The first day I was on my own, I got lost. I tried my best to pay attention to the path we were taking every time we went to class or the field. It was the same every time and neither of them had the same hallways, but I still couldn’t find my way.

I couldn’t ask any of the staff to help either since Enri had sternly told them it was up to me to find my way. Even when I’d asked a few of the maids who helped me before, they gave me a pained look and said, “I would like to help you, but I fear Madam Enri more than I want to help you. Sorry.”

I didn’t blame them for that.

In my search, I found a room where I could hear singing, the entrance to the servants’ quarters, another garden, a blocked-off set of stairs, another dining room, the front door, some wreckage from past wars, a room for armor, and a weapons room.

Surprisingly, it was unlocked. It was well stocked with more blades and arrows than I could count. They ranged from short bows to broadswords to hand axes. All of them were polished to a shine and, I was sure, heavier than they looked.

The room was well-lit by windows and a skylight that let me know the sun had already risen. Enri would have a lecture a mile long ready for me when I finally got there.

I wanted to explore a bit more, but I told her I’d try.

After thirty more minutes of wandering around, I ran into Ikae. He seemed to be moseying his way somewhere without much purpose.

I hadn’t seen any of my future teachers since Enri had introduced them to me a week ago, but I remembered Ikae seemed less than interested in me. He looked sleepy more than anything.

“Ikae!” I called. He stopped and turned around. Even his movements were sleepy. “Hi, I don’t know if you remember my name, I’m—”

“Kaiya of Nothing,” he said. “I remember. How can I help you?”

“Right. Can you point me in the direction of the classrooms? If I had a hint of where to go, I think I could do it.”

He looked at me with his sleepy blue eyes and looked at the ground before saying, “You have a hint. Just follow the path.” He pointed at the floor—shiny as always, but devoid of any hints—and turned to walk away.

“How is that supposed to help me? I already retraced my steps to my room, and I still don’t know where to go.”

“If you can retrace your steps, you can find the path. Good luck, Kaiya of Nothing.”

“Well, that was unhelpful,” I grumbled as he walked off. I stared at the floor, trying to see what he saw. To me, it was just a shiny marble floor with a couple of marks on it from general use and wear.

I leaned against the wall, trying to recall anything. I’d walked this hall before, there had to be something but all I could hear was the annoying British man’s voice telling me to breathe in and out. Enri had insisted that we meditate for at least thirty minutes a day, and since then it was all I could do to ignore that voice.

Without much else to do, I took a breath. I needed to focus if I was going to get anywhere on time.

In…

Out…

In…

Out…

When I opened my eyes, the floor looked… different. It was still marble and still shiny, but there was something almost shifting about the pattern. Behind me, the pattern was shifting again, but down the hall on my left, the floor was as normal as before.

“Follow the path.” I took a step forward and nearly fell over. Another step and another stumble. Looking away made the pattern disappear, but looking at it made me lose balance. I slowly traced the pattern forward and looked up, following it to the best of my memory before stopping and looking down again.

It was a lot of starting and stopping as I followed the path on the ground to the classroom. There were a few close calls when I almost painted the floor with my breakfast as the nausea began to build, but I made it to the stairs in one piece and could find my way to the classroom without looking at the floor.

I fell into the classroom, the door banging open and startling Enri. She was sitting on one of the desks, idling tracing a pattern with her finger while humming something under her breath.

Her expression soured as she looked at me. “You’re not injured. Why are you so late?”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“I got lost,” I said, my words slurring as I leaned against the frame of the door. “Ikae said to follow the path.”

“He wasn’t supposed to help you.”

I made my way to the desk on wobbly legs and laid my head down. “I don’t think telling me to follow a path I couldn’t see was helpful.”

“And yet you followed a path. Which one did you follow?”

“I don’t know. I just know I’m gonna throw up if I don’t have a moment to sit down.” I sat with my head against the desk for a solid five minutes before the nausea passed. I hadn’t felt that bad since Enrique dragged me to my first frat party and said I couldn’t go shot for shot with him. I could. I just couldn’t walk after. Or remember anything. Or eat the entire next day without instantly throwing it back up.

As I looked up, the feeling I had tried so hard to shake washed over me again as I looked at Enri. That pattern was all around her like the world’s shittiest aura. My head slammed back to the desk with a loud thud and Enri let out a huff.

