Chương 21: “A Ruff First Impression”

The entrance ceremony of Summit Academy was an institutional tradition, despite being a new academy. It was held in the Grand Convocation Hall. An enormous, vaulted chamber carved directly into the mountain's interior, its ceiling arched so high that the upper reaches disappeared into shadow. Three hundred and some odd new students stood in rows along the stone-tiled floor, dressed in freshly issued academy uniforms, their faces in varying degrees of solemnity.

Two of the three Archmage Principals, Archmage Marcus Brightmoon and Archmage Valen Weaver, were absent from the ceremony proper. The explanation had been brief and delivered without apology in the morning's academy-wide notice: ' Ongoing logistical duties: repairs to the walls and reinforcement of several barriers.' It basically meant that the two archmages were somewhere in the academy rebuilding their baby of an institution that had, one week prior, bled on its own grounds.

In their place, Archmage Elena Heart stood alone at the podium. She looked entirely unbothered by the solitude. Archmage Elena Heart was old, the eldest of the three archmages. However, she carried none of Marcus Brightmoon's weathered severity, nor any of Valen Weaver's gray, stooped weariness. She was, by all appearances, a young woman, perhaps late twenties. It was genuinely difficult to place; with a dusting of freckles across pale cheeks and hair the color of new green leaves in early spring.

She stood at the podium with a relaxed, unhurried posture. She looked out at the three hundred young faces looking back at her. She smiled pleasantly. Then she began speaking.

"Thirty-two." Her voice was low and clear, filling the vaulted hall.

"That is the number of people who died on these grounds one week ago. Twenty-five members of staff. Seven students. If not for the entire affair causing the deaths, in addition to students dropping out, there would have been an additional seventy of you in these rows today. Some of you may have even known them. And a handful of you may have personally seen the deaths on that day." Her green eyes swept across the crowd.

"You may take a moment, if you need one." Nobody was tempted to follow that direction.

"Good." She clasped her hands loosely before her.

"Then let me be direct with you, because I find that indirection wastes everyone's time, and we have lost enough of it already. Summit Academy stands at the base of the Tower. The Tower is not a monument nor is it a landmark, and it is not, despite what some of the more optimistic literature may have suggested to you before enrollment, an opportunity. It is a living thing. And it does not care for whatever trifles happens outside it." She paused to take out a smoking pipe from within her robes.

"This academy has buried students before last week. It will bury students after. That is not a failure of this institution, it is the nature of what this institution exists to train you for. The world that exists beyond these academy walls, the world that every single one of the people in this room will eventually re-enter, does not slow its turning for the unprepared." She flicked the pipe, preparing it for usage.

"So let me ask you something. This is not a rhetorical question, I want you to truly think about it." A pause of silence, mainly since she took a drag from her pipe. Blowing out the smoke, she continued, "Why are you here?" The question was one that needed an answer from the self.

"If the answer is because my family sent me, that is not enough. If the answer is because I had no better option, that is not enough. If the answer is because I wanted to be powerful —" a faint, rueful note entered her voice, "—that is closer, but it is still not enough. The thirty-two who died last week had reasons too. Most of them had trained for years. Several of them were, by any reasonable measure, exceptional. And yet a single stroke of misfortune did not save the exceptional." She paused.

"I cannot tell you what would have saved them. After all, it was only because of luck that I've managed to survive this far." She snickered and looked at them again.

"Last week's attack was not the worst experience you will face here. After you leave this hall today, know this: do not be part of the body count. The living can only help themselves." With one last breath from her pipe, she ended her speech.

"Welcome to Summit Academy. I expect great things from each of you. Do not disappoint me." She stepped back from the podium. The hall was very quiet for a moment. Then, slowly, applause began, though uncertain at first, then fuller. In the third row from the front, Liana clapped along with everyone else, though her eyes had drifted slightly off-focus around the midpoint of the speech. The speech was eloquent, filled with talk of potential, but Liana barely heard a word of it.

Her mind kept drifting back to the forest. She remembered the weight of Arthur's body against the ground, the way his blood had seeped through her fingers no matter how hard she pressed. She remembered the panic, that suffocating terror of watching someone die and not knowing what to do. And then for some reason, a light emanated from her hands. One moment there was only despair, and the next, a soft green glow was slowly knitting Arthur's wound beneath her trembling hands.

She had been so consumed by it, by the miracle and the fear tangled together, that when she heard the sound of rustling, she almost didn't look up. But she did. And there, standing among the trees at the edge of the clearing, was a woman. One so breathtakingly beautiful. Golden hair that caught the fading light like threads of silk. A face so striking it seemed carved rather than born. Crimson eyes that stared at her with an expression Liana couldn't quite read.

The girl stood perfectly still, half-hidden by the shadow of a tree, and for a breathless moment, their eyes met. Liana's lips had opened, about to call out, to ask for help, to say anything, when a sudden presence appeared beside her. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"My, my. What do we have here?" An unknown woman had appeared without her notice. The woman's gaze swept over Arthur's wound, and then eventually settled on Liana's glowing hands with an expression of quiet fascination.

"Don't stop on my account, dear," Elena said gently, kneeling beside them. The Archmage placed a single hand over Arthur's chest, and in an instant, a brilliant emerald light shone, sealing the wound completely. Color returned to Arthur's face as his breathing steadied. It was over in seconds. What Liana had struggled to accomplish, Elena had finished with a touch.

"A rare find," the woman murmured. Her green eyes studied the girl with unmistakable interest.

"Very crude. Unawakened until just now, I take it?" Liana could only nod even when she didn't know what to respond with, her voice trapped somewhere in her throat. The woman then smiled, one that made you feel as though you'd been chosen for something you couldn't refuse.

"Tell me, child," she said, her voice carrying the gentle weight of authority.

