Ayden strode down a barren pathway as the sun hung high in the sky. The smith tasked Ayden to deliver a new batch of Silterran longswords to one of the nobles. Ayden spent all night helping Tarmon recuperate so he didn’t hurt himself. Now his eyelids tried to shut if he didn’t consciously pry them open. He’d staved off his sleep with Green far too many nights in a row and now the natural process of bodily frailty started to wear him down as he held onto the heavy crates.

  Not as heavy as his eye lids, of course.

  He didn’t catch the name of the noble, but when he turned the corner into the estate after the guard saw his supplies and let him in, his jaw dropped.

  Vellis was on a bench with one of their history texts sprawled across her lap. However, her attention was nowhere in particular and definitely not on the book itself. Her eyes wandered across the courtyard, perhaps observing the birds or the flowers only to land on Ayden who likely looked like a rat inside a pristine landscaping.

  He gave her a smile to which she cocked her head, confused. Her eyes fell on the supplies he carried and she understood. She beckoned over a servant who took the cases from Ayden and whisked them off.

  Ayden sighed in relief as the weight had worn him down all this way. His shoulders dropped.

  She strode over to him and regarded him with sober eyes this time.

  Ayden wished he’d known or paid attention to what the smith said besides the location. Lady Galeria was her mother. If he’d listened, he could have freshened himself up more. He’d chastise himself later. For now he had to make the best impression a sleep deprived and over worked student could.

  “Vellis, right?” he asked.

  “Lady Vellis to you,” she said with a stern glare.

  Ayden gulped and recalled Tarmon’s words. She’s silver.

  “If you weren’t an Academy peer,” she finished with a smirk.

  Ayden sighed and laughed. “Oh, right.” He wanted to keep laughing but didn’t.

  “You run errands for the smith?” she asked.

  “On occasion.” He looked around. “You live here?” Of course, she does, idiot.

  “On occasion," she answered as well. “I like to stay in the dorms usually. To absorb the full experience.”

  “Of course,” said Ayden, wishing he had the choice to visit Nadi and Janari whenever he wished. The estates were a moderate hike from the city proper. Eleda was weeks away now. He suddenly missed home more than he ever thought would. Funny such a yearning would strike now of all times.

  As if to make matters worse, she asked, “which village are you from?”

  “Village?” asked Ayden, raising his chin. Eleda was no village. A proper town.

  “Town, then,” she asked, not noticing his offense.

  Eleda was a town, but she didn’t have to assume that as the next option. “Eleda,” Ayden said finally. What even makes a city a city and a town a town? The way they scam you out of gold?

  “Never been there,” she said.

  And you never will, thought Ayden.

  “Ayden, you and I should go to the tavern together. Same one if you’d like.”

  Ayden’s jaw almost dropped. He’d barely drank last night so he had enough coin to. “I would love to!”

  “Wonderful. Don’t be late.” She strode away and Ayden left feeling like he’d never need sleep again the way his heart pumped.

  ***

  Ayden passed out for seven hours before Tarmon jolted him awake.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “You’re going to be late!” he cried. “Gets a date with a silver and decides to sleep through it!” He scoffed. “The absolute nerve.”

  Ayden scampered and started to get ready. One of the Silterran boys still in the dorm hunched over his book peered over to see Ayden comb his hair and put on nicer clothes. Nicer for Ayden, at least.

  “You have a date?” the boy asked. His name was Francel. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” said Ayden. “With Vellis,” he said with more arrogance than he’d have liked.

  “Oh,” Francel said, laughing. “Oh!” he said again, slapping his knee. “You don’t have a date. You have a recuperation session with her. She’s just upset I didn’t show up last night.”

  Ayden’s jaw dropped for a second time that day. “You?” he cried. “That was not okay. She cried, Francel. You left her behind.”

  He mocked Ayden by curling his fists and rubbing them on his eyes. “She’ll get over it.” He waved his hand and returned to his book. With a final thrust of his blade, he glanced over at Ayden an said, “She’ll get over you.”

  Tarmon cracked his neck. “What if I decide to hit you right now, silver.”

  Francel scoffed.

  “I could heal right through your spells. Not that you have much.”

