Soul Fire

  ~

   

  Later that night, I limped back to my room. True to his word, Yu had made sure we knew how to fall.

  That night, I didn’t eat in my room. For the first time since I’d arrived, Larni took me to another hall, which was filled with tables and benches, a roaring fire in the large hearth at the far end.

  “This is the mess hall,” she told me, not meeting my eyes. “This is where you’ll take your breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

  “Will I still see you?” I asked her worriedly.

  She nodded.

  “I still wait on you.” She told me, and then left.

  My heart twisted painfully as I saw her go. She was too embarrassed to face me now.

  I grabbed a tray and followed Theresa to the serving area.

  “Can I sit with you?” I asked her.

  “Of course,” she replied, confused that I’d even asked. “Dena wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  I followed her back to the table, where Dena was sitting with four other people.

  “Sky, this is Yasmin and her soul mate Petre, Rain and her soul mate...” Dena squinted. “Sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Ispin,” the young man replied, smiling broadly. “Don’t worry, I still forget it sometimes.”

  We laughed, and I sat beside Yasmin, a young woman with honey blonde hair and laugh lines around her eyes.

  “Crazy day,” Rain began, twisting her glossy dark hair. “We have horses now.”

  “I’ve always had a horse,” Petre said, already tucking into the mashed potatoes on his plate. “Cobalt, his name was.”

  “Yeah?” I challenged, immediately disliking his rather snooty attitude. “Well I had a car.”

  “A cart?”

  “No, a car. With an engine.”

  Petre blinked at me, completely lost. Yasmin laughed.

  “Petre, a car was what we used to get around in the human realm. It had four wheels and could go very fast.” She said.

  “Well, Cobalt was the fastest horse in my village,” he told us all proudly, gesturing with a bit of potato stuck on his fork. “I won a lot of money with him.”

  I was grinning along with the others, until I remembered the events of the morning.

  “Listen,” I said, leaning forwards. “Which of you are from this realm?”

  Petre put his hand up, quite unnecessarily, as did Ispin and Rain.

  “Did you know that the servants at the Academy don’t get paid?” I asked, watching them closely for their reactions. Dena gasped, but Petre just shrugged.

  “Of course they don’t. I brought Jeffield with me from my estate.”

  My stomach seemed to shrivel up as I looked at him.

  “You knew?” I asked incredulously. “Why isn’t this illegal?” 

  “They’re usually from a mage family,” Rain explained. “Most magical folk pass the gift onto their children, but when they don’t, they can offer the children to rich families or magical institutions.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Theresa snapped, her pale yellow-green eyes flashing.

  “It’s our way of life,” Ispin told us. “The children don’t mind; they are well cared for as servants.”

  “Don’t call them that,” I told them. “Call them slaves, because that’s what they really are. And some of them do mind.”

  Silence fell at our table. I picked at my food but then pushed it away.

  “So, Sky,” Yasmin tried to pick up the thread of conversation. “Who’s your soul mate?”

  “He’s over there,” I said, spying Phoenix sitting at a table by himself. “He hasn’t spoken to me since the ceremony, and even then, it was only one word.”

  “Figures.”

  I turned back around and fixed Petre in my sights.

  “Excuse me?”

  Petre looked up from his dinner.

  “I said, figures. He’s from the Shayde Mountains.”

  “And that’s bad?” I asked, frowning.

  Petre put down his fork.

  “Only a few folk come from the North, and when they do, it’s not often that they make anything significant of themselves. He’s had a hard life, trying to scrape a living off of rocks and ice. That’s all there is in the Mountains.”

  I twisted around to look at Phoenix again.

  “Where are these mountains?” I asked.

  Petre slid his plate towards me.

  “This here,” he pushed a potato forwards. “Is the Academy. Right next to the Academy, where many of the... servants... come from, is the village Keyes,” he pushed a snow pea forwards as I glared at him. “South of here is the city Castor, capital of Lotheria.”

  I squinted at the lump of carrot portraying the city.

