Master Foss had been away this morning in a meeting with Headmaster Lorken. He hadn’t asked Mel to come with him and since it wasn’t Headmaster Lorken who’d called for the meeting, Mel wasn’t invited. She felt left out. Not that she missed Lorken in any way, but she missed the ability to speak up for herself. To present her ideas and Meredith’s in a way that represented their vision.
Mel trusted Master Foss, but she still didn’t know if it was a smart idea to trust anyone who had a high place in Aldrion. The governor and Headmaster Lorken had proven that the people at the top were not to be trusted.
Mel chewed at her bottom lip and the creases in her forehead ached from remaining tense for such a long time. It was Will’s voice that drew Mel back from her thoughts and into the small classroom at the dragon forge.
“Sunshine, are you listening?”
Mel met Will’s gaze, and the frown on her forehead only increased. ”Can you stop calling me that?”
“Sure. When you start listening to your own name.”
Mel blew out an exacerbated breath. “What do you want?”
“We’re going through the plan. When Master Foss gets back with the approval from Headmaster Lorken, we need to be ready.”
“We will be ready. We have the crude arrowheads already made, and I know what to do.”
Will stared daggers at her suddenly, but Mel didn’t understand why her statement was making him angry. It was just facts about them being ready.
“Yes, you might know what to do,” Meredith chimed in. “But we don’t. You’re the only one of us that has ever tried to smith a double imbue that has worked with the new alloy in any meaningful way. We don’t even know the song.”
Mel swallowed at this, looking around the room and at her fellow students' faces. They watched her with interest and maybe some contempt. Meredith was right, she hadn’t taught them the song or really anything substantial about how to smith a double imbue. But it wasn’t because she’d simply forgotten. It was because she didn’t want them to know. She didn’t trust them and Master Foss had said it was okay not to tell the others.
As if he had read her mind, Master Foss entered the room between the two guards who stood watching Mel. Mel’s eyes met with his and Master Foss cleared his throat, making the other students turn to him.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for us,” Master Foss said, striding into the room. “Headmaster Lorken and the governor have decided to halt our progress with the double imbues. We’re not allowed to continue experimenting with the magic for now.”
“What?”
Master Foss dragged a hand through his beard, looking tired. “I’m sorry. But it’s out of my hands. I tried speaking to them. But they didn’t want to listen. We have to go back to working with the fire imbues as your training for now and hopefully they’ll change their minds soon. I’ll continue fighting for this and things will change, just not right now.”
Mel’s eyes stung, and a lump formed in her throat. It was such a major setback that for some reason, she only felt like she wanted to cry. She hadn’t expected a no, not at all.
“Did you tell them about the plan with the arrows and how low the risk is in creating such small items?” Meredith asked, her voice trembling.
“Yes, I did. They still said no. Unfortunately, I don’t think it has to do with the risk anymore.”
“Then why?” Dean asked.
Master Foss opened his mouth to comment, but then seemed to think better of it and closed it again. He cleared his throat once more and when he finally spoke, his voice was flat and controlled. “We have to accept their no and trust that they have Aldrion’s best interests at heart. The governor and Headmaster Lorken think that our way is not the best way to go as of now. We all have to respect that.”
He didn’t sound like he meant a word of what he’d just said, and Mel got the impression that maybe this was a show for the other students. Maybe he wanted to work with Mel alone on this during the night when she didn’t have to show the others how to create double imbues.
Mel caught his gaze and raised one eyebrow at him, trying to express her question with only her face. He held her gaze for a moment, but then his mouth drew into a thin line and he shook his head forcefully at her. He had understood her, and Mel understood him. They weren’t going to create the arrowheads tonight.
#
When Mel got back to her lonely dorm room with her two guards, a knock sounded on the door almost right away. Mel’s heart skipped a beat, and a wide smile formed on her lips. The guard opened the door and Austin strode inside. This time, both the guards rolled their eyes at Austin, but left them alone immediately without any fuss. They’d finally understood Austin wasn’t going to let them stay inside during his nightly meetings with Mel.
He gave her a quick kiss on the lips, but pulled away too fast and Mel lingered with her head outreached for a second before pulling back herself. Something felt wrong in the way he looked at her. Like something terrible had happened.
“What is it?”
Austin dragged a hand over his face and sighed. “I’ve been drafted into the army of elemental warriors.”
“What?”
“I’m employed by the governor for now, not the king. Only for a time to protect Aldrion. They’ve been losing numbers and some of us training to become elemental warriors at Falden have been drafted. I think my brother made sure I was one of them.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
A grim line stretched across Austin’s lips, and Mel swallowed hard. She didn’t want this to be happening. If Austin joined the fighting, he would be risking his life out there on the streets every night, just like Marcus. Mel hated that. She still dreaded every time she got a letter, fearing it would be an announcement of Marcus’ death. But now she would have to worry about Austin, too. That wasn’t fair.
“I won’t be able to stop by like this any longer,” Austin continued. “At this time tomorrow, I will be getting ready for the attack and need to be informed about tactics and strategies. I’m sorry about this. I thought I would have more time, but I’m not sure how much I can sway the governor to release you if I’m out fighting every night.”
Mel shook her head. “Don’t think about that. I’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
She grabbed the edges of his shirt and pulled him toward her. Austin’s arms wrapped around her body and she rested her head against his chest. They stood hugging for a moment. Mel letting herself feel his closeness. She didn’t know when they’d be able to do this again. She didn’t even know if she would see him again.
