After a couple of days’ recovery, Juliette was once again back to peak condition. Her flat mate had been acting strange yesterday, but she’d been too lazy then to investigate what had Sofia excited.

This morning, as usual, the plucky redhead had already woken up at dawn and gone to practice, even though today was the written exam!

Well, Juliette wouldn’t waste time running around. She’d have a calm breakfast, read the morning gazette, and enjoy herself until it was time to go. She did her morning routine, making sure to moisturise and cleanse her face properly before applying make up. As the heiress of the Abad family, she should always present her best.

She made her way to the cafeteria, picked up the newspaper, and settled for breakfast. None of those sandwiches for her, she wanted a full spread. Poached eggs, slices of ham, sauteed mushrooms, and buttered toast. Then, she had a freshly brewed cup of coffee, with steamed milk, and a sugar cube.

She scanned the headlines as she ate. Most of the news was about the upcoming elections during the Season of Fire, as well as the campaigning candidates. Her home, Virtalla City, the old Capitol, had a rather fierce race, with the incumbent Counselor battling against the Foreign Department’s Minister for that position. The Minister was a member of the Scion faction, who Juliette knew had separatist leanings.

It couldn’t be helped. The Republic was less than two hundred years old and had once been four different states, each centred around the four cities of Nirlith, Briardale, Virtalla, and Bresia. And the source of their alliance, and eventual founding, were the warring states of Ishodir and Xotha, who were right across the way from Virtalla’s territory.

History class was always a part of every year’s curriculum, but she also learned from her grandfather, who had been alive back then. He was a Magus, ageing and near the limits of his lifespan, but he had been a young man during those times.

House Abad were landowners and farmed hundreds of square longstrides in Virtalla’s southern regions. They even had interests in the fishing and shipping industry around the Great Lake Erithmus to the south. Trading with the nations to the south of the lake was lucrative, even if it took nearly a Season of sailing to cross it. All of that was possible because Grandpa Juan survived the Unification War and was on the winning side.

As Juliette swallowed the last morsel of her meal, she sighed as she thought about the ramifications of a separatist winner in the Counselor race. Hopefully, Virtalla would not secede, as that would be suicide. And the Abad holdings would go up in flames as the eager, bloodthirsty battle slaves of the Xotha Matriarchy rush the border. No one would be foolish enough to vote for death, right?

There was little she could do. She was only second in line, next to her father, though Dad said he never wanted to take on the mantle of leadership. He much preferred sailing the Erithmus and exploring the hundreds of islands that dotted it. Besides, she’d have to advance to Magus if she had the hope to affect things, and she’d reach her majority by the end of the year too.

Her Wind Elemental Heart was still at the Apprentice stage, but she was hesitant. Her minor was in Geomancy, and having an Earth Elemental Heart, or Metal, would be far more useful than Wind.

She hadn’t intended to be a Geomancer, honestly, as her major had been as a Battle Magus. Grampy’s war stories had been the stuff she grew up with, and her hotbloodedness got her rushing for the most combative specialisation when she enrolled. She was honestly better off as a Caster Magus, or colloquially, simply Magus. Casting spells at range would have given her more time to think, and cast, rather than the fast-paced action she was forced into.

Alas, she had foolishly inscribed her intrinsic spell already, almost foregoing the arcane tool circuitry altogether. Thankfully, the Wind Shield spell was only ten nodes, which still left her five nodes from her two circles.

Resetting would destroy her progress, not to mention the cost of purchasing a new Elemental Infusion Core. Besides, her Wind Elemental Affinity was higher than her Earth or Metal.

Well, her dilly-dallying had almost caused her to be late, so she hurried towards the classrooms, swerving at the last minute from heading to homeroom and instead, moving towards her assigned examination room.

The rest of the morning entailed furiously scribbling with her pens, trying to remember every facet of spellcraft theory, and kludging a few spells with the proper annotations. Geomantic spells didn’t really need inscribed spells as the only time speed was of the essence was during an emergency. Instead, a broad knowledge base and hundreds of spells were needed for every conceivable terrain. With her Elemental Heart not made to be a generalist core, she couldn’t use the shortcut of activating intrinsic runescript patterns in place of actual spell activation tools. A pox on her childish heart!

By the end of the exam period, she was reasonably sure that she got at least two-thirds of the questions right, and the rest was up to the gods’ mercies.

Thinking to blow off some steam, and work through her post-exam stress, Juliette headed towards the training fields, specifically the target range, to spend some time blasting the self-repairing targets. She didn’t go to the nearest practice field from the stairs and went to the field on the opposite side of the city. Those were reasonably deserted so she didn’t have to limit her time.

Sure enough, the training field was mostly empty. Juliette thought she saw someone go inside the changing room, but by the time she entered to put on safety gear, there was no one there. Once she entered the range, she was already in the zone and paid no mind to the neighbouring lanes.

