Mirian didn’t scream, but plenty of other people did. Instead, she crouched down and got ready to run. For a fraction of a second, a brief memory surfaced. Something like this had happened before. There’d been an explosion, just nearby—
She looked around, ready to fight someone. But there was no one to fight, just broken glass spread across the cobblestones and smoke pouring out of the third floor window.
At least this time, the guards came. Two of them approached, one from the courtyard, one from a nearby street. “What happened?” one of them said, hand on his revolver holster.
“It just exploded!” a fourth year student said.
“Yeah, there was a green flash, and then… is it on fire? Look at all that smoke!” a second year student said.
A crowd was quickly forming. Mirian knew she had to get to class but she couldn’t take her eyes off the smoke.
“Get the sorcerers,” one of the guards said to the other. The other one took off running.
Another second year student by Mirian said, “We should… like… cast a wind spell or something. To put out the flames. Does anyone…”
“No!” she snapped. “Putting more air in there is just going to make the fire hotter. Or spread whatever just exploded around. There’s a reason they called for someone who knows what they’re doing.” She said it with a lot more anger than she meant to. The girl backed away from her, eyes wide.
A bell started clanging, getting louder as it approached them. It was a fire wagon, a horseless carriage powered by a spell engine, loaded with supplies. As it approached, the driver shouted at the crowd to move. Gradually, it parted, and the wagon rolled up to the building.
Two sorcerers dressed in red trousers and jackets leapt down, bandoliers with a dozen wands strapped across their torsos. “Do we know the kind of fire?” one of them asked.
“No,” Mirian said.
The first sorcerer pulled out a wand from his bandolier and held it in front of him. Bright lines traced their way through the smoke. “Probably a magic start, but it’s mundane now. Keep this area clear in case there’s a secondary explosion,” he told the guard.
The guard started yelling for the crowd to back up, and the two sorcerers rushed into the building, grabbing for a second wand. Wands only could contain one spell, but most were designed with enhancements already built in. It didn’t look like much, but those sorcerers were packing some serious power.
It took a few minutes, but then a force barrier spread across the third floor window and the smoke abruptly stopped coming out. She could see it building up across the barrier, and then it churned and was drawn back away from that barrier. Some sort of gas-collection spell, she guessed, and then sapping the heat energy from it so all the smoke became inert ash.
The force barrier vanished, and one of the sorcerer’s leaned out the window. “Clear,” he said. “Get a priest.”
Mirian’s heart sank.
The crowd started to disperse, but Mirian stayed. She had to know: Who? Probably, she didn’t know them. There were a lot of students at the Academy. And why had they been in the building so early? The Alchemistry building didn’t have classes before 6 o’clock.
The sorcerers brought out the body, and it was clear they hadn’t summoned the priest for healing, but for last rites. They’d found some cloth to veil the body; apparently none of the wands they carried had any sort of illusion spell that could do that. It was badly burned, but when the wind caught the sheet, Mirian briefly saw who it was.
Platus was dead.
She hadn’t liked Platus. He wasn’t nice, and when she’d worked with him on a group project her first year, he’d been a total pain to work with. But she’d known him. And he was… dead.
Her mind went to the cloaked figures she’d been seeing. Had they done this? What were they even after? And who could she tell? Not the guards. Could she trust the sorcerers? Or would they just tell the guards?
In a daze, she turned and walked. Where was she going? Class, she realized. Really? She was just going to walk into class, twenty minutes late, and… what? Pretend everything was normal?
Yeah, she realized. Better to get distracted by arcane theory, so she didn’t have to think about what happened.
Of course, it didn’t work very well. She kept finding herself tuning out whatever Professor Torres was saying. What had happened? Was it going to happen again? More, there was that memory the explosion had triggered. She’d forgotten about it, but it was there. When she searched for it, it was like looking through a fogged glass; it was too indistinct, but the emotions were there, and her heart kept racing.
Her focus in Enchantments wasn’t any better. And of course, third period, class was canceled. No one was being allowed into the Alchemistry building; even Professor Atger was outside.
By Arcane Physics, apparently word had gotten around. Professor Endresen started the lecture with, “I suppose by now you’ve all heard.” She didn’t say anything after that for a long time. Then, she said, simply, “It’s a dangerous profession, the one you’ve chosen. That danger is only mitigated by knowledge. Nothing else.” Endresen looked out the window then, and for a minute, said nothing. That minute dragged on, and then she said, “I suppose I’ll begin today’s lecture.”
