It was the middle of the night and yet Azura still found himself unable to sleep. His father’s words echoing around in his head. He had been foolish, he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that his father could stop him from going, but he never thought he would. Fine if he wasn’t going to be able to sleep anyway he might as well do something productive. He rose from his bed wearing expensive nightwear.
Debating it for a moment he threw on the clothes he had been wearing earlier. Then he pushed his bed to the side a few feet. Alright guess he should grab his gear if he was going to go study enchantments. He knelt down and placed his palm on the floor. Not a second later a silver light made a small circle around his palm glowing silver symbols appear on the wooden floor. Then abruptly the light vanished and the trap door slid open.
Inside was a relatively thin white chest piece, A leather journal and a black rectangular box about the same size as the journal. He grabbed the chest piece. Once he placed it on his chest a silver glow enveloped it and him as silver symbols appeared moving across its surface. It stopped after a moment and he went to grab the other 2 items, the chest piece didn’t fall. He placed the black box inside his cloak and clipped it onto the back of his belt. He set the journal to the side as a burst of his mana re-sealed the trap door.
After he pulled his bed into place he picked up the journal and went on his way. After a bit of sneaking through the halls, he arrived at his destination. He reached out towards the painting, and with a pulse of silver and some glowing violet symbols the wall opened up for him. He didn’t stop to study that enchantment this time, his goal deeper in the tunnels. He began walking down the corridor, eyes adjusting to the light that was much softer than earlier.
After a couple minutes of walking he arrived at the study. His eyes drew to the far wall where black symbols took up its entire surface, he hadn’t noticed earlier but these were made by a different person than the rest. Sharp edges appeared on many of the symbols so a man must have made that enchantment, whatever it does. Well first things first he blew the dust off the journal on the desk. Looks like he had a long night in front of him.
***
Azura woke to the sunlight that filtered through his curtains. Today he and Katy agreed to rest, they had been training almost non stop the last 2 weeks after all. His magic had progressed leaps and bounds since he, or rather Katy, found the study. On the flip side the amount of sleep he had gotten had decreased just as much, but how could he be anything other than excited. Only 1 more week before they would need to begin heading towards the academy.
He pulled the journal he took from the study out from under his pillow. The wall had been an interesting enchantment, but rather simple once he figured it out. The wall was merely a cipher, used to decode the knowledge in the journal he was holding, and oh how much knowledge there was. He hadn’t even come close to fully understanding enchantment magic, at least not until he had seen this journal. The journal itself was enchanted but inside were merely words. He had learned much from those words and they had helped with quite a few projects of his own.
He decided to get dressed in his usual outfit, blue and white suited him. Besides, the cloak gave him lots of space to enchant later. He forewent his enchantment kit for now, today was after all a rest day. He left his room and decided to go get Katy. He followed the familiar hallways, approaching the servants quarters until “You have done well since your initial failures.” Oh backhanded compliments, goodie. “Thank You father.” He bowed quickly and rose to meet his father’s gaze.
“See that you continue that trend. I would hate to be dissapointed, and I imagine you would as well.” The threat while silent was heard all the same. Succeed or the academy is just a pretty dream you will never be able to touch. He bowed again.
“I will not fail you, father.” He couldn’t fail, not when he was so close. He heard his father’s footsteps leaving him once again alone in the empty halls. He didn’t raise from his bow until his father was well out of earshot.
“Bastard” he whispered quietly to himself as he resumed his journey to the servants quarter. He knocked at the door once he arrived, but to his surprise it wasn’t Altwell that opened the door.
“Let’s go” Katy grabbed his hand and began dragging him down the halls. He laughed a little.
“Laugh all you want, you promised you would show me the weapons you made today, and you’re going to keep it.”
“I will, they are already in the study.” He bagan walking fast enough to match pace with her so she would stop dragging him along. She relaxed a little, easing off the brisk pace.
“Sorry I’m just really excited, you have been talking about them for years.
“They certainly weren’t easy to make. It took me years to finish them, although as I am now I could make another set in a month.” His face shone with pride.
