Damien couldn’t fathom that these people thought he was powerful enough to be a danger to the other students. No one had ever considered him powerful, much less a threat. “Yes, sir.”
“Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
“Excellent.” The headmaster gestured and the door swung open. The boy on the bench stood up and at the little man’s beckoning entered the office. “Damien, this is Eli. He’s another first year. You two will be roommates and Eli will help you settle in. Once he’s shown you around he’ll take you to Mistress Ann’s training room. She’s expecting you so don’t dillydally.”
Damien stood, bowed to the headmaster, and slung his rucksack over his shoulder. “Thank you, sir.”
The little man nodded again. “Off you go.”
Damien followed Eli out of the office and the door closed behind them on its own. That would take some getting used to. The boys walked back to the entry hall.
“Sorry for staring earlier. I’ve never seen soul force as dense as yours, not even the masters’,” Eli said.
“That’s fine.” Damien didn’t know what dense soul force meant, but Eli seemed impressed. He pointed to the right-hand door. “What’s back there?”
“Meeting rooms. When the masters meet with nobles or merchants or whoever, that’s where they do it. The first floor is the public portion of the tower. Everything above is for sorcerers and students only.”
Eli opened the center door and behind it waited a curved staircase leading to the next floor. Damien took the steps two at a time and halfway up had to stop to let Eli catch up. The boy didn’t look like he was in bad shape, but he wasn’t warrior trained either. They continued up to the second-floor landing where they found yet another dark wood door. Inside was a black stone hall branching left and right. Eli went left.
When they reached an arch he turned right down a door-lined hall. “This is the students’ dormitory.” Eli went to the third door on the right and pushed it open. “Here’s our room.”
Damien followed his guide inside a rather plain room. Brown carpet covered the stone floor and two narrow beds sat ten feet apart. There was a footlocker for his gear and two tables and chairs. Spartan, even by Damien’s standards.
“I thought my room back home was empty.” Damien stowed his gear, putting his sword and dagger at the bottom of the trunk and covering them with his clothes.
“We just sleep and study here, so we have all we need.”
“I guess. How long have you been here?”
“Two months. I was the third to arrive this year and everyone figured I’d be the last.”
“What are the others like?”
“Amanda’s the only girl and she’s fierce, she wants to be an artillerist. Blowing things up with sorcery is her fondest wish. Jaden’s quiet, short and round. He’s decent enough as long as you’re not into conversation. He likes books. In fact, he has a flawless memory for anything he reads. You’ll meet everyone at dinner. Come on, I’ll show you the dining hall then we can go up to Mistress Ann’s room.”
They left their shared room and retraced their steps back to the stairway, and down the hall the opposite way. The scent of garlic and cooking meat reached them long before they arrived at a pair of swinging double doors. They pushed through into a large open room with tables and benches in neat rows. At the far end was a counter with plates and utensils. Damien grinned. This at least was the same as back home. Even sorcerers needed a place to eat.
They went back to the staircase and climbed up another floor. The third floor looked much like the second: halls and doors and no people. Straight across from them was a door labeled Master Stine in silver letters. Eli led the way to a door labeled Mistress Ann.
Chapter 6
“Can you find your way back to our room on your own?” Eli asked.
Damien spared his roommate a glance. It was one floor down and two turns. He’d manage. “Yeah, no problem. Thanks for the tour.”
Eli patted him on the shoulder. “Good luck.”
His guide walked back down the hall and soon disappeared around a corner. Damien adjusted his tunic and knocked. The door swung open and standing behind it was a beautiful, dark-haired woman about thirty. She had a slim, graceful figure and wore a long black dress slit on both sides up to mid-thigh. A plunging neckline revealed her considerable cleavage.
Damien bowed. “Damien St. Cloud reporting for instruction, ma’am.”
She laughed—more of a witchy cackle really—and said, “So formal. I’m Ann and since we’ll be spending a lot of time together you should probably relax. Come on in.”
She moved aside and let him enter the small, nearly empty room. The teachers were certainly strange. They had no interest in any sort of discipline that he could see. Ann led him over to the two chairs set three feet apart that were the room’s sole furnishings. She sat in one and gestured to the other.
When Damien took his seat she said, “I assume Thomas explained the school rules to you.”
Damien shook his head. “No, ma’am, no one’s explained much of anything to me beyond the fact that I’m to live and train here for some time. Everything’s so odd. There are no uniforms, no classes, no real structure. The headmaster wants me to call him by his first name. If any student called the Master of The Citadel by his first name he’d soon be picking himself up off the floor.”
Her smile held the same warmth as Master Shen’s. “I see. You’re the first student we’ve ever had that spent time at The Citadel. We’re not as rigid with our training because we can’t be. Every sorcerer learns their art at
