He flipped my ring to me as if it were a coin. I caught it and slipped it onto my middle finger. I admired it for a moment until he picked up his spoon. I wanted to watch his feeble attempt yet again so I could gloat.
Showing off, he spun the piece of silver on the tip of his finger and in a blink, as if he didn’t even have to try, it changed into a wolf pendant. “My wolf could eat your phoenix.”
I tried to hide my surprise but my mouth was agape. “You already knew how to do this spell,” I stated, wondering why he even pretended he couldn’t. He also knew the appearus spell and we hadn’t learned that at academy yet. Why did he know more than me at this point? A Hesstian, someone not even magic-born.
“Attention class,” Tessam called, moving toward us. “Princess Visteal and Prince Zyacus have done it.” She clapped and many of the students did so as well. “Would the two of you please go around to others and help where you can?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Zyacus said. He sounded like royalty, that’s for sure.
I stood. “I’d love to,” I said, which wasn’t how I felt but I couldn’t let the Hesstian prince look better than me.
We kept an eye on each other as we maneuvered around the room. It felt like a competition to see who could help the most. I explained the process over and over, and by the end of class only two of the people I assisted completed the spell. The others struggled with, I suspected, picturing the end piece. Some of them turned their spoons into disfigured animals. I guessed one girl tried to create an intricate swirling piece but it was a deformed pile of goop with holes. Others didn’t even morph theirs at all.
The trembling hands of the last student I stopped at, a Hesstian girl who appeared to be magic-born, made me nervous. She was unsure of herself that was obvious, even though I explained to her exactly how to do the spell. I wondered how many spells she’d done in her life. Would they allow her in this class if she was so inexperienced?
I smiled. “Go ahead, give it a try.”
When the glow in her palm grew brighter and brighter, so much that I couldn’t look directly at it, I took a step back. “Stop!”
A loud pop, a shriek that wasn’t from me, and I threw my arms up instinctively. I hissed through my teeth as the sting of tiny metal shards struck my arms and hands.
Professor Tessam ran over, looked at me then to the girl who fared much worse than I. Splinters of silver were all over half her face, neck, and shoulder. At least she’d turned away so they didn’t get in her eyes.
“Class dismissed,” she said, grabbing the crying girl under her arms to help her stand. “Let’s get you two to the infirmary.”
I inspected my arms; hundreds of metal pieces had created tiny pricks of blood droplets that now ran down my skin. Not knowing the location of the infirmary, I followed Tessam out of the door, and looked over when Zyacus appeared beside me.
“Your book,” he said. His eyes fell to my arms. “Ouch. She got you good. I’ll hold onto it for you.” Before I could even respond he was gone.
Chapter 9
Arriving at the infirmary and seeing several other injured students there, if only mildly, I knew this would be awhile. My class wasn’t the only one with an accident today. The sobbing girl who’d blown up the spoon drew much of the attention so I quietly sat in a chair in the corner. My arms throbbed as I picked at pieces of the metal. One thing I hadn’t focused on was healing. Sure I could make a potion and the salves but that was my mother’s area of expertise and so I’d always relied on her to do it for me. I’d make sure to select a healing class next semester.
Attempting to use my magic to extract the shards, instead brought a sharp pain surging through my arm as they vibrated but didn’t fall out.
So I sat there picking one at a time while I waited for someone to help. It felt like forever before someone said, “You’re Princess Visteal.”
I lifted my head to see a boy about my age wearing a Delhoon uniform with a red apron covering half his body.
“I am.”
His sandy-brown hair was shoulder length and wavy, his gray eyes reminded me of river rocks and his slender form still spoke of strength with the muscles of his arms. “I’m only a student but I can help you since everyone else is busy at the moment. If you trust me, that is.”
“It’s not like I have a gaping wound that could claim my life at any moment.”
He laughed at that, stepped closer, and pulled a metal cart with supplies on top with him. I held my arms out and he inspected them. With his palms hovering over my arms, he whispered something, and the metal pieces wafted out, slower than I’d have liked, drawing a wince. He held his face perfectly still as the pieces then drifted to a small bowl on his cart. He grabbed two cream-colored cloths and placed them over my arms; whatever dampened them stung.
I almost tugged away but he asked, “Salve or potion?” And his hands clamped down around my arms as if he’d known I would try to pull from his grasp.
It would be a couple hours before the salve would heal completely but it would take the pain away. Potion would heal wounds this minor in seconds to a minute at most but the strong stuff was usually reserved for worse afflictions. “Salve is fine.”
His left eyebrow raised. “I’m surprised.”
“And why is that?”
He looked at me steadily as if trying to figure something out.
