The Eye of Elicion: The Kinowenn Chronicles Vol 1 (21 page)

“
No bother, I realized you are often the last person I talk to before bed lately and I figured why mess with a good thing.”

“
Justin?”

“
Hmmm?”

“
Goodnight.”

“
Goodnight Lucy.”

Lucy rolled her eyes, but she smiled as she did so. She put down her brush and went to sleep.

The next day, Darren gave Lucy her matchbox back. When she opened it, there was a piece of paper inside with a symbol of two blue swords crossed.

“What’s this?” she asked Maya at dinner before Justin and Gavin sat down. Somehow she was pretty sure Justin would tease her.

“I would guess the symbol on his room door. An invitation so to speak,” she replied with a half smile.

“Invitation?”

“To come and visit him anytime you want…” she raised an eyebrow in a suggestive way.

Lucy groaned, “What do I do about it?”

“Whatever you want. The ball is in your court. Cliché, but true.”

“What if I ignore it?”

“You could, but unless you want to deal with Justin’s advice, I suggest we discuss this later,” she finished as Justin set his tray on the table.

Lucy choose to pretend like nothing happened and Darren, following her lead acted the same. Whatever she did or did not feel for Darren, she did not want a distraction from her studies. Those came first right now.

Time flew by for Lucy. Besides the usual school load, she was reading and training with Justin, Maya, and Gavin. Some of her more amusing times happened in the Apothecary with Ted. So far, she had managed to last longer than anyone could remember. His systems were odd, and he was odder, but she was able to work with that. Lucy managed to keep busy every minute of the day.

She appreciated weapons training simply for the fact that it gave her mind a break. They learned to fight with staffs, which went well. On a good day, she could at least make Justin work hard. There was a week of throwing daggers. This went much better than shooting arrows so she finally felt that she had a range weapon. The other thing Lucy liked about daggers was that they were easy to practice with. Whenever she needed a break for a moment, she simply threw a few at her bedroom door. The noise didn’t seem to bother anyone, and she could mend the holes she created with a wave of her hand. Orin introduced them to maces. This ended up being another weapon Lucy would never be proficient with, and Justin’s healing was required and appreciated more than once. Orin finally took her practice mace away from her and suggested she practice throwing daggers for the remainder of the lesson. The rest of the class all thought this was a good idea as well and breathed a collective sigh of relief. She did much better when they moved on to spears. Despite her multitude of bumps, bruises, and soreness, she like being physically exhausted.

Horsemanship lessons provided the same physical exertion. They learned to maneuver the horses around obstacles and do jumps. Lucy had an advantage in being able to communicate with her horse better than the average student, but she still took to riding naturally and would not have performed much worse without her advantage. Tannin started showing up at lessons as well, and they worked on fighting while on horseback. Luckily, they were allowed to choose which weapons to work with. They learned to shoot arrows or throw daggers while riding. They learned how to wield staffs without hitting their horses on the head and how to ride using mainly the knees so they could use both a sword and shield while still maintaining control. There were races on quickly saddling a horse and lessons on riding bareback. They had not yet progressed to fighting while bareback. The goal was to push the students without endangering the horses.

Lucy tried to keep her laughter to a minimum as the horses began to know the students well enough to have preferences on who rode them. A large, enthusiastic brown named Cree nipped at Philip when he walked his direction with a saddle. Philip had a tendency to become scared and jerk at the reins. Cree did not care for this; he thought it cowardly. He also did not appreciate being hit over the head with a practice sword. Accident though it was, that was the last time Cree ever let Philip anywhere near him. Philip eventually found a less enthusiastic horse, and they became friends.

