There was a popular trade route going through Darnel straight into Bessou, and the journey would have usually taken three days. It took us a little over four.
Our horse-drawn carriage moved at a slower pace than usual. The coachman, wearing an old leather cap, complained that the back axle was rusty. It was grinding against the wheel socket all the time, endlessly making a creaking noise the entire trip.
On the fourth day of travel, we were already seeing vast fields everywhere we looked, where crops were about to be harvested for the upcoming winter. We passed through lively villages where the sounds of metalworks echoed for miles. Now and then we heard the familiar sawing and chiseling of wood, along with a lot of shouting. There were thousands of craftsmen and farmers working to supply the massive Jewel of Thei. Far off in the distance, left to the snowy peaks of the Leden mountains, we could see a tiny glimmering light marking our destination.
As we finally entered the city through the eastern gate, we passed under two massive guard towers overlooking Bessou. They dwarfed our tiny carriage and immediately I felt insignificant. Like I was just a young kid in an unfamiliar city, which was too large for me to even know and understand.
Less than an hour later, Florencia and I stood in front of our new professors. Eight men and women dressed in immaculately tailored coats and dresses. They received the first-year students and sent them first to their dormitories. Immediately after, they sat us down in the Grand Hall of the Mysteries, in the heart of the Cappesand Academy. Beside us sat dozens of first-year students of all ages. Most were young, around fifteen to eighteen, but a few seemed closer to twenty years old.
Bessou was sometimes called "The Jewel of Thei". "Jewel" was indeed fitting because, on top of the highest spire of the Cappesand Academy, was a spiraling triangular-shaped radiant crystal. Stories said that it was ancient, and throughout every night, it pulsed with rainbow-colored lights into the night sky. The crystal's purpose was a deliberate mystery, kept from all but the eldest members of staff, and the esteemed members of the High Council of Advisers for the Cappesand Academy. Many times in the years to come, I sat on a bench at the docks and stared at the dancing lights in the sky. Sometimes I would ponder over the many mysteries we were taught in the academy, other times over some inconsequential troubles.
The first year at Cappesand Academy humbled me.
Before the masters taught us anything about magic, we had to learn and pass basic education, which comprised reading, writing, mathematics, logic, and rhetoric. The teachers encouraged us to understand those topics to our highest level. It was arduous learning, and many times I thought I could not make it, but every time the tutors proved me wrong.
I wasn't totally stupid, at least not during year one.
Many times, the teachers had to force me to learn, using a bunch of different methods to do so. Ranging from friendly to downright mean. But, looking back, it was my fault that the teachers had to resort to punishments. I already expected to fail every lesson and did not put in any effort until I was forced to. However, when I sat down and focused, I learned it all, and wasn't even the worst in my class. Yet.
But who really kept me going throughout the first year, and who really helped me through the essential courses, was Florencia. While she knew magic theory and practice to a high level for a first-year student, she struggled a bit to learn the foundational subjects. This surprised me, because she has always been exceptional. How could she struggle with the simple stuff that even I could learn?
The two of us would spend hours and hours late at night studying in either of our dorm rooms. Hers overlooked the city and had a magnificent view of the gilded church of Iscia - the major god of growth, love and fertility. While my room was on the second floor, but had a decent view of the lake, and the sun would light up my room every morning.
We spent most of our free time reading books, working on all kinds of exercises, debating for our rhetoric class, and solving math problems. I hated it, and Florencia hated it.
But we prevailed. She passed her exams with grace and top scores. I passed just alright, but that was good enough for me. My teachers weren't looking for me to excel, but definitely asked that from Florencia. They asked, but never demanded. The masters gave her a choice - to either be great, or simply pass the tests. She worked hard for greatness. Many nights I would fall asleep, while she stayed awake and memorized even more wisdom from the ancient books.
The peculiar thing was that, although there was a standardized minimum every student had to pass, the Cappesand faculty personalized all the student's tests. The tests developed their strengths, while still balancing out their weaknesses. We noticed soon into our studies that the materials we learned were different. Not dramatically different, but noticeably different.
It was almost as if the master teachers knew how much to push each student, and understood the realistic, achievable level of each first-year student.
Although the first year was difficult, and I've never studied that hard in my life, it was also my favorite time at Cappesand. This was only because of the time I spent with Florencia. It was during that year that I developed a deeper love for her, more than just a good friend should have. Although I hoped I was more than just a friend to her, she knew me pretty much all her life.
We never were like a family back at Darnel, especially with her father, nor with Lielana. Dorne made it very clear I was not a part of his family. But it was during that first year that my feelings for Florencia turned into a deep love.
How could I not? She was gorgeous!
