Progress:

Mana Tier 4

Task List:

1. Hope you figure this one out. Learn the circulation technique and hide your mana level before the opening ceremony.

2. Discover the truth behind the Captain of the Order of War Magic

Zeek looked at the book one last time before burying his head in his hands. He’d been sitting in the bathroom for an awkward amount of time now. Sirius and Penny were waiting for him at their table in the restaurant. For a moment, he wondered if he could just disappear into the night and head back to the woods with Granny. The book gave him a loving zap as if to say…No.

How was he supposed to discover the truth without becoming a war mage? And why should the truth even matter to him? What could this possibly have to do with training? Maybe the book was listening when he talked about wanting adventures. He tried reasoning with it.

“This is too much for me. Why don’t you ask for something smaller?”

The book didn’t reply.

“There’s no rush. We can just work up to it.”

The book still didn’t reply.

“It’s just too big. I can’t do it. You know that.”

A thump on the wooden door followed by a gruff voice interrupted his conversation. “Stop trying to reason with it and just push it out, kid, it’ll only hurt for a second. The line’s getting long out here.”

Zeek’s face turned red as he opened the door and shuffled past a few other diners who were openly laughing at him. Penny and Sirius didn’t notice his embarrassment as he slunk into his seat; she was still trying to coax Sirius into doing what they wanted.

“If Father wants me to attend the bootcamp, I will. But why can’t I tell Mother?” He appeared genuinely confused.

“It’s like a secret mission from the earl. Like a secret training mission only mages know about,” Penny said.

“Father does have to keep the kingdom’s secrets,” Sirius replied thoughtfully.

“Yes. It’s just like that. A secret.”

“But won’t Mother notice how tired I am each day? Won’t she ask what I’ve done all day?”

“You just tell her you were practicing magic,“ Penny replied.

“But that’s a lie. I can’t lie to Mother.” Sirius frowned.

“Then just say you were training.”

“What do I do if she asks what I trained that day?” Sirius asked again.

“You just say it was magic,“ Penny replied.

“But that’s a lie. I can’t lie to Mother.”

Zeek wanted to scream. This haughty noble kid who was so sure of himself only a few days ago was an unabashed momma’s boy. This same conversation had taken place through their entire meal. He wanted to slam his fists on the table and scream at the young noble for being a thigh-hugging, breastfed, spoiled little...

Sirius didn’t notice Zeek’s gritted teeth.

“How about you just train a bit of magic each day. So you can tell her about that and it won’t be a lie,” he growled.

Sirius didn’t seem to notice the growl either; he just smiled and nodded.

“A cover story then.”

“Yes! Exactly! A cover story for your secret mission,” Penny praised him. Compliments from women had a special effect on Sirius, after all. For all his oddness, Sirius turned out to be a decent young guy. He was just horribly impressionable, uncomfortably truthful, obsessed with honor, and lived in a fantasy world.

A fantasy world where his mother was queen of everything, and his father was the deity. As the son of both, he could do anything…until he couldn’t. Then he went home to yammer about it until Mother rubbed his back and Father gave him advice that he’d wildly misinterpret.

Despite their new friend’s oddities, the day of touring was wonderful. Lem’s maze-like alleys held hidden gardens, statues of great mages, and specialty shops of every kind. Not to mention the normal tourist sites like the fort, which was also a palace, and the massive cathedral, which Zeek quickly steered them away from. Not that he had to—symbols of the Goddess of Light were as common as pebbles; there was even a shop that sold undergarments with the symbol.

Because why not.

Besides the attractions, an endless assortment of fountains, plazas, noble manors, warehouses, and even a port on the riverbank captured attention. The city felt alive as they moved from stall to shop to scenic view, as if every sunrise caused new homes or shop or people to pop out of the ground and settle where they stood.

Not that everything was perfect; one street would be so clean Zeek could see his reflection on every window like he was in a room of mirrors. The next would be lined with beggars or the impoverished, living in shacks crafted from scrap, as if the missing garbage from other neighborhoods waltzed away and formed hovels to shelter dirty humans.

The people were diverse. Zeek imagined you could pick a skin tone and eye color at random and find a matching person within minutes. Sirius shrugged at the observation. “It’s a port city, after all. The river originates in a mountain range north of us and flows south all the way to the sea. Most goods from the southern countries come through here.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Fashion, by contrast, was uniform. Aside from the occasional cultural garb, men wore fitted pants and shirts with wide-brimmed hats to shield the sun. The wealthier had jackets made with light fabric and long coattails, the occasional flower or monogrammed handkerchief poking out of their breast pocket. Women wore pastel dresses during the day, often with patterns related to the Goddess of Light–not surprising Zeek in the least–while shading themselves with even wider ribboned hats. At night the pastels became darker shades of red and blue with geometric lines curving around the women’s bodies.

And mages…well, most mages just wore robes.

The day ended quicker than expected, and the group headed back to the academy. Penny and Zeek thanked Sirius before returning to the dorm. The three agreed to meet again early in the morning two days from now. He and Zeek would attend the bootcamp while Penny returned to her hobby of perusing spell models.

As fun as the day was, Zeek was ready to return home. He’d barely practiced throughout the day; it was still too hard to restrict circulation while moving. And now that he knew certain archmages—and possibly clergy—could sense mana, he wanted to be more cautious. He could use a bit of extra mana while in bootcamp, but just a small amount. He was plenty capable of controlling how much power he sent to his legs; adding was easy.

Taking away was the hard part. Something he thought of over and over as sweat covered his sheets once more. Tomorrow was his last full day to practice before bootcamp, and he planned on using every second of it.

