For now, I decided to shove my panicked thoughts into a far corner of my brain. I’d figure out what to do about all this later, and besides, first I needed to understand exactly what Calypso remembered, and go from there…

  But right now I needed to focus on the lesson, especially since it turned out to be intense.

  Soon we came out onto a large forest clearing, clearly prepared specifically for our training. The clearing was surrounded by a powerful protective and concealment dome that wouldn’t let just anyone pass through its perimeter and hid what was happening inside from all outside eyes.

  So we had to wait while Professor Ditro dealt with his own spells and opened a passage through the dome for us.

  Once past the invisible boundary of the dome, I gasped and froze in shock, staring in horror at the scene before us. Though my classmates were looking at all this with equal horror — everyone except Calypso.

  The “sweet and adorable” creatures promised by Professor Ditro turned out to be terrifying furry headless and eyeless beings, locked in sturdy cages — about ten of them.

  The creatures resembled enormous furry balls on legs. No heads, no eyes, but they had wings — small ones, clearly insufficient for proper flight, though they could probably help them glide down onto an enemy from above, for example.

  Each critter was about human height. And the largest one was even bigger: a giant furry ball about four meters in diameter.

  “Northern kernals!” Professor Ditro said with tenderness.

  “Demonic entities of beta-level danger, highly aggressive and bloodthirsty, not gifted with much intelligence. Their brains, despite the creatures’ size, are no bigger than a walnut. They eat anything in their path ruthless predators. They don’t inhabit our forests at all, but I caught several charming specimens specifically for you to meet. In case any of you need to go on an Armarillis mission to Sharenhol in the future, you’ll encounter an infestation of these dark creatures in the surrounding forests there.”

  The professor spoke about them with fanatical love, as if talking about a cute little kitten, I swear.

  But Patricia, standing next to me, frowned and seemed to shrink with tension.

  “Ones like these attacked my brother once,” she whispered.

  “There was nothing left of him but scraps…”

  “Oh… I’m so sorry,” I replied sadly.

  “So what do they eat, Professor?” Mia asked meanwhile.

  “I mean… How? They don’t have mouths. Or…?”

  As if in answer to her question, one kernal opened its maw, which was located where a stomach would be on normal creatures. The maw was massive… Absolutely massive! The creature was basically a walking furry mouth with little wings, oh gods.

  And the teeth… Oh, what teeth they had!! Teeth like that could easily bite you clean in half. And their claws, even from a distance, left no doubt that they could reduce an enemy to ribbons.

  “Ah, okay, no more questions,” Mia muttered, instinctively backing away.

  I also took a step back. But not because of the creatures’ terrifying appearance — rather from some very bad premonition…

  Professor Ditro enthusiastically explained the methods of subduing such creatures and demonstrated all the methods on the kernals, releasing them one by one.

  He saved the biggest kernal “for dessert,” as he put it, since first we needed to learn to fight the smaller creatures, which proved quite difficult. After all, these were beta-level danger creatures, and those required a special approach and specialized training.

  Calypso participated in the training to a lesser extent, since he was already familiar with kernals and was present at the lesson primarily to observe my magic surges. My magic was behaving obediently so far, no glitches, and I wasn’t experiencing any unpleasant sensations either. So I just trained with pleasure, practicing various techniques.

  Kernals were hard to wound with cold weapons due to their very thick hide and natural protective aura, so today’s training was focused on honing magical skills.

  Kernals were terrified of fire, and fire spells were the only thing that could destroy the creatures. Or at least weaken them enough to finish them off with other weapons once you got close enough.

  So we practiced everything: fire chains, flame nets, liquid fire — we used anything that could hurt dark creatures with various types of fire spells.

  The Fiery Dawn spell was especially impressive — it allowed you to cover a large area with small tongues of flame at once, though it drained a lot of energy, so it should only be used as a last resort, with the attack carefully calculated.

  Professor Ditro also demonstrated first-class mastery of the fire whip — the same spell Calypso had used against me in our fight yesterday.

  But neither I nor the other adepts could summon the same fire whip yet: it required too much concentration, and I clearly needed to level up my magic significantly.

  I glanced at Calypso with respect again. He had just struck with the fire whip in a spectacular gesture, incinerating another released kernal. Calypso moved so gracefully that I openly zoned out watching those precise, measured strikes.

  And at one moment he vanished in a scarlet flash of spells, and the next instant I heard a soft velvety voice in my ear:

  “Admiring me?”

  I jumped in surprise, spun around, and punched the laughing Calypso on the shoulder.

