Eldramin

Prologue

A young girl stood in front of the academy, shivering in the cold under a tattered blanket. She was tall for her age, with messy black hair and piercing jade eyes. She stared at the gate, not sure where she was. Her mind was a blur. Her parents...they had left her here, behind this building.

She knew that there hadn't been enough food on the farm this winter, but she couldn't understand how her parents could leave her here, defenseless in the middle of the capital city. What future was there for an eight-year-old in Talidine?

She shuddered again, pulling the blanket tighter. This place, the academy, was probably her best chance at surviving. She could employ herself, work as a maid maybe.

Opening her small hands, she summoned something she did not fully understand...she didn't know what. It was instinctive against the biting cold, but she didn't remember doing it before. A green light swirled over her fingertips, ridding them of pain. Magic. Only nobles had magic. Had her parents known? Would they have kept her if they knew? She certainly hadn't known. Not only did she have magic, but it was also healing magic, a rare power on Alithos. She could use this.

She summoned all her willpower and walked through the gates, into a new life, a new start. This time, she wouldn't be the one left behind. She was Fannara Harpson, and she meant business.

Part One

Chapter 1

11 years later

Fannara

I sprinted down back alleys and empty streets, bags clutched in my hands. I could vaguely hear the murmur of people boarding the train in the distance. I was going to be late. I increased my speed, mentally noting that the last time I ran this quickly., I was being chased by a crazed man waving a spear over his head. Thankfully, this time, I only needed to focus on getting to the train station, and my life wasn’t in immediate danger.

I arrived at one of the more crowded streets, and I had to slow my speed as I pushed through the oceantheocean of bodies. I glanced behind me, noting the clock tower proudly pronouncing the time:, 1:58.  

Shoot,. I thought, I have two minutes. I kept pushing through people, occasionally tip-toeing to check how far away the train station was. I got to the platform just as the doors began closing. I slipped in and walked to the back of the train. I found a mostly empty car and plopped down at a window, sighing with relief. The train began moving and then sped until the scenery blurred outside the window, the gloomy greysgraey’s melted into dull greens. Spring had been hesitant this year, and even though it was late summer, the trees had never flourished into their vibrant greens that so often came.

I leaned back, still processing the fact that I was leaving Alithos, on purpose this time. I had won the scholarship from the academy; I had passed the tests, and now I was going to Lathra IV, representing my homeworld to the vast population of the surrounding systems.

When the Lathran delegates visited Alithos for the first time after establishing a portal, they invited a student to go study on Lathra IV, the most advanced world in literally everything. Somehow, that student was me. I was on my way to the most advanced world we knew of to study at their most advanced university. It was going to be a long eight hours because the Lathran system was pretty far away. We’d have to go through Zora and Earth to get to Lathra IV.

I glanced at the people sharing the car with me. None of them looked like they would get off on Earth, seeing as they were still wearing the Lathinnyan style of clothing. The Lathrans liked to let worlds they discover they exist on their own before making their information trades. The Earthans still denied the existence of life other than on their planet, so the Lathrans were letting them figure it out on their own. However, Earth was a key portal platform to the rest of the explored galaxy, so the Lathrans made an undercover portal.

Outside the window, the countryside began fading into graey mountains. The portal on Alithos was up in the mountains, but it would still take a while to get there. The roar of the engine echoed off the mountains and back at the train, filling the car with noise. I cringed at the screaming engines and noticed people had started staring at me. They hardly noticed the scream of the steam engine, for them, it was simply a low rumble.

I leaned back in my seat, teeth clenched behind a feigned look of boredom. People turned their gazes away, and I relaxed slightly. People always stared at me, whispering rumors they thought I couldn’t hear. It made me uncomfortable knowing they were talking about me, but the fact that I could hear everything they said would nearly send me into a panic every time.

As I watched, the mountains began turning white, the perpetual snow glinting as the train rumbled past. I wished I had a book to read, even if I already knew the plot, anything to distract myself from my brain’s meandering would have been a relief. From the back of the car, a child began wailing. I cringed once more. This is going to be miserable.

☙❦❧

Nearly the full four hours later, the mother had finally gotten her child to be quiet, and we were at the portal. The train increased in speed as the first gasps cameescaped from those lucky enough to see the portal first. A few shrieks of surprise escaped my fellow passengers as we passed through the portal. The tingling in my fingers was nearly comforting. I had a nasty habit of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and ending up in a different world. This was not my first time encountering a portal, not by a long shot.

The dull mountains of Alithos seemed to explode into the vibrant greens of Zora. I wrinkled my nose at the humidity seeping through the window next to me. Alithos wasn’t pretty, but at least the air didn’t sweat.

Zora was a fairly large planet, full of lush forests, strobe lights, and people who looked like they were covered in toddler crayon drawings. Zorans were extremely proud of their advancements, as if giving yourself a neck ache to see the tops of their buildings was rewarding.

The train began slowing as it entered the capital city. I turned away from the window, hoping to postpone the inevitable migraine Caileth would give me. The tinted screen windows of the towering buildings flashed advertisements for bath soaps and the next political runner-ups’ campaign. The one-government system on Zora had a nasty habit of sprouting dictators, and no doubt, the man whose face I saw was the size of a small house, and was going to “disappear” before he made any headway.

The surrounding passengers were having a blast looking at the buildings, never having seen anything bigger than four stories. I grabbed my bags as the train screeched to a halt, once again flinching at the noise. I stepped out onto the glistening stage that was the Zoran train station. The bustle of tourists and yelling shopkeepers only motivated me to find the next train. I once again pushed past people, trying to get to my train. The Lathrans had invented camouflaged trains, and seeing as we had to go through Earth, they were the only ones fit to travel to the Lathra System in this sector.

The cool air of the Lathran train was a relief from the muggy, crowded streets of Caileth. With a sigh, I plopped into my seat, pleased to find my car empty. Empty, until an entire group of loud Zorans burst into it. They seemed to be high enough in society to feel entitled to respect, but not quite high enough to deserve it. Aristocrats. I never liked high-class people, maybe because they always looked down on people, maybe because they were just flat-out annoying. Either way, I was dreading what they were going to sneer at.

They began by commenting on the other people in the car, debating what their shoes cost, and not really caring. Then one woman caught sight of me and pointed. The snickering began. Zorans loved humiliating cans. There had been some feud centuries ago, before communicating fully worked. A communication mishap started the whole thing. Unfortunately for me, I had a knack for languages, and I understood every word that came out of their ridiculously colored lips. Even worse, they didn't know and had no scruples against talking down to me.

They started by debating what shade of green my eyes were, and whether the freckles helped me look less pale. It was mostly negative comments, but I didn’t care. Moving to my hair, they tried to determine if the black color was natural or dyed. This comment made me more uncomfortable. Something always made me nervous when my hair was brought up. I never knew what it was, I just always felt weird about it.

I was truly getting irritated when they moved on to my height. Yes, I was tall, and no, it was not because of surgery.

Under my breath, I muttered, "I can hear you." It was in Nzoran, but they didn't hear me, they just kept talking a mile a minute.

Honestly, the more they talked about me, the more I realized just how fake their beauty was.

These Zorans had long hair, twisted intoup in the most ridiculous of shapes, their long ears protruding from beneath it. They covered the ears themselves in earrings on the bottom and decorative tattoos on the top. I don't even want to go into what they were wearing. It was mostly glittery garbage bags, complete with jewel-encrusted belts. Once again, these aristocrats' faces were smeared with neon paint and even more glitter. Yet, even with all their gaudiness, they seemed simple and elegant. Until you see how much of it was plastic surgery.

After they dwelled far too long on me, I finally snapped.

"Would you shut up? Some of us don't like being dissected by glittery garbage." The entire group quieted and stared at me. I glared at them, becoming exceedingly irked by their stares. After a full two minutes of silence, one woman burst out laughing and was quickly joined by the others.

I rolled my eyes and grabbed my bags. I was not about to put up with them for the next four hours. I left the car, this time looking for one with more people in it, wishing that for once, I could just blend in, it was a little hard to do that when you're six feet tall, have black hair, green eyes, and a weird name. I just hoped it would be easier on Lathra IV.

Four hours later, the train pulled into the station in Elquar. The air was crisp; the sky was clear, and the building in front of me was huge. It made sense that it would be an extensive building; it was maybe the most important site in our galaxy, the place where the first portal to a different system was opened. It was extremely intimidating, all glass and marble. No, not glass, gems.

The homeworld of the Lathrans, commonly known as Geterria, was full of elementals. They often hired workers from the Stone Tribe to create structures, making them both beautiful and durable. Nearly everything in Elquar seemed to be of Stone Tribe craftsmanship. It was breathtaking.

I moved farther into the maze of stone, miraculously finding my way to the immigration line. The people in front of me seemed to be native Lathrans, returning home. It’s a strange feeling, being the most noticeable person in the room, and suddenly being plunged in with strangers who took the cake in terms of being noticeable. Lathrans were known for their height, on average being taller than most people on Alithos. I finally blended in. It was such a relief not to be the center of attention.

I got up to the counter and found myself in front of a woman who immediately handed me a stack of papers with different languages printed on them. She wanted to know if she needed to call a translator. I had been studying Lathran for the last month, but I had never spoken to someone in it.

“No, it’s alright, I speak Lathran.” I said. My practice had paid off.surprised myself. The language came so easily, not like any other I had learned.

The woman was slightly surprised but quickly recovered. “Alright, may I see your ID?”

Oh, no. Do I need an ID? My look of concern and confusion must have puzzled the woman even more than my fluency in her language.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you not from here? Your accent was so good I assumed you were from here. My apologies. What's your name?" I breathed a sigh of relief, glad that I hadn't left something on Alithos.

"Fannara Harpson, I'm the exchange student from Alithos."

The woman broke out into a smile, "Indeed you are, you can go on through, Ana Keleth is in the waiting area, she'll take you to campus." I waited, hoping I would get more information., I had no clue who Ana Keleth was. “The waiting area is that way.” She pointed a long finger down a corridor, still smiling, but with a hint of annoyance now. I moved in the indicated direction, muttering a thanks under my breath.

☙❦❧

The waiting room was filled with so many people, I don’t think I could have found Ana., even if I knew who she was. Thankfully, she found me.

She strode over to me, heels clicking on the marble floor. "You must be Fannara., I'm Ana Keleth, minister of education, but you can just call me Ana." She was a tall woman, seemingly in her mid-forties. She had auburn hair that framed her pale face, laden with two deep blue eyes. She woreIt was a kind face, one that seemed to understand both joy and sorrow.

I forced a smile back at her. Something about her was making me nervous, and I just couldn't put my finger on it. It was like a word you couldn't remember, almost a strange deja vu feeling. There was something wrong here.

Chapter 2

Fannara

Ana led me out of the lobby, commenting on my trip, and leaving opportunities for me to talk, but I didn’t take them. I was too distracted. What is different about you? Why do I feel like this?

We got to her vehicle, a black thing that almost looked like an earthen car, but was hovering just above the road. As the doors opened seemingly of their own volition, I noticed the vehicle was armored, which. This too confused me. From all I’d heard, Paladine was a peaceful country. It had been for nearly a century, with neither domestic nor international conflicts. Why was her vehicle armored then?

I hesitantly climbed into it, trying, and failing, at hiding my confusion.  Everything was so different, yet somehow familiar. Ana began telling me about her kids when I remained pensive, informing me that her son, Moren, was in my class. She had a daughter too, LaraWrynn, who apparently was a week away from turning fifteen. I muttered congratulations, hardly looking at her before returning my gaze out the window. Right at that moment, the vehicle began gliding down the pavement; the cityscape unfolding outside of my window.

The next ten minutes of the drive comprised me gasping at the grandeur of the Elquar skyline, as Ana told me about what school will look like, and my occasional response or question. I gaped at the enormous palace on a hill overlooking the city, seemingly made of pure gold as the setting sun shone on the vast windows.

Ana caught me staring at it and quietly remarked, “It’s very bright in there this time of day, but those rooms have the best view of the city. The other side is nearly blinding in the mornings, but provides a beautiful look of the mountains.” I turned and stared at Ana.

“You live there?”

She laughed at my shocked expression, quickly returning her eyes to the road in front of her. “I have for the last twelve years after my husband took the reins of our country as Greatest Lordleading position in the government {I really need to name this} after the last one resigned.”  She seemed sad as she remembered the past family that dwelled in the palace.

“May I ask what led them to resign?” I put the question out there tentatively, trying to express that she did not need to explain if it made her uncomfortable.it was ok(I would use okay or OK) for her not to explain.

 Ana heaved a sigh, a tense look spreading across her face. It was the first time she had stopped smiling.

"You don't have to tell me." She turned to look at me, relieved., relieved gratitude in her eyes.

"It happened years ago, but I don't know if anyone who knew them has fully recovered yet. It may be best not to bring it up around some." She pushed away the dampened mood with a cheery smile “Anyhow, we’ve arrived. Welcome to Elquar University.”

I stared at the campus. Rows of gigantic, fake trees encircled, acting as a fence for a twenty-story building, the top of which was emblazoned with a decorative “E”. The "trees" were connected by a curling sidewalk which was covered by a crystal canopy of fake leaves supported by marble columns covered in vines.

The vehicle glided to a stop in between two of the giant trees, which I could then see were buildings of some sort. The doors opened and Ana stepped out.

“These are the dorms, and that,” she pointed at the closest “tree,” “is the one you'll be staying in.”

I turned and stared at her once more, a strange new habit I seemed to develop. “No way,” Ana merely nodded at my amazement. “But it’s huge. How many people go here?”

Ana laughed outright. “Thousands. Keep in mind only that the brightest live here. This get in, but this is the best school in the galaxy.” She turned on her heel and walked towards the “tree”. I grabbed my bags and stumbled out after her, jogging to catch up to her long strides.

The tops of the tree buildings stuck out over the road, casting emerald light dancing down from the translucent roof. The place was ultramodern and packed with buildings, but it felt like a forest for giants.

Ana strode into the lobby, pulling a miniature silver frame from her pocket. I looked at it quizzically, wondering why she would pull something like that out while waiting in line in a girl's dorm. She grabbed two of the corners, sliding them open and then pushing a hidden button on the side of one. A screen lit up the area inside of the delicate frame. She began typing on it as if it were an earthen cell phone and kept typing for a while.

I took the time to look around the lobby, taking in my surroundings. Couches covered nearly the entire floor space and were in turn covered in dozens of throw pillows and exceptionally loud girls. What looked like a small café sat tucked against one of the curved walls. The crystal walls let in enough sunlight to light up the whole gigantic room.

Ana suddenly slammed the frame in on itself and strode past the people waiting in line, seeming to give no regard to what they thought. She spoke with the woman at the desk, looking behind at the couch girls and nodding as the other woman spoke. She handed Ana a white bag, and suddenly looked over at me, eyes wide. Ana grabbed her arm and hissed something at her. I glanced away, confused again. Why is this place so weird?

Ana walked over to where I stood, a fake smile on her face.

"Sorry about that, we had a bit of a mix-up." She took a deep breath, her face relaxing into a more natural smile. Ana stretched out her arms, offering me the white bag. "This has essentials and your schedule. Now, would you like to meet your roommates?" My gut dropped as she handed me the bag.

"Uh... sure." I had never had good interactions with the girls I roomed with on Alithos. Heaven forbid the daughter of the king's second cousin's, twice removed's fiancee be stuck with the scholarship girl. I was a plague among wannabe royals. I just hoped none of these girls knew how to get in my head.

Ana led me to one couch and three girls shot up, caught off guard. One girl was grinning from ear to ear.

She was the shortest of the three, but was by no means short herself. She had tanned skin, a frizzy head of brunette curls, and ridiculously excited brown eyes. Standing next to her was a very tall, skinny girl. She had dark skin, dark eyes, and a huge poof of hair, dyed in various shades of purple, bunched into a bun on top of her head. The third girl looked the least friendly. She had slightly tanned skin, stone grey eyes, and strawberry-blonde hair with two pointed and slightly curved ears peeking through. A very serious expression on her face told me she was reluctant to accept me. I was not expecting to get along with her.

"Fannara, this is Alamara," the short one, "Melody," the tall one, "and Arienna." The steel-faced one.

"It's so great to finally meet you!" Alamara bounced as she spoke, excited energy radiating off of her in waves. “You can call me Mara. Then that’s Mel and Ari.”

"Yeah, thanks. It's nice to be here." I felt like an idiot as the words awkwardly tumbled out of my mouth.

Melody smiled at me, her eyes conveying that Alamara was always like this.

"Well, I'll let you ladies get her settled." Ana turned and smiled at me one last time. "If you ever need anything from me, I believe Moren is on your brother floor."

"My what?"

"He is?" Ana and I turned and looked at Arienna, who was now looking very uncomfortable. Melody and Mara exchanged knowing glances.

"I think what Ari means is that he'll be a great help." Alamara was trying to fix the little mishap, but somehow her comment seemed almost sarcastic. Ana seemed a little uncomfortable as the girls tried to hide their grimaces.

"I'll let you settle in now, happy classes!" Ana left the building, leaving me with a trio of girls I was convinced wouldn't like me.

Arienna turned to the other girls, a look of upset shock on her face. "We’re stuck with Moren Keleth?"

Melody grimaced. "It would seem so. Training is going to be very interesting." I watched on as the three nodded in agreement

"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what the problem is, or what this 'brother floor training' stuff is about." The girls looked at me as if they had forgotten I was even there. Typical.

"Yeah, sorry. Hmm...how to explain the jerk that is Moren Keleth." Arienna furrowed her brows in an overdramatic show of thinking, her index finger tapping her chin.

Melody gave a small chuckle. "How about we do that while helping Fannara move in."

"You just don't want Ana to come in and hear us making fun of her son." Arienna raised an eyebrow at her friend’s attempt at avoiding a potential confrontation.

Mara jumped in. “I think Mel’s right. No need to talk about this right now.” She seemed uncomfortable with Melody and Arienna’s attitude towards this boy, and yet she hadn’t disagreed when Arienna had called him a jerk.

“Alright, let’s get you settled in.” Arienna glanced at my two carpet bags and the canvas one Ana had given me. “You want help with those? We live on the top floor.”

My eyes widened. “How many floors are there?”

“Seventeen.” Arienna looked at me, confused at my look of dread. She let the silent confusion hang in the air as the three stared at me. “There’s an elevator.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” The three looked at me, clearly shoving down giggles.

Alamara seemed to swallow a laugh as she asked, “Do you not have elevators on Alithos?” I shook my head at her.

We do not need seventeen stories; we aren’t huge on neck aches. I said none of my thoughts out loud, of course, and I mentally kicked myself. These girls had been nothing but kind, to my amazement, and it wasn’t fair to think such things. However, old habits die hard, and it would be a while until I fully stopped my cynicism.  

Melody took one of my travel bags. “I’m just going to carry this for you then.”

“You really don’t need-”

Arienna held up a hand, “Mrs. Keleth is infamous for her overpacking, that bag probably weighs a ton.” I lifted my arm experimentally. The white bag was rather heavy, and the straps looked about ready to snap off, but I had been so nervous, I hadn’t realized how heavy it was.

“I guess it does. Thanks,.” I tried to make my smile look genuine, but I was very out of practice. Melody nodded her head, her purple cloud above her head bouncing as she began leading us to the elevators.

Alamara began talking as soon as the doors closed, letting me know I was sharing a room with Arienna and that she and Melody were our suitemates, we would share a bathroom.

The sudden stop of the metal box we were standing in shocked me as a bell dinged and the door glided open. I hadn’t realized we had been moving. We walked out of the elevator into a brightly lit, circular hall. The faux leaves of the roof patterned the wooden floors in emerald light. The center of the large hall was a kind of balcony, looking down at the other floors. I noticed the bottom floor that I could see was not the lobby, most likely for privacy reasons. It was the level above it.

We walked around the decedent walls and doors without handles until we reached our suite. Two doors proclaimed who’s rooms they were. Arienna Harlen, Fannara Harpson were on a piece of elegant paper. The other door had Alamara Mullid, Melody Harfeld. It seemed that Arienna and Melody had met in something name-related, and I had been assigned because of my last name to be her roommate. No doubt they had been going to room with another friend and something interfered with that. I hoped I wasn’t what had interfered.

Melody put my bag down and reached into her pocket, pulling out the same kind of silver frame that Ana had used in the lobby. She stretched out the corners, much more carefully than Ana had, and swiped to a code of some sort. She passed it over a black square that was set where the handle should have been. A small click and the door swung open.

“Ana probably armed you with a telecom. It’s how we get textbooks, sign up for classes, and talk.” Melody waved her screen around as she listed off the many uses of a “telecom”. She shut the frame again, the screen disappearing as the corners closed. Arienna grabbed my carpet bag before Melody could and strode into our room, her blonde ponytail waving behind her at Melody’s look of fake annoyance. Arienna turned her head and gave her an innocent smile.

“What, Mel? I don’t get to help my roommate?”

Mara leaned over to me and explained whatthat Melody and Arienna where doing, “They are competing to see who you’ll become friends with first. They are competitively nice and it’s weird.” I looked at the two girls as they tried to out-shinenice each other. I had expected no one to know me from a bar of soap, but my roommates were aggressively trying to befriend me.and here were these three girls, all hoping to get along, be friends even, with me. I did not know what to do with the kindness they seemed to need to bestowed upon me. For the first time in years, I thought I had made friends, however long that would last.

Chapter 3

Fannara

I followed Arienna into her room–our room, and stared. The far wall was one giant window, looking out over a forest full of lakes and rivers, stretching out to brush the mountains. The mountain range stretched on for miles all around, their white peaks bleeding into the bluish grays of the mountains.

Arienna tossed my bag onto a loft bed pushed against a wall near the window. I looked at the room itself for the first time and was slightly surprised by the simplicity of it. It was a large room but was smaller than most rooms in the Academy in Lathinya.

Two doors on the left wall led to a closet and a shared bathroom. The wall to the right of the bathroom door had a small couch pushed against it, sitting on a fuzzy rug. The window met with the right wall against which my loft bed stood, a desk under the white frame. Arienna's bed, desk, and shelf sat near the corner where the wall with the main door and the wall with the closet and bathroom door collided.

Her area was covered in pillows and blankets of various shades of orange, making it look like someone had set it on fire. Pictures and string lights hung on the wall over her bed and desk, a stark contrast to my side. The bleached white of my mattress matched the blank walls over my bed. The area looked cold and nearly dead. The dull greens and browns of my carpet bag were the only color.

Arienna studied my corner, a frown on her face. "Is it safe to assume that those bags don't contain bedding?" I nodded. I was used to the pre-furnished apartments at the Academy, I did not know that bedding wouldn't be provided. Arienna furrowed her brows once more. "Mel, you and Mara are going shopping, right?"

Melody stuck her head in the bathroom door. "Yeah, need me to pick something up?"

"You bet. I'm all out of milk and Fannara here needs some bedding.”

Mara stuck her head into our room too, pushing Melody out of her way. “What color? Green, maybe? Like a very dark, foresty green, ooh, and those string lights that look like leaves would look so cool, and-”

“-Mara, let her speak.” Melody laughed at Alamara’s enthusiasm.

I felt a genuine smile trying to ease its way onto my face. For once, I didn’t fight it. “That would be great. I’m not very good at interior design, so I’ll let you handle that if you want.” Mara’s face lit up with a huge smile.

“You would let me? Really?” She started bouncing when I nodded, clearly forming a plan for how to fill up the barren space that was my area. A small chuckle escaped me, the first genuine laugh in...I don’t know how many years.

"Well then, I guess we'll be heading off." Melody smiled at me, "I'd offer to bring you along, but you probably want to rest after traveling. We should go out some other time before school starts, get you accustomed to Elquar and everything."

Melody turned, closing the door after Mara bounced out of the way, leaving me and Arienna to unpack the few belongings that had been stuffed into my bags. We worked in silence, Arienna occasionally sighing and glancing at me. She seemed to be trying to come up with something to talk about, the slightly uncomfortable silence making her squirm.

"So," I started, keeping my eyes on the shirt in my hands, "I believe there was a certain person you were going to tell me about?" At the time, I couldn't remember Moren's name. It wasn't the best conversation starter, but my mind had gone blank.

Arienna drew in a long breath. "I really hope Ana was wrong about him being in our group, cause he has to be the most pigheaded person I've ever met." She glanced at me as if asking for permission to rant. I nodded my head slightly. Clearly, Arienna wasn't able to rant around Mara and needed to release.

“Ugh, things are just confusing and complicated and I can’t stand him anymore, I just-” She made a strangled screaming noise. “So we grew up together, right? His parents are in government, my dad was, a happy little bubble of children. Well, something happened to a mutual friend of ours years and years ago and he totally shut me out. I didn’t see him again until last year.” She glared at the bag next to her crossed legs.

“When I saw him again last year, I was really excited, but also, meeting with old friends is always awkward. Now, he refused to acknowledge my existence for the first weeks, but my stupid brain figured that maybe he was nice again or something dumb like that. So, second semester, we have a class together. And I’m like, great, now we can catch up.” A wry chuckle interrupted her story.

“Let me tell you, that was the worst mistake all year. Moren Keleth is just so...irritating. He was rude every time I tried to talk to him, telling me there were plenty of other people to annoy on campus, literally, he said that. So you know what I did the next day? I ignored him, pretended he wasn’t there. And we haven’t acknowledged each other’s existence since.”

I stared at her, trying to put the story together. “So I take it you don’t like him anymore?”

She snorted. “I don’t think it’s possible to like Moren after you get to know him.”

“He sounds awful.” I pushed myself off the floor, grabbing a stack of clothes and stuffing them into a drawer.

Arienna squished my bags into smaller shapes and shoved them into the closet. “He is. Let’s hope he isn’t in our group.” As I was about to respond, something out the window caught my eye. Some kinds of birds seemed to be fighting in the distance.

“What kind of bird is that?” I pointed at the airborne creatures out the window.

Ari ran over to the window. “Oh, stink.” She put her palms flat on the window, pulling them apart and making the image zoom in like a magnifying glass had been placed in front of it. The enlarged view of the fight revealed not birds, but dragons. I gasped at the enormity of the winged reptiles. One was a matte black color, the scales seeming to drink in all the surrounding sunlight. The second one was a vibrant red, glimmering like a ruby. They had to be hundreds of miles away.

As we watched, the black dragon dug its claws into the red one’s right shoulder, tearing off the scales. The red one seemed to shrink as it fell from the sky. The black flew away, victorious.

I turned to Arienna. “Was that a dragon battle?” She was frowning at the open sky the red dragon had fallen from.

“That was a Shifter battle.”

“What’s a Shifter?” The name sounded familiar.

She sighed, her shoulders drooping. “Shape Shifter. They have three forms, fully human, fully animal, and a strange in-between. They,” she paused. “Some of them have been doing ‘raiding parties’.”

“What do they steal?”

“People.”

I stared at Arienna as she fidgeted with the hem of her tank top. “They kidnap people? Why?” She shrugged.

“No one knows. Some people are returned, but they are different somehow.” She looked out the window as if she could will the fallen Shifter into the air again. “The leader of the dragons, the Deraal, is behind all of this, at least that’s what I think. Deraal Jana was appointed as leader fifteen years ago, and the second year into her leading them, something went wrong.

“Other races of Shifters went missing. No one has seen a bird Shifter in a decade. There have been occasional sightings, of course, but they have been strange, not like the Shifters used to be. The centaurs reached out to the Paladine government, my father, specifically, because he was a Shifter diplomat. They were seeking asylum. They were denied. We don’t know what happened to them, if they were slaughtered by Jana or if she had a crueler fate for them, we don’t know.

