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CHAPTER THREE

The weeks pass, and late summer quickly turns to autumn in the City of Knowledge—damn that higher elevation—and teaching my students how to master fire becomes a looming priority. Not that I care if they’re shivering in their beds at night, but humans do die from the cold, and winter is fast approaching. The academy has a rule about students being required to heat their own dorms, and to foster a cooperative spirit and prevent the load from falling to the few who show an early aptitude for fire, the house leaders set up a schedule specifying whose turn it is to handle the task each evening.

In my experience, the last thing that schedule fosters is cooperative spirit. I distinctly remember, in my first year, helping two of my dormmates hold one of our compatriots out a window by his legs, threatening to drop him if he didn’t get a fire going immediately. He did, incidentally, but unfortunately, it was one of the bunks that caught alight, not the pile of kindling in the hearth. Still, it gave new meaning to “trial by fire,” and he had the knack of it after that. It was also the inspiration for one of my favorite teaching techniques.

And the first time I was called to the dean’s office. So many fond memories.

But since I don’t want any of my students accidentally (or purposefully) dropped from windows, and I definitely want to minimize the number of times they set fire to themselves and other things that shouldn’t be set fire to, I throw all my efforts into encouraging them to learn in class.

“Not like that, dolt! Do you want to kill us all?” I direct a flame-smothering spell at the giant fireball hovering in the middle of the classroom. It collapses into wispy smoke, and I glare at the student responsible. He’s one of the ones who still hasn’t earned the right to have his name used.

“But, Professor… you said to think of fire!”

“And your mind instantly went to a fireball hanging in midair instead of, perhaps, lighting the candle I gave you for that specific purpose?” I wave a hand to the taper on his desk, and he blinks at it in bewilderment.

“I… don’t know?”

It’s only the tug from Tia’s part of my mind that stops me from lunging at him. I suck in a deep breath. “Remember what I taught you, that a spell is the visualization of your intent?” He nods. “Excellent. So do you understand why thinking of a large fireball in the middle of the classroom while trying to use your magic might be a bad idea?”

A blank stare is his only response, and I grit my teeth.

“Tell me: What is magic?”

“It’s energy in our bodies,” he replies promptly, seeming proud to know the answer. “Mages have more kintick energy?—”

“Kinetic.”

“Yes, that. We have more than other people, who only have what they need to survive. And we can learn to use the extra energy to do stuff.”

At least he knows that much. “Good. How do we ‘do stuff’?”

He grins. “We picture the extra energy and then imagine it doing what we want it to.”

My hands twitch. That’s the most dumbed-down explanation I’ve ever heard. He definitely didn’t hear it from me. “Close enough. Now, when you imagined using your magic—the kinetic energy—did it occur to you that it might be bad to also imagine a fireball?”

His face turns tragic. “I couldn’t help it! The fireball just popped into my head when you said to think of fire!”

My patience is disappearing at an alarming rate. “That’s why you have meditation classes, to keep you from accidentally visualizing random things at the wrong times.”

“Oh.” He grimaces. “I can’t get the hang of meditation. I keep falling asleep in that class.”

I clench my fists to keep from actually strangling him and think grimly about the conversation I’m going to have with the meditation professor later. He’s not going to enjoy it at all . “Do not think of fire until I tell you otherwise. In fact, try not to think at all. You should find that a simple task.”

He seems puzzled by that, and as I turn toward the next student, Tia tugs again. I send my thoughts winging toward her. “Yes?”

“Everything okay? You seem… upset.”

“I was nearly incinerated by a moron who can’t tell the difference between lighting a candle and laying siege to a settlement.”

Her amusement flows along the connection between us, and I relax slightly. “Oh. Just another day in the life of teaching, then. You should bring them out here and let the dragons teach them all about fire.”

The only reason I don’t shudder is because I don’t want anyone to suspect the link between us. It’s not uncommon for telepaths to frequently hold mind-to-mind conversations, but that’s not exactly what I’m doing right now.

“No, thanks. Now let me get back to work. You dragon riders seem to have all this free time.”

In response, an image forms in my head. It’s the City of Knowledge, spread out far below, and as I realize I’m seeing what she is, Leicht—the bastard—banks into a steep dive. My stomach churns as I cut the connection with Tia to the sound of her laughter. I fucking hate dragons. And heights. And the very idea of flying.