  “What’s with your habit of sneaking up from behind?!” I hissed in annoyance.

  “Maybe I just enjoy getting a rise out of you?” he sang in a sweet little voice.

  I didn’t doubt that for a second.

  “Don’t do that again.”

  “Actually, I’m not really joking,” Calypso smirked.

  “I’m watching you, closely watching your aura, your magic… And I see that your magic reacts very unusually to me, especially when I suddenly appear nearby. It’s… interesting. And I definitely enjoy watching it.”

  He placed his palm over my solar plexus, not taking his attentive gaze off me.

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  “Your magical Spark… It pulses faster when I’m near. And your magic noticeably reaches toward me, like to a magnet… You feel it, don’t you?”

  I didn’t know about any magnet — right now I could only feel my heart pounding somewhere in my throat.

  I swallowed nervously and looked around, but my classmates were busy practicing spells and weren’t paying attention to us.

  “Your magic it’s so, mmm… Delicious… Bittersweet… And it reaches toward me so invitingly, so seductively, that it’s very hard to resist, hmm… It makes me want to taste it…”

  God, that came out in such a sinful whisper that my head started spinning slightly.

  I inhaled loudly through my nose, vaguely realizing that Calypso was sensing in me the vibration of the magical Spark of someone who had once cast powerful oblivion charms on him. Such mental influence couldn’t pass without a trace, and Calypso, as partly a mind mage, surely felt this as a peculiar magnetic attraction.

  And that was bad, very bad.

  “Interesting… And how will your magic react to me if I intensify our contact?” Calypso mused, eyes still locked on mine.

  I didn’t even want to think about what kind of intensified contact he meant.

  I should keep my distance from him if I didn’t want to help awaken his memory… I didn’t even want to think about what avalanche of rage from Calypso I’d have to face then. I probably wouldn’t survive, let’s be real.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t feel anything like that,” I lied, brushing off Calypso’s palm and stepping aside.

  “And you keep violating my personal space. Stop groping me.”

  “Stop? I haven’t even started yet, Lori,” Calypso smiled predatorily.

  …no, I wouldn’t just “probably” not survive — I “definitely” wouldn’t survive.

  Professor Ditro called us back to order, and I returned to practicing combat spells with redoubled zeal. The spells required maximum concentration, so the tension and fatigue quickly pushed out my nervously racing thoughts about Calypso, and for the next couple of hours I gave it my all, sparing no effort.

  “Not bad, Fortemins!” the professor said when the sun was already at its zenith and lunchtime was approaching.

  We were pretty exhausted after the hours of training. Professor Ditro had drilled us for about five hours total, making us practice combat strikes again and again, casting at the limits of our abilities, stoking our magical Sparks more and more. Even Calypso had finally gotten tired, judging by his dulled gaze — and the rest of the classmates went without saying.

  Fighting kernals was also complicated by the fact that these creatures could spit venom. More precisely, they sprayed it around themselves when they spread their wings, and it seemed that was the only purpose their wings served, since these fluffy massive hulks could only run fast but couldn’t fly or even glide from heights.

  While locked in their cages, the kernals constantly tried to spray their venom at us too, but the barrier Professor Ditro had put up worked flawlessly and protected us perfectly from the creatures’ harmful effects.

  Their venom wasn’t lethal, but in large quantities it caused instant paralysis: these nasty dark creatures took a long time to digest food, preferring to stockpile “food” in their kernal dens, and the venom acted quickly on victims, keeping the “food” fresh for a long time — preventing it from dying too soon while also preventing escape.

  So besides powerful combat spells, we also trained defensive blocks, without which getting close to kernals was simply impossible. This was partly why it was so hard to fight such creatures with cold weapons, so magic was the only option in battle.

  “Well, you’ve done excellent work,” Professor Ditro continued, surveying our tired group with a satisfied smile.

  “Now we’ll all finish off the remaining creatures together and head off for well-deserved rest until tomorrow.”

  We really had done excellent work, and by this hour only three kernals remained alive, including the biggest one, whose cage the professor now approached with his back to it.

  “When kernals turn one year old, they start growing rapidly, and before that they’re about the size of a large dog and very vulnerable at that young age. But they also hide in deep burrows in the forests of Sharenhol, so finding small kernals is nearly impossible. But this specimen is a whole five years old,” the professor waved his hand behind him, pacing before us.