“Now we are on the brink of war. Every year more and more Eldran citizens go missing, and lately, they haven’t been returned.” She leaned against the window, a faraway look in her eyes.

“Why haven’t I heard about this?”

She scoffed. “The most advanced country in the known universe doesn’t want to promote they are on the brink of war. Many cultures see peace as the foremost achievement anyone could accomplish. Our government doesn’t want bad publicity.”

I thought about this for a bit, and with a gasp, remembered where I had heard the term “Shifter” before. Via.

“Are you ok?” Arienna turned to me, looking rather concerned. I furrowed my brows.

“I’m fine, but I think I’ve met a bird Shifter before. She was an eagle Shifter, at least she looked like an eagle, maybe it was a different kind of bird.”

Ari straightened, now eyeing me with suspicion. “What color was her hair?”

I stared at her, very confused. “It was a light blonde, almost white.” I paused once more. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just that…” She stopped again, leaving me exceedingly confused. She took another deep breath. “Well, like I said before, whenever people have said they’ve seen bird Shifters it’s been weird. They have all had black hair. And the next logical thing to think is, ‘oh, maybe only the crows have been seen’ or something along those lines,” I nodded, that was exactly what I had been thinking. “But here’s the thing, their wing shapes are wrong. They should be other colors, but they aren’t. They all have black feathers, and they shouldn’t. So the fact that you have not only seen but met a normally colored Shifter is great news.”

I thought about how I had met Via. It was one of those wrong place, wrong time instances. I had been teleported to a different planet, somehow, and she was there. Her tiny frame somehow supported giant wings, nearly three times my height. Yet, she had run so quickly, shifting between her fully bird form and half form with ease.

“I think she told me she had left her homeworld looking for someone. Do you think this Jana person could have taken someone she knew?”

Arienna thought about it for a minute. “I doubt that would be who she’s looking for, I’ve never heard of Jana sending people off-world.” She looked like she was about to say something else, but stopped. She shook her head slightly, as if to clear it, and pushed wispy strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail away from her face. “I’m so sorry, this is your first day here and all I’ve told you about are the problems. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

The rather abrupt change in conversion puzzled me slightly, but it was understandable. "No, no, I'm fine. Thank you for telling me though. I would rather know the ugly truth than live here in comfortable cluelessness." The old Alithosi proverb came out automatically, the saying had been drilled into me for years, being the first response when a student asked why they should study.

Ari shrugged, "I'm glad I could help."

☙❦❧

The rest of the afternoon was quiet. I had just finished unpacking when Mara and Melody returned, Melody, seeming tired from shopping and Mara practically bouncing as she clutched her excessive amount of shopping bags. Mara threw her numerous bags on her bed and ran into our room, grabbing Arienna by the arm.

“Ariiiiiiiiiiiii, you and Fannara have to go shopping with me tomorowwwwwwwwwwww.” She drew out each word as if it were burdensome to speak.

Ari merely raised an eyebrow, not even trying to free her arm. “And why should we?”

Alamara dramatically took a deep breath before releasing a torrent of words. “Mel said she doesn’t wanna go with me and I need to buy more clothes and Fannara should get more clothes and you are the best at that kind of thing. W and we could get ice puffssssssssssssssssssss!.” She once again whined out the last word, pleading with her friend. Arienna turned to me, the eyebrow still raised.

I shrugged. “As long as it doesn’t last all day.” Mara squealed, squeezing Ari into a hug that made her eyes bulge.

☙❦❧

The trip did take all day, but the ice puffs made it all worth it. I didn’t even know how to describe what I thought when I tried it, aside from heavenly. However, the situation I found myself in was not anywhere close to the level of pure joy the food had induced. I had found out while shopping that an annual ball was held for the beginning of school; that was why Mara insisted on shopping.

Partway through our shopping spree, Mara had to “go check on Mel”. I returned to a fully decorated dorm and two rather sweaty suitemates.

The casual comfort of shorts and t-shirts was a luxury I had never imagined, and being in a skirt again was something I had hoped could have been left with my Alithosi clothes in the back of our now crowded closet, but alas, the ball was set.

It hadn’t seemed all bad at first. The building it was held in was ridiculous though, five stories of just the ballroom, complete with mini waterfalls, forests of glass, and, I kid you not, spiral escalators. They looked like glass, but considering all the advanced, magical technology, I knew that they could be something else.Made entirely of glass, of course, at least, what looked like glass.

I sighed as I looked over the gilded room from the third-floor balcony. "This place is ridiculous."

"Tell me about it." A voice from behind scoffed. Startled, I turned and nearly had to catch myself on the railing. A boy about my age was standing behind me, his dark blue eyes resting in what seemed to be a permanent glare. Tufts of reddish-brown hair fell over his light-skinned fac{color} face haphazardly. I was certain I had seen him before as the strange feeling of de ja vú returned once more, accompanied by a strong wave of dizziness. What is the deal with this place?

"You're not from here, are you?" I nearly jumped as he walked over to the rail, clearly keeping his distance, and seemingly annoyed at my discomfort.

Trying to pull my thoughts together, I shook my head. "I transferred." That wasn't necessarily the whole truth, but I was rather preoccupied and didn't feel like explaining being from Alithos to someone who seemed so...stuck up.

"Well then," I internally groaned as he kept talking. I couldn't even tell why he was talking to me. He clearly didn't enjoy it. "You probably shouldn't get too comfortable. I can guarantee that this school is much more challenging than wherever you came from." He glanced over at me, doing his best to look down when we were practically the same height. "If you don't believe me, wait a month. All the exchange students will be sent back where they belong."

"Excuse you?" I glared back at him now, trying to keep myself from punching something, preferably him, as my face warmed. "Why would the exchange students leave when you are still here?"

He rolled his eyes. "Their primitive teaching can't prepare them for our university. They don't stand a chance." That's when it clicked. The eyes were the first clue, the hair the second. He looked like a darker shade of his mother. The rude attitude was the real giveaway. Arienna had been right; Moren Keleth was irritating.

I looked at him, completely unimpressed. "Our 'primitive teaching' is what your country is sending people to learn. It would seem you weren't smart enough to be picked to go, or maybe they didn't want you to start a war." I shrugged. "You would have fit in well with the jerks at the Lathinyan academy. Shame that you're still here."

It was his turn to get upset this time, but before he could start, Arienna came over, standing next to me and glaring darkly at Moren.

"Not to stoop to your level or anything, but do you always have to be this rude?" He glared right back at her as she took my arm and led me away.

"You were right, no one in their right mind would like him."

She nearly growled. "One of these days he's going to get what's coming to him and I fully intend to see it."

Chapter 4

Fannara

“Tell us something about yourself.” I internally called curses on the wrinkled professor as he made me stand before the huge class for longer. It felt like show and tell, but I was the item.

I wracked my brain for something-anything that was remotely interesting and not already known. Stupid responses fluttered through my mind, refusing to be dismissed. Someone at the back of the room snickered. Moren. He had made it his goal to be a jerk in every class we had together, and the History of Eldran Magic was no exception.

I glared in his general direction and straightened my spine, turning to face most of the class. “I competed in climbing in the international games on Alithos and got first place when I was sixteen.” I spat the age out with more force than was needed, aiming the information at the jerk in the back.

The class went silent for a beat. Every face staring at me had the same expression; shock.

“Yeah, Fannara!” Ari yelled from the far corner. Her cry was met with applause. Applause for me. For some reason, it felt strange. I had been applauded before, I had won that competition and many others, but this time, it felt genuine. The usual scorn at my achievement came from only one person, not the whole crowd.

I bit back a grin as the teacher released me to my seat next to Arienna.

“That's literally so cool. What kind of climbing was it?” She whispered the words under the buzz of the other students, but loud enough to be heard. And not just by me.

“Probably primitive tree climbing. Alithiosians are proud of their place in time, aren't they?”

Arienna whipped around, her ponytail nearly swatting me in the face. “Would you shut up?” She glared at Moren fiercely enough to make him lean back and roll his eyes. Why he had been assigned a seat next to mine in nearly every class was beyond me, but I knew it made us both miserable.

She turned back to me, awaiting a response. Unfortunately, Moren had been right. The climbing of the oldest tree on Alithos was an ancient ritual, performed as the opening game. Whether he had said that as a lucky guess or had done his homework, I didn't know. I did know that I wasn't going to admit to him being correct in front of him.

Thankfully, Dr. Kortsus began his lecture, informing us that even if it was a required class, he would be no less strict. I wiggled the pencil in my hand as he went on, wishing he would stop droning on about not accepting late homework and start teaching already. I was the only person in the whole class who had a notebook instead of a telecom on my desk. The devices were useful, sure, but the blinding blue light that relentlessly emanated from the silver frame induced headaches and migraines for me.

“Now, onto the material.” I positioned the pencil above the paper, more than ready to show the snooty-faced jerk behind me just how “primitive” I was. “Back in the days of the first Geterrian Queen, a strange anomaly occurred. As most of you should know, the formerly known as ‘vortex users’ lost their magic when the Empire of the Destroyed fell.” Someone in the front made a pun about the empire being destroyed, to which the teacher only deadpanned a response.

“If Miss Aelynn is done punishing us with her bad jokes, we'll move on with our recap." The class laughed politely at the professor's pun, the awkward kind of chuckle between a groan and a cough that was often used in response to things that were more cringy than funny. "The former vortex users gained magic that would later separate them from the Geterrian people and they would become the Eldran.” He gestured at us students, indicating the majority of them were Eldran.

“Time for a little trivia. What are the three main powers of the Eldran race?” At least twenty arms shot up into the air simultaneously, hands and fingers wiggling, hoping to catch the professor’s eye. He pointed to a boy near the middle of the room.

All the arms lowered as he spoke up. “Healing, light bending, and fields-I mean- force fields.”

Dr. Kortsus smiled at the boy. “Well done Mr. Kasivar. Next question: what is the Eldra and the Eldramin?” Dozens of hands flew up once more. He pointed at Arienna. “Miss Harlen, please keep it simple, we’ll be going into the different theories of the Eldra in another class.”

She nodded. “The Eldra is the source of all Eldran magic, and the Eldramin is the guardian of the Eldra.”

He nodded. “And who was the last Eldramin, and when did they live?”

Ari thought about it for a moment. “The last Eldramin was Altum Riddor. He was a fields manipulator, and lived one hundred and forty-nine years ago.”

The professor clapped for her. “Very well done, Miss Harlen, I am impressed. Moving on, after the Eldran separated from the Getterians, they colonized Lathra II, III, and IV after learning how to create portals. Lathra II is the smaller moon of Lathra IV and Lathra III is the second moon. Lathra I orbits Lathra IV, seeing as it's so small. What does this mean for our Getterian guests?" He gestured at Arienna again, but not so she could answer, so she could be an example for him.

A hand was picked. "Getterian's magic is strongest when Lathra I is closest because that's when they are closest to their Tribal Stones. That's why the Stone Tribe only fixes buildings every few months."

He nodded at the student. "Now, you have refreshed, or learned, the basic material of this quad. There will be time for discussion about different Eldra theories, and we will be taking a trip to the Burning Waters to further investigate that theory." A few whoops went up from the class. "We will also conduct further studies on different types of magic and the ancient art of creating portals. Questions?" Dozens of hands shot up once more.

☙❦❧

The morning seemed to speed by, with only a few classes feeling drawn out by a certain jerk who was in two classes too many. Ari looped her arm through mine, leading me...somewhere. I had explored the campus more, only to discover it was ridiculously huge and nearly impossible to navigate. I knew how to get from the tall office building thing, not so affectionately called the {semi rude nickname that could still be used affectionately}, to my dorm, West Eucalyptus.

W.E. was the third tree in from the gate leading to {nicknamed thingy}, standing proud in between the other girls' dorms and the bookstore/library. I loved the library. It had the same interior as our dorm, but, somehow, was more ornate. I had gasped at the dark wooden staircases with gold railings in vine designs attaching the handle to the base. The floors were three dorm stories tall, covered in books, painting, and well-lit reading nooks.

Arienna practically had to drag me out of there, insisting we had more places to see, and that I would have plenty of hours to study in the warm slice of home. I hadn’t expected to be homesick; I had hated living on Alithos, but maybe I had just told myself that so I wouldn’t miss it. Whether or not it was purposeful, it didn’t work. I didn’t miss the people there, not by a long shot, but the actual place, the trees, the smells, the buildings, I missed those. I missed the obnoxiously heavy books we had to haul around, the dozens of notebooks and journals and loose papers flying around in your room when it was windy, not some tiny silver square. Everything that seemed better about Elquar was everything I missed about Talidine.

Either way, Ari was dragging me through {nickname} with no explanation of where or why she was taking me. We were on the eighth floor, so it was no surprise that she led me to an elevator. What was surprising was that once we were in it, she pressed the button labeled "R" which was positioned on the row of numbers in a way that indicated it was one of the top floors. I had yet to go to the top floor that was apparently three floors without the dividers.

I didn't even know we were moving until we stopped. The doors glided open, revealing a cafeteria of sorts. Colorful signs boasting sandwiches, coffee, and ice puffs sat scattered throughout the large room, divided by chairs and couches. It was half the size of a normal floor, and the other half was the roof turned tropical garden, complete with waterfalls.

“Welcome to the Orchard.” Arienna threw out her arms in a flourish, presenting the area with contagious excitement. “The food here isn’t nearly as good as the food downtown, but it's much cheaper and much closer, obviously. But, the best part, it has the best view of the campus." She gesticulated at the windows this time, bringing my eyes to the expansive land laid out before me. {description of the campus that I’ll write later cuz I’m freaking tired of this scene}

☙❦❧

The rest of the day passed smoothly, classes starting up with much-needed summaries and too many unknown faces to count. The end of the day was when things becamegot interesting again.

All of my classes were in the {nickname}, but the last class only listed as a vague “training” was on the very top floor of the building. It turned out to be the height of three stories, with nooks, walkways, and random walls. It was one giant training arena. The only complete room was a large armory, full of high-tech weapons and more rustic-looking ones. Bows and spears sat next to handguns and strange handle-like pieces of metal. Shields made of different colors of diamond stood stacked together, leaning on each other and the wall for support.

The training area itself was full of ropes and chains attached to the ceiling. Obstacles had been set out in the huge space, pitch-black against the blinding sun beaming through the glass walls. Normally, this would have confused me, but that last few nights had shown me how the windows could go from seeming to not be there, to not letting a sliver of light through.

A voice boomed over hidden speakers, making me jump as I looked around the room. “All students go to your assigned group and await further instruction from your Trainer.” I started searching the area, now on the lookout for my roommates. At least, I was pretty sure that’s who my “assigned group” was made of.

I found Ari and Mara sitting near one of the hanging chains. I looked around.

“Where’s Mel?”

Mara’s brows quirked in confusion. “We thought she was with you.” We began our search once more. How hard was it to find a 6’5 girl with violet hair? Her bouncy head of hair was finally spotted and hunted down.

“Good Source Mel, where were you?” Arienna smacked Melody playfully.

She shrugged. “The view is very distracting.”

Mara was about to make a comment, but was cut off by the speakers again.

“For new students, let us explain what is going on. When you were accepted to this university, you were automatically enlisted in the Eldran army. You are free to  leave, but only after training, and you will be required to have check-ups every three months should you stay in the country. If you chose to stay or not, you must not tell a soul outside of this university what is happening. If the Deraal learns we are preparing for war, her attacks will surely worsen.” So that was what this was all about. War. The Eldrans needed students to fight for them. The logical thing to do would have been to distance myself from this world’s politics as much as possible, but after hearing everything the Shifters had done, I felt a strange loyalty to these people. If I could help them, I would.

“Your groups should be comprised of one force manipulator,” Mel raised her hand with all the other manipulators in the room. “One light bender,” Mara lifted her arm into the air. “And one healer,” my elbow straightened uncertainty until my long arm shot up like a flag from our group. “Your squadron’s trainer will come and assign your sibling group. Raise your hand when your room is called.” The speaker went through all the rooms on 17 W.E. until reaching our room. We all raised our hands when it was called.

A tall woman walked over to us, her uniform seeming to mean she was a manipulator. She pulled out a telecom, pulling apart the frame until it was the size and shape of a clipboard.

"I'm Valraea, I'm going to say your names and tell you your assigned guy." She said it playfully, making a joke out of how uncomfortable it sounded. "Alamara Mullid, Bryce Anderson. Melody Harfeld, Raymond Kasivar. Arienna Harlen, Lindin Garth. Fannara Harpson," She paused, her eyes actually widening. "Your partner is Moren Keleth."

Chapter 5

Fannara

The smile I had been struggling to maintain disintegrated as Valraea said his name. I had already been uncomfortable being around so many people I didn't know, but now they were all staring at me. Mara stiffened as Mel groaned.

Ari let out a long breath. “Of course, of course, the one person we wanted to avoid is on our squad.” She yanked two ends of her ponytail apart, sending the hair tie shooting to her scalp and tightening its hold.

“This won’t be a problem, right?” Valraea looked slightly concerned, but seemingly more about the hassle of reassigning people than out of sympathy.

I sighed. “We can handle his royal haughtiness.” She nodded and walked off to deliver the news to our brother team.

“Maybe it will get better as time goes on?” Mara ventured. Mel was the first to reply, surprising us all with her comment.

“Mara, it’s Bryce.” She paused, her expression changing from one of exasperation into a sly grin. “I’m sure Ari and Lindin will have a good time even if Fannara and Mara don't.” Arienna glared at her, smacking her arm, but her cheeks betrayed the truth of Mel’s statement.

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I haven’t heard about this.”

“You see, last year aft-,” Melody’s story was cut off as Ari slapped her hand over the betrayer’s mouth.

          Ari started again. "The point is that you two," she glared down at Mara and then up at me. "Better start some strategizing. The next three years are going to be awful if those guys stay as they are."

          "Ok, I do have a question, though. What's wrong with Bryce?" Mara just pointed to where a rather short blonde boy was flexing in front of a group of girls who were rolling their eyes or practically drooling.

          "That's the problem with Bryce," Mel said once Ari released her.

"Ah, makes sense."

“Look at them.” Mara pointed at a growing cluster of people heading towards the instructors in the room. As each had a brief conversation with an instructor, they opened their telecoms and scanned something off the other com. They then filled out whatever it was and had the instructors scan it. “They didn’t have forms last year. It was just strongly implied that no one talked about a chance of a Shifter attack leading to war. Anything relating to it was just taboo.”

I squinted at the screens, wishing I could tell what the little black dots against the glowing white screen said. “What do you think they have to fill out?”

Ari crossed her arms. “Probably their personal information, giving consent to get fingerprinted, acknowledging that if they spill the beans, the school and government have the authority to lock them up until the end of the war.” I was horrified.

“They can do that?”

Mara shifted uncomfortably. “Well yeah, if word got out that the Eldran are training for a potential war, it could be the excuse the Deraal needs to officially declare one.”

“Then why didn’t they have them last year?”

“Last year we had ‘fitness’, they passed off boot camp as a gym class.” Arienna chuckled at the cover-up. “And it didn’t matter, because no one thought Jana would ever find out. But then earlier this year….” She trailed off like she was regretting saying anything.

Great, another important event that was covered up. How is this country still running?

“Oh look, Valraea’s back.” Mara’s cheery voice pulled me from my thoughts. And company, I muttered under my breath.

“Girls,” Valraea gestured from us to the boys she had in tow. “This is your brother team. When I say your name, state the proper name of your power, and go to your partner, we have squad training after this.” Barely stifled groans sounded from everyone in our squadron. “I know it’s not fun, but if you didn’t want to do this, you should have gone to the front. Now, moving on, Raymond Kasivar,”

“Healing.”

“Melody Harfeld,”

“Force field manipulation.”

“Moren Keleth,”

“Light bending.”

“Fannara Harpson,”

“Healing.”

“Bryce Anderson,”

“Light bending.”

Valraea paused. “Two light benders on one team?”

“Yes ma’am, Moren’s bad at his job.” The boys snickered at the joke, and Moren rolled his eyes in a friendly manner.

“Well, I suppose there’s nothing we can do about that now. Alamara Mulid,”

“Light bending.” Mara’s face contorted as she tried to hold in a laugh at Valraea’s irked look.

“Not only do you have three light benders in your squad, but two of you are also paired up?” She put a finger on either side of her forehead and groaned something about new administration. “Lindin Garth?”

“Light ben-” Valraea smacked him with her telecom.

“I know that’s a lie, you little jerk. What would your mother say?” She pretended to be upset until Lindin started laughing. His brown eyes practically disappeared when he smiled.

“Alright, alright, it’s Force field manipulation.”

“Much better. Arienna Harlen?”

“Getterian metal bender.”

Valraea smiled at Arienna. “It’s nice to know that not all the Getterians went back to the Homeworld.” Ari just nodded.

Now that we were all lined up awkwardly, we started doing various exercises to assess our ability. We did nothing with our powers, everything was purely physical.

Melody was the fastest of us girls, but I was close behind her, just a few seconds slower. Mara was the strongest, easily beating us all. I was excited when we got to test climbing and swiftly climbed the rock wall before any of my roommates were even halfway up. Poor Mel was shaking by the time she climbed back down. Even with her extreme height, she was terrified of them. Ari blew everyone away in the flexibility assessment, nearly folding in half before Valraea freaked out and told her to stop. She also had the best balance.

As Training continued, I noticed something weird. Moren would talk to Mara and Mel, even make some jokes, but he wouldn’t even look at me or Ari. Not that we minded, but it got rather irritating, especially when Ari started talking with Lindin. I wasn’t mad that she was having a good time with him, part of me just wished that I had someone to talk to as well.

By the end of Training, we were all sweaty and tired. We had literally been stretched to our limits and had probably each pulled something.

Valraea studied the telecom she had recorded our times in. “You all did well, some more than others, but you all have room for growth.” I cringed. I knew I was one of those who hadn’t done “better than others.” I was from Alithos and it showed. “I’m going to ask that you all start one-on-one training with your partners starting next week. I think you can all learn from each other and you need to trust each other to be an effective squad.” She studied us all. “Alright, that’s all. You’re dismissed.”

As we walked out of the huge room, we had to fill out a document likely similar to the one those who dropped out of Training filled out.

Full Name:

Age and Date of Birth:

Height:

Power:

The list went on. At the end of the form was a block of text. By filling out this form and signing at the bottom of this page, you agree to keep up with your Training and classes. In the likely situation that a war start, you agree to serve the army. You agree that you will be able to work with your squadron for the rest of the school year, and possibly the next three years. If you tell anyone outside of students and faculty of Elquar University about Training, you are susceptible to be tried for espionage and/or incarcerated.

While the idea of being put in jail for telling someone about Training seemed a little extreme, it didn’t affect me; I didn’t have anyone to tell. I filled out the form and signed it at the bottom. I had naturally signed my name in Lathyian, and I wondered if I would have to learn how to do it in Lathran. For now, it didn’t matter.

I handed the com to one of the Trainers at the door. He scanned it and let me leave the arena.

I waited outside the two double doors as my roommates filled out their forms. Mel finished first and joined me. We stared out the windows in almost awkward silence. I hadn’t been around Melody as much as I had Mara and Ari. I tried to think of something to say, but my stupid brain blanked and I couldn’t think of a single question I didn’t already know the answer to. I came up with one and lost it just as quickly. By the time I remembered, Ari and Mara came out.  

Arienna groaned and stretched her arms above her head. “That was obnoxiously hard.”

Mara let out a slightly crazed laugh. “It really was, why do they think we need to be flexible to be fit? I just,” she paused with a strange look on her face. “Why?” Mel chuckled.

“Just think of it as a placement test, they just need to know what people are good at and build on that.”

“Valraea seems to think we need to be good at everything.” Arienna’s back cracked loudly and she sighed contentedly. “I mean, I get it, we aren’t that great at some things, and we still need to do Training, but one-on-one training with our partners? In addition to normal training? We’re going to pull things we don’t even know we have yet.”

I shrugged. “I think she maybe wants us to do it to get to know our partners, not necessarily to actually show any improvements. At least for you guys. You guys did really well. I definitely am one of those with ‘room for growth.’”

Ari looked rather unimpressed. “Just because you don’t have Eldran training doesn’t mean you’re bad at it. We all have room for growth, and we just have a leg up. Anyway,” she bumped my shoulder with hers, “you beat all of us by a landslide in climbing.” I gave her an awkward smile.

“You’re a lot better than you’re giving yourself credit for.” Mara nodded at Mel’s statement.

“You’re really good, and I’m really hungry, so if we could maybe move this conversation to the dining hall, my stomach would be much obliged.” Mara pushed us towards the elevator, all of us laughing the whole time.

Chapter 6

Fannara

The rest of the week passed in a blur of activity. I went from class to class, learning and getting used to the different styles of teaching each professor had. I quickly determined that my mandatory magic class and healing forum were my favorite classes. The Lathran healing methods worked much better than the Alithosian ones, and I was advancing quickly. More quickly than anyone had thought I would.

I mostly kept to myself in my classes where I didn’t know the other people in them. Thankfully, I had at least one of my friends in most of my classes, but I was the only healer for our group, which left me alone. I had worried about the healing class. It was mandatory that I take the sophomore class even though I hadn’t been able to take the freshman one, because I needed to be at the same level as my peers for Training; but I had caught on to the class.

One of the most useful methods we learned the first week was how to heal without touching the wound. It wasn’t too hard, you just had to concentrate and it would eventually come without thinking about it.

The magic class had gone rather the same. We had just gotten the overview of Lathran magic and were getting ready to dive into the different conspiracy theories about the Eldra.

The weekend had mostly been homework and buying more notebooks. Ari still thought it was weird that I wanted to use paper to take notes, but she always went with me to buy more.

I awoke Monday morning with a feeling of dread resting in my stomach. Today was the day we would have to start extended Training with our partners, and I was not looking forward to it. All my interactions with Moren had been less than friendly, and he still tried to avoid interacting with me. Aside from the few snide remarks on the first day, he hadn’t said anything to me.

I heaved out of bed and started getting ready for the day. Arienna was still sleeping. She was practiced in the art of being ready for class in under five minutes after waking up and used the gift often. I got dressed and left the room to get something to eat from the dining hall before class.

The morning sped away from me with irritating speed as I began to get nervous about extended training. My leg kept jittering in my afternoon classes as the clocks clicked away and the sun began lowering into its bed.

Once my last class let out, I sped towarded walked to my dorm to get ready for Training. They had given us a unique uniform of sorts for Training. B, breathable black fabric with a colored emblem of what our power was on the sleeve that ran three-quarters down myyour arm. The pants were made of a stretchy fabric. The mark for healers was an outline of a circle, but with only four curves in a bright green that didn’t connect. A stripe in the same green ran up the other sleeve. Stealth was by no means the goal.

 Ari came in as I was brushing out my hair to re-braid it.

“Whoa, why don’t you ever wear your hair down?”

I looked at her, confused. “Why would I?”

“Are you kidding? It’s so pretty!” I looked at the black waves that brushed my waist doubtfully.

“It’s also really long.”

“That’s pretty!”

“That’s a choking hazard.”

“What’s a choking hazard?” Mara walked into the shared bathroom with a puzzled look on her face.

Arienna crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Fannara says her hair is a choking hazard, but I think it’s gorgeous.”

“Well, duh, it’s Fannara.” Mara laughed.

“Being a choking hazard or the other one?” I was getting lost.

“No, we think you’re a choking hazard,.” Ari’s voice dripped with sarcasm,. “No, you dumb dumb! Of course it’s the second one!”