Her dark green eyes were so easy to lose yourself in. She always had her golden blonde hair in some kind of impossible style, which she effortlessly changed every week. I also could not ignore her slim figure, with just the right amount of curves in her hips. And while she was taller than average, she still looked up at me with those big bright eyes of hers. She had this habit of discreetly licking her lips with the tip of her tongue, turning her head away so nobody could see. Even such a little gesture sent my mind into a frenzy.
But all of that aside, what made me fall for her was the simple fact that she cared about me. She would ask about my studies, how my day went, or what I thought about her outfit. And she just enjoyed talking to me about any and all topics. Even this simple thing would have made me fall for her, I was certain of it.
I had so irreversibly fallen for her that it felt like I was bewitched. But I made no claim for her love. She was so smart that one of my primary goals was to keep her studying and reach her maximum potential. I could not let her get slowed down by an idiot blunt. This meant that I had to keep my romantic feelings for her buried.
I made no move on her and guarded my feelings the best I could. While I thought that Florencia never caught on to my feelings, she was spending almost all of her time with me. She rarely went out with her classmates or acquaintances. Even I understood this was odd, but because I enjoyed the time we spent together, I didn't mind too much. I theorized she was solely focusing on succeeding at Cappesand, and didn't want any distractions.
And while I noticed her beauty, so did others. There were many who expressed romantic interest in her. I could still remember the boys who made their desire known and asked her out. Some asked her out directly, while others set up elaborate scenarios to express their affection. Florencia nonchalantly dismissed them all and went back to her room to study some more. Or other times she came to my dorm room, and we either just talked, or did some more reading or practising. I took a shameful joy seeing the ace-students denied their chance with Florencia, their pride hurt and ego bruised.
I was certain Florencia would've been popular with the boys, but for some reason, she didn't care.
She ignored them and studied or went on adventures in the city with me or her female friends. Every time, though, she would always come back to me before it got too late. She didn't trust Bessou during the night. I didn't understand that, though. It was a safe city, and I had no problems returning to Cappesand early in the morning hours. Sometimes I did so slightly inebriated, pissing her off until I told her a little joke. But she always came back and retold about what adventure they went on that time.
By then, I was so enchanted that no other woman could ever compare. There were a few who asked me out, but I turned them down because I was that indifferent to them. One time I caved in and went out with a lovely first-year brunette who took a liking to me, for some unknown reason. After a brief night of fun, I had the unfortunate privilege of letting her know that this was a onetime fling, and she should look for a more suitable boy to date. Someone who would be more emotionally available, and more talented in magic. I could not escape my own insecurities.
Many times I had to let off steam somewhere because of Florencia's relentless teasing. I knew she was not doing it on purpose and was just being herself. She would be absorbed in her studies, and not notice how her knee-length skirt ran up her thighs, or how three opened buttons on her shirt would sometimes expose too much for a young man to handle. One night, when we spent a whole evening gossiping about some silly some second-years had done, she was only wearing a short sleeping dress. It amazed me I could hold a conversation, because most of that night I was wondering whether she was wearing panties, because she definitely wasn't wearing a bra.
The day after, my loins were on fire, which forced me to accept an offer from a rather forward young woman a year older than me. I, of course, had the pleasure of, again, breaking things off before our second date because Florencia just bought a bottle of alcohol-free cider, which needed drinking. It was a simple decision to make, and I had no regrets.
While it wouldn't have been hard to smuggle some alcoholic drinks into the academy grounds, this rarely happened. Cappesand had a zero alcohol policy, and all students caught drinking, or drunk, on the premises would face punishment.
I never got drunk at Cappesand, but sometimes did in Bessou, and slept in an inn or on a park bench. Even I knew that smuggling alcohol into the most prestigious school for wizards was a monumentally stupid idea.
Stolen novel; please report.
Lucky me, because another guy, who I was sure was smarter than me, tried to do just that. He was eighteen, only half a year into his first year at Cappesand, when he smuggled in three wine bottles, and had a rowdy evening.
He was caught the next morning, and the punishment was much worse than anyone theorized. I thought that the poor boy would receive a slap on the wrist, some extra studies, and detention. What actually happened was that not only was he expelled, and temporarily stripped of his magical abilities via an excruciating ritual I've only heard horror stories of. But he was also conscripted into a penal battalion, sent far east to the borders of Stotor, and died a few weeks later fighting some extremists. Rumors said that he took a spear to his side, the wound turned gangrenous quick, and he died before reaching the healers.
So that's how the academy dealt with students disobeying the rules.
Later I found out that alcohol prohibition was that strict because having young drunk wizards going around campus might be a little hazardous to the living. And to the city's architecture. After that incident, we had a mandatory class on why drinking is dangerous and the many ways you just might blow up your family or friends.
The first year was my favorite and there was no comparison. I managed my studies and grew much smarter than I could have envisaged. That was undeniable. But my time spent together with Florencia was the best part, and I wouldn't exchange it for anything. Looking back, that year set a foundation for the rest of our lives. We spent so much time together and grew even closer than back at Darnel.
