Apprentice (The Black Mage, #2)(12)

"All right, mentees, this time in your castings I want you to focus on time. Try to hold your partner in the air for as long as you can. Once you feel comfortable, try alternating the pressure and keeping the same five feet level. Being able to maintain a stable pain casting – no matter the pressure - will help train your magic should you be caught off guard with an unexpected injury." The man paused, his ice blue eyes locking onto me. "Some of you could certainly use the practice."

Ignoring the disparaging comment, I set to work in my casting. I would gladly practice Byron's drills all night, if only so he could see me try. Not that the man would ever acknowledge I was. Trying, that is.

"If you drop me I won't hold it against you."

I tried to smile at Ian but it did little to mask the anxiety in my throat. Concentrate Ryiah. I gently dug the blade into my right palm, refusing to flinch as the sudden pain released my magic. Ian was instantly hovering in the air.

I let him float for a minute more before I decided to test the pressure, alternating between light spurts of pain. Ian remained level. I took turns nicking my fingers and sliced deeper into my palm, trembling as my casting fought to increase and dissipate in union with the hurt. I willed it to hold and braced myself as magic and pain continued to surge through me, struggling to break free.

My eyes watered and burned but I ignored them. Ever since the incident during my first-year trials pain had made my magic unstable. Which meant the past three months were a nightmare to train in. Every little injury opened a floodgate of pain magic – and if it was bad enough, like in the case of my fractured arm earlier, I wasn't always able to hold it back.

Ella suspected a barrier had broke – the one that usually kept my pain magic at bay. During the trials I had attempted a pain casting, spearing myself with a sword and sending an entire building crumbling in its wake. The act had been rash, and it only made sense that so much magic and a near-death experience would leave a large crack in my defense. Normally people built up to that level of casting, slowly, with incremental levels of pain – not the other way around. Master Byron had implied as much when I had first come to him with the question.

"Practice. It is the only way you are going to exert any control over your pain castings. We avoid teaching it to the first-years for a reason, apprentice. Now because of your ill-chosen act you will be battling powers much stronger than a second-year should deal with."

It was the reason the masters saved the method for apprenticeship.

"A mage is always fighting against pain castings during injury – usually they spend years working up to the magic you will be fighting now. You broke a barrier that requires a control you do not – and will not - have for many years."

I had been crestfallen and angry when I'd first heard the master's diagnosis. But Darren, in a random moment of kindness, had pointed out something I'd missed. Yes, I would be forced to battle stronger forces than everyone else who had pain magic, but I would also be competent faster as a result. "I did something similar to you two years before I joined the Academy," he'd confessed. "I still fight pain magic when I get hurt, but if you were to watch me pain cast now you would see I have a lot more control than the others." And he'd been right.

Blinking, I realized that Darren and I were the only ones still casting. The other two mentees – two fourth-years had already quit. Moment later my own palms trembled and I knew it was time to end.

I lowered Ian to the ground, releasing the pressure of the knife.

Two minutes later the non-heir followed suit.

"Well done, Darren. Ryiah that was… acceptable." The master seemed to be pulling the words from his teeth.

The mentors took over casting. I braced myself for Ian's inevitable misstep but nothing bad happened. The third-year seemed to be concentrating extra hard: I was not thrown once during his attempt.

After a couple of minutes Ian returned me to the ground, finishing before the other mentors.

I smiled at him, grateful he had managed to avoid dropping me and jostling my bad arm. "You did it, Ian!"

He winked. "It would seem I just needed the right motivation."

My heart skipped a beat. Don't be a fool – he doesn't mean anything by it.

Darren, still levitating nearby, snorted. Lynn lowered the prince and fixed her gaze on Ian. "Very impressive, Ian. I am so happy Master Byron's lessons are coming along."

The third-year chuckled and then glanced at her partner. "Sorry about earlier."

Darren raised a brow. "Sorry that I am not a pretty red-haired apprentice, or sorry that you were not trying?"

Ian grinned. "Might be a bit of both."

I hardly remembered the rest of our lesson. He thought I was pretty.

It was only much later as I was shoveling waste out of the barrack privies that it occurred to me to wonder which one I had been thinking of.





CHAPTER THREE





"Alright, second-years. It's the moment you have all been preparing for: today you will be participating in your first mock battle. We host one of these at the end of each initial field training. Which means that by the end of your apprenticeship you will have completed four."

Master Byron marched up and down the student line, preening in the light of his audience. "When we return to the desert after the solstice you will no longer be completing the schedule we've had you following the past few months. From January through May you will be deployed in regiment missions patrolling the Red Desert.