A brief song is heard throughout the campus grounds of the magical school of K’Laie. The eight-note glass armonica melody resounds through the halls, denoting both the time of day and the fact that class will soon begin. Before the brief and mellow tune concludes, LaTao steps into her classroom.

  Whoa… Lots of people already here already, she thinks redundantly. The desks, chairs, and decorations are all blood red with black legs, surfaces, and decor. I swear… It’s like they buy new tables and chairs every year. The walls are bone white with high ceilings. The floor is made with large marble slabs of white and beige. They glisten with a hint lof pink, as if glossed with champagne.

  At the far end of the classroom, the teacher stretches to write ‘Ms. Lyttle’ on the top right corner of the white board. Testers like her are experienced Mages deemed capable of teaching apprentices. The wide, brimmed hat of a Tester is dangling on her back. At the base is an off-white belt of what looks like snakeskin leather. From it rises a one and a half foot, cone-shaped top. It’s starched stiff to point straight up, when worn on her head.

  As she writes a layout of the class’ schedule, more students enter the room, each eager to choose desks beside their friends. The rush is real, with prime real estate filling fast. LaTao looks over the available seats and chuckles. “Of course,” she says as she claims her desk. She hangs her burgundy leather satchel on the side of the desk and takes a seat.

  Moments later, Meeka enters the class, followed closely by her friends. The bright-eyed blonde quickly spots her best friend and shakes her head. As expected, she takes the seat behind LaTao. “Why do you always take the same seat?”

  “Near the back, left side, by the window?” LaTao replies. “I’m pretty sure that’s the rule for these things.”

  Meeka scrunches her face. “You always say the weirdest things. I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, or… I don’t know. It’s like you’re saying an inside joke to someone that isn’t around to hear it.”

  LaTao smiles.

  “See! You’re doing it again! Who are you even looking at?”

  “If you really wanna know, it’s–”

  Suddenly, the two are startled by the jarring sound of a slamming door. The murmurs end, and the class is immediately thrown into silence. Beyond the glass, a few students stare wide-eyed, realizing the door is now locked. When they see Ms Lyttle, there’s not an ounce of sympathy on her face. She slowly steps down from the front stage with a bored scowl. The sound of her heels against the marble floor reverberates around the otherwise silent room.

  The eyes of the last standing student dart about as he desperately decides which seat to take. Fearful of the teacher’s wrath, he stems in place, moving his head about as if looking, but not finding. As Ms Lyttle closes in, her stature is put on display. The boy can tell she is barely over half his height… even so, he can feel great power from within her small frame as she passes by. Hearing her mumbling to herself, he swallows hard. He can’t tell if she’s grumbling or muttering a spell.

  Once at the door, Ms Lyttle raises her hand. Her index and middle fingers are together and pointing at the distant ceiling. “One… I repeat, ONE minute after the morning prelude plays, this… door… shuts.” She looks beyond the glass and sees a modicum of hope in the unfortunate student’s eyes. “No exceptions!” She turns to face the class. “Those outside will face whatever consequences I feel fit to give. This week’s ‘prize’ will be an hour of hovering stacks of bricks. I mean one solid hour. If one drops, you’re starting over.” She glares one last time at the tardy teens. “Off you go to Fawkin Hall. Lalu knows you need the practice.”

  The students outside stare in dismay. Helplessly, they watch their teacher’s wrist bend. As her fingers angle downward, the door’s window fades, eventually becoming pitch black. Trapped outside, the students' pitiable hearts fill with dread as they regretfully accept their fate and dredge their way toward Fawkin Hall.

  Ms. Lyttle straightens the hard, red collar of her cowl. She tugs her cloak taut, then looks at every face in the class. Her clothes are pristine, as is her straight, black hair. Her thin-framed glasses keep it out of her face. Her eyes sweep the class, slowly, and stop at the frightened boy and Ninifer, both standing and too frightened to move.

  “By all means,” their teacher says with a smile, as calmly as if these were the first words spoken today. Once the two have located seats to claim, their teacher continues her walk around toward the back of the class. “As you know, this class is ‘Mage Level One- Magics and Baelian Rhetoric.’ The first weeks will cover Apprentice-level basics of the ancient tongue and focus heavily on how phrases are designed, enunciated, practiced, and cast. Before that…” she says as she rounds the corner and walks along the rear aisle of the room. “...we will cover the more important things like when not to use magic and how to responsibly wield this ‘gift.’ This week, I’ll say simple things….”

  She walks around Meeka and turns to walk toward the front of the class. “...foolish things that I shouldn’t have to say to a room full of Red Apprentices sixteen to eighteen years of age… stupid things like ‘no flying head first into bushes and trees.”

  LaTao feels a slight tug in her hair. She and her teacher lock eyes, until a leaf comes between them. Was that in my hair!?