However, good times never last.
In the second year, things changed for the worst when we started learning magic. And I use the term magic loosely because it's an impossibly wide umbrella term that most artisans of the craft despise.
Before the first lectures about magic had even begun, I already filled my thoughts with dread and predetermined failure. I knew that, while my mind was sharp enough for basic education, my understanding of magic was painfully lacking. I was certain that no amount of study would change that fact. Florencia had tried to teach me for years, ever since our childhood, to get me to at least a basic level, and failed.
But the fact was that the Cappesand Academy took potential candidates, and molded them into extraordinary wielders of magic, who took up positions in the highest echelons of society, leading whole provinces, cities, businesses, or militaries. Sometimes even whole religious sects. There simply was no competition between a blunt and a mage. And I knew for a fact that I was incapable of competing with the rest of my second-year peers.
While I started out my second year in a crisis of confidence, Florencia flourished. She learned all the basics of the crafts quick and had time left over to help me along the way so I wouldn't drop out of the academy immediately.
There were many schools of magic taught at Cappesand, all with their own abstract intricacies and minute details, that to just call it magic was almost insulting. It was more like science than art, with little room for improvisation.
At Cappesand, they used the term craft for the different schools of magic taught there. Perhaps because it had a nice and short ring to it. It was also casual enough so people's egos wouldn't get too out of hand, which happens to people with extraordinary abilities.
All second-year students were taught the craft of emotions, the craft of the mind, the craft of healing, the craft of prolonging, the craft of disturbance, the craft of pyromancy, the craft of displacement, the craft of making, the craft of ...
Yes, there were many crafts of magic, and all had representation in Cappesand academy. Entire departments filled with researchers, studying their crafts with meticulous and scientific accuracy. Many of them spending their entire lives in pursuit of knowledge and understanding above all else. The most esteemed and well-connected of them had secretive prolonging rituals performed on them, so that they maintained their youth and mental capabilities well past their centennial birthdays. It was hard enough knowing the actual age of anyone between the ages of twenty-five and eighty. The prolonging rituals made that even more difficult.
Looking at them from afar, it was a romanticized life of pursuing knowledge, behind which were nasty backdoor politics, backstabbing, and few true alliances. Great abilities often bring greater egos.
The most influential of the crafts was the craft of diplomacy. Even though monarchs and other rulers of smaller empires would not accept a Cappesand Academy graduate as their own personal councilor, they often use their help in complicated diplomatic affairs, both internal and international. This brought a lot of attention, criticism and expectations with it. How differently would the powerful men and women of the world act, were they to understand the extent that the sorcerer diplomats could influence the negotiations?
In short, the craft of diplomacy had tremendous magnetism to it, from the gifted and ambitious, to the sociopathic manipulators. The selection process was a lengthy one, where only the most capable and level-headed students were selected by the managerial staff, much to the resentment of the pathological aspirants.
Of course, Florencia was one of those students who got invited in. And I got all the inside scoop of their dealings, which was a definite breach of her promise to keep everything confidential. If I were smarter back then, I could have used that knowledge to my advantage and carved out a modest existence for myself. But I was not.
As the years passed, I felt like Florencia was on a fast track to greatness and dragging me along with her. I was slowing her down with my bluntness. Bluntness was a popular insult in Cappesand, meaning one of no magical ability, and I heard that insult often during the second year. Later, not so much. Calling someone a blunt in the finest academy for magic in the southern part of the world was the equivalent of spitting in someone's face.
And so the second year passed unnoticeably into the third. By then, Florencia was fiercely studying the craft of diplomacy and I was barely holding on. Each passing month, I fell more behind. My mentors hadn't given up on me yet and pushed me forward. However, I couldn't help resenting them a bit because of that. Being nineteen years old then, and they were oppressors. Luckily, I wasn't completely dumb, and in my clearer moments, I understood they tried their best to teach me. But, I could sense that their patience was wearing thin.
More time passed, and Florencia's study load increased even more. She grew more distant because of it, but always tried to find time to spend with me. She still had no real friends other than me, not even from the department of diplomacy. The competition was cutthroat; she said one evening while looking at the dancing crystal lights. Friends were rare, and trustworthy friends even more so. On most evenings, her masters made her work and study mercilessly long hours in the special access sections of the library, next to the others students of diplomacy. Needless to say, I could not even get close to those areas.
I knew she wanted to spend time with me but couldn't. On some evenings, I was suspicious that she might actually, finally, grow apart from me and follow her own path to whatever glory was awaiting her. But those suspicions evaporated the moment she ran, exhausted, into my arms again, and complained about another injustice she had to endure.