“Professor?” a tentative voice asks, and I focus on the student in front of me. It’s Lenora Gill, the farm girl who thinks I’m a monster and a disgrace to mages everywhere. Surprisingly, she earned the use of her name within the first three weeks, and there’s been a grudging truce between us. Grudging on her part. I’m quite happy for her to exist.

Well, as happy as I am for any of my students to exist.

“Have you been practicing, Lenora?” She lit the candle for the first time at the beginning of the week, and once I was satisfied she could do it reliably and without any unwanted side effects, I gave her a taper to practice on outside of class.

“Yes, Professor.”

I nod to her candle and feel the tiny, controlled surge from her as it lights. She’s a bit clumsy still, but her technique is solid.

“Excellent work. Could you please go light the coals in that brazier?” I point toward the fireplace, which has been set up for this little challenge. There’s no tinder or kindling, just the cold coals. To get them alight, she’ll need to make the flame hotter and sustain it. Lighting a candle is easy in comparison—a single surge of magic to set the wick alight. This, though, requires focus, steady use of power, and creative visualization. Not everything we do with magic is easy to visualize.

She walks toward the hearth confidently, no doubt not realizing exactly what this will take. I watch carefully as she makes her first attempt and some of that confidence fades. She was raised on a farm—she should be aware that coals require concentrated heat to light. That puts her several steps ahead of the pampered, wealthier students who’ve never had to light their own fires in their life. I know, because I was one of them, and it was only when one of my classmates explained things to me that I realized I’d been going about it the wrong way.

Keeping half my attention on her, I turn to the next student and brace myself. “Okay. Try to light the candle.”

By the time the last of the leaves have left the trees and autumn is only a technicality, I’m finally satisfied that all my students can light the fires in their dorms. Some of them are still likely to set fire to themselves at random other times, but for different reasons. Fire is one of the tougher abilities to fully master, which is why we have the students begin with it right away.

Leaving one of my fire-prone students in the infirmary under the watchful eye of the academy healer on night shift, I head toward my master’s rooms. Her burns aren’t all that bad, but her dormmates were pissed off about nearly being part of a human bonfire, so I decided it would be better for her to spend the night elsewhere.

“Master?” I push open the door, surprised to find the room lit only by the fire crackling in the hearth. “Is everything okay?”

“Hmm.”

My eyes adjust, and I find him standing over by the window. He’s been doing that more and more lately, just standing and staring out. I’m not sure if he’s thinking, processing a new magical concept, or just… staring. I’m not going to ask either. He’ll tell me when he’s ready for me to know.

Another lesson I learned the hard way.

“Do you need anything, Master?”

With a sigh, he turns. “No. How are the burns?”

I shrug. “Minor. But I suspect some of the other students want to hold her down and set the rest of her on fire, so I left her in the infirmary for the night.”

He huffs. “That’s remarkably indulgent for you. What happened to tough love?”

“That’s my job. I can’t be sure these baby mages are capable of doling it out without killing anyone.”

That gets a small smile from him, and he turns back to the window. “I don’t need anything tonight.”

“Good night, then.” I head back toward the door.

“Talon?”

Taking my hand off the knob, I face him. “Yes, Master?”

“I know you want to get ahead with your research, but perhaps get an early night.”

Okay, there’s definitely something going on. “Is there something I should know, Master?”

He shakes his head, still looking out the window. “No. Just… a feeling. Something…. We should be rested.”

I wait to see if he has anything else to add, but that’s it.

“Good night, Master.”

Back in my snug room—kept warm because I’m very fucking good with fire—I glance toward my desk. There’s a lot of research still to do if I want to make it to level-3 this year. And these few hours when my master doesn’t need me are my only time to get it done.

But he doesn’t often try to govern my time, so I can’t take his suggestion lightly. Instead of giving in to the urge to study, I go to bed.

I surge to wakefulness, sitting bolt upright and slamming a protective shield of air into place around my bed before I realize the threat isn’t physical.

In fact… it isn’t a threat. Not to me, at least.

“Tia?!” I scramble to reach my twin’s mind. “What’s happening?”

She doesn’t bother to reply, just lets me see and hear through her. The riders’ barracks are buzzing, with half-dressed riders racing through the halls and out into the night, toward the dragons’ valley. The roars coming from it are terrifyingly loud, and as I dampen the sound a little—for both of us—I realize I can actually hear the echo of it with my own ears. It’s carrying through the night, all the way to the academy.

