Seren took every pleasure in the way Professor Musgrove’s face fell slack, her mouth hanging open for several seconds before closing. In fact, Seren would be sure to paint that image in her mind any time someone weak tried to make her feel small.
Disappointingly, Professor Musgrove’s shock dissolved into something hard, determination fixed her thin lips into such a thin line they might as well have disappeared. Seren fought the urge to roll her eyes wondering what the woman intended.
“Seren Marudas.” She prowled to tower over Seren and her creation. “Calami does not tolerate trickery and deception.”
As she passed her proclamation thin tendrils of murky brown magic landed upon Seren’s rose. In response, black tendrils met it that Seren recognized as her own magic. As the brown passed through each portion of the rose, Seren could see it attempting to trace the magic that created it and with every dip and divot the black of Seren’s magic answered. Every trace of its creation linked to her.
Professor Musgrove’s eyes shot to hers. “How?”
The woman nearly whispered the word.
Seren leaned forward. “Was the assignment not to create a rose?”
Professor Musgrove raised a hand to her chest. “But child—”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but Seren bristled, nonetheless. She was no child. In her eighteen years, she had learned what it meant to fight to survive and what it meant to only have oneself to rely on. She outgrew her childhood the day her father died, and the day Arabella abandoned them.
Professor Musgrove drew a frantic message in the air above her which abruptly disappeared. Not a moment later the heavy wooden door to the classroom pushed open and the woman Seren recognized to be the headmistress walked in. She was a heavyset woman with dark skin and her hair cascaded down her back in hundreds of little braids. The whole room seemed to inhale a breath at her presence. This woman had commanded battlefields in the Trinity War. There were legends about her long before she even finished her time as a student at Calami.
Headmistress Sinclair looked at no one as she strode down the aisle separating the benches the young witches watched anxiously from. Seren reveled in the command one woman could hold over a single room. Even Professor Musgrove had dipped her head in recognition of the other woman’s power.
“Erica. I received your message, now what could be so urgent you interrupted a meeting with Headmaster Darkmore?” Her voice was pure control and Seren found herself needing to know everything there was about the other woman. More than that, the last name of the Headmaster was ringing in her ear.
“My apologies, Headmistress. It’s just that I’ve never seen anything like this, and I thought you should know.”
Seren held her breath as magenta ribbons appeared around her rose, her black answering just as it had before, but now instead of being pulled, it seemed to wrap around the other magic as if it yearned to be a part of it. When the magic released and the air settled with the release of magic, Seren was pleased to find the headmistress with her lips pursed in a hint of a smile.
“Well, well, Miss Marudas. It seems as if we will all be lucky enough to witness your progression throughout this year.” Turning to Professor Musgrove her smile disappeared. “I trust, Professor Musgrove, you understand the profound gift that is before you and that we at Calami do not hide or seek to bury power that smaller minds might fear.”
Professor Musgrove seemed to shrink into herself. “Pardon, headmistress it’s only that she hasn’t even—”
The headmistress held up her hand, silencing the other woman. “I am eager to see your achievements here at Calami, Miss Marudas.”
“Thank you, Headmistress,” she managed to say through the pride accosting her entire body.
As the headmistress departed, Seren attempted to manage an air of indifference when she met Professor Musgrove’s eyes, but at the sniff the other woman gave her she was forced to consider that in that at least she had failed.
It wouldn’t matter in the end. What small minds like Professor Musgrove thought of her was inconsequential. Seren ran a hand over the silk bud of her rose and smiled even as the whispers and murmurs of her peers surrounded her.
Chapter twelve
Icarus Atwood
SweatdrippeddownIcarus’sback. It slithered along the carved muscle, the marble-like contours, glistening off him to catch in the light of the gas lanterns that lined the walls of Calami’s training wing. He swung again, feeling the give of the weighted punching bag. Savoring it. The gilded chain it hung from groaned. The resounding sound of his wrapped fists smacking it echoed through the expansive room.
Thwack, thwack.
His calloused knuckles stung, a pain he relished. One that leached the pent-up frustration from his body. But his palm under the wrap stung. The wound hadn’t stopped bleeding since he’d used his blood for the compulsion spell to keep Calder away. It wouldn’t heal until he lifted the spell altogether, balancing the cost of magic again. So it went for anyone who was not a blood witch. A dangerous gamble but well worth it if it kept the Marudas sisters safe.
He gritted his teeth.
Thwack, thwack.
The strong muscle in his arms went taut with each blow. He struck the bag hard and deep, wishing it was more than sand and burlap, craving the feel of flesh beneath his fists. That skin and muscle and bone could be proven as fragile as glass if he was angry enough. But he wouldn’t be able to make it to the village fighting rings until the week’s end. There wasn’t enough time on the days he taught. A break between classes would have to do for now.
“Professor Atwood.”
Behind him, Sidonia Sinclair’s voice rang clear as a bell. He paused, mid-strike, and turned to see the headmistress of Calami approaching, followed by a slightly shorter figure. They drew close, until Sidonia stood only a few feet away, face gleaming, her dark skin offset by the lilac of her robes, forgoing the traditional Calami black as professors reserved the right to do.
