Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Is this what it’s like having a hard lock down in America? I would assume so, since half the kids are freaking out and hitting the floor to cover their heads while others are lounging in their chairs and chatting like nothing is happening.
Another bang shakes the eastern wall of the classroom and Jullia hums to herself as her fingers fly over her tablet.
Since Asher is a third year he doesn’t have to help fight, but he was supposed to be in his additional external controlling class that takes place in the morning.
And their classes are always on the eastern field.
Her voice is barely above a whisper as she breathes out, “He says most of the training arena is gone. Some sort of being with strong fire magic. It can slip through an angel and devil’s shields.”
I look over the rest of the class. I, myself, am lounging back in my chair with my arms crossed.
I had wanted to follow them. The professor and Callahan.
Mostly because I wanted to see these so-called rebels.
Jullia had mentioned it once my first week here when I was delirious with starvation and sleep.
Asher also mentioned them once and how they’ve been around for a couple centuries.
He said that’s why despite Syngenia not wanting to solely produce warriors and soldiers, they can’t not offer the classes and training because of it.
Asher himself coming from a long line of warriors proficient in earth element magic.
But they apparently haven’t attacked the school for a century and mainly focus on disrupting things strictly for the Mage Board.
Ms. Elaycia had mentioned them before. She said she’s glad they haven’t taken their fight to Earth and have remained on Miy. Though she can agree with some of their ways of thinking, their deliverance is too deadly.
I hadn’t cared about looking into it further. Jullia cares more about reading the news and articles and staying up to date. I was more focused on trying to get through each day. And with how this year has already gone, I couldn’t care any less than I do about the rebels.
Even now I have mild curiosity about them, but I will not be deep diving into them or their reasons or what they have done.
Any information I want I just ask Jullia for.
She says it hasn’t gotten to a point where there is an all-out war, but battles have waged with neither side winning, only retreating.
The power – and destruction – of magic. And the rebels are made up of all kinds of races. Including, if rumors are to be believed – according to Jullia – the last remaining witches alive.
Another force shakes the wall. This one more powerful and silences the room. Anxiety builds up through my stomach as I shift in my chair. My body and muscles tensing with a want to do something. I need action.
“Does he know how many rebels are there?” I ask Jullia. Her nails tap against her screen and trepidation fills with the anxiety. She’s been glued to it, messaging back and forth with Asher and Hanna.
“He said at least a couple hundred,” she breathes. Her eyes not leaving the screen.
“And how many people does this school hold?”
“There are about a hundred professors, most of them proficient in either defensive or offensive magic. About fifty bodies for staff and school council, three thousand students all together – four hundred of them making up the fourth and fifth years. But of that there are only a hundred or so officiated for battle.”
So about two hundred. Only two hundred people – most of which are still students – to fight if there is ever an attack.
“But,” she whispers, “we have Thorne, Darian, and Callahan’s fathers here. Two devils and a blood demon all with years of experience with all their guards. So we should be fine. We should be fine. We should be fine.”
She keeps repeating that as if she’s trying to convince herself.
Of the celestials, minimum, that means we have four devils, a demigod, two blood demons, and an angel.
They’d be able to eviscerate at least a hundred beings of moral by themselves.
That with the councilmen’s guards and the other professors should be enough.
I relax into my chair and the anxiety only barely flickers. I’d be more worried if there were several hundred rebels and they had an active witch with them.
Jullia’s nails tap in vicious succession. Her screen sliding from message thread to message thread.
“At least this is happening now and not at the end of the week,” she breathes out. Her body frozen but for her fingers moving. “None of our families are here for family weekend.”
Right. I forgot. Family weekend begins Friday. There’s no class that day as well because –
There’s no class Friday.
There’s no-fucking-class this Friday.
Motherfucker.
There is no class this Friday meaning Professor Asier lied about whatever bullshit test that was going to be worth most of my grade.