Mirian didn’t go to dueling, like she normally did. The sky was dark, but she cast a looped light spell before she left the dorm, then left her spellbook. The spell would illuminate her way for at least an hour before her auric mana couldn’t sustain the draw. She headed for the Mage’s Grove. She ran, much harder than she normally did, pushing herself until she’d be too tired to think, and every time she thought about what happened, ran hard, ran faster. There had to be nothing left.
When she got to the dorm, Lily was there.
“Was it really him?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Mirian said. “I didn’t… know him very well.”
“We’d been in so many classes together. Then… he wasn’t there. I mean, I… I don’t want to speak ill of the dead. But everyone else was there, and he wasn’t. And we heard… shit. Does anyone know what happened?”
Mirian shook her head. “I don’t know.”
They hugged each other, but they didn’t say much after that.
That weekend, Mirian enmeshed herself in studying. She found that if she focused everything on studying, then ran until exhaustion, she could avoid thinking about it.
Seventhday, she went to the temple. The sermon was about Altrukyst, the Traveler. He spoke of the great journeys of life, but all Mirian could think was, what if that journey ends too soon?
After the sermon, she waited to talk to the priest. “Holy one, why is there death?” she asked.
“That’s the question, isn’t it? One of the prophets asked the Ominian. The response seems to be that it’s an inevitable part of the universe. That doesn’t make it any easier, though, does it?” The priest looked at her with sympathy. She could tell he’d had this conversation before. In the coming days, perhaps a lot more.
“No, it doesn’t,” she said.
“My next sermon, I will discuss it.”
Mirian nodded, and headed back to her dorm. The next morning, they found a notice posted on the doors: Classes canceled for 26th of Solem, Firstday. The Academy would be doing a security review of the academic buildings.
So she and Lily spent the day talking and studying. Lily took her to the practice range, and Mirian let off some steam by using her flame beam spell on a target, while Lily showed off her ability to spear a target with an enhanced force missile.
Then they went for a walk in the Mage’s Grove. It was near the southern part of wood that Mirian saw movement in the brush as they rounded the corner. Mirian held out her hand. “Let’s go a different way,” she said. “I don’t like that trail. This one’s nicer.”
Lily was confused, but when they were farther away, Mirian whispered, “Did you see that?”
“See… what? No?”
Great, she was going to sound crazy again. “There was someone hiding in the bushes. Maybe someone looking to pull a prank or something. I just didn’t want to have to deal with it.” That wasn’t what she’d seen, though. There was no orange tinge or white fabric. It was that black cloak again, that damned black cloak. “Or maybe it’s something worse,” she said.
“You’re good. All good,” Lily said. She could see Mirian was worked up, and maybe she’d thought of why that might be, even if she was wrong.
“Thanks,” Mirian said, and kept her eyes darting about for anything else. “Let’s go home.”
***
It was nice to return to the normality of classes the next day. The Alchemistry building was still closed, but a second notice had been posted to all the doors (and around the plaza) of where all the alchemistry classes had been moved to. It was a bit more of a walk, but the windows could just make out the corner of the Market Forum, so Mirian spent some time gazing out the window while Atger pretended he wasn’t reciting the textbook.
“Have you found out anything about Nicolus?” she asked Xipuatl.
“No,” he said. “And Calisto doesn’t know anything either. In fact, she was very distraught to learn he just left. Spent some time camping outside his dorm, but he’s definitely not there. Unless he’s turned nocturnal.”
“Calisto is… stalking him?”
Xipuatl sighed. “Anyone with a whiff of power has to deal with people like that. They think if they attach themselves like a remora to the person, they’ll get to share that power. I suppose it sometimes does work.”
“Does it happen to you?”
“Rarely. The dark skin throws them off. Mostly, I get people speaking to me really slowly like I’m an idiot because they assume I don’t speak Cuelsin or Friian. It’s really annoying, but I suppose it could be worse. Anyways, off to Arcane Physics. Oh, and let’s cancel the study session. No Nicolus, and apparently he—well, his knight—didn’t reserve the room for today. If he’s still gone by Fourthday, we can just meet at one of the study desks, I’m not shelling out the silver to reserve it myself.”
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She said thanks and bid him goodbye. Well, there was another unsolved mystery. She’d had such a good feeling about the start of the quarter, too. Now it felt like she was just waiting for more things to go wrong. What was next, another hole in the ceiling?
