Nightingale, as Val was learning, had a knack for killing the mood. In short order, the jovial banter going on disappeared, and a devastating pause—similar to one holding their breath in fright—remained in its wake. Otis shrunk three times smaller at the barb, squirming in his seat as he was skewered with questioning gazes.

Val cleared her throat. “It’s well within his right to do so.”

He didn’t let up. “Hayes could have died if he decided act ‘within his rights.’”

“I’m surprised you care.” Caro shot a sidelong glance his way, and the silence hung even heavier until she continued. “Mages hide cards. It’s part of the game and one you play pretty well Gale, judging by your use of supersonic yelling.”

Val’s eyebrows pinched together, confused on how she knew it in her absence. Ah. Her gaze flickered to the Anchor next to Caro. He filled her in on that too.

“If you really want to know, don’t be nasty about it,” Caro added. “We’re friends here. Ask.”

Gotta love her bluntness. Remarkably, Nightingale hung an unexpected note. He recoiled into his seat, and then moved to cross his legs. “Friends?”

Caro chuckled. “Yeah dude, ever had one?”

“I—”

“You already said it,” Caro leaned forward to stare at him head-on. “I wouldn’t be here, laughing at you, without you.” She looked around. “Without any of you guys. So yeah, we’re friends. I’m officially making it official.”

“Quite the vocabulary,” Jesal quipped.

Caro knocked his shoulder with her own. “I’m tired. Cut me a break.”

He shot her a worried look, and she dismantled it with a small smirk. The quiet moment gave Val pause, and she quickly worked to hide a smirk as well.

“Azotus,” Nightingale called, bringing their attention back to the original conversation. “I won’t ask for the specifics. Simply answer me this: why hide your familiar and your healing capabilities?”

“I’ll admit to keeping quiet about my familiar. Jesal and Val were picking up on it," he said, nodding at them two. "It was hard work, avoiding their questions. But the healing part simply never needed to come up. As Caro said, I wanted to keep the card close. Besides, light mages are commonly healers, so that half isn’t too much of a stretch.”

“Can I see it?” Caro’s brown eyes glowed. “Your familiar.”

A warm smile graced his face, dimming softly as he closed his eyes in concentration. A yellowish ball of fuzzy light developed before Val’s very eyes, followed by another one. Two made four, four created eight, and then they proliferated into dozens before absorbing into each other.

In their place, a young cub hid behind Otis’ head, borrowing his furry head in the bend between his neck and shoulders. Caro squealed, hands out, ready to hold the familiar. With her hair out of a bun, framing in her face in a charming mess of curls, and a mega-wide grin across her face, she looked every bit the giddy kid in front of a puppy.

Otis outright laughed, bending so the Striker can take it off his shoulders. “Don’t worry Harken, she doesn’t bite.”

Caro snatched the familiar with a renewed vigour, arms wrapped around his torso. Harken’s eyes widened so much, fear radiated from him in spades.

“Harken’s a hybrid between jade and light, and supposedly a young lion,” Otis explained, and Val noted a sense of underlying pride. “He was a gift from Lady Nitza—mostly, anyway. Usually, there’s an entire process to bind a spirit. We kind of just connected coincidently and she allowed me to keep him.”

“Is Lady Nitza that one princess of the Glass Dunes?” Nightingale asked.

“Crown princess,” he corrected. “And yes, that’s her.”

“Shit, so you got a gift from a future queen?” Caro found a sweet spot underneath Harken’s left ear and scratched at it, vanquishing the familiar’s negative feelings within seconds. He lay almost limp in her arms, his head in the crook between her collarbone and chin. “That’s sick.”

“Not necessarily,” he winced. “There’s fifteen princes and princesses in total, and they're all the crown heirs.”

Nightingale twisted his lips. “That’s not humanly possible.”

“It’s a rather simple explanation, though one for another day. To answer your question, I wanted to keep him a surprise until combat week.”

“Combat week,” Val hissed, the terminalogy not lost on her. “That’s months away!”

It was odd how recognizable these university terms were becoming, yet that was simply life as an incoming undergraduate. Combat week referred to the preparation period for the first semester’s final exams. Only over the years, the “preparation” upscaled the exams in importance, seeing as it was the first opportunity to spar with students from other schools.

