Flourish

  About an hour’s walk northwest of the Academy, located deep in its back forest, were the official examination fields. Walled off by dense thickets, sturdy stones, and iron gates was a deep valley surrounded by elevated cliffs and a perfect view of what lay below: luscious green fields, trees, and foliage deliberately manipulated to produce unique test scenarios for each examination.

  Today, the valley for the first-years was set up with plenty of hiding places and little-to-no space for large-scale battles unlike the school courtyards. At the northern and southern points of the cliffs were stone podiums for the opposing tacticians, and to the east and west were seats for the Headmistress and her adjudicators. To let students into the arena, every ordinal direction was the top of a steep hill leading down into the main stage and field.

  On that overcast Monday morning, with no sun and canopy to cover them, the cold mercifully less biting than it had been for the past month, all five first-year classes stood at attention on the top level as the tacticians blindly picked their matchups.

  The morning battle: Class 1-A and Class 1-E.

  The second morning battle: Class 1-B and Class 1-C.

  Class 1-D, whose students cumulatively had the lowest marks among the other classes in their year, was placed on reserve.

  Of the losing classes of the first two battles, the one that accumulated the fewest points as scored by the Academy heads of each department would then battle Class D in the late afternoon. Whichever class lost that battle could no longer continue studying at the Academy.

  To address the disparity between class tiers, tacticians fighting a higher-ranked class were allowed handicaps. The amount one was given was determined by the gap between them and their opponent. In Ty’s case, Tactician Will of 1-E was given two extra spells of his choice—which were unknown to Ty—and one of the one-use spells in the Tactician’s tome could be used twice.

  Ty had had no doubt in her mind as she took her spot on the upper southern stage, detachedly observing the field below them, the Headmistress at her spot on the eastern stage, and the department heads on the western stage.

  The battle began with the handicap.

  Will opened with a half-area Fog field, obscuring Ty’s view of the stage, including her own classmates.

  Ten seconds later, the Headmistress—who she could still see well—indicated to her with a wave of the hand that it was now her turn to start her opening turn.

  Her usual opening was to start Callie and Cyril’s buff rotations followed by advancing her offensive attackers. For her casters, Faris accompanied Alex, and Theo accompanied Elias. Selene hung out in the back for the latter group as an extra healer—she was especially good at casting area heals—and Kor acted as Cyril’s backup. Darius was on standby for obvious reasons.

  Watching as they followed her command, Ty stood still, refraining from using any more tactician’s assist spells since they deducted from the team’s overall score. But when she finally wanted to ask for an update, she opened her mouth and found her voice surprisingly lacking.

  Oh, it’s the handicap.

  She did not panic. She stood there at her podium, staring into the fog, waited one more minute, and then tried again.

  Right as she started receiving responses, and the fog had begun to fade away, she felt a sensation similar to the end of her first challenge practice—it was a Full-cut. She staggered slightly, feeling the energy suck out of her body, and then straightened herself. They were single-use. She’d get over it.

  Immediately casting a one-use Full-heal, which in reality had a max potency of half of anyone’s health similar to the Full-cut, she was aware that the entire class’s temporary weakness because of the Full-cut would make the heal less potent. So she ordered the deployment of a standard healing rotation, which was immediately confirmed by Selene, Cyril, and Theo.

  And then there was another Full-cut. The class all stood at 25 percent of its optimal state.

  This time, Ty staggered, and didn’t even bother to stand up again before resuming her cast through gritted teeth and clenched eyes. There was no use spending extra energy when she knew she could not see. Her body was entering its panic mode, much like it probably was for the rest of her classmates.

  But she managed to finish her spell, and all was soon eased as her three healers set off their spells as well, two overlapping voices stark above all the others.

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  Elias had first contact.

  Faris called for Kor.

  Ty concentrated on mid-left field, where she could just barely make out two shadows facing Elias. She quickly cast a simple tactician’s Drain, which transferred a bit more energy from her to him; he would be fine. Callie was doing her support rotation. Nothing needed to change. Her calculations would not fail her.

  As she was about to order Kor to advance, Ty was immediately interrupted by her caster's sharp voice, redirecting the chemist to Cyril instead.

  She confirmed and enacted the order.

  Ty clenched and unclenched her hands distractedly, feeling the blood return to the tips of her fingers as she scanned the rest of her team on the field. Since the fog had dissipated, she watched Will across the field from her, who was casually sitting down on the ground with his tome and moving his mouth.

  With two of the handicaps down, and one more spell in her opponent’s back pocket, she took a deep breath, reminding herself that the fate of the battle lay heavily with the students on the field.

