Chapter 10: Lessons

The clinic smelled like antiseptic. It was where Cassian and Professor Althea had their private lessons. He had been coming every day for a couple of weeks, pulled out of one or another of his classes so they could practice until he was worn out, then sent on his way with another book recommendation. He had so many books from the professor as to give medical students on Earth a run for their money.

The weird sexual attraction thing that happened that first day hadn’t happened since and so he had put it out of his mind.

Typically, his lessons involved healing. Just straight-up healing. They began with the fleshy furballs called Thera Puffs, then moved up to injured squirrels, and winged creatures that only loosely resembled birds, and which he couldn’t repeat the names of if he tried. Even in this world, there was a scientific name for flora and fauna that did not correspond to their common name. And Professor Althea loved to use the proper term for things.

After Cassian’s initial discovery that focusing on the bond with Lyra gave him some measure of access to magic, it hadn’t taken long for him to get the hang of it. For the most part. He could draw on the knowledge and power of nature magic on demand. However, there were limits. If he used too much power or sustained it for too long, the connection would fade, making it harder to sense the bond or magic.

Lately, every time he let go of the bond, something remained. Like his mind was assimilating the knowledge and keeping it. Sometimes he remembered parts of the anatomy of an animal instinctively, even without accessing the bond. But it was a slow process and useless if he couldn’t apply the knowledge. There was no way he could access magic on his own without tapping into the bond. At least not in any significant quantities. His light finger spell had only gotten marginally brighter. That was the extent of his magical prowess. And when it came to things unrelated to nature magic? He was a big fat zero.

“Today we’ll be testing your limits, Cassian.” Professor Althea had already prepared a large black egg which was nestled in a special bowl to keep it upright. It sat on the steel slab of a table where usually he was either cutting into an animal or healing it.

“I’m guessing it has something to do with that egg thing.”

“Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me.” The pale-skinned celestial reached out with a slender finger and placed it on the egg. At first, nothing happened. Then after a few moments, a pale light could be seen glowing from within.

Cassian studied the egg. “I get it. You’re pouring your magic into it.”

She nodded in response. “What else?”

“I bet it’s resisting you. That’s why you said you’re testing my limits. Just an educated guess.”

She smiled and nodded slightly in the way she did when she was pleased. Score! No snide remarks this time.

When the egg was bright enough that it was no longer black, but rather a pale white, she removed her finger. It was to demonstrate that the mana remained contained in the egg. This time she placed her whole hand on the egg. It began to glow. And he could see, and this time, feel, the mana passing from the egg back to its source.

“Do you understand the exercise?”

“Put it in then take it out. It shouldn’t be that hard.” But maybe it could. When he tapped into the bond and tried to repeat what Althea had done, he found it exceedingly difficult.

“Don’t disappoint me, Cassian. Push everything you have into the egg. You will not stop until the egg is white or until you are so spent you cannot stand.”

It took a half hour until he was spent. The first time. The orb wasn’t even close to white, but he could see a golf ball-sized glow shining within the blackness. Then, Althea commanded him to withdraw the mana back into his body.

For a moment, he felt strange. And Althea started to look yummy again. Shit! Not now! Go away! He almost thought he heard something within him laughing, but the feeling subsided and that was that.

Althea looked at him strangely, but just waited for him to continue.

Pulling the magic out turned out to be much easier than pushing it in, though there still was a modicum of resistance. When he drained the egg completely, he felt refreshed. Only a fraction more empty than he was to start, but ready to keep going, if not eager. This process repeated for the next four hours. Althea had already arranged for him to be excused from the remaining classes for the day. It was a brutal training session. It wasn’t without its rewards, however. Despite having less mana to work with, he could push a little harder and a little longer each time. By the end of four hours, the longest he’d lasted before being spent was forty-five minutes. Does this mean I leveled up? He chuckled to himself.

At the end of the lesson, Althea drew a small, sharp implement across a pink line on her forearm, the metal glinting under the classroom’s magical lighting. It was a shallow cut, a line of blood on stark white flesh. "Now, heal this wound."

It was really saying something that she trusted him to do this task after such a long training session. Although, she could always heal it herself if he failed. Taking a deep breath, Cassian reached out with his free hand, channeling the energy he had left into the cut. The wound began to knit itself together, flesh and skin melding seamlessly until only a faint pink scar remained, exactly where it had been before.

