Chapter One
Anyone who tells you shipwrecks are romantic is an idiot.
I flexed the toe of my boot to dislodge crusted salt, finally standing at the Raloren Academy’s main hall.
Getting that snooty elven princess off the ship had been...
interesting. Then I was delayed in port answering a bunch of questions while elven VIPs proceeded on their way.
Probably went shopping for the latest local fashions.
But I was done. Done with shipwrecks, done with mysterious dead bodies, especially done with elven princesses...
didn’t someone call her baroness? It didn't matter!
Done. And ready to start my new life at the academy.
I’d memorized the plan from the pamphlet, thinking that reality couldn’t be as grand.
It was.
In the century and a half since it opened, there were a million people like me.
Slack-jawed provincials from small towns so terribly impressed by a campus spanning a city block.
Sleek, unified architecture, harmonious in three dimensions with integrated terraces, fountains, buildings towering as high as ten stories.
The damn thing was probably built to inspire awe and dedicated study.
Yet like magic, just because you knew how it worked didn’t make it any less impressive. And magic was why I was here.
I lurched out of my stupor as the clock tower struck two. The orientation address!
Idiot! The courtyard was empty because everyone was in the main hall. Lugging two battered suitcases and a satchel of tools, instruments, and minerals, sprinting wasn’t exactly an option, so I settled for an energetic lumber.
Several sets of glass doors framed in decorative bronze faced the courtyard, flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows inset with stained glass…
that was the luminous mosaic depicting the scene of Lord Raloren’s famous shipwreck.
Got to take a closer look at that later.
I set down my bags to push a bronze handle the shape of a seashell.
It didn’t budge.
I pulled.
Same result.
Oh, this is great, orientation address, and I’m stymied by a…
or was this a test? Some kind of magic locking mechanism?
I knelt to inspect the doors more carefully.
A decorative circular cover neatly hidden within engravings slid away to reveal a lock.
High quality, but there didn’t seem to be anything magical about it. I’d studied so hard to pass all the…
A tiny placard inside the next door over caught my eye.
Lobby renovations.
Please use entrance on South Linden Street.
I clapped a palm to my face.
A quarter of an hour later, now out of breath and perspiring in a very un-gentlemanly fashion, I pushed through a set of side doors finer than the main entrance of any building in my hometown.
I followed the lobby into an elliptical main hall where several hundred students formed a crescent around a speaker I couldn’t see.
Uniforms. I winced. Students were all in uniform.
It wasn’t supposed to be required until classes started.
I went from lumber to tiptoe, fighting with my every breath as I sought an inconspicuous place in the back row.
Would the speaker admonish my tardiness or the crowd turn to glare at me?
“...and I urge you all to dedicate yourself not only to your studies, but to uphold the ideals of this academy. The illustrious Lord Raloren strove to create an egalitarian academy where students of all species and backgrounds could achieve their potential…”
No. They would not. First good news of the day. The term hadn’t even started and I’d already mastered the invisibility spell.
The speaker was refined in her tone, enunciating carefully, with just enough emotion to keep listeners from nodding off.
Probably wore one of those elven silk ceremonial robes.
Not that I could see her, the last row comprised elves and a scattering of nekojin, the feline folk, all standing considerably taller than I.
Shorter humans like me would be in the row in front of them, and any even shorter gnomes in front of that.
“…Before you disperse into your separate academic specializations, please note that while this institution encourages a certain competitive spirit, you will encounter each other in many different classes, just as in outside life. Regardless of any controversies you may have heard, all specializations are fully supported by this institution. We wish you success in the coming three years.”
Controversies?
As the several hundred students disbursed, swirling and reforming into smaller groups like so many schools of fish, I felt distinctly un-fishlike weighed down with luggage.
Or more specifically, like a solitary, clumsy fish destined to be picked off by predators.
Was there a reception area where I could drop my luggage for the rest of the orientation?
I slunk out the way I came in. As I turned to push double doors open with my back, I faced a trio of stern-looking elves glaring down at me.
While elves were by default stern-looking, and, standing on average a head taller than a human, tended to look down on us, this was no great surprise. Yet these three seem to have a particular disdain for me.
“The academy bends over backwards to ensure its uniform is multi-species adaptable. Yet you could not be troubled to wear one on the first day.”
Technically, it’s day zero.
Who are you, the uniform police?
Sorry, no time to change. I was delayed rescuing an elf from a supposedly unsinkable elven ship that was sinking.
No. No more old me, that backward human from a backwater town who thought he was funny. This was the big city. I knew how elves were supposed to interact. They may not overtly look down on humans, but you had to prove yourself their equal.
“My regrets. A travel mishap delayed me.” I nodded. “Good day to you.”
I spun back around as I entered the elongated lobby with various doors in and out, spying a stack of luggage to one side behind a pair of marble urns with flowering palms.
They may not have matched, but I was proud of my pair of secondhand suitcases. Walnut tanned leather with scuffs almost fully buffed out. Brass bell rivets, brass latches… which even worked, mostly, leather corner reinforcements… and I’d even gotten that odd smell out of the pinstriped linen liner.
They were solid, functional, mostly watertight, and so outclassed by the stack of fully matched tan, bridle leather suitcases that mine may as well have been paperboard boxes tied with twine.
“Geeze, is everyone who attends the academy required to have the same luggage?” I glanced to see if anyone heard my outburst and stacked my bags between the stacks of suitcases and a pair of elegant wooden sea chests.
The Raloren Academy was an elite school, though unlike most other elite—or even decidedly non-elite schools—it charged only a token fee to attend.