Mara burst out laughing. “But for real, you’re really pretty, Fannara. Not at all like a choking hazard,.” She giggled again and went back into her room. I just stared at the sink, trying to figure out what in the world they were going on about. No one had ever called me pretty, much less gorgeous, and I had no clue how to take the compliment. I certainly didn’t feel pretty.

I brushed it off as them just being nice and finished braiding my hair. Ari had changed into her uniform and was twisting her hair into a tight bun. Her sleeve had a sliver emblem of three narrow triangles touching at the tip.    

I waited in the hallway with Ari as we waited for Mara to come out. Mel had class right up to Training and couldn’t make it to the room in time, so she just used the bathrooms near the arena.

Mara came out of her room, bouncing happily. Her emblem was an elongated, golden rhombus. Her curly brown ponytail was waving around the hair tie as she practically skipped to the elevator with us.

“So, we start extended training today.” Mara’s bouncing slowed as Ari brought up the subject. “How are you two feeling?”

Mara huffed. “I really don’t think it’s going to be as bad as you seem to think. Sure, Bryce is a bit of a jock and Moren is a little...rude sometimes, but that doesn’t mean they can’t change.” She looked over at Arienna and saw her unconvinced expression. “Change for the better, Ari.”

She shrugged. “I’m not the one who has to deal with him.” She looked over at me. “Good luck.” The doors slid open, and we strode out.

The air outside still clung to summer; it would for a few more weeks, then autumn would come in its golden glory. I loved the fall. It was a season of changes, preparation for growth while still being familiar.

We sped through campus in an undeclared race. None of us ever broke into a full run, but there was plenty of speed walking to the Elquar Training Tower{nickname for the building that I just spent a good 7 min trying to find the name of only to realize that I DIDN’T NAME IT smh} We squeezed into the elevator with some displeased upperclassmen on their way to class.

“At least we aren’t sweaty yet,” Mara giggled as the doors closed and the other students exited. Ari and I joined her in the giggling as more upperclassmen joined us on the next floor with similar expressions. They were deposited on their respective floors, and we finally reached our destination.  

The arena was already filling with people when we arrived, but our brother team wasn’t there yet. Neither was Mel, but that made sense, since she had her class and all.

Ari drilled us through our now routine pre-Training stretches. Loud popping was heard from all of our joints, followed by either gasps of disgust or sighs of relief. Ari slid into the splits without batting an eye. Mara and I tried to follow suit but ended up falling on our rears. A loud crackling sound came from Mara’s hip.

“Ooh, Mara, was that you?” Ari’s face wrinkled into a sympathetic grimace.

Mara sprawled out on the floor, giving a pained chuckle as she lay there. “Yep. You know, I thought that after a whole week of doing this every day I would be more flexible by now.” She sat up with a grunt. “I guess my body just isn’t built that way.” She shrugged and crossed her legs.

“And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.” Ari raised her eyebrows at Mara, waiting for a response. “Right?”

“Sure.” Arienna looked unimpressed with the listless response, but didn’t have time to continue the conversation. Melody walked in right as Ari was about to say something. Mel’s insignia was a very simple purple sphere.

She joined in on our stretches, being slightly more flexible than me and Mara.

“So, Mel, how are you feeling about extended Training?” Ari’s back cracked as she bent backward.

Mel shrugged. “Eh, Raymond is shy and pretty quiet; it shouldn’t be very eventful.” She straightened and raised an eyebrow at Arienna. “How are you feeling? Still haven’t had that follow-up conversation with Lindin, right?” Ari sucked in a quick breath and her face reddened.

“No,” she mumbled. Ari being awkward was one of the strangest things. My normally confident and self-assured friend immediately quieted when her training partner came up in conversation. I had yet to receive an explanation.

As if on cue, our brother team came over. Mara sighed with relief since the arrival of the boys meant stretching was over. By an unannounced routine, we all fell into our normal positions; Bryce was doing something stupid and Moren was laughing at him, Lindin was talking with Ari and Mel, with Raymond standing close by and avoiding eye contact. Mara would go between the two groups and me depending on the day. I still didn’t fit in well with my group, but also wasn’t willing to try to talk to people.

Mara chose me and stood by my side as we waited for Training to begin. She brought a strange feeling of being safe wherever she went, making even the most uncomfortable situations bearable. This being an uncomfortable situation, I was extra grateful for the company.

“So, are you ready for stuff to get intense?” Mara nudged me playfully, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Hmm,” I shrugged. “Depends what’s going to get intense next.”

Mara blinked. “Oh, I guess that’s fair. Let’s narrow down the question then, are you ready for Training to get intense?”

“Will it be any different than normal today? Aside from extended Training?”

She nodded. “Yep. They have the weapons out today.” I looked to the middle of the arena, and sure enough, organized racks of weaponry were arranged there.

“Oh. Are Eldran weapons reliant on magic or technology?”

“A mix of both, you’ll probably get to chose what kind of weapon you’ll use.”

I frowned. “Are there times when you can’t?”

“Yeah, healers with gold magic aren’t allowed to learn a weapon because they’re expected to only heal.”

“Why only healers with gold magic?”

“It’s stronger than green.” She glanced at my hands. “For Eldran at least, I’m not sure about Alithosians.”

I nodded. “That makes sense.” I looked over my shoulder as I heard approaching footsteps. “Here comes Valraea.”

Mara smiled up at me. “Good luck.”

“You too.” I gave a small smile and turned to Valraea to begin.

Chapter 7

Fannara

Training started as it always did. Several laps around the arena, push-ups, burpees, and leg lifts. The week before, we had been doing slightly random activities for most Training. One day was rock climbing, the next sprinting, and the next jumping over hurdles. Weapons were a completely new subject.

We gathered around the assortment of weapons and were given permission to select a few at a time and try them out. They had branded the structures holding the weapons with different symbols, similar to those on the uniforms.

The archery sets were the first things to catch my eye, but the light and force field brand changed my mind. I doubted arrows would be very effective in any matter if I could use my magic through it. Mara snatched a bow and quiver and continued her search. I looked around in growing nervousness. What if I couldn’t find something that worked for me? How different would things be because of being Alithosian?

Ari walked over to where I was standing. “Can’t find anything?” I shook my head. She bit her lip and looked around. “Well, I already have everything I want, so you can either just grab the same things as me or we can find other stuff. What do you wanna do?”

“Um,” I felt ridiculous. “I think that just seeing what you have would work best.”

“Cool.” She led me first to a rack of swords. I stared at the absurd range of them. Why in the world would a technologically advanced society still use swords? Then I realized Arienna was a metal bender. She didn’t need to be anywhere close to the swords to use them.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to use those ones as well as you.”

“Oh. You’re right.” She looked at what else was around. “You know how to use a gun?”

My eyes widened and I shook my head. Owning a gun was a symbol of power and wealth on Alithos, making me less inclined to use one.

“Uhh, let’s see.” Ari tapped her chin and craned her neck. “Oh!” She snapped her fingers. “I have an idea.” She took my arm and pulled me over to a bucket full of metal staffs, each one with an intricate handle. There weren’t very many of them. “These are Getterian metal bending staffs, but you don’t necessarily need to be a metal bender to use them.”

She selected a staff and handed it to me. “That should be long enough for you. Now just need some guards.” Ari looked around the cluttered area. “We might have to ask for them...oh well. I’ll just show you how this works first and you can decide if you like it.” She grabbed herself one and began. “So these are very...versatile. You can twist the handle thing here and, boom,” Ari twisted her handle and a large spearhead stuck out of one end. “Now it’s a spear. If you twist the handle more, the whole thing comes out and it’s an arrow.”

I looked at the staff she had handed me and copied what she did. Nothing happened. “Um, why isn’t it working?”

“Ohhh, you’re left-handed, you have to twist it the other way.” I did as she said and it worked. “Ok, so next, you can find this little button here on the handle and boop it.” Ari pushed the button on hers and the staff separated into three parts, hanging together by a cord of some type.

“Now you have overgrown nunchucks, but you can put those back in the handle and then- this is where you’d need metal bending- you can take the cord, from one end and connect it to the other annnnd,” her eyes glowed silver as she bent the metal. “Now you have a bow and an arrow.”

“Woah.”

“Yeah, Getterian weaponry is pretty great.”

I nodded. “But how am I supposed to use it if I’m not a metal bender?”

Ari grinned. “I’ll show you.” She twisted the bow and it clicked back into shape as a spear. Then she stuck the arrow back in the top, sharp side up. I repeated the action, twisting the handle again to make the arrowhead fully disappear.

She stuck her staff back in the bucket and gestured for me to follow her.

“Hey, Valraea?” Our Trainer turned to face Ari.

“Can I help you, Miss Harlen?”

Ari nodded. “Yep, I’m wondering if we have any metal guards in Fannara’s size.” I still had no clue what “guards” were, and was starting to worry about what Ari was getting me into.

Valraea raised an eyebrow. “Why would she need guards? Are there no other weapons that’ll work for her?”

“Not that we’ve found.” It felt strange to be talked about like I wasn’t there, but I had gotten used to it years ago.

“Alright then, I’ll go check in the back.” She reemerged a few minutes later carrying a pair of arm guards. “These just arrived yesterday with the shipment of weapons.” She handed them to me. “Good luck.” I nodded.

Ari snatched them from me before I had even opened the package. “Before you try these, you should decide if the staff works for you.”

“Oh, ok.” I adjusted my grip and experimentally swung it. I found myself giggling as the long staff swooped through the air. It was beautifully balanced, making low noises as it danced along.

I stopped and looked at Ari. “I like it.” I was still feeling giddy from the testing of the weapon.

“Well, I guess that’s what we’re going to do.” Arienna handed me the arm guards. “Now these have been Casted, that means there is metal bending magic in there. You’ll basically have two sets of magic when you use them, but it might not work for you. It’s hard to learn another form of magic.”

I tucked the staff into my arm and strapped on the arm guards. They were a dusty black color with two buckles near the top which just barely brushed the bottom of my sleeve. They felt surprisingly comfortable.

Ari nudged me and contorted her hands, making her staff float. I copied her position but nothing happened. I frowned down at my hands. I wasn’t doing anything different.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed magic into the guards, hoping something- anything- would happen. Something did. My staff shook and wobbled, but steadily raised off the floor. I straightened my fingers, making it stay in place.

I started giggling again and lost control of the staff, sending it clanging loudly to the floor. Thankfully no one noticed, they were too busy testing out their weapons.

“Well done!” Ari high-fived me. We spent the rest of Training learning how to use our weapons and doing target practice. I was silently pleased with how easily I had learned to use my weapon and the arm guards. It had been so enjoyable that I nearly forgot about Extended Training.

Nearly.

Mel,  Ari, and I had put away the weapons we had decided on and were about to leave the arena when Valraea caught us.

“Where do you three think you’re going?” She had both hands on her hips and an unimpressed expression on her face. “You don’t get out of Extended Training.” I couldn’t stop the groan that came out of me. Valraea turned her glare on me, making me squirm.

Ari grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the arena, away from Valraea’s glare and into Moren’s. My hair was frizzing out of its braid and sticking to my forehead, making me strangely irritable.

We lined up, girls in one row, facing our partners. Moren looked past my shoulder like I wasn't even there. I controlled the glare I felt rising up, it wouldn't do me any good.

Once our area was clear of people outside of our squadron, Valraea began. "Well, ladies and boys, today we will be starting self-defense." She waited for a reaction. Bryce gave one.

"Pardon me, but I don't think these ladies here pose much of a threat to us."

"Don't be so sure, Mr. Anderson, Alamara could slap you into next Friday if she wanted to." He glanced nervously at Mara while our Trainer continued. "No need to worry quite yet, you're just going over the basic moves today, no testing on your partner."

I felt relieved. As much as I hated to admit it, even just to myself, Moren was capable of beating me in a fight. He was bigger and had better training than I had, not to mention he was of a race known to be more physically capable.

Valraea showed us a few of the basic moves, none of which were explained well. Parrying and defense were focused upon, since Valraea believed that the defensive abilities were more important now than offense.{Names of snazzy self-defense moves that require clear explanations to be understood}

She suddenly clapped her hands together, making me jump at the loud noise. "Now boys, be gentlemen, and ladies," she flashed us a grin, "make me proud." I had my doubts that either would be accomplished.

The two rows that were our squad dissipated as others searched for suitable practice spaces. Moren did not move. Neither did I.

I stood still and looked him straight in the eyes, not quite glaring. The sapphire irises never met mine. I huffed, getting frustrated with his stubborn silence.

“Well?”

His eyes rolled on their way to meet mine. “Are you waiting for something?”

I was unable to think of a good retort and had to resort to the first response I could think of. “Are you?” The words tumbled out of my mouth uncomfortably, and he was all too aware of it.

“Nope.” He turned and began going through the moves we had been shown. I could almost feel the smugness radiating off of him. The heck is your problem?

Trying to push down my stubbornness, I began practicing with him.

“You’re doing that wrong.” Moren didn’t even look at me.

“Excuse you?”

He sighed dramatically and turn to face me. “You are doing that wrong.” He turned again, not specifying what I was doing wrong.

“Ah, extremely helpful, thank you for the clarification,” I muttered under my breath, but by the way he stiffened, I guessed he heard it.

Now that I was paranoid about what I was doing, I went a bit slower, trying my best to replicate what I had seen Valraea doing.

“Still wrong.” I bit my tongue and instead glared up at him from the corner of my eye.

This time, as I was preparing to do the move, I went through a mental checklist, I knew where my arms were going, my knees were bent, what was I doing wrong? Was anything actually wrong, or was this jerk just messing with me?

I tried again, sure that I was doing it right this time.

“You really don’t learn well, do you?”

That’s it.

“Well, if you weren’t aware, it’s not very effective to just say something’s wrong without clarifying what’s wrong.”

He glanced down at me, stating simply, “Your feet are in the wrong position.”

I’m going to kill him. I’m going to learn this stupid move and I’m going to kill him.

A headache was on its way. I spat out a hardly convincing “thank you” and tried again, readjusting my feet to the correct position. This time he kept quiet.

We kept going through the moves, doing our best to avoid each other. Moren continued to give vague corrections. I wished I could recognize something he was doing as wrong, but I was worried that I’d try to correct something he was doing right. I would not give him a reason to gloat more than he already was.

Thankfully, the awkwardness was pulled to a close when Valraea yelled from the other side of the arena, letting us know we were free to leave. I didn’t bother saying goodbye. I just booked it out of there.

Mara was the first to catch up to me.

“Please tell me your time was better than mine.”

I looked down at Mara. “I highly doubt yours could have been worse.”

Chapter 8

Fannara

Screams.

So many screams.

Everywhere. Inside me. And pain.

Too much pain.

My back feels like it could melt off me. I wouldn’t object. It couldn’t hurt more than this.

The screams continue. They echo in the cavern, bouncing off the foreboding walls and shattering into me. But above the screams, there’s something else.

A song.

Once a lullaby, now twisted. The voice singing is beautiful, hauntingly so. Child of prophecy, why do you weep?

Something large and shrouded in shadows moves out of the corner of my eye. I know I should run, but my knees are too weak. I’ve lost too much blood because of my back.

You’ve doomed your people, you’re in too deep. I know those aren’t the real words, but I can’t remember the right ones. I wish I did.

I curl up on my side, covering my head and closing my eyes against the creature that is encircling me. I’m shaking and it hurts so bad.

Child of prophecy, you’ve reason to cry. The voice is getting closer. Is it coming from the creature? Could something that terrifying have such a beautiful voice?

Light breaks through in jagged lines at one end of the cavern, like the teeth of a wolf. A silhouette is suddenly visible, standing right above me. A tall figure with wings.

Huge wings.

It bends down and must be looking me in the eyes.

For in this cage, you will soon die.

It straightens and slowly walks to the entrance. I try to get up, to follow it outside. To the light. I haven’t seen it in days, I’m sure. But I can’t move, I’m frozen. I try to scream, but my throat closes up.

I can’t breathe.

The light disappears and I can hear the cavern giving in on itself. Any hope of light disappears as a black thicker than anything I’ve ever felt swallows me.

The song begins again.

I bolted up in bed, panting, as the nightmare began replaying endlessly in my mind. I put my hands over my ears as if I could stop the song. Another headache came roaring in as I began rocking back and forth on my bed. I tried to muffle the cries trying to escape my body. I didn’t want to wake Ari up.

I looked over to see if I had disturbed her to see her bed was empty. The bottom of the bathroom door was dark. She must have left the room.

I debated whether I should try to find her, as my body began calming down. I had no clue what time it was, but I knew the recurring nightmare was the only thing waiting for me.

My sheets ruffled softly as I hopped out of bed and landed on the floor with a muffled thunk. I sniffed one last time, wiped my eyes, and went to find my roommate.

It wasn’t hard to find her. Ari was walking in circles around the hallway, singing softly and rubbing her arms. She was keeping clear of the railing that encircled the balcony looking down at the other sixteen floors.

She stopped when she saw me. “Can’t sleep either?”

“Can, just don’t want to.”

She nodded. I had told her about the weird nightmares I kept getting when they had started up a month ago, shortly after extended training started. Ari nodded her head at the elevator in a silent question. I nodded, and we went to the bottom floor and out the doors. She had her telecom with her, letting her enter and exit the building, even at this ridiculous hour. 2:38.

We walked quite a way to the group of trees that overlooked the lake. It had a small clearing in it that she and Lindin had claimed as their extended training spot after Valraea gave us permission to go outside. Moren and I just stayed in the arena.

“So the nightmare won’t go away?”

I shook my head. “And I keep getting headaches, probably from lack of sleep.” She sighed. “Why can’t you sleep tonight?”

Ari hunched up her shoulders and gripped her arms harder. “I get homesick.” She paused. “And, this probably seems super inconsiderate, but I really miss my dad.” Her voice hiccuped.

“Why would that be inconsiderate?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, the whole ‘your parents abandoning you’ thing. It feels really selfish to miss him when I still have my mom.”

“Ari, just because my parents were awful, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t miss your dad.” I was honestly a little confused by how self-conscious she was being. It was so unlike the loud, happy, and a little aggressive Arienna I knew. “My experiences don’t make yours any less significant. My parents hated me, which makes it easy to hate them, but you don’t have that- well not exactly luxury- but you can’t say that, And you shouldn’t.”

She sniffed and shrugged again. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t remember him. It’s horrible for me to even think that, but remembering his smile, still being able to hear the little nicknames he had for me, it hurts.” Ari started shaking, and her voice changed pitch.

“He loved me so much, I have nothing to complain about. I had his undivided love for seven years. But I’m still selfish and awful and it hurts. It hurts to know that this isn’t what he would want for me. He would be so ashamed of what I’ve become- of what I haven’t become.” I was shocked. She hadn’t spoken much about her father and had never said anything about how his death made her feel. I don’t think Ari had ever just told me how she felt.

I pulled her into a hug as she trembled. Mara had been training me in giving and accepting more hugs, and I desperately hoped I had done the right thing. She finally pushed away and sat down, sniffing and wipping her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything.”

She looked at me with a doubtful expression. “Yes, I did. I just dumped all of my junk on you. I told myself I would keep it inside. No one needs to pity me. Plenty of people have lost loved ones to Shifter raids.” She yanked the hair tie holding her loose bun out of her hair and shoved it on her wrist. “It just happened so soon after she died too.” She mumbled the last part to herself, so I didn’t ask.

“Well, I don’t think you need to apologize. I told you my junk, it’s only fair.”

Ari snorted at me. “Oh, please, Fannara, we both know you aren’t telling me everything.”

“Neither are you.”

“Fair enough.” She sighed and stretched her arms above her head. “I get nightmares too. Lots of them.” I sat down next to her. “They aren’t exactly like yours; there isn’t something coming for me. It’s always something that happens to someone I care about. Sometimes they’re ridiculous. Lindin got stuck in a portal we don’t even use anymore in one of them, but they always scare me. Knowing that someone you love is going to get hurt or even killed and knowing there’s nothing you can do is terrifying.”

I grimaced slightly. “Mine always have to do with me being in danger. I guess I’m the selfish one.”

“Dreams just reflect memories and what we’ve had to deal with. You had no one you felt you had to look out for before coming here, so you naturally have dreams where you have to look out for yourself.” She leaned back on her hands as if pleased by her logic.

“Well, that’s not entirely true.” She turned to look at me, slightly surprised. “Did I ever tell you about my siblings?” Ari shook her head.

“You said something about a toddler but that was it.”

I felt a part of me stir at the memory. “Well, I had three siblings, I think. I had my older brother, my younger brother, and my little sister. I can’t remember their names, or even what they looked like, but I know I loved them. I think that my little brother would help me with pranks sometimes. My older brother was often too busy to join in, but he always laughed the hardest at our antics.”

I unbraided my hair and flopped onto my back. “I miss them sometimes, but I know I would never be here, be what I am if I hadn’t left them. Rather, if I hadn’t been taken away from them.”

Ari slowly lowered her head into the grass. “I always wanted siblings. It was lonely on Lathra I. My mother was always working and I did online school so that I could still be in the same school system. Because the school was based out of Lathra IV, I would have to wake up really early, about this time, to attend. It was awful. My mom would leave for work while I was in ‘school’ and wouldn’t come home until after I had gone to sleep.” She groaned at the memory.

“Being on a different sleep schedule than everyone your age makes friendships really hard. That’s something Mara really helped me with. She found that just being nice doesn’t always work, and people end up thinking that you must always be happy, so she made me agree to an experiment of sorts. She told me not to care what anyone thought and just act like me. So I did and Mel started talking to me the next day.”

She chuckled at the memory. “The only noticeable difference the first day was that I tied my hair back and didn’t try to hide my ears.” Ari touched her pointed and slightly curved ears as she thought about it. “It was obvious I was at least partly Getterian, ears and everything. It’s not like there aren’t a lot of Getterians here, there are plenty, I just didn’t like the fact that it made it easier for people to recognize me.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Oh?” Ari prompted me to tell the story.

“Well, I was easily recognized at the Academy in Taledine, for multiple reasons. My height, my name, the kind of magic I had, and being the ‘smart one’.”

Ari frowned up at the sky. None of the moons or Lathra I were visible tonight. “What’s up with your name? Is it not a normal one?”

“Not really? ‘Fannara’ means ‘hope’ in Alithosi, not sure what my parents meant by naming me that, but they did. So it’s not an abnormal name, it’s just a more noticeable one.”

She nodded. “That makes sense. Is ‘Harpson’ a common last name on Alithos?”

“Oh yeah.” I couldn’t help but scoff. “It’s the Alithosi version of ‘Smith’, everyone has that last name.”

Ari laughed at that. “What is with Earthens and the name Smith?”

“I don’t even know.” I giggled along with her.

She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “We should probably head in now.”

“Probably.” I sat up and offered her a hand. She took it and we walked back to our dorm.

“Thanks for listening.”

I smiled at her. “Any time.”

She opened her telecom and tapped it against the door handle, letting us in the lobby. 3:24. We were going to pay for that in the morning.

But it was totally worth it.

Chapter 9

Fannara

I was right. We had completely forgotten what was happening the next day. Field trip. After a few weeks of looking into different theories about the Eldra and all related to it, Dr. Kortsus had announced we would be going to, “Tthe Cave of Burning Waters,””, whatever that meant.

Half-awake and with a roaring headache, I stumbled through my classes leading up to History of Eldran magic. I was going to miss the Healing Forum and a literature class because of this field trip; I was hoping it would be worth it.

As I trudged down the hallway to the room where our history class met, Ari sprang on me, jumping and swatting my back with her hands. I yelped and swung around.

“What was that for?” My heart was beating faster than it had been after the nightmare.

She began giggling uncontrollably. “To get your blood pumping!” I gave her a confused look until I realized what was going on.

“So either today’s the day you and Lindin were going to meet up, or you get really hyper when you’re sleep-deprived.”

“Correct on both points!” She bounced up and down in the hallway. This was weird. Ari cackled again and began dragging me to the classroom. Then she stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening. “I should get more coffee before we leave.”

“More?! No wonder you’re going crazy,.” I sighed and took my turn dragging her to the room,. “If you drink any more, you’ll give me a migraine.”

“First off, I was already crazy, and second, fiiiiiine,.” Arienna groaned dramatically on the last word.

I finally pulled her into the room and to her seat. She flopped into it and moaned.

“Why were we up so late?”

I sat in my seat next to her and laid my head on the desk. “Lots of reasons.”

Dr. Kortsus walked into the classroom right before a large crowd of boys entered. In her strange state of mind, Ari visibly grimaced at their entrance. She sat up in her chair and sighed again.

“I’m going to fall asleep.”

I laughed. “You were just bouncing in the hallway; how are you going to sleep?”

She gave me a very serious look. “Don’t underestimate my powers.” I snorted at that one.

More people filled in and eventually the bell rang, officially marking the beginning of our "adventure" as our professor insisted on calling it.

"Class," he began. "Today we are going on an important journey of knowledge. Today we will discover why so many believe the Eldra sits at the bottom of a lake. Today," Dr. Kortsus paused for dramatic effect,. "We go on a field trip." He obviously knew how ridiculous he sounded, but he kept up the act and we played along. A few students let out dramatic gasps when he finished, quieting their giggles as he continued.

"The transport is outside right now. First ones in line get the top floor!" A mad scramble for the door left me trapped in my seat as classmates stampeded each other for the seats.

I didn't care. I wanted to sleep on the way there.

I obviously never made it to the top floor of the bus. My legs groaned, or perhaps that was my stomach, in agony as I walked down the hallway. Once I had exited the building, I had to confront the massive bus which students had begun to file into. I had to settle for the bottom floor. I did so eagerly, sliding my feet into the seat and letting out a sigh. My head latched onto the window next to me. I felt someone talking to me, but I couldn’t figure out who or where it was coming from. For now, I immediately slumbered.

Half an hour of rest was what I needed, even if the ride to the mountain was bumpy.

I woke up towards the end of the trip. Light streaked past as the bus continued to move at speeds that were hard to comprehend. Having just woken up, my surroundings looked blurry before I finally closed and opened my eyes again. I felt the bus slowing down as the mountain was in sight. When I had finally finished waking up, the bus had already stopped in front of a small campsite. Ari began to freak out over how the surroundings looked. Now, I finally stepped out of the bus.

Fast-forward half an hour and we arrived at tThe mountain where the lake was supposedly located was impressive to look upon. I didn't see any rivers as I squinted up at the steep side of the mountain. But if it was magical, who knew.

We were significantly closer to the Shifter border than we were in Elquar; not so much as to make me nervous, but it was noticeable.

Instead of climbing up the mountain, or finding some other mode of transportation up the thing, Dr. Kortsus led us to a cave entrance.

We followed him into the cave and collectively gasped. I was in awe.

The cavern had a high ceiling, dotted with glowing crystals and bioluminescent plants. A waterfall similarly surrounded by light flowed from the corner behind the entrance down into the depths of the caves. The ground on which we stood was shockingly smooth and layered like a giant's staircase.

The echoing of the cascading water didn't overpower our voices, it merely bubbled in the background.

Dr. Kortsus led us into the lower areas of the cave. His voice echoed as he spoke. "When the first settlers arrived on Lathra IV, they made contact with the Shifters who warned them of this place, Falleng-Achat{insert cool sounding Shifter word} Burning Waters." He stopped walking and turned to look at us. "At this point, the water is perfectly safe." He walked over to the stream and stuck his hand in it, gesturing at us to do the same.

It felt good, what I would consider the perfect temperature to swim in. We continued our walk.