  “What’s Lotheria?”

  “Lotheria is the continent we stand on. They should really teach you all of this first thing. Anyway, this,” he pushed a piece of tuna that he’d abandoned furthest up his plate, away from the potato, snow pea and carrot. “Is the Shayde Mountain Range, up in Orthandrell. It snows all year around, and they live in almost constant darkness. It was probably the biggest shock of his life when the sun rose on his first morning here.”

  “They don’t let a lot of their mages come here to be schooled,” Rain said quietly. “Even Netalia and Iain aren’t sure how many unschooled mages live in the North.”

  “So what state is this?” Theresa asked.

  “This is the state of Stanthor. I’m from Abdoor,” Petre explained. “From the city Riverdoor.”

  “I’m from Gowar,” piped up Ispin.

  “And I’m from the islands east of here,” Rain said. “The Tsalski Islands. My parents came here when I was little and never left.”

  “So much to take in,” Yasmin said quietly, resting her cheek on her hand, observing the vegetable map. “So what do you do here?”

  The three looked at her, puzzled.

  “What do you mean?” Petre asked her.

  “What do you do? For fun, I mean.”

  “Well, I used to go to Moon Bay and the Paw Islands all the time,” Ispin said, his boyish face lit up with excitement. “With my mother, father and younger sister. She’ll be joining the Academy when I leave.”

  “Moon Bay and the Paw Islands?” I asked. “Where are they?”

  Petre pointed to a spot to the east of Castor.

  “Why are they called the Paw Islands?” Theresa asked.

  “Because they’re four islands shaped like a paw,” Ispin explained. “And Moon Bay is in the shape of a crescent moon.”

  “White sands stretching for miles,” Rain said with her eyes closed, a thousand years away. “Water so clear you can see the bottom of the ocean. And the Paw Islands have the most magnificent wildlife-“

  She was cut off by a bell.

  “I take it that means dinner is over,” Dena said, standing up. “Thank you for talking to us. This is all a bit new.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “Our pleasure,” Petre said pompously. “See you tomorrow in class.”

  “I’m going to head to the stables,” I told Dena and Theresa. “Do you want to come with me?”

  Turned out they wanted to head to the library, which I was yet to investigate and so I headed to the stables alone. They were alight when I got there, soft light glimmering with no visible source.

  Echo was waiting for me as though she remembered my promise. Her ears flicked forward when she saw me, and when I produced the two carrots I’d stolen from the mess hall, she reached over to lift them neatly out of my outstretched palm. As she crunched on them, I let myself into her stall, pulling my hood off of my head and finger combing my hair. I was glad Larni had found me a cloak; the night was brisk with a taste of frost.

  Finished with the carrots, Echo began inspecting me to see if I had any more secreted on my person. I giggled as she whuffed my hair, nibbling bits of it.

  The sound of the stable door opening and closing made me remove Echo’s teeth fr
om my hair. I peered around her, curious as to whom this visitor was.

  It was Phoenix.

   For some inexplicable reason, I hid. Because we were soul mates, his horse’s stall was right next door to Echo’s. I heard him pass the stall, inches above my head. Echo snorted at him as he passed.

  “Validus,” he murmured, and I frowned for a second until I realised that was what he’d called his horse. “It has been a strange day.”

  His horse whickered in reply. I heard the stall door open and close, and glanced up fearfully. Between each stall were wrought iron bars; I could see Phoenix standing next to his horse. If he looked down and saw me...

  I could just stand and announce my presence, I thought. But then it was weird, because I’d hidden. I decided it would be best to remain in the straw. Echo lowered her head to sniff me curiously.

  Phoenix remained there for the better part of an hour, murmuring to Validus, sometimes in English and sometimes in a language I didn’t understand; for the first time I noticed he had an accent unlike Ispin or Rain. I curled up in the straw, pulling my cloak over me. Beside me, Echo was beginning to go to sleep, bored with me. I felt my eyelids drooping, and after a while I noticed that I was alone in the stable with only slumbering horses for company.