Distractions could be dangerous, which wasn’t a lesson you wanted to learn the hard way. It was fortunate, under the circumstances, that Alice was standing in an arena, under controlled conditions, and not on the streets, facing someone who actually wanted to kill her. Even so, they were attempting to simulate those real world situations, so she should have been alert and ready to fight.
She was not.
Alice startled, when the countdown reached the final ten seconds, and the audience started chanting along. She had barely slept, and her thoughts were a muddle. The conversation with her mother had not been a good one, and she hadn't yet managed to process it. She had expected disappointment, but received an unwanted truth as well.
Meanwhile, she had stalled Teagan and Nick until after their final exam, promising to tell them everything, when it was over, but they hadn't exactly been gracious about it. On top of that, she had realized that they would have opinions, and that those opinions might very well take the edge off of her excitement. Then there was the growing unease she felt, as the morning ticked away towards noon and she would be introduced to Luka Lavrin.
Together, all of it formed a nauseating lump in her stomach. She hadn't eaten much since those crackers the day before, never really managing to reclaim her appetite. It wasn't a smart move, and had only left her feeling weak and vaguely ill in advance of their last fight as students. At least neither one of them really needed a good grade, but Teagan would still want one, and Nick would no doubt welcome it.
It was their final exam, before they could really call themselves Mages; they were already informally mages, as magic users, but the capital M was significant. With the capital M, it became a title, and Alice would be able to call herself Mage Malik.
Nick had done the one-on-one with another one of their classmates, but now they had arrived at the group fight, and they were all on the same team. Unlike the one-on-one, where they were individually graded, this exam would give them all the same grade. Just to hammer home the point that they would rise and fall on their weakest link. Alice was already their weakest link on a good day, so she would definitely have to find a way to focus. She was in the top five of their class, but no amount of hard work could make up for the advantage they had as Legacies. Teagan and Nick were both far too ambitious to allow her to overtake them, even as she had advanced on most of their other classmates.
It was only a formality for them to finish up. They already had the grade average to graduate and with mentors lined up, there wasn't much left for them to achieve here.
They would have to really mess up for the Academy to deem them unfit now.
"THREE!" The crowd roared. "TWO!"
Alice bent her knees, getting ready to charge forward. She was flanked by Nick on her left and Teagan on her right. They faced a Fighter, a Forger and a Healer. While Healers were rare, they weren't necessarily an advantage. They didn't fight, so aside from the support they could provide, they were a wasted player. They had to graduate too, of course, although they would have no problem getting work either way. No one cared if they had a diploma, as long as they could heal. The other two mirrored Alice and Teagan, but Nick was a Summoner — not as rare as Healers, but more rare than Fighters and Forgers.
They were, however, considered the least useful of the four types, since their magic required some sort of physical construct for them to move. Nick was far from useless, though. Nick was an artist.
One.
An electric buzz marked the beginning of the match, and Alice ran. As the Fighter, it was her job to protect the others. Nick and Teagan were both more comfortable as ranged fighters, and would offer her support, but she did have to keep both of their opponents occupied. The Healer stood back, protected by her own teammates.
First, Nick released the birds. The bright yellow of his magic ran through their bodies, pulsing like blood through their clockwork hearts. Alice wasn't paying attention, but she had seen him build them, so she knew that they were all steel and copper and approximately the size and shape of a magpie.
Alice charged at the Fighter, hoping the Forger would be unable to resist the temptation of attacking her, while she was distracted. The birds were circling them, doing further to ensure that the Forger wouldn't risk splitting from his partner. When one of the birds dipped into her field of vision, Alice flared her magic. The blade still set off her balance, as it hit her across the back, but it drew no blood.
The Fighter took advantage of the moment, and swung his fist into her ribs. Her magic was still flared, and burning out fast, but the force of the hit might still bruise. She stumbled back, creating space between them, and Teagan's arrows flew into the space she had vacated. A couple of them hit the Forger, but the Fighter shifted his magic in time, and they fell away amid a cloud of sparks. The Forger didn't leave to take advantage of their Healer yet, possibly because Alice looked ready to crack. She was saving her magic now, concentrating it around her hands and chest. She caught the blade, when he swung it, but the Fighter kicked out her legs from under her, and she landed heavily on the ground. She lost the connection for what could have been a fatal second, while she remembered how to breathe again. The birds attacked, claws and wings slicing at exposed skin, while a further shower of arrows rained down on them.
Alice stumbled back on her feet, still struggling to catch her breath. It was too difficult for the birds to dodge blades and fists, and they retreated, once Alice was back on her feet.
The Forger was finally wounded enough to fall back towards the Healer.
Teagan advanced, which wasn't the plan. Alice should have been able to take the Fighter alone, but her reflexes weren't as good as they should be, and neither was her stamina.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
She stepped up, ready to take the blows for Teagan, who did sink a blade into the Fighter's lower back, but also took a bone-shattering hit to the shoulder. The birds were back with Nick, nestling into frames of legs and heads, that turned them into small dragons with vicious teeth and claws.
Teagan was clutching her arm, and could barely conjure, and the Forger was rejoining the fight. Nick deployed the dragons at him, while Alice took care of the Fighter. He had counted Teagan out, and failed to notice, when she raised a short blade and stabbed it into his shoulder. The surprise was enough for his magic to falter, and Alice finally managed to land a proper hit. She aimed a kick at his stomach, and he doubled over, then she finished him off. She grabbed his arm, and dislocated his shoulder. She aimed her foot at his opposite knee, where something snapped.
Nick redirected the dragons at the Healer, so she couldn't bring him back into the fight. Then there was only the Forger left.