***
On Thirdday after classes, she decided to go dueling instead of running. No cloaked figures there. Not as many people showed up at the Stygalta Arena during the week, but she was sure she could find someone to practice with. She was in her dorm room, and had just finishing buttoning her drakeskin jacket on when she heard the noise. It was loud—really loud, this CRACK sound that echoed off the buildings. Her heart started racing. Then she heard another, and another.
Lily turned. “What is that?” she asked.
Then, another cracking sound, and the window of the dorm shattered.
“FUCK!” Mirian shouted, and hit the ground. The glass had shattered, spreading itself all over the floor. One of the shards had embedded itself in the dueling glove. She plucked it out and threw it across the room away from Lily.
There was another sound, a thundering clap that was even louder, even though from the echo it sounded further away.
Lily screamed, and Mirian said, “We have to go. We have to go! We have to get the burning hells out of here! Grab your spellbook.”
Mirian, for her part, grabbed her rod she’d been working on for class. She’d finished it over the weekend. With the rod in one hand and dragging Lily’s arm with the other, she dragged them through the door. Other students were emerging from their rooms.
“What’s going on?” one said.
“That’s gunfire!” Mirian said.
“What?”
“Those can’t be guns,” said another student. “There’s too many of them.”
A moment later, there was a thundering crash that shook the entire dorm.
One of the third year students said, “That’s not a gun, that’s a fucking artillery shell! What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know, but I’m getting the hell out of here,” Mirian said. “Torrviol has actual buildings, made of stone. We stay here, we’re dead.”
“If we run, we might be dead,” the third year said. “We don’t know where the gunfire is coming from.” Someone with family in the military, she thought.
“Northwest,” she said. “They shot out my window. Lily, let’s go.”
Lily wasn’t saying anything, she was just hyperventilating. Mirian kept holding her arm, and went out the front. “Can you run? Let’s run,” Mirian said, and took off. To her credit, Lily ran with her, though she was so slow. Behind her, a mob of students was following. Most were heading for the Academy buildings, though plenty were running in every direction. Some hid behind the neatly pruned trees, others just stood around in shock.
Between the dorms and Academy, an explosion ripped through the field, erupting with a flash and shaking the ground so that they stumbled. Lightning flashed through the air, ricocheting between the lamp posts, trees, and students. The glyphs on the posts exploded, sending out gouts of fire. The trees hit by lightning shattered, and six students fell to the ground, dead before they could scream. Shrapnel cut down two more, but only killed one. The other was just bleeding, crying out in agony.
Mirian kept running. She had to. Lily stumbled, but she pulled on her arm hard and said “Come on!” though she couldn’t hear herself, or Lily, couldn’t hear anything except the high pitch ring of tinnitus because the strike had deafened her.
They were almost to the buildings when another shell hit, this one smashing through the mid-section of Torrian Tower. Mirian watched in horror as the building listed, farther and farther until with a crack and screech the top of the tower fell over. It was like one of her brother’s block towers crumpling, except it seemed to Mirian to happen in slow motion. Lightning crackled through the tower as it fell, as if a storm cloud were inside it. Thousands of glyphs and magical capacitors inside shattered in a growing cascade, sending a brilliant rainbow of lights crackling out.
Then it smashed into the other buildings, and the earth trembled as it did. The result was devastating; an entire block, smashed to pieces, brick and stone scattered across the central plaza and the streets. Pulverized stone, erupting in huge clouds of dust. Screams of terror and pain, everywhere. Fires had broken out. The cascade of magical shockwaves that had come out of the tower had also broken most of the glyphlights, so the encroaching dusk suddenly became that much darker. The only thing that punctuated that darkness was flashes of light from lightning shells and fire shells as they rained down on Torrviol.
Lily pulled back on her, wanting to turn back after seeing that, but when Mirian looked behind her, she saw a line of soldiers across the hill. Interspersed with them were giant wagons of steel, bristling with guns. The soldiers leveled their rifles. Lily was saying something, but Mirian was still deaf from the explosions.
“We have to keep going. Lily! We have to!”
Shots rang out, though with her ringing ears, they sounded muted. The soldiers didn’t seem to be aiming at them, but all the guns were pointed in their direction, so they needed to run. Why couldn’t Lily see that? “Lily! Come ON!” She yanked hard. Another student screamed as a bullet hit them, and then Lily ran again.