The target dummy was one of the same wooden golems that her team fought during practicals, though this one did not wear armour. It did have a kite shield that could cover its torso or head, but she set it to basic practice, so it just stood there, ten paces away.

She warmed up her fingers with a basic Bolt spell. The starting somatic component was the beginning trigger and was the one most subject to modification. Hers was a simple come-hither gesture with her index finger and transitioned to two more somatic components. She didn’t use both of her hands to cast, as the single circle spell was easy enough to cast with just one: “Bolt.” And a final targeting gesture launched the spell.

Her Wind Affinity was the greatest so it was that Element that came to her call. The spell shaped the energy into a dense ball and then blasted it towards the dummy. Ten paces was the basic range of any spell that included the ‘shoot’ node, and if she wanted it to reach farther, she’d have to chain-cast and add more ‘shoot nodes’. That wasn’t the most efficient use of time, however, if she wanted to hit something farther away, she was better off using a different spell.

The bolt slammed into the dummy and caused it to sway back. Slightly.

“Gods,” she muttered. “Basic Wind Bolt sucks.”

She had been disappointed when she first used the spell, considering how crappy its damage potential was. Someone with a Fire Affinity would have at least set the thing on fire! Then again, a Water Bolt would simply get the target wet, so at least Wind pushed it a little.

She then cast an actual Wind Bolt, which was a two-circle spell with a full fifteen nodes. This time she used both hands, though she didn’t have any spell activation tools, making her do all the components by herself. It took her a good ten seconds to weave the somatic and vocal components together but the spell nearly tore off the dummy’s arm when she hit the shoulder.

She took a deep breath and luxuriated in the feel of the Elemental energies swirling around her. Then, she started casting a Fire Bolt. It was nearly identical to the Wind Bolt spell save for the Elemental identifier, but here was where she struggled. The identifier was close to the start of the sequence, and since she didn’t have a Fire Affinity, it was a struggle to contain and channel the energies. Her somatic components were a struggle to complete as the space around her hands and fingers seemed to thicken. The words almost stuck in her throat and she had to vocalize forcefully to get it out. And by the time she finished the cast, half a minute had passed.

Whoosh!

But the fiery missile gave her the satisfaction of setting the dummy on fire and staggering it back. Take that! Hah!

Juliette jumped for joy. Fire Bolt was a recent win, freshly recorded in her Grimoire. She spun around, dancing in place, but froze stiff when she noticed that somebody was in the neighbouring lane and that someone had turned at her whoop and watched her dance with amusement.

Shame almost made Juliette want to bury her head in the sandy ground but she paused when she realised that she didn’t know the other woman. She was beautiful, too. Way too pretty to be unknown in the Academy. There were roughly a thousand or so students per year level, and someone who looked like that would be the talk of the town. Still, she thought the other to be a bit familiar but she couldn’t quite remember.

The golden-haired woman, who towered over Juliette and looked her age, offered a smile and turned back to her target. Juliette watched curiously, then blinked when the girl did the Bolt spell. Her casting was fast, in a second, the components were done, and when she pointed it at the target, a golden orb of light blasted the thing and left a scorched hole in the target’s head.

The training dummy collapsed in simulated death, prompting the girl to giggle. The hole closed but much slower than it would normally have. Juliette closed her mouth when she realised she’d left it hanging. That was a Bolt spell, right? But the Element must be powerful!

‘I wonder what the Elemental identifier for that is…’ But it was a Bolt spell, which always used the Elemental energy with the highest Affinity. The other girl didn’t seem surprised though.

Returning to her practice, Juliette cast a two-circle spell, Blast. Like Bolt, it used the highest Elemental Affinity, but instead of an orb or an arrow, it sprayed the Element in a cone right where she pointed it.

She spent a couple of hours casting, while the girl next to her did the same. Funnily, she was using the same spells Juliette practised, and if she didn’t know any better, she might have thought the other was copying her. But that couldn’t be right. For one thing, the girl cast the spells, even those of differing Elements, much faster than Juliette could cast.

Then it hit her why the girl looked familiar. She was there in the infirmary while Juliette was getting patched up. She was with the Secretary, too. Huh.

She turned to look, but apparently, the girl was done, as she had already left the target practice area. Shrugging to herself, Juliette returned to the changing room to return the safety gear and go back to her room to rest.

__________

Cillian Coinoch leaned down over his Steeld as he fed it with as much Elemental energy as he could channel through his artifice circle. The golem galloped across the woods, easily dodging the trees and bushes, and trampled a few saplings in a bid to get away. It had been a week since he left Nirlith on his way back to Duskfoot Guard…

Why was he so unlucky?

Whoosh!

“Argh!”

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