Daphon seemed disappointed when he saw her in class the next day, and by the time dinner rolled around, he kept glancing out the window. Towards the stables. It might have been subtle if you didn’t know what he was looking for, but Harmoni did.

She’d suspected it was him.

Fleck had thought him or Lona would be a good bet.

Lona seemed a lot less confident about being an ass.

But before Daphon gave himself away, there were more choices than just those two. It seemed all the students either ignored her or were . . . unpleasant. Rasha and Wesles were the exceptions to this, and they weren’t her friends.

She was used to it by now.

‘It’s only been a week and a half.’

Actually, it was closer to two weeks since classes officially started. But it didn’t take much to get used to. They'd only been together on Xentron for what? Two months? Not that much of a baseline to compare it to. And Harmoni had never been very social, and she had Fleck to fill that need.

‘No pressure or anything,’ he thought to her.

But he was joking, and she knew it.

Harmoni finished her food, set her plate down, and headed back to the dorms. Tomorrow she only had the one class, so she’d have some free time. She started thinking things she and Fleck could do. (If Fleck wanted to join her. He’d probably spend part of the day with Asplenium.)

She was so lost in thought, she didn’t notice footsteps coming closer, until it was too late. She bumped into someone, top of her head clocking their jaw, and the two stumbled away from each other.

Harmoni rubbed the top of her head. “I’m sorry. I-Eddie.”

She finally noticed who she’d bumped into.

Eddie was an elf. She was tall. How did Harmoni manage to hit her jaw?

Harmoni had probably grown without noticing, much like Fleck himself. He was up to her stomach now, roughly, and was longer than he was tall.

Wait. Seriously? Oh. Ohhh no. If she was coming up to Eddie’s chin, that wasn’t just getting taller. That was getting abnormally tall for a human woman. A possible, but unlikely height. More of the elf genes were coming out. And if Lona’s reaction had been anything to go by, that wouldn’t help her.

She was so lost in that thought, she’d practically forgotten about Eddie. Until she spoke up.

“Oh. It’s alright. You’re . . . Harmoni, right?”

“Oh. Yes. That’s me.” Harmoni straightened up and smiled. It probably wasn’t the best smile, but Fleck wasn't there in person to tell her.

They both stood and stared at each other for a moment. It seemed neither was ready to leave, but both were waiting for the other to go first.

Harmoni had seen Eddie before, of course. They shared a dorm room. But they never really talked. Eddie was rarely in the dorm. At least, not at the same time as Harmoni.

Maybe Eddie had been avoiding her.

‘Didn’t she give you a pair of slippers, because she thought your feet looked cold?’ Fleck thought.

Not something you did for someone you didn’t like. Right?

This would be easier if Fleck was here, and not just launching his perspective from where he sat on the clifftop.

Would it though? Eddie didn't seem to have a good opinion of him.

Well you couldn't just get along with one of them and not the other, that wasn't how this worked. He'd be more help if he was here. But he wasn’t. And Eddie wasn’t saying anything. So it fell on Harmoni to do something, even if that something was leaving.

What did she know about Eddie? Fleck was right. She’d given Harmoni a pair of slippers, because the tower had a stone floor, and Harmoni was moving around with bare feet. She was quiet, not just towards Harmoni, but in general. She’d spent time with Daphon, but she didn’t seem like his friend, unlike the other people he spent time with. She felt the power of the universe on only the second day of meditation, if her word was to be believed.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Apparently it was. Ava was already trying to find what area of magic she might be best in. Harmoni didn’t totally understand, but it seemed each person had certain bits of magic that came easier to them than others. It was why Tolith was a healer, and didn’t seem to have other spells outside that.

And, there was one other thing about Eddie that seemed likely.

“You’re not from Iva then?” Harmoni asked. “Since you live in the dorms?”

Eddie blinked. It seemed whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t that. “Er, no. I grew up on Morivon.” Her eyes slid to the side as she said that.

Morivon was the home planet of humans and colbbers, but it wasn’t unusual for the other species to live there, especially in certain locations. Planets were big.

“That’s nice,” Harmoni said. “I was living on Xentron.”

“That makes sense.”

“Right.”

Harmoni smiled awkwardly, shoulders going up towards her ears. Of course she’d been living on Xentron. She had a dragon. You’d only meet them in one place.