  “Odd decoration choice, LaTao of Gander?” Ms Lyttle says, placing the leaf on her student’s desk.

  LaTao smiles awkwardly. Her cheeks flush from the unwanted attention.

  Ms Lyttle continues her way to the front of the class. “Apprentices are not allowed to fly. From this day forward, if I see ANY of you airborne, you WILL be demoted back to Second Class Apprentice with all the other rookies. Am I understood?”

  “Yes, Ms Lyttle!” they reply in unison.

  “Good.”

  She steps up onto the stage and takes her place behind her black lectern, topped with a red marble slab. On the wide lectern’s face is another slab of marble in the shape of the symbol of K’Laie. The dragon silhouette has a circle at its center, from which wings reach out from the left and right. From the bottom comes what can be seen as either tail feathers or a flame. From the top rises the dragon’s long, slender neck. The beast faces left with a long, thin horn reaching up and to the right.

  “By show of hands, how many of you intend to work in the field of magic?” She looks about the room and nods. “I see. All of you. Good. I hate when spots are wasted on people who are just here to make their parents happy. Keep your hands up if you know exactly what kind of Mage you aspire to become… ah… I see. By the end of the semester, those with lowered hands may discover which road best suits them.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Some of you will be ‘Sorcerers.’ You’ll have minds filled with knowledge of herbs, minerals, and chemical combinations. You’ll be standing over bubbling cauldrons, making potions for adventurers, medics, and civilians alike. I suggest you befriend those peers. One day, you’ll be counting on your fellow alumni to enchant items, enhance weapons, or cure afflictions.

  “Some of you will hone your skills and focus on speed. You’ll memorize hyper-specific incantations to thwart enemy spells, have the guts to bet your life on it, and have a party willing to trust you with theirs. You’ll be called ‘Battle Mages’ and better return to this school with stories to tell me. Heck, maybe you’ll walk the streets with knights, keeping us safe from thieves and bandits.

  “Others will learn they have the ability to gather and wield massive amounts of ethis… like me,” she adds with a hint of a smile. “You will stand by my side one day, behind the front lines on the battlefield… perhaps on the castle wall, peeking between the brick battlements. We’ll raise our hands together as ‘War Mages’ and launch fireballs bigger than this classroom into hordes of distant enemy soldiers.

  “None of that will happen, however, if you don’t pass the Mage Test. I would like to say something uplifting, like ‘When this semester is over, you’ll all have what it takes to pass that test!’ but I’m not a big fan of lying to children.”

  Hearts throughout the room sink. Some of the students look around to see worried faces. Kami’ka and Deska share a worried glance. Meeka and April lock eyes, but both give the blankest of poker faces. Ninnifer catches their dauntless display. They seem fearless indeed. Ninnifer copies Meeka’s unaffected visage… until she sees LaTao’s confident smile.

  Ninnifer huffs and rolls her eyes– then realizes that the teacher is staring right at her. Her heart hurries. Her hands grip her desk. She holds her breath, wondering if the teacher is going to reprimand her.

  “Ninnifer, correct?” The teacher asks.

  Ninnifer nods.

  “Please stand.”

  Ninnifer obeys. Her heeled boots place her at six feet tall, forcing chins to rise.

  “You would say that you know the basics, right?”

  Ninnifer nods. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Ugh… ‘Ma’am?” She points to the top right corner of the board. “‘Ms Lyttle’ or ‘Mage Tester’ is fine. ‘Ma’am’ makes me sound old.”

  “Sorry, Ms Lyttle.”

  “Let’s start with the basics, Lady Ninnifer. What is Ethis?”

  “Ethis is the fuel for magic. Like the logs are for a campfire.”

  “Thank you, be seated.”

  Ninnifer does so, blowing a long, quiet sigh of relief. Once the teacher calls on another student, Ninnifer turns her head ever so slightly… then glares at LaTao.

  Why is she looking at ME like that? LaTao wonders.

  “Yes, Miss Tester?” a boy says, followed by a hard and painful swallow.

  “Mage Tester,” Ms Lyttle specifies. “Mozé of Fellows, is it?”

  “Yes, Miss, Mm, Miss Mage Tester,” he stutters.

  The teacher rubs her face and whispers, “Close enough.” She adjusts her hair, then asks, “Where is ethis?”

  “Inside of us,” Mozé replies with confidence.

  Ms Lyttle blinks slowly. She leans forward on her lectern, resting an elbow on the top, and rests her cheek upon her fist. “Can anyone help him out?”

  Deska raises her hand. With the teacher’s nod, she stands to say, “It’s in us, yes, but it’s also all around us! It’s in the air, in these desks, it’s in the animals and trees! It’s everywhere!”

