Chapter 1

The grand corridors of Collegia Magicka held solemn portraits frowning down upon Azel in their gold-gilded frames. The Academy, designed by the late Alastair Ashford himself, was a labyrinth of hallways and secret passageways and hidden vaults storing unimaginable treasures. Azel glimpsed several rooms, including a grand library with an inconceivable number of books lining the shelves, a spiral staircase leading to a dizzying spire, an observatory with a wide vaulted ceiling that revealed the heavens, a lounging room with velvet lined-furniture and the comforts of the best tea and savory pastries, and a giant botanical inside garden that housed a variety of exotic looking flora, and yet there still remained several more rooms to explore.

This place is huge, Azel thought while he followed two girls. It looks like everyone lives well here. I bet there’s some exciting stuff in the library. Hm, should I go down this corridor or the next…Hm?

The girls’ disappeared down a hallway. Azel stared at the long spiral staircase. Pondering whether he should follow the two girls or explore this curious stairwell, something compelled him to take the first step. The stairs stretched on in an optical illusion that continually spiraled in a vertigionous loop. Azel wondered if magic did that or whether it tricked his mind into believing such. His mind wandered, thinking about the classes he needed to attend. Before he knew it, he reached the top. Here, the uppermost part of the spire revealed a giant observatory with tastefully arranged potted plants giving a natural atmosphere. Several columns of bookshelves towered along with another spiral staircase that led to the roof’s dome, where stars glittered in an artificial sky.

A sweet voice interrupted his thoughts. “I expected you would come. This is exactly what I needed to relieve myself of ennui.”

A black-robed girl with dark hair and deep crimson colored eyes approached him. Azel noted that her robes parted like raven wings and she still held the grace of childhood in her lithe body. The girl was slender as a boy, and Azel noted that she’d grow up to be a stunning beauty with those arresting crimson eyes, with long lashes and cupid bow lips that lent her a doll-like appearance Her intense stare disconcerted him and Azel averted his eyes towards a nearby potted plant. “Who are you?”

The girl giggled. “I’ve never been one for proper introductions. It’s not very often that people come up to the observatory.”

She smoothed out the wrinkles in her robes, as though she wanted to give Azel the best first impression possible. “My name is Astraea. And you are Azel Belzarius.” At Azel’s surprised look, she then says, “Oh, do excuse me. I probably should have let you introduce yourself, even though I would have already known the answer. Ah well, I’ve never been one for conventional conversation.”

Astraea raised a finger to her lips, as though contemplating something, before she giggled again. “Hmhm. How very interesting. I see several lines of power intersecting you, Azel Belzarius. I sense that you are a Catalyst for some very important changes to come.”

“Uh…” Azel said, scratching his head and puckering his lips in confusion. “I really don’t understand a thing that you just said, Miss Astraea.”

“Would you like your fortune to be told, Azel Belisarius?” Astraea asked him in a sweet voice, disregarding Azel’s confusion. Her eyes gleamed with mischievousness. “Divination is very difficult, or so I’m told, though I’m a natural at it. You’re having a difficult time deciding what you want to be…am I right?”

A slight shiver swept down his back. This girl seemed to know a lot of things about him. Diviners always held a mystical air about them and this girl was no different. Her red eyes bore into him, seeming to appraise him. “How did you know?”

Astraea giggled. “That’s a secret. If a Diviner revealed the method behind their arts, it would lose most of its mystery and intrigue, don’t you think?

“I…I suppose so,” Azel said, finding this young, precocious child even stranger by the moment. “Though I kind of don’t like the idea that things are written in stone. I thought it was up to the individual to decide what to do with their lives. You know, free will and all that.”

“Ah, so you’re one of those skeptics, aren’t you?” Astraea said. The dimple in her smile never disappeared. “Why don’t you give me your hand and I’ll show you what real divination is? The rest are charlatans and low-class fortune-tellers that try to pass off as mystics. You don’t have anything to lose…and who knows? Maybe you’ll gain something from this.”