By now, the dust cloud and smoke from the fires had inundated the streets, so as they moved into the Torrviol streets, they were blinded by the haze. People were running in every direction, most looking to get inside, but it was evening, so most of the doors were locked. Torrian Tower’s collapse had blocked off three major roads, but they moved through an alley just north of it, and then they were in the plaza.
“We can run southeast,” she said. “Away from the fighting.” She wasn’t sure if Lily heard her. Her ears were still ringing, and another artillery shell crashed into Torrviol. From her spot in the plaza, Mirian could see smoke erupting from the Myrvite Studies building.
They ran, again, Mirian leading the way, past the bell tower. They’d made it to the Market Forum when another volley of gunfire rang out. She heard cannons blasting out, but this time from the south. There was an explosion nearby, one of the buildings, though she couldn’t tell which one. Through the haze, she saw the red and brown uniforms of Baracuel soldiers advancing through the Forum, except the soldiers had their rifles leveled and were firing. What the hell are they doing? she thought, and screamed “Civilians! We’re civilians!” But that didn’t do a damned thing. She saw a merchant who was running from them spray out red from his chest as a bullet found him.
Again, she found herself yanking Lily’s arm as they turned back toward the Plaza.
Mirian set her eyes on the Kiroscent Dome. When the tower had shattered, a huge stone chunk had been sent flying into it, but its sturdy construction had weathered the blow. Only one of the front columns had collapsed. They had to climb over one of the fallen marble pillars, but they made it inside.
There, a small crowd had gathered in the rotunda. The mood was mixed. Some were huddling in the center. Some were pacing about. Others were tearing up benches and whatever they could find to make barricades. A few were gathered on the stage beyond the rotunda, near the statue of Yiaverunan, the patron God of the Academy. Yiaverunan’s four arms were spread wide with her symbols, and for a moment, it seemed to Mirian the God’s statue was staring at them, past the blindfold that covered her eyes, with pity.
She looked around for anyone she knew. She recognized Valen, Selesia, and Professor Viridian. Viridian’s eyes had rings around them, and he was silent, staring at the entrance.
Mirian couldn’t think of anyone better to talk to. “Professor!” she said, approaching him. “What do we do?”
He looked at her, but she had never before seen such a look of hopelessness. “I don’t know,” he said.
“What’s going on? Who is attacking us, and why are Baracuel soldiers here, and firing at us, and—”
Another explosion interrupted her, making the building shake and sending screams through the crowd. Gunfire erupted just outside, echoing through the Academy plaza. “What do we do? What do we do?” Mirian hadn’t studied for this. That felt so unfair. She’d worked so hard, and right now, none of it mattered. She turned to the crowd. “Does anyone have ink? A glyph pen? Rune powder? Spellbooks? We have to organize a defense! Those soldiers could come in at any moment, and they’re firing on everyone!”
To her surprise, it was Valen that spoke first. “I have my spellbook. But it’s mostly utility spells.”
Selesia just shook her head, and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees. She was crying softly.
“Lily, you can do enhanced spells. Can you…?”
“I dropped my spellbook in the field,” she said. “I tried to tell you.”
Oh, Mirian thought. “Shit.”
“No, we probably would have died if I’d gotten it.”
“I have my spellbook,” another student offered.
Since no one else seemed to be taking charge, Mirian started ordering people around, though she had no idea what she was doing. “Uh, if you have a lift object spell, you can change the keirn glyph to cossali and channel it. Flip it sideways, and that can deflect objects. Maybe it’ll work on bullets.”
“It won’t,” another student said. He had the silver tassels of a fifth year. “My dad’s a corporal. If they think they’re attacking arcanists, they’ll be using magebreaker ammunition. Cuts right through force shields.”
“Magnetic spell?”
“Stops a dueling sword great,” he said, gesturing to Mirian’s sheathed practice sword. “No one here has a spell that can stop a bullet.”
“Maybe if we wave a bunch of white cloth at them they’ll understand surrender. Who the hell is attacking us, anyways?”
It was Selesia who answered. “Akana Praediar,” she said. More gunfire echoed across the square.
“Why?”
She didn’t answer.
“Shit. Well how do you say ‘I’m a civilian, please don’t hurt us’ in Eskanar?”
Selesia shook her head again. “If they want prisoners, they’ll take them. If they don’t….”
