Chapter 10 - Eagle

Mark left before unbeknownst to me. With a bit of panic, my legs briskly ran back to the palace. For some reason, the thoughts of the slaves and being captured came to mind, but those thoughts were quickly suppressed. Upon reaching the palace, my eyes scanned the palace, but nobody was there. My steps echoed up the stairs up to Mildred's room. With a fist, my knuckles lightly rapped the door. There were some rustling sounds and then Mildred's voice came from behind the door.

"I'm coming!"

Once she opened the door she yawned.

"What is it?"

There was some hesitation, maybe snowing is normal right?

After a bit of stammering, my mouth forced the words out.

"It... started to snow."

Mildred raised an eyebrow then started to laugh.

"What are you talking about? How could it be snowing now?"

My voice steadied.

"It is actually snowing."

Mildred frowned and went back into her room to open the curtains. The sky was filled with snow, and getting stronger.

"Dear heavens..."

Before my mouth could utter another word, Mildred ran faster than expected, with an anxious expression on her face.

Initially, the plan was to ask Mildred what to do, but it seemed she needed to take care of some things. The thought to knock the on doors of Ned, Alyx, and Erin, appeared but was cast aside. Not really understanding what to do, my feet took me to the courtyard.

After plopping down on the pathway, my eyes took in the nature around me. The trees and flowers looked nice. There was a soft layer of snow starting to form and a few snowflakes fell on my face.

The courtyard was spacious, really spacious. After taking a deep breath of air, my eyes stared at the top of the walls that encapsulated the courtyard. The courtyard felt like a place to be free, yet at the same time, it felt like a prison. Simply a cage that was bigger than the first one. There were footsteps behind me.

"Hey Jay, waking up early I see."

Ned's voice rang out behind me. A laugh was forced out of me.

"Yeah..."

Ned saw the snow in the courtyard and stretched out his hand to let a snowflake fall on it.

"Kinda crazy that it's already snowing huh? There was no sign of it before, it wasn't even cold."

My head did not turn to face Ned.

"I think the snow is bad... like really bad."

Ned raised his brow.

"...What do you mean?"

The words that Mark had said to me and Mildred's anxious expression came back to me.

"Apparently, winter lasts for ten years and it came a year early. I think that means few people had prepared enough food"

Ned paused.

"...What? ...I guess we will have to suppress our appetites nowadays."

My thoughts were lost in the wind.

"...What should we do now?"

Ned thought for a moment.

"I guess we should tell Alyx and Erin."

My trembling legs followed behind Ned up the stairs. My hand scratched the back of my head.

"So... Mildred and Ela aren't here anymore, should we go to magic school?"

Ned rubbed his chin.

"Well, I guess there is nothing else we could do."

I nodded weakly. When we reached Alyx's door we knocked on it. We heard some shuffling, but to our surprise, it came from the room on the left, Erin's room. The door opened and before we could say our greetings Erin's head popped out with a finger on her mouth.

"Shhh... Alyx is sleeping."

Ned matched her soft tone.

"Why is she still sleeping? Shouldn't we wake her up?"

Erin shook her head, she opened the door more and gestured for us to come in. We saw Alyx was on the bed, she was furrowing her brows uncomfortably and her face was very red. My eyes widened.

"Oh god."

Ned went up to Alyx and kneeled on one knee, looking at her.

"What happened to her?"

Erin sighed and pouted.

"She... was awake all night trying to practice magic."

My eyes were drawn to the table, Alyx's book was placed atop the table. Alyx herself was sweating horribly, her eyelashes twitched.

"I'm ok... just go to school without me..."

Alyx did not open her eyes but she forced a smile before grimacing in pain. Although Alyx forced a smile it seemed kinda irresponsible to just up and leave. Ned sighed.

"Do you guys need some food? I can cook it for you."

Erin shook her head.

"I will make it when she feels hungry, for now just don't disturb her."

Ned nodded. Remembering why we came originally, My mouth started to form some words.

"By the way-"

Ned touched my shoulder, my eyes peeked at him. He was shaking his head. Ned stood up and walked to the door, while my weak feet followed behind him. Ned waved, to which Erin waved. My wave came a bit late. Ned gently closed the door and sighed.

"Well I will make a little bit for us to eat and I guess we should just go to school."

Slowly, I nodded. Thus, that is what happened, Ned made a modest portion of food for both of us. As we ate it was silent but because there was not much we finished fast.

Ned suggested we get another pair of clothes to wear on top, and he was able to find some overcoats which we wore. We went towards the school, it was already a little chilly even with the additional clothing and the snow made light crunching sounds when we walked over it.

We soon reached the school and went to the classroom. We were a bit early but when we came in there was nobody but Reyna inside, not even the teacher. Ned called out to her.

"Hey Reyna, guess you came early like us."

Reyna smiled sadly and did not look directly at us.

"Sorry... my mother said I shouldn't talk to you."

Ned raised an eyebrow.

"What kind of logic is that? What reason did she even have?"

Reyna laughed awkwardly.

"She said I would be the nail in the coffin of my family... trying to associate with people I don't deserve to be with."

Ned rolled his eyes.

"Oh come on, on what grounds can she even determine whether or not you deserve anything. We are the people you hang out with, so if it's cool with us there is no problem."

Reyna was still facing away.