Azel sighed, reluctantly holding his hand out. Astraea smiled indulgently at him before one small hand clasped his one and the other one traced along the lines of his palm.

“It isn’t coincidence that we met, you and I,” Astraea said. “There are some events that pre-ordained or are most probable to come to pass. The reason why you came to this Academy, Azel…it wasn’t by random chance. You were meant to be here. All the lines of power are concentrated in this Academy, do you understand? And you play a great role in this, Azel Belisarius.”

“This is a little too much,” Azel said, chuckling nervously. “Are you sure that you’re not messing around with--“

Before Azel could say another word, Astraea stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. Azel froze for several minutes. His face reddened int o a deeper shade. “W-What was that for?”

Astraea smiled. “Payment. An exchange. Compensation. A trust between two partners. I hope that you are satisfied with your fortune.”

She turned on her heel, her long black hair flowing behind her and her shoes tapping against the polished wood floors. Azel still stood there, dumbfounded by everything that just transacted. He put two fingers against his lips, still feeling the feather-light pressure from Astraea’s kiss. When Azel finally understood what just happened, he said, “H-Hey! You shouldn’t go around kissing strangers like that--Astraea?”

Yet the dark-haired diviner was nowhere to be found. Azel felt if he peered behind all the potted plants and Grecian statues adorning the place, he would find no sign of her. There was definitely something strange about that girl, and it didn’t help that she had to confuse matters further by kissing him out of nowhere! What did she mean about the lines of power connecting at the Academy?

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It seemed that Astraea wouldn’t provide these answers for him. She already disappeared from sight, much like the mystical Faye melding into the mists. Azel glanced at a giant grandfather clock that chimed a haunting note, reverberating throughout the Academy.

“The initiation ceremony is gonna start soon…” Azel said. He paused for a moment, wondering whether he should inform the girl, but then decided that she probably didn’t attend classes by her choice. Azel made his way down the winding stairs, jumping ten stairs at a time in his haste.

However, something along the way to audience room distracted him from proceeding further. He peered into a room that seemed to be a massive planetarium, with a vault of stars for the ceiling, depicting all the planets revolving in their elliptical orbits. Everything was in constant motion, and nothing seemed to be still--and Azel imagined it was like staring into the far reaches of space itself. No one else seemed to be within the room, and curiosity overcame Azel, finding himself entering the room unconsciously. There were other contraptions as well, such as golden telescopes and an odd invention that modeled the planets and the sun. In the middle, he saw that three of the planets were aligned, and that there was a scribbling of difficult mathematical equations that he couldn’t quite decipher. However, it seemed that the person writing these notes figured how three planets would align, though they seemed to be achieving something more profound and phenomenal than that--which was the alignment of all seven planets.

While staring at these notes, he heard a rustle of movement behind him. Embarrassed, Azel shuffled out of the way when he saw a girl enter inside with a rather stern expression. She walked with deliberate poise that indicated a woman who was brought up well, a certain bearing that indicated she was of a highborn House. She promptly closed the heavy tome, and held it against her chest as she spoke.

“What are you doing here?”

Flushing, Azel then fumbled for an answer. “I’m sorry, I was just looking around, then I came upon your notes and this model.”

He gestured to the odd contraption that showed a miniature model of the planets and their orbits. The girl regarded him with something that wasn’t quite disdain, though it certainly wasn’t a welcoming expression at all.

“I can tell that you’re a recent recruit to the Academy. I suppose that you can be forgiven just this once. However, you should keep in mind that it isn’t right to peer on someone else’s private things, for future reference.”

Surprise shocked Azel into silence, then embarrassment. The girl still studied his facial features carefully, seeking to penetrate. Then recognition immediately dawned on her. “Ah, so you’re from the House of Belisarius. I would’ve thought that someone of such prestige would’ve known better. I suppose that it can’t be helped. I did leave that book unattended momentarily, to be fair.”

Swallowing and gathering his courage, Azel then asked, “What exactly are you studying? I’m just curious, is all.”