Mirian opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. She looked like a fish, she knew, but she couldn’t put it into words. Akana Praediar was Baracuel’s ally! They had, like, fifty different treaties and had passed laws protecting civilians in war. She didn’t know a damn thing about history, but she knew that. Why is this happening?
Then the blue and white uniforms of the Akanans appeared in the door. They lowered rifles.
Mirian raised her arms above her head. “Civilians!” she said.
The gunfire was so loud. It echoed in the halls and all around the rotunda. Someone screamed. Whatever organization Mirian had tried to impose evaporated in an instant; everything descended into chaos. She saw Valen trying to light the uniforms of the soldiers on fire with basic fire spells, but something was suppressing the spells. Three students collapsed, bleeding, one making a horrible gurgling screech as they clutched their chest.
Mirian dove behind one of the makeshift barricades. The wood benches and plush fabric did nothing to stop the bullets. When three of them perforated her hiding spot, she ran for it. Lily was beside her, and Valen. Behind her, she saw Viridian standing, spellbook in hand. The pages glowed beneath his hand as he flipped through them. She blinked, hesitating as she saw what he was doing—every spell he was casting was quickened. Some sort of arcane shield she’d never seen before protected him. He brought down a stone relief on the top of two soldiers, then shot out lightning that took out another.
A combat-sorcerer stepped through the entrance, wand in hand, and tore apart the shield. Two more sorcerers pressed him, wands blazing with light, and Viridian didn’t stand a chance in that brief but overwhelming assault. He fell after that, three bullets spraying blood behind him as they tore him apart.
This time, it was Lily dragging Mirian’s hand. “Keep going. Keep going,” she said.
As they moved behind pillars, a lightning spell caught Valen and she went sprawling. A fireball blasted the center of the rotunda, and the pressure wave made it so Mirian went sprawling too, totally deaf again. She scrambled to her feet and grabbed for Lily, who was close to her. Valen was on the ground, not moving, and they were still being shot at. Gods, she didn’t like her, but she didn’t want her to die. There were so many dead, the screams were piercing, the shouting, the shooting.
“We can hide in the back, there’s rooms back there—” Mirian said. Lily didn’t have her glasses anymore. And she couldn’t hear, either, Mirian guessed. She tried to guide her up the stairs, but then suddenly Lily went limp in her arms.
Mirian blinked. A force-blade spell had carved open her torso. One of the blades had sliced up Mirian's arm, though the shock must have been overwhelming her, because though she saw the blood, she couldn’t feel it. Instead, all she could do was gape at Lily.
“No, no, no,” she said. Not Lily. Not her friend. They’d known each other since their first year, talked endlessly about everything, been there even when things were hardest. When Mirian was at her lowest, there was Lily, with a cup of tea, or a hug, or just a listening ear. When Lily had learned her grandma died, Mirian had been with her and comforted her.
The tears were pouring down. She looked back. The blue and white uniformed soldiers were advancing. They’d made it to the barricades, and there was nothing opposing them. Just corpses littering the rotunda, bodies strewn about like dolls.
Fear gripped Mirian. She dropped her friend and ran across the stage, towards the dark rooms beyond promising safety.
The bullet that went through her gut felt like a line of hot fire. She collapsed to the ground, legs suddenly not working. The soldiers kept coming forward, shouting in that strange tongue of theirs. Mirian felt cold. The floor was wet. Why was it wet?
Blood, she realized. Her blood.
She crawled to the statue of Yiaverunan, praying, begging. No, she thought. Not me. Not yet. She wasn’t ready. She had only just begun life. The statue held her hourglass, star, hammer, and wheel. Time, she thought. I need more time. Her Mom and Dad—they were relying on her. She was going to finally be able to support them. Support her little brother. Oh Gods, Zayd. What would Zayd do without his big sister, his Mi-ri?
An Akana soldier climbed up on the stage, wand in one hand, pistol in the other. She looked at Mirian with cold blue eyes, gaze icy as the winter, skin as pale as her hair. “Please. Please,” Mirian found herself begging, crawling through her own blood to the statue. She leaned back on the statue, praying it might protect her. Praying for anything. In the oculus at the zenith of the dome, she looked for the light of heaven, but something had blotted out the stars. “Mercy,” she whispered.
But she was given none. The combat sorcerer said something, then raised her wand. The force-blade spell carved her to pieces, the blades powerful enough to cut through the statue.