  “Correct!” she replies, motioning for Deska to take her seat. “All living creatures create ethis.” She turns and walks to the board where she begins to draw. As her finger glides against the whiteboard, a trail appears behind and remains. First, she draws the black outline of what looks like a teapot. Beside it, she draws something similar, but taller, green, and slender. The spout begins near the bottom and rises to nearly three-quarters of the container’s height. The third vessel she draws is short and blue, but wider and with a more sturdy base. “Each of these ewers represents a living thing. We… are like these ewers… all different sizes. Like these ewers, some of us can store more than others. Some of us generate ethis at higher rates than others as well. Some of us have wider ‘spouts’ like this one and can use more ethis at once, if needed.” With the color red, she draws a fourth ewer that dwarfs the other three. “Some of us are fortunate enough to be like this red lady right here.”

  She rubs her hands together as if there was chalk on them, probably out of reflex. She turns to face the class. “Every bush, every tree, every blade of grass, even the tiniest bug bears at least a tiny little ewer. The ethis they create roam free. Our ancestors thought the ethis was spirits. In some smaller, Mage-less nations, they still teach that floating collections of ethis are spirits.”

  The teacher chuckles, comically clawing at the air as she adds, “It’s also why the overly religious think our spells are the acts of ‘invisible daemons’!” She waves away the thought. “You’ll get a lot of stares the further you get from civilized society.” Her face goes from bemused to stern in a split second. “All the more reason for institutions like this to be careful to whom we allow access to dangerous knowledge… you.”

  All eyes point to an unsuspecting boy in the center of the class. His hopes of not standing out have been officially shattered. “Um… me?” he asks. For some reason, he still hopes the teacher is pointing to the young lady behind him.

  Ms Lyttle lowers her glasses and glares at him. “Does it look like I’m talking to someone else, Noa?”

  The boy shrinks into his seat, wishing he could truly disappear.

  With fingers crossed, the teacher draws a light-blue circle and writes “ice” in the center of it. The moment she lifts her finger, the letters shatter to pieces, then realign to form a term in the ancient tongue. She looks to Noa, points to the four ewers on the white board, and asks, “Which of these four people can cast this blizzard spell?”

  Noa looks at the ball and determines it has a similar volume to the largest ewer. “The red one?” he answers, though it sounds more like he’s asking.

  “Anyone here know why Noa is wrong?” She sees a brown arm rise behind Noa. “Kiara.”

  The student behind Noa rises. Her long locks sway as she stands tall. She leans on her left with her left hand on her prominent hip. With her right hand, she casually motions toward all of the ewers and says, “If you give ‘em enough time, either one of ‘em can do it.”

  “Go on…”

  “Well, first of all, you can start the spell and just keep addin’ more ethis over time, so technically, if you got all day, anyone can do it. But for real, though, you can just pull that stuff from all around you.”

  “Exactly!” Ms Lyttle says, motioning for Kiara to take her seat. “You can ‘call,’ ‘pull,’ or ‘summon’ the ethis from all around you! As a matter of fact, I highly suggest that you start by pulling from your surroundings before you tap into your own reserves.

  “Fair warning: when you take your test to become a Mage, my fellow Testers often look for that. If given a task that is beyond your ewer, we watch to see how you fuel the incantation. The last thing you want to do is pass out right after performing your task.”

  There are scattered chuckles throughout the class. Friends shoot each other glances as if to say, “That’s going to be you” or “That won’t be us.” Others intentionally look away, hoping to avoid the gaze of others and feel called out. As the teacher continues, most in the class take notes. LaTao, however, has a mind wandering elsewhere.

  I can’t believe I let them talk me into flying on a stupid broom. Some of Meeka’s friends don’t even like me. I swear… my mom was spot on about teens… “Bunch of moody wastes of youth,” she quotes. She looks about the class, judicially measuring her peers. Kiara… I remember her from grade school. She reminds me of one of my best friends. She talks just like him… just as smart, too. I love people that can plainly say things without sounding as pretentious as I supposedly do.

  She softly huffs. It’s not like it’s my fault. I mean… there aren’t too many nice ways of saying “I already know the things you are studying” or “I don’t need to practice the thing you’re practicing because I already mastered it.” LaTao looks at the back of Noa’s head as if it were sloughing off. How is this kid taking notes? This is all basic stuff! This lady’s literally going over the basics and some of these kids are jotting junk down like it’s new! I swear… this is why I avoided school.

  As if turned by fate, the bad kind, Ethur glances to her left and sees LaTao’s frozen ‘yuck’ face.

  LaTao finally senses herself being noticed. Her eyes slowly pan to her right and lock on Ethur… whose chubby cheeks are filling with air. Her impending burst of laughter is barely being kept at by her tightly closed lips. As she struggles, LaTao’s eyes widen. She slightly shakes her head, a silent plea to keep her friend from causing a scene. She watches the poor girl pinch herself, hoping the pain reels in the impending laughter. Once Ethur calms, LaTao lets out a sigh.

  “Your thoughts, LaTao?”

  SHIT!

  What are you feeling right now?