In her healing class, they learned to identify a variety of plants that could be used to heal as well as ones that could be poisonous. This also helped her better understand the vegetable category in the Apothecary. They learned how to mix up salves, tinctures, and poultices. Lucy’s least favorite day was the day they learned how to stitch together wounds. They practiced on bits of soft leather, but Lucy still got queasy at the thought of stitching together human skin. This had led to a discussion of the necessity of learning something that could be better done with magic. Maryn pointed out that magic had different effects on people depending on the world they were in, but weapons still did damage and stitches still closed wounds. If you were too tired to heal, or if using magic would give away your position to other magic uses, this would help your companion avoid bleeding to death. Lucy couldn’t argue the validity of that so she stitched away and ate fruit for dinner. Lucy also ate fruit the day they learned how to set bones and hoped she never had to do that for real either. They learned different mixtures to cure horses as well since that was the major mode of transportation in most worlds. It was best to know if something like fennel will help with hoof rot or give your horse an upset stomach. There was always one more thing to remember.

Lucy no longer attended Intro to Magic. Finally, with a little of Eric’s influence Lucy was sure, they dumped her into Justin’s Magic as Weaponry class since he was going to teach her everything he learned anyways. This still meant she had a lot of extra work to do, but Justin helped her through it. Maya helped her with the verbal spell part since that was still a weakness. Lucy felt it gave an enemy warning though and did not focus her energies towards progressing in that vein.

Also, between her friends, she was fast tracking all knowledge of Kinowenn it was possible to get her hands on. She had studied and taken tests on geography, climate, customs, history, astronomy, and literature. Lucy did have problems with the languages though. Maya did her best, but recognized that Lucy and Gavin might be lost causes when it came to linguistic prowess. After Lucy managed to learn the most commonly spoken languages, it was as if she developed a block to learn any of the others. She learned to read them, but her speech was horrendous.

Lucy appreciated the fact that they were all so busy that she did not have any more awkward moments with Darren. They kept their conversations to school work. He did tease her about her lack of mace skills, and she teased him about somehow making it rain out of a daffodil, but other than that things were genial and normal. Neither of them mentioned the matchbox.

Then there was a school announcement, followed shortly by another announcement. These were generally not made at once by a person’s voice. You went to walk out your door one morning, and there was an envelope attached to it. Inside was piece of paper. The first one came that morning.

Due to the general curiosity of the staff and the hopeful enjoyment of the students, we will be holding a team competition. There will be four people to each team. There will be a variety of interesting challenges that test your skills so choose your teams wisely. Submit your teams on a piece of paper in the box by the Dining Hall. Enjoy.

Lucy was at first excited and intrigued. Of course, Justin, Maya, Gavin, and her would be team. She wondered what kinds of challenges they would be facing. She was pretty sure they could stand against anything. Between all their talents, they were a well rounded group. Gavin was the best fighter in the school. Maya could speak any language, learn any custom, and brew any potion. Justin could heal, talk to animals, was generally knowledgeable, and strong in basic magic skills. Lucy felt she was becoming formidable with her magic skills. Her ability to communicate with Justin could be useful. She wouldn’t be a detriment in a fight unless they gave her a mace. The more she thought about it, the more curious she became. Why had Justin befriended her that first day? Why had Maya and Gavin automatically accepted her?

Lucy stuffed the announcement in her pocket and made her way to the Dining Hall. She was not interested in breakfast; she intended to have a chat with Justin. Had they worked her this hard with the intention of winning a silly competition? What happened after that? By the time she had gone down one staircase, Lucy didn’t know if she wanted to cry or break something, but she was definitely angry. Sensing that either option was best done away from a crowd, she headed towards the practice ground.

“
Justin!”
she practically shouted.

“
Yes?”
Lucy sounded angry, and he had never seen her angry.

Lucy was glad to note he sounded apprehensive.

“
Practice ground. Now.”

“
What about breakfast?”
he cowardly tried to put off the inevitable.

“
If you are not here in five minutes I’m going to sing John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt as loud as I possibly can in my head all day long. Besides the general annoyance that will cause you, I’ll be loud enough that by the end of day Eric will probably do just about anything to get me to stop.”

“
I’m on my way.”

