Chapter 28:

Kithina limped her way through the academy’s halls. Her body was covered in welts that would no doubt soon become bruises. Her skin would be an assortment of purple and blue blotches at this rate. She thought professor Tauri’s morning jogs were exhausting and professor Loh’s mock duels were brutal, but her “Intro to Yellow Magic” course took all her understanding of pain and threw it out the window, literally.

Yellow mana absorbed air and earth elements. Today’s class had focused on the combination of yellow and earth mana, which expressed itself as the durability spell form. These spells had the ability to enhance the mage’s own body, strengthening their durability.

Yellow magi, like mother birds, took the teaching approach of do or die. Kithina’s professor was no exception. Her teacher had decided the best way to learn how to cast durability spells was to push her students out the window of the second floor. Because that would surely make the students spontaneously cast magic, right? It's not like spell casting required a clear and focused mind. And of course falling twenty feet down was the most relaxing activity one could do, yes? No. No, it was not. Kithina’s bruises and several other students’ broken bones testified against such a ridiculous method.

Kithina’s teacher argued that even if one could not cast a durability spell, then perhaps the wind spell form, the combination of yellow and air mana, could come in the clutch moment where the body was in free fall. Of course, it hadn’t. True flying, Kithina learned, was incredibly difficult, even for master magi. At best Kithina could hope to create a blast of wind to slow her fall. Like the rest of her class, she failed at this too. The ability to control air and have skin that could block arrows sounded great in theory, but achieving it through practice was just a series of impossibilities and a bundle of pain.

Kithina wanted to go to the infirmary, but she was supposed to meet up with her project partners today. Callum had proposed going to the library to research the rare topic dragons. Despite his penchant to only drink the blood of his beautiful maids, the hybrid vampire was quite charming. Kithina found herself enjoying his company a lot. Of all the friends she had made so far, Callum was definitely the closest. She hoped they could even get closer. Kithina turned the corner and found Callum hugging the wall while biting the neck of his maid underneath him. The maid moaned as Callum drank away.

Kithina frowned. “Ahem,” she coughed.

Callum looked up in surprise. “Oh, Kithina you’re here early,” he said. He stepped away from the maid. She wiped his bloody mouth, then covered her exposed chest.

“Miss Kithina,” the maid bowed politely.

“I was just having a snack. Can’t study on an empty stomach after all,” Callum smiled.

“Uh-huh,” Kithina said in a deadpan voice.

She knew vampires needed to drink blood, but it didn’t bother her any less seeing Callum doing it so casually. It infuriated her how he could be charming while doing it too.

“How was your class?” Callum asked.

“How does it look?” Kithina spread her arms out. Her tunic and short skirt did very little to hide her welts.

“Oof, I’m sorry. That yellow class is barbaric.” Callum frowned.

“Tell me about it. When I found out what yellow magic could do I was excited. Now I wish I could be any other color,” Kithina complained. “I wish I was a chromatic red like you.”

“What, so you can breathe in a bunch of fumes all day while trying to make the most simple pain tonics? Or maybe you’d like to try making a potion that helps cure foot fungus?”

“Beats being pushed out of a window. I’ll take potion brewing anytime.”

“Fair enough.” Callum shrugged, “I hear chromatic black students have pretty rough learning conditions too.”

“Not as bad as chromatic yellow students, I can promise you that.”

“Oh, you’re here,” Stryg said as he arrived.

And then there was her other hybrid partner. Stryg, the anomaly of class 1-C. Everyone had thought it strange that there was a goblin mageborn in the class. Kithina even believed him to be some uncouth imbecile. She even told him something of the sort the first time they met. But, then the goblin had surprised everyone in class. He turned out to be a hybrid, who not only was the most athletic, but one of the more successful spell casters in class. He was even literate. She hated to admit it but she had been wrong about him. Not that she’d ever tell him.

Stryg was no doubt one of the most talented students in Kithina’s class. But, he was also the strangest student in class. He looked different, not quite a goblin, and not quite anything else. His peculiar face was handsome, but almost alien, especially his striking eyes. She could never tell what he was thinking behind those lilac irises. Stryg always kept to himself, rarely speaking to the other students, unless it was to learn something. Some of the students had tried to approach him, but he had given them the cold shoulder. He didn’t act like a commoner and he didn’t seem to be from a named house either. No one knew where he came from. He was a mystery. The one thing she did know was that he clearly didn’t like her. Not that she blamed him. She had treated him horribly on their first day and had never found the chance to apologize. Of course he had brushed her off on multiple occasions when she had tried to make amends, the little annoying cretin. Through the last few weeks the time for reconciliation had passed, now there was just a strange air between them. Kithina didn’t know what to make of it.

