Page 17 of Lucent Academy 2: Trinity Awakens
I wasn't the only Manaborn with a powerful mate, though. In this group alone, there were seven Golds, three Platinums, one Diamond, and me, the Trinity. Perhaps she felt we had dethroned her from her place of importance, and she resented being forced to be one of this group's instructors.
My eyes flitted to the other instructors. The rest of them had all been students at the Academy at one point or another. Part of one's responsibilities was teaching for three years at the Academy after graduation. After fighting in the Void Wars, some of the instructors must have felt that here, at the Academy, was where their true calling in life lay. I tried to think of my own future, of returning here years from now to become an instructor again, and I couldn't do it. It was too far into a future that, at the moment, felt far too uncertain.
Crystalline and Principal Lucius stepped forward, and then he spoke, drawing all attention to him. "You will each step forward as I call your names. I will draw a number. This will indicate the order in which you will perform your demonstration, not just for today, but for the rest of the year. The person who picks the first slot will stay here so that we may begin. The rest of you will find a seat in the stadium. When your demonstration is complete, you may choose to leave. If you choose to remain, you will take a seat on the opposite end of the stadium. I advise you to watch and learn from each other. There will be no shouting, catcalling,or cheering. This is not a competition; it is merely your very first demonstration to measure in practical terms how far you have come in your learning."
Everyone held a respectful silence as the Principal's eyes flicked over us. He nodded his approval and started calling names one by one. Amber drew slot number two. Oliver drew slot number seven. Cleopatra drew the second-to-last slot. One by one, they departed for the stands until there was only Vivian Salvina and me. We drew close to each other, and she hooked her hand through my arm. When I looked at her, she grinned. "Just you and me left, huh?"
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, but patted her hand. Then we turned back to the Principal to wait while he drew the last two numbers.
The Principal finally called out my name. Vivian let go of my arm, and I walked up to our Principal on legs that felt like stilts. I looked into his face for some sort of reassurance. There was none. He watched me expectantly, impassively. I swallowed and watched with bated breath as he stuck his hand into the bag. He pulled out a piece of paper and glanced down at it. I knew there were just two numbers left, the first slot, and number 12, the last. Up until that moment, I hadn't really known what to hope for. Was it better to go first, to get the humiliation out of the way quickly? Or was it better to go last, when everyone else had already demonstrated what they could do?
Please, don't let me have to go first,I thought, and the desperation I felt surprised me. Perhaps I had known all along that I didn't want to be the first to demonstrate how much I had learned in the first week.
"Slot number twelve," the Principal declared. Behind him, Crystalline broke composure and huffed loudly, "Oh boo! I wanted to see what she'll do next!"
I felt my face instantly go the shade of cherries and wished she wouldn't single me out so much. What made it worse was seeing all the instructors and their mates trying to hold their composure, only to fail. Most of them hid amused smiles behind their hands as the Principal glanced back at his mate, giving her a stern frown. I half expected her to stick out her tongue at him, but that would have been taking it a tad far. Instead, she made a zipping motion across her lips and finished it with a key-locking gesture.
The Principal gave a long-suffering sigh as he nodded toward me, but damn it if he wasn't struggling not to smile, too. Crystalline was very hard to resist. I felt a giggle threatening to bubble up from inside me and just managed to stifle it as I stepped up and took the piece of paper from him.
"Miss Salvina," The Principal addressed the last girl, who had suddenly gone the color of curdled milk. "That leaves you in the first slot, so you'll kick off the demonstration."
Feeling more in control of myself, I turned to take my place in the stadium among the other students.
Lady Tisterra stepped forward to whisper a few encouraging words to the student she'd been mentoring. From where I was sitting between Oliver and Amber, I couldn't hear the instructor's exact words, but it seemed to settle Vivian's nerves. She set her shoulders back and nodded, determined to give a good demonstration of her power.
It was so quiet in the stadium that one could hear a pin drop. All eyes were turned to Vivian to watch what she would do.She closed her eyes and brought her hands together, folded in front of her chest as if she was in deep prayer. She seemed to be thinking hard, imagining her mate, recalling everything about him that she had seen at every summoning, how he had sounded, the way he had looked at her. I could see the frown between her eyes and her lips moving soundlessly.
