That night Derek had a nightmare. It wasn’t much and he barely remembered it but it was embarrassing to wake the other boys in the night like that. No one said anything but Tristan gave him a withering stare when he woke. Derek apologized to the other boys and resolved to have his wind and dark sprites muffle and shroud his part of the room so that the others would not be disturbed any further.

He woke very early as was his custom and woke Desmond and Garrett. The three of them quietly readied themselves for the day before heading for Derek’s mother’s house. By the time they arrived the adults were already up and moving. Alicia joined them on the path up to the house and the four of them had a quiet talk before being called in for breakfast. Breakfast was a hearty meal prepared by the household servants and it pleased Derek to see his mother so well taken care of.

After breakfast the three boys joined Ander in his forge. Derek immediately started the process of preparing the forge for the day’s work, and Garrett joined him, needing little instruction due to his familiarity with tasks in a forge. Desmond was the only one not used to the environment and after a few minutes of instruction from Ander he shadowed Derek who walked him through the process of lighting the forge.

After a few hours of vigorous work in the forge, the old smith sent them off to clean themselves and change clothes before their first classes. Each had different course loads based on their attainments before joining the academy so they split up when they reached the Academics buildings.

Derek joined a small eclectic group of other students in an auditorium clearly meant for far more people. There were slightly more boys in the group than girls and more magic warriors than mages. It stood to reason since in spite of the Academy priding itself on its arcane achievements, there were generally more magic warriors in the populace than mages.

All in all there were sixteen freshmen gathered in the room when the Professor walked in. She was a kindly older woman of darker complexion that Derek had met in passing when he was helping his mother move in. “Greetings children, I am Afua Windreach. I will be your instructor for the Statecraft portion of your education. I am sure you are probably wondering why you must take a class on such a dry subject when the Academy purports to teach the Arcane, yes?”

There was a murmuring of approval from some of the students who seemed to already be harboring such thoughts already. The old woman smiled at them with understanding before turning towards the door, “Come, follow me. We will be going to one of the most important places on this campus.”

Afua continued to lecture as she led them out of the building and towards the south eastern part of campus, “To be fair, the Academy originally didn’t teach the core academic courses here, but throughout the years we saw that our students were quite successful in the fields we taught them, but many would trip up on unforeseen difficulties.

“It stands to reason that the powerful will naturally gravitate towards positions of power. So a powerful mage today is likely to one day govern a realm of his own. The faculty of the Academy watched with pride as their students spread throughout the land and became leaders in their own places, but we also watched in trepidation as they stumbled upon difficulties that were in many cases predictable. They rarely truly failed, but the process was always made more difficult than it needed to be.”

She continued describing the past struggles of their predecessors as she led them to a large building that dominated an area of well manicured lawn, “This, children, is the Library of Windreach, I dare say that it is the largest such building in Western Elanith. Within these walls are the recorded musings, lessons, memoirs, triumphs, and failures of the preceding generations of students of this Academy along with works procured from every civilized land.

“We have studied the works of those that came before us and have prepared an education that will ensure that you will not be impeded by the difficulties that they encountered. Every course taught in the core curriculum of the Academy is intended to prepare you for the very likely possibility that you will one day need these skills. You may not be a specialist in these skills by then, but you will know enough to navigate the initial pitfalls and you will have the foundation to prepare yourself more appropriately at that time.”

As she finished her lecture she brought them into the central rotunda of the library. They looked around and up, at the several floors of collected books. Academy staff pushed carts with books and scrolls down the aisles to return them to their places. Even this early in the morning they could see many people studying various manuscripts at the desks and couches around the room. The students were suitably impressed, quite a few gaping at the sight before them.

One boy finally spoke up, “So many. Are we going to have to read them all?”

She smiled knowingly at him, “No, nobody expects that of you. Even some truly ancient ones have spent their whole lives and have only put a modest dent in these archives. No one would expect you to read it all, but this resource is here for you as a student of this Academy. We merely ask that you not damage the manuscripts.

“That said, your class instructors will have outlined several manuscripts each that will be required reading for their courses. Copies of those manuscripts will be delivered to your rooms by the end of the day. You will be required to read all of those.”

There was an audible groan from a few of the boys when she said that. She laughed lightly, “I have faith that you will complete these. If not this term, then maybe next term, but by the end of your education here you will know this material. If we failed to ensure that you learned these vital lessons here, what would we say to those family members of yours that paid a small fortune to get you into this Academy?”

The mirth in her voice had given way to a stern coolness that caused Derek to shiver. Gone was the matronly and warm older woman from before. The person revealed in this moment seemed to be a callous and cruel taskmaster. Derek swore to himself that he would not fall behind in his course work for her class.

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“Alright, children, let’s return to the class for now. I would like to go over my expectations for this term with you all. Please don’t dawdle, there is much to go over before the class is over today.”

Derek and a few of the other students gaped as they hustled to follow her back to their class room. It seemed as if an illusion had passed and the kind old woman was back. Only, they could see the hints in her mannerisms that proved that what they had perceived had been no illusion.

When they finished the class, Derek scuttled off to his next class, the one covering the Classics. The distance and his lack of familiarity of the buildings had almost made him late. Once more, the number of students wasn’t particularly large, only fifteen in this class. The professor was an old bespeckled man hunched over his cane, Eomer Windreach. His beard almost touched the floor and the man lectured in a long, droning voice, but there was something peculiar about it that kept the students strangely focused.