Once a student was accepted. Which wasn’t exactly easy.
I darted along the perimeter, pushing through doors with handles and push plates just high enough to be awkward.
The academy accepted humans but was designed for elves.
The last students filtered into lecture halls for their class specialization orientation.
I won’t be late a second time in one day!
I yanked open a birchwood door with milk glass panes along the top and lunged inside, nearly running into—
“You?” chided a severe voice. “What are you doing here?”
I backpedaled half a step and glanced up. “This is an interesting coincidence, prin… I mean, Baroness.”
“Simply Lady Arazniros will do.” She had short amber hair, nearly blonde at the tips, piercing green eyes, full lips, and…
wow… those were some long, sleek legs. I hadn’t noticed on our prior encounter, what with the dress, but she filled out the school uniform easily as elegantly as she had that long dress.
She clenched one hand as she shot me a hard glare.
“Do not tell me you are a starting student.”
“I’m sure as hell not the bellhop, lady.” I did not just say that. That was literally the most un-elven response I could have given.
She narrowed her eyes.
I cringed, thinking through responses that might rescue the situation.
She responded as I hit number seven. “It is a… rather curious coincidence.”
Her mood, in our brief but admittedly eventful association, had varied between defensive, cagey, and mistrustful, with a dash of random hostility thrown in for good measure.
And this to someone who saved her life. Was there something else below that icy surface?
She seemed as shocked by that corpse in the hold as I was.
Yup. Someone on a ship bound for Halamar, might have business in Halamar. No. We are trying not to make things worse, Theo! “I do not know what I have done to warrant such suspicion, prin… Lady Aaz… Azer…. Arazniros.” Not a horrible response except my mispronouncing her name.
“Seph…” Her lips quivered as if fighting with her words as much as I, finally letting out a whispered, “Suspicion…”
“Students, I believe we are complete, let us sit down.” A wispy elven man addressed the room, cutting off my digging myself further into a hole. “My name is Master Arel, faculty adviser for our institution’s newly established mage specialization.”
I took a seat in one of about forty desks along the second row at the end.
For all the grandeur of the grounds and common areas, the lecture halls were quite austere.
Four rows of built-in hardwood desks, stepped slightly higher at the back.
An instructor’s desk with a black marble countertop for demonstrations.
Blackboards on sliding tracks. Eggshell plaster walls with a simple cornice in indigo and midnight blue.
I may have been out of uniform and late, but I’d committed to memory everything I could find about the academy and my specialization, so most of what Master Arel relayed was review.
As we all introduced ourselves, I noted fewer elves than expected.
It was literally an elven academy, and elves were among the races with high magic affinity, the other being gnomes, of which there were four in our class.
Did so many of them shun the idea of becoming a mage?
I gave the thirty-second speech I’d practiced for about six months, Theodore Thistlewood from the small town of Thorncove, wanted something different than the predominant avocations of lumber and fishery, studied the prerequisite courses at home, was delighted to be accepted.
I didn’t mention the incident between the dilapidated trade schooner I’d booked passage on and the glorious Empire Clipper we’d encountered, now somewhat less than gloriously accumulating coral in the depths. I didn’t want that sort of attention.
Many students had traveled even farther than I to reach the academy, including a certain elf woman, whose full name I finally got: Lady Sephimara Arazniros. Who did not wish to use the moniker Baroness. The Baroness was her mother.
I took notes, both physically and mentally, and an hour later, the faculty adviser concluded.
“Given that many classes are not unique to the mage specialization, you will, of course, encounter students in other programs. As contentious as the establishment of our new specialization is, both your performance and your behavior will be under close scrutiny. Anything less than excellence in either will incur consequences. For the student in question and our entire class.” His voice, still soft, conveyed more conviction than I’d heard from him prior.
After the day I’d had so far, I remained seated, letting most of the other students exit first, including Lady Az…
Ar… Araz-ni-ros. What a mouthful. Sephimara flows so much nicer off the tongue.
My brother told me most elves weren’t as stiff as they first appeared, yet I had the feeling getting to first-name basis with her was about as likely as befriending a kraken. Pity.
I filtered out with the rest of the stragglers, giving myself the chance to take in the details as I strolled back to the lobby.
“It would appear your nerve knows no boundaries.” It was one of the trio of elves from earlier, who was fortunately not in the mage specialization.
“It may shock you to know,” I said. “But I have not miraculously had the time to change since your last admonishment of my attire.”
“We observed you with the rest of those so-called mage scholars,” said one.
“You are the reason my brother was not accepted. He wished to attend in a respectable field of study.”
I sidestepped, attempting to get around them.
They blocked me.
“There is always next year for your brother, is there not?” I’d practiced with my own brother, learning to hold my own in this sort of situation, but wasn’t in the mood.
“There is. Who knows if you will last until then.”
“Who knows.” I physically pushed my way past them into the lobby in a very un-elflike display.
The matched luggage was being carried outside and loaded into one of two coaches. Lady Araz… nose stepped into the other.
I stopped dead, blinking at the spectacle.
The entire stack of luggage is all hers?
“It is considered rude to withdraw from a conversation improperly.” The voice from behind carried a note of annoyance this time.
I spun to face them.
I did not want the conversation in the first place. Conversation… conversation. Yes. “I was not aware of any conversation.”
All three furrowed their eyebrows simultaneously and most uniformly.
“What I observed was a lecture. Which I would naturally embrace at an academy… were it delivered by a competent speaker. Good day.” I spun, determined not to face them again. Unless I heard the sound of weapons being drawn.
Which, given the day so far…