Page 9 of Lucent Academy: Trinity Awakens
On the morning of the third day, I woke to find Amber shaking my shoulder, her face pressed against the window and her eyes wide with wonder.
"Leah," she said. "Leah, wake up. You have to see this."
I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and looked out the window.
The Academy stood on a mountain.
That was my first thought, though it wasn't quite accurate. The Academy didn't stand on the mountain so much as it grew out of it, its towers and spires rising from the rock like natural formations, as though the stone itself had decided to take the shape of a school. It was enormous, far larger than anything I had imagined, a sprawling complex of buildings connected by bridges and walkways and staircases that wound up the mountainside like ribbons of white stone. There were gardens everywhere, impossible gardens that clung to cliffsides and spilled over balconies, filled with flowers in colors I had never seen before. Waterfalls cascaded down from hidden sources, catching the morning light and scattering it into rainbows. And at the very top, perched on the highest tower like a crown on a king's head, sat a bird made of ice and light, its wings folded against its back and its eyes gleaming with ancient intelligence.
"Is that..." I breathed.
"A frost phoenix," Amber confirmed. "The principal's mate. I read about her in one of the pamphlets they gave us. She's been bonded to him for almost two hundred years."
"She's beautiful."
"She's terrifying. They say she can freeze an army with a single breath. They say she fought in the Battle of the Crimson Vale and killed ten thousand Voidborn in a single night."
I stared at the distant figure, trying to reconcile the stories with the reality. The phoenix looked peaceful from here, serene, like a statue carved from crystal and snow. It was hard to imagine her killing anything, let alone ten thousand monsters. But then again, it was hard to imagine a lot of things about this new world I was entering. A week ago I had been a gardener's daughter with no greater ambition than to marry well and have many children. Now I was Manaborn, flying through the sky toward a magical academy, preparing to summon a mate from another realm and fight in a war that had been raging for longer than anyone could remember. Nothing made sense anymore. Maybe nothing ever would again.
"Look," Amber said, pointing. "We're landing."
The airship descended toward a platform that jutted out from the mountainside, a flat expanse of white stone large enough to hold a dozen vessels like ours. Other airships were already docked there, disgorging passengers who milled about in confused clusters, and I could see figures in uniform directing traffic, pointing new arrivals toward a massive archway that seemed to lead into the mountain itself. As we drew closer, I noticed that the archway was carved with symbols I didn't recognize, glowing faintly with a light that pulsed like aheartbeat, and I felt a shiver run down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
"This is it," I said, more to myself than to Amber. "This is really happening."
"Having second thoughts?"
"Would it matter if I was?"
Amber laughed, but there was an edge to it. "Not even a little bit. Come on, gardener's daughter. Let's go see what the fuss is all about."
We gathered our things and joined the queue of students filing toward the exit, Seraphina pushing past us with a muttered comment about commoners taking too long. The gangplank was crowded and chaotic, but eventually we made it onto the platform, where the wind hit us like a physical force, cold and sharp and carrying the scent of snow and pine and something else, something electric and strange that made my skin prickle with awareness. This was a place of power, I realized. Real power, the kind that could reshape the world. And somehow, impossibly, I was supposed to learn how to wield it.
"First years, this way!" A woman in a blue uniform was waving us toward the archway, her voice magically amplified to carry over the wind. "Leave your luggage on the platform, it will be delivered to your dormitories. First years, this way please!"
We followed her through the archway and into the mountain, and I gasped as the interior opened up before us. I had expected corridors, maybe some stairs, the kind of practical architecture you'd find in any large building. What I found instead was a cavern, a vast underground space lit by floating crystals that cast everything in a soft golden glow. The walls were lined with doorsand windows, suggesting rooms and passages beyond counting, and staircases spiraled up into the darkness overhead, leading to levels I couldn't even see. Students filled the space, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, all wearing the same blue uniforms and all talking at once, their voices blending into a constant hum that was somehow both overwhelming and comforting.
"This is the Grand Atrium," our guide announced. "The heart of Lucent Academy. From here, you can access the dormitories, the classrooms, the library, the training grounds, and the dining hall. You'll learn your way around soon enough. For now, please proceed through the doors to your left. The opening ceremony will begin shortly."
Amber grabbed my hand and squeezed, and I squeezed back, grateful for the contact. We were in this together, whatever "this" turned out to be. That had to count for something.
The doors to our left opened onto a courtyard, another impossible space that seemed to exist in defiance of all logic and architecture. It was open to the sky despite being inside a mountain, flooded with sunlight that couldn't possibly be reaching this deep into the stone, and filled with stone benches arranged in concentric circles around a central stage. Students were filing in from multiple entrances, finding seats, talking nervously amongst themselves, and I spotted Seraphina near the front, already surrounded by a cluster of well-dressed nobles who seemed to be competing to see who could agree with her most enthusiastically.
"Let's sit in the back," I suggested. "Less chance of being noticed."
"Good thinking."
We found a bench near the rear of the courtyard and settled in, watching as the space filled up around us. There were so many people, so many faces, so many stories I would never know. I tried to count them and gave up somewhere around five hundred, my eyes unable to keep track of all the movement and color. These were my classmates, I realized. My peers. My fellow Manaborn, all of us chosen by a power we didn't understand for a purpose we hadn't asked for. Some of them would become my friends. Some of them would become my rivals. And some of them, if the statistics I had read were accurate, wouldn't survive the war that waited for us at the end of our training.
"There must be a thousand of us," Amber murmured. "Maybe more."
"The pamphlet said this year's class was unusually large. Something about an alignment of stars that happens once every few centuries."
"Great. So we're not just Manaborn, we're cosmically significant Manaborn. No pressure or anything."
I laughed, surprising myself, and Amber grinned at me, and for just a moment the fear receded and I felt something almost like hope. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Maybe I could do this. Maybe—
A bell rang, deep and resonant, and the courtyard fell silent.