Justin ran from the Dining Hall, his breakfast unfinished. He really hated that song. Besides, Lucy was probably justifiably mad, and she deserved some type of explanation. He just wasn’t sure exactly what kind of explanation to give. As soon as he saw the notice, he knew it would mean trouble. Justin had already been to talk to Eric about it. Justin wasn’t sure if Eric was being intentionally obtuse or if he simply had no concept of how Lucy was going to react to this. As he neared the practice ground, he could see Lucy pacing. Justin hoped this didn’t go too badly. He preferred not to duck fire balls so soon after eating. He knew Lucy could lash out with some formidable magic, and she might be mad enough not to care that they were probably evenly matched when it came to power. He wasn’t sure if his experience could offset her fury. Justin fervently hoped she hadn’t progressed to fury.

Hearing him approach, Lucy turned to face him.

“You shouted?” Justin tried to appear at ease, but that was far from the case. Normally, he was only a couple of inches taller than Lucy, but her anger made her seem taller.

“I assume you read the announcement,” Lucy stated.

Justin nodded.

“Was it an accident that you bumped into me on my first day?”

“Not entirely. I knew Eric was bringing in a new student and I wanted to meet a new student.” That was partly true.

“Did you know about my magic potential?” she was pacing again.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I overheard Eric and Quinn talking.”

“So you thought you’d show me the ropes? You had no other ulterior motives?”

“I wanted to meet you. If you seemed like a decent person, I was willing to continue showing you the ropes,” Justin wished she would stop pacing.

“Did you recruit me?” she stopped pacing and looked at him.

“To win a competition?” Justin asked to clarify. This was dangerous territory.

Lucy nodded.

“No.” He hadn’t known about the competition then.

“Are you sure? We’d make a great team you know.”

“Yes, we would make a good team.”

“I’ll ask again, did you recruit me?”

“Not for this competition,” he replied with assurance.

“Not for this competition?” Lucy repeated.

Too late, Justin realized the hole he had dug with that one statement. He winced as her eyes started to fill with tears.

“What for then?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Of course you can’t! What about Gavin and Maya?”

“They don’t know either, not really.”

“Using them too are you?”

“No.”

“How many others?”

“What?”

“How many other new students did you meet before deciding I might make a nice fourth?”

“Lucy…”

“Is this a game to you?”

“No!”

“What if I hadn’t measured up to your expectations?”

“You’ve exceeded them,” Justin was having trouble keeping up with the disarrayed order of logic.

“What happens after?”

“After what?”

“After whatever you want to use me for is over?”

“It’s not like that.” Justin wanted to explain but wasn’t sure how or where to start. Not to mention, he wasn’t sure if he was safe from any type of magical explosion.

“What’s it like then? Explain it to me. Because right now I feel like I’m being used. I thought I had friends, but all I am is someone to train to be something they need. I am hurt and angry, and if you don’t start explaining, I’m walking away and you can find another fourth to win some stupid competition. So what’s it like Justin?”

Justin opened his mouth, closed it, and looked at her helplessly.

“It’s not like that,” he repeated.

Lucy waited for him to continue for about ten seconds. When he didn’t appear to be willing to add anything, her rage boiled over. All the weeks of training, both magical and physical, and in her rage and sense of betrayal, she bypassed them all and slapped him as hard as she could.

Justin’s brown eyes flew open in shock. He had been expecting some type of magical attack. He hadn’t been ready to block that, and his head flew sideways with the impact. He was sure the whole left side of his face was red. By the time Justin recovered enough from the shock of getting slapped, she was running back towards the school.

“Lucy!” he called after her.

She didn’t even pause.

“
Lucy!”
Justin could feel his thoughts bounce back to him as though she had slammed a door. Upset, he started to follow.

“
Justin, go to class. I’ll talk to Lucy,”
Eric’s calm voice came through.

Justin sighed. He wasn’t sure if that was the best course of action to take, but Lucy wasn’t going to listen to him any time soon. He felt dreadful. He had never meant to hurt her.