They made their way to the, by now, very familiar painting. Katy activated the enchantment, instantly with the violet symbols appearing without a visible sign of her using her mana. “You’ve improved a lot, you know. Your mana is nearly invisible and you aren’t even tired.” She beamed in response, pride obvious.
“Well I can’t take all the credit. I had a good teacher.” They smiled at each other making their way down the bright corridor.
Once that arrived Katy’s eyes were drawn towards the 2 brilliant white vambraces on the table. The one on the left appeared to have a thick white shield that had rounded sides but a sharp point on either end. The one on the right however just had a rounded piece over it with a thin hole in the front of it. “Arm guards?” She got that one was a shield but what was the other one for? Just a smaller shield?
“That and more. You didn’t think any weapon I made would be obvious, did you?” He smirked as he put on the vambraces. With a pulse of his mana the shield rotated so that it rested horizontal on his arms. He bent his left arm in front of him in a classic defensive stance. The shield expanded from both sides, and from the bottom, becoming a heater shield with 3 points on top and 1 on bottom. It was a little over 2 feet tall.
Her eyes widened. Azura’s smirk widened. “It has a few other forms as well but that’s just for covering a different area.” Another slight pulse of mana and the shield reversed the process going back to its smaller form along the length of his left forearm. “The right one is the weapon.” he bent his right arm so his hand was above his shoulder with his knuckles facing the ceiling. In the next instant a shining white blade seemed to shoot out from the thin hole, a little over 3 ft in length, and about 3 inches wide.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
“The blade is actually made of several short blades that I can piece together with my mana. This piece above the vambrace holds about twice this many pieces.” He pointed to the rounded piece. “Of course they are both heavily enchanted and can do a lot more than that, but I’ll save those little secrets for the academy.” The blade slid smoothly back into the vambrace. Katy had gotten over her shock and now just looked impressed.
“How does it do that? There isn’t enough space in there to hold a blade that long.” His smirk became a little smug.
“I already told you the sword is made up of several small thin blades that stick together so the smaller blades are stacked on top of each other inside the vambrace. Every single piece is of course enchanted so everything flows smoothly.” He put his left hand up to the opening in his right vambrace and pulled out a small v shaped blade. It was roughly 3 inches long from front to back, and About 3 inches wide.
He handed it to Katy. She examined the piece for a second before silver symbols began to appear across its surface. She looked at it for a second before handing it back. “As usual I don’t know what it does.” She pouted.
“If you could read my enchantments without any practice at all in the field, I’d probably cry.” He spoke, a cheery mood contrasting with his words. “I actually have 1 other weapon too but I can’t demonstrate any of its important features here.” Technically he had a 4th ‘weapon’ too but that one was better off hidden for now.
He reached behind him pulling out what looked like the handle of a bow, it was royal blue as were the 2 rounded pieces on either side from inside his cloak. The bow extended with 2 stark white pieces coming out of the pieces at the end. It formed a beautiful bow far more decorated than his other 2 weapons. “This one is a little ostentatious, it’s for when someone is either too far to see it, or if I’m trying to impress and/or intimidate someone.
“I guess that one would be pretty hard to demonstrate.” Katy was slightly disappointed, but not overly so. The bow retracted as he placed it back beneath his cloak.
“You think they’re cool now, just wait till you see what I can do with them. You might have to wait a bit for that though, can’t have my abilities figured out before the trials now can I?” He winked at her like they were sharing some grand secret. She just giggled at him.
***
Today was the last day, before they got to leave on their journey to the Grand Forge Academy.
To say Azura was excited would be an understatement. While a week of traveling through the wild lands would be rough, he would still take that over being here any day. Him and Katy would be leaving at first light so they were going to go into town and say their goodbyes today. His father likely wouldn’t bother him today, but he would have to suffer through a speech when he set off.
“Ready for tomorrow?” He was so lost in thought he had failed to notice that he had made it to the servant’s quarters. Though Katy appearing out of thin air was a phenomenon he was getting pretty used to.