“Wonderful, the three of us are together. How was your class Stryg?” Callum asked.

“Fine,” Stryg said curtly.

“I see. Well, how’s professor Loh been treating you? Being the assistant of that drow woman must be hard, I hear she has quite the temper,” Callum said.

“It’s just work. It’s fine,” Stryg answered.

While the students knew that he was Loh’s assistant, no one knew he was also her apprentice. Loh had forbade him from telling anyone.

“Honestly, I’m surprised she even picked you,” Kithina said. She honestly would love to get a teacher’s assistant job. It paid well and the benefits were nice.

Stryg eyes turned cold as he glared at her. Kithina shut her mouth. She was just trying to tease him. Sometimes she forgot how easy it was to offend him. He was normally so stoic. She remembered how Stryg had almost killed the orc Kegrog on their first day of duels class. He was dangerous. She regretted saying anything.

“Why don’t we go visit the library,” Callum said.

“Sounds good,” Kithina said.

Stryg stayed quiet and began heading over to the library. Callum smiled wryly and followed behind with his maid. Kithina sighed but followed along, too. Once they arrived in the enormous building they were dismayed to find the librarian’s desk empty.

“Perfect. The day we finally get some time to study together and there’s no librarian to show us around. This day officially sucks,” Kithina said as she held her bruised ribs.

“It’s not too bad. We just have to go find the librarian and then we can ask her about dragons,” Callum said.

“But this place is huge, like bigger than any other building here. There are literally dozens of floors filled with book shelves that neither Stryg and I can see over. We don’t have all day, we still need to go to meditation class with professor Ismene.” Kithina argued.

“We’ll just have to split up then, cover more ground. We don’t even need to find the librarian. One of her assistants will do,” Callum said.

Before Kithina could say anything more Stryg walked away. She lost sight of him in a manner of seconds. Kithina turned to Callum but he had disappeared too. Only Callum’s maid stood next to her.

“My master told me to keep an eye out for you in case you get lost,” the maid bowed her head.

Kithina sighed, it was officially the worst day ever.

---

Stryg wandered through the halls of bookshelves. The wooden floor creaked every step he took. Stryg found the sound irritating and went out of his way to try and take quieter steps. The library was truly the largest building he had ever been in. He had barely seen any faces in the past half hour, none of which were the librarian. Stryg tried memorizing the way he had come, but the place was like a maze. He wasn’t sure where he was anymore. All he knew was that he was on the 3rd floor and that his nose was filled with the scent of old paper.

Besides his sight, Stryg’s other senses had begun to improve in the past few weeks. His sense of hearing was particularly distracting when he walked the streets of Hollow Shade, running one errand or another for master Loh. One would think that having above average hearing would be some sort of advantage in life, but it hadn’t proven useful to Stryg. Had he been in Vulture Woods hunting prey, then perhaps his sensitive ears could have helped, but so far they only proved a nuisance. People were always so loud in the trade district. The library’s silence was a breath of fresh air.

It was his sense of smell that gave him pause in the library. Normally, all Stryg could smell was old books, unless he was standing a dozen feet from someone. But he was currently picking up a whiff of a peculiar scent. One that was somewhat familiar. The scent had been quite pungent back in his village, after night challenges. Stryg paused his footsteps and looked around the bookshelves. No one was in sight. But the smell was quite clear now. He closed his eyes and tried to focus. He picked up on the sound of paper rustling. He opened his eyes yet saw nothing, only a few empty aisles and shelves filled with books.

Stryg focused his hearing and followed the sound of rustling paper. With as much quiet and stealth as he could muster, he tiptoed past a couple of book shelves, to the source. He came upon a small empty opening where a few aisles met. He was about to give up until he heard heavy breathing. He took a few tentative steps forward. The air shimmered. He narrowed his eyes and walked a couple of more steps. The image of an empty aisle shimmered and faded away. A young drow woman appeared in its place, sitting on the floor, leaning on one of the shelves.

From her grey tunic and black skirt, she was obviously a student. Her white hair was braided behind her shoulder and a pair of glasses rested on her nose. Her eyes were focused on a book she held in her hand. But it was her other hand that drew Stryg’s attention. Her hand kept moving under her skirt while she moaned quietly.