The next day, Professor Althea could not train with him, which was something that hadn’t happened yet since he started. But, he had already been excused from his classes at the latter end of the day. So, he decided to use the time wisely and head to the Triple C’s. The Combat Curriculum Courtyard, lovingly nicknamed Triple C’s, was an open-air space usually filled with evocation-type students. It was filled with practice dummies, sparring rings, and enchanted moving targets. Also, students were allowed to engage in some light sparring.

The air was thick with the scent of sweat and the sharp tang of burnt ozone from stray spells. The floor of the courtyard was made of a special composite material designed to withstand the impact of various magical and physical attacks but would respond to magic meant to work on various materials. Namely, for him, it was earth.

The healing magic had come a lot easier. Meanwhile, offensive magic was still difficult for him, even when he wasn’t exhausted from Althea’s…exercises.

He faced off against a wooden dummy, its surface marred by scorch marks and deep cuts from countless spells.

Cassian drew on the bond and tried to feel the earth, attempting to repeat what he had done to Darian on the Magiball court. This time on purpose. If there were any more microscopic seedlings there, he could not see or sense them.

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He tried using vine seeds he’d asked Isolde to steal for him from an herbology lab—she’d probably just picked up some random seeds without needing to steal anything—but he’d been unable to make them do anything useful. After the tenth try, several of the seeds popped and Cassian could swear the dummy laughed at him.

Then he realized it wasn’t his imagination or the dummy. It was the Warmaster—the head honcho of the Combat Magic Department—who’d stopped to watch him. He laughed openly. Then decided Cassian needed some encouragement, and therefore imparted his words of wisdom.

“If you hit like rabbit, even rabbit eat you.” The Warmaster’s accent and sage advice. Always Cassian’s favorite part of training. The Warmaster then pointed at one of his nearby students, who rattled off a spell and a force bolt struck the dummy so hard that it left the dummy—which was supposed to self-repair—with a broad scar across its chest. “See? You must learn hit hard. Like proud student, ya?”

After a couple of hours of embarrassing self torture, Cassian decided he needed a break. The thought occurred to him that he should pay a visit to Professor Thorne. He had continued to procrastinate it. Instead, he tried getting more information about familiars from other teachers, but got the same answers as before. If Thorne was the only expert with answers, he knew he couldn’t avoid the meeting forever.

So he went to one of the academy’s gardens. At first, it didn’t feel manly, his sudden interest in being around flowers. After he put his sexist thoughts aside, he discovered that being around plants and trees was soothing and helped him recover his stamina more quickly, as well as his mana.

With respect to his abilities with plants, he could now ask the flowers to bloom if they were buds, or flowers to wither. Though the one time he tried that, it felt so wrong he didn’t try it again.

He practiced on vines wrapped along a fence, and they snaked along following the movements of his hand. If he was too nice when he asked plants to do something, sometimes they ignored him. If he was too harsh, they might or might not obey, and rather lash out unpredictably.

The key to manipulating the plants was a sense of serenity. Just one of the thousand things that made using plants in the heat of battle impractical.

He suddenly remembered the time he had brought a potted cutting from a rose bush and tried to make it grow and attack a training dummy. Instead of working as hoped, the plant withered as soon as it grew too large for the nutrients and water in the pot to sustain it.

After he was done hanging out in the garden, he worked out for an hour. It was part of his routine now. Jogging around campus. Doing calisthenics. Eating healthier foods. Actually, no not really. Just the exercising part. He just liked to tell himself he was eating healthy while he was inhaling a greasy meat pie.

After the day's rigorous training, Cassian made his way to the Haven, one of the plaza-like places on campus. Students often gathered to relax and socialize. There were grassy areas where students laid out blankets and lounged. Sometimes some industrious individual would set up a food stand.

At different times it was filled with different people doing different things. Now, the sun was setting, casting a warm, golden hue over the enchanted sculptures on either side of the plaza, that moved along with the rising and setting of the sun. When it wasn’t sunrise or sunset, they typically only moved occasionally, dancing or silently mocking a student walking by. Now they moved solemnly, a silent dirge for the fading light.

Gareth and Isolde were already seated at a table near the food stall. The scent of roasted meats hung in the air, mingling with the crisp evening air.

"Cassian, over here!" Gareth called, waving him over. “I already got you something. Eat it before it grows cold. Put some meat on dem bones.”