“There has been a holdup with the double imbue. We didn’t get permission to continue the experiments.”
Austin pulled away from her just enough so their gazes caught. “What experiment?”
Mel’s face flushed, and embarrassment brewed in her stomach. “It wasn’t dangerous. No explosions.”
“Okay…then what happened?”
Mel let go of Austin and walked up to the small dresser in her room. She opened the top drawer and pulled out a piece of cloth that she’d wrapped the crude dagger in. She’d taken it from the dragon forge today when Master Foss and the other students hadn’t been looking. When her guards had their shift-change. It had been an act of impulse, but now she knew why she’d taken it.
“I made a first attempt at a double imbue at the forge,” Mel said, and handed over the crude dagger to Austin. “The imbue is weak, terrible even. But according to Master Foss, it’s stable. It won’t explode or anything like that. It’s just bad and might only have one use in it.”
Austin rolled up the cloth, revealing the dusty-looking metal in his hands. His eyes lifted and caught with Mel’s, worry spreading over his face. “What if they find this? What if they notice it’s gone?”
“I know. But I had to. You have to test it.”
“What?”
Austin stared at her like she was completely out of her mind and Mel stared back, swallowing a lump in her throat. “I need you to test it, perhaps on a beast. Sink the weapon inside its skin and activate the magic. Create lava with it.”
Austin shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
He let out an exasperated breath. “Because I don’t know how to do that, Melissa. I don’t know the note for a double imbue. I don’t know the lava spell. And I also don’t know why I need to test this thing out.” He looked down at the small item resting in his hands and then up at Mel again. “And I don’t think I can sink this into a beast. It’s not a dagger…it's barely even a shiv.”
Mel threw her arms out at her sides. “I know it’s crude. I know. But you have to try it, because you know I can’t. I’m not allowed to even get close to the enemy. We have this idea of creating several arrowheads with double magic imbues and then shooting them at the dragon. Each elemental warrior connects with his arrowhead and uses the lava spell inside it. I need to know if it could work.”
“Why?”
“Because, if it works. I might be able to convince Master Foss to disobey Headmaster Lorken’s refusal to let us create more double imbues. He might be swayed to let us go ahead with the plans in secret.”
Austin’s eyes widened. “Melissa, no. No, you can’t do that. You’re already on thin ice. What if Lorken or Perrole finds out? They’ll kill you.”
“I…I know,” she said. “But if we don’t find a way to kill that dragon, you’ll die out there, and Marcus, too. It's just a matter of time until it kills the both of you.”
Austin wrapped the cloth around the blade, hiding it from her eyes. He paced the small room, back and forth until they heard a knock on the door. Then he stopped, stared at Mel for a moment, until he looked at the door behind him.
“I need more time,” he said to the guard on the other side.
It was quiet for a moment, then they heard a grunt followed by the guard saying, “Make it short, Taveck.”
Austin turned to Mel, sticking the dagger into the lining of his pants and hiding it under his shirt. “Okay, I’ll try. But you have to tell me how to use this thing. I’ve seen you do it, but I can’t hear the notes like you can.”
“That’s okay,” Mel said. “You have access to the extended set of tuning forks at Falden, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, good. There is one out of the twelve tuning forks that is an exact match to the note of the blade. You just have to take it with you to Falden and ring out all the tuning forks. One of them will make the dagger glow, not just flicker, but actually glow. Okay?”
“Okay. Then what?”
“Then…” she stopped, not knowing how to continue.
Mel didn’t know what he should do then. How did she explain the lava spell to him? She barely knew herself how to use magic or let alone spells, and this was one she’d come up with on her own with a little help from Clara. How did she explain it to Austin so he could do it himself?
“You have to give me something,” he said. “I’m not like you. In fact, I’m convinced no one is like you. I can’t just come up with my own spells and connect to the magic like that’s all I was ever born to do. I need something to latch on to. I need to train before getting it right.”
“Well, you can’t train. I’m afraid the imbue is really bad, so I need you to hold off until the metal is inside the beast. But okay, what I do is that I create the connection to the item. Then I try to visualize how lava would feel like against my skin. How horrible it would be to melt my skin off my body, preferably my face. I think it creates the strongest emotion. Then I broadcast that emotion to the item.”
Austin’s mouth gaped open, his eyes beady and wide. But he didn’t say anything.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“That’s not a spell,” Austin said, his teeth grinding with frustration. “How are you even able to use magic? I can’t believe this. What if your face actually melts?”
Mel cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
“The object that you visualize the magic working on, in a short enough distance, is the object it will form around. In this case, your face. I don’t want you to ever use magic again, not when your methods are that reckless.”
Mel huffed out a breath of indignation and put her hands on her hips. “Well, lucky for you, I won’t, not with these guards watching me. And my magic affinity is great. Even Master Foss said so.”
“Yeah, it must be, since you haven’t accidentally killed yourself yet.”
The guard didn’t knock on the door this time, instead he opened it in a quick push and revealed Austin and Mel to his scrutinizing gaze. Luckily for them, they’d just been fighting and their angry postures and faces held the room in a tense mood. Perfectly matching with what the guards needed to think about their relationship and why Austin was visiting her at all.
“We really need to go now,” the guard said. “And you should get going too, Taveck.”
Austin nodded, glancing back one more time at Mel.
“How will you…” Mel said, but didn’t know how to finish the sentence with the guard here.
“I’ll figure it out,” Austin said. “Or not. Either way, I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”