The unofficial rankings—called unofficial because the institutions could not care less about them—determined a first-year’s entrance into so many invite-only events coming up in spring. Clan-run, guild-funded, fan-fueled fixtures were prime ways to put your name on the map.

“I need my name out there,” he responded, taking the thoughts right out of her head. “You can see it as a payment for Harken.”

“Something ain’t making sense,” Caro said. “How does you becoming popular help a princess of a world power?”

“It's for the Contest of the Crown,” Lenson, for the first time, added her two cents.

“The hell is that?”

Otis waved the question away. “You wouldn’t care, it’s Desni politics.”

“Bro, is no one getting the message?” She tsked, and tapped at his leg with her foot. “I care because you care. It doesn’t have to be now. But you better explain it, else I’m hounding your ass down. Queen or not, nobody’s manipulating you on my watch.”

Otis swallowed, genuinely touched. He reached out to rub Harken’s scruff. “As I was saying, my advanced shield-work is thanks to my little buddy. I worked my butt off to perfect my spellcraft, though I cannot deny his contribution, especially when it comes to reactive guarding.”

Val nodded her understanding. “I have a couple questions on that topic, though this time it's for the backline. If you don’t mind, that is.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Lenson’s intense stare pierced what little courage Val mustered, so she turned toward the friendly face. “Jesal first. What even is amplification and what discipline do you use to make it work?”

Jesal’s shoulders straightened like he’d been waiting for this question his whole life. “I enhance the features of anything and everything, good or bad. I admit it’s a broad element. If I amplify ice in the general sense, I slow down the molecules even further, lowering down the ice’s melting point and temperature. If it is moving ice like Kylee’s Sword Graveyard, the spell does whatever it can to increase in the way I imply.

“Maybe the spell sharpens the tip and makes it more aerodynamic and thus, amplifies its speed and piercing ability. Maybe it amplifies the force of impact once it strikes something. It’s crazy unpredictable, and nothing like other elements.”

“No kidding,” Val mumbled. For her, precision is a prerequisite to call forth on the Metal Gate and its ensigns.

“Hence the glasses,” he chuckled. “Mastering amplification doesn’t come with learning complicated spells. Rather, the talented amplification mages work to modify a single attribute. Simplicity is what you want. Although to gain that simplicity, a lot of frames are needed.”

“You’ll get it,” she said.

“Thanks,” he smiled. “To make things weirder, I use the Discipline of Alteration.”

“I guessed that… How, though?” she asked aloud. “Doesn’t that go against the—what was it called—the Circle of Magic Disciplines?”

“Nope,” his smile deepened into a grin. “Basically…”

He ended up reciting a dictionary of terms she, the exhausted adventurer that she was, did not compute. Instead, she packaged the information into a compact summary she would stand to remember the next day.

In a nutshell, there existed a certain order that the Disciplines revolved around, irrespective of the rite of specialization. Wherever your main choice of magic lay dictated the chance of a mage successfully minoring in another avenue.

The order sort of went like this: Traversal →Invocation →Conjuration →Manipulation →Fortification →Alteration →and right back to the Traversal Discipline. A mage stood to have a 40% chance to learn the discipline a rotation forward, and a 25% chance for the one a step behind. It tapered into the low teens for the two after the adjacent disciplines, leaving only the polar opposites as a complete impossibility.

Should Val stick with invocation, she kissed any hopes of ever using fortification—of being the Bulwark many told her to be—goodbye. And good riddance.

“Alright Jesal, chill on the girl,” Caro let a soft laugh loose. “She gets it, we get it. Question answered. I think V tuned out five minutes ago.”

“Oh.” He scratched the back of his head. “Is that it?”

“Almost. I’m curious about Lenson’s visions,” Val turned to look at the diviner this time around. “You tend to get them during important moments, yet a second before and only sometimes. Is that on purpose? What’s the design?”

“The ‘visions,’ as you call them, aren’t a spell. It’s natural to those highly attuned,” she answered.

“Fire mages are less susceptible to heat, earth mages have a healthier constitution, dark mages are broodier than others—no offence Ekon,” Jesal quickly chipped in. “For diviners, they get glimpses.”

