Chapter
One
NORA
D usky white spotted caps brushed past my biceps, fleshy fungi tall enough to hide even my bulky frame if I ducked behind them.
The ripe crop of mushrooms was large enough now to split a person in half.
..if they were made out of metal instead of soft fungi flesh.
The mental image of me hefting one of the mushrooms by the base and using it to bash the farm overseer over the head with it flashed through my mind, graphic and detailed, his head caving in as the mushroom turned weapon caved in his skull, cutting through him to split his body in half like those action horror movies I used to watch in what now seemed like another life.
I grinned at the mental image.
A jolt of electricity zapped me, causing me to gasp with the sudden shock of pain.
I lurched forward, wrenched out of my violent daydream. I didn't glance in the overseer's direction. He was relaxing in the gazebo in the center of the field, where he could see all of our progress and send out little shocks when we slowed, or if he was bored.
I wasn't splitting anyone in half with a giant mushroom.
I sighed as I waded between the rows of gargantuan fungi, eggshell grit crunching under my boots while the caldera’s rim cast a jagged shadow across the field.
The mushrooms reached my waist, thick, ruby-brown caps anchored to dense stalks shot with silver veins that pulsed with the eerie glow of magic.
I flexed my hands, sore and aching from the work.
The harvest shift was the worst. At least the new overseer was better than the one in my first year here.
That one had pain magic instead of electricity.
She didn't give out little shocks. Any time she decided to 'encourage' me, it would take me to the ground, my muscles seizing as every thought fled my body but the focus of pain.
I brushed the memory from my mind.
There was no point in focusing on the past. It was gone forever.
The only thing I could do was work and wait for the moment I knew was coming.
Soon, he would be here. It had been a year.
“Pulse,” I said.
I felt a tug on my magic as a ribbon of pale air uncoiled from my familiar’s wings.
Zeph was no bigger than a kestrel, all translucent feathers and whirling runes that pulsed cobalt when he moved.
His downdraft lifted in a tight vortex over the nearest cap.
Spores shimmered up like powdered bronze.
I traced a small symbol in the air, letting the golden light of my magic fill it as I cast the spell.
A small wind swirled around the copper cloud, and with a twist of my wrist, I guided it into the tin shaker at my belt, spores pinging off the rim before settling.
They didn't teach many spells to mundanes like me, just the ones we needed to do our work.
I knelt down, grabbing the mushroom at the base. I tensed, ready to put the force into my muscles that had gotten strong over the years here. I was already strong when I applied to the Order Academy. That strength and Zeph were the reasons I was assigned to the fields.
I gripped the base a little tighter. One strong twist and the whole thing surrendered with a wet pop.
Flesh like firm dough pressed against my palm.
This batch would dry into flour; the kitchens would grind the protein-rich caps and fold the powder into their creations.
I reached up to grab the head of it, folding it down with another crack, then the whole thing went into the other sack that was on my back.
I’d gotten used to its weight, and my body had changed over the years I worked in these fields.
Squatting, kneeling, twisting, lifting - they were everyday motions as I worked through the cyclical harvest, fields of mushrooms that were planted without worry of the season changing.
The only focus was to have enough fresh product to make the dishes served to the students and the army.
My daily quota had increased recently.
It meant more weight, more strength, longer hours.
Forward. Three paces. Gather. Kneel. Twist. Lift. Forward.
Sweat rolled down my forehead, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand.
I could feel the dust smear into mud across my skin and grit, knowing that a hot shower was hours away.
With the sudden increase in my quota, I knew I would be out here until after the sun long set in the night air, my sweat cooling to chill me to the bone.
I heard the clanking of armor, but I didn't pause to watch. This morning, more soldiers for the Order army had arrived, marching through the fort, which was the only way in or out of this caldera. It blocked the singular opening in the steep rock walls that surrounded the school grounds. Their gleaming armor clicked in time with Zeph’s wingbeats as they strode from the entrance down the main path parallel to the mushroom fields.
Something big had to be coming to have that many soldiers come to the school.