All the precious free time she had, she spent with me, like always. She seemed content to do so, and I was content to let her do so. Even though my heart bled, it was a cheap price to pay. Although Florencia did complain about her studies sometimes, she tried her best to stay positive and motivated. She then would immediately ask about my progress and try to help me in her exhausted state.
And I did my best to reciprocate her kindness by, for example, taking her to a new, interesting place I discovered in Bessou. She didn't get out much, so the excitement of an adventure in town was just perfect. Or I would talk about some silly thing that had happened in my classes, or buying her something cute here and there. Those were the little things that made her happy.
And I knew the gifts made her happy. She accepted the gifts and adventures with heartfelt gratitude, hugs and cheek kisses that lingered just a bit too long compared to previous years.
She studied hard and grew into a capable young pupil in the craft of diplomacy, under her personal tutor Karim Mas - the very direct and confrontational master diplomat, who had worked with the king resolving the Valden border crisis some twenty years ago.
Nearing the end of summer, I wanted to celebrate her achievements. I was to take her out on the town for her nineteenth birthday. I had set up an elaborate dinner in our favorite cafeteria right by the docks, overlooking the massive snow-peaked Leden mountains. Her mentor, however, did not care about arbitrary dates of celebration, like a birthday, so he made her stay late and study on purpose to prove a point.
Florencia couldn't even send a message that she couldn't make it. While I understood the lesson master Mas was trying to teach her, Florencia was beyond furious. She had apparently been looking forward to the secret birthday plans I've made because I couldn't stop teasing her about it. It had been the single source of motivation for her for months, and now her tutor couldn't even let her have one night on the town, just for a silly lesson. Well, that was Florencia's reasoning. I thought she was blowing this out of proportion, because I could always reschedule the date.
Dinner, I meant dinner.
Florencia, however, did not brush this off like all the other cruel lessons. I would say that her nineteenth birthday was the turning point in our life. With one swift mistake from her master, the dynamics had irrevocably changed for her. Slowly and over many months, Florencia grew secretly more sour and cynical. Only with me and only when no-one else could notice. At first, I don't think anyone noticed the disillusioned way she looked at the teachers. How she rolled her eyes at the self-important masters and their same stories repeatedly, which served the only purpose of stroking their egos.
She grew more distant and agitated toward not only teachers, but her peers as well. Although all students in the craft of diplomacy were competitors, Florencia had a few friends there who could sometimes be counted on. She even dismissed them along with her tutors, which worried me.
Not that Florencia was turning into a rebel, but she expressed her disillusionment in her own ways. Sarcasm became our secret language. Our voice tone would be casual and friendly, but there was often a subtext of dissatisfaction.
Time passed, and Florencia kept studying hard. She was still one of the top students in the craft of diplomacy, but the roots were poisoned, with no way of repairing the damage done. Getting her old optimism back was made even more impossible when her masters kept tightening the rules and giving her increasingly harsh lessons. One missed birthday dinner turned into a dozen get-togethers she had to miss because of extra work.
This meant that now I had more free time for myself. I could have spent that studying for my lessons, but I chose differently. Over the years, I saw no substantial improvement in my magical abilities, so I began skipping classes and spending my time off campus. I took a few overnight shifts at a warehouse. We unloaded the heavy grain barrels from the massive carracks and either rolled them or carried them on carts into the warehouse. One day I stayed talking with a co-worker, who mentioned in passing about joining a combat sport club after hours. The idea intrigued me more than I cared to admit back then, and I accepted. Since then, I started skipping more classes to take part in the physical sports, but especially combat sports. There was a certain thrill about them, which I could not explain, but I was hooked.
Florencia's bright-eyed attitude toward her chosen craft worsened. Week after week, I could sense that she was close to breaking. I could not let that happen, so to prevent that, I was her emotional support even more than before. I prioritized her well-being more than mine, and it worked well enough into the next summer.
But like all changes, trouble brings company.
On the summer solstice, I started seeing my old friends again. The shadow people. At first, only on very rare occasions. And like previously, I could only see them out of the corner of my eye. But this time I was more confident in myself and knew that this was no illusion or a trick of the mind. I could sense when one was close or around the corner, and even knew which way to look whenever I got the familiar bone-chill signalling me when one was nearby. The creatures kept their distance this time, and didn't interfere with my life. They were a distant presence, which I could forget when I was occupied.
By the end of the summer, coming up on her birthday, Florencia was barely holding on to her motivation to study, and the grand Cappesand ideals. I had to keep the reappearance of the shadow people a secret, at least until her situation was more stable. She didn't need another stressor in her life. I knew that if I told her, she would help me regardless of her own health and studies. She was smart now. Confident. And she would probably figure out what the phenomenon was in no time. But in doing so, she would ruin her chances in her craft, which I could not let happen. We were stuck in this kind of limbo state, and neither of us knew how the situation would play out.