“But you know,” Eddie continued. “I could’ve come from this planet, and live in the dorms. Iva’s a huge planet.” Sort of. It was smaller than Xentron and Morivon. “If anyone wanted to go to this school specifically, most towns are too far away.”

“Sort of like what Daphon said? About why he goes here?”

He was presumably from Edinar, the town to the North.

Harmoni tried not to sound too bitter when she mentioned him, but based on Eddie’s reply, she failed. “Yeah . . . Listen. Don’t let Daphon push you around. He’s an idiot. He was here last year, and yet he’s taking beginner classes again. Do you know what that means?”

“. . . He flunked?” Harmoni guessed after a moment of genuinely thinking about it.

“I think that word usually carries slightly different connotations. But yes. That is the general idea.”

Harmoni hadn’t put the clues together before, but now that Eddie pointed it out, Daphon did seem to know his way around really well. And he did seem to stare off into space during potions and history, while still doing well in them. But in the Ava’s class he was like any other student. Ava’s class, where unlike the other two, memorization didn’t take you very far.

Eddie nodded like Harmoni had made her observations out-loud. “Elves are known for their skill in magic. Whether that's a fair assessment or not, being one who’s bad at it is kind of a big deal. He’s humiliated. He’s got something to compensate for.” She slowed down on “humiliate” and “compensate”. Probably not just for emphasis, but to make sure Harmoni really under understood the words. “So don’t let him get to you. Don’t pander to him.”

With that, Eddie slid past Harmoni, going down the hall, her cloak swishing against the ground.

Harmoni watched her go for a moment. There had been some bite there. For someone who spent time with Daphon, she didn’t like him.

~~~

Harmoni moved through the trees. She didn’t go very far, just enough that the stables were out of sight, and she’d have to look to find the castle. But she could still find her way back, even without Fleck's nose.

She leaned against a tree, and closed her eyes.

Ava had suggested they practice meditation on their own, and Harmoni had taken the advice a time or two. Harmoni’s meditation was complicated by the existence of Fleck. On one hand, Fleck could always feel magic in some way or another. On the other, he didn’t feel it in the same way as the rider species. Their bond could just be a complication that made it harder for Harmoni to find the power of the universe. And so far as she could tell, she had to find it herself. She couldn’t just use whatever Fleck was sensing.

She wished she could talk to Rial in moments like this. He had a dragon and used magic. He’d understand how it worked.

But she’d never asked, and Harmoni was still improving, the practice paying off.

Rial had described magic to be like flowing water, but Harmoni thought it was more like light. The light could be like a star, or a candle, or a spotlight, depending on where it came from. It touched everything, but only came from certain sources. Living things, namely.

If she really tried, she could pick up the metaphorical lights of other people. Daphon’s really was dim compared to other elves, but other elves only. It didn’t seem unusually dark in the grand scheme of things. The headmaster’s, conversely, was like the sun. His light was so bright, it could hide the others in the area. Eddie’s was odd. The light thing was a metaphor. Magic didn’t really glow, and it didn’t have colors. Harmoni compared it to light because it was the best way for her, personally, to conceptualize it. But, if that was the metaphor she was using, Eddie’s light was like someone had placed colored film over a bulb. She definitely had magic, but something was off about how Harmoni was sensing it.

She normally couldn’t hold her focus for very long. These were just impressions she could get if she focused in class with Ava, or sitting and staring at nothing in the cafeteria. Brief flashes before her connection sputtered.

It was different out here. She’d held her connection for a few minutes, in the peaceful forest with nothing to distract her. She could metaphorically see the lights around her. It was time to look at herself. She’d taken her necklace off for just this reason.

She turned the focus on herself and. . .

Well, she could see why magic users were startled. If she was going with the light metaphor, her own magic was something like the space rock from her necklace. It glowed and shone a faint blue. But in the case of her magic, a jagged red slice broke through the middle. The two halves of normal light were still connected, still close, but the red light seeped out, like if rocks could bleed.

No other magic user had looked like this. No other magic source in general The shock was enough to snap her out of her state. The feeling of magic disappeared as Harmoni’s eyes snapped open, and she sat up with a gasp.

Harmoni pressed a hand against the tree for support, her other hand clinging to her chest. She drew ragged breaths. She could no longer sense magic, broken from her trance, but the feeling, the after image, was burned into her.