"The Shifters had steered clear of the mountain, claiming it was cursed with the Touch of HellFire. Now, this was a bit of an exaggeration on their end. The water isn't deadly, even farther down, just painful. No one knows for sure what it even does." Dr. Kortsus made a strange noise in the back of his throat. "Most experience a reddening of the area that makes contact with the water and sharp pain. It is one of the few known ailments that cannot be healed, not with Eldran magic at least."

He looked back at me when he said the last part, and I could almost see what he was thinking. Would I, an Alithosi healer, be affected by the water? I wasn't sure I wanted to find out, but I had a feeling I would.

We reached another large area of the cave where the Professor stopped. The stream that ran from the beginning of the cave collected here in a large pond (pool?).

Something far below the water was glowing brightly, but differently than the crystals and plants from earlier. There was something...off about it. It was rather warm this far into the cave.

Dr. Kortsus fanned out his arms at the water. "Go ahead, try it. I know you want to, and it won't harm you, it'll just hurt." That felt like an oxymoron, and slightly off-settling.

Ari, who was standing next to me, just shrugged and started walking to where the stone we stood on met the water.

I looked at her, rather bewildered. "You're just going to touch it?"

"Why not?" The ride had mellowed her up a bit, but this felt like a bit much.

"I think that anything described as being 'touched by HellFire' should be avoided."

She sighed. " Well, yeah, but when are you ever going to have a chance like this again?"

I was about to respond when Dr. Kortsus resumed his lesson. A few of the more gutsy people had already stuck their fingers in and gotten them...burned?

"Some believe the water burns because the glowing down there is in fact, the Eldra, and the water is so full of raw magic that our bodies cannot handle it. Others believe similarly, but that the water burns to protect the Eldra. A few think the water's just cursed and stay clear, but we're going to focus on the Eldra aspect."

With that, Ari pulled me with her to the water, whispering, "That's why we're going to do this, because you might be in close contact with another race's magic source, and that's just cool." She stuck her index finger in and quickly pulled it out, giving a little yelp as it began turning red.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. But I complied with my friend's whims. Neither of us was Eldran, so if one of us did it because of that fact, the other had to as well.

I carefully stuck my pinky in the water, bracing for a shock of pain. It didn't come. Someone gasped. I furrowed my brow and stuck more of my hand in, moving it through the water to see if I had missed something. Nothing happened.

I turned to Ari and shrugged. "I guess Alithosi magic just works differently." Most of the class was staring at me at this point, making me rather uncomfortable. I began pulling my hand out when the pain suddenly came, clear and sharp like a wrong note.

I let out a small yell and yanked my hand the rest of the way out of the water. The tips of all the fingers on my left hand were turning red.

From the back of the group I could just barely hear someone say, "I guess it doesn't." Moren.

I growled and stood up, dragging my right hand up my left, healing away the redness. More gasps came from surrounding classmates. I ignored them.

“Well, class, we-we should keep going,” stammered Dr. Kortsus. We followed him silently out of the cave. I kept my eyes locked on the ground, but could still feel the eyes on me. Then the whispering started.

Chapter 10

Fannara

We left the caves and headed back to campus soon after the whole incident. Ari sat next to me on the transport but kept her silence. Everyone around us was whispering about what had happened. I couldn’t have imagined my healing would cause such an uproar. It made sense that my magic would work differently; I wasn’t Eldran, and they still were going crazy over it.

I tried to hide inside myself as the whispering grew louder. Trying not to make it obvious, I started rubbing my ears and softly humming to myself, partially blocking out the noise. My attempts at being discrete failed on Arienna.

“So, Fannara, what kind of music do you like?” She pulled out her telecom as she asked me. I was a bit confused.

“Music?”

Ari nodded. “Yeah, music.”

“Well, I don’t really know.” I tried to think of something. “On Alithos, we had our Past Songs, and only those anointed sang them.”

She cocked her head. “Past Songs? What are those?”

I couldn’t stop the small scoff that came out of me. “Long. The Songs are sung in ancient Alithosi, telling the myths our people used to believe, but you have to sing all of them at once. They’re still considered sacred and only those trained for years may sing them and they are hours long. Still, you only hear them at big events.”

“Sounds boring.”

“It is.”

Ari leaned back in her seat. “Well, I guess I’ll have to share some of my music with you.” I smiled.

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

She kept talking to me for the entirety of the trip back to campus, and I was immensely grateful for it. Ari never once mentioned what had happened in the caves and never left enough silence for either of us to tune into what the others were saying about it.

By the time we arrived at the university again, most of the conversations around us seemed to have turned to something else. I still found it strange that they were so hung up over the water.

We exited the transport and went to our last morning class before it was time for lunch.

☙❦❧

On our floor, we had a type of telecom that was attached to the wall next to the elevator. It usually read simple things such as what was being served in the different restaurants, what classes had upcoming tests, study groups, stuff like that. Today it was different.

The whole screen was projecting a very brightly worded announcement. Floor Activity Night, meet outside of Cassia’s room at 9.

Cassia was our resident assistant, or RA, as most people called her, and was in charge of all the floor activities. We hadn’t done much so far in the year, but I heard rumors that when she was the RA last year, she organized most of the pranks that had been pulled. {In the second draft, Fannara will have interacted with Cassia “on screen” so um, pretend you like her cuz apparently she’s a goofball}

I felt a strange mix of emotions with the announcement. On the one hand, I would get to meet the people on my floor, on the other hand, that meant I had to interact with them, not to mention Ari and I were running on about three hours of sleep. I shrugged and walked to my room. It would sort itself out, everything had. Everything except Training that is.

That’s what I had been going to do, get ready for Training.

Our room was empty when I got there, as usual. I normally appreciated the few minutes of silence I got when I was early to change, but not today. There was too much running through my head that I didn’t want to think about. Nightmares, field trips, whispers, all of it was too much.

I groaned and tried to shake the thoughts out of my head. Of course, it didn’t help, but it was worth a try. I pulled out my uniform for Training and quickly changed into it as if moving fast enough wouldn’t give me time to think. It smelled clean, as they required us to wash it after every session to avoid the stink.

Ari and Mara came into the room as I was pulling on my left boot. The shoes were a recent addition to the uniform and very comfortable. Arienna was grinning wider than I had ever seen. Mara’s perpetual bounce was more pronounced than normal as she walked through the bathroom into her room.

I was pretty sure I knew what was going on. “So, how was lunch?” I raised a playful eyebrow and Ari’s face immediately reddened.

“It was great,” she mumbled.

Mara yelled at her from the other room. “Oh, come on, Ari, it was better than ‘great’. Tell her!” Ari fidgeted with her uniform.

“Well, um, he was sweet, as always, and uh..” she trailed off, smiling to herself. K

“Oh, my word, ARIENNA HARLEN, GET TO THE POINT.” Mara threw a tube of chapstick into our room, landing remarkably close to Ari.

“Okay, okay, goodness. Well, we talked about...stuff, and well, I’m not sure if I told about this kind of stuff, but we agreed that we, um, wanted to start dating?”

Mara quietly walked into our room and put a hand on her hip. She didn’t say anything, but her rather serious expression was enough to scare Ari.

“I mean, yes, we are dating. We said we liked each other last semester but wanted to wait and now..yeah, we’re dating.” She smiled to herself.

Mara began bouncing again. “I don’t know about you, Fannara, but I ship them so hard.”

I started giggling at the two of them. “I’m not sure what that means, but I’m happy for you, Ari.” She blushed a little harder and smiled at the ground.

“Thanks.”

☙❦❧

Training was much as it always was. We were doing much more weapons training now that we had chosen what we wanted. I was fairly comfortable with the staff now and could hit a target with relative ease.

Extended Training had changed just a little. Moren was better at correcting now, and I occasionally commented on some things he was doing. He still tried to avoid me but wasn't nearly as hostile during interactions.

The biggest change was the little reminders we gave each other at the beginning of each session. Comments about foot placement and where your arms are supposed to go were helpful. Training remained exhausting nonetheless nonethelessnonetheless the less.

That night, after I had finished most of my homework for the next two days, someone yelled “MAN ON THE FLOOR” before the hallway erupted into strange noises. Ari and I looked at each other from our desks, it wasn’t nine yet. We scrambled to the door at the same time as the hooting and screeching continued.

Ari opened our door and immediately closed it again, sliding down it and laughing harder than I had ever seen.

“What is going on?!” That only made her laugh harder.

In between wheezes, she squeezed in an explanation. “I think...Cassia…” a fit of giggles overtook her again. “Cassia arranged a prank on us with our brother floor.”

“What?” I pulled her away from the door and opened it. Part of me wished I hadn’t.

The hallway was flooded with boys, covered in bright face paint and carrying...stuffed animals? And lettuce? I could see the other girls on our floor laughing or staring with scared faces in their doorways. The longer I stood in the chaos, I realized the boys were trying to sing the Palendine national anthem. In only falsetto. While running around the circular opening in the floor.

I went back into our room, trying to process what I just saw. Arienna burst into giggles again when she saw my disturbed face.

“I will never unsee that.”

She pushed off the floor with much difficulty and swallowed down the rest of her snickers. “Hey, at least Cassia isn’t letting them take off their shirts.” My eyes widened.

“Yeah, at least we have that.” I glanced at the clock. “I guess they’ll be doing that until we all get out there.”

Ari turned and checked the clock. “Yeah, quiet hours don’t start until nine, so they cannot be stopped.”  

“Just seven more minutes.” Someone knocked on our door, and it took a second to realize it was the bathroom door that was being knocked on. I opened it to find a very concerned Mara.

“Mel hasn’t gotten back yet and I don’t know what’s happening.” Ari and I stared at her in silence for a beat and then started smothering snickers. “What?” The laughter burst out of us and we had to open the door for Mara to understand what was happening. We couldn’t breathe enough to form the words.

As soon as she saw the insanity that used to be our hallway, she joined in the wheezing.

“Why...oh, my word...someone’s wearing a...a….duck hat!” She hit the floor and began rocking back and forth with the strength of her amusement. The faint ding of the elevator caused the crowd to quiet. Every person froze as the doors slid open and a confused group of girls, including Mel, hesitated to exit.

“CHARRRRRGE!” One of the rowdier boys yelled. The girls in the elevator began frantically pressing buttons as the sea of college boys surged towards them. The doors closed just in time for one of the stuffed animals to land on the floor.

Chimes marking the start of quiet hours sent another hush over. the crowd. This was going to be an interesting night to say the least.

Chapter 11

Fannara

They quietly pulled from our rooms, the occasional fit of giggles being quickly shushed. The hallway felt crowded with nearly all the girls on our floor and our brother floor in the same area. A line for the elevators quickly formed, slowing down the rather impatient guys. Every time an elevator arrived on our floor, a cheer went up, and a mass of students flooded the metal box to its full capacity.

It took nearly five minutes to get everyone to the lobby. How the boys had gotten on our floor without our notice was a mystery.

We filled outside where a growing mass of students was forming. Cassia and the RA of our brother floor led us down the hill to a large field on the far side of the lake.

Once we arrived, Cassia pulled out a megaphone, seemingly out of thin air, and started giving us instructions.

“Everyone, listen up! We have a lot of stuff planned for tonight, and if you want to get it done in time to be awake tomorrow, you need to follow our instructions.” It got remarkably quiet. “Our two floors make our battalion. Now, I know most of you have been in Training with your squad, but tonight you’re going to know your floor.

“Some of you have chosen not to enlist, but you’re still part of our floor, so you have to suffer.” A few chuckles ran through the crowd. “Now, this,” she grabbed the arm of the guy’s RA, “is Joseph Marleyga{name}. He is in charge of the boys, so listen to him. You’re not in middle school, so I expect mature behavior.” Cassia stayed silent for a few uncomfortable beats before she started laughing. “I’m mostly kidding, mostly. Anyway, Joseph{name} is going to explain our first activity.”

He took the megaphone from her and immediately burst our eardrums with a loud, “Who’s ready to show these girls who’s the best?!” A deafening roar came from the guys. Ari and I shared a look. “Tonight, we’re going to start off with some capture the flag, boys against girls!” Another round of strange noises came from our brother floor.

Cassia snatched the megaphone from Joseph{name}, whacking him on the head with it before saying, “You’ve lost your privileges.” She turned to face us again. “Well, I’m assuming you all know the game. The border is that sidewalk.” She pointed to the left, and every head turned with her. I wasn’t sure if I did know the game, but I’d probably figure it out.

Cassia held up two strips of fabric, one a neon purple and the other a radioactive green. “These are your flags. There are a few rules we have to go over real quick. Number one, no leaving campus, duh, no going into the lake, also duh. No trying to physically harm each other. Ladies, you cannot legally break someone’s knee with a salamander, just a reminder.

“Lastly, no magic unless there’s an emergency. We have nonusers on our floors, and we love you guys!” A few cheers went up. “But it’s not fair to use magic. That’s all. Oh! Your flag has to be slightly visible, and yes, free walk backs. Now try not to kill each other.” She tossed the purple flag at one of the girls and the green one at a guy.

This was going to be fun.

We divided into our teams and prepared for what was guaranteed to be an intense game. The girl who had caught the flag, an Illitani, was yelling at the girls who were talking over her, trying to get everyone to listen.

She eventually gave up and turned to her friend next to her, pure exasperation on her face. The friend, in turn, cupped her hands aboud her mouth, and, with incredible volume, shouted, "EVERYONE LISTEN TO LANYA!" All the girls stopped talking and turned to face her. I wasn't sure what race this friend was. She didn't have remarkably distinct features than the average Eldran, but she seemed a little...off.

Lanya started again. "Thanks, now we need to figure out a strategy to win this game." Over the next five minutes, our team devised a plan to beat the guys. The flag was properly hidden, and we were ready to start.

The boys started making guttural noises and yelling insults, which were, of course, returned in full by the girls. I had no idea how the smaller Venrlyn girls could match the lower pitch and volume of the big Eldran guys.

Cassia and {le dude’s name} stood at either end of the sidewalk boundary line, leaving the anticipation to hang in the air.

She slowly raised her arm before abruptly lowering it, followed by a “start!”.

Everyone ran to their assigned positions. I was to guard the middle of the field with Mel and the other faster girls. Mara was helping guard the flag in the back, and Ari was one of the lucky few who had been chosen to enter enemy territory. If all went to plan, she or one of the other girls would sneak past the guys while the less athletic girls provided a distraction.

As usual, the plan did not go as planned.

The guys were using a different tactic. They suddenly flooded onto our side, leaving the bigger guys to guard their territory. It was nearly as chaotic as when they stormed our floor. The worst part? They still had the lettuce.

They chucked vegetables and stuffed animals at us as we tried to tag all of them. I don’t even know how many times I got hit in the head by stray lettuce, but I somehow managed to tag at least three guys before they all retreated.

Overall, they had come out victorious in the confusion. None of them had spotted the flag, but they had taken note of where it wasn’t.  

During the confusion, the first wave of girls had tried to find the guy’s flag but they had caught almost all the girls. A new plan started forming in my mind, but I wasn’t sure I could get anyone to listen to me. I swallowed down the pride trying to work its way up my throat, and stuck to the plan.

Nearly half an hour followed, with neither side gaining much ground. My brain had finalized the idea. It was worth a shot, and I was the only one who the team could possibly lose in it. I doubted it would be much of a loss if I did fail. I had hardly done anything the whole round.

I jogged over to the girl closest to me. “Hey, I have an idea, but I want someone to know what I’m doing.” She raised an eyebrow at me.

“I’m listening.” I felt a smug smile spread across my face.

The tree certainly wasn’t comfortable to wait in. A knot in one of the branches stuck out just enough that I couldn’t lean back. But it was the best view I could get.

I’d been waiting for at least ten minutes. The guys were only sending a few of their teammates across at a time. They had gotten a few of their members back. Occasionally I’d see one of the girls start looking around for me, to be stopped by the girl I’d told my idea to.

My stomach kept reminding me that what I was about to do was probably a bad idea. Not that I needed another body part reminding me. I was so pent up with nervous energy I thought I would throw up.

Then my chance came. A large group of guys began nonchalantly striding towards the boundary. I stood up and resumed my climb. I got to the end of my branch and checked the position of the guys. Still far enough away for me to cross.

I swung from one tree to another, repeating my action until I reached where the sidewalk cut through the row. This had to be timed well.

Taking a deep breath, I focus on the branch I was going to grab. I had done this a dozen times. Just not with these trees. With a horde of boys below me. Not a big deal.

The guys got right up to the sidewalk. They were about to cross.

“FOR THE LETTUCE!” The swarm gave me the distraction I needed to jump across. My hand wrapped around the branch, and then the other. I swung onto a lower branch and let out a small laugh.

I climbed to the top of the tree overlooking the guy’s side, and scoffed aloud. In their confidence, they had left their flag in a painfully obvious spot. Conveniently for me, that spot was right below the tree line.

Quickly and hopefully quietly, I got myself to the tree right above the flag. The neon green screamed painfully into the dimness. They seriously didn’t have anyone guarding it.

I carefully lowered myself to the ground and grabbed the flag, stuffing it in my back pocket and quickly swinging back into the tree. I looked down one last time in satisfaction and froze. Bryce stared up at me in total puzzlement.

Before I could think it through, I cracked a smile. “Bye!”

I think I broke the Alithosi record for climbing, I had never in my life climbed that fast.

Bryce managed to gather his thoughts and started yelling at the guys on his side. “It’s the Alithosi girl! She’s in the trees!”

I let out a slightly maniacal laugh and fell back into the rhythm of swinging from branch to branch. Below me, the guys were frantically running around with their heads craned back, trying to find me.

“It’s the Alithosi climber!” “She’s a freaking squirrel!” “What the heck?!”

With much difficulty, I stopped my laughter. If any of them caught me, this idea would fail. From all around, I started hearing the girls yelling encouragement over the guys.

“Heck yeah, Fannara!” “Show them who’s the boss!” “Fly my childFLY MY CHILD!” The last one was definitely Ari.

I got to the sidewalk and hesitated. I was in such a rush; I wasn’t sure I could make the jump, but was that safer than making a run for it? I decided a head injury probably wasn’t worth it.  

Gripping a branch that jutted out from the tree, I leaned back, and then propelled myself forward. I held my breath and let go. My momentum carried me across the sidewalk and into our territory.

A ton of guys immediately tackled me, but it was too late. We had won.

The girls helped yank the mass of sweat and flesh off of me. I stuck my hand into my back pocket and pulled out the green flag, letting out a victorious cheer that ended in a laugh.

Ari and the other girls who had been caught ran back over to our side and joined in mocking the guys. They stared back with irritation gleaming in their eyes as we jeered at them.

I just smiled and laughed.

Chapter 12

Fannara

The rest of the night was a blur of activities that stretched way too late. Two nights in a row of not getting enough sleep was definitely taking its toll on both me and Ari. Neither of us regretted any of it, but it was a strain.

I was excited somewhere under the exhaustion. I knew that at least. The healing class was getting more interesting. The last class I had attended covered healing without using your hands in any way. It was extremely different from what I’d been taught at the academy, but it worked so much better.

Arienna had convinced me to drink some of her coffee, insisting I needed the energy. I had hesitantly taken a sip and then downed the entire thing in less time than I should have. It worked, though. A little too well.

I held in comments and laughter for most of my first two classes which much difficulty.

Finally, Healing was next. I sped down the hallways of {building I LEGIT STILL HAVEN’T NAMED IT LIKE AH}, trying to get seated before I did something weird. Up three floors, down two hallways, and then it was the sixth door on the left. I was still struggling with getting to know my other classmates, but it seemed the night before had gained me some popularity of sorts.

A brown-haired girl sat down next to me. “You’re the one who beat the guy team last night, right?” I looked at her in surprise.

“Um, yeah, I guess?” She smiled.

“That’s awesome. Our floor did awful when we had our activity night.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Elara.” Her hazel eyes twinkled with excitement. I shook her hand.

“Nice to meet you, Elara. I assume you know my name.”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, you’re Fanera.” I tried not to cringe at the butchering my name.

“Yep, I’m Fannara.” I tried to make the pronunciation clear but didn’t want to seem rude. Even on Alithos, where Fannara was a fairly common name, most people couldn’t say it right.

The bell rang and class began.

“Now that we’ve studied the more advanced areas of healing, we’re going to move on to the lesser-known areas. These are much harder to master, so if you don’t get it right away, that’s perfectly normal. Most healers spend years studying these techniques.” I swear, I could never remember the name of this teacher. She was Eldran, clearly, with light blonde hair that was basically white. I felt horrible that I didn’t remember her name.

“I, of course, know how to do it, but you all have so little experience that I don’t expect you to get it now, if ever.” Well, I didn’t feel horrible anymore. “The idea itself is fairly simple, but the execution is much more difficult. In normal healing, you draw energy from yourself to heal yourself or someone else. However, for our purposes, you want to swap the energy, resulting in either a pain trade or a wound trade, if you have strong enough magic.” She narrowed her eyes at us. “Seeing as only a few of you have gold magic, I doubt any of you could achieve a full wound swap.”

It was physically painful not to roll my eyes at her. This woman was so full of herself, it was obnoxious. I sometimes forgot how self-centered she was, but then I would go to class.

Elara let out a huff next to me. “I can’t stand her,” she muttered under her breath. I gave a small nod in agreement.

[I am currently having troubles with the magic, so, hopefully, at some point, there will be more explanation of what in the world is happening. In the meantime, ignore the short chapter and vague everything.]

Our professor continued talking about the techniques used in both pain and wound trades. It was honestly very interesting. I found the material fascinating. I just didn’t like the teacher.

We weren’t allowed to try out the methods taught to us that day, which was a bit frustrating. Even if I couldn’t do it, I still wanted to try. Instead, I just focused on the pounding headache rampaging through my skull. They had died down for a while, but they were getting bad again. I wondered if it had something to do with the change in environment. That would be a little weird, seeing as I had been on Lathra IV for nearly four months at this point.

Class finished, and I headed off to lunch. I was so tired; I wanted to get as much rest as possible before my next class.

I headed off to my dorm, figuring we probably had something resembling food in there. Lo-and-behold, we did. Some cut up fruit in a cracking container, a random box of cereal, and an unholy amount of granola bars.

Settling with a granola bar, I sat cross-legged on the floor, trying desperately to stay awake. I glanced at my telecom. There was still had about an hour before my next class and I gave in to what my body was urging me towards. A nap.

Opening a window to let some air in, I curled up on my bunk and, after doing my best to set an alarm on my telecom, fell asleep.

☙❦❧

I can hear the shrill cry of a baby as I wander the halls. I don’t recognize the place, but somehow I know where to go.

The crying gets louder and louder as I keep going. I pass closed doors, locked shut with golden locks. Everything in this building is beautifully made, like it should be a palace, but something about it feels like a prison.

I stop in a hallway where letters are scattered all over the floor. They’re covered in strange writing, completely illegible. A little boy runs over to the pile of letters and places a new one on the pile.

“What are these for?” I point at the letters.

The boy looks up at me, and I stifle a scream. Blood is seeping out of his eyes like tears. A forced smile wedges his face into a strained expression. “These are for the Lost Ones.”

A dread falls over me at the name, but I’m not sure why. “Who are the Lost Ones?” The blood coming out of his eyes quickly starts drying and cracking on his face. His eyes and hair go black and he slowly begins walking towards me.

I try to back away, but it’s like my feet are glued in place.

Dark figures melt out of the doorways and begin creeping closer. Closer. Closer. I’m completely surrounded by them now, all of them have black, lifeless eyes.

In one haunting voice, they say, “We are the Lost Ones. Betrayed by our king and chained to our queen. We serve the total eclipse. We clip the wings of the traitors. None shall destroy us, for we are already destroyed.”

Their hands all reach out at once, sharp nails dig into my skin. It feels like my veins are being flooded with tar as my limbs lose their will to move. I can’t protect myself from them.

The darkness begins to swallow me whole. Just as I begin to- BEEP.

I woke up from my very unpleasant dream in a very unpleasant manner. To my surprise, it wasn’t the alarm I had set on the telecom. I had slept through that one.

The loud beep rang out from the hallway again. I groggily slid out of bed and tapped my telecom against the door, opening it. Or it should have opened it. I pushed on the door, but it didn’t budge.

I pressed my ear against the door, trying to figure out what the beeping noise was. I heard a very muffled announcement.

Attention all students. The campus is going into lockdown due to reports of a threat. This is not a drill. Get to the closest safe room and stay there until further instruction. We thank you for your cooperation. It repeated three times and then the beep went off again.

I jumped to my feet and ran to close the window. It was still open from when I had taken my nap. I froze before I even raised a hand to the diamond glass.

I could see students running into buildings, their faint shrieks of panic wafting up to my room. But that wasn’t why I froze. No, it was something much bigger.

There was a dragon on campus, and it did not look friendly.

Chapter 13

Fannara

“Get it together, Harpson.” I gritted my teeth and glared up at the teacher towering over me.

“I’m trying.” My frustration strained the words as they came out.  

He raised an eyebrow and bent lower to the ground, sticking his stuck-up head in my face. “Get up and go again.” I rolled my eyes and pushed off from the spot where the ground had so graciously received my body when I fell off the rope. I loved climbing, but this sucked.

Raising my hands to heal the bleeding callouses on my palms, I began the spell I’d been taught the other day. Before I was even halfway through it, the instructor grabbed my right hand and yanked it away.

“This is why you have no resilience, girl. You send away your wounds before you can learn from them.”

I snatched my hand back and barely restrained myself from slapping him with it. “I can’t learn anything if my hands are about to fall off.” He glared down at me.

“You are no longer allowed to use any magic in the gymnasium.”

I sputtered. “Wh- what?! You can’t do that!”

“I can do whatever I want.” He crossed his arms and sneered. “Do you want me to ban you from using it at all?” I let out an irritated groan. “Now again, climb the rope.”

“And if I say no?”

He moved his jaw, disgruntled. “It’s not every day that a sixteen-year-old, unwanted, farmer’s daughter is given the opportunity to compete in the Alithos Games. I’d suggest you take that attitude of yours and put it where it belongs.”

I took a deep breath and stared the man down. “The only reason I’m here is because I have nothing better to do at this stupid academy. If you want to pick someone else to compete in the name of Talidine Magic Academy, be my guest.” I bowed dramatically and stormed out of the place.

Edmund pushed off the wall of the gym and jogged to catch up to me. “How’d your first day go?”

“The instructor is a jerk. I’m probably going to have my magic banned again, and my hands are bleeding. How do you think it went?”

“Bad enough that you forgot your jacket. Want me to go get it?”

I glared at him. “I’m not cold.” I bit back a shiver as the wind blew snowflakes into my face.

“You’re also not stubborn in the slightest.” He stopped walking and waited for me to turn around. I didn’t. Ed eventually gave up and jogged up to me again. “You’re aware this is the fourth time they’ve threatened to take away your magic privileges, right?”

Now I turned around and gave him the most sarcastic look I could. “Oh, of course not. Why would I keep track of that? It’s not like it makes a difference at all.” I groaned and pushed loose strands of hair away from my face, wincing as it sliced my hand even more. “It’s really annoying. I can’t hold it in, there’s no other way to describe it, it’s like my magic is clawing to the surface constantly.”

Edmund rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, yeah, I know, Golden Child.” I scoffed.

“Fool's gold if anything.”

“Oh, come on, give yourself a little grace. You’re not as awful as you think.”

I snorted and gave him a questioning look. “We’ll see about that. I’m a lot more broken than you think.”

“People don’t break, Fannara, people grow.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. All a matter of time, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “Not really. You grow every day, every minute. Just remember to breathe now and then.”

“Aye, aye, wise guy.”