“Born ready.” Confidence is clear in his voice as well as his stance.
“Oh and here I thought when you started practicing enchantment you blew yourself up.” He barely managed to stop the red going for his face. “Well maybe I wasn’t born ready, but I am well prepared.” He’d get her back for that.
She laughed. “So ready to go into town?” He noted that she sounded a little melancholy. He understood why. He was the same after all. His sister was away being tutored by a friend of the family so that father could focus on his heir(read as make his life miserable). Since Katy was coming with him the only people he really had to say goodbye to were the townspeople. Katy was the same in that regard.
He nodded at her “Yeah let’s go, before we get caught up in yet another test from my father.” She frowned and picked up the pace. They made it outside the castle in record time, and they had left early enough to avoid running into anyone. The sun was just barely beginning to rise coming into view with a splattering of pink and orange. Once they were outside the castle they took a more leisurely pace, deciding to enjoy the scenery. Why wouldn’t they? They didn’t know if they would ever see it again.
After an hour-long walk they reached the gates. The Gates weren’t very impressive, simple wooden gates the same height as the wall. The gates had a guard on each side wearing fairly standard armor when a red Surcoat over the armor that had a silver dragon head etched into it. The Silver Family’s coat of arms. “Oh lord Silver, head on in.” The guards once again let him in without hesitation.
Apparently word of their departure tomorrow had spread, because many of the townsfolk came with well wishes and simple gifts. They played along with the merriment. Magic was used to play with the children. He bought food for everyone and drinks for many of the adults. Today was a day to be remembered. Especially since they had no idea of the storm that was brewing.
***
In a spacious room with a large table 5 people sat. The walls were gray stone, without a single decoration among them. Despite being well lit the atmosphere could only be described as dark.
“Have any of you uncovered anything about the Book of Origin?” The man at the head of the table said he was a tall man with long black hair and a black blindfold across his eyes.
“Not yet my lord, but we have all of our resources searching for clues.” The man to the right of him spoke. He was an average looking man with brown hair and eyes. The well dressed women to the right of him spoke next.
“Is there any point to sending out the rabble? Surely we would be better off searching ourselves for all the good they will do.” They glared at each other.
“Enough.” His words were so quiet as to barely be heard, the 2 stopped immediately facing the leader once again. “We aren’t in any rush. We have as long as we need to reach our goals, we will remain hidden until it is necessary for us to take action. He turned towards the person on the opposite side of the table. “So are you sure you can infiltrate the Grand Forge Academy?”
***
His father had come to see them off. Otherwise known as coming to lecture him again. He wished he could have let the fun of last night be his last memory of this place, but it wasn’t to be. “... so you can’t just gain admission you must succeed spectacularly.” He tuned back into the speech at the tail end.
“Of course father.” He bowed hopefully for the last time. Or at least the last time bowing to his father.
“I’m allowing your servant to take the trials, since you are so confident in your teaching skills. However in the academy you will have no need for her, so once she fails she is to come back here. Servants should serve after all.” Katy didn’t react at all, but he clenched his fists, though no other sign of his anger appeared.
“I have taught her extensively. I assure you she will pass.” He shouldn’t argue it was their own time he was wasting.
“Rabble will always be rabble. I’m sure you trained her well enough, but she is just a servant. If nothing else I’m sure I can find a suitable use for the skills you taught her.” He didn’t rise to the bait a second time, better to just leave.
“Well regardless we shall be on our way. We have a long way to travel.” His father nodded and waved them off before walking away. Guess he had said all that he wanted to say.
He and Katy turned towards each other, smiles widening on their faces. It was finally time, they were on their way. They ran out of the castle before heading in the opposite direction of the town. The grand walls weren’t too far north of here. “You will pass. Don’t let his words get to you.” She looked at him surprised he had brought it up after they had already left the castle.
“I know, you taught me after all.” Her smile was contagious. He nodded to her. “Then let’s go. Our journey is finally about to begin. They began running to the wall once more. They knew their lives would never be the same. Too bad they didn’t know how true that was.