  Next was the assault. It began when, among the maze of trees and shrubbery on her side, two clear paths leading to the enemy’s side opened up.

  Advancing on the left for her team was Elias, backed by Callie and Selene, Theo a fair way back doing his part as a caster until his capacities as a physician were needed. This seemed to be more than overkill as the two initial opponents were easily knocked down by Elias and then Entangled by Selene against two nearby trees.

  To the right were Alex and Faris, who eventually encountered their enemy barely past the half-way line. Kor cast a few offensive spells while Cyril waited for his Paralysis-Cure draught to kick in, but it didn’t even seem necessary to have a healer at all given how quickly the three individuals felled the opposing duelist and support. Faris attempted to put the final touches on the minor victory, opening his tome when he was stopped by Alex, who simply reached into her bag and threw two thick ropes into the caster’s chest before continuing forward. Darius, who watched the charade amusedly, stood near the back, a sheathed sword at his side that she knew would never see the light of day.

  But then Alex suddenly disappeared.

  Faris finished tying up the two enemies they had downed when he saw Darius jogging toward him from behind, immediately sensing that something was wrong and turning to the front. No one was there.

  Ty turned her head off the field and toward Will, who was still casting, and then noted that Elias was missing from the other group, too.

  It must have been a tactician’s spell. Expelled Alex off the field, then Mimick for Elias. Clever, considering that the spell had a 30-minute cooldown period before it could be used again—and considering that Mimick spells were forbidden during class exams under normal circumstances.

  As her bewildered classmates turned to their tactician for guidance, Ty immediately ordered Faris and Kor to maintain the advance toward the approaching enemy, doing what they could to attack before they were forced to engage in physical combat. Faris, after all, was equipped with a dagger, and they both still had Cyril behind them.

  Setting up tactician’s shields over her caster and chemist, Ty swore could overhear the faintest threat coming through Kor’s end. Whether it was for her or Faris, she could not tell.

  Ty turned to Elias’s group next and was glad to see that Callie needed no one to tell her to take up Elias’s spear, defaulting Selene as her support—which had been rehearsed many times before on account of Elias’s predilection for being absent.

  The left advanced slowly, erring on the side of caution as Selene walked close to the front with Callie, giving her distinct, sharp words of warning that surprisingly did not faze the new stand-in team lead, who held tight onto her new weapon.

  Meanwhile, the right group was still slightly confused, a group of three rushing toward them as Faris asked his healer whether he was ready.

  There was no other option than to say yes as the three opponents seized the opportunity and launched themselves at Faris, and then Kor as Ty finally deployed her area shield spell, wary of how many deductions each spell and intervention cost before trying to recall how long an Expel lasted.

  Ten minutes, maybe? That’d be an interesting challenge.

  Meanwhile, Faris and Korinna bickered with each other as they did their best to fend off their two enemies. Ty held her tongue and shifted her eyes to the other side, where Selene’s arrows were already slowing down the opponent in the back line.

  Her eyes eventually landed on Theo, who had taken up the role of healer instead of Selene, trying to stay alert for any necessary spell reversals instead of continuing to cast his offensive magic.

  That was when Faris and Kor’s bickering abruptly stopped.

  The first thing she noticed was that her shield was still active, but where there had been two students in front of Alex’s group was now one giant mass of black. Cyril and Darius were still in the back, easily set apart.

  Ty sighed and then asked Cyril to warp Theo over to tend to their class’s own two within the heap.

  Despite Theo’s clear protests, Cyril began casting his spell, and the tactician finally gave a singular order to Darius: tie up the three passed-out opponents that lay in the Faris-Kor pile. Once that was taken care of, she was really only left with the remaining two on Callie’s side. And the two girls seemed to be in good shape, Selene managing to completely cripple the person in the backline before Callie delivered the final blow with her spear after finishing up her opponent.

  She checked her timepiece. Not bad.

  The tactician looked up and locked her eyes with her opponent.

  In the end, Will was no longer casting. He had gotten up from his sitting position and was now standing at his stone podium like she was, tome closed and his eyes giving away exactly what he expected from her.

  Ty put her hand on her Tactician’s tome and began casting a lengthy Flourish spell, a spell to end examinations and sever all bindings, effectively neutralizing the playing field.

  As she neared the end of her spell, she raised her right hand toward Will and watched a large translucent dome form around herself and her opponent, and then, with moderate disdain, she conjured up a sword and watched it sail through the sky to shatter the dome entirely and knock Will back onto a floor of glittering blue grass.

  The battle was over.

  And yet Ty did not move from her spot, unable to feel anything but the hollowness of victory.