Derek hardly realised the time had passed when the clock tower signalled the end of the class and the beginning of their lunch time. The old man seemed consternated at the interruption and hemmed and hawed for a moment before letting them go. Derek and the other students rushed to get down to the cafeteria in a timely manner. They knew that the later they got to the cafeteria, the longer they would have to wait in line and the less time they would have to eat.

Unfortunately for them, one of Eomer’s small pleasures in life was making his students late to whatever else they had to do and he had timed releasing them just so. The old man snorted contentedly to himself as he saw his students queue at the end of an already long line before he shuffled off to the faculty dining area. A few of the other instructors shook their heads at the cantankerous old man, some remembering when he had done the same to them all those years ago.

Being late to the cafeteria, few places were open for him when he went to select his seat. Alicia waved at him, but her table was full.There was a spot next to Garrett and Desmond, so he merely waved back at her before sitting next to them.

The others were wrapping up their meal but Derek knew he didn’t have much time to finish eating so he focused on that and let their banter roll over him. He barely managed to sop up the last of his soup with his bread and stuff it in his mouth as the bell tolled to warn them to head to their next classes.

He was lucky that his next two classes would be in the same room. History was first and Military Science was second. He was surprised to find that it was Dean Karl teaching these two and his style of pedagogy was brusk and to the point. In each class he spelled out his expectations for them and gave short introductory lectures explaining the importance of these classes for the students before him.

A little over two hours passed before Derek found himself hurrying off to the Mage College’s buildings. HIs first class here was an advanced practical course on Aura Magic. When he arrived he was surprised to find he was the youngest student in the room. The other students seemed to detect this pretty quickly too and teased him a little before making him the de facto mascot of the class.

Luckily, he recognized one of his classmates as a cousin of his, one of the few who knew he was part of the Windreach family. This was Charlotte’s daughter, Sofia. She teased him a little too, but there was nothing mean spirited about it.

“Come sit next to big sister,” She patted the spot next to her and the other girls giggled but accepted it. They seemed to be close friends. Derek sat down in the spot offered and smiled at her. The average students in this class were tier three, with a few in low tier four. He was clearly the weakest of them all and didn’t mind relying on his cousin among this crowd.

In all there were twelve students in the room and he was surprised to find that the instructor was none other than his grandmother Madeleine. He still wasn’t very used to her as she had quite the thorny personality and they had only met recently. She looked over the room before starting her lecture. “Students, you should know who I am by now. For many of you, this class will be one of the last before you graduate, as such, we will combine things you should have learned from the lower level magical courses.

“Auras are the magic we use to bolster our allies in combat. They are not as simple as a static area of effect enhancement spell. They are targeted spells that utilize the mana you inject into them to bolster the specific individuals of your retinue. To understand how this works, we must look at the structures formed by the mana when crafting the spell and at the core runes in the creation of these spells. Do you all understand? Then let us begin.”

Her lecture started off strong and Derek was caught off guard because he was not expecting her to launch into the meat of the course right off the bat like that. He quickly recovered though. With the assistance of his cousin and relying upon the foundational knowledge he possessed from his education at Redwyrm he was able to keep up with the older students, only having to pause slightly more frequently to allow his mana to recuperate. In no time at all the class was over and he hurried on to find his next class. He failed to catch the look of pride in his maternal grandmother’s eyes as the stern woman watched him go.

HIs next class was Holy Magic where he was required to assist his paternal grandmother in the instruction. The rarity of holy magic specialists outside of religious organisations meant that there was a very shallow pool for the school to recruit from, and since the school was loath to lower its standards there hadn’t been a holy magic instructor in years. Unlike his previous classes, this one was packed. There were fifty three students in this class and clearly students closer to graduation had been given priority as the only other freshman in the class was Alicia.

Even here amongst older students, she had gained a following. Several young men and a couple of the young girls had gathered around her, ostensibly to make friends with her. Derek was amazed at how poised she was managing to be in spite of the constant attention. When she saw him, she immediately rushed over to talk to him and pouted at him a little, “I was hoping you would sit with me at lunch but you got there so late.”

He smiled wryly, noticing the glares he was getting from a few of the older boys, “I am pretty sure my teacher did it on purpose, but if you want to make sure I can sit with you, just sit next to Desmond and Garrett tomorrow and ask them to save a spot for me.”

Her smile was back in full force, “Oh, that’s a good idea. I will do that next time.”

As they talked his paternal grandmother came in. Rebekah smiled at Alicia, “It is good to see you sweetheart, please go take your seat. Derek, come sit over here, next to the podium. I will have you demonstrate some techniques and when we break out into practicals I will have you overlook a portion of the class.”

As Derek took his spot, she introduced herself and laid out the course before the students. In the final minutes of the class, she wrapped up her lecture and asked for questions. One of the students seated at the back stood up. The man had a fighter’s build, and wore the white and gold of the church of the Sun. There were other, similarly dressed students sitting nearby so Derek assumed they were all of one group. He could tell this guy was here to start trouble.

‘These people again,’ he thought to himself. ‘What is their problem?’

The man spoke up , “Yes, I would like to know why savages are being brought to this Academy to teach Holy Magic? If the students here want to learn this they could always come to the Church.”