I'd heard the whispers in the commons.
He was back, the Chaos God had returned.
Not that it meant anything to me. Mundanes like me grew up in what the fae and their ilk called the 'mundane realm.' We didn't grow up with stories of the great battles between Chaos and Order, between deities that walked among us. Supposedly, there was a Goddess trapped under the commons itself.
I shook my head at that thought.
The only thing that mattered was getting out of here.
Wind shifted. Far above, clouds wheeled over the edge of the caldera. I wiped sweat, smearing tawny residue across my forearm, and moved to the next cluster. The shower in my dorm room was stained brown by the stuff.
Rhythm mattered, cut, scoop, swirl, seal, each motion precise to keep the spores from being wasted.
I was halfway to my quota. If I pushed hard enough, I might finish before the dinner service was over.
If not, I’d eat the provisions I had squirreled away in my room, saved for the days I just couldn’t do it.
There! Zeph said into my mind. He’s back!
I looked up, my familiar's urgent tug in my mind pulling my gaze across the field.
My heartbeat picked up, skipping a beat before cascading into the rhythm that both panic and excitement shared.
There was a figure silhouetted by the sun, a picturesque picture of a man who was not a man, a masculine form framed by the two huge feathering wings that curved around his body, like the wings of a non-biblically accurate angel.
He wore a white robe with gold trim and had a simple gold band around his forehead.
Gilded gauntlets adorned his forearms, and there was a sword strapped to his waist.
My hands clenched at my red skirt, stained brown by the dusted layers of dirt, sweat, and mushroom dust. I still didn’t understand why they didn’t give us different outfits to work in the fields.
It made no sense to kneel in the dirt in a school skirt, but a lot about this school still didn’t make sense, no matter how long I’d worked here.
I’d left my red school jacket in my dorm room.
My white shirt had wet circles under my armpits and had the same streaks of brown as my skirt.
I was filthy and disheveled compared to him, but what did I expect?
He was King of the Aetheriani, Rí Túath Crystallo, here for his yearly inspection of the spell that kept the field nourished, despite the systematic monocropping.
I was nothing but a mundane, a person transplanted from the normal world to this magical realm, a person brought here on the pretense of a magical education, and instead was put to work in the fields.
I had asked around to find out who he was and why he was there the last time I saw him.
I had to piece together the information from other mundanes and the few times I was able to go to the library.
His hair was a soft gold, curling around his face, which was familiar.
I’d gotten used to seeing his younger brother’s face on the banners that were hung from the domed walls of the commons the week before a game day, but I had seen Rí Túath Crystallo only once before, a year ago.
He was doing the same thing he did the last time, stroking a finger along the underside of one of the large mushroom caps, then holding it up to inspect the quality of its spores.
He was alone, just as he was last time.
GO! Zeph swooped down to send a woosh of air past my ear, startling me into motion. I shrugged off my heavy bag, dropping it to the ground, along with my tin.
If I succeeded, I wouldn't need them anymore.
I took one step, then another, and then I ran, dashing towards the promise of an escape.
Electricity zapped me, but I ignored it.
The shocks were easy to bear, easy to ignore when the only promise of freedom was standing there, waiting for me to ask for it.
All I had to do was convince him to take me.
The Aetheriani turned towards me, his wings spreading slightly before settling back down by his sides as he watched my rapid approach. There was no alarm in his posture. I was nothing that someone like him would be afraid of.
I slowed as I got closer to him, pushing through a row of mushrooms, their caps letting off puffs of dust as I stepped through them to the row that he stood in.
I threw myself on the ground.
My palms pressed into the dirt, and I bent forward, resting my forehead on the back of my hands.
I waited, silent. I didn’t know what kind of man he was.
If he were anything like his younger brother, he wouldn’t kill me for breaching some protocol I had no way of learning, but I couldn’t know for sure. All I had to go on were the rumors.
“Speak,” Rí Túath Crystallo commanded.
I lifted my head and upper body off the ground, looking up to meet his blue eyes.