Aldwyn's Academy by Nathan Meyer Page B

punishment was severe, and now Dorian realized how impossible his life at the academy was going to be with Helene as his mentor.
    “I wish I could take it back,” he continued. “The way I wish I could take back my lame attempt at a Magic Missile that spoiled my mother’s spell.” He let out a heavy breath. “She always says I do things without thinking. And I always pay the price for it.”
    Once, three days after his father had left to run down a particularly odious band of goblin insurgents on the borderlands, Dorian used his skill at rock throwing to shatter every window in the mill house just outside the castle.
    He didn’t know why he’d done it, just that all that breaking glass had made him feel better.
    “Yeah, well throwing those stones was pretty stupid,” Caleb agreed. “But seeing the look on Helene’s face as the Stench Stones sprayed her …”
    Dorian grinned in spite of himself. “Yeah,” he nodded. “I guess it was pretty funny.”
    “Funny?” Caleb began to giggle. “It was hysterical!”
    The two boys burst out laughing.
    Dorian glanced back at his desk and his smile faded.
    “I guess that look was about the only thing that was good about today. Here I am, spending my first evening at school in my dorm room copying one spell after another from this school book until my hand cramps, while everyone else is stuffing themselves in the dining hall and playing games.”
    “That reminds me,” Caleb said. “I brought you something back from dinner.” He reached into his haversack and pulled out a miniature chocolate dragon. “They had these on top of the cakes for dessert. I swiped one for you.”
    “It looks just like the statue in the courtyard!”
    Dorian eagerly reached for the chocolate. As he did so he saw how thick and strong the half-orc’s fingers seemed against the chocolate. The hand looked so inhuman it almost killed his appetite.
    He caught himself and took the candy. There was an obvious reason Caleb was in here with him instead of in the Great Hall mixing with the other students, he realized.
    “Thanks,” he said in a quieter voice.
    He quickly tucked into the dessert, but Dorian realized it couldn’t make up for seeing the disapproval in Lowadar’s eyes during his lecture.
    It was still only his first day and he had already gotten himself into serious trouble.
    I will show him, he vowed to himself. I do belong here. I am my mother’s son.
    He went back to his homework, and Caleb continued his reading.
    His hand began to cramp again after awhile from copying spells, but that was the least of his concerns, he knew. He stopped writing and shook his hand out.
    He noticed something odd.
    He was
getting
the magic. It was coming to him and even in his stubbornness he couldn’t deny it. The runes and script danced and blazed in his mind as he copied out the incantations.
    He wrote a spell and knew the spell. He had the talent and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t anymore.
    But there was something else that he noticed as well.
    Of all the different kinds of spells he was forced to copy, a few seemed excitingly easy, and they were not the ones from the information branch either.
    Fire, ice, and stone casting—the elemental spells of destruction magic flowed the most uninhibited into his mind.
    He couldn’t help but wonder what his mother would say if she knew, and he realized as scared as Professor Fife had made him, he still didn’t want to see his mother’s reaction if he told her he didn’t think he was destined to follow in her specialty.
    He sat up in his chair and stretched until his spine made little popping sounds. He twisted slowly around in his chair and regarded the room. On the bunk above where Caleb sat reading, Dorian’s school supplies were spilled out across his covers.
    Next to Dorian’s pillow lay a pair of black slippers with somewhat eerie icons of silver spiders embroidered on them. Slippers of Spider Climbing would allow him to run up walls as