“Begin,” I say, motioning to both of them. The rest of the class of apprentices lean forward, the anticipation in the room palpable as their eyes dart between Trergonuth and Azzod.
Trergonuth casts a small protection bubble around the stack of papers on my lectern, then expands his magic to hold a motion-sensing spell along the outside of the protection field, before adding a series of aggressive magical sparks along the border of his motion-sensing spell.
Azzod, while typically quiet and studious, seems to have developed a bit of a showman’s streak. With a flourish of her hands, she summons one of the largest howler beasts I’ve ever seen. The beast roars, and a few screams rise from the lecture hall as Azzod slams a caging spell over the beast.
The howler lets out the grating, high-pitched howl that earned the beast its name and claws at the magic cage. Apprentices are hooting and cheering for their classmates, placing bets on who they think is going to last the longest.
Contentment and pride swell in my chest.Thisis what education is about. I raise my hands to the class and they settle, a tense quiet falling over the room that’s only broken by the sounds of the howler and the faint buzzing of the magic permeating the space.
Trergonuth’s brow is beaded with sweat as he squints at his spells, his protection bubble wavering under the strain of keeping up with the energy three spells demands. Azzod is focused but doesn’t seem to waver, which is good, considering a failure on her part would unleash a howler beast in the lecture hall.
A scream breaks the tense silence, and I turn just in time to see Trergonuth’s hand smoking as his spells fail, Azzod’s magical cage shattering. I wave a hand at Azzod’s howler beast, sending the beast back where it came from before it could be unleashed on the class, and rush over to Trergonuth. The titters of the class fade into the background as I examine his wound.
“Idiot,” I hiss at him, healing his hand. I take a deep breath, centering myself before continuing. “You tried to take energy from another’s magic to fuel your own in the hopes of showing off in front of your classmates. That is a foolish endeavor.” I turn to the class, effectively dismissing Trergonuth and Azzod.
“It requires more energy to keep up multiple spells, no matter how small, than it does to maintain one larger spell, as was illustrated by this exercise. We also received a more unexpected demonstration,” I continue with a pointed look at Trergonuth. “-on the importance of where you draw your energy from.
“All energy has a price, and chaos magic is exceptionally unpredictable. You cannot draw magical energy from another soz’garoth- not without killing yourself in the process.”
A zonak appears at the door, bowing low to get my attention.
“Class dismissed,” I say to the gathered students as I stride to the zonak. He grows nervous as I approach, bowing again as I loom over him.
“King Asmodeous requests your presence,” the zonak murmurs at the ground. My blood goes to ice at the mention of the Hooded One’s name. I nod my thanks to the zonak before folding myself up into a pocket dimension, moving through darkness and fog before stepping out of the shadow and into the Hooded One’s palace.
The two zonak guarding the doors of the Hooded One’s throne room bow lowly to me as they pull the doors open wide. I cross the room, coming to a stop at the foot of the dais before sinking to one knee, keeping my eyes on the ground deferentially.
“Hooded One,” I say, keeping my eyes on the ground, “You summoned me?”
“Rise,” the King rumbles from atop his throne. I do as he says, waiting for the reason behind his summons, trying to keep my anxiety firmly tucked away.
“There’s been a powerful swell of chaos magic on the continent,” he says. Although his eyes aren’t visible beneath the hood, I can feel them on me, and a chill runs through me again. No matter how many times I’m summoned before the King, his presence never becomes less daunting.
“Perhaps one of our apprentices is rising to their full power,” I offer, unsure of where this is going.
“Not on Ti’lith- on Protheka. Directly beneath our city.” I try to disguise my shock as I raise my eyes to where his would be for the first time this meeting.
“On Protheka, Hooded One?” I echo.
“A human woman seems to have a penchant for chaos magic. Find out more.”
I take the dismissal for what it is, bowing lowly as a zonak approaches to escort me from the throne room. A human woman? With chaos magic? It’s beyond just unheard of, it’s-impossible.“As you wish.”
The zonak leads me to one of the Hooded One’s many magic rooms, outfitted with everything I could possibly need to fulfill his order. I clear the table before rolling out a map of Protheka and finding a crystal pendant. With a deep breath, I begin, casting a wide net of my magic and focusing on any source of chaos magic linked to a human woman’s heart.
I only find one, and as the King promised, she’s located on the continent that is currently directly below Ti’lith.
I pour my magic into the crystal, allowing it to produce a vision of the location the magic is coming from. It’s a small, rather ramshackle village of humans, who are all dirty and malnourished. None of the humans stick out to me as the image skims over the top of their village, painting a picture of their small cabins and blooming fields.
A flash of red catches my eye in the picture, and my magic instinctively homes in on the point of my interest. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen comes into focus in the crystalline image.
Deep red hair falls past her shoulders, moving in a gentle breeze. Her luminescent hazel eyes are accompanied by a thick fringe of lashes, set under dark brows and framed by delicate cheekbones. Something in my chest leaps at the sight of her, and it takes me a moment to fully absorb the rest of the image.
She’s thin – far too thin. Most humans seem malnourished, but this girl… her body looks as if it’s ready to cave in on itself. Rage moves through me so suddenly that I have to grip the edge of the table to keep from unleashing a blast of magic, my knuckles turning white as I push the rage down as swiftly as it arose.
I unleash a tentative whisper of magic, feeling to see if the human beauty is the source of the swell the Hooded One sensed, and receive a whisper back. She’s the one I’m looking for. I reluctantly pull my focus from her, scanning the rest of the village to see if perhaps there’s another source- while she certainly holds some affinity for chaos magic, it doesn’t seem like it’d be enough to warrant the King’s interest.
I find nothing in the rest of the village, although I pick up on some interesting whispers about a village boy named Cal. It seems that strange things have been occurring in the village, and just last night, Cal and two other boys from the village vanished into thin air after Cal’s mother died.