Tia blocks my sensory input as she enters the valley. No human can go there unless they’re bonded to a dragon, and she decided long ago that meant mentally as well as physically. I stay with her, though, waiting for information, tensed to leap out of bed and prepare for… I don’t know what. Battle? We haven’t been at war for centuries. And the City of Knowledge is in the dead center of the continent of Vaderyn. If the Baswich Empire across the ocean was attacking, we’d know long before they got here.

Finally, Tia says, “Something’s upset the dragons. We don’t know what. Leicht keeps saying, ‘It’s back,’ but I can’t get anything else out of him. None of them are saying more.”

Fucking dragons and their fucking drama. Still, there’s nothing I can do about dragons having a joint nightmare.

“Okay. Let me know if you need me. Or if they say anything useful.”

She sends a vague acknowledgment, already preoccupied with settling Leicht, and I pull back from her mind.

Then, knowing that the councilors will have woken—hundreds of dragons causing a ruckus is the kind of thing the Council of Mages stays abreast of—I send a telepathic knock to my master.

“Stay in bed. We’ve no useful information. Did Tia have any?” His response is so immediate, I know he was waiting for me.

“No. Leicht says, ‘It’s back,’ but that’s all. They’re all quite distressed. I think the riders will be with them all night.”

“That’s what we’ve heard also. Get some rest. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

Tomorrow brought nothing except the odd, itchy feeling of expectation. Or, as I once heard one of the city’s gate guards say, “Sweet fuck all.” I’ve found the best forms of expression are to be found amongst the guard. Or dockworkers. Now there’s an education. Too bad the City of Knowledge doesn’t have docks.

The day after was the same. No new information, just an annoying mental itch. By day fifteen, the only thing that’s happened is the first true snowfall of the season—one that sticks to the ground instead of melting quickly—and most of the mages around the city were losing interest. Even Master Samoine told me to stop worrying about it. The dragons would tell us more when they could. Fucking dragons. If I was even a slightly stupider person, I’d march down to their valley and tell them exactly what I thought of them.

I said as much to Tia, and when she’d finished laughing so hard she cried, she told me she didn’t think the dragons knew anything more than they’d already said. She wouldn’t say more than that, but honestly, it sends cold chills down my spine.

It’s back? What is? Why? Clearly not anything good, or they wouldn’t have been in such a flurry.

My class is distracted this morning, whispering to each other whenever they think I’m not paying attention—which is never, but they haven’t caught on to that yet. We’ve been trying to work with air, which is the easiest element, and after fire should be simple for them, but clearly I’ve overestimated their capabilities. I’m about three seconds from threatening to hang them all over the chasm by their pinky fingers when a hushed argument breaks out.

I fold my arms across my chest and watch. It seems mostly to consist of Lenora Gill, Drey Hart—Mr. Baby Merchant—and Cary Meister hissing at each other, “No, you do it!”

“One of you had better do it before you all find yourselves scrubbing latrines for a week,” I say lazily. It’s quite amusing, the way their heads snap around, eyes wide. “What is it that none of you want to do, by the way?”

They exchange glances.

“Someone had better speak very soon. I’m losing patience, and you all know how little I had to begin with.”

Drey gulps and casts a glance over his shoulder toward the window I floated him through only a few months ago. “It’s not… That is…”

I raise a brow, and he pales. “Well, Professor, yesterday we heard a rumor that your sister is a dragon rider.”

Oh. That. Really? It took them this long to find that out?

“Yes.”

They wait.

“Was that all?”

Cary, who’s the only one so far able to use air to blow out a candle after he’s lit it, says, “The dragons seemed really upset a few weeks ago. Most of us woke up; they were that loud. Do they… Do they do that a lot? Only… nobody’s talking about it.”

Not to first-year students, they wouldn’t be. Well, fuck. I guess I get stuck with this delightful little task. “They don’t do that a lot. In fact, in all the time I’ve been here, they’ve never done that—not all of them at once. You will occasionally hear dragons screaming. They have… feelings just like we do.” I try not to choke on that sentence, glad Tia’s not paying attention right now. She’d just tell Leicht, and then he might think I liked him. “They’ll scream if their rider is seriously injured or killed, or if another dragon is. They also scream if they’re angry. Basically, if you’re close to a dragon who’s screaming, leave.”

The whole class is staring at me in fascination. I haven’t gotten such undivided attention from them since the first day. I suppose that’s a sign I should continue. Ugh.

“Dragons communicate telepathically amongst each other and can do so over long distances. Any distance, to the best of my knowledge. They can also communicate this way with their bonded rider.”