  “He’s long-lived by the standards of these undead, which live six years at most. His hide is five times thicker, and only rare elven weapons can pierce his flesh. A five-year-old kernal can’t be stopped by ordinary fire spells, and it’s generally hard to defeat one-on-one. It’s easiest to knock out such a kernal with at least two people, and today we’ll be doing it as a whole group. It’s no easy task, but you’ll manage if…”

  Professor Ditro suddenly twitched strangely, rolled his eyes, and went limp, collapsing onto the grass. It seemed he tried to do something, say something… But only unintelligible mumbling escaped his lips, and then he went completely still, face-down in the grass.

  I frowned, not understanding what had happened. Uhh… What’s wrong with him?

  “Professor?” Polly Levington spoke up uncertainly.

  “Professor, what’s wrong?”

  “Did he faint or something? Why would he?” Kes frowned and stepped forward to approach the professor.

  “Stay where you are!” Calypso suddenly barked.

  He barked it so loudly that everyone flinched.

  Hey, what’s going on?

  Kes flinched too and froze for a moment, but then stepped forward again.

  “You’re not my commander,” he sneered.

  “Why are you yelling?”

  “I said: stay where you are!” Calypso thundered, yanking Kesterishtór back by his shirt collar.

  The shirt made an unpleasant ripping sound, and Kes struggled in Calypso’s grip, cursing and trying to break free from the tight hold. But Calypso held firm, like a kitten by the scruff.

  “Who do you think you are?!” Kes hissed, extremely outraged by his classmate’s behavior.

  His withering glare made it clear he was dreaming of punching Calypso in the face.

  “Shut up,” Calypso said tensely, not even looking at Kes.

  “Back… everyone back!”

  “What’s going on?…”

  Instead of answering, Calypso nodded toward the creatures. I shifted my gaze to the remaining kernals but didn’t immediately understand what was wrong. Dark creatures being dark creatures… Just standing calmly in their enclosure…

  And then I gasped in horror, realizing what had happened.

  Because the five-year-old kernal had spread its wings again. Only this time, the stream of venom droplets pouring from its wings didn’t silently vanish upon hitting the protective barrier as they had before.

  Instead, they fell with a quiet hissing onto the grass far beyond the cage, including drenching Professor Ditro from head to toe — he was apparently already under paralysis and couldn’t even move.

  “The protective barrier is down… The protective barrier is down!!” Patricia said in horror, backing away.

  “What do you mean, down?” Mia was stunned.

  “So what’s the problem with putting up a new one?” Kes snorted, still futilely trying to break free from Calypso’s hold.

  “I can’t!!” Mia whimpered softly, constantly snapping her fingers.

  “Nothing’s working! Try it yourself!”

  “Magic isn’t working,” Polly whispered, barely moving her lips, staring at the kernals in horror while also making hand gestures, but not a single spark, not a single tongue of flame flew from her hands.

  “Magic… It’s like it doesn’t exist. Can you feel it? Everyone try to cast something!”

  We tried. And quickly confirmed that magic really wasn’t working.

  And it wasn’t like some kind of magic blocker, no. The sensation was as if the magical Spark itself was barely burning and couldn’t flare up enough to produce even a pathetic little light orb.

  As if… as if magic had simply ceased to exist all at once — that’s how I would describe it. As if the very ability to cast spells had vanished. Not just in me alone, but in general… in the air.

  There’s always energy in the air that we draw our magic from, but now that energy seemed to have died all at once. As if it had never been here. But that’s impossible…

  This can’t be happening! We had literally just been practicing spells on this clearing with Professor Ditro!

  And now I couldn’t even conjure a pathetic little lightning orb, no matter how hard I tried… What the hell is going on?!

  Calypso appeared in front of me in a split second, pushing me back.

  “Don’t leave my side and always stay behind me, no matter what happens,” he said quickly in an extremely tense voice.

  I nodded silently. I had no desire to argue right now. Though I wasn’t planning to hide behind Calypso’s back, I appreciated his gesture.

  However, that appreciation was fleeting, because at that same moment the largest kernal licked its lips hungrily and stepped forward, easily smashing through the cage that couldn’t hold it without magic.

  And then all the kernals moved toward us at once.

  If you’ve made it through the first six chapters — thank you for staying.

  This is the point where the story finishes setting the stage and starts pushing back.The dynamics you’ve seen so far will deepen, the stakes will rise, and the academy will stop feeling like a safe place very soon.

  I wanted to give you enough chapters upfront to properly feel the characters, their tension, and the rules of this world before the plot tightens its grip.

  Thank you for reading.

  See you in the next chapter.