Cassian shook his head. This was Gareth’s new hobby. Ever since he figured out that his clothes and food situation was dire—no one could rightly call the cafeteria food here for scholarship students food—he made it his mission to keep him fed and clothed. In short, mothering him. Gareth thought it was hilarious.

It was just another reason Cassian resolved to get a job as soon as he didn’t have a million other urgent things to do.

Isolde’s cheeks reddened when she said hi. He noticed, not for the first time, how her smile lit up her whole face. She was a good friend, but lately, he had been backsliding; starting to see her more like a woman than a friend. He knew she wouldn’t mind, but Cassian’s mind always kept going back to what happened between him and Lyra.

Would something similar happen if he got together with Isolde?

He found himself staring at her lips and wondering how they tasted.

"How was training today?" Isolde asked, leaning unconsciously closer to him.

"Exhausting," Cassian admitted, running a hand through his hair. "But I think I'm getting better."

"That's the spirit," Gareth said with a grin. "I still can’t believe a first year got put on the rotation for a mission to the Forest of Whispers. It’s insane.”

“I want to go with you.” Isolde said. “We should all go together.”

Cassian could tell that it was out of concern. This wasn’t the first time she’d brought it up. “I don’t know how I would even make that happen.”

It was true. He didn’t know where to start, even if he wanted her to go on the mission. It was better that she didn’t. The more he read about the Forest of Whispers, the more he realized how dangerous the expedition could be.

Gareth picked up his drink and tried to use the mug to hide a smug smile. Cassian had already started to figure out his quirks, except when he turned on his Prefect Mode, which was terrifyingly efficient at hiding his real personality.

“What is it?” Cassian asked.

Gareth chuckled, putting his mug down and wiping his upper lip, but not any of the smugness.

“What did you do?” Isolde squinted at him from behind her glasses. She could see it too, he was hiding something he found terribly funny.

“Well, you know.” Gareth started, stretching out the pause as long as possible. “As a third year, I get certain privileges.”

Isolde looked hopeful, and given the context, it wasn’t hard to see where this was going.

“Spit it out, Gareth!” Isolde threw a hard chip at him—a food item that was what in this world passed for fries—except crunchier.

“Alright, alright. So I got myself added to the expedition. You won’t be going alone.” Gareth gave Cassian a thumbs up.

Isolde waited for more. She glared at Gareth until he realized what had happened. She had expected that he could do something so that the three of them could go together.

“That’s not fair.” Isolde pouted. And Cassian could feel genuine sadness mixed in with her frustration.

Cassian tried reasoning with her. “It’s not like it’s a walk in a garden. There’s been a lot of activity in the rift there.”

“If you two are going, then I want to go.” Isolde would not be swayed.

They sat in silence for a bit as the mood shifted. Then Gareth sighed and put his elbows on the table, chin resting on his knuckles. This was the serious Gareth coming out. “Look, I can’t promise anything, but if you really want to go, there might be a way.”

Isolde’s face was the sun in the dark. So bright that Cassian had to shut his eyes lest he go blind.

“What is it?” Isolde asked. “If you drag this out, so help me I will…” That sentence seemed to have run into a library as she struggled to figure out what terrible thing she would do from among the infinite choices at her disposal.

It was a side of Isolde that Cassian was seeing more and more of. Relaxed Isolde, who felt comfortable threatening her friend with mortal injury.

“Okay! I’ll tell you. Obviously there’s precedent for first years going on expeditions. It’s a third year group, so we won’t even be trekking that deep in. Even so, usually a first year can get a waiver if they demonstrate exceptional skill in an area that would benefit the expedition. Since this isn’t just a training mission, but one meant to study effects of the rift on the outer reaches of the forest, there’s a chance you can get it. You just need to get approved.”

Isolde reached across the table and squeezed Cassian's hand. "You see? I’m coming whether you like it or not."

Cassian looked from the hand to Isolde’s snake eyes that were glistening gold and green, with its slit down the middle. Her eyes did that sometimes, change colors according to her mood. “Apparently you need to get approved first. So why don’t you focus on that before you start celebrating?”

Isolde turned to Gareth again. “Who do I need to get approval from?”

Gareth scratched the back of his head and sucked air between his teeth, clearly reluctant to reveal this unfortunate piece of information. “For this particular expedition, you’ll need to get approval from the faculty team leader.”

“And who is it? Tell me already.” She was on the edge of her seat. Then again, so was Cassian.

“It’s Professor Thorne.”