“What did you see?”

“Something to do with you. Why is your everything so nauseating?”

A long, loud silence followed.

My head shot up to see Enri with her arms crossed, staring. “Wait, that’s not—I meant—”

“You can save your stammering for someone else.” She looked back at me, irritation obvious on her face. “What did you see?”

I sat up, trying to keep my eyes pinned to something stationary. “There was a pattern or something on the ground and the same thing is around you. It keeps moving, and that’s what made me nauseous.”

“A pattern? Could you…?” She trailed off for a moment. She held up her hand, palm out, and a rush of air pushed my hair back. At the same time, my eyes unfocused as I got a blast of nausea directly to my face. This time, I did throw up. And then I fainted.

° ° °

“Are you going to call me pathetic again?”

Enri sat next to me in the infirmary, patiently waiting for me to wake up. While I couldn’t see her (a damp towel had been placed over my eyes), I could feel her next to me. No one else gave off the vibe of both disappointment and curiosity like she did.

“Not this time. What you did was actually quite remarkable. Not many people can see the flow of magic so quickly. The fact that you fainted is a good sign. Heksi must be smiling down on you.”

“Who?”

“God of magic. He’s the reason any of us can be mages. The reason I’m a sorcerer.”

“Oh. Well, I feel like butts. How is that good?”

“It means you weren’t overloaded with new information to the point of breaking. It may feel like it, but I guarantee this was the best result we could ask for. Don’t take off that towel. The magic hasn’t soaked in just yet.”

I dropped my arm back to my side, silently grateful I wouldn’t have to try to endure whatever nonsense Enri’s aura was.

With my eyes closed, I could try to visualize it better. Slowly, I started to answer her better. “I can’t really tell you what I saw any more than I already have, but I can tell you what I felt.” I took a moment, trying to gather the right words. I didn’t want to stumble over my words again and offend her. “It’s like a wave. It’s steady, but fast moving. I wasn’t nauseous because it was a bad feeling, but it was just… a lot. Like being pushed against a wall over and over again.”

“That sounds like a bad feeling,” she said. Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, but still echoed in the empty hall.

“At the time, it felt awful only because it was so overwhelming that I couldn’t really figure out what I was feeling. Now I can tell it was good. Powerful and fierce and overwhelming, but good. Just like you.”

Silence fell between us, but this time, it wasn’t awkward. Enri shifted in her chair, retreating into her head in thought. I started to breathe deeply again, trying to gauge how terrible I was feeling. My legs were still tense, though slowly relaxing as I did my breathing. My head was throbbing, but it had cooled a dull ache and my mouth tasted like garbage, but I couldn’t expect them to rinse it out for me. All in all, not terrible.

As annoyed as I was with meditation, it had started to work for me. I was still irritated hearing that dumb man’s voice in my head, but when I sat down to do it, I could focus more on myself. Being aware of my body in a way I had never been was helpful for a number of reasons, including helping me push past what I thought I could do in a way that wouldn’t land me in the infirmary.

“What was I looking at?”

“What you saw was the manifestation of my magic. Everyone’s magical signature is different and if you’re trained you can feel, and even see, someone’s magical signature. I think because I was the one who brought you here that even just a little training allowed you to feel and see my signature.”

“Does the intensity of it correlate with anything, or am I just weak?”

“Not particularly, but this is new to you. Everything will feel intense.”

“What’s the towel for?”

“That’s going to dampen your ability to see and feel the magic around you. I know that part of your training is to help that, but right now, it’ll do nothing but hinder you if you can’t be in the same room as me.”

“Thank you.” I lifted the towel to peek at her. The aura was still there, but I could look at her now without wanting to throw up. That feeling was still there, but gentler than before. I could handle that.

I sat up slowly, still woozy and realizing my stomach was empty. My stomach let out a loud, obnoxious gurgle.

Enri ignored my embarrassed expression and looked down at her hands as she said, “I’ll get someone to bring you some dinner.”

“Dinner? It’s already so late?” One look at the windows told me it was late afternoon. The sun was likely to set in the next half hour. A whole day was wasted, but I suppose it would have happened at some point.

“You had a hard time. Rest up, Kaiya. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”