I roll my eyes at that and glare at the door. He had also placed another Devil’s Lock around the class. Several, this time. Not only preventing anyone from coming in, but also preventing any of us from getting out. I’d say that’s a fire hazard, but honestly undoing those locks would be light work.
Whatever.
Jullia is right though, at least it’s happening now.
The families of the students are permitted to come and stay at the school for the weekend as a mark for the first two months of school passing.
Since there is no Thanksgiving or Christmas breaks this will be the last time anyone sees their family until the end of the school year.
Which also coincides with the end of the year.
Our last day of school is the last day of the year, the day before the spring equinox.
Not that, technically, a student couldn’t just pop over during a weekend, but if they’re caught, they’ll be expelled. We have to stay on Syngenia grounds. Which extend into the town a few miles away and Syngenia City which is a metropolitan, but most students come from all over the world.
I wish I could see Ms. Elaycia. Her and Nana and Rosemary and Cordellia and Caleb. There’s only limited space so only immediate family is allowed, and three non-family members in place of your immediate family if they can’t come.
I wonder if there will be a way I could get a letter or something to them. Ms. Elaycia attended school here so maybe she could somehow get a pass.
Another boom shakes the wall and makes everyone else jump.
“Asher says they’re retreating,” Jullia murmurs. “No casualties, but some of the guys are hurt. Nothing fatal, just mild wounds and exertion.”
That’s good at least. I wonder if classes for today will be cancelled because of the attack.
But. . . while the whole ordeal sucks, maybe I won’t be fired because I can help clean up with the rest of staff. I’m contemplating that idea when our door gets thrown. As in, it’s ripped off the hinges and crashes into the opposite wall.
Colossal damnation fractures the air with an aura tainted a color darker than black. An aura so influenced by the soul of this being that it feels like evil incarnate. Magic should not be influenced by morals, and yet this magic is teeming with imbalance.
Jullia shrieks and most of the students scream as a force walks through the door. A tall figure in a black cloak. A hood covers his head and when he looks up a mask of gold covers his face. Feline in its features and there are two slits where his eyes should be but I can’t see anything through it.
Another figure – another man – walks behind him with a controlled calculation. Raging eyes the color of a stormy sky roving over us.
Most of the students had huddled near the back rows and the rest of us closer to the door vault over desks to get as far away as possible. Even Jullia hits the floor and starts scooting away. Her lavender eyes full of pure terror and panic as they plead at me.
Despite the damnation aura feeling like it could seize my soul, I’m still sitting back in my chair with my arms crossed. There’s a sharp, pointed tug within me that fills with horror, but it is not my emotion. I don’t feel in the least bit afraid.
Stormy eyes point at me and his head tilts. Icicles freeze throughout the air as his gray eyes dip like waves to a pale blue and back to gray again. Inhaling it feels like shards of glass are slicing down my throat and into my lungs.
Excluding Jullia, I fucking hate water magic and all its forms.
Standing, I block out Jullia’s whimpered pleas for me to get down and face the intruders. “Rebels, I presume?”
The water mage quirks a brow and rights his tilted head.
“So much confidence,” he whispers, but his words thunder through the room.
I can feel the vibrations in the ground.
The frequency shifting in the air. Water and sound.
A mage with two elements. “So much, for someone who has no aura. What a downfall of Syngenia, allowing a vampire onto their grounds.”
I smirk, and then glance at the one full of damnation. His hood covers his features but I can feel his eyes on me. The weight, they’re even more powerful than Professor Asier. But his aura only comes close.
Devil.
I have the perfect song I could play right now for what is about to happen. The second the mage said vampire their energies changed. Death is the only course for me to them. I can see it in their aura. Coiling tightly like a snake ready to strike.
How quickly they shifted their energy just because of what they think I am. Promising me my death.
But devil. . . that won’t be me.
Death strikes and time seems to slow when it gets within a foot from my heart. I watch as a bolt of straight death is about to hit me. No way to regenerate or heal from a blow like that. I’d be gone in an instant.