It was impossible to breathe while looking at that creature. The dragon was huge and black as a nightmare. Thick fire dripped from its fangs in searing drops. The eyes were as wild and pitch-black as the rest of it.

Everything in me stiffened and refused to move. I was glued in horror as the beast roughly jerked its way between buildings. Something large and dark was bothering the dragon. On the street, the sound of students screaming and running droned on, mixing with the clank of incoming soldiers meant to protect us in case of an attack. Training was nowhere near the point of preparing us for real fights.

Sick fascination led me closer to the window, peering down at the chaotic swarms of people trying to escape. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. The short gasps trying to be breaths didn’t provide sufficient oxygen anymore.

A loud roar split the air, ringing above the din. It snapped me out of my panicked haze. Now I was just panicked.

I stumbled away from the glass wall and then returned to it, realizing the window was still open. My efforts to close the stupid thing were so frantic, it only opened further. It was now wide enough for a small person to climb in through it. Realistically, no one would. Realistically, everything would be fine. The soldiers would manage the dragon, no one would get hurt, life would return to normal.

Unfortunately, life is hardly realistic.

I gave up on the window and instead ran for the bathroom. That door was locked too.

“Breathe Fannara, breathe, think, think.” I whirled around and slid under my loft bed, curling my knees to my chest and pushing myself under the desk.

The noises grew louder as the beast drew nearer. I covered my ears with my hands and started humming one of the songs Ari had shown me. It hardly blocked out anything. My thundering heartbeat was louder than my humming.

I gave up on humming when I couldn’t really breathe at all anymore. I closed my eyes and tried to remember what the correct breathing pattern was. In for four, hold for…eight? No, that definitely wasn’t it. I groaned and pushed against the wall more. The cool drywall helped calm me down more than anything.

Just as my breathing calmed down enough for the blood rushing through my ears to quiet, a loud thump echoed through my room, followed by an alarmingly near dragon roar. Something rustled. Something in my bedroom.

I held my breath and tried to hide in the shadows of the desk. It was concealed, but a painfully obvious hiding spot if anyone came looking. Of course, someone did.

I held as still as I could as limping legs came into view. Large, dark brown, feathered wings dragged on the ground as they searched the room. Wedged sandals turned away from me and then were blocked from sight as the figure bent down to look under Ari’s bed.

They suddenly turned around and immediately made eye contact with me. It was a girl, and the most noticeable thing was her drawn bow, pointed right at me. She drew it back farther.

“I can see you, get out from there.” Her speech was heavily accented, and it was clear Eldran wasn’t her first language.

I slowly crawled out of my hiding place, hands in the air and wavering on my legs as a new migraine ripped through my skull. The girl, or woman rather–she looked like she was in her twenties–was tiny. I towered over her by easily a foot.

Her glare suddenly faltered, and she lowered her bow, still keeping it taught. “F- Fannara?” She cocked her head and stared at me. Then it clicked. I knew I’d seen her before.

“Via?”

“Oh, thank the Source it’s you.” She switched to the Shifter language, something she knew I’d learned. “Hope, I need to talk to you, but I feel like now isn’t the time.” Literally translating my name to another language wasn’t something I was accustomed to.

I furrowed my brow. “You…need to talk to me? Why- I’m not- I can’t do anything about that.” I gestured at the window where the dragon was somewhere. “Actually, Via, what the heck are you doing here?”

She gave me a halfhearted smile. “Now that is a very long story and we don’t have time, so I just need you to stay out of sight. I just dropped by to catch my breath.” This time, her smile seemed more legit.

“I’m so confused. What’s happening? Why are you fighting a freaking dragon on my school campus? Why are you even here? Aren’t the bird Shifters extinct or something?”

“Well, I had tried to lead that dragon away, but it seems Jana felt the need to send a scout, so I’m here to fight a dragon, and about the Shifters….it’s complicated and we-”

“We don’t have time, yeah okay.” I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Can you at least tell me what you needed to?”

Via sighed. “I suppose now is as good as ever. Hope ther- oh crap.” She froze, and her golden eyes widened. I turned to look at what she was staring at and gasped, stumbling back a little.

The dragon's head was peering into my room and had its eyes locked on me.

Via jumped in front of me, raising her huge wings to block the dragon’s view. It moved its head and found me again. She looked increasingly concerned about its presence here.

Setting her jaw, she swung around to face me, yanking something off her hand and shoving it into mine. “There’s a good chance I won’t be back. Whoever knows about the ring can be trusted, okay?”

“What?! Via, what is going on?!” She gave me a sad look.

“A war is starting, Hope. I just wish you didn’t have to be part of it.” Via turned back and ran at the window. The dragon had taken off, leaving a destroyeddestructed campus in its wake. Via shifted smoothly into a bird and back into her regular form, weaving through the window and taking off after the huge black beast.

As cries for medics and support crews wafted up from the street below, I opened my palm to see if the item Via gave me would leave any clues. A notched jade ring sat in my hand, unassuming and unhelpful. I had no clue what was happening.

Part Two

Chapter 14

Fannara

The aftermath of the attack had the entire country reeling. Within hours of the incident, Deraal Jana officially declared war on not only Palendine, but on Illitani, Bryathor, Melerfy, and any other countries allied with Palendine. The remaining countries claimed neutrality, largely because no one knew yet what Jana was capable of.

Because of the circumstances, the people in Training changed quickly. Mara dropped out as soon as she could, and an Illitani girl named Verelia filled her spot. She and Ari couldn’t get along worse if they tried.

Verelia had what you would call a superiority complex. She had been the main leader of her squad before all her partners dropped out of Training. Ari had been the closest thing to a leader that our squad had. Thus, there was an obnoxious amount of passive aggression in every Training session.

Training itself became more intense if that was possible. We went from an hour and a half of Training every other day to three hours every day. Our new Training schedule involved many drills, emergency plans, and larger group practice. One on one Training had been moved to the first half-hour, and it was miserable.

Just when I thought Moren was finally, finally warming up to me, to the extent that he wasn’t treating me like trash, he was right back at it. No eye contact, no talking to me. It was like I didn’t even exist. The weird thing was that he had stopped ignoring Ari.

Every time we went into Training I would catch him trying to talk to her. I never heard what he was saying, but it seemed like he thought it was important and Ari couldn’t care less.

On the fourth day after the attack, while Arienna and I were walking into Training, Moren ran over to her again.

Without acknowledging I was there, he began with, “Ari, we really need to talk abo-”

“-would you leave me alone?” She stopped walking and turned to glare at him. “You seemed to do that pretty well for the last 13 years.” She rolled her eyes and kept walking. I kept in stride with her as she speed-walked.

“But-”

“Nah ah.” Ari held a hand in the air to stop him. “I don’t want to hear anything from you.” I furrowed my brow and turned to her.

“What’s up with him?”

Ari groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. “One thing you should know about Moren Keleth is that he is really bad at accepting coincidences exist. He’s convinced that there was some hidden meaning in the timing of the attack or some other ridiculous theory.”

“Huh.” I looked back at my partner to see him glaring into midair. “There does seem to be something off with him…”

Ari snorted. “That’s one way to put it.” We got to the corner of the gymnasium where Verelia and Mel were talking. Arienna and Verelia greeted each other with a judgemental glare.

“Hey, Ari, hi, Fannara.” Mel gave us both a small smile.

I gave an awkward smile back. “Hi, Mel. Verelia.” Verelia gave me a smile, completely ignoring Ari as she did, which, naturally, made my friend huff indignantly. I personally found their rivalry amusing. It was unnecessary, yes, and slightly childish, but it gave me other things to think about. I knew I would have to go home soon. Alithos would have no part in another world’s war.

Valraea gathered our group together and gave us a good stare-down. “You all need to start taking this more seriously. This is a war, people, we don’t have time for pettiness.” She glared at Ari and Verelia, then at Moren. I couldn’t help but feel a little smug that he was finally being called out.

“Anyways,” Valraea continued, “We’ll be starting patrols next week, nothing that would put you guys in too much danger, but jobs that need to get done.” She pulled out her telecom and extended it to roughly the size of a clipboard. “The areas we’ve been assigned arrrrrre…” She glared at the telecom and whacked the side of it. Something popped and the screen grew brighter.

“Ahem, your group has been assigned to Burning Waters and the Quinta Telren forest preserve.” She glanced at Moren, who had stiffened. “Your request to not patrol the preserve was passed, Keleth, you’ll be at the Waters.” He seemed to relax when she said that.

Confused, I turned to Ari questioningly. She gave me a look that told me she’d tell me later. I guess that would have to suffice.

Valraea cleared her throat again to get our attention. “That’s all I needed from you guys. You’re free to go.” She stopped and thought it over for a second before adding, “Fannara, a word?”

I waited as the rest of my group dispersed to their different training areas. I knew what was coming.

“Interplanetary law says that we have to send you home, I assume you know that, but there’s been a complication.” I cocked my head at her and waited for her to elaborate. “There has been a bomb threat at the portal stations, it wouldn’t be safe for us to send you back to Alithos from there right now. However, if you are willing to take the risk and go last minute, there is one more StarShip from Lathra II leaving tomorrow. From there we could find you a way back to Alithos but we wouldn’t recommend it because of how finicky the portals on Lathra II are.”

I bit my lip and thought it over. “In all honesty, I don’t think I want to go home.” Valraea gave me a weird look. I shook my head and tried again. “What I mean is that I don’t feel like it would be worth the risk and complications of the other idea. I’m sure this threat about the portal station will be resolved.” She nodded.

“Good idea. You can go run along to train now.” I tried not to let out an audible moan as I went to find where in the world Moren had gone.

After an extensive search and asking who knows how many people where Moren was, I finally found him on the roof. It was blustering and freezing cold up there, and I dreaded being in the cold for long.

Pushing open the heavy door that lead to the roof, I was surprised to find Moren just standing in the middle of the roof, not doing anything. It was so unlike him to not spend every minute he could training, but it was obvious that wasn’t why he was up here.

I walked over to where he was standing and couldn’t help but gasp. The damage from the dragon was fully visible from up here, and it wasn’t pretty. Charred remnants of trees and other plants scattered blackness over the buildings, long scratches covered the ground and broke up the pavement. Caution tape was strung over the whole mess as cleaning crews and investigators buzzed around the area.

“I hadn’t realized how much damage had been caused by the attack,” I said. I didn’t expect a response, I never did. That’s why I was so surprised when I got one.

Moren took a deep breath. “The real damage hasn’t even begun yet.” I looked up at him, stunned that for the first time all week, he had said something to me.

“What do you mean?” He pointed to the mountains beyond campus, never taking his eyes off of what he was looking at. I had no clue what that was. I squinted at the base of the mountains and saw…people. Hundreds, thousands of people swarming like tiny ants at the base of a fruit. “What are they doing?”

“Preparing to die.”

I looked back at him, even more, confused now. “What?”

He sighed again and glanced down at me for a second before returning his eyes to the mountains. “Those soldiers are setting up their camp. They have no idea that this fight against Jana is hopeless.” Moren shifted his weight and crossed his arms against the wind. “Some delusion of justice is leading them to their own graves and ours with them.”

“You don’t know that, they’re trained soldiers, they can take on a few dragons.”

Moren scoffed. “You have no idea what Jana is capable of.”

“And you do?”

“Unfortunately.” I glared at the vagueness of his answer.

“Either way, you’re being far too pessimistic about this whole thing.”

He turned around and glared down at me. “This ‘whole thing’ is a war that has been going on for years right under our noses. You have no idea what you’re talking about and no right to be here anymore so you should leave while you can.”

I looked back at him, disgusted shock overtaking any other emotion aside from anger. “Are you serious?”

“You have no part in this war. The Eldran are not your people, the Eldran will never be your people. The most helpful thing you can do is get out of the way before you become collateral damage.”

It took me a moment to process how pigheaded this jerk was being. “You are so rude.”

“And you’re obnoxiously stubborn, congratulations.” I rolled my eyes and glared at him.

“Look, Moren, I don’t really care what you think, so I don’t know why you keep trying to give me your opinion like it’s worth something.”

He glared back and gave me a mock bow. “Well, my apologies to you for being concerned about your safety.”

I snorted and raised an unamused eyebrow. “The only thing you’ve ever been concerned about is yourself.”  

That seemed to strike a chord. Moren recoiled as if I had slapped him. He seemed to be starting to form a retort but gave up and slumped his shoulders. “This war isn’t going to leave anyone alive.”

“And how would you know that?”

“Because it’s my fault!” Another wave of anger was washed away by a look of shame on his face. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t…” He turned away and seemed to fold in on himself.

I stood there, once again too stunned to react. The war couldn’t…that wouldn’t make sense. Surely someone would have said something if that was true… But suspicion was growing in me. Everyone seemed to act strange around Moren and around the mention of the past leader of Palendine.

I sighed as another headache emerged.

What is happening?

Chapter 15

Fannara

The remaining hours of Training were excruciatingly awkward. My thoughts were relentlessly churning over the bizarre conversation from the roof. What in the world was happening?

I didn't know what to think. Part of me was inclined to brush off Moren's comment as an overreaction, but another part of me was growing suspicious. I knew there was something no one would tell me, but I hadn't assumed it'd be something of this magnitude. But then again, it wouldn't make sense for an entire world to go to war because of something a 20-year-old boy did. I had no clue.

Mel seemed to sense something was wrong, but she didn't say anything after her concerned look was returned with a small shake of the head. I had a feeling Mara would know something was wrong the second we got back to our dorm, but that didn't come very soon.

The hours of Training felt like months of rigorous conditioning. Part of me wondered if I should just drop out and focus on learning as much as I could before I had to leave, but I was determined to stick with this now. My own stubbornness wouldn’t ever let me live it down if I stopped now.

Once we were finally finished with Training, I hoped I could talk to Ari about the conversation and see if she would explain anything to me, but Moren actually managed to talk to her right as I was about to talk to her. I didn’t want to have to deal with whatever awkwardness would ensure if I listened in, so I turned around and started walking to the exit. To my surprise, Verelia ran over to me.

“You look like you need someone to walk you to the dorms, are you okay?” I stared at her, stunned by this sudden show of concern from the normal detached Illitani girl.

I have her as good a smile as I could. “Thanks, I’ll be fine, nothing’s wrong.” Apparently, that wasn’t convincing.

“Yeah, sure.” She looped her arm through mine and escorted me out of the room. “I won’t pry, but I’m also not blind, Fannara, something’s up.”

I frowned and looked at my feet as they took long strides across the carpeted floor. Was I really that bad at hiding it? I kept my silence and Verelia kept her word, she didn’t pry. She also didn’t fill the awkward silence.

I turned and squinted suspiciously at her as we waited for the elevator.

She met my scrutiny with a look of thinly veiled smugness. “Do you have something to say?”

“If you think I’ll try to fill the silence you’re wrong.” She gave a single laugh and turned back to face the elevator. A ding announced the arrival of our method of transportation and three upperclassmen stepped out. They looked unimpressed with our combined stench. Verelia looked like she couldn’t care less what they thought and stepped past them into the metal box, pulling me with her.

The door slid shut and more silence ensued. Verelia kept looking forward and didn’t move a muscle. I grew increasingly uncomfortable.

“You are very passive-aggressive, you know that, right?” She smiled and her eyebrows raised in amusement.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”

I let out an exasperated breath. “I’m just really…confused right now and I think Ari can probably clear things up but she’s a little…preoccupied.”

“Ah, that makes sense. Arienna is an interesting one, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

Verelia unlinked her arm from mine and turned to face me, crossing her arms and leaning against one of the walls. “She’s not very forgiving.”

“I guess…” I frowned and started twisting the end of my braid around my finger. “I don’t know, Ari’s gone through a lot and-”

“You don’t have to defend her to me, I was just commenting.” Verelia put her hands in the air, feigning surrender, and pushed off the wall right as the door opened onto ground level. “Forget I said anything.” She gave me a smile and lead me back to my dorm.

Ari didn’t come back until I had showered and was working on some assignment. It was weird that they still gave us work during wartime, you’d think they’d use their resources better.

She bee-lined for the bathroom before I could say anything. It was fine, I could wait until she was clean to ask her about what Moren had said. I couldn’t bring myself to focus on my work, though. Too many thoughts were swirling around my mind to be able to focus on the history of Eldran magic during that half-hour.

Nervous energy and boredom sent me flipping through the glossary of my book. Eldra (page 17, 18, 20, 47, 93, 126), Eldramin (page 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 204, 306, 307) I already knew these ones, well, not as in-depth as the pages offered, but it didn’t pique my interest. I kept flipping through the glossary until something caught my eye, Prophecies (pages 73-90) Now that looked interesting.

I turned to page 73 and started skimming through prophecies. It was fascinating. The first one recorded wasn't even complete, from the era of the First Queen on Geterria, before the “unfolding of the world”. Something along the lines of the void consuming all life until they stand united. Apparently, the prophecy was fulfilled when the Element Stone was created using pieces of each Tribal Stone, the source of Geterran magic.

The next few pages were of dull prophecies from before the colonization of Lathra II, III, and IV. I skimmed more pages until arriving on the most interesting part yet; Shifter prophecies.

I had just finished reading about how the Centaurs acquire prophecies when Ari finally emerged from the bathroom, hair still wet. I immediately turned around in my chair to face her, startling her.

“I need to talk to you.” She gave me a weird look and sat down on her bed.

She reached for a hairbrush and started detangling the soggy locks. “Okay then…shoot I guess.”

I took a deep breath, trying to figure out how I was going to ask this. There had been a plan, but, of course, now that it needed to be executed I forgot it.

Deciding to just get to the point, I started with, “So I think we can both agree Moren was being weird today.” Ari stiffened immediately. “And uhm, one-on-one training got a little weird…”

“Oh no, he likes you, doesn’t he?” I froze and stared at her. The second it fully registered in my brain what she assumed had happened, I started screaming at her.

“OH HECK NO. EW, ARI WHAT IN THE EVEN. NO.” She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, then what made it weird?”

I groaned and leaned back in my chair, placing both of my hands on my chin. “He thinks he started the war.” Ari looked very confused, so I corrected myself. “I mean, he doesn’t think he started started it, but he thinks it’s his fault or something.”

“Ohh.” The clarification seemed to make sense to Ari. She put down the hairbrush and gave me a fairly serious look. “He’s not entirely wrong, but he’s also slightly delusional.”

I frowned. “In what way?”

She smiled wryly. “Like today, he wanted to talk to me because he thinks the date of the attack has to do with the stage the moon was in thirteen years ago when Izzy…oh I guess I haven’t told you…” She stopped and seemed to be contemplating something. “You aren’t technically supposed to know this but if you’re stuck with Moren you kind of have to know, probably should have told you before.”

“Uh, what?” I was really confused. Leaning forward in the chair again, I waited for her explanation.

“Okay, so you remember how I told you at the beginning of the school year how Moren and I had that mutual friend at one point?” I nodded. “Well, basically, she was the daughter of the last leaders, like the highest up people. Her name was Isabell Harpson, but we all call her, or called, rather, Izzy.

“She and Moren were super close, and at one point, when they were super little, they were out in the Quinta Preserve, the one I’m patrolling, and somehow, the two of them got separated. He was supposed to keep her with him ‘cause she was a bit of a wild child, but, yeah, she wandered away and the next thing people knew, Jana had her for ransom.”

Ari bit the inside of her cheek and stopped for a moment, maybe recalling memories, maybe trying not to. “Jana had her for two weeks, she demanded the Harpsons leave Lathra IV if they wanted their daughter back. They agreed and were prepared to leave but before they could, Chairman Keleth, Moren’s dad, went against Kayden Harpsons orders and sent a rescue team to get Izzy back. All the men were killed and so was Izzy.

“The Harpsons took their two remaining kids, left, and never returned. The general public doesn’t know where they are but there are rumors they left for a system that hasn’t been linked to the rest of us to avoid ever encountering people from Lathra IV again.

“After they left, the Keleths ascended to the highest rank and my father was killed.” It sounded like she was going to continue, but she stopped and didn’t say anything.

I sat there and tried to soak it all in. This was a huge event that had happened and I was only finding out about it now.

“Why did the Deraal want the Harpsons to leave?”

Ari scoffed. “It wasn’t that she wanted the Harpsons to leave, she wanted Izzy gone, she was ‘getting in the way’ of Jana’s superstitious plan for conquering the world and saving her people.” She crossed her arms and propped one foot on her knee. “Moren, being as conspiratorial as he is, thinks that Izzy is somehow still alive, living among the Centaurs. There’s no proof of this, obviously, her death was caught on camera, but he seems to think that’s why Jana finally declared war.”

Things were starting to click but there was one thing I was still confused about. “How old was Izzy?”

“Eh, give or take six to eight years old.” Ari shrugged.

I frowned. “What difference would a little kid make to Jana?”

“People thought she was the Eldramin.” I started.

“She was what?”

Ari laughed. “I said people thought she was the Eldramin, her magic was super strong at a young age, like some amplified gold healing I think, but she could never pass all the tests. The biggest one was the Burning Waters. Tradition has made the people believe the Eldramin can touch the Waters without being hurt but there’s no proof of that.”

Something that had happened at the beginning of the school year suddenly clicked. “Ari, people didn’t get suspicious of my last name, did they?”

She laughed again. “Oh, they very much did, a Harpson who also happens to be a healer? Unheard of, it’s not like there’s a whole clan of them living on Lathra III either.”

I groaned. “They stopped, right? I mean, Harpson is a super common last name on Alithos, like super duper common.”

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me.” Ari put her hands in the air. “I know Izzy died, and so does everyone else.”

“Aside from Moren.”

“Yeah, he’s…special.” I chuckled a little at her tone.

“Well, that was a bit more dramatic than I expected but better than thinking my Training partner started a world war.”

Ari grabbed her hairbrush again. “By far.”

I turned back to my desk, ready to get work done. I glanced at my still open textbook. Something about it felt almost ominous, knowing that it was the source of widespread panic in this country. I grabbed it and closed it; enough history for one night.

Chapter 16

Fannara

        My plan was backfiring. Maybe if I’d actually stuck to the plan it would have worked, but it was too late now. It was the first day of patrols, what I had figured would be a good try at befriending Moren again. Unfortunately, he didn’t think similarly.

        As usual, he ignored my presence, both in the Training Arena, on the transport that took us to Burning Waters, and on location. Never once was my existence acknowledged.

        I stood at my post, technically guarding the entrance to the cavern, but I was more focused on glaring at the back of his head where he stood, not two meters away from me. This was going to drive me insane if he just kept ignoring I was here. Before I had gotten off of the transport earlier, Verelia had given me a rather unhopeful “good luck” and I was now realizing I needed it.

        The silence was filling my brain with far too many thoughts. Without letting myself think it through, I started. “Would you at least acknowledge that I’m here?” An exasperated combination of sighing, slumping shoulders, and then very reluctantly looking at me followed. “I swear, I’ve met ten-year-olds more mature than you.”

        He gave me a sardonic smile and then quickly went back to his usual almost-frown. “Happy now?”

“Oh, far from it.”

“Too bad.” He turned around and resumed ignoring me.

        I groaned. “Would you please stop making this harder than it has to be? I’m not great at getting along with people and-“

“-Oh, I can tell,” he interrupted. I glared as he continued. “Look, Fannara, I don’t want your pity. I want to be left alone.”

        I scoffed. “Just because you’re pitiful doesn’t mean I would ever give you mine.”

        “Okay, cut the crap. What are you trying to do?”

        Rolling my eyes, I answered, “If you hadn’t noticed, we’re sort of stuck together.”

        “And the second the portal station reopens, you’ll be on the next train out.” I didn’t have an answer to that. “There is no reason to try to ‘get along’.”

        “Bull crap.” He seemed almost startled by my abrupt response.

        “You have been spending way too much time around Ari.”

        I shrugged. “Probably, but that’s beside the point.”

        He raised an eyebrow. “Point being?”

        “Point being you’re an idiot who clearly needs more friends.” That was definitely not the right way to say that, but I didn’t care.

        Moren gave me a very unamused, slightly irritated look. “Now I’m so much more willing to ‘get along’.”

        I clenched my jaw and tried to control my frustration. “Look, either you can keep being an absolute jerk and make patrols horrible, or you could try to deflate your ego a little and make this easier on both of us.” So much for control.

        “Wow. You really are bad at this.”

        “I am so tempted to do something violent right now.” He actually laughed at that. And not the condescending laugh, one that sounded almost…genuine. I looked at him in confusion. That was an unfamiliar noise to come out of him.

Moren tried to hide his amusement but was unsuccessful. “Okay, fine, I’ll ‘stop being an absolute jerk’. Don’t do something violent.”

“Thank you.”

☙❦❧

Two weeks later

Soon patrols went from something I dreaded all day long to something I found myself looking forward to. Turns out Moren was actually enjoyable to be around if he wasn’t trying to ignore your existence. I had no clue how that conversation on our first patrol worked, but I wasn’t about to argue.

In healing class, we were finally going to be allowed to try and do something with wound swapping. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do it, as Alithosi magic wasn’t capable of such big uses of magic without spells, and I’d forgotten most of mine, but it was fascinating to watch others try it.

“Wound swapping is never something that comes easy. It takes years of practice to be able to exchange a full wound, but some of you might be able to partially swap.” The healing teacher walked through the classroom, giving each table two potted plants, leafy little shrubs with deep purple leaves. One of them had a long slice along the stem.

Elara doubtfully scrutinized the two plants in front of us. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this.”

I shrugged. “It’s still worth a try, right?”

“I guess…”

Our teacher returned to her massive desk at the front of the room and stood in front of her two pots. “The key to successfully wound swapping is in the concentration.” She grew quiet and narrowed her eyes at the plants, her eyes glowing gold. “You have to visualize the wound changing from one host to another before you stand a chance at doing it correctly.”

Pressing her lips together into a thin line, the teacher stretched out both of her hands, one in front of each plant. Gold tendrils wafted off of her fingers like smoke. “Once you build up enough magic, you have to push it all out at once, first focusing it on the damaged host and projecting it onto the receiving one.” A sudden flash of gold jumped from one plant to the other. She maintained the stream of magic as it wrapped around the damaged plant and flowed to the other one.

Finally putting her hands down, a satisfied look came over our teacher as she turned the plants to show us the newly swapped wounds. “Wound swapping is key if the host of the original wound is weak. Someone stronger stands a better chance of receiving the healing if the wound is swapped. Now you may try. I’ll be going around to check on your progress.”

Elara turned to look at our two plants. Dark blue sap had started oozing out of the one with a gash. She squinted at the two plants and took a deep breath. Her eyes widened as green magic was visibly building up in her, reflected by her glowing eyes.

She stretched out her hands, fingers unfurling, and took another heavy breath. Small flickers of green steadily grew and coiled around her hands. With one more breath, she began the wound transfer. But she couldn’t hold it.

Before any of the gash could start moving, her magic gave out. Elara leaned back with a huff, disappointment veiling her usually cheery facade.

“I know I wouldn’t be able to do it. Green healers almost never can.” I had no clue how to comfort her.

“Well, at least you tried?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, a whole lot of good that did.” Sighing, Elara pushed some hair out of her face and looked at me. “Your turn.”

I shook my head. “Alithosi magic doesn’t work like that. We use spells for something that big, and even so, it’s never been accomplished.”

“But don’t you want to at least try?”

I shrugged. “Sure, but I’m telling you, nothing’s gonna happen.” A sudden cheer rose up from one side of the room as one of the boys began the process.

Classmates crowded around him, cheering him on. Their efforts broke his concentration and the stream of magic cut out. Regardless, he’d gotten further than the rest of us.

