Curious, I took off the glove, letting it dangle by its attached wire. Alanis gently wrapped both her hands around my mine and began chanting with her eyes shut.

  Once she finished, her eyes snapped open. Her eyes had surely been pink and blue, yet when she gazed at me now, they had turned a shimmering silver. A faint emerald aura pulsed around her and began spreading to cover me as well.

  “Please stand still for a moment, General Arthur,” she said, her voice seeming to echo. Alanis’s silver eyes darted left and right, up and down. She studied me intently until her green aura faded and her silver eyes reverted to their normal colors.

  “Scans are complete,” Alanis announced, then retrieved her clipboard and began scribbling furiously.

  “What was that?” I asked. The hand the elf had held tingled.

  Alanis looked up from her clipboard and opened her mouth to speak, but Emily quickly forestalled her with a small laugh. “We’ll tell you everything later. For now, why don’t we start with the training?”

  “The lady has spoken!” Buhnd agreed, swinging his arms. “My limbs were beginning to calcify from standing still for so long.”

  Hester rolled her eyes. “I hardly think that’s possible, but I agree with the dwarf. Princess Kathyln has told me much about you, General Arthur, and I’m quite curious to see if you live up to her exceedingly high praise.”

  “It’s not like that,” Kathyln quickly said, pushing her guardian away.

  Smiling, I followed her and the three elders to the center of the room. They distanced themselves roughly thirty feet from each other, surrounding me. The princess positioned herself close to the pond in the rear corner, with Buhnd to her left and the silent Camus to her right. My mind raced as I tried to decide which one I should turn my back to. Adrenaline coursed through my body, coalescing with the mana streaming through my limbs. The familiar feeling of my dry mouth and cold sweat rolling down my cheek told me all I needed to know about the situation I was in.

  The pressure the four of them gave off sent chills down my spine, but my smile only grew wider. I licked my lips and lowered myself into a defensive stance. “Let’s begin.”

  Chapter 44

  Elders’ Assessment

  The elders wasted no time in their attack. As soon as the words left my mouth, Hester moved forward, forming a globe of fire in her palm. She snapped her wrist and the burning sphere shot toward me, growing larger as it approached.

  I turned to counter but the ground beneath me shifted abruptly, throwing me off balance. With hardly any time to react now, I spun, withdrawing Dawn’s Ballad from my ring. As I tumbled to the ground, I launched a shockwave of frost from my blade, exploding the flaming globe before it could reach me.

  “Tripping over your own feet, young General?” Buhnd snickered, his hands glowing yellow with his aura.

  “For someone with so many muscles, I expected more than some cheap parlor tricks,” I jeered, pushing myself up from the ground.

  The dwarf shrugged. “I’m not the one who just fell on my arse.”

  I didn’t respond to his jab, keeping an eye on the other two to see when they made their move. I didn’t have to wait long.

  Camus casually hurled a blade of wind in my direction. The crescent approached viciously, carving a path in the ground where it had travelled.

  I swung Dawn’s Ballad into Camus’s attack, but the crescent suddenly distorted before exploding.

  “Lesson one of fighting as a conjurer. Be unpredictable,” Camus muttered.

  A blast of wind nearly threw me back onto the ground. This time, however, I was able to react fast enough. I stabbed my sword into the ground, embedding the broken tip of my sword into the dirt floor to brace myself against the blast.

  I looked back up to see dozens of jagged icicles, each as long as my arm, flying toward me.

  Siphoning mana from my core, I swung my free arm, releasing a wave of fire.

  The large shards of ice evaporated with a hiss when my flames reached them, but before I could continue my attack, three triangular panels of stone shot up from the ground around me and collapsed on each other.

  Trapped within the pyramid of earth, I lost sight of my opponents.

  This is getting annoying, I thought.

  Fighting against conjurers was fundamentally different than going up against augmenters. For one, they kept their distance and attacked from afar.

  With a snap of my fingers, I ignited a flame to study my surroundings. The three walls came together at a point about twenty feet above me.