The girl gave him a prolonged stare, her eyes becoming a cool shade of blue. “I believe it’s necessary that you shouldn’t go probing into things that are none of your business, Son of Belzarius. The lumenal is stretching longer--it’s best that you attend the initiation ceremony.”

She then strode away, with her book tucked to her chest. The girl didn’t so much as spare a glance towards Azel’s expression when she left. Azel was simply left in silence, thinking of how unusual the girl was. Still, he wouldn’t let something like her stern lecture to get him down. It was his first day here, after all, and perhaps he can get an opportunity to talk with her again, and apologize for his behavior. He would certainly keep her words in mind, and he would say that he was merely curious. After all, he heard some talk about the alignment of planets, and the significance behind their orbits, along with the mysterious red star that they’ve seen glowing stark in the night sky these days.

Azel shook his head while letting out a sigh. He ran a hand through his dark hair, before a rumbling bass shook the floors and reverberated through the walls and ceilings of the castle. The chandeliers above tinkled, furniture shifted along the marble floors, ancient cobwebs floated down from the dark corners of the Academy. Azel frantically looked around, trying to search for a piece of furniture that could offer protection against the tremor. He read in a book about earthquakes that it was better to hide next to an object that will compress slightly but still leave enough space for a person in a fetal position to avoid getting crushed from the falling rubble.

However, something flashed through his mind. The little girl was still up in the observatory, wasn’t she? He needed to get to her! Azel ran towards the spiral staircase that led up to the observatory. Another tremor shook the entire castle in its foundations, causing it to moan and sigh. Azel gulped when he took a hesitant step forward on the first stair. It was dangerous to go to the stairs during an earthquake, but the thought of a little girl crushed underneath a fallen bookshelf inspired him to leap up the stairs, feeling a dizzying spiral of vertigo as he made his ascent. The castle continued to tremble with each step, and Azel swore the stairs could cave in at any moment, though he made it up to the Observatory.

“Astraea?” he called out, wincing as books tumbled off from the shelves and clattered to the floor. He called out her name again, and another tremor forced a book shelf to topple over. Azel dodged to the side, the wooden case crashing to the floor and books sprawled out in a disarray of dust and vellum.

He coughed and sneezed into his arm, before he clambered through the labyrinth maze.

The glass dome in the Observatory shattered into sharp shards. Azel ducked down and covered the back of his neck as glass tinkled all around him. All of a sudden, a tomb-like silence filled the castle. Azel cautiously stood up from his cowered position on the floor, winking one eye open and examining his surroundings.

“What…just happened…” Azel said aloud.

“That was no earthquake you just experienced right now.”

Azel turned his head towards the direction of the voice, to find Astraea sitting atop a still standing book shelf, swinging her legs back and forth.

“Get down from there,” Azel said, trying to take on a stern tone. “I was worried you’d get crushed underneath all these bookshelves.”

“Hmhm~” Astraea said, seemingly amused by Azel’s reaction. She leapt off from the top of the bookshelf, landing on her feet neatly with cat-like poise.

She walked among the fallen bookshelves and scattered tomes, letting out a disappointed “Tsk” at the sight of it all. Astraea picked up a tome from the floor, wiping off the dust from its leather-bound cover, before shaking her head. “Look at this. All these precious treasures of knowledge strewn about. I’d hate to have them ruined. Some of these texts are ancient. It won’t do to have them powdered down to dust crumbs, would it?”

“You should be more concerned about your life rather than the books,” Azel said. “I’m glad to see you’re safe, but you really should be more careful. You could’ve been crushed!”

Astraea looked up from a text she peered through. “Mm? Oh, fortune-telling is more risky business than a mere tremor. Though…you should be more concerned about your own safety rather than my own. You should know that going near stairs in this kind of situation is dangerous, right?”

“Of course, but…” Azel bit his lip. “You were up here all alone and I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving you up here.”

“Oh?” Astraea cocked her head to the side. “You are very interesting, Azel Belzarius.”