###

Earl Turginet Yenson, Archmage of Flame, patriarch of the Yenson family, decorated war veteran, loyal servant of Numera, and father sat alone in a parlor room. A glass of sap-colored alcohol sat still on the table next to him. The cushioned chair underneath him was upholstered with fine fabric, but the depressions in the seat molded to the earl’s body as they had countless times before.

The scene, to a passerby, would appear as serene as a warm spring breeze across the Numeran farmlands. The only sign of conflict was in his normally soft eyes, which slowly traced the outline of a large painting he stared at.

It was a fantastical painting, by modern accounts; one critic even used the word “heretical.” But he was laughed out of the discussion, heresy was a phantom to the commonfolk of Numera. As unlikely as the sun falling from the sky.

Earl Yenson chuckled. What an interesting analogy.

The sun did fall from the sky each day, it was only forced perspective that made us forget. But the painting…yes, the painting…held his thoughts hostage. A lone figure, obscured by strokes of earthy browns and deep blues, stood on one side of the canvas. If not for the general outline of a human body and an outstretched arm, he’d appear like a circle of frantic energy. The lone mage’s half of the painting was covered in bright colors associated with life. Vibrant greens, sun-kissed yellows, and blues as light as the sky on midsummer’s day.

It was painted to evoke these memories; to evoke the memories of days filled with life, peace, and growth. The only peculiarity was a bolt of white that shot from the mage’s hand and pierced the other half of the painting, creating a wall of lightning to keep it at bay.

The half covered in darkness.

Lands covered in barren grey wastes nurtured trees bent at angles so sharp they appeared to scream at the blackened sky. Hunched figures of groveling men faced the opposing side as motes of black rain battered their wretched faces. Extending from each person, and creature, were thin linked chains outlined in a sickly yellow color. The shades of each link oscillated from dark to pale and back as if sickness pulsed in the metal.

The chains led to an empty circular void, creating an orb of dark yellows and faded greens that spiraled the chains around its core. A whirlpool of rot at the center of the desolate landscape.

The critic claimed the void was a deity, and the figure on the right a mage. At first, Earl Yenson disagreed. He viewed it as the opposite. The darkness was the failings of men: greed, lust, envy, and other weaknesses common to civilized societies. The lone figure on the right was the Goddess of Light. He didn’t know when he began agreeing with the critic.

Perhaps the painting was heretical, but Earl Yenson wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.

He’d found himself in this room after lunch with the young mage his son befriended. It wasn’t anything the boy said, it was the moment his mana fluctuated. It pulsed, somewhere towards his head. The earl couldn’t be sure exactly where, he only had a vague sense for these things. It just felt so controlled, so deliberate, and so familiar.

The Captain of the Order of War Magic felt the same way sometimes. Well, the same, but different. It was so frustratingly hard to explain. Like being asked to describe the appearance of something while blindfolded. Was the boy really special? Would looking into it cause trouble for him?

Perhaps a few questions wouldn’t hurt.

He could find his recruiter, learn about their trip here. He could talk to John Sampson; he’d like to see how Sirius did in the bootcamp anyhow. Maybe he’d even attend the opening ceremony, which he’d done once or twice in the past. None of these things would be unusual, just caution exercised by a noble father.

###

Penny flopped down into her bed. She hadn’t walked so much in weeks. Nearly every ache was worth it, she thought, the city was beautiful. It was everything she imagined and more, but it wasn’t home. Not that Lem would be a bad place to grow old in, but she wondered if her family would move to be with her. Mages made a good living, after all, much better than a small village smith.

She tried sleeping but just couldn’t stop tossing and turning. A tightness in her stomach always reared up in the evening when she was alone.

She was homesick.

Her parents had said she would feel that way, but she’d brushed it off at the time. Zeek didn’t seem to be affected at all, and he’d made his position clear on the village. Penny wasn’t surprised one bit that Zeek was already dabbling in secrets, duels, and general mischief.

Trouble was his home.

They’d gone from barely speaking to friends after the trip. Zeek didn’t seem to mind at all, consistent with his normal lackadaisical attitude. Honestly, seeing someone from home unfazed by the excitements of the academy gave her confidence. Oh, but she would never admit that. They were buddies as children, and he had barely grown up.

One thing people in Hake never realized, though, was how smart he was. When she was still learning letters, Zeek was already reading Granny’s book on herbology. Half the problems he caused were explained by a busy mind with no outlet. It was almost frightening how quickly he could pick things up just by watching.

He learned to craft a bow from walking by the town fletcher, then he used it to hunt chickens when he got hungry. And how could she forget the time he learned how to create mortar by spying on a traveling stone mason, then made a person-sized statue of male genitalia in the chief’s backyard. Then there was the itch powder…

Why was she thinking about this now?

Perhaps she felt…insecure. Just another thing she’d never admit. Zeek was learning magic so fast it was scary, and somewhat suspicious. Then he made friends with some archmage’s little prodigy, who had the temperament of a newborn baby. Then dueled him. Then punched him in the face.

She covered her face and groaned. He was roping her into all the nonsense, and she was going along with it again—just like she had as a kid. There was nothing to it, Zeek would get himself killed if she didn’t calm him down a bit. She had no desire to explain to Granny why he returned to Hake in a clay pot. As for herself…

She would make some normal friends once the year started. The crafting community was close-knit, but she just had to find the right spell model to get started. Then figure out a way to unlock her mana before the academy started using its methods. If she was lucky, she could get an apprenticeship with a mage in the city, setting her up for a prosperous career.

She drifted off to sleep, dreaming of owning a big house like the Yensons’…and piles of gold…and rooms filled with powerful magical equipment…