A hand shoots up. It’s one of the students who hasn’t earned her name yet. “Does that mean telepaths can speak to dragons?” she asks breathlessly.

“No. Mages cannot speak to dragons—well, they can, using their voices, but if they expect to get an answer in return, they will be sorely disappointed. Despite what many people think, dragon riders are not mages, in the same way that healers are not mages. They are three completely different Talents that do not cross over, ever. Riders don’t have an excess of kinetic energy the way we do, and we don’t have the brain structure that would allow a bond with a dragon. The only human who can speak telepathically with a dragon is their bonded rider.”

The disappointment on her face tells me she had dreams of being a mage and a dragon rider. Perhaps I should ask Tia to introduce the class to Leicht. That would cure them of such ridiculous notions.

“So… did someone die? Or a dragon?” Drey asks. “Is that why they were so upset?”

“No. We’re… unsure at this time what the fuss was. The dragons themselves aren’t being very clear. It’s important to remember that dragons are an intelligent species and not subject to the laws of humans. They have treaties with us because it suits them to do so. They bond with riders for the same reason.” Fuck knows what it is, though. I asked Tia once if she knew, and she told me it was none of my business. I’m still not sure if she knows or not.

“What I don’t understand,” Lenora begins, speaking slowly, as though she’s choosing every word carefully, “is why it’s so important to have dragon riders. They train for war, don’t they? For battle. But there hasn’t been a war in Vaderyn in hundreds of years.”

One of the more highly educated students parts his lips, a superior expression on his face, but I cut him off. “That’s true. The primary reason for that is that the dragons won’t permit it. However, our dragon riders train for war for other reasons too. They support all continental nations in stamping out banditry and maintaining neutral borders. And while there hasn’t been war in Vaderyn for a long time, the world is bigger than the continent. This year, you’re learning continental politics and history, but next year, you’ll be learning about other places.”

Those students who never expected to leave their villages and definitely didn’t know how big their own countries were, much less the world, stare at me in shock. “There are other places?”

I nod. “Lots of them. But they aren’t your priority right now. Air is. And if you don’t master it, you’ll have to repeat this year and wait even longer to learn world history.” I narrow my eyes. “Not to mention, I will be most displeased to have to teach any of you again after this year.”

They all instantly return their attention to trying to blow out candles.

When my class finally leaves, I have a pounding headache that’s just made worse by the mental itch of worry that’s been chasing me since the night the dragons had their collective tantrum. I decide to detour past the infirmary and see if I can sweet-talk whoever’s on duty into doing anything about it.

The infirmary is on the other side of the academy, and although there are several ways to get there, at this time of day most of them are inevitably teeming with loud, annoying students. I skip that ruckus by taking a slightly longer route through the main receiving halls used for visiting dignitaries. They’re empty, rarely used at all, and in one, I sneeze three times—clearly the housekeeping staff is being neglectful.

I step into the great entrance hall, and as I always do, I take a moment to look up at the soaring cathedral ceiling. The stone arches so high above frame windows that let soft winter light filter in and make what could have been a forbidding place quite warm and welcoming.

Then my head throbs and itches, and I start toward the other side of the hall. It’s not as quiet as usual; the guard at the massive front doors is arguing with someone trying to enter. I slow down a little and look while trying to seem like I’m not looking.

“You can’t come in,” the guard—it’s Prentice, I know all the guards from having bribed them to look the other way while I sneaked out as a student—insists. “Only mages and students and invited guests. Sometimes messengers.”

“I’m a messenger. I have a very important delivery to make,” the man insists. Taking him in from the side of my eye, I frown. He doesn’t look like a messenger. He looks like a farmer who came directly from his fields. He also looks like a southerner and speaks with a decidedly Camblish accent. It’s a long way from Camblin to the City of Knowledge for a farmer to come.

“What’s your name, then? Messengers are all registered on the list.” Prentice waves toward the document on the wall beside the door.

“I’m Wat Shien. I have to see Master Samoine.”

I slow even more. What does this man want with my master?

Prentice scans the list, though from his smirk, he already knows the man isn’t on it. “Sorry. You’re not on the list. I can let the master know you were here. If you let me know where you’re staying, he might decide to invite you back.” His tone says how unlikely that is.

The farmer—Wat—shakes his head. “No, I have to see him. I have to give him this.” He digs in his pocket and pulls something out, showing it to Prentice.

The utter silence that follows stops me in my tracks.

“Of course,” Prentice says, his tone completely different. “You need to take that to the master right away.”

What. The. Fuck?