Alexei woke with a start, and for a moment he was ready to lash out at anything that got close, thinking he was still locked in deadly combat with the Nilbog. But as his senses returned to him, he realised that wasn’t the case at all. There was no smell of rust and smoke. No blood coating the walls of the room. No decapitated head of Neave. In fact, Neave was sitting right next to him, his clammy hand wrapped in her tiny comparatively cool ones. “Ah, you’re awake at last,” Risa said from a chair on the other side of his bed. “What…” Alexei tried to talk, but the raspy croaks that came from his throat made it impossible for him to get more than a word out. “Neave, remember what we talked about? Give him water, but only a little bit at a time so it doesn’t overwhelm his throat,” Risa said to Neave. The small foxgirl nodded with a smile and poured Alexei a small glass of water from a jug that sat on a table next to the head of his bed. She brought the liquid up to his
The Alexei that went into the shower and the Alexei that came out of the shower again felt like two completely different people. The water had washed away all of the grime and it felt as if he were completely rejuvenated. Now that he was out, and he felt well rested and well cleaned, it was time to experiment. “Those clothes at the foot of my bed,” Alexei asked, noting the package that had been placed there for the first time, “Is this the outfit that I asked Christopher to make for me?” “Yup, he brought them by shortly after you were knocked out,” Risa replied, “He said to give you his best and that you should come around for a drink sometime now that you’re Nilbog free.” Alexei nodded, picked up the parchment parcel, and retreated to the bathroom once more. He’d almost forgotten that he’d asked the old lion beastkin to update his look before all the nastiness with the Nilbog got started, and now the clothes were ready. The only instruction that Alexei had given Christopher wa
The training rooms of the Mage Temple were, as Alexei was beginning to believe was the case with all rooms, extended to contain more space than their exterior dimensions might suggest. The effect in this space was in fact similar to the effect that he had seen in the Black Market’s fighting ring. An array of tiered seating wrapped around a divot in the ground. As the depth of that divot increased the walls seemed to split outward, allowing more and more space to be taken up by the actual battle space on the floor below. There were two platforms, one on either side of the space, that jutted out from the rest of the upper level that were clearly designed to lower two fighters down to the fighting space. “Take a seat, Neave and I will head down and spar so you can see what she’s already capable of,” Risa said. “Spar? Are you sure?” Alexei said as worry laced his tone. In his mind Neave was still just a young girl, the idea of her fighting against an adult was a worry to him, even i
With a quick wave of her hand, Neave dismissed the thick blade that she had summoned into being in a shower of light motes. Alexei was on the edge of his seat, eager to see what kind of magery his ward would rely on next. He had thought that the sword would have been her strongest form of attack, considering her boosted speed and strength, but it seemed as if the girl had something else up her sleeve. A runic circle blossomed into life on the ground below her feet as Neave weaved an intricate series of hand gestures. The ground began to quake and rumble, and for a moment, Alexei believed that this girl definitely could have destroyed a private garden if she so wished. Seemingly out of nowhere a massive green vine sprung from the ground and leapt toward Risa. The thing was about as wide as Neave was tall, and moved at least twice as fast as she had. Risa’s eyes widened in shock, she had clearly been expecting something like this, but obviously, the sheer size, power and speed of
Since Risa was already buffed up from her fight with Neave the first step Alexei took was to cast his own speed and agility enchantments. He also expected the woman opposite him to engage him in the exact same way that she had engaged Neave, with a volley of magery missiles from afar. He wasn’t disappointed by his assumptions. Risa launched a volley of magery missiles at him that numbered twice as many as she had sent at Neave, and were moving at least twice as fast. Alexei couldn’t help the cocky smirk that came over his face as he gripped his staff in both his hands and burst into movement. He was faster than Neave was, but surprisingly not by much. Her beastkin heritage had helped her a lot in that department. Either way, he was fast enough. As the magery missiles came in he batted each one away with a flick of his staff. Unlike Neave’s wild sword swings, each parry he made with the ends of his foci were precise and thought out. He made short jabs, one side after the other,
Risa moved so quickly that the air around her burst into flames. Lightning streaked behind her as if her own energy were having trouble keeping up with her impossible velocity. Alexei didn’t have a chance to react. One moment she was on the other side of the fighting arena, the next she was in his face faster than he could comprehend. She didn’t even have to attack him directly. The sheer force of the mage moving from one side of the arena sent him flying through the air until he cratered into the wall behind him. Alexei gasped in pain and tumbled to the ground. His breath came in short pants and it felt as if he’d been hit by a dragonhorse-pulled cart. “Well,” He coughed, “I guess I did ask for it.” Somehow, though, he managed to find the energy to stagger up to his feet. He was sure a rib, and maybe his left leg, had been broken by the impact with the wall, but he wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. He had one trick left to use, and he was definitely going to use it. He dr
If there was one good thing about living in the Mage’s Temple it was the access to free magery-based healthcare. Out in the rest of the world, a broken rib and a fractured leg bone would have meant months of healing, unless of course you were rich and could afford the time of a mage yourself. Alexei was none of those things. But thanks to the healers of the Temple he felt as good as new within minutes. He did, however, feel incredibly hungry. Magery healing worked on the principle of accelerating natural healing so that a body would go through all the processes of normal healing in rapid time. It couldn’t regrow limbs or bring people back from the dead, but broken bones were childsplay. The only reason they hadn’t used it to wake Alexei up from his coma was that they had no idea if he ever would wake up from it, and using magery-induced healing could have done much more bad than good. “So, what’s the plan now for Alexei and Neave,” Risa said as Alexei sat up from his bed in th
When night fell on the Academy of Alandria the head Administrar had always thought that the face of the place was truly revealed. It felt cold and harsh. The high walls belied a brutal architecture that was a testament to the brutal work that they did. Shaping boys into men. Girls into women. People into cannon fodder. To those exterior to the walls, they spoke of protection, of safety, of a school that was building the next legion of protectors. But those people didn’t know how badly the war was going. Not even the rumours gave it justice. No matter how many people they threw at the Shades it was never enough. The creatures ate through their men as if they were nothing… though, as long as their hunger was sated with the Power Divine, they wouldn’t attempt to encroach upon the kingdom’s lands any further. It was an uneasy kind of peace, one that the head Administrar had come to terms with many years ago. That was why he’d had to send the boy, Alexei, the weakling child away. H