There seemed to come a deep rumble from the bowels of the earth. There was no altar this time, just Vivian's will calling forth her mate. The earth seemed to split open in a section next to the young woman, and a light spilled forth, so bright it was almost blinding.
Then a shadow appeared in the middle of the light. It was a doorway, and something was coming, something large and hairy. It leaped from the hole, entering our world.
One moment, the light was getting more intense as the padding of heavy paws sounded in the arena, and the next moment, a huge Werewolf with a tooth-filled maw and blood-red eyes was standing next to Vivian. She opened her eyes and smiled as the doorway closed. The air around the Werewolf shimmered. His shape seemed to melt, and where a terrifying monster had stood, there was a shaggy-haired man who gave the girl a crooked smile, looking at her as if he had last seen her decades ago instead of just the other day. His eyes burned as he regarded her, and I could swear I still saw the suggestion of large canine teeth in the smile he flashed, something left over from his wolfy monster form.
They did not speak to each other. Vivian was still in the middle of giving her demonstration. She had only performed one half of the task successfully. Her Alpha Male mate seemed to sense her intent telepathically. He fell in behind her, there to lend her his power, to give her his support.
She crouched on all fours, regarding the strawmen targets a few feet away. She clutched her hands in fists and brought them together, scraping them across the ground as she did so. The action kicked up a small cloud of dust. Now, there was another rumble followed by a tearing sound. Between Vivian's hands, a huge boulder appeared to rise, to tear itself away from the earth. When it was floating suspended in the air in front of her face, she pushed forward with her magic. She never touched the boulder with anything other than her mind. Her power launched the boulder across the field and hit one of the straw men hard, the force knocking it over just as it tore apart in a cloud of dust and straw.
For a moment, I almost forgot myself. I almost forgot the rules Principal Lucius had set for the demonstration. I wanted to cheer. There was no eruption of applause, and I wondered if the other students found it just as difficult as I was to remain quiet. It had been a fantastic show of power.
Vivian rose and turned to her mate. They hugged, and the moment was intimate, as if they had forgotten everyone watching them, as if they were the only two beings that mattered. Lady Tisterra pointedly cleared her throat, and Vivan quickly let go. There was a scattering of giggles from the students. Unashamed, still in the grips of her triumph, Vivan bowed to Principal Lucius and the instructors.
"Well done, Miss Salvina. You may retire. Or, if you'd prefer to watch your fellow students perform their demonstrations, you and your mate may take your places at the opposite side of the stadium."
Vivian gave a little bow and took her mate's hand, then walked toward the large archway and disappeared through it without a glance back. I envied the fact that she could relax and spendsome time with her mate. Her demonstration was over. She could rest easily until dinnertime, knowing she had done her best.
"Oh, gods," Amber said in a queasy voice. "It's my turn now. Wish me luck!"
I took her hand and squeezed it. "You don't need luck. You've got this." I hoped that was true. Oliver mirrored my sentiment and gave her an encouraging slap on her shoulder as she walked past him on her way down the steps to the middle of the arena.
Again, the instructor came to give a short pep talk to the nervous student, only this time it was Caleb who spoke briefly to Amber. When he left to rejoin his own group, she took a deep breath and nodded to herself.
From the moment I had first met Amber on the airship, she had seemed tough and fierce, someone you'd expect to face any challenge head-on. With her short, black hair and muscular arms, and the rough, scarred hands so indicative of someone not afraid of physical labor, she had seemed down-to-earth but brave and strong in her own quiet way. We hadn't known each other for that long, but at times it seemed much longer. She was the friend I had been waiting all my life to meet, it seemed.
Now, as I looked down at her from my seat in the stadium, she looked so small standing there by herself in the middle of the arena. Just a lone girl born with a gift that, like me, she didn't fully understand yet. My heart went out to her.
She closed her eyes and grew still. Her hands hung at her sides, and she seemed like a statue. It took much longer for something to happen. So long that I started to worry that Amber would not even manage to call her mate.
Then there was a noise, faint at first, but steadily louder—a whooshing sound, the flapping of a pair of enormous wings. A bright light seemed to open from a fissure in the sky, a door from the Human and the Hestawyn Realms. Much larger than the one that had been needed for the Werewolf Alpha because Amber's mate was a fire Phoenix, and they tended to be enormous. Almost as large as Vaerath, my Abyss Dragon mate.