Alice had paused to catch her breath, and when she turned towards him, he was already running towards her, blade in hand. He feigned towards her chest, instead aiming low and slicing into her leg. She was too slow to react, and hissed as he drew blood. She caught the blade, as he swung it again, but her magic was weakening and it cut slowly into her hand.
Teagan was at her side, and kicked the Forger back. Alice got behind him, and slung her arm around his neck. She directed her magic there, just to make it clear, that she was in a position to break his neck.
The Healer was aglow with magic, as the metal dragons clawed and bit into her skin. Nick called them back, and, seeing the state of her teammates, she raised her hands in surrender.
Alice let the Forger go, and stumbled back. The cut in her leg was deeper than she'd realized, and was bleeding furiously, but the Healers were already running towards them.
She swayed, and her vision blackened. She didn't feel herself hit the ground, but she did feel the sharp pain in her leg, as the Healer worked on her. Nick was by her side, but
Teagan was still being Healed herself.
"She hasn't lost a dangerous amount of blood," the Healer told Nick, "but she is dehydrated, and her blood sugar is low."
The pain dulled, and she tried to get up. Nick put his hand on her, ready to support her.
She still felt dizzy, and she wanted to throw up, but she was pretty sure her stomach was too empty for that to solve anything.
"You good?" Nick asked.
She tried to nod, but that only sent her head swimming.
Teagan joined them, and reached for her other side.
"Come on," she said. "Food will help."
Alice groaned weakly, but allowed them to drag her up. Not that she had much of a choice in the matter. They carried most of her weight, until they could drop her off in a chair at the Food Hall. When they left to gather food, Alice dropped her head onto her forearms.
They returned with juice and a heaping plate of food.
"Don't eat too fast," Teagan cautioned.
"There's no danger of that," Alice mumbled, reaching for the juice. She still didn't want food, but she forced herself to pick at the offerings. They had grabbed fruit, a cup of yogurt, pancakes, scrambled eggs and toast. She tore the toast apart, and ate it in small bites, then stabbed idly at the eggs.
When she finally felt solid enough to look at them, she found them watching her intently. Not so much with concern, as with expectation.
"What?"
"The meeting, Alice," Teagan said.
"Oh." She plunged a minimal amount of eggs into her mouth and swallowed slowly. "Right."
"When you're ready," Nick added, but not in a way that felt generous. When he wasn't tinkering with his clockwork creatures, his restless fingers were often playing with a coin, but even that sat still between his fingers now. Alice thought she might as well just drop the bomb, and get it over with. Maybe they would go easy on her.
"I'm getting a mentor."
"What?"
"Hadley Thomas offered you a mentor?"
"Yeah, but it's not — I don't know." Alice struggled to string her thoughts into words. She wanted to explain it well, but she hadn't even finished processing it herself. "It's a special case. I think it has something to do with the missing students."
"So, you're staying?" Nick asked, while Teagan said, "The missing students? Why…?"
"No exactly," Alice said, answering Nick first. "It's a temporary arrangement, and I think it's the missing students, because they're bringing in Luka Lavrin."
"You—" Teagan started, but faltered. Nick said nothing at all. Teagan found her words, and finished. "You said yes to this?"
"They asked me to work with a legend. Of course I said yes."
"Luka Lavrin isn't— he's a Rogue, Alice. He's dangerous."
She wanted very badly to be able to say no, of course he wasn't dangerous, and that the Academy wouldn't allow this if it was dangerous. Except that Hadley had called him hostile, had said that he was likely to do something damaging.
Alice reached for a strawberry, and forced herself to shrug. "I'm sure Mage Thomas knows what he's doing."
Not even invoking Hadley put her at ease. "I don't like it."
Alice glanced at Nick, who still hadn't commented. "Nick?"
"What does it mean, that it's temporary?"
She had hoped for some support, but apparently neither one of them were going to give it to her.
"Well, I don't know yet. The apprenticeship is only valid until the case is over, but… I talked to my mom. She hoped that someday I would mean it, when I said I would leave, but now she knows that I won't. I have made the same choice again and again, and she has decided to accept it. The only catch is, that she wants me to give up Ravi."
“Will you?” Teagan asked, while Nick repeated his previous question, "So, you're staying?"
"Right now, I… I want to take it one step at a time. I'm excited about this opportunity, but I barely even know what it means yet."
She didn't manage to eat much more, suddenly feeling sick again. She'd thought they would at least be happy she was staying longer, even if they couldn't be happy about the conditions. She excused herself, even though it felt like she needed to stay. The situation felt too fraught, like it needed the right words to fix it, but she didn't know what the right words were. At least she didn't have to lie about how awful she felt. Nick and Teagan looked between her and the considerable pile of food she was leaving behind with concern, but not enough to protest. The briefing was only a few hours away, but she could at least spend the time she had left asleep.
While returning to her room, she was reminded of her hand. With everything else that had happened, the Healer never got around to healing it, and she was covered in so much blood that no one else noticed. The blood had clotted, but it only took her stretching out her hand to reopen the wound. She didn't want to go to the hospital for a cut, even if she'd had the energy, so she just wrapped a cloth around it. She was still in her gym clothes, which were now irreparably ruined.
She forced herself to peel them off, even if the blood tore off her like velcro. She should shower, before crawling into bed, wash off the blood so it didn't stain her sheets.
She should shower, because she didn’t want to sacrifice the time after she woke up. Blood was, however, persistent, and her vision was blurry, and she didn’t know how clean she would actually manage to get herself. She rummaged around in her drawers for one of her older sheets, and wrapped herself in it, the best she could do under the circumstances.
She set a timer for half an hour before her meeting, already knowing it wouldn't be enough, but unable to offer herself any more time.