  “I might as well try and fight like a conjurer as well,” I muttered to myself, putting Dawn’s Ballad back into my ring.

  I sent a current of earth mana into the ground, and within a moment I was able to make out the approximate position of all four of them, as well as two figures farther away, who I assumed were Emily and Alanis.

  Buhnd must’ve sensed what I was doing, because spikes of stone almost immediately began jutting out of the walls.

  Crafty dwarf, I smiled.

  The spikes elongated, closing in. It was now or never.

  After enlarging the flame I had used for light, I conjured a wave of frost with my other hand. I clasped the two opposing elements together, creating a blast of steam which spread until it filled the entire enclosure.

  “Steam’s leaking out. Careful for a surprise attack,” Hester warned. “Princess, take advantage of the moisture from the steam.”

  Oh crap.

  I beckoned lightning to surge around my body, charging and containing it when I felt the temperature of the cloudy air around me plummet. I could see floating shards of ice forming, but my spell was finished.

  “Burst!” I hissed, discharging the currents of lightning coiling around my body. Tendrils of electricity surged out, shattering the ground and walls effortlessly. The stone pyramid Buhnd had conjured collapsed.

  A large cloud of dust and debris obscured much of the view, but Camus had somehow found me. The old elf was just a few feet away, swirling gales coiling around his arms.

  Wordlessly, the wind conjurer pushed, the full blast of his wind sending me hurtling backward.

  Straight into Hester.

  She was waiting for me on the other side, a fully formed globe of blue flames ready to fire.

  With barely enough time to twist in the air to defend against the attack, I faced the full brunt of the sapphire flames.

  KATHYLN GLAYDER

  Hester Flamesworth had been serving the Glayder family for over two decades. I’d always respected her magical prowess, but, because of her talents, she had a tendency to be a bit prideful. So when I saw Arthur’s form being consumed by the blue flames that set her apart from all the other fire-attribute conjurers of Sapin, I knew she saw Arthur as a person she had to beat at all costs.

  My hand unconsciously reached toward Arthur. He was engulfed for no more than a few seconds , however, before the blue flames began to swirl around him. At first I thought it was Hester’s doing but when the cone of fire split, revealing Arthur to be intact aside from the lightly burnt ends of his long hair, I knew he had somehow dispersed the flames on his own.

  Arthur coughed out a weak laugh. “That was a close one.”

  My guardian’s eyes widened just a little, but she feigned composure. “Impressive, General Arthur, but it seems you’re taking us a little too lightly.”

  Elder Buhndemog raised a bulbous arm. “I second that. If this is all you can do, I’m afraid we’re going to need a lot more than two months to train you.”

  “It’s hard to get motivated when you so obviously hold back like that,” Elder Camus added, then sat down with a loud yawn.

  I frowned. I had been told that Elder Camus was once a distinguished member of the elven army, but he was such an ill-mannered individual. If I were in Arthur’s place, I might have been offended by his conduct, but to my surprise, Arthur started laughing.

  “Sorry. I often find myself trying to match my opponents’ level to gauge their strength. Bad habit of mine,” he said, calmly dusting himself off.

  Then a wave of mana flooded out of Arthur as if a dam had just collapsed. I instinctively reeled back from the force and when I looked back up, I saw that Camus was back on his feet, all signs of his lethargy gone. Both Hester and Elder Buhndemog had already thickened their aura for protection.

  In the center of us all was Arthur—but his form had changed. His long hair now shimmered like liquid pearl and golden symbols ran down the length of his arms. Arthur’s presence had been strong before, but it was outright oppressive now.

  “I won’t use this form for the remainder of our training, but since today’s sparring serves to get everyone acquainted with one another, I’ll be glad to let loose,” he said.

  The crude leather armor that Emily had clad Arthur in now seemed almost majestic underneath the vivid nimbus of mana enveloping him. He turned around to face me, and I was able to fully take in his amethyst eyes. I was having a hard time trying to find the right word to describe them.