  Francel noticeably paled as he’d seen what both his dorm mates were capable of. “The rules say you’d be expelled,” he snapped, his voice shaking.

  “And you’d be maimed. Burned. Dead even, but I wouldn’t want that.”

  Ayden marveled at how it felt being on the side lines watching what he was so accustomed to years ago. Tarmon was more dangerous than he’d ever been. He didn’t envy Francel.

  “Just leave me alone,” said Francel, gulping, returning to his book.

  “Likewise,” Tarmon said.

  Ayden patted Tarmon and his friend nodded back.

  “Have a good one,” Tarmon said with a grin, his malice toward Francel vanishing.

  ***

  Ayden never made it to the tavern. Before he even reached half way he heard the sound of spells. Fire and ice slapped against stone walls of buildings. Ayden spun around to see several civilians who moments ago were enjoying their late night in the streets cascade out of any alley and into the main road. They screamed as blasts echoed from the alley. Soldiers started to move toward the place, but the ground suddenly cracked underneath them.

  Ayden felt his own feet slip as the road turned into a slope leaning down. An entire building crumbled and started to collapse in on itself. Ayden enhanced himself, his Sources fully replenished from the nap. He leaped up to avoid falling into the crater below.

  A few of them fell in and the soldiers too. The soldiers tried to help the civilians back on their feet and out of the crater. More blasts surged out from the building that had just stood. The smoke and debris of the destruction concealed their whereabouts.

  Ayden panicked as he realized this was his first time dealing with proper mages. It didn’t help that civilians were so close by. If he cast Red he might hurt someone innocent. So he enhanced himself again and charged forward.

  He had some training in Blue now. Primarily to detect spells being flung. When he entered the smoke the mages revealed themselves like sapphire beacons. He drove a fist into one’s jaw and heard it crack against his empowered fist. The second he drove a kick into his sternum and sensed his spell end and body crunch against a large chunk of debris behind him.

  Five more mages flared up around him as spells started hurling his way. He jumped up ten paces with enhanced legs and let the spells collide or miss. He sent a surge of Red in the air to redirect him toward a mage as he fell. His leg caught the rogue mage on his skull and Ayden winced as he heard the crack.

  When Ayden landed, he felt his back scorch in pain as one of the mages had waited for him to be in position. The force sent Ayden tumbling deeper into the crater. His scream bellowed out, giving his position away. A gust of wind cleared the smoke and he looked up to see four mages charging up a Red spell to end his life.

  He tried to enhance himself, but the pain distracted him and he was too slow. The balls of fire flung his way and all he could do was…

  A Barrier formed before him, letting the fire balls thump against the emerald glass like surface. The shimmering Barrier pulsed as the next volley of fire balls made impact.

  Ayden turned to see Cara Silverstone standing on the edge of the crater, channeling Green.

  “Thank you for delaying them, Ayden,” she said. Her eyes suddenly set ablaze with white fire and the same heat burst from her fingers in a precise and controlled blast directed at three of the four mages in the form of sharp rays. One ray punched through a mage’s Barrier, shattered the green cover like glass, its fragmented shards scattered away. The other two missed as the two mages leaped out of the way, enhancing their limbs.

  Ayden felt his back start to heal and he bit down hard on his own sleeve from the agony. As he did, he moved to cover as more spells started to hurl his way and Cara’s. Cara’s Barrier appeared before her and the civilians yet to make it out.

  She turned to the soldiers and yelled an order. “Get them out. We’ll hold till more mages return.”

  The soldiers obeyed and within seconds the civilians were gone.

  She turned to Ayden and read his mind. “Do what you do best,” she said.

  Ayden gave her a nod, blinking the pain fueled tears from his eyes. His back likely bore only a patchy burn scar, but his clothes were ruined. He channeled Red and leaped out from cover. He spotted the three mages, their bodies enhanced and ready to dodge and strike.

  “Dodge this,” he snarled as he enhanced his Body Source with Green, and channeled Red. The explosion blinded him. The shockwave knocked him backward. His back smacked into a wall of the crater, sharp ends of the rubble gashing into his side. His head clipped the edge of the stone and his consciousness fluttered away.