Leon sighed and put down the pen.  It had been roughly a week since the duel, and that entire week no one had said a word to Lira or Krya.  In fact he was pretty sure they avoided those two girls at all costs.

And of course they also avoided him.

Apparently breaking a mage’s wand was like crippling them, almost for life, seeing as each wand was unique and could only work for one person or their family it costed fortunes to make a new one, and there was not even a guarantee that the thing would work correctly.

Which was why wands were passed down the lineage to the younger generations so that they could use them.

“Leon, Leon!  Lira, Leon isn't listening to me again.”  Krya sighed in frustration, she to had a paper in front of her.  Scrawled all over it was symbols and letters much like the ones on Leon’s paper, however they were formed with a lot more eloquence on her paper.

“Sorry, sorry.”  he said, shaking all the other thoughts out of his head.

“No, I don't know what that means, speak in our language.”  at this point he was able to catch specific words, so he could get the jist of what she said.  He closed his eyes and thought of the words he needed to say.

“I am sorry...”  he said, there was a decided accent to his speech, the way he inflicted certain sounds was, different, but he was indeed speaking the language.  Both Lira and Leon looked over to Krya, awaiting her verdict.

“You need to work on the enunciation but yes that was good.” she nodded begrudgingly, she looked at the familiar seated before her, using her familiar’s belly as a backrest in interest.  It had only been what a week since they had started and he was already speaking the language, not fluently mind you, but he was indeed speaking it.

He was a ridiculously fast learner, especially considering the language he was learning was considered one of the most difficult to master.  H’Jerlin as it was called was amalgamation of over thirty different languages and retained almost all the quirks of each.

For example, each word had around 15 declinations, based on several different factors, not only did the end of the word change based on sex, age, social status, relation, and also time of day, but it actually even moved where the word could be placed in the sentence structure.

The fact that he was even remotely conversational when she had taken a years to get to that point just went to show how intelligent he was.

“I think that is enough for today.” Krya said,  and with a sigh of relief Leon flopped back onto fluffy, who in response lifted his massive head and looked at Leon. Leon looking at the huge wolf’s head as it curved back towards him, reaching up he placed a hand on it’s chin and scratched.

The wolf pushed its head down deeper into his scratching and his back leg started scratching  before anyone could stop it there was new deep gouges in the wood of the floor. They were not the only ones, just merely the newest in the poor wood floors.

“So what are you going to do for the summer break?” Krya asked.  “Going home?”  

“I don't know.”Lira flopped on the floor, honestly though she didn't know what she was going to do, “Probably stay here.”  she didn't really have much reason to go home since her mother’s death.  

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Not after the disaster that was last time…

[a year ago]

She worked on casting the spell, it fizzled out twice before she was able to keep the flame from blowing out at the tip of her wand, it was an elementary attack spell. And no matter how she tried she was terrible at anything that had to do with attack magic.

Which is why she was practicing.

“Well well if it isn’t the failure!” a loud voice sneered, he hadn’t heard that voice in over four years, but it was definitely the voice of  Richard Waltren, the boy that had tormented her since she was five.  “Playing with your stick again? Aww isn’t that cute.”

Waltren wasn’t alone, behind him was almost every influential clan member, and three people Lira had never seen.  One was a man wearing regal purple velvet clothing, by his side was a knight in a full set of plate mail, and hiding slightly behind the kingly man was a girl of about the age of fifteen.

The kingly man had a kind look to her, but was still built like a warrior.  As for the girl, she had golden hair like the sun and bright blue eyes, her small lips and well-built figure gave her a look of well-bred royalty.

“Failure?” she asked, looking at Lira in confusion.  Lira’s step mother rushed up and looked at the king apologetically.

“Just ignore this girl, she is a disgrace to our family and I apologize for her presence.” She said, looking at Lira with disgust.

“Father, your wife is being rude again.”  Lira declared, looking at the woman coldly.

“Do not call him that!” she snarled, quickly clenching her fists until the knuckles turned white.  

“I apologize, I was under the impression that the man that impregnated my mother would be my father, am I perhaps wrong?”

She shot Lira a dirty look.  The kingly man and the young girl looked on at this exchange with a growing look of disbelief, could a mother actually be this cold to her own daughter?

“Madam if I may, what exactly has this girl done to earn such disdain?”  The Kingly man asked, as a doting father he found this scene almost too hard to bear.

“She is the product of my brothers lack of commitment to his wife” A man answered in disgust, looking at Lira.  Lira on the other hand did not betray any emotion, even as she was looked at by the entire clan with animosity.

The man opened his mouth, but closed it when he found he could find nothing good to say.  He felt sorry for this child, she did nothing to deserve this, it was not her fault that her father was, well what he was.

“She is a failure, can't even cast a simple attack spell, completely worthless” Waltren sneered.

“Ha.” Lira laughed, but her eyes were still as cold as ice, she folded her arms across her chest and gave Waltren a look of disdain.  “I find it humorous to hear that from someone like you.”

“And what is so funny about it?” Waltren asked, lowering his voice dangerously.

“Yes, you, someone who failed remedial classes not once but twice, the question is, was the third time the charm?”  Lira asked, she stood up, and looked at her step mother.

She glanced at her father standing there next to his wife, he had his head down, almost like he was completely inthralled in his shoes.

Coward. She had no idea what her mother had seen in the man.

 “Tell my Father i will be returning back to the academy early, you all have made it abundantly clear that I am not welcome here.”  she said, she emphasized the word father, just to watch it get under her skin, and to make her father squirm. “Is that so?”  her step mother asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Indeed it is.”

“ Where do you think you are going? I will make you regret those words, I will make you regret saying such things in the presence of my future wife!”  

Lira glanced at the girl behind the kingly man.“You have my condolences,” she said looking at her, before turning and walking back to her room.

“What!?” Waltren roared, his face dying a bright red in his rage.  He stepped forward, pushing past the other people and shouting at the departing Lira.  “You are courting death!”   who simply kept walking away.

Her father never said a word during the entire exchange.