"Well... I think she's right, our family was almost wiped out when someone ended up offending someone they shouldn't have."

Ned put his hand on Reyna's shoulder.

"Why are you so worried about it? If friends have conflicts they sort it out, not take it out on each other."

Reyna seemed hesitant but after contemplating for a while she nodded. Ned smiled.

"Anyway, what's happening?"

At the front of the room, there were papers posted across the walls that had a spell name and diagram below them. Reyna was a bit shaky.

"The... the teacher left a note on the table, he said he was called for something and that anybody that came today would have permission to try to cast any of the spells shown while in the courtyard."

Ned nodded, he then went up to check out the spell labeled "Firebolt". The spell contained three portions that looked really similar to the original fire spell, with a strange pattern that connected them.

The urge to try out the new spells was strong, but recalling the painful experience of two basic spells made me resist it. My eyes slowly examined the fireball spell.

After memorizing the spell, in the corner of my eye was Reyna was looking at the spell called "Ice Needle". Ned was still looking at the "Firebolt" spell, so my sight shifted towards the water spell simply because it was the next one across. The water spell was quite simple, despite having three annotations, there was nothing trickly like in the earth spell, compressing a sphere to the right size. It didn't take too long for me to memorize it and Ned's voice rang out soon after.

"Alright, I think I got it!"

Reyna turned away from the spell she was reading and looked at Ned.

"Haha, that was fast, I guess you are going to the courtyard to test it?"

Ned was laid back and laughed.

"Yeah, want to check it out?"

Reyna laughed awkwardly again.

"I would... I would, I just haven't memorized this spell yet."

Ned put his hand on the desk and leaned forward.

"Oh come on, I promise I won't keep you out for too long."

Reyna was clearly hesitating.

"...Ok."

As we went outside to the courtyard the snow already got pretty bad. In the courtyard, when my foot touched the snow, it entirely sunk. Ned took in a long breath and started to stretch.

"This should work like a charm."

Ned closed his eyes and as he drew in mana, the snow around him circled violently. As my eyes observed Ned, thoughts appeared, thoughts about sitting in the courtyard back at the palace. To cast spells we have to trap mana inside of us, kinda like a cage. But what if instead...

My train of thought was cut off as there was a deafening screech of a bird. My hands covered my ears and my eyes opened slit to see a massive eagle that was floating in the sky and staring at Ned. Ned had a frown on his face.

"Jay, the messenger stone!"

Although flustered My hand reached into my pocket and pulled out the glowing stone. My hands were shaking but resolutely crushed the stone. My hands fumbled a little since it was harder to crush than expected but still did it successfully.

The stone started to rapidly disintegrate and seemed to form a spell before disappearing. The eagle had started the dive towards Ned, but he did not lose his composure and swiftly started to cast Firebolt.

The eagle was going fast, but Ned was able to cast faster. A blazing fireball formed at Ned's finger and shot right at the eagle's face.

However, Ned's frown deepened. The eagle managed to tilt his head out of the way and it instead blasted into his wing. It backed off, but the beast was simply too large for the spell to have a deadly effect.

A black splotch formed across the eagle's wing, but it was still able to fly. Ned immediately started to gather mana for another Firebolt, but the eagle did not wait and dived down again.

Ned was in the middle of casting the spell, but decisively canceled it and threw himself to the right, tumbling away from me and Reyna.

With a sound akin to a muffled explosion, the eagle hit the ground, sending large amounts of dirt and snow flying.

...It would be pretty bad to get hit.

Reyna and I stood there helplessly. Ned forced himself back to his feet, his hair violently whipping around as he was still trying to gather mana.

"Damn, why is there some random eagle here anyway?"

Despite hitting the ground so hard the eagle was quick to raise his head back up and after shaking it, it looked directly at me. It quickly flew back up ready to start another dive.

The winds produced from the eagle sent me stumbling backward, while Reyna ended up falling down in the snow.

I... what could I do? It's not like a pile of dirt could possibly kill it.

Adrenaline started to pump as my eyes locked on the eagle, it was not looking away from me.

What could I do?...

What could I do?...

At that moment, a glimpse of Alyx's book appeared vividly in my mind.

"This magic is quite different from others, as the mana required requires a person to go into a special 'empty' state."

Empty... empty... three was a sudden flash of the short moment Alyx had taken her affinity test. The feeling of emptiness.

I saw myself in the courtyard again looking up into the sky.

And I reached out to tear down the walls.

Violent surges of mana swirled around me, my overcoat was torn apart quickly. My skin was starting to tear and bleed, but the pain was negligible. The spell was being cast. There was no indication that the spell was being formed but my mind continued casting unwaveringly.

The eagle had started to dive and was going faster by the second, but before it was able to get close, the spell shot at it with an ethereal tug.

When it reached there was no sound. The eagle started to shrink in size, though still very large. There was a dazed look in its eyes and the speed was much slower.

...But it was still barreling towards me.

I have to move.

But my body wasn't listening, it was shivering, and all my muscles were locked up.

There was a scream.

"JAY, NO."

My eyes watched helplessly as the eagle's beak pierced through my heart. The loss of adrenaline was sudden. There was a lot of warm blood going down my stomach. Everything... was so painful... and cold. My vision was quickly lost and after a few seconds of unbearable pain in my head, it became black.

"Um, why are you here?"