  Ethereal? Radiant? Enthralling? Even those words didn’t seem to accurately describe how those eyes seemed to shake me to my very core.

  I had seen this form once before at Xyrus Academy, when he’d battled against Lucas, but this was the first time I had seen it this closely.

  “Now that’s more like it!” Elder Buhndemog exclaimed, although the slight tremor in his voice betrayed his unease.

  “Spread out!” Hester’s voice rang with authority as she leaped backward and prepared her spell. She knew—everyone knew—that the tables had turned. The second round had yet to start, but already I felt the advantage we had in numbers was now gone.

  As Arthur’s presence thickened like a shroud, the usual voice inside my head began whispering, saying that all was futile.

  No! You always do this, Kathyln. Stop doubting yourself.

  I bit down on my lip, berating myself for my pessimism. Ever since my awakening, I’d been constantly told how talented I was as a mage, yet I always found some way to tell myself I was lacking. Perhaps that’s why my impression of Arthur, back when we had first met during the auction, had remained so clear… even after all these years. As a child—and even now—he was smart, talented, sociable, knew what he wanted, and had a smile that could light up the world.

  Regaining my composure, I found myself eye-to-eye with Arthur once again. By his gaze, I knew he had been waiting for me, somehow sensing that my mind was elsewhere.

  Doing all I could to keep my embarrassment from showing on my face, I quickly nodded and took my stance.

  His lips formed a faint smile and he gave me a nod in return. In that same instant, Arthur vanished, leaving behind only a footprint in the hardened ground and a few tendrils of electricity. By the time my eyes caught up to where he had appeared, Elder Camus had been knocked a few dozen feet in the air. The earth below him molded to cushion his impact when he landed.

  Black lightning coiled around Arthur as his eyes searched the room, looking for his next target. But before he could move again, the ground rose around his feet, anchoring him in place.

  Stop gawking and help, I told myself.

  Using the water from the nearby pond as a catalyst, I shaped it into a giant frozen spear. As soon as I launched it, I felt Elder Camus use his wind magic to accelerate the ten-foot spear of ice to a speed that I couldn’t have achieved on my own.

  Our cooperative attack tore through the air, spiraling viciously toward Arthur. He stood in place, staring straight at the giant spear of ice, only a hand up in defense.

  Is he not going to try and dodge?

  I thought about dispersing the spell, but Commander Virion had stressed that we needed to be serious about this to help Arthur.

  To my surprise, when the spear was inches away from him, my spell dispersed on its own. The gale surrounding my attack still pushed Arthur back, but the ice spear I had conjured had shattered.

  Camus shot me a look, as if asking whether I had done it. I quickly shook my head, my brows knitted in confusion.

  I’m sure it wasn’t me.

  Arthur got back to his feet, unaffected except for the hint of satisfaction on his face.

  The elders and I all exchanged glances. No one was completely sure what had just transpired.

  “Bah!” Elder Buhndemog stamped his foot, raising a giant boulder from the ground beside him. “Show me more! Unless changing the color of your hair and eyes is the only thing you can do.”

  Arthur smiled wickedly. “Gladly.”

  My friend—now my opponent—became a blur. This time, I was able to follow his faint form, but just barely.

  He sent a shockwave of mana at Elder Buhndemog, but the dwarf had expected that. He sculpted the boulder by his side into a giant shield of stone.

  A crater formed where the shockwave hit the shield, but it had been no more than a diversion. By the time the shield had blocked his spell, Arthur had already targeted Hester with a lance of black lightning in his hand.

  He’s not attacking you because he’s afraid to hurt you, Kathyln, the voice whispered tauntingly.

  Expelling a sharp breath, I focused on a spell General Varay had taught me. I never liked using it, since it meant I had to get close to my opponent, but this situation was worse. I didn’t like to be pitied.

  “Seraph of Snow.”

  Layers of frost spread over my body, covering me in its icy grip. My clothing hardened into armor and a layer of white completely covered me, from my toes to the bottom half of my face.

