it consumes the wind and grows, slowly beginning to form a vortex around the metallic core. As the speed of the me grows, so does its intensity, until the metal in the centre glows a searing white. Piece by piece the metal is torn apart, joining the me in its motion, and forming a familiar dance of orange and white.


    Emily wills her mana into the vortex and opens her eyes to stare at her hand. Floating above her palm she sees a small flickering white and orange me. She smiles and moves her hand up to try to touch the me, but the moment she moves, the me disappears like a lie.


    Just as Emily is beginning to feel disappointed, she hears enthusiastic pping and looks up. She meets the eyes of Jenny, who is staring at her with a wide grin.


    “Incredible! To think you’re already able to manifest an element so clearly. You’re going to be an incredible fire mage. What’s your name?”


    “Emily Coldstone of house Mandrago,” Emily responds slightly taken aback by Jenny’s passionate reaction, but still remembering her formal introduction and bowing with a hand across her chest.


    She notices Jenny’s gaze darkening for a split second at her introduction, but her expression returns to normal almost instantly as she turns and walks back to her podium.


    <em>What was that? Did I do something wrong?</em>


    She looks at the other students in worry and sees a mixture of shock and confusion on their faces.


    <em>I guess not. Unless they also don’t know what I did.</em>


    As she begins to calm down, Jenny’s next words hit her like a bucket of cold water.


    “Ten points to Emily Coldstone!”