Chapter 5 #2
He caught and held Iliana’s gaze, raising his brows as if checking that he’d answered her question.
She nodded glumly, not bothering to voice her greatest fear.
What if you’re in love with your wizard and don’t have it in you to tell him no?
Han’s beautiful face swam before her eyes, the earnest plea in their melting blue affecting her even now.
I’m in love with you, Iliana…I’m going to convince you of the truth of that. Though Han would never hurt her… would he?
The understanding hit her with a sharp pang, of why Nic Elal had chosen the Betrothal Trials.
It was the perfect way to ensure you’d hate the wizard who bonded you.
As always, Nic was way ahead of the rest of them.
Let’s face it, who’s going to sign up to try for you?
Sabrina’s words echoed in her mind. It was true: Iliana didn’t have high enough MP scores to recommend her.
Even if she could bear to subject herself to the barbarity of the trials, she be rejected as a bad candidate.
A familiar at a neighboring desk put up her hand, a tentative halfway into the air. When the professor called on her, she glanced guiltily around the room, before asking her question in a lowered voice. “Is it true that some familiars have… emigrated from the Convocation to escape service?”
“You mean ‘escaped,’” a familiar in the back corrected.
Professor Tracy made a cutting motion with his hand.
“I’ll address this once, because I did invite you to ask questions, but once only.
And I strongly advise you don’t discuss this with anyone, ever.
It’s a good point that ‘emigrated’ is a poor word because there is no legal recourse for a familiar to leave Convocation lands.
That is not one of your rights. If any of you attempt to leave, I promise you will be stopped.
Don’t try it.” He sounded grimmer than ever, with a bitter grief that made Iliana wonder if he had personal experience.
“But there are rumors that—” someone else began to say.
“Rumors only,” Professor Tracy interrupted.
“I know Convocation Academy runs on rumor like a sleigh runs on air elemental power.” He essayed a smile, though it came across a bit sick and weak.
“Believe me, I’ve heard all the same stories.
They are heavily fictionalized tales born of wishful thinking.
Don’t stake your life on them, because that’s exactly what you’d be doing. ”
“I thought we’re too valuable to kill,” someone quipped with quiet anger.
“You are, but there are worse things than death,” Professor Tracy replied darkly.
“The Convocation has ways of dealing with recalcitrant familiars and they are not pleasant. You all have relatively good lives. Your families can afford your education here, or your MP scores are high enough that the Convocation has given you a scholarship to attend. You are the most privileged of familiars. Appreciate what you do have and don’t jeopardize your relatively comfortable lives for something considerably harsher. ”
Everyone absorbed his words, the silence lasting an uncomfortable beat too long. Professor Tracy cleared his throat and continued. “Any other questions, specifically on the first right of familiars?”
Though Iliana tried to pay attention to the discussion of their—sadly few—rights as familiars, the rest of the class passed in a blur.
Even her next class, her animal husbandry elective, which was her favorite and chosen on the off-chance that she’d be bonded to a House Ariel wizard, didn’t brighten her spirits.
She worried about Han’s testing the whole time.
She worried that he might be a familiar like her.
And she worried about what would happen if Han finally manifested as a wizard.
She hadn’t been saying that to reassure him, or not only for that reason.
The simple fact that they were calling him in for daily testing indicated the proctors suspected he’d manifest at any moment.
Late-blooming wizards had a tendency to manifest their suddenly active magic in dramatic fashion.
For the safety of the academy, they wanted to catch that early and contain it.
Han had all the theory of wizardry, but as the praxis and practicum courses emphasized, there was a considerable leap from knowing to doing.
Han would have to practice intensively to get his wizardry under control.
No matter what happened, though, Iliana couldn’t see any happy outcome for herself. All the sparkling lights and cake in the world couldn’t change that.
Her afternoon practicum ran long, though thankfully Professor Angela gave the familiars a light assignment of practicing meditation as a technique to replenish magic, while the wizards were tasked to perform workings using only their native magic.
It had the wizards in such a cranky mood, Sabrina throwing vicious looks Iliana’s way at every opportunity, as if Iliana had somehow orchestrated the lesson, that Professor Angela dismissed the wizards early.
Before they left, she reminded them that it might be considerable time before they earned the right to a bonded familiar, if they ever did, so it behooved them to learn to maximize their skills with only their own magic to draw on.
The caution fell on deaf ears, however. Wizards, by nature, were an ambitious lot, and no wizard could truly rise in power without a familiar to augment their magic. They all planned to secure a familiar for themselves, one way or another.
Once the wizard students left, Professor Angela kept the familiars for another hour, coaching them on tricks to replenish their native magic quickly. Meditation helped, but couldn’t be counted on during stressful situations.
She didn’t mention the erotic methods of replenishing magic, though she alluded to their future wizard masters having some tricks up their sleeves that would help.
But it was incumbent on the familiars, she stressed, to be ready at all times to provide their wizard with the magic they required.
A good familiar wouldn’t want to leave their wizard powerless during a major working or, worse, a pitched fight.
It made Iliana wonder if her two professors had been discussing her.
Coming on the heels of Professor Tracy’s warnings, this lesson only distressed Iliana more.
She wasn’t the only unhappy one, however, the familiars all a decidedly glum group as they shuffled out of the lab.
If she hadn’t promised Han to meet him at the sleighing tournament, Iliana would’ve been tempted to grab a plate from the dining hall and eat in her room.
Besides, it was Founders Eve and people would notice if she wasn’t celebrating.
She did not need a proctor checking on her emotional state.
Gamely, she pasted on a smile and, after grabbing her fur cloak and muff from her room, she joined the stream of students, staff, and faculty heading for the frozen lake at the center of campus.
No sign of Han, yet, and no one had news of the results of that day’s testing.
She didn’t have to ask—the fact that every other person she encountered stopped to ask her about it confirmed that much.
If Han had gotten a result, he hadn’t told anyone.
Well, whatever he’d found out, she’d do her best to be cheerful and a good friend to him. She owed him that, due to their long friendship. But she also had to make it clear that they could only ever be friends.
And that was that.