Elara turned her attention back on me. “Come on, just try.”

I exhaled and closed my eyes, drawing on the magic I knew was waiting for me. I had no clue how much magic I’d need for this, but I assumed quite a lot.

Once I felt I had enough built up, I opened my eyes to hear gasps. I was confused to see that everything looked like there was a green filter on it. I tried to blink the haze away, but it wasn’t any use.

Deciding to ignore it, I stretched out my hands and let the magic dance along my fingers. It had been a long time since I’d tried to use my magic at such a large scale, but it felt so easy. I had to bite back a smile as the warm feeling familiarly coursed through me.

I turned my focus on the two plants, trying my best to send my magic to them. Something deep inside me told me to stop and I obeyed. Closing my eyes once more, I slowed my breathing and relaxed my hands. The magic quickly slowed and faded away.

When I opened my eyes, I found the entire class was crowded around my desk. Our teacher was holding the plant that hadn’t been damaged. As she turned the pot around in her hands I gasped. I had done it.

The long gash was now on the other plant, starting to emit its sap. The other plant sat on the desk, still covered in sap, but without a cut. The teacher turned and looked at me, shocked amazement in her eyes.

“Never have I seen such strong magic nor such a fast wound transfer.”

I didn’t know what to say. “I guess there’s still a lot to learn about Alithosi magic.” She shook her head.

“No. I think we have a lot to learn about you.”

Chapter 17

Fannara

     “MOREN GUESS WHAT!” I ran into the cave, knowing full well that I was nearly an hour late. Valraea had to arrange for a different transport to take me when I had arrived at the Arena half an hour late. After the whole wound-swapping ordeal, I had to go for a check-up of sorts so that I’ll be ready to leave once the portals opened. I didn’t want to go but that wasn’t up to me.

Apparently, Moren hadn’t heard me when I was first dropped off, and my sudden shout made him jump. He turned around, looking a little alarmed.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded emphatically as I bounced on my toes. “Better than okay, because, guess what. I was in healing class and we got to try wound swapping aaaand-”

“-if you say ‘guess what’ one more time I might scream.” Moren made an overly exaggerated face of annoyance.

I laughed. “While that might be funny, I’ll refrain from saying it again, but that’s beside the point.” I took a deep breath and tried to stop smiling. “I wound swapped.” His eyes widened.

“No way.”

“Yep. I did it on the first try.”

He looked almost alarmed. “How?”

“What do you mean?”

“From what I’ve heard, that takes years of training and practice. It’s insane that you could get it that quickly.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. It felt easy.” Almost familiar, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud; I knew it wasn’t. Maybe I’d just missed the feeling of using my magic like that.  

He raised an eyebrow. “Dang. I will never understand that.” Moren tilted his head to indicate I should follow him. We walked down the staircase-like structure, going deeper into the cave where we had found comfortable seats. It was also warmer here, and with what looked like a huge blizzard rolling in, it was much needed.

I climbed up onto one boulder, directly across from where Moren had sat, and crossed my legs. It was on the incline leading down to the larger pool at the bottom of the cave, next to the slowly moving waterfall. Small patches of moss sat on the rock with us, their little flowers glowing dimly.

“I really doubt you’re as horrible at light bending as you think.” Moren gave me a skeptical look.

“My sister at age ten could do more advanced things than I can now.”

“Okay, fair, but maybe your magic works a little differently.” I received a questioning look from him in reply. “Like, not everyone’s magic works the same. I know that’s true for me.”

That made him look even more unconvinced. “Yeah, because you have way stronger magic than everyone else.” I let out an annoyed huff. I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. However, I had no clue how to respond without sounding like I was full of it.

“Regardless, you never know.”

“I feel like at some point you do. Plus-” A loud clap of thunder suddenly echoed through the cave, cutting Moren off of what he was about to say and making both of us jump. “Well, that didn’t sound good.”

I looked at him, shocked by the slightly amused tone of his voice. “Yeah no, it didn’t.” Another rumble of thunder resounded above our heads, followed by several large gusts of wind that seemed to blend into each other and then stayed there.

I slid off of the rock and walked up to the entrance of the cavern. The temperature was significantly colder, and the scenery outside was being veiled by an increasingly thick screen of white. This was a huge storm.

Snagging my bag and staff from the entrance, I walked back to where I had been sitting. Moren hadn’t moved. I slung my bag up onto the rock, leaning the staff against the boulder.

He waited until I’d climbed back to my spot to ask, “How bad is it?”

I sighed. “I would be surprised if it cleared up before it gets dark.” He groaned and flopped down on the rock. “Well, aren’t you dramatic,” I deadpanned.

“You do realize that we don’t have food, yes?”

“Yes we do.”

Moren sat up and looked at me. “No. We don’t.”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed my bag, unzipping it and pulling out several assorted energy bar type foods. “Yes, we do.”

“Oh, we do.” I gave him my most unimpressed look and shoved the food into my bag again. “Welp, guess dying of starvation is off the list. What else could we do...”

I pulled the zipper of the bag shut with one yank and looked over at him. “Why must you think of such things?”

“I’m bored. So, what do you say to…hmm…” He looked around the cave, trying to find something stupid to do. “I guess anything relating to water is off-limits do to, you know, burning waters.”

I scoffed. “And the fact that I can’t swim?” Moren seemed surprised by that.

“You can’t swim?”

“No, it’s never something I needed to learn. Also, far too many old wives' tales about water spirits destroying villages.”

“I take it the Alithosi aren’t to found towards bodies of water?”

I chuckled. “That’s one way to put it. But yeah, Alithos wasn’t nearly as…open to such dangerous activities as people in this system seem to be.”

“Isn’t one of your national sports climbing a gigantic tree with literally no safety equipment?”

“...I mean yes, but that doesn’t count.” I stopped and thought about it. “Actually, no, you’re right. I have no clue why that’s allowed.”

Moren laughed at that. “What was it like on Alithos?”

“Eh,” I raised one shoulder unenthusiastically. “It sort of sucked. Everyone is overly formal, the sky is always grey, and the people are intolerable; especially if you happen to be at the top of the class with no family standing and no relation to magic.”

“Sounds like it was rough.”

“I guess, but I had it a lot better than most. Anyways, you got me rambling, now it’s your turn.”

“My turn?”

I nodded. “Mhm, you asked me a question so now I get to ask you one.”

“Oh, is that what we’re doing?”

“It is, so deal with it.”

He gave me a lopsided smile. “Alright then. Ask away…” He trailed off as two loud beeping sounds suddenly filled the air. Moren stiffened as he recognized the sound. It took me a little longer to realize what it was. An alert from campus. One of the annoying ones that wouldn’t stop making noise until you opened the message.

My telecom was in my bag somewhere, so I grabbed it and began searching for the tiny metal square. I found it right as Moren’s alert turned off. He took in a sharp breath, and the com clicked shut. I turned off my alert and looked up at him.

“What was it?”

His eyes seemed slightly panicked as they met mine. “Jana’s forces are attacking Elquar. We’re instructed to shelter in place.”

“Why would she attack in the middle of a blizzard?”

Moren sighed. “She probably has some weather manipulators.” I realized that Moren looked extremely on edge with the news.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do…So, tell me about your sister.” It was the first thing I could think of to change the subject.

He gave me a grateful look and started telling me about Larawyrn. It was evident how much he cared about her as he talked about how good she was at light bending, and how kindhearted she was.

The hours seemed to melt away as we asked questions back and forth. An unannounced competition arose to see who could get the other to rant the longest. Moren was winning after getting me rambling about how horrible Alithosi dances were. Long, boring, and mandatory, they had been the bane of my existence at the academy.

Moren finished telling me the confusing tragedy of how two of his pet fish had somehow eaten each other when he was a kid. Then it was his turn to ask me again.

“Okay, here’s one I’ve been curious about for a while: what happened to your family?”

I took a sharp inhale of breath. “Ohh, that’s a personal one.”

“Oh, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” I looked at him, debating if what I was about to say was a good idea.

“If I answer, will you tell me about Isabell?”

Moren froze. “....I guess that’s fair.”

“Hmmm, okay.” I paused and tried to think of where to start. “My parents were farmers. I had three siblings, one of which was off at school. I couldn’t tell you their names or what they looked like, but I know I had them. One year, there was a really bad drought, followed by horrible weather. We didn’t grow anything that year.

“Because we were low on food and money, and my brother was off at school already, I was the only one they could really get rid of. My younger siblings were too small to stand a chance on their own.” I bit the inside of my cheek and tilted my head to the ceiling, as if the stone above me had some answer for me. “I was eight when I heard them talking about it- about ‘getting rid of an extra mouth’.  So I tried to hide from them, but I mean, I was eight, it didn’t really work.

“Next thing I know, I’m waking up behind a pub in Talidine.” Exhaling, I leaned back on my arms.

Moren looked shocked. “And you haven’t heard from them?”

I shook my head. “Nope, not that I would want to, they didn’t want me.”  I shrugged and sat up straighter, turning so I could fully face Moren. “Alright, now you.”

“Yeah..” He looked down at the moss dotting the rock we were sitting on. “Well, I assume Ari has already told you some things.”

“Yes, but I doubt she was unbiased in telling it.”

Moren scoffed. “That’s for sure. So, Izzy was..she was different. Everyone suspected that she was the Eldramin and that’s probably why she was targeted. The day she was taken was…horrible.” He quieted for a minute and a loud rumble of thunder sounded from outside.

“When she first disappeared, her brother went missing with her. He was found later that night, so we thought we’d find Izzy too, but she was gone.

“Reports started going around that Jana was holding her, but we didn’t believe it at first. There had been an incident with her husband earlier that week and we didn’t think it would make sense. Unfortunately, we were wrong.

“Once Jana was confronted about it, she began demanding that the Harpsons leave Lathra IV. It was so bizarre, every time we had conferences with Jana prior to this, she had seemed so…gentle, so to say, it was like something had changed. Every day the Harpsons didn’t leave, Jana did something to Izzy, recording the whole thing and sending it as a type of blackmail. I wasn’t supposed to see them but they had no clue what was coming when she sent the first one.” Moren shuddered involuntarily and fixed his eyes on a tuft of moss next to his foot.

“What had she done?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer and very sure he didn’t want to say it.

With a shaky breath, Moren said, “It was hard to tell. There was just so much blood.” I felt sick. “Well, Kayden Harpson, who was the head Chairman at the time, he tried to negotiate with Jana, but she wouldn’t budge. My dad decided that responding with force was the only option. Kayden and Marcy both tried to stop him but they were too late.

“Every single soldier that was sent in didn’t come back, and Izzy was killed. At least we assume so. The recordings are…confusing, to say the least.”

An awkward silence filled the air. I finally decided to break it. “Do you think she actually died?”

Moren shook his head. “ I can’t explain it but…she’s alive, I can’t say how I know, I wasn’t supposed to know but…” He trailed off without finishing the thought.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I can’t do anything. She won’t be the same, there’s no way that after all those things Jana did to her that she would be the same in the slightest. And even if she was, finding her would put her in so much danger.” He sighed and looked at me, as if waiting to hear if I thought he was being stupid.

I wasn’t sure what I thought. “Well, if she is alive, wouldn’t now be the best time to find her? The war has already started.”

Moren shrugged. “When we need her, she’ll come back.

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t. But I have hope.”

Chapter 18

Fannara

I stare at the letter in disbelief.

“Why me?”

The Headmaster glares at me across the table. “We don’t know. You are certainly not who we would choose to send, but we would rather not risk this opportunity.” I look back down at the table, scanning over the document again.

The Eldran diplomats had dropped it off earlier that day. The letter inviting me to study on Lathra IV.

“What if I decline?” I ask, shifting in the uncomfortable chair.

The Headmaster stares me down, seriousness in his eyes. “You don’t have a choice. As soon as the portal is established, you will go.”

I frown and look down at my hands. I’m squeezing my wrist so hard I can barely feel my right hand. But it’s the only thing keeping me from saying something impulsive. “Yes sir.”

“Good girl. Now, go back to class.” I glare at my shoes and leave the office.

At least I know one thing for sure, anything will be better than this.

“You’re what?” Ari yelled as I started grabbing my things off the shelf.

I turned around to look at her and sighed. “I’m not happy about it either, but I don’t have a choice.” It had been reported that the portal station would be reopened the next day. I had to go home.

There had been a ridiculous amount of meetings I had to go to that morning, some with the heads of school, one with Ana Keleth, and then another visit to a doctor. Something had gotten messed up with my blood work and they had to redo the tests. Not what I would call a relaxing Sunday.

Nor was the week before that relaxing at all. After a day of being stuck in the cave, Moren and I were finally able to return to campus. Anything that hadn’t been covered in three feet of snow had been damaged by the attack. More cleaning crews were brought in and sentries were posted to constantly keep watch on campus. Reportedly, some of the attackers the week before were students.

The majority of the fight had been in Elquar itself. Government buildings had been nearly destroyed and the streets had been damaged. Hysteria after the attack led to another mass draft. Most of the Trainers were being shipped off. Only five remained, Valraea wasn’t one of them.

“Do you have tickets yet?”

“Nope, but it won’t take long for me to get them. Ana said I’ll probably be gone in two days.” Ari groaned and plopped down on her bed.

She grabbed one of her pillows and started picking lint off of it. “This is so annoying.”

“It’s literally inner-planetary law.”

Ari huffed. “They aren’t making me leave.”

“You’re legally Eldran, Ari.” I picked up the books I’d borrowed from the campus library and started a pile on the floor. “Also, they aren’t sending any Getterians back anyway.” The other international students were being allowed to stay at the university too. If they were from the planet, they didn’t have to leave.

“Well I think that’s stupid and you shouldn’t have to go.”

I chuckled. “Thanks, I guess.”  

I went to grab my carpet bag from under my bed when Ari suddenly freaked out. “Fannara, what the crap is on your back?” I froze.

“Is there something on my back?” Unsure of what it could be I slowly moved my hand to touch my back. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Pull your shirt up a little.”

“Excuse me?”

Ari walked over to where I was crouched. “I’m serious.” Confused, I complied and lifted the back of my shirt a little bit more. “Oh, good Source.”

“Is there something alive?” I turned my head to try and look at Ari. She slowly shook her head. From what I could see of her face, she looked horrified. “Well then what is it?”

She tilted her head as if trying to assess what she was looking at. “It looks like scars.”

“What in the- what would I have scars on my back from?”

“I don’t know. It’s your back.” I stood up and walked to the bathroom. I turned on the light and looked at my back in the mirror.

What I saw was far worse than what I’d been imagining. Thick white lines riddled my back in jagged sections. “What in the world?”

“How have you never noticed this before?”

“Do you make a habit of looking at your back?!”

Mel opened the door of the bathroom and walked in. She stopped short when she saw we were in there. “Oh, hey guy- holy heck, what is wrong with your back.”

Mara popped her head into the bathroom to see what was happening. “Are we having a party in the bathro- oh my gosh.” All three of them crowded around me as we examined the strange scars all over my back.

“How long has it been like this?” Mel asked, extreme alarm in her voice.

I shrugged. “I have no clue. Ari pointed it out just a few seconds ago.”

“You hadn’t seen it before?” I looked down at Mara in confusion.

“Is it normal for you people to look at your backs?”

Mel brushed past the comment and looked at Ari. “How did you notice it?”

“Well, Fannara was packing, and she bent down and-”

“-Wait, why were you packing?” Mara interjected. “Oh no, you’re not leaving, are you?”

I groaned. “Yep, within the next two days.” A distressed “noo” came out of Mara and she frowned.

“Are we going to brush past the fact that it looks like something sliced open Fannara’s back?” Mel sounded slightly irked. “Do you have any clue what did this?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. This is really weird, and they look like pretty old scars.” Mel nodded.

“Old, but they must have been really bad wounds.”

Ari sighed and took a step back. “I guess there’s no way to know where they’re from. They look so weird, though. What would have caused that?”

“No clue.” Mel squinted at them one last time and then also took a step back. “Guess it’s just another Fannara Mystery.”

I looked up at her in confused amusement. “Are there others I should know about?”

“Well, there was that whole healing thing last week,” Mara said. I turned to look at her.

“The wound-swapping? Why would that be so weird?”

She looked surprised that I didn’t know what she was referring to. “Not the wound-swapping, I mean, that shocked everyone for sure, but the more weird thing was how strong they say your magic was before you even swapped the wound.”

I was getting increasingly confused. “Is there something I don’t know about or…?”

“They say you built up so much magic that it looked like green fire was coming out of your eyes.” I could help but laugh at Mel’s description.  

“That’s just a rumor though.” I knew there was no way that could be true.

Ari spoke up for the first time in a while. “Why would it be a rumor?”

“Alithosi magic doesn’t show through the eyes, it only comes out of our hands.” All three of them looked at me in disbelief.

Mara laughed a little bit. “Fannara, your eyes always glow when you use your magic.” I frowned.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Mara shrugged.

“I’m not sure what to tell you, they glow a lot.” This was getting weird.

Ari decided now would be a great time to change the subject and I was immensely grateful for that. “Well, it might be Fannara’s last night, should we go get some food together?”

“Ooh, yes, we should.” Mara immediately jumped on the idea.

I smiled. This might be one of my last times with these girls. I was going to miss them more than I ever missed anything from Alithos. I’d be eternally grateful for their friendships, and I was excited to be able to spend just a few more days with them.

Chapter 19

Fannara

The next day, it was decided. The train that would stop at Alithos was going to leave the day after. I had one last day to follow the routine I’d built up for the last five months.

I went from class to class, saying as few goodbyes as possible. Strangely, Moren didn’t show up to any of the classes we had together. It wasn’t like we would really talk outside of patrols, but it was still weird not seeing him in any of the classes.

I ate lunch with Ari and Mara one last time and went to my remaining afternoon classes. Now that we didn’t have most of our Trainers, we just went straight to patrols. Moren still was nowhere to be seen. I wasn’t sure what to do as we technically weren’t supposed to leave the Arena without our partner.

One of the few Trainers left ran over to me but hesitated as he reached me.

“Harpson?”

“Yes sir?”

He looked down at his clipboard nervously and then looked back at me. This was weird. “Your partner has been delayed. You’re instructed to go to your patrolling station and wait for him there.” I nodded.

“Thank you.” I walked to the exit of the Arena. I grabbed my coat from where I had dumped it on the floor and ran to the elevator. Earlier in the day, I had to turn in my Training uniform, so I was going on patrol in my normal clothes today.

It was freezing outside, so I ran to the transport that would take me and a few other people to our posts.  I realized that I was going to miss the bumpy ride up the mountain to the Burning Waters. It was the last stop the transport took.

I gave the driver an appreciative smile and stepped out into the snow. The wind bit through me as I climbed up to the entrance of the cave. I felt heavy as I walked up to the gaping hole in the side of the mountain. It wasn’t like I had anything extra with me today, in fact, I had less than normal. No staff in my hand, no casted-guards, not even my normal pack. Just a water bottle and my telecom.

I waited inside the part of the cave where Moren and I always sat. It felt so lonely and empty without him.

I sighed and leaned back on my hands. It was a content sigh. I certainly didn’t want to leave Lathra IV. The closest thing I had to a family was here. But I’d had a good time there, and I didn’t have many regrets.

Moren arrived looking anything but content. He seemed nervous and agitated as he slowly walked down to where I was.

I slid off of the rock and jogged over to him. “Hey! Where were…” I trailed off when he met my gaze. His sapphire eyes looked frantic and exhausted. “Are you okay?” Moren didn’t answer; he just stared at me as if I’d just received a death sentence.

I slowly took a step back as his silence continued. “Did something happen? You seem a bit…off.” He swallowed hard and moved his eyes to the ground.

“We need to talk.” He walked past me and further down into the cave.

I turned around, increasingly confused and concerned. Not sure of what else to do, I followed him down. “What’s going on?” We were now standing on the level where the lake was.

Moren slowed his pace slightly, allowing me to catch up. We started just walking around the bottom area without saying anything.

He finally took a deep breath and started. “Fannara, you’re not getting on that train tomorrow.” I tilted my head, perplexed.

“Why?”

He paused again, as if preparing himself for something he didn’t want to say. “I know about the ring.” I stiffened and automatically reached for my hair where the ring was securing my braid.

“I can explain-”

“-you don’t have to, Via told me.” I froze mid-step. Had they captured Via? Was it my fault? What did Moren have to do with this? Silence seemed like my best option as I waited for him to continue. It looked like he didn’t want to. “I have orders and…I wish they weren’t making me do this.” He said that last part under his breath, but I still heard it.

He turned to face me head-on. “There was something weird with your blood tests.” I furrowed my brow.

“What does that have to do with the ring?” He sighed and looked away, fixing his eyes on the water. My heart started to pound as if my body knew what was happening before my mind did. “Moren, what is going on?” He turned back to face me, regret seeming to gleam in his eyes.

Nearly inaudibly, he said, “We found her. We found Izzy.” I couldn’t hold back the shock that came over me.

“She’s actually alive?” He nodded, but he didn’t seem any less miserable. “...where is she?” When he still didn’t say anything, I assumed the worst. “Moren, does Jana still have her?”

He shook his head and said, “It’s you.” I stared at him.

“What’s me? Moren, you’re not making any sense.”  He looked at me like he was trying to search my face for answers.

“You really don’t remember?”

I let out a slightly frustrated breath. “Remember what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He pulled back and frowned at the ground. After a few breaths of confused silence, he began again. “A few days after the soldiers were sent into Jana’s fortress, the centaurs rescued Isabell.” I had no clue why Moren was suddenly talking about this, but I figured that it would be best to just let him keep talking. “She was really wounded and…not in her right mind. Using the moon spells they knew, they blocked her memories and covered them with a new narrative of sorts, one that still held the key information that would let them identify her in the future.

“She was sent off-world for eleven years until one of the officials who had been informed of the plot arranged for her to return to Lathra IV.” My heart started pounding harder as he kept talking. I had a growing suspicion in my mind of what he was thinking, but it was too absurd to be real.

He took another deep breath before confirming what I was worried he was thinking. “Fannara, that was you.”

I scoffed. “Moren, I think you maybe need a bit more sleep or something. That’s ridiculous.” From the way he looked at me, I knew he believed what he was saying, but I couldn’t. “That makes no sense -I have very clear memories from Alithos- that wasn’t just something planted in my head.”

“I didn’t believe it at first either, but when Via gave us the evidence-”

“-why would Via know anything about this?!” Panic was starting to overtake me. I was trembling from head to toe. A new headache tore through my head, along with a sudden wave of dizziness. “None of this makes any sense. It can’t be real, this can’t be real.” I took a few steps back as if physical distance would make this scenario go away.

Moren took a step toward me and I immediately stumbled a few more steps back. He froze when he realized how insanely freaked out and scared I was. “Via knows because she was rescued along with you. Jana had been holding you both and a few others when the centaurs raided.”  

I shook my head fervently. “That wasn’t me Moren, you know that.” I pulled my sweater tighter around me in an attempt to stop the shaking.

“If you don’t believe me, then look at what happened with the blood tests. They had to redo them because you were already in the system.”

I swallowed hard and took another step back. “That’s not possible.” I wracked my brain for something to counter this with. “I had an older brother, there’s no way I imagined that, and Izzy only had younger siblings.”

Moren took in an uncomfortable breath. “That’s…that’s actually not true. You do have an older brother, people just don’t talk about him much anymore.”

“You’re lying. That wouldn’t make any sense. Why would people suddenly stop talking about someone? That makes no sense.” My words were coming out jumbled but I couldn’t help it.

Moren put out his hands, signaling for me to calm down. “Eli had to leave Lathra IV after the government found out he married Via. But that’s not important right now.” The name was familiar and immediately triggered something.

Sudden snippets of memories came to mind as I struggled to make sense of what Moren was saying. I could hardly hear him anymore. Sights, smells, colors, everything was flooding in like a torrent.

Between trembling teeth, I somehow managed to say something. “What’s happening?” I stumbled backward a little further.

Moren’s eyes suddenly widened in panic, and he tried to grab me. I jerked backward and then realized my mistake.

My foot slipped. The rest of me followed. I fell backward into the water, but this time it wasn’t like the field trip.

This time the pain was instant. So was the darkness.

Chapter 20

Faith

I tapped my pen against my desk in rhythm with the song stuck in my head. This was boring. My plan had been to get all my summer reading done within the first week of vacation; that way, I could have the rest of it free. But my plan was being messed up by how painfully dull the assigned books were.

I shoved away from my desk, letting my chair roll me over to my bed, which I promptly flopped down on. The early afternoon light beat into my eyes and my room, making it seem like it was burning, but I knew we set the thermostat at 75. I rolled onto my back and stared at the white ceiling. Old glow-in-the-dark stars still clung to it, faithfully glowing green every night. I wondered how long it would take them to lose their stick and fall down. We had put them up nearly 10 years ago right after buying our house in a Chicago suburb when I was 4.

Grabbing a stuffed animal, I shoved it under my head as a pillow. There wasn’t much to do over the summer when you didn’t have any friends in the area. All of mine had moved at the end of 8th grade, leaving me to face my first year of high school alone as the youngest in the building. I was several grades ahead of most people my age, which never helped with social relations. I technically had my brother Jayson in the building, but he was a school favorite and had far too many friends for me to be willing to interact in his friend groups.

It’s not like he was exclusive or thought it was weird to have his little sister only a year behind him in school while being three years younger–he thought the opposite, really. But I didn’t want to bother him, so I just kept to myself.

A high-pitched alarm pulled me from my thoughts. I could hear someone yelling downstairs. I had a feeling I knew what was happening.

Throwing my improvised pillow onto my bed, I jogged over to my door. The stuffed animal frog bounced on my bed happily as smoke filtered into my room. Oh, gosh.

My feet thundered on the stairs as I moved to the bottom floor as quickly as possible. The smoke was thicker down here, and the smoke detector  was blaring. I squinted my eyes and made my way through the living room, coughing as I turned the corner into the dining room.

Ducking my head to see in between the cupboard and the counter, I saw flames coming out of a cabinet. I walked around into the kitchen to find my mother frantically trying to use a fire extinguisher on our bonfire of a microwave. The foam refused to come out of the cylinder.

When she caught sight of me, her eyes lit up. “Faith! Here, hold this.” She handed me the fire extinguisher and took a step back from the flames. Extending her hands, iridescent blue light filtered from her open palm and enveloped the fire, hardening until it looked like glass. The force field stopped the fire from receiving any more oxygen and the flames flickered out.

Mom sighed contentedly and put her hands on her hips, releasing the magic. It wasn’t unusual for her to have to use magic to fix some disaster in the house, but she normally made sure the neighbors stood no chance of seeing it. A family of Eldran from a different solar system living in suburban Illinois wouldn’t really pass well with anyone.

“This is why Dad cooks.” I nodded. I couldn’t think of a single time my mother had cooked and not set something on fire or given us food poisoning.

“What were you trying to make?” Mom pulled out her phone from her back pocket and opened it to a recipe.

“It says it’s a recipe for microwave brownies, but it didn’t quite work out.” Well, if you tried to make it, it’s bound to be a recipe for disaster. She sighed and put her phone on the now scorched counter. The smoke detector  was still panicking, reminding us that the house nearly burnt down.

I put the fire extinguisher away in the pantry where we kept it. “Do you know how to turn that off?” I asked, referring to the smoke detector . Mom shook her head. “...okay, I’ll call Dad.” My Dad and Jay were out on a “boys' day”, meaning deep-dish pizza and some overstimulating action movie that would have Dad asleep in minutes. The movie was supposed to be over by now, though, so I doubted I would be bothering him.