"How would you feel about studying under me directly?" The words didn't register at first. Liana blinked, tears still drying on her cheeks, trying to process what she'd just heard.

"W-who are you, m-miss?" Liana managed to stammer. The woman's smile widened just a fraction.

"Elena Heart. Principal Archmage of Summit Academy, specializing in restoration magic and biological transmutation." Archmage. One of the three legendary mages who ran Summit Academy. One of the most powerful individuals in the entire continent. And she was offering to take Liana as a direct student. A direct student. Of an Archmage. For someone like her, a commoner with no family name, no connections, no bloodline worth mentioning, such an offer wasn't just rare.

It was the kind of thing that only happened in stories. The very stories she and Arthur had only heard from their village, where nobodies from nowhere were plucked from obscurity by powerful mentors who saw their hidden potential. She had always thought those were just exaggerated fables. But here she was. And here was Elena Heart, kneeling beside her in the dirt with Arthur's blood still wet on the ground, looking at Liana like she'd just discovered something precious.

"I-... y-yes," Liana stammered, the words coming out in a breathless rush.

"I-I would be honored, Lady Ele— Archma— I mean—" Elena chuckled softly.

"My title and name will do for now.." She stood, brushing the dirt from her robes.

"Come. We should get this young man to the medic hall, he's not completely fixed yet." Liana nodded mutely. Arthur started to float in the air, lifted up by Elena's levitation spell. Liana's gaze drifted back toward the treeline. The golden-haired girl. The one who'd been watching from the shadows with those striking crimson eyes. Had she imagined her? The space between the trees was empty. Whoever she had been, she was gone.

'Who was she...?' * The week that followed passed in a blur of unfamiliar faces and formal proceedings. Summit City's local authorities arrived the very next morning, their presence announced by the sound of heavy thumping boots entering the room. Liana and Arthur were interviewed separately in a small, unadorned room within the academy's administrative wing. A stern-looking officer with a neatly trimmed beard sat across from Liana, asking pointed questions. Why had they been in the forest?

What had they encountered? How exactly had Arthur managed to kill a centurion-level demon? Liana answered honestly, even a bit surprised that the demon was one that had a rank. She continued that she was separated from Arthur when they were attacked. There was nothing to hide, after all, and she'd never been good at lying. Arthur, she knew, would be answering the same questions in another room. And Arthur was an even worse liar than she was.

The following day, a formal notice was delivered to their quarters in the medic hall. The letter was sealed with the academy's crest and written in a careful, elegant script.

'Arthur is to receive a commendation during the entrance ceremony for the distinguished act of slaying a low-ranking demon centurion in defense of a fellow student.' Arthur had gone pale when he read it.

"I don't..." He stared at the paper.

"I don't need an award. I just… I just didn't want to die." Liana smiled at that. It was such an Arthur thing to say—equal parts humility and complete obliviousness to how extraordinary he actually was. They spent the remainder of the week recuperating. Arthur's wounds, though already healed by Elena's magic, had still left him fatigued and in need of blood.

Liana stayed close by, partly out of concern, and partly because the medic hall was one of the few places in the academy where she didn't feel completely out of her depth. The halls of Summit Academy were vast and intimidating. And everywhere she looked, there were the sons and daughters of noble houses, moving through those halls as though they owned the very stones beneath their feet. They probably did, in some cases. Liana, with her plain clothes and her lack of surname, felt like she was going to be belittled.

Back in her village, everyone had been equally poor. Here, her ordinariness was a beacon that showed she was different. Even though she technically had Elena's name behind her now, the reality of it still hadn't sunk in. * It was on the fifth day that she saw her again. Liana had gone out of Arthur's room to find something to eat. The corridors of the medic hall were mostly empty at this hour.

She turned a corner, her mind occupied with thoughts of whether the kitchen might have any of the honey bread she'd seen yesterday, and stopped. There, walking down the corridor ahead of her, was that woman. There was no mistaking her. The golden hair, lustrous even under the muted indoor light, fell in perfect waves past her shoulders. She moved with a kind of authority that made the very air around her seem to part in deference.

She was dressed impeccably in a deep burgundy ensemble with black lace accents that spoke of wealth; every stitch, every careful detail of embroidery that must have taken someone weeks to complete. Liana's heart hammered against her ribs. It was her. The girl from the forest. Questions tumbled through Liana's mind in a chaotic rush.' Why was she there that day? Was she a student? A noble? Did she see what happened? Does she know about the demon?'

Before she could think better of it, before the small, sensible voice in her head could remind her that approaching nobles uninvited was a terrible idea, Liana's feet were already carrying her forward.

"Um... Excuse me...!" The words came out smaller than she'd intended. The woman didn't turn around to stop. She continued walking as though Liana's words were nothing more than noise. Liana's cheeks flushed. The familiar heat of embarrassment crept up her neck.

'Maybe she didn't hear me?' Liana quickened her pace, closing the distance with a few hurried steps. Her heart was pounding now. But before her courage could abandon her entirely, she reached out and lightly tapped the woman's shoulder.

"E-excuse me...!" The woman stopped. Liana's hand hovered in the air, suddenly aware of how forward the gesture had been, how presumptuous. Then, slowly, the woman turned. Beautiful crimson eyes. Up close, the woman was even more beautiful than Liana remembered. Almost unreally so, with porcelain skin that seemed to catch the light like polished marble and features so refined they seemed sculpted by an artist with an impossible standard.

Her face belonged in one of those classical paintings that hung in the academy's grand hall, depicting legendary figures from centuries past. But it was her expression that made Liana's breath catch in her throat. There was no warmth in that gaze, nor polite acknowledgment of a fellow student. Only annoyance. Pure, undisguised, withering annoyance, as though Liana had committed some grave offense simply by existing in her path.