7The Prince
The High Priestess represents intuition, knowing, and listening to one’s heart, but in reverse there is ignorance, secrets, and an untrustworthy person in our midst.
I RUB MY TEMPLEto ward off the coming migraine brought on from sitting through Minor Arcana. This class concentrates on the fifty-six cards of lesser magic in each tarot deck that all of us use to enhance our Major Arcana. It’s overwhelming. The Minor Arcana are made up of four suites, representing the four kingdoms. The wands of fire represent the druids: creativity, attraction, and new beginnings. The airy swords represent the seraphs: clarity, strife, communication. The gold coins of the earth represent the elves: money, promise, stability. And last, the cups of water represent the mortals: emotions, relationships, openness.
“Weakness,” Mira whispers under her breath from a row behind me.
I clench my fist around my pen and continue my notes.
I learn the other kingdoms don’t use tarot magic, they have their own. Seraphs can manipulate air and storms, their mightybodies rivaling the Strength Arcana among our druids. The elves manipulate the earth, drawing gold and jewels from the ground, and though not as strong, they’re typically faster and more agile than other immortals. Their abilities are akin to our Justice Arcana, and they can apparently craft amazing machinations and weaponry. But tarot cards were a gift from Azazel, focusing druids’ magic into an ability and recognizing that each druid is naturally more attuned to one type or another. Essentially tarot became the siphons that give them greater range than the other immortals and arguably more power.
I raise my hand, and petite, olive-skinned Professor Fenrys calls on me. “Yes, Rune?”
“I still don’t understand why we would use aces or twos in the Minor Arcana to enhance our powers. Why not just use the higher-ranking cards like pages, knights, queens, and kings?”
She nods eagerly, seemingly happy to know anyone is listening.
“Let us imagine you have the Magician Arcana, and you wish to change an object to a different form. Perhaps something that has a fragile starting form like a glass dish into a slightly stronger crystal one. If you were to use a higher numbered Minor card, you could fracture the dish before you even begin to change its form, effectively taking a battering ram when all that is required is a gentle touch.” Professor Fenrys smiles at the class, and I’m glad to see I’m not the only one whose brows have relaxed into a state of understanding.
Others like Mira roll their eyes at me. I don’t care if I embarrass myself by asking questions. I’m more interested in making sure I understand it all. Anything I can learn here will be useful.
“Or perhaps you’re a Moon Arcana, and you need to shift your form in a small way, let’s say change your hair color. It might need only a Seven of Cups to boost it along, whereas the King of Cups might cover you head to toe in fur.”
The class laughs at that.
After that I attend a class on the history of Arcadia, from its founding by the first druids of the Eidolon Forest to the ruling line of the Vos Dynasty, who have lorded over the realm for at least four centuries.
Then a class on tarot card readings, using what each card represents and how they speak to each other to create a reading. My attention slips as the professor goes over several ways of drawing and laying our cards in different spreads to help us reflect on what may be happening around us. The most common arrangement is three cards representing the past, present, and future, though some are as complicated as ten-card spreads. Its accuracy seems murky, and I’m too pent-up to focus.
When we’re done, it’s time for sparring, and after a day of writing notes and being overloaded by facts, I relish a chance to hit something. Or someone.
Apparently, every druid of Sedah is required to learn sparring and weaponry, even with the ability to wield magic. There’s a likelihood, the instructor tells us, that we could lose our cards or be faced with enemies that could overcome our magic.
The entire student body, including Draven, share in this all-years open space, filled with changeling and druids in various form of fight practice. Hand-to-hand combat, sword fighting, and a hall for archery. Some, like many of the druid-born, have a natural, lethal approach. The changelings have almost no combat training among them. It’s one area where I have a distinct advantage.
I’m hardly listening as our instructor focuses on teaching us first-year changelings basics like how not to break our thumbs when punching or how to hold our arms and shoulders to protect ourselves. How to step, move our hips, and throw our power around.
I know how to fight.
Curiosity strikes. How does Draven handle himself on the mat?
The answer: with brutal grace.
Draven ends each fight with speed and efficiency, as if he refuses to yield an inch of time, not toying with his challengers but instead putting them down with haste. Like he has somewhere better to be. Most are hesitant against him, and I cannot tell if it’s his title or ability that causes their steps to falter. He shows mercy to none of them, and even after facing half a dozen opponents, he still looks as if he’s barely broken a sweat.
But when I square off with a druid across the mat, the first punch I’m unable to block has me seeing stars. Mira laughs unkindly from where she stands on the sidelines.
My attention shoots immediately to Draven, watching me across the gym, lips curved down. Is that disappointment? Or just distaste? I stand and throw my whole power behind an uppercut, and the druid girl I face goes sprawling, knocked out cold.
I think I’ve fractured something, and my hand trembles with agony. I sit, plunging my fist into a bucket of ice. Mira broods in a corner. Subtly I glance Draven’s way. He’s not looking at me, not directly. But I swear to the stars a coy smirk lifts the corner of those luscious lips.
HOURS LATER,I walk back to my Hearth, sore and aching.
My Wraith training means I can climb any surface I encounter and use knives and a bow masterfully. Yet the rigor of the drills our druid trainer subjected us to left me limping, my hand healed by an Empress Arcana. I spotted Draven a few more times throughout the session, working across the room withother second-year students like himself. He handled every hit with battle-worn refinement, never hesitating.
Each step leading to the World Hearth takes a small toll, and when I open the door, I’m grateful Draven isn’t here, at least not yet. I move to the kitchen and open a cold box, ice magically kept frozen inside, the kind of thing only the rich would have prototypes for in Westfall. Here, it looks commonplace, masked to match the white oak cabinetry. Food lines the shelves, and I spitefully grab a sandwich wrapped in brown paper with Draven’s name on it.
I move to the couch, kicking my boots off on the rug, leaving soil everywhere. Setting my tarot deck down on the coffee table, I unwrap the sandwich and give it a sniff. My senses have been in overdrive all day, leaving me exhausted. It hits harder, in the quiet of the house, just how irritated I’ve been from this bodily transformation. My sight is sharper, my sense of smell stronger, my hearing so robust that the slightest sounds can be grating. The taste of ordinary things is either intoxicating or repulsive, and touch—well … even the smallest graze of a hand against my own sends goose bumps down my arm, as if I’m constantly balancing on a knife’s edge.
