Breakfast was served in the house next to the dormitory and Mel relished in the common, but tasty, food. There was porridge, bread, butter, jams, but no apples. Mel’s favorite fruit. With a sour expression on her face, she picked up a couple of slices of bread and headed toward the table where Gabs was seated.
The other nobles were here too, and Mel had to get used to being grouped together with the people from Stonehearth. When Mel sat down, she lifted her gaze and caught eyes with Austin from Aldrion. He was staring at her with a disgusted look on his face. In fact, he was staring at the entire table of nobles and seemed to regard them with hatred.
Mel didn’t know what caused him to act this way or why he hated people from the valley so much. But she already felt tired of his behavior and the behavior of the other students from Aldrion. They acted as if they were superior to her and her friends. Like they knew so much and they didn’t. Mel couldn’t wait to show Austin and the others her skills as a blacksmith and make them regret their dirty looks. If only she could pass basic magic first.
“How are you?” Brandon asked.
Mel’s gaze shot back to the table and noticed they were all staring at her.
“Good,” she mumbled.
Brandon gave her a weak smile, showing only a tad of his dimples. Flavio gave her a puzzled expression, and Clara didn’t even seem to notice Mel was here. Gabriella took a bite of her bread and Flavio began wagging his glass of orange juice around.
“Look, I’m not saying this to complain, but it was just not nice,” he said, continuing on the conversation they must have had before Mel arrived. “I mean, we had three carriages and only one was fancy. If I’m going to a fancy party, why can’t I take the best one?”
“Maybe your dad didn’t want you to crash it?” Clara asked, but had an uninterested look on her face.
“Me?” Flavio said and pointed his hand at his chest. “I would never.”
“What about you?” Brandon asked and again looked at Mel.
“What about me?” she said.
“Did you have carriages growing up and did your parents let you use the best one?” he asked.
Mel shook her head.
“No, we didn’t have those,” she said. “We didn’t even have horses. Not in the way you have. We only had horses working the fields or a donkey to drag a cart. Not for riding on or traveling with. But then, we never traveled much outside of Windbrook, so I guess we didn’t have to.”
“Really?” Flavio asked. “Is this your first time leaving your little village?”
Mel winced at his question. He sounded mean when he said it like that, her little village. Like she was beneath him, but Mel guessed Flavio didn’t even hear what he sounded like. He was so used to his ways that he seemed to think everything else was not quite as good.
Mel resented this behavior, but if she was honest with herself, she knew it wasn’t only Flavio who acted this way. Gabriella did too, and the rest of the people here at Falden. They all thought they were better than Mel.
“Yes,” Mel said. “This is the first time I’ve left Windbrook.”
She said it with a sharp end, and Flavio seemed to hear this. He didn’t press her further for information and didn't comment on her inexperience in the world. The air around the table seemed to grow tense and Mel knew she was the one who had created this feeling. But at the same time, she felt like she couldn’t have done anything differently. She just simply didn’t belong.
If she had answered Flavio’s question, leaning into his presumptions of her being underneath him, it would have left a sour taste in her mouth. She’d rather take the tense air around her instead of caving and letting people just walk all over her. Mel wished she didn’t have to choose. She wished Marcus was here.
#
Class started in the main hall and Professor Dereey poked his balding head into the room before he walked in with the rest of his body. Mel watched him take the center of the classroom and write his name slowly with white chalk on the blackboard. She had already memorized his name, as she thought the rest of the class must have too, but he insisted on writing it, anyway.
He turned to face the classroom and observed the students seated in groups of Aldrion and the valley in front of him. They sat in the exact same way they had yesterday, and Mel hadn’t dared protest at this when arriving in the classroom only minutes earlier. She felt like she couldn't walk up to the front of the class and sit down at a table. They would all decapitate her with their dirty looks if she did.
“Today is the first real class of the semester,” Professor Dereey said. “And so I will request new seating. If everyone can stand up next to their table and then when I call out your name, you will move to the seat I point to. Is that understood?”
Austin raised his hand, but the professor just stared at him and puffed out some air from his lungs. The rest of the class nodded or said yes to his question. He brought up a piece of paper from the desk at the front and read out names from it.
“Flavio Von Barren,” he said and pointed to the first seat to the right from the top.
Flavio walked up and switched with the student standing next to this desk. The Aldrion student stared daggers at Flavio as they switched, seemingly angry at having his place at the front taken from him.
The professor continued down along the classroom until he came to Mel. He said her name and pointed to a desk in the third row, next to the window. Mel walked to it and switched with Austin. Austin walked away from the desk, but stopped abruptly when Professor Dereey said his name and pointed to the desk next to Mel’s.
He looked up at Mel, and their gazes caught. She saw genuine surprise in his black eyes and he walked closer to her. Mel’s heart drummed in her chest and somehow, she felt like sitting next to Austin was exciting.
Maybe because he hated her, and she wanted to solve the mystery of his hatred toward people from the valley. Or maybe it was because he seemed to think of himself as a great student, too far above the rest of the class. Maybe Mel could learn from him. Or maybe she wanted to show him she wasn’t as stupid as he thought. Mel wasn’t sure.
When Professor Dereey was done and all the students had gotten new seats, Mel looked around the classroom and found Gabriella seated at the back with a young man called Dean. Mel had learned his name yesterday and put it to memory, since he was the only student she knew so far that was here to become a mage smith. Mel felt a sting of jealousy and wanted herself to be seated next to Dean, or maybe next to both Dean and Gabriella. That would have been perfect, but no, she was stuck with grumpy Austin.
“Now, that is done,” Professor Dereey said. “Let’s continue with today's class. We will start with the basics today and move slowly over the material. I know some of you have a lot of experience with magic, but you will have to be patient this semester.”
Mel felt happy about starting from the beginning and getting to move through all the basics in a slow manner. She hadn’t understood a thing from yesterday's class and hoped that today, everything would become clearer.
“So, as you know, magic is created by using dragon fire,” Professor Dereey said. “From the dragon stones, the mage smiths take the magic and imbue it into items, making the item magical. After that, an elemental warrior can use that item and drag out the magic from inside.”
Mel opened her notepad and jotted down a few notes.
Dragon stone - imbue - item - magic
She lifted her head and watched Professor Dereey take a seat at the edge of his desk.
“There are four dragon stones, each with different magical properties relating to the four elements in nature. Each dragon stone has a material of their choice that they can be imbued into. Some elements seem to be more loose and can be imbued with other materials, but always unsuccessfully. Who can tell me why that is?”
Mel wrote in her notebook: Four stones - four elements - four materials?
When she looked up again, she saw Austin holding up his hand next to her. Professor Dereey pointed to him to speak.
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“Austin. Only one material matches the note of the element perfectly,” he said.
“Correct,” Professor Dereey said.
Notes - material - element?
Mel looked at her notebook, feeling her notes making no sense. She glanced over at Austin’s notebook and he hadn’t even opened it up. It was brand new, with no lines at the edges.
Austin looked over at her. Mel caught his gaze, and he smiled at her, a predatory smile. Mel swallowed hard. He was mocking her stupidity, her complete lack of understanding of anything about magic.
“If I have the blue dragon stone near a silver alloy and a hammer in my hand, what more do I need to imbue the metal?”
Mel looked at Professor Dereey with wide eyes. What kind of question was that? What did these three things even have in common?
She glanced around the room and saw, to her surprise, the hands of Austin, Dean and several other students raised. Even Gabriella held her hand up.
“Oh great,” the professor said. “Someone from the valley finally dares to take a guess.”
He pointed to Gabs to speak.
“Gabriella. You need the pure tone of water,” she said.
The professor held up his hand and wiggled it from side to side in front of him.
“Close,” he said.
He pointed to Dean, seated next to Gabs.
“Dean. The pure tone of water and the ability to create it using only your hammer and the silver alloy.”
“Correct,” the professor said. “And what is recommended to get the ability to create the pure tone?”
“First a tuning fork to learn the sound intimately,” Dean said. “Then a song that matches and includes this tone to get the right tempo and be able to repeatedly, over all the hits with the hammer, ring clear.”
“Excellent,” Professor Dereey said. “Now, let’s move on to the wielding of these elements. As you all know, the glow is created by connecting to the element in the material. Who can tell me how you connect to the elements?”
Several students reached their hands up into the sky. Mel sat back in her chair and closed her notebook. She felt lost. This wasn’t going to work. How was this starting at the beginning?
She felt exhausted trying to keep up with this class and she felt stupid looking at her own notes, written in the pad in front of her. She didn't want to see them anymore, staring at her, telling her she was dumb. Austin looked over at her from time to time with a superior grin on his face, making Mel feel sick.
Professor Dereey pointed to a student in the classroom. Mel didn’t care to look at who anymore.
“Rita,” she said. “You picture the sound of the pure note in your mind and let it ring within you until the item connects to you and glows.”
“Correct,” Professor Dereey said. “Well done today. I think this was a great first class and for any of you who didn't quite keep up with today's lesson. Don’t forget to check out the books from the library and read up on magic. You will have plenty of time before the first test to learn these basics and make sure you are keeping up with the tempo.”
Mel puffed air out from her lungs in a deep sigh and she felt Austin’s gaze on her again. She didn’t turn to look at him. She felt angry at herself, but also angry at people like Austin who had had their entire lives to practice and study. How was she supposed to catch up with these people?
Mel hadn’t even been good at her regular school in Windbrook.
#
Melissa wrapped her red cloak around her body and walked past street vendors selling mostly clothes or food. She walked down toward the eastern gate and felt the ease of having the mountains behind her and the road slumping down. She watched the horizon, dark and eerie, with a misty fog spreading between herself and the sky.
The stars were rarely visible here, and the sun seemed to almost never show itself. Darkness crept up the walls around her and everywhere people were lighting lanterns and filling up oil for the night. She entered town square and saw the statue of a man riding a horse. The horse was standing on its back legs and the man, in full Aldrion uniform, was raising a blade toward the sky. The statue was gray, like the rest of the city, built from the stone in the mountains and muted in the landscape.
Mel felt her heart skip a beat when her gaze lowered from the statue and found Marcus leaning against the square bottom of the stone block. She walked up to him and a smile spread across his face when he saw her. He didn’t have his dragon cult uniform on anymore, the one he had gotten from John. Instead, he wore an Aldrion uniform, navy blue and dark.
His green cloak from Stonehearth was wrapped around his shoulders, and at least he had kept that one. She kept staring at his new uniform with a frown on her face. Marcus saw her looking down at his chest and he puffed up. Mel’s eyes found his, and he flushed.
“I joined the army,” Marcus said.
“What?” Mel asked.
“I enlisted,” Marcus said. “Here in Aldrion. I’m an Aldrion soldier now. Or soon I will be at least. I have to pass basic training first. It starts tomorrow.”
Mel shook her head and took a step back from him.
“No, you can’t,” she said.
Marcus’ smile vanished. “I thought you would be happy that I found something to do while you study at Falden.”
“Yeah,” Mel said. “Or no, I’m not happy. I wanted you to go back to Windbrook. I wanted you to be safe. Not join the most dangerous army in the world. They will send you out there, you know. Out beyond the gates, into the wastelands. You will die there.”
“No, they won’t,” Marcus said. “In fact, it’s known in the army that only the elemental warriors get sent into the wastelands. The rest of us patrol the wall, guard the gates and help some villages outside.”
“What villages?” Mel asked.
“Yeah, I thought that was strange too,” Marcus said. “There are apparently a few villages outside of the walls. I never knew. I guess Windbrook isn’t really informed about the day-to-day lives of the people here beyond the mountains.”
“Do you have to?” Mel asked. “Is this really your choice? I can't talk you out of it?”
Marcus looked at her for a moment. It was quiet between them. The wind picked up and Mel’s hair got caught in it.
“Yeah,” he finally said. “This is my choice. I want to do this. I want to learn and protect people, just like my destiny says. Mel, I will be able to protect you after this. Maybe after I prove myself in the army, you will look at me differently. See me for the man I am and I will earn my place next to you.”
Mel swallowed a lump in her throat. She didn’t know what to say.
“Anyway,” Marcus said, dragging a hand along the back of his neck. “How’s school?”
Mel was grateful he changed the topic, but also angry she didn’t correct him. She didn’t say I will never be interested in you. But how could she?
Those words sounded so harsh. Maybe it was better that Marcus realized these things on his own, with time, then for Mel to break his heart. She really didn’t want to hurt him.
“School is…” Mel said. “It’s… oh man, I don’t know. It’s terrible.”
“Terrible?” Marcus asked. “But isn’t this your dream? To study in Falden and work in the dragon forge.”
“Could I have been wrong?” Mel asked. “Maybe I was just naive or something. I thought Falden would be this great place of learning and of acceptance. But so far, everyone seems to hate me, either for being from the valley or for not growing up rich or for being stupid. Like I don’t know what to do. I get nothing about what they’re saying in class and everyone else seems to get it. I'm so far behind, it’s like a joke. Honestly, If I asked you, could we go home?”
“Go home?” Marcus asked.
“Yeah,” Mel said. “It’s too hard. Maybe I just want to give up. Go back to Windbrook and live a quiet life as a farmer. Get a bunch of kids and grow old. Can we do that?”
Marcus gave her a knowing smile.
“The funny thing is,” he said. “I would actually have loved that. But I know you wouldn’t. I know you don’t want those things. You’ve never said you wanted kids before, or be a farmer or grow old. You’ve always talked about having adventures, going someplace new and I know you want to become a mage smith. So no, we can’t go home. I’m sorry.”
“You wouldn’t like me if I just gave up, you mean?” Mel asked.
She quickly regretted her comment. Was she enabling him now, even flirting?
“Something like that,” he said. “I know things might be hard now. And that people seem to hate you. But I don't hate you. I never will. I will be here and we can see each other every night and I can tell you you’re not stupid. You’re great, just the way you are. Big dreams and all.”
Mel smiled and felt warmth squeeze around her heart. Marcus was lovely and the way he made her feel about herself was almost enough to want to be with him. If only for her own selfish needs to be told she was alright. She was good as she was.
Guilt rose in her chest, a tight feeling that made her sick.
“I’m sorry for telling you to leave,” Mel said. “I actually want you here. Maybe I even need you. But I just don’t want my needs to be put before yours and I want you to be safe and happy. I feel guilty about you following me here to Aldrion and risking everything for me. And I can’t even repay you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Marcus said. “Really, please don’t feel guilty about this.”
“Oh, right, about that,” Mel said.
She picked up the coin purse from her pocket and handed it to Marcus.
“I’m staying with Gabriella, in her room, and food is included,” she said. “You need this more than I do.”
Marcus shook his head. “Keep it. I’m going to be making money soon and so far. The army provides food, clothes and beds. But I have to share a room with like twenty other soldiers, though. Not as glamorous as your accommodations, I presume.”
Mel chuckled.
“Oh, you have no idea,” she said. “Gabriella has all these plans of decorating our room with expensive rugs and curtains. I fear that one of these days I will get back and not even recognize my own home. She also wants me to dress in her clothes. Which makes me feel even more poor somehow. I’ve refused, as you can see.”
Mel opened her cloak wide and showed off her usual brown pants and shirt. Marcus gave her a glance and a wide smile.
“You sure look the same,” he said. “I’m glad. Wouldn't want you to change too much.”
“And like, you don’t even know half of it,” Mel continued. “The campus is so big, I feel like I haven’t even seen it all. There is good food and three meals a day provided, but no apples. I don’t know how I'm going to survive if I’m honest. Apples are non-negotiable in my world, you know that. And I got seated next to this insufferable guy today, called Austin. He kept glancing over at my notes and mocking me with his gazes. God, I hate him.”
Marcus kept smiling, listening to her talk. They walked laps around town square all evening until the cold got so fierce they had to turn home. Mel hugged Marcus before they parted and said she would see him again soon. She headed up toward the mountains, making the steep climb toward Falden and Marcus headed down toward the wasteland, back to the barracks.