“Why?” I asked. “Why can’t it be a normal training hall?”
“Inside there, you can use the full extent of your ability without destroying anything around you,” she said. “It is how we train until we can control it enough to use it in the training hall.”
“Anna.”
I looked up to find Caelan walking toward us.
“Good,” he said, joining us, “I am glad I caught you. I wanted to offer assistance on your first session in the Arcanya Room.”
A trace of hesitation gripped me, but I masked it with a shrug. This was going to be hard enough without someone watching me, but it was Caelan. I needed to chill.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, forcing calm into my voice that I didn’t feel.
He nodded and twisted the wheel on the outside of the door and pulled. An eerie silence stretched between us as the door swung open. A weight settled in my chest as I found nothing but darkness.
“I promise it is safe,” he said. “It is constructed of all the Aurkai’s everi—that allows a mage’s everi to be contained safely within. Come on.”
I gave Isabella a small wave and followed him inside.
When I entered, I could feel it—the weight of power. It was as if gravity had amplified inside the chamber.
The mechanism of the wheel locking behind me echoed like the final beat of a dying man’s heart.
My fingers tingled as I forced even breaths, and my knees shook.
I felt them—the Aurkai—and their presence almost suffocating me.
However, my nervousness was forgotten when I took in the space around me.
It was breathtaking.
The chamber rose several stories high with spiral staircases and ladders along the walls. It was a grand library not just of books, but full of glints and gleams of shining, colorful artifacts and vivid plant life sprawled across the space.
Towering bookshelves lined the walls; their dark wooden frames draped in falling ivy. They were filled with endless leather-bound books of every size and condition. The ceiling seemed impossible, like a mosaic of blue glass and stone branching in geometric patterns high overhead.
I was in a different world. A world that was beautiful and mesmerizing; I couldn’t imagine ever leaving.
Tall gothic windows let in the same odd blue light.
I slowly meandered through the room, my hand nearing the contents of the room, careful not to touch anything.
At the center was a circular stone fountain, the water sparkling and clear, as if never disturbed by life. The cobblestone floor was uneven beneath my feet, and gardens with plantedferns and small trees thrived in the rich soil around the edges of the room. The room felt like life.
The air was fresh and nearly crackling with charge. I could feel the cool water on my skin just by looking at it. The soil was soft and humming with vitality, and I basked in the bliss of existing near it.
“This place is amazing,” I breathed, my heart pounding.
Caelan circled the fountain. “It is entirely constructed by mages,” he said. “Every Aurkai that comes to Nightfall adds something to the room with their everi. There is a purpose in every artifact in the room, and they are meant to be interacted with. Is anything calling to you?”
My heart skipped a beat.
Would something here notice me?
My lips parted in awe as I moved through the room, letting my fingers trail the spines of the books, a bejeweled dagger, and brass instruments with an unknown purpose.
I paused, searching the room.
Everything whispered, some quickly, in mutterings I didn’t understand, while others sang a song that called to my soul. The everi surrounding me was like a life force, and the more of it, the stronger the presence.
