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The poor boy’s eyes widen in horror and his face turns blue, morphing into a beastlike shape.
Horns sprouts out of his skull, right behind his ears. Done with him, Mar keeps striding forward, never giving him a second thought, and we follow.
It could have been worse. The boy should count himself lucky Mar didn’t have time to deal with him.
I shake my head, half amused, half exasperated, and keep up the pace. Being dressed in formal white is bad enough—I’m not about to lose my cousins and stand out by myself. I don’t truly mind the outfit in itself: up in the Darklands, the Frejr’s domain, I’ve attended a dozen funerals and as many childbirths in this cloak without feeling out of place, but the colors are always so distastefully obnoxious here.
It doesn’t help that my heels pinch my toes with each wide step. I wish I hadn’t let Laetta convince me to put on my pumps. At five foot ten, I’m a ballerina flats kind of woman. But Laetta had a point: I don’t have white or gold flats. My usual colorful choice of shoes would have been disrespectful for the occasion, and respect is the word of the day.
Passing arches and columns, great ornate windows and ancient tapestries, we head straight to the Pillar chapel at the center of Five.
In an attempt to put an end to thousands of years of all-out war between the five mortal kingdoms of Xhera, a central city was created a couple of centuries ago. Magnapolis symbolically stands on grounds that originally belonged to three of the five kingdoms: Vanemir, Flaur, and Anderkan. Magnapolis is home to the international council, the financial districts handling the wealth of the world, as well as many other institutions. Even the Pillar built its largest cathedral here, although the church’s ecclesiastic state is still in the heart of Anderkan.
It stands to reason that the international university be here.
The Five Kingdoms’ Superior University is housed in what used to be the royal keep of Vanemir. The Aevar family moved their home to the north in order to be closer to the Darklands centuries ago, leaving the building vacant. They donated it in order to create Five.
Every noble, wealthy, or otherwise relevant family sends their offspring to Five. In theory, that was supposed to create a sort of camaraderie between the peers of the realms. In practice, Five is the battleground for a constant fight among spoiled brats with huge egos.
I want nothing to do with that mine field. If it had been up to me, I would have stayed in the Darklands. But for better or worse, I am a Frejr, and Frejrs attend Five, as the head of my family often reminds me when I complain. No wonder. Valina was the one who founded the school in the first place.
“Why are we bothering to turn up?” Maelys whispered me, too low for Mar to hear us. Unless she’s extending her hearing with a spell. I wouldn’t put it past her. “She wasn’t even royal.” My youngest cousin pouts. “I hate these clothes.”
I smile indulgently. Maelys has a proclivity for fashion; she often designs or sews her own clothes.
Mourning clothes aren’t required at Five, and most of the time, the Frejrs don’t bother to wear them, unless the deceased is important enough for us to officially pay our respects.
“Because Blythe was engaged to the heir of Anderkan,” I whisper back.
Maelys should have known as much, but she’s just nineteen. She’s starting her undergrad studies in magiks this year. There are too many princes, princesses, and kings in Five to know all of them, let alone remember who they are screwing.
Maelys grumbles, “Politics suck.”
I can only nod.
Neither of us care much about the poor girl’s death. We’re too used to murder, and we didn’t know her personally.
The beautiful blonde had seemed nice enough, though. That in itself is rare at Five.
Once, toward the end of last year, after a bitchy classmate chucked ink at my face, I’d been freshening up in the restroom when I came across Blythe. The woman offered me a handkerchief embroidered with her initials.
I never had a chance to give it back to her.
Oh, well.
Part of me agrees with Maelys. Who gives a fuck about Anderkan? Certainly not me.
Out of the five kingdoms, it’s the one I never want to visit. I even stay far away from their borders when I walk around Magnapolis. Anderkanians are deeply religious and therefore, notoriously against magik users. The Church of the Pillar’s influence is absolute, second only to their shitty king’s whims.
According to the Pillar, the magiