“Hi,” Austin said.

“Hi.”

Mel sat down behind her desk and gave Austin a smile. His face was calmer today, not as stormy as it had been yesterday in her dorm. He seemed to have cooled down and had some time to think about the war and her dagger.

“Have you decided anything yet?” he asked.

Mel shook her head.

“Okay,” he said. “But you’re thinking about it?

“Yes,” Mel said. “I told you I would. I just need some time, okay?”

“Sure.”

His eyes landed on his desk, and he seemed to struggle with her answer. She felt like he wanted her to make a decision now, and Mel felt the pressure building up inside her chest.

“Good morning, students,” Professor Monroe said.

“Morning… yes… sure,” Professor Dereey muttered next to her.

They entered the classroom, and both took their place in front of the blackboard. Professor Dereey looked at Monroe with tired eyes. Then he cleared his throat and sighed.

“Professor Monroe is only here to let you know about your results on the history test,” he said. “She will leave shortly.”

Professor Monroe took a step in front of him and addressed the class. “I wanted to tell you the good news. All the students in this class passed the history test. Some more well than others, but the important thing is that you all made it.”

Mel’s lips turned up and a huge smile covered her face. It felt like a heavy weight had lifted off her shoulders. She had passed two out of three tests for this semester and was well on her way to see the dragon forge.

Professor Dereey stroked his chin and adjusted his spectacles. “So, they have all passed the two first tests then. That’s expected, this is, after all, basics, not advanced.”

Professor Monroe shot him an annoyed glance and then turned back to the class. “I’m very proud of all of you and I hope to see you again next semester. Make sure you study hard and pass this last test too, and we shall see each other again.”

The professor glanced over at Mel and her eyes sparkled in the sunlight streaming in from the windows. Mel felt her heart soaring, and she felt proud of herself. She had made it this far. Made it further than anyone she knew from Windbrook.

Professor Monroe stepped out of the classroom and left them with Professor Dereey and his sullen attitude. He paced the front of the classroom, looking around the class as if to decide how he would start this class off.

He took up a piece of white chalk, and he wrote his own name, as usual. Then he wrote out the four elements. He turned to the class and wet his lips.

“Who can tell me the material for fire imbue?”

Mel raised her hand, and so did the rest of the class. Professor Dereey pointed to Mel this time.

“Melissa. It’s iron.”

“Correct,” Professor Dereey said.

He turned back to the blackboard and wrote iron under fire. Then filled out the rest. There was copper, titanium, and silver. He turned back to the classroom again and his jaw clenched.

“Why can’t any magic be put into any material?” he asked.

Mel saw a hand rise in the class, but then it went down to half mast, as if worried they didn’t really know the answer. Professor Dereey pointed to them, anyway.

“Meredith,” she said. “Each element has its own sound, and each metal gives off a sound when it’s struck. The different metals can’t match all the different tones of the elements. Really, they have only one tone they can produce with any sort of purity and consistency. This tone matches only one element. The magic is lured out of the dragon stone and seeps into the metal, mixing with it when the correct tone is provided.”

“Yes,” Professor Dereey said. “But let’s say I have gold, another weak metal, much like silver in its properties. If I were to create the pure note of water when hitting a hammer at the gold, would the water element be imbued into the gold?”

Mel saw Meredith squirming in her chair. Professor Dereey’s eyes were still locked on her and he expected her to come with an answer to this highly advanced question.

“No,” Meredith said. “It wouldn’t work. I don’t exactly know what would happen. But gold can never be imbued with water. That is just a fact.”

“Okay,” Professor Dereey said. “Who can tell me what would happen if the wrong tempo were used when imbuing water into silver?”

“Dean. The imbue would be weak if it would even stick at all. What we are taught is that the tempo and the tone are the two most important things for making a quality magical imbue.”

“True,” Professor Dereey said. “But what would a low quality magical item result in, practically for an elemental warrior?”

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“Austin. A low-quality water item could result in the death of a water singer. Elemental warriors are trained in how to use quality magical items, and only a select few ever reach the ability to hear the water inside the weapon. Which means that if a water singer would use a low quality imbue during a battle with the beasts. They would use it in a way that could jeopardize their position if the weapon doesn’t have the desired effect of the strike.”

Professor Dereey walked around the desk and sat down on the edge of it.

“What Austin here is trying to say is that the quality of the imbue could mean life or death of the elemental warrior. This is what we will focus on in today's lesson. Materials class is so much more than just which metal is paired with which element. It is about using said metal in the right way to make sure the imbue is of the best quality. The lives of the elemental warriors are truly in the hands of their mage smiths and therefore, an elemental warrior needs to trust.”

Austin looked at Mel for a second and Mel swallowed a lump in her throat. She kind of knew these things already. Her father had taught her this too. He had hammered it in through years in his forge that every single nail Mel produced needed to be of high quality. It was not an option to create subpar nails that could make a roof fall in and kill a family. No blacksmith wanted to live with those consequences.

This however, felt even more important. It wasn’t just to measure a nail and check its durability. Something Mel was an expert of. It was also how to know the magic inside that weapon was of quality. How did one know that?

“Master Foss will be a guest lecturer in this class and teach you some tricks to check the quality of a magical item. But it's not as straightforward as one can assume. Most of the time it is about making sure the process during creation is done right and then trusting in the process.”

Professor Dereey stood up again and walked around to the blackboard. He looked at what he had written so far and gave out a deep sigh. Then he turned around and pulled up his spectacles to the top of his nose.

“What we will learn in materials class won’t go too deep,” he said. “Mostly, we will learn the overall process of creating magical items. We will brush over the different properties of the materials and how it affects the creation process as well as wielding the item.”

He rested his hand on his hipbone and stared out the window.

“But for today, I will leave it here. With the announcement that a test in materials will be held in about a week and that will conclude the end of this semester. You will get some time off, a break if you will, and then the ones of you that have passed will be called back for the next semester, where you will be divided into mage smiths and elemental warriors. I expect all of you, even the worst of you, to pass this class and come back for the next semester. The school has made it deliberately easy. To make sure we have enough warriors and smiths to survive the war. So don’t think you’re anything special just because you passed this very basic semester. You’re not, I can assure you.”

Professor Dereey’s eyes landed on the classroom again and he looked from one student to the next.

“All of you will not pass the remainder of your studies here. Most of you will go back to whatever hole you came from and stay there for the rest of your lives. Truly few will ever become renowned and after serving the king for years, you will wish you were no-one. The business of killing beasts is not a sane one and I can assure you the nightmares will kill you if they don’t.”

Professor Dereey took a deep breath and waved his hand at the class. “Dismissed.”

#

“Why would the nightmares kill us if not the beasts?” Mel asked.

They were back in their dorm room now and were getting ready for the night. Gabs was taking off her outer dress and Mel helped her unlace the underdress she wore.

“It’s just what happens,” Gabs said. “You won’t have to worry about that. I mean, most of the time you will be stuck in a forge up on a mountain, far away from the action. But the elemental warriors that stay here and get employed by the king they break. Either the beasts kill them or their minds break, eventually. Seeing that much death, being directly responsible for people dying because you couldn’t kill a shadow fast enough. It sort of messes with you.”

Mel loosened the last thread and helped Gabs pull off the underdress. She walked back to her bed and sat down. Her head landed in her hands and she could feel it then, the terror after the attack. She thought everyone living in Aldrion must have trouble sleeping. Because they were all seeing death and war on a regular basis. How did they survive it? How were they still sort of sane?

“About the dagger,” Gabs said.

“I haven’t decided anything yet,” Mel said.

“No, I know. I just wanted to say that I think you have one more option that I couldn’t see yesterday.”

“What?”

“You could go to Master Foss,” Gabs said. “He seems more level-headed than Professor Dereey, and I’m quite convinced he would at least try to help you. You could tell him about the dagger and maybe show it to him. Maybe he can figure out a way to give it over to the governor without handing you in. Maybe you could stay here at Falden then and the dagger wouldn’t be hidden in a drawer in our room, just waiting for someone to find it and turn us both in.”

Mel looked up from her hands and caught Gabs’ eyes. She knew she had put her in danger by leaving the dagger here in their room. But Mel felt like giving it up would be like giving up on finding out the truth.

“Maybe,” Mel said. “I get that Austin’s suggestion is kind of impossible. I cannot make it to the ruins of Bahlan now. Not with the enemy at our doorstep and the soldiers guarding the only way out into the wasteland. How could I ever sneak past them?”

“Yeah,” Gabs said. “And it would be incredibly dangerous. You would probably die before you even got there.”

“Perhaps,” Mel said. “But a part of me thinks that if I could just find a way out of Aldrion and past the beasts. I could do what Alexander Etrope did.”

“Who?”

“The mage smith in the book,” Mel said. “The book you found so boring.”

“Ooh, right,” Gabs said. “What did he do again?”

Mel chuckled. “It doesn’t matter. But what I mean is, if I could just get past the two armies, then I could talk to people in the villages outside. I could persuade someone to show me the way to the ruins and sneak there without the void noticing. I’m only one small human. I could get there and back without anything happening, I think. Search the place and then get back here with more information, perhaps. Or at least I would have tried and never have to think, what if?”

“Sure,” Gabs said. “You would never have to think what if, but you would also never think again. Because you would be dead on a dusty hill outside of the ruins of Bahlan.”

“Are there many dusty hills in the wastes?” Mel asked.

Gab’s forehead creased, and she put a finger against her bottom lip. “I think the wastes are exclusively dusty hills.”

“Good to know,” Mel said. “I’m really sorry I put you in this position, Gabs. I wish I would never have brought the dagger here.”

Gabs gave Mel a thin smile. “It’s okay. Well, it’s really not. But I can see you're trying to do the right thing now and it makes it a bit more okay. If you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Mel said. “One way or the other, this problem will be over soon. I promise.”

“Good,” Gabs said. “That’s all I’m asking for.”