  With my body further empowered, I ran straight at Arthur, who was being attacked by everyone else.

  Elder Camus was darting around, sending blades of wind at Arthur and cushioning Elder Buhndemog and Hester whenever Arthur knocked them away.

  Arthur launched a spear of lightning at Camus, but it exploded in midair thanks to Hester’s intervention.

  Everyone felt the presence of my spell, but Arthur seemed too preoccupied to notice.

  The frost covering my arm changed form at my thought, extending and sharpening into a blade of ice.

  I swung just as General Varay had drilled into me for over a year.

  My blade cut across his back, drawing blood that froze instantly. Arthur’s head snapped back to look at me, his gaze more of surprise than of pain. He spun around and launched a blade of wind at me, but the layer of frost covering me mitigated the spell.

  Without the need to physically block, I continued my attack. Drawing back my other hand, I pushed out, launching a shockwave of frost at my opponent.

  Arthur quickly blocked my attack, but it still pushed him back—straight into Elder Buhndemog.

  Arthur’s instincts were inhuman though. He was already twisting his body, preparing to defend himself, when a gale of wind spun him uncontrollably.

  The elderly dwarf saw him coming, and an excited smile stretched across his face, splitting his white beard. He brought his fist into position to punch while the earth around him trembled.

  Pieces of the ground flew, combining around his fist to form a giant gauntlet of stone. Hester further empowered his attack by imbuing a blue flame around the earthen fist.

  A painful crash resounded as Elder Buhndemog’s flaming rock fist slammed straight into Arthur.

  “Oh! That felt so good!” the dwarven elder beamed, shaking out the fire around his fist.

  I dispersed my spell too, relishing the warmth that soon followed.

  Arthur sat up from the crater that his body—now back to normal—had formed in the ground. Stretching his neck, he groaned “You got me good there.”

  Elder Buhndemog burst out in a hearty laugh. “The princess sure saved the day! The three of us were basically in a stalemate—and I suspect the young general wasn’t even going all-out.”

  “I’m not able to keep up that form indefinitely, and I was already running out of steam.” Arthur shook his head. “But yeah, I wasn’t expecting you to come at me like some sort of ice ninja, Kathyln.”

  I tilted my head, confused. “Ice… ninja?”

  “Uh, nothing.” Arthur said, scratching the back of his head. “I shouldn’t have taken you lightly, that’s all.”

  I blushed.

  Thankfully, Elder Camus seized his attention, extending a hand and pulling Arthur up to his feet.

  “Interesting boy,” the quiet elder said with the faintest trace of a smile.

  “It seems we’ll have much to discuss,” Hester added. “I think this will be a learning experience for us all.”

  We all agreed on that.

  —————————————

  The five of us regrouped near the entrance of the training room with Emily Watsken and Miss Emeria.

  “Before I go over the analysis of today’s assessment, I just wanted to hear some feedback,” Emily addressed. “Of course, our beautiful Miss Alanis Emeria has planned a rigorous training schedule for General Arthur, but overall, if there are any concerns, please let me know.”

  Miss Emeria nodded, her expression deadpan. “Feedback is crucial.”

  “I think it’s safe to say that the biggest issue for everyone, especially General Arthur, is concern for safety,” Hester noted.

  “Ah, yes! I’m actually in the process of working on something to help solve that problem, but it still needs some tinkering,” Emily responded.

  “Can I ask what it is, exactly? I’m pretty curious,” Arthur asked.

  “It’s a device that basically reads how much mana the wearer is being hit with, triggering a last-minute defense mechanism to prevent a lethal blow,” the artificer answered almost mechanically.

  “If an artifact like that can be built, couldn’t it be given to all the soldiers in battle?” Elder Buhndemog mused.

  Emily hesitated. “It could, but—”

  “It would be astronomically expensive,” Miss Emeria finished. “Also, the defensive mechanism will only work for that single triggering attack. In a training environment, the opponent would stop, but out on the battlefield, another attack would be all the enemy needed to finish the job.”