Chapter 9 A Show of Skill #2
One moment, the light was getting more intense as the padding of heavy paws sounded in the arena, and the next moment, a huge Werewolf with a tooth-filled maw and blood-red eyes was standing next to Vivian.
She opened her eyes and smiled as the doorway closed.
The air around the Werewolf shimmered. His shape seemed to melt, and where a terrifying monster had stood, there was a shaggy-haired man who gave the girl a crooked smile, looking at her as if he had last seen her decades ago instead of just the other day.
His eyes burned as he regarded her, and I could swear I still saw the suggestion of large canine teeth in the smile he flashed, something left over from his wolfy monster form.
They did not speak to each other. Vivian was still in the middle of giving her demonstration. She had only performed one half of the task successfully. Her Alpha Male mate seemed to sense her intent telepathically. He fell in behind her, there to lend her his power, to give her his support.
She crouched on all fours, regarding the strawmen targets a few feet away.
She clutched her hands in fists and brought them together, scraping them across the ground as she did so.
The action kicked up a small cloud of dust. Now, there was another rumble followed by a tearing sound.
Between Vivian's hands, a huge boulder appeared to rise, to tear itself away from the earth.
When it was floating suspended in the air in front of her face, she pushed forward with her magic.
She never touched the boulder with anything other than her mind.
Her power launched the boulder across the field and hit one of the straw men hard, the force knocking it over just as it tore apart in a cloud of dust and straw.
For a moment, I almost forgot myself. I almost forgot the rules Principal Lucius had set for the demonstration. I wanted to cheer. There was no eruption of applause, and I wondered if the other students found it just as difficult as I was to remain quiet. It had been a fantastic show of power.
Vivian rose and turned to her mate. They hugged, and the moment was intimate, as if they had forgotten everyone watching them, as if they were the only two beings that mattered.
Lady Tisterra pointedly cleared her throat, and Vivan quickly let go.
There was a scattering of giggles from the students.
Unashamed, still in the grips of her triumph, Vivan bowed to Principal Lucius and the instructors.
"Well done, Miss Salvina. You may retire. Or, if you'd prefer to watch your fellow students perform their demonstrations, you and your mate may take your places at the opposite side of the stadium."
Vivian gave a little bow and took her mate's hand, then walked toward the large archway and disappeared through it without a glance back.
I envied the fact that she could relax and spend some time with her mate.
Her demonstration was over. She could rest easily until dinnertime, knowing she had done her best.
"Oh, gods," Amber said in a queasy voice. "It's my turn now. Wish me luck!"
I took her hand and squeezed it. "You don't need luck. You've got this." I hoped that was true. Oliver mirrored my sentiment and gave her an encouraging slap on her shoulder as she walked past him on her way down the steps to the middle of the arena.
Again, the instructor came to give a short pep talk to the nervous student, only this time it was Caleb who spoke briefly to Amber. When he left to rejoin his own group, she took a deep breath and nodded to herself.
From the moment I had first met Amber on the airship, she had seemed tough and fierce, someone you'd expect to face any challenge head-on.
With her short, black hair and muscular arms, and the rough, scarred hands so indicative of someone not afraid of physical labor, she had seemed down-to-earth but brave and strong in her own quiet way.
We hadn't known each other for that long, but at times it seemed much longer.
She was the friend I had been waiting all my life to meet, it seemed.
Now, as I looked down at her from my seat in the stadium, she looked so small standing there by herself in the middle of the arena. Just a lone girl born with a gift that, like me, she didn't fully understand yet. My heart went out to her.
She closed her eyes and grew still. Her hands hung at her sides, and she seemed like a statue. It took much longer for something to happen. So long that I started to worry that Amber would not even manage to call her mate.
Then there was a noise, faint at first, but steadily louder—a whooshing sound, the flapping of a pair of enormous wings.
A bright light seemed to open from a fissure in the sky, a door from the Human and the Hestawyn Realms. Much larger than the one that had been needed for the Werewolf Alpha because Amber's mate was a fire Phoenix, and they tended to be enormous.
Almost as large as Vaerath, my Abyss Dragon mate.
An ear-splitting screech sounded, and I saw the fire Phoenix, blazing, iridescent, fly through the doorway, up into the sky. It circled just below the domed roof of the colosseum, and we all watched it with a sense of wonder.