Walking as quietly as she could, Sonea approached the novices. When she was only a few paces away from the room, the magician suddenly turned and strode away down the stairs. At the same time, Issle looked up and saw Sonea.
“Ugh!” Issle’s clear voice filled the corridor. “What’s that smell?”
Regin looked up and smiled.
“It’s the smell of the slums. Look, it gets stronger the closer you get.”
He stepped in front of Sonea and his attention dropped to her side.
“Perhaps there’s something smelly in her new box, eh?”
Sonea backed away as Regin reached out toward her box. Then a tall, black-robed figure stepped out of the passage beside them and Regin froze in place, his arms still extended.
As Sonea’s momentum brought her out of Regin’s reach and into the path of the magician, she realized she was the only one still moving. All of the other novices in the corridor had stopped, their attention fixed on the magician.
The black-robed magician. The High Lord.
In the back of her mind a voice shrieked: It’s him! Run! Get away! She took a few hurried steps backward out of his path.
He continued past without looking at her. Taking her lead, the other novices bowed hastily. She decided to take advantage of the distraction and slipped past Regin into the classroom.
At once she felt the effect of the High Lord’s presence vanish. The novices in the room lounged about in their seats. Lord Vorel was so engrossed in whatever he was writing he did not notice her bow. Taking her place beside Poril, she closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.
In those few moments, with everyone else near-frozen with surprise, it had felt as if only she and the dark figure of her nightmares existed. And she had bowed to him. She looked down at her hands, still gripping the handle of her box. She bowed so much now that she thought nothing of it. But this was different. It angered her. Knowing what he was, and was capable of doing...
Suddenly the room filled with the scraping of chairs as all the novices around her rose to their feet. Sonea followed suit, realizing that the last of the novices had arrived and she hadn’t heard Lord Vorel addressing the class. The Warrior gestured at the door, and the novices began to file out. Puzzled, Sonea followed Poril.
“Leave your books here, Sonea,” Vorel said.
Sonea looked down at her box, then glanced at the rest of the tables to see that the other novices had also left their belongings behind. Reluctantly she returned to her desk and set the box on top of it, then hurried away to catch up with the class.
The novices were talking excitedly among themselves. Poril, however, looked ill.
“Where are we going?” she whispered to him.
“Th-the Arena,” he replied, his voice shaking.
Sonea felt her heart skip a beat. The Arena. So far the Warrior Skills lessons had consisted of history classes, and endless instruction on creating barriers. All were performed in the University classrooms. They had been told they would eventually be taken to the Arena to learn the offensive side of the discipline.
A strange feeling - not quite dread - settled upon her as the class descended the stairs and walked out of the University. She hadn’t been close to the Arena since the day, almost a year ago, when Rothen had taken her to see a demonstration of Warrior Skills as part of his attempt to persuade her to stay and join the Guild. Watching the novices throwing magic at each other had been disturbing. It had brought back unpleasant memories of the day she had thrown the stone at the magicians and first used magic, and how they had unintentionally killed the boy they thought had attacked them.
It had been a simple error, but it had turned an innocent boy into a charred corpse. The lectures on safety, which the other novices seemed to dismiss so easily, always chilled her. She could not help wondering how often mistakes did happen.
Ahead, Regin, Hal and Benon were striding along the garden path eagerly. Even Narron and Trassia’s faces were flushed with excitement. Perhaps the thought of accidentally killing someone from the Houses, or the nobility of another land, might sober them. But would the prospect of killing a former slum girl cause them to pause?
As they reached the wide flat space outside the Arena, Sonea looked up at the eight curved spires spaced around it. She could feel a faint vibration in the air from the magical barrier the spires supported. Making herself walk to the edge, she looked down at the structure. The base was a sunken stone circle covered with white sand. The spires were spaced evenly around it. From their bases, stone steps rose to the level of the garden. To one side was a square portal that allowed access to the inside of the Arena via a short underground staircase.
“Follow me,” Lord Vorel ordered. He started down the staircase, leading the novices through the portal and into the Arena. “Form a line.”
The novices obeyed, Poril taking the last place. Lord Vorel waited until they had fallen silent, then cleared his throat.
“This will be your first lesson in the basic strikes. It will also be the first time you use magic in full strength. Heed this warning: what you do today is dangerous.” He stared at them all, in turn, as he spoke. “We must all use the utmost caution during these exercises. Even at your level you are quite capable of killing. Remember this well. I will not tolerate any foolery. Carelessness will be punished severely.”
A chill ran down Sonea’s spine. I hope the punishment is severe enough to convince Regin that an “accident” isn’t an easy way to get rid of me.
Vorel suddenly smiled and rubbed his palms together eagerly. “I will be teaching you the three basic strikes at this level. Firstly, we’ll see what each of you use instinctively. Regin.”
Regin stepped forward.
Lord Vorel walked backward until he was almost at the edge of the Arena, then raised his hands and made a spreading motion. A glowing disc of half-visible energy appeared in front of him. Stepping aside, he nodded to Regin.
“Gather your power and send it toward this shield.”
Regin lifted a hand and extended it toward the target. A frown crossed his face, then a brilliant bolt of light shot from his hand and struck the disc.
“Good,” Lord Vorel said. “A forcestrike, but with a great deal of wasted energy spent on light and heat. Hal.”
Sonea stared at the glowing disc of magic. Vorel was probably using the shield to detect what kind of energies the novices were throwing at it... but she kept seeing a memory of something else, something that made her stomach twist with dread and nausea.
Again a bolt of energy struck the disc, this time tinged blue. A memory of light and screams flashed through her mind.
“A heatstrike,” Vorel said, then went on to explain the differences between forcestrikes and heatstrikes. A part of her mind was slotting this information away, yet she could not drag herself from the memories...
The crowd running... a blackened corpse... the smell of burned flesh...
“Benon.”
The Kyralian boy stepped forward. The beam that sprang forth from his hand was almost transparent.
“Forcestrike.” Vorel sounded pleased. “Narron...”
Another bolt of power seared the air.
“Forcestrike mostly, but a great deal of heat. Trassia...”
A streak of flames dazzled Sonea’s eyes.
“Firestrike.” Vorel sounded bemused. “Seno...”
The Vindo boy frowned for a long time before a pulse of light leapt from his hand. It went awry and missed the disc. As it struck the barrier of the Arena the air filled with a muted tinkling, like distant shattering glass. Fine threads of energy rippled outward. Sonea swallowed hard. Soon it would be her turn. Soon...
“Yalend.”
The boy beside her stepped forward and struck at the disc without hesitation.
“Sonea...”
She stared at the disc, but all she could see was a boy staring back at her. Fearful, yet not