“I can’t control them, nor do I lose energy due to them,” she added. “Like other elements, there are disciplines suited for divination. Fortunately, divination favours conjuration, which is great news for a Support. Except, I don’t know a single one bearing in mind that I…” Lenson—apathetic, indifferent Lenson—sighed and scrubbed at her face. The one action alone said so much. Frustration. Vexation. Confusion because she was lost on how to fix the problem. Then the cycle began anew.

The Support seemed to realize she’d let an unguarded expression sneak through, seeing as the impassive mask she wore so often fell back into place swiftly. “Anyways, if I could foresee the disaster that nearly put us into the hospital, I would.”

“I think I’m gonna cry,” Caro sniffled. “Kylee! You just said, like, fifty words in a row!”

The Support rolled her pale blue eyes, one side of her asymmetrical hair grazing her shoulder. “Revolutionary.”

That got a laugh out of everyone, except for one.

“We’re on a first name basis now?” Nightingale grumbled.

“Why yes, Ekon,” Caro said, and Val could vividly imagine the smug grin on her face. “Friends, remember?”

His legendary response faded to the background when her phone buzzed in her pockets. Lowell sent her memes almost daily, and the captioned picture he decided on today threw a small smile on her face. His message stirred her memory, and she quickly opened the notification to text away at her phone.

Lowell

Val: Hey, I just remembered a promise I’m two weeks behind on. I’ve been meaning to ask about your brother.

Lowell: brother?

Val: yeah, Rowan

Lowell: Ohhh

Lowell: yeah what about him?

Did he… forget he has a brother? Weird.

Val: honestly I thought you’d know about it

Val: apparently he’s been real busy with the family business.

Val: Kenneth’s worried

Lowell: Right. That. He’ll be back in full form soon.

Lowell: Also, ik this off topic

Lowell: Here me out

Val: Sure

Val: what’s up?

Lowell: there’s a party I’m going to

Lowell: I think you’d fit right in

Lowell: Wanna come

Val: Yeah ofc

Val: I’ll lyk once its closer to the date

With that out of the way, she swiped up and out the messaging app, peering through the window.

“Tell me it’s a coincidence we’re passing a hospital,” Val muttered, flabbergasted as the driver forwent the road ahead and took a sharp turn into the skyscraper's driveway. She managed to make out two block letters—RH—right before the entirety of the building was cut off by the clear glass, and her heart stopped beating. RH. Restore Health—the same hospital Mom was rushed to years back and still remains. “Is someone injured?”

“Caro let me know you have an important person here you might want to see,” Jesal began, his voice taking a softer edge. “I asked the crew, and we’re all fine with you visiting for however long you need before we transfer back to our halo. No one knows when you might get back. Might as well seize the opportunity.”

Val’s breath hitched, stuck in her throat. “If this is a prank, I’m—”

“It would be a cruel prank to make such an offer, even by my broody standards,” Nightingale cut her off, glaring at her and Jesal equally. “We’re not kids. We can entertain ourselves for a few hours.”

“Plus, Harken is plenty of company,” Caro added, half her face buried in the familiar’s snug embrace.

Val didn’t give them any more seconds to make their case. In the time it took to snap, she dumped the blankets and pushed the door open maybe a little too eagerly. Then suddenly, a thought took her mind hostage and she froze, one foot out the door.

Returning to her seat a second after, she studied the teammates that risked death in favour of saving her best friend, the people who valued her feelings higher than she herself. Five weeks and, frighteningly, the bond they shared seemed so much deeper than the people she’d known for months. Rifts did that to you—life-threatening experiences, as Magus Kane and Rick emphasized once longer ago, showed the worth of your connection.

“Kylee, Ekon,” Val said, and the pair stiffened. “And the rest of you guys—

“Wow, we don’t even get a mention,” Caro muttered, albeit playfully.

Jesal elbowed her in the ribs. “Shhh.”

“—thank you so, so much. I’ll see you later.”

Then she was out, on a hurried and clipped pace into the hospital’s extravagant lobby. She would’ve said 'be back soon', but who was she kidding? She planned to stay as long as she possibly could, and then some.