I jogged up the stairs again to my room. Snatching my phone off of my desk, I called my dad. Jayson answered.

“Everything you say can and will be used against you to the full extent of the law.” I could hear the car engine in the background. Jay took a loud slurp of some drink. “What doth the Faithster require?”

“Mom set the microwave on fire.” He audibly choked and started coughing. Dad asked him what had happened. I distantly heard a “mom tried to burn the house down again” before my dad snatched the phone.

Amusement nearly overpowered the concern in his voice as he asked, “Faith, what happened?” I retold the tale of the explosive brownies.

“Oh, also, we don’t know how to turn off the smoke detector .” He sighed and let me know that they were almost home.

I hung up and hopped back downstairs. Mom had all the windows open and was trying to fan out the smoke using cookie sheets. It wasn’t working very well. I joined her in the kitchen but didn’t pick up a pan but rather inspected the damage to the microwave. It didn’t look horrible, but I wasn’t sure if it would work again.

The door on the opposite side of the house opened and swung shut after two pairs of feet entered the house.

“Knock knoc- oh my word, why is the house full of smoke?” Mom and I poked our heads around the corner to see who had just entered the house. Eli and Via stood in our entryway, trying to fan the smoke out of their faces and occasionally coughing.

I was about to run over to them when I realized my mom was acting weird. Via and Eli lived 45 minutes away in Chicago, and it was a rare–and normally happy– event when we did see them. But the only thing I'd seen on my mother's face was thinly masked dread.

Unnerved by this reaction and a little confused, I eventually went over and hugged the two.

"Mom tried to cook and set the microwave on fire, but it's fine now." The look of alarm that came over both of their faces was incredibly amusing and it took quite a lot of restraint to not burst out laughing.

I noticed a small motion from Via as she grabbed my brother's hand, gave it a little squeeze, and lightly pushed him towards my mom. Eli paused and glanced back at her again. Via gave him a reassuring smile and nodded her head toward Mom again.

Eli took a deep breath and walked over to Mom, disappearing into the kitchen with her. This was weird.

Via turned to me, a small smile still on her face. "So, Faith, what have you been doing in recent days?" Her English was heavily accented and a bit overly formal, but still understandable.

I let out a little puff of air and tried to take my mind away from whatever was happening in the kitchen. "Uhm, not much, I'm on break so that's nice but I don't have much to do…" I trailed off as the familiar sound of our car engine pulled into the driveway. "Oh, that should be Dad and Jayson." It's not like I was trying to end my conversation with Via, I thought she was great, our whole family had liked her from the moment Eli brought her home the first time, and we were all overjoyed when they got married last year, but I was a little too distracted to hold a conversation.

The back door swung open, leaving the sound of springs rattling as Jay's footsteps thundered in from the kitchen. My two brothers had a very loud reunion in the kitchen before making their way back into the living room. Mom and Dad followed them in, Mom looking nearly sick and Dad looking nervous. Something was up.

Dad asked us all to sit down. That meant something was really wrong. Just having the four of us who regularly lived together sit down meant something big had happened, but having our whole family do it? We hadn't had something like this since Eli and Via got engaged, and by the looks on the adults' faces, whatever had caused this meeting to happen wasn't a good thing.

Rubbing his hands together, Eli started. "So, we've told Mom and Dad a little bit of what this is about, but you two," referring to me and Jayson, "probably don't know what's happening. It's about Izzy."

I instinctively glanced at the one picture we had of her out. An old family photo that sat on the piano. I was only a few months old, but she was seven. She had looked a but like me I guess, the same hazel eyes and smattering of freckles on pale skin, the only noticeable difference that I could see was our hair. While my late sister had dark blonde hair, mine was a dark brown.

Turning back to the conversation, I registered why my parents had looked so freaked out. My older sister, Isabell, had been killed 13 years ago in the crossfire of a rescue attempt to save her after some crazy leader on our home planet had kidnapped. No one ever talked about her, so it would be a shock to my parents if something about her had come up that merited this kind of meeting.

Via continued the explanation, switching into Eldran instead of using her broken English. It still wasn't her native language, but it was far more understandable. Thankfully, our family had a bizarre thing where we would learn a new language every month, so I understood her just fine.

"I probably should have told you all sooner, but Eli and I agreed that it would be safest for all involved to wait for the right time to tell you." She looked down and sighed before raising her head and continuing. "Your oldest daughter is still alive."

Dad jerked forward in surprise. The rest of us just froze. Silence fell over the room and then seemed to explode all at once.

“What?!” “That’s not possible, the video-” “Why didn’t you tell us before?” “Is she safe?”

Via folded in on herself as the volume rose and questions got harsher.

Eli stood up suddenly and shouted, “Okay, enough!” We all stopped talking and looked at him. “Listen, the only way to keep Izzy safe was by keeping this a secret.”

“Then why tell us now?” Dad interrupted him before he could continue. “You wait for thirteen years and now decide to say something? Why?”

My oldest brother folded his arms and sighed. “Because she knows now.”

Chapter 21

Isabell

Dark.

“Who are you?” My voice quavers as the question leaves my lips. Something in the shadows starts moving towards me. “I want to go home.” Tears start spilling down my face. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but it feels like years. The figure comes closer and closer, but it’s still hidden in the darkness.

Eventually, a soft voice says, “Oh, you don’t need to be afraid, little girl. I will let you go as soon as I know who you are.”

“I already told you!” my voice breaks as I yell into the shadows. “I’m Isabell Harpson! Now let me go home!” The voice chuckles softly, sounding nearly soothing in its gentleness.

It starts moving toward me again. “Dear, that’s not what I want to know. I want to know if you’re who they all think you are.” It steps into the faint light the whole in the ceiling of the cave allows. The voice has been coming from a tall Shifter woman with black hair and huge dragon wings. Scarily, her eyes are also black, unnaturally so. “I want to know if you’re the Eldramin.”

I stare at the woman, entranced. She looks awesome, but her question stings. The tears increase and I look away, shaking my head. “I couldn’t touch the water.” She leans and seems to be thinking about something.

Under her breath, she says, “Then why would he want you?” I don’t know who ‘he’ is, but I don’t want to know.

“Can I go home now?”

The woman looks down at me and smiles sweetly. My hopes rise. “Soon, darling, soon you can go home.”

Blue.

Moren stares at me while I climb up the tree. I reach the top branch and climb down to a safe height before jumping out of the tree.

“What was my time?”

“What?”

I groan and roll my eyes. “How long did it take me to climb up and down, dingus?”

“Oh, I forgot to time it.” He looks sheepish and cringes sympathetically. I groan again and facepalm a little too hard. “You could go again?”

I roll my eyes again. “No, Moren, I just used a ton of energy doing that the first time. It won’t be as fast if I do it right now.”

He sighs and bites his lip. “I’m sorry, Izzy.” I glare at him. He should be sorry. That was probably an interplanetary record for seven-year-olds. If Ari was here, she would have gotten the time. But nope. Her dad had some fancy ‘diplomatic visit’ so she had to stay with her mom on Lathra I.

Deciding I’ve let Moren suffer enough, I start walking back to where our moms are. “It’s okay, just, get it next time.” He nods excitedly and joins me in walking back.

Mom and Mrs. Ana are talking together on a blanket while Faith, Jayson, and Larawrynn play together. Jay looks bored with the babies, so I wave him over. The toddler waddles over to me and I pick him up.

“You are getting heavy. I won’t be able to keep picking you up, buddy.” He frowns at me and crosses his little arms.

Mom looks over at the three of us and raises an eyebrow in a silent question.

“Can we go play hide and go seek?” Mom and Mrs. Keleth share a look. I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean. Adults have a weird silent language where they talk through weird looks and wiggling their eyebrows. Maybe one day I’ll be fluent enough to understand what they’re saying all the time.

Mrs. Ana speaks up first. “I think that’s okay, what do you think, Marcy?” My mom sighs and nods, almost reluctantly.

“Just no going into the forest.”

“But moooom, that’s where the best hiding places are.”

She gives a look. “Isabell Renae, you are not allowed in the forest. Am I clear?” I groan out a “fine”. Mom decides I’m not trustworthy enough and turns to Moren. “Please, just keep her out of the forest.” He nods. Luckily for me, Moren isn’t good at putting his foot down. And even if he were, he couldn’t stop me if he tried.

Red.

I scream as the claws dig into my back. Blood pours out and seems to flood the room. I try to move but it’s no use, I’m tied down. Nothing other than screams can come out of me. There’s so much I want to say. Why are you doing this? Why me? What did I do? Make it stop. Leave me alone. Take me home. But the screams block off any attempt at communication.

The pain stops spreading, but the pain intensifies.

The woman walks up to me, tilting her head. She lifts my chin up with a finger and looks at me quizzically. “Can you not heal yourself, dear?” Sobs prevent any answer from me, but in my head, I’m screaming. NO. I can’t. Let me go. Please. She takes a step back and waves her hand.

Three dragon Shifters with shockingly vibrant colors enter the cave. The woman directs them with a flick of her fingers and they start attending to me, cleaning my back and untying me. As soon as I’m free, I curl away from them, pushing myself into a corner. They try to grab me but the woman stops them.

“No. Let her heal herself.”

“But-”

“-was I unclear?” Her usually gentle voice takes a sharper edge as she glares at the Shifter who spoke up, a woman with white hair and icy blue eyes and wings. She looks back at me like she’s worried about something, but the woman with the nice voice snaps her attention. “Xyra, is there something you don’t understand?” The white-haired woman shakes her head and leaves the cave.

At the very end of the entrance, I see her turn her head to look at me one last time.

Orange.

The forest is gorgeous at this time of day. Light filters through the fall leaves like stained glass, making the forest floor look splotchy.

“I thought mama said no forest?” Jayson looks up at me, confused.

I shake my head. “Mama thinks the forest is scary, but it’s not scary, is it?” Jay looks around at the looming trees and fiery colors of the leaves.

“No. It’s not scary.” I squeeze his hand and pick him up, balancing the toddler on my hip as I walk deeper into the trees.

The sound of Moren counting can barely be heard now. This is a good place to hide. I glance around to evaluate my options. My first thought is a tree, but with Jay, that’s not possible.

I find a nice clump of bushes and sit on the ground behind them. Giddiness bubbles up inside of me and I have to cover my mouth to keep from giggling. Jayson starts fidgeting in my arms and I pull him tighter.

“Shh. Jay, we don’t want Moren to find us. It’s a game.” He ignores me and starts kicking me. I can’t keep a hold on him and he breaks free of my hold, sprinting into the forest.

I groan for probably the hundredth time today and get off the ground to chase him. Moren has finished counting and the only sound is the wing blowing the leaves. And the crunching of footsteps.

I follow the sound, trying to understand how someone with such little legs could move so fast. I’m going deeper into the forest than I have been before. Maybe Mom was right, maybe this was a bad idea.

The footsteps stop, so I speed up, hoping to catch my gremlin of a brother before he escapes again.

“Jaaayson,” I call. As much as I would love to win hide and go seek, finding Jay is more important.

I enter a clearing full of mainly dry leaves. Jayson is nowhere in sight. Sighing, I kick at the leaves. Mom is going to kill me.

A sudden noise makes me turn my head.

“Jayson?” I jog over to the bush I heard a noise from, and, to my relief, there he is. “Jayson, you can’t run off like that.”

He slaps a little hand over my mouth. “Shush, Izz.” I pull away from him, wrinkling my lips at his gross fingers. “Look.” He points across the clearing, his eyes locked on something in the trees. Something big and dark is crouched up in the tree. I turn my head and discover that it’s not just in one tree, but nearly every tree in surrounding the clearing had something in it.

I grab his hands and made him look at me. “Jay, I need you to run back to Mama and Mrs. Ana now, okay? I need you to go back.” He clearly didn’t understand, but I think I do. Something unfriendly is in the trees. He needs to get somewhere safe. I can buy him time.

“Go back to Mama,” I repeat. I ruffle his hair and stand up, brushing off my knees. I hear a little rustle as he starts moving back.

Taking a deep breath, I run into the clearing and shout up at the figures in the trees.

“HEY! HEY YOU! COME GET ME YOU FREAKS!” I sprint further into the forest, away from where my family should be.

Leaves fall down on me as the trees tremble.

Boom.

The woman with the nice voice has continued to visit me regularly, trying to get me to heal myself. When I realized that's what she wants, I decided to never use my magic around her. I heal myself privately, but never when someone is in the room. Never unless it's Xyra.

She's one of the only people here who actually worries about me, I can see it in her eyes and how much more gentle she is.

Loud noises suddenly erupt from outside the cave. The guard standing at the entrance readjusts his position into the pose I've learned means the woman is coming.

I push myself into a corner, wishing I could disappear. But it's no use.

The woman strides into the room, her expression set into a firm glare. She's never looked this mad before and it scares me.

She walks over to where I'm huddled and grabs my arm, yanking me to my feet. "You're people have come to collect you, little Eldramin. Shall we greet them?" Her threatening tone of voice makes it clear she has no kind intentions. But a little bit of me rises in hope, someone has come for me.

I'm dragged out of the cave and into blinding light. I dig my heels into the ground, slightly slowing the woman down before my eyes adjust.

When they do, I see that I couldn't have escaped if I had tried. The cave I was held in is carved into the side of a steep cliff with a single, narrow staircase leading down to a stone courtyard, with columns covered in vines. Behind the courtyard is another cliff with a single opening.

I can't see where the noises are coming from, but they get louder as we near the opposite cliff. We speed through the entrance and begin ascending a spiraling staircase.

When we arrive at the second landing, the woman pushes a big door open, leading into a huge room that I realize, with shock, that I recognize.

Huge veins of multicolored crystallized fire snake across the ceiling, which is supported by enormous carved pillars. The room itself is huge, but almost devoid of any furniture. Intricate benches are carved into the walls on either side of the room, with large tapestries hanging behind them. At the back of the room sits a massive throne, with two sets of staircases on either side of it, curving into each other above the throne and then disappearing into some other room. This is the Deraal's throne room.

I glance up at the woman and realize I recognize her too. No wonder I didn't realize who she was before, she used to have red hair and blue eyes.

"Jana," I whisper to myself. She doesn't make any sign of if she heard me.

Deraal Jana continues pulling me through the room to the large double doors on the opposite side of the room from the throne. Ancient carvings decorate the doors with images of ancient Shifter rulers and prophecies.

She pushes the right door open with one hand and leads me into a large hallway. I don't have time to take in what it looks like before one of the many doors slams open and two squadrons of Eldran soldiers rush through. They pause when they see me.

One of them tentatively touches his earpiece and says, "We found her."

I try to break free of the Deraal and run to them, but she tightens her grip and her nails dig into my arm. I scream and start thrashing against her. Freedom is so close. Tears start pouring out.

Jana stiffens and I hear the soldiers gasp. I raise up a hand to my face to wipe the tears away, they feel sticky. My hand comes away covered in blood.

Everything goes black.

Chapter 22

Faith

“Okay, starting where our knowledge ends, what happened?” Dad leaned forward and stared intently at Via.

She took a deep breath and began. “After the soldiers attacked, they sent Isabell down to the lower dungeons where the other prisoners were held. From all accounts, Jana was ready to give her back. She’d been testing Isabell to see if she was the Eldramin and had no results. However, after the attack, her magic spiked. She healed everyone in those prisons, on purpose or on accident, I’m not sure, but it confirmed Jana’s suspicions. No regular seven-year-old can heal three dozen people at once.

“Plans were made to staunch her magic somehow, to prevent her from growing stronger in magic.” Via paused as she saw Mom make a weird face.

“But, Izzy wasn’t the Eldramin, she couldn’t touch the water. And why would Jana want to keep her from getting stronger, healing magic can’t cause harm.”

Eli clasped his hands together and looked up at Mom. “Apparently, there’s some old Shifter prophecy in which some being with unnaturally strong magic destroys a race of Shifters. Jana seems to think that means Izzy was going to wipe out the dragons.”

This time, I interjected. “She was seven.” I thought back to what I had learned about prophecies. I didn’t know much, but from what my parents had told me, they weren’t very trustworthy. “And that’s just one interpretation of the prophecy, it wouldn’t warrant such extreme action.”

Via shrugged again. “Deraal Jana isn’t in her right mind, everything she does is extreme, but also calculated. We have to assume she had some other plan behind it.” We all grumbled and let her continue.

“Before any of the plans were able to come into play, one of Jana’s attendants let u- the prisoners free. They were taken to centaur territory. The chief centaur had consulted the star seers and they had seen what had to be done to save Isabell. She had been tainted by Jana, so-”

“-excuse me, she had been what?” The alarm in Jayson’s voice made all of us look at him.

Via let out a pent-up breath and explained. “Jana somehow has the ability to control people’s minds. When she does, it leaves the host’s hair black, and when it’s active, their eyes and nails also turn black. Those who know about it refer to it as ‘tainting’.”

“How do you know about it?” Dad raised an eyebrow skeptically at her. “You seem to know an awful lot about what happened.”

Eli glared at him and grabbed Via’s hand. “Via was one of the prisoners that escaped with Izzy. She saw it all firsthand.” She looked down at their entwined hands and bit her lip.

An awkward silence ensued until Jayson interpreted it again. “So then what happened?”

“The centaurs found a way to cast a protection spell that would stop Jana from regaining control of Isabell, but they couldn’t fully remove the tainting. They knew they couldn’t keep her hidden for long, so plans were made to send her somewhere safe.” Mom looked alarmed. “The star seers identified one of the planets as her safest option and said if she was sent there, fate would bring her home again.

“Isabell’s memories were blocked and she began life on Alithos believing herself to be Fannara Harpson, daughter of farmers who abandoned her during a famine. She didn’t know who she was until a few days ago.”

Dad put a hand on his chin as he thought, a question clearly forming in his eyes. “So, how did she find out?”

“Weeeell.” Via glanced at Eli, making some sort of expression that meant he had something to do with this.

“Let’s just say fate got a little boost.” Eli avoided the questioning looks we were all giving him. “Before I left government, part of my training with Ana Keleth included choosing a student to join the foreign exchange program, so Izzy is on Lathra IV now…. And Moren should have been the one who told her.”

Mom slowly lowered her hands from where they had been covering her mouth and furrowed her brows, not quite glaring at Eli, but giving him the ‘you stupid child, how are you my offspring’ look. “That is possibly the worst way you could have done that.”

Via nodded. “Yeah, it didn’t go quite as planned. I tried to talk to her first, but then campus got attacked and it got too crazy and-”

“-what?” Eli and Via looked like two puppies getting reprimanded as Dad looked at them like they were crazy. “Well, if you were going to tell her, then why didn’t you wait longer?”

“Well, Jana found out, and now there’s full-out war, and they were going to send her home so I had to-”

“-WHAT?”

Via covered her face with her hands and let out a long breath. “Oh, I am not explaining this well.”

“Noted.” Jayson’s tone was dry and unamused.

Mom sighed and leaned back in her chair. “So let me get this straight, our daughter didn’t die, she’s the Eldramin, she doesn’t remember us, she’s on Lathra IV, and Jana knows and has started a war? Is there anything else I’m missing?” Both Via and Eli were quiet for a while, trying to remember if they missed anything.

“Just that,” Eli started, “we can go home now.” Home. What a weird idea. For as long as I can remember, this has been home. Thinking of some foreign world in a different solar system as home felt bizarre.

I didn’t think Mom and Dad were actually considering it until Dad stood up and said, “Well then, guess we’d better start packing.”

“You’re joking, right?” I asked, looking up at his face. It looked determined.

He shook his head. “Faith, if they’re right, we have to go back.”

“I’ll start figuring out paperwork.” Mom stood up and walked up the stairs to her office. Jayson and I remained seated as all the adults started running around the house. I vaguely realized the smoke detector had stopped beeping.

Jay looked over at me, and I met his eyes. He gave me a little smile. “It’s okay, we’ll be back before you know it.” He stood up and jogged upstairs to start packing.

What a great start to the summer.

Chapter 23

Isabell

The darkness is thick like mud. I’m trying to move, but it feels like I’m glued in place. Maybe I’m dreaming, I can hear things a little bit. Someone is screaming, not sure who, but it doesn’t scare me. There are also these weird smells, something like iron, something that smells like flowers, something that smells like the forest, and great trees with peeling bark.

How long has it been black?

I walk through the stuff clinging to me. It’s getting harder and harder to move. Maybe I should just lie down. Something smells like smoke. For a second I can see a flash of color, brown, green, gold, red, red, red.

Where was I before this?

The darkness continues. I find the colors interesting. They come at such random intervals. It’s like a little surprise. Is this what life has always been like? I think so, the dark is all I remember.

Who am I?

It’s been so long I don’t remember who I am. Or maybe I never knew. Maybe I never was. Has this always been my existence? I thought there had been something before.

Isabell.

Where did that come from? Did someone just speak?

Isabell.

Is that a name? It sounds familiar but I don’t know. Maybe I’m imagining it.

Isabell.

A light splits open the darkness in front of me. I scream and fall further into the blackness. It tries to swallow me.

“Don’t be afraid. You can resist it. We’re helping you.”

Where is this voice coming from? I’m sure I’ve never heard it. Or maybe I have. Is that my voice? Do I have a voice? That doesn’t matter, go to the light. The split in the darkness is smaller now, but now colors are coming through it.

I start moving to the light when I’m suddenly frozen, the cold seeping through every part of me. I gasp and shut my eyes as tremors come over me. The voice is gone. The voice lied. It didn’t help me.

The next time I open my eyes, the scene is completely different. I’m in some sort of room with a ceiling made of leaves, casting happy shadows on everything under it. There are a lot of things under it. A lot of people are under it. Not a single one of them looks familiar, but the immense look of relief on all their faces looking at me makes me think they might have been worried about me.

I try to blink away the fog in my vision and try to push myself into a sitting position, but I’m immediately hushed and placed on my back again. As I start coming to my senses, I realize the others in the room with me aren’t Eldran and they’re not speaking it either.

I stare in wonder at the centaurs- both horse and elk-, wolf, and even bird Shifters surrounding me. Their dialect is like nothing I’ve heard before and I don’t have a clue what they’re saying. Dad probably would, he’s the minister of Foreign Affairs after all, but our language lessons never got into the many Shifter languages aside from the one the Dragons and Phoenixes use, because theirs are the most likely to come in contact with.

They continue to chitter in their strange language as I lie here in confusion. This is bizarre.

Fannara

I shot up in the bed, clenching the bedding in my fists as the heart rate monitor beeped frantically. Squeezing my eyes shut, I let myself flop back onto the bed, trying to remind myself where I was so that I could calm down.

I was in a hospital. After I’d fallen in the lake, Moren had gotten me out and commed the university. They sent a transport to take me to the hospital where I’d been for the past two weeks.

It wasn’t that I was hurt, at least, not anymore. But the ‘veil’ cast over my memories had metaphorically ‘torn’ when I hit the water. Now, all it took was a small trigger to send me into an old memory. The amount of times I’d blacked out because of it was an irritatingly long number that I didn’t bother counting anymore.

Not much of what happened made much sense to me, but it explained a lot of the questions that had formed over the last few months. Why did I have headaches? That would be because my memories were trying to trigger constantly. Why did I have huge scars on my back? Because Jana tore it open as an experiment. Why was my magic so much stronger than everyone else’s? Well, unfortunately for me, because I’m the Eldramin. Almost all the questions came back to that.

Everything that I thought I’d known for the last thirteen years of my life had been wrong. Apparently, I’d turned twenty a few months prior to the lake incident. I didn’t know much of what it meant to be Isabell Harpson, but one thing was clear; I was not what they'd hoped for.

Carefully, I sat back up and swung my legs over the side of my bed, pulling back the sheets and making sure I didn’t mess with any of the tubes or needles sticking out of me. Gift baskets and flowers from nameless people littered the floor of the room. None of these people had known my name until I took a dive, yet they felt the need to act concerned.

I tiptoed around the mess, trying to make my way to the window of the room. The ledge there was also full of stuff, but not from strangers. This is where I asked the nurses to put anything that my friends sent. Mara had made me a large care basket with mostly unhealthy food in it, but also several books and a massive teal sweater. I gratefully pulled it on over the thin hospital gown. It was freezing in my room, and the sweater provided both warmth and a sense of security. Getting it on around the things sticking out of my arm was a struggle, but I somehow managed.

Sighing, I fingered through the other things accumulating around the room, plucking the glowing cards from the floral arrangements and pilling them into one of the baskets. The ridiculous amount of flowers gave off a nearly nauseating smell; I’d have to ask for those to be removed.

A wave of dizziness reminded me that I hadn’t moved around that much in weeks. I sat back down on the bed with my legs crossed and pulled the basket of cards into my lap. Making two piles, I started tossing the cards with names I recognized into one pile and those from strangers into another.

At first, I was shocked by how many were from my friends, but seeing as my telecom was somewhere at the bottom of the lake and I hadn’t been able to retain consciousness around them for long enough to get more than a word out, it made sense. I couldn’t remember much of what had happened the few times I’d been aware enough to register anyone in the room, and I wasn’t sure what all was real and what all were old memories.

I grabbed one of the cards from the “not-strangers” basket and started reading. It was from Ari, telling me how she missed me that things are lonelier without me and that our room feels really empty, especially because all my stuff got packed up before I went on patrol. The next one was from Lindin, wishing me a speedy recovery and reminding me that the whole squad was with me here. Then one from Mel, Mara, Moren, Verelia, Ari again, Moren again, three more from Mara, even one from Bryce, which, admittedly, was actually very nice.

There was a trend going on in every note. Aside from the well-wishes and mini updates about the mundane things happening, which could be found in all, none of them ever addressed me by my name. Not once did I see a Fannara or even an Isabell in any of the notes.

It made sense, of course, I didn’t expect them to know what to say when I couldn’t maintain consciousness long enough to tell them. The decision I’d come to was this; there’s no denying I was Isabell, but who I’ve become as Fannara over the last thirteen years without any knowledge of Isabell surely outweighs any part of Izzy that remains in me. So Fannara is the reasonable and more comfortable choice.

The door to my room clicked open, and a nurse walked in. I’d been getting better at not passing out every time I received stimuli and this nurse, Sonia, was one I had actually managed a conversation with a time or two. The number of times I'd collapsed on her was a number higher than I cared to acknowledge, but she was very gracious about it.

She walked over to me, dodging the gift baskets strewn across the floor. “Hey, how are we feeling today?” Her expression was hopeful, and I was confident that I would not be disappointing her today by blacking out anytime soon.

“Good…sort of. I walked around a little.” Sonia glanced around at the mess of a floor and looked back at me.

“How?”

I laughed a little. “I was careful, although I’ll admit I don’t think I’m quite ready to start moving around a ton.”

She nodded, taking note of something on her telecom. “We’ll start easing you back into that once you stop passing out on our physical therapy staff.” She said it jokingly but we both knew that it was painfully true. Sonia was not the only nurse I had passed out on in the last two weeks.

“Do you think you’re up for a visitor?”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “Who could have gotten here so quickly?” She smiled at me.

“It’s who hasn’t left for more than a few hours at a time.” Her grin grew wider as my confusion built.

I tried to remember anyone who had been in the room in between my bouts of unconsciousness, but I couldn’t separate what was real and what was from the past. A few things from the most recent days had stuck, like my failed attempts at walking for more than a few minutes at a time and the disaster that started when I face-planted in soup, but I couldn’t remember anyone other than the medical staff being there. I supposed that the flashes of seeing Ari and Mara in the room could have been real, but they hadn’t gotten more than a word out before I was in the past again.

Sonia decided for me as she snapped her telecom shut and walked out of the room, just barely holding the door open with her foot. I heard her tell someone, “she’s awake, but who knows for how long” followed by the sound of someone immediately standing up.

Pulling the massive sweater tighter around me, I shifted my position, pushing myself farther against the pillow supporting my back. I don’t know who I was expecting to walk through the door, but it definitely wasn’t who came through.

Moren froze the second our eyes met. He held his breath as if waiting to see how long this would last before I was out cold again. While it certainly surprised me to see him, I felt totally normal. Maybe I’d run out of memories to trigger.

I smiled at him and gave a small wave, unsure of how to respond to his sudden presence. Especially after everything that had happened, I wasn’t entirely sure how to approach talking to him, but I was only realizing that in the moment.

Moren slowly let out his breath and put on half of a smile. “You’re actually awake, that’s a first.” I scoffed and gave him a playful glare as he walked further into the room, quickly discovering the issue of the gift baskets and flowers. He apprehensively tried to navigate the clutter, making his way towards the armchair in the near center of the mess.

“Don’t hurt my flowers,” I warned.

He looked up from his feet with an unimpressed expression. “Your flowers are more likely to hurt me.” I laughed at his comment and a genuine smile started creeping onto his face as he took a seat, displacing several anonymous gift packages onto the floor. “How many are there?”

I glanced at the extensive collection of bouquets and grimaced. “Too many.”

“I can tell.” Moren sighed and looked away from the clutter, facing me instead. I tilted my head in a silent question and looked right back at him. “So,,,” He tailed off, not finishing his thought before looking away again.

I looked down and adjusted the cuff of my sleeve. “So?” Glancing over at him I realized he was looking at me again, worry evident in his eyes. I gave him a quizzical look and he sat there, unmoving.

“Are you okay?” I was a bit taken aback by the question. Was I okay?

Sighing, I rubbed my thighs and tried to think of a response. “Well, that depends, how do you classify ‘okay’? I haven’t died…yet, and somehow I haven’t passed out yet today, so that’s good?” The look of concern on his face was nearly laughable as he stared at me in slight horror.

“...so I’ll take that as a no.” This time I did laugh.

“I am feeling a lot better though, so it’s all good. Anyways, how is everyone on campus?” Moren proceeded to tell me all about the different activities that had been going on and how strange– and rather boring– patrol with Verelia was. Needless to say, it was probably the best day I’d had since the whole incident at the lake, just because it was nice to hear about my friends.

It was the best day I’d have for a while after too.

Chapter 24

Fannara

“My name is Fannara Renae Harpson.”

“Your legal name.”

I crossed my arms and leaned back in the metal chair, glaring up at the chairman. “All of my legal papers say Fannara.” Jasper Keleth lowed the extended telecom to give me a sour look.

“Your birth name then.”

“As far as I knew, Fannara was my birth name.”

He let out a frustrated breath and glared at me in silence. “Do we need to redo this entire questioning?” The thought of this process starting over sent me into a momentary panic that I didn’t cover in time. Chairman Keleth took that as a sign for him to continue the questions.

“One last time, what is your name?”

Reluctantly, I answered. “Isabell Renae Harpson.” I hated that I was going along with this.

“How o-”

“-Twenty, my birthday was four months ago, my parents are Kayden and Marcy Harpson, I have three siblings, Elihron [insert middle name other than Bobbert], he’s three years older than me, Jayson Zaylen is four years younger than me, and Faith is six years younger than me.” I paused to take a breath and then answered what I knew would be the next question. “And no, I do not know how I escaped from the Deraal’s fortress.”

The chairman’s look of annoyance gave me the satisfaction I’d been hoping for. It was about time I got to have something go my way, for the last several hours I’d been stuck in this room, I’d been asked the same questions over and over again, each time followed by Chairman Keleth trying to trigger memories of the escape. His method of choice? The tapes from the day I “died”.

It certainly triggered something each time, but it wasn’t the memories he wanted.

I squeezed my palms as I watched him turn around to restart the five minutes of footage. There was something distinctly unpleasant in rewatching probably the worst day of my life over and over again, but I knew there was no way out of it.

As the minister of defense, Jasper Keleth had decided that it was critical to learn how I managed to escape captivity, hoping it would mean Eldran soldiers could infiltrate and take her out, theoretically ending the war. But the memories weren’t there.

I couldn’t explain it, it was like a hole in my memory and nothing was helping to fill it.

Footage from the bodycam of one of the soldiers filled up one of the walls in the little room I was in, showing an uncomfortably familiar scene. Footsteps and indistinct orders fill the silence as the soldier and his squadron navigate down a series of hallways. At each stop, more and more of the group of soldiers get diverted into fighting off Jana’s forces, angry dragon Shifters that towered over even the tallest Eldran soldier.

Finally, only two other soldiers remain with the one who the footage comes from. They turn a corner and enter a roofed courtyard sprawling with strange plants and divided into sections by gem-fire paths. The soldier stops as he sees what’s at the end of the path he’s on.

There stands Deraal Jana, a towering giant, clutching the arm of a small child so hard her nails draw blood. That child would be me–or was me. The Deraal stares at the soldiers, tightening her grip on…me I suppose. What’s interesting is that it looks like Jana considers giving me back until the soldiers notice what’s happening to me.

The blood pooling out of my arm starts turning darker and darker until it’s fully black; then it starts coming out of my eyes. That’s as far as I’ve gotten in the recording before, usually slipping away before I can finish it, but this time, I try to stomach it and see it to the end.

Little eight-year-old me touches the blood running down my face in horror and then something weird happens. For a second you can see my eyes change from their old hazel to a pure black, before my hair follows suit, changing from blonde to black, and I topple to the ground.

Jana’s look of confusion and slight horror are elements I found extremely surprising. She’s immediately rushed by the soldiers. The following fight is almost as confusing as it is loud. Yelling and gunfire give some hint of what’s happening right before one soldier shouts “the girl-” and the footage ends.

I shuddered and continued to squeeze my palm as the chairman reopened his telecom and prepared to ask me the questions all over again. The first few times, I’d blacked out while watching and been sent through random memories from before Jana took me, but this time, the only thing that felt different was my stomach. It was not a fan of this whole thing and neither was the rest of me.

“Now, name?” The questioning repeated itself, but this time I let him ask all the questions before answering and didn’t try to outsmart him. I still didn’t have the answer he wanted, so the video started again.

I felt like I was on the verge of tears, this was horrible and I almost wished I’d black out again and get lost in some pointless memory about a lost sock. Squeezing my eyes shut, I wished for this whole thing to stop. The footage only got a few seconds in before the door to the room slammed open.

“Now isn’t a good time.” The Chairman sounded annoyed, and while I was curious as to who had come in, the video hadn’t been paused and I didn’t dare watch it again.

“What you think you’re doing here? There is no way any of her doctors approved this.” I turned my head and looked as I heard Ana Keleth’s voice from the doorway. She met my eyes and, seeing the silent plea in them, pushed past her husband to yank the power chord out of the device that was displaying the recording.

Jasper Keleth wasn’t as pleased about that as I was.

“What do you think you’re doing here? You can’t just barge in while I’m doing this kind of work.”

I had never seen Ana so angry as she scowled at her husband. “Jasper, you have no authority over me, don’t even try that.” She gave him the meanest-looking side eye I had ever seen in my life and turned to me. “I’m here to let you know that your brother and Via will be here within the next few days, so you don’t need to do anything else for right now because the adults who are coming very soon will have better answers to any questions we want to be answered.” Her message certainly wasn’t only for me.

I nodded, and Ana grabbed my arm, pulling me up from the chair and leading me to the door. Before I had fully registered what was happening, I was being nearly dragged down the hallway and out into the plaza outside the government building I’d been in all day. Apparently, all day wasn’t an exaggeration.

The sun was nearing the horizon, bathing the central plaza of Elquar in golden light. A smell of rain lingered in the air, and small puddles on the intricately paved ground whispered of Spring.

Ana took me back to the hospital to get checked over again, making sure the day hadn’t severely affected anything that the nurses and doctors had been spending weeks repairing. It hadn’t and, miraculously, they discharged me. Well, they discharged me with conditions.

For the next week, until my actual family returned to Palendine, I’d be in Ana’s care. Half of me was tempted to argue that I was an adult and should be allowed to return to campus and finish the semester, but the other part of me knew that if something triggered a memory and I passed out somewhere, not even Ari would know what to do with me and having an adult around would probably work better.

So, my absurd amount of flowers was tossed, the few cards and other items that I cared about were packed, and my stay at the Elquar hospital was over.

Chapter 25

Fannara

It didn’t take long for me to start blacking out once we got to the palace. Towering marble columns supported the glass edifice and intricate designs of vines with blooming flowers laced the exterior. Real plants framed the whole scene, massive gardens filled with fountains and dozens of plants sprawled out on either side of the building. Guard towers broke up the majesty the gilded gates otherwise held.

The familiarity of it was more unsettling than reassuring and lead to unconsciousness rather than awe. However, the memories flashed by so quickly, I don’t think Ana fully noticed and I’m not sure I went fully unconscious.

The transport glided to a stop in an underground parking area. I got out and looked around in awe at the scene before me. Dim lights illuminated a path to the stairwell, but they were practically useless as the waterfall that ran under the glass walls and floor of the garage emitted a bioluminescent light. I fixated on the running water, watching as it leaped up to splash the glass, leaving an array of droplets shining like gems.

The door of the transport thudded shut and brought my attention back to Ana who was holding the bag from the hospital and my old carpetbag that had come from Alithos with me. I hadn’t known it had been in the transport, but it was nice to see something that was connected to memories that wouldn’t knock me unconscious.

“Let’s head up, Wryn is home and Moren said he’d stop by in an hour or so.” Ana turned and began climbing a glass staircase that was nearly invisible from where I stood. I quickly followed, trying not to get distracted by the glowing water beneath me and pulling my sweater tighter.

The interior of the building was no less impressive than the exterior and no less unsettling. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the white halls with their gilded detailing weren’t only familiar from my memories; this was the setting of my nightmares. I kept half-expecting to see the little boy round the corner again, like he had so many times in my dreams, and start crying blood all over the white carpet. To say I was on edge would be an understatement.

Thankfully, the only thing I found when I rounded the corner with Ana was an incredible room with a glass ceiling, supported by carved wood beams, holding dozens of colored shards, painting the room in more hues than I could name. Vines and greenery hung from the columns and rafters, glowing nearly as brightly as the colored glass with the sun behind them. Couches covered in deep hues and carefully carved tables and chairs sat arranged around the room in a very natural yet intentional manner. I had no memory of this place.

Ana smiled to herself as she watched my amazed expression. “A bit different than you remember, huh?”

I bit my lip and shook my head. “I don’t remember this at all.” Ana laughed and surveyed the room, nodding.

“No, I don’t think you would. This used to be a patio, but it was rotting and no one ever used it, so I took it on as a little personal project.” Before I could respond, she turned and continued up the hallway we had been following. The marble halls and golden fixtures seemed far less beautiful after seeing Ana’s “little project”.

If it hadn’t been for Ana leading me, I would have thought I was going in circles; the hallways all looked the exact same. Ana led me a little further until she paused mid-stride and glanced over her shoulder at me. I wasn’t sure what was making her hesitate, but as I looked around where we had stopped it clicked. This was a very familiar hallway, my room was a few steps further down.

Little visions flashed before my eyes, racing Eli from my room to his, sneaking into Jayson’s room to wake him up, crying outside my bedroom after locking myself out. I watched the memories with fascination, relishing the happy feeling of being with my siblings and doing weird things or being chased by my dad after stealing food from the kitchen. One time, mom had to chase me around the house with a towel after I took off, trying to escape a bath, leaving wet carpet and little puddles in my wake.

I blinked and realized I was lying on the carpet. Ana and a girl, who I assume was Larawryn, were bent over me, worry etched into their faces as Ana held her telecom up to her ear and talked to someone. Wryn noticed as I started to move and gave me a little smile before nudging Ana. The sheer amount of relief on that woman's face nearly made me start laughing. She finished up the call she was on and snapped her telecom shut, immediately focusing on me.

“I’m thinking maybe we don’t bring you back here, at least not until there’s someone here who can keep your head from acquainting itself with the floor.” So that’s why my head hurt.

I laughed and nodded. “Probably a good idea.” Pushing myself into a sitting position, I looked over at Larawryn, who was sitting on my left. “I don’t think we’ve met yet. My name is Fannara.” I extended my hand to her, and she shook it.

“Nice to meet you, Fannara. I’m Larawryn, but you can call me Wryn.” She looked so much like her brother, it was almost unsettling. Wryn glanced over at Ana, who was furiously typing on her telecom, and stood up, extending a hand to me. “We should get you out of here before you get more head trauma and Mom has a heart attack.” She helped me to my feet and turned me around, snatching my bags before leading me to a separate part of the palace.

We passed the glass room again and I couldn’t help pausing again to take it all in. Wryn stopped with me to gaze at the incredible room.

“It’s such a breath of fresh air compared to the rest of the first floor,” Wryn said. “Everything else feels so sterile and then you come across this.” She smiled and looked up at the glass ceiling.

She looked over at me, and I nodded. “It’s nice to see something that doesn’t make me think of a hospital.” Wryn chuckled and waved the hand that wasn’t carrying the carpetbag to indicate I should continue to follow her.

I was led through more white hallways before we arrived at another staircase, one that widened the closer it got to the floor with intricately ornate handrails. The carpet down the middle of the stairs gradated from white to a dark blue, nearly black, that sharply contrasted the white marble walls.

As Larawyrn led me through the second floor, she explained this was where her family lived, well, t was where she and Ana lived.

“We don’t see Moren very often because, well, clearly, he’s off at the university, and Dad…well, can’t say much about that, but he doesn’t normally stay with us.” She shrugged as if warding off any comment I may have and quickened her step, only stopping once she reached her chosen destination: the living room.

My bags were carefully placed on the floor next to a couch—which I was kindly but sternly made to lay down on—before Wryn scurried out of the room. As soon as I was sure Wryn couldn’t see me, I stood up and walked over to a large window on one side of the room. All of Elquar lay before me, the tall towers and looming buildings reflecting the oranges and reds of the setting sun. Far on the horizon two of the moons could be seen, the smaller of the two just barely peaking over the mountains.

A disgruntled huff made me turn around and realize Wryn had come back into the room. “Couch. Now.” I obeyed the fifteen-year-old and lay back down, accepting the cup of water she’d brought. She sat on the edge of the couch across from me and seemed to be lost in thought as she stared out the window.

Without much warning, she stood up and began to leave, pausing to tell me, “Mom called with your doctors and they said it’s okay for you to stay as long as you don’t hit the ground again. They also said you should get some rest, it sounds like Dad gave you one heck of a day.” Then she was gone.

I figured the doctors knew what they were doing and decided to try to rest. Closing my eyes, I tried to not think about anything that had happened that day. It didn’t work. Every time I was close to feeling relaxed, I’d think of the video that had been drilled into my brain all day: blood, screams, gunfire, it was enough to keep me awake for days. But eventually, I must have managed to at least doze for a while, because the next thing I knew, it was super dark in the room and I had no clue what to do with myself. In the distance, the city shone with neon light, twinkling like the stars sitting above them.

I sat up, patting the side of the couch to ensure my bags were still there. They were and suddenly I was out of things I could do. Where were the light switches? No idea, and I certainly didn’t remember enough of the layout of the palace to find my way around. Plus, I didn’t have anywhere to go.

I heard the faint sound of a door being closed and then several voices, but it was too far away to place them. Footsteps started ascending the staircase, and I was immediately on edge. Suddenly, the lights turned on and my eyes, which had gotten accustomed to the darkness, refused to let me see who was in the hallway outside.

Blinking ferociously, I was able to clear my vision enough to make out a familiar figure. There was Moren, looking worried as he listened to his mother tell the story of me “making friends with the floor” earlier. I smiled and waved, and he returned the gesture. The smile needed work.

After a lovely dinner in which we agreed that Moren had the best chance of catching me if a memory should hit, Ana asked me if I wanted to wait to see the first floor until the next day. It was a tempting offer, but I felt more rested now and just wanted to get it over with. So, Moren and I ventured down the stairs and through the hallways until reaching the same spot where I’d gone down earlier.

I paused and looked down the hallway, trying to push the dread in my stomach away.

Moren glanced down at me, looking concerned, and held out his hand. “Need a support?” I raised an eyebrow, unsure if he was joking.

“And kill my dignity? Please, I’ll be fine.” He didn’t look convinced, but didn’t argue either. It took about four more steps for my dignity to die.

A sudden wave of dizziness swept over me as I realized I was standing in the exact same spot where the nightmare I’d had months ago during the attack had taken place. I grabbed Moren’s hand without thinking and stumbled back a little.

“Is it a memory?” His question pulled me out of my jumbled thoughts.

I shook my head. “It’s just…” I trailed off, not wanting to share the vivid horrors my brain had shown me. Then another thought came to me. “Moren, what happened to Jayson?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…after I got taken, what happened to him? Did Jana get him too?” I looked up at him, scared that his expression would tell me my fears were right—that my nightmares were right.

Moren shook his head. “Nope. Jay was okay if a bit shaken and scared.” I nodded, satisfied with the answer.

We continued on, fairly regularly pausing as a memory threatened to knock me over. We soon discovered that I could keep from totally losing consciousness if I could get Moren to start telling me about the memory I was thinking of. More and more of them included him. Apparently, I was the host of many playdates and got into a wide array of mischief, most of it involving Eli in one way or another. Learning about my memories was far more enjoyable this way.

After what was probably a dreadfully long time for Moren, we reached the door of my bedroom. I took in a deep breath to ready myself and turned the knob. It was pitch black in there, so Moren turned on the light and immediately stiffened. I did too.

Just like the nightmare, dozens upon dozens of folded pieces of paper and letters covered in strange symbols littered the floor. It looked like they had been slipped under the door and had gotten blown across the room.

Moren made a weird noise, and when I looked at him, it looked like he was cringing.

“Oh good Source,” he muttered and started sweeping up the pieces of paper by the armful and dumping them in a sad pile by the door. I bent down and picked up one of the papers, holding it up to the light and twisting it back and forth, trying to figure out how to read it and what in the world it said.

Moren looked up from where he was collecting the notes and began explaining what they were. “Those would be from me. After Iz- er, you, left, this room was locked and no one ever went in it. I guess I got into the habit of sending updates.” I continued to turn the paper around, but it was hopeless. It was completely illegible.

“I hate to break it to you, but you had horrible handwriting.” He laughed and walked over to where I was examining the page. I handed it to him and he turned it around to show me how it was supposed to be read. Still unreadable.

“It’s not written in a normal alphabet. It was a weird code we had made up.” He read over the page before crumbling it up and tossing it into the pile by the door. “But that one’s not worth reading; let’s find a better one.”

I gave him a weird look. “A better one for what?” Moren grinned over at me mischievously as he plucked a paper from the pile and glanced over it.

“For teaching you the code.”

The rest of the night was spent with Moren teaching me the symbols and the letters or phrases they aligned with, and then me trying to write my own sentences using a key he made for me. Of course, it was disrupted by sudden flashes of memories, but they didn’t last long with him there. I don’t remember how I fell asleep that night, but I knew without a doubt that, for the first time in a while, I was happy.

Chapter 26

Fannara

Sunlight streamed into my old bedroom, lighting up the shafts of dust in the air and making them shine like specks of gold. Moren and I were going through the massive closet, finding a concerning amount of kitchen cutlery and a generous rock collection. Apparently, my younger self had some questionable hobbies.

It was strange to see so many random items that immediately brought such vivid memories back to me. Stranger still, Moren knew the story behind almost all of them. Those he didn’t know gave him a lot of practice in catching me as I momentarily lost consciousness. The bouts of memories were becoming less and less intense, and it eventually got to the point where the memories mostly just overlayed on top of the moment I was actually in.

I was just about ready to suggest a beak when the door to the bedroom creaked open. Moren and I exchanged a confused look.

“Were you planning on having visitors today?” I shook my head.

Standing up, I peeked out of the doorway, Moren right on my heels, and was shocked to see–not Ana or Wryn in the doorway–but Ari, Mel, and Mara. I walked out of the closet and all three of their faces lit up, although Ari’s dimmed a bit upon seeing Moren.

Mara ran over and hugged me. “Fannara! It’s been so quiet without you around, not that you make much noise in the first place, but the dorm is so empty and we’ve all missed you so much.” She pushed away, holding me at arm's length and smiling brightly.

Mel pushed past her and gave me a hug too, making a joke about having to work with my partner during patrols. Moren looked extremely uncomfortable from where he stood, now at the back of the room.

“Okay, scooch.” Ari wedged herself in between me and Mel, claiming the hugging position. “Seriously, it has been so weird without you around. But on the bright side, you’re not going to Alithos.” I laughed and hugged her back.

I hadn’t thought of that. Being Isabell meant I would probably never go back to Alithos. Somehow, even though just a few weeks ago I wished I could stay on Lathra IV, it made me a bit sad to think I’d never see Alithos again. Maybe I would, but from what I’d heard of the responsibilities of the Eldramin, I doubted it.

My friends began to pepper me with questions, but not of the kind that I’d faced from the Chairman the day before. These questions were far more gentle: how have you been? Have you been getting enough sleep? Is Ana feeding you right? Do you want us to call you Isabell or Fannara? What have you been doing?

I tried to be as vague as possible with the last question, especially when addressing what had happened the day before. I looked back at Moren as I brushed over the topic of why I’d been pulled from the hospital early at Jasper Keleth’s request, but Moren wasn’t there anymore. He must have left the room while I was answering questions because I hadn’t noticed his absence beforehand.

Strange, I hadn’t really considered Moren a very close friend. I mean, obviously, we’d spent hours upon hours together during patrol and he’d been helping me through this whole Izzy situation, but it was in that moment, when he was suddenly gone, that I realized how much I relied on his support. I didn’t like it.

The next few hours were spent catching up with my roommates. They told me about patrols and classes and taking finals and updates on who was still enrolled in the university and who had left to join the military. I hadn’t even been thinking about those kinds of things, I’d almost forgotten about the war entirely, which was pretty ironic seeing as I was now in the middle of it.

The most concerning part of their report was the increase in raids from the Shifters. However, Jana wasn’t killing the soldiers, at least, not to their knowledge. She was simply taking them. I had an idea of what the missing soldiers were facing and it wasn’t a pretty one.

As their visit came to an end, Ari pulled me aside, letting Mara and Mel talk with Ana about the interior of the palace.

“Okay, I’ve shared a room with you for a lot of months and I can tell you’re not telling us everything. What happened yesterday?” Arienna put her hands on her hips and looked up at me with a face that told me she wouldn’t back down until I told her the truth. I tried anyway.

“I told you: I met with Chairman Keleth, and then Ana took me here.” The glare I received made me go into further detail. “Fine, I had to sit through a whole day’s worth of questioning and watching tapes to try and trigger memories. But it’s fine now-”

“-pardon, what?”

I sighed, realizing it was a losing battle to give her the bare minimum details. “The tapes of the failed rescue attempt, those ones, I had to watch them on loop. For hours. And then I kept passing out and every time I woke up I had to answer the same set of questions again and again but none of the memories being triggered actually had to do with what was being asked—it was bad.”

“I believe that counts as borderline torture.” Ari had a look of disgust on her face as she processed what I’d told her. “Is there anyway to, I dunno, maybe get him removed from office? She looked ready to storm into the government building and punch Jasper Keleth across the face. I wasn’t sure if I’d stop her either.

I didn’t know much on the laws in Palendine, but I highly doubted that one instance would be grounds for anything. “Probably not, especially since he technically had a good reason.”

Ari glared and rolled her eyes. “It’s like being an insensitive jerk runs in the family.”

Ana eventually decided there’d been enough time spent with others and sent the three girls, very kindly, out the door. With only four of us left in the house, Ana gave us lunch and then practically put me down for a nap. I wasn’t going to protest against more sleep.

As Ana was walking me back to my room, she paused and turned to me. “Via and Eli should be coming in tonight, but it’ll be a few more days until the rest of your family comes back.” She resumed walking and then paused again. “And tomorrow you’ll probably have to meet with Jasper again, but Via will be with you, as she knows most of the memories you’re missing.” Ana opened the door of my room, ushering me in before I could respond.

The door clicked shut, and I was suddenly alone. Well, that was a lot of information at once. Walking over to the bed, I pulled a blanket around me and tried to sleep. It didn’t work.

I tried to imagine what Eli would look like now, after thirteen years, running scenarios of how meeting him and Via tonight would go. After deciding that was too stressful to think about, and that thinking about tomorrow was even worse, I chose to resume my survey of the closet.

Several storage bins still sat unopened in a pile towards the back, coated in a layer of dust. The bin Moren and I had been in the middle of sorting through still sat open on the floor, a neat pile of papers on the carpet next to it.

I sat down, cross-legged, and started fingering through the material remaining in the bin. This container held mainly old drawings and random pieces of paper at the top, but as I got further down, I found a little wooden box. It was painted a nasty orange color and looked about ready to splinter into a million little pieces.

Carefully, I unlatched it and flipped the lid open, discovering a small pile of tiny pictures. These images had been printed onto actual paper, not one of the weird holographic tablets that held practically everything else. They looked really old and showed the faces of people I hardly recognized.

In the top photo, a woman with long blonde hair and caramel eyes smiled at the photographer, wearing a long white gown. She was holding hands with a tall, brown-haired man who had the most intense blue–nearly turquoise–eyes I’d ever seen. I smiled to myself as their names suddenly registered. Marcy and Kayden Harpson, my parents.

The next four photos were of my mother holding each one of us kids as babies in a hospital. As I studied the last picture in the sequence, one of Faith as a newborn, a vague memory pulled at me, but the feeling quickly passed before I actually learned what it was. Weird.

I continued looking through the contents of the bin, eventually giving up and laying on the carpet as a headache built up behind my eyes. It was so weird, the memories had suddenly stopped coming all the way and it was becoming painful. Sighing, I stared up at the white ceiling, trying to formulate an explanation, but I couldn’t think of one.

I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, I was jolting upright at the sound of someone knocking on the door. Stumbling over the mess I’d made in the closet, I made my way to the door, opening it to reveal Moren.

He looked at me and gave me a small smile. “Via and Eli are here.” My stomach dropped a little bit.

I took a deep breath and nodded. Moren nodded back and offered his arm for support, which I gladly accepted.

As the door behind me swung shut, I walked down the quiet hallway, bracing myself for my new life as the Eldramin.

Epilogue

Two Days Later

The young woman stood in the crowded train station, fidgeting anxiously as she waited for her family. At her left stood an unlikely pair of a tall man with wavy brown hair and hazel eyes, holding the hand of a short woman with pale blonde hair and yellow eyes. At her right stood another young man, with deep blue eyes and dark auburn hair, positioned as if he were prepared to catch her. He was, in fact.

The air shifted, and a train suddenly appeared on the tracks, speeding out of a portal before swiftly gliding to a stop. The young woman stiffened at the sight of the large vehicle and braced herself for what happened next.

A whooshing noise followed the opening of the train doors and dozens of people of all kinds poured out. In their midst stood a family of four, gazing around the train station in awe and breathing in the air with a look of nostalgia. They slowly made their way through the crowd, presenting paperwork to an attendant who was overcome with a look of shock.

Once they left the gated area of the station, the original four companions caught sight of the newly arrived group. As did a good majority of those in the building, causing the crowds to split, whispering and shushing each other.

All at once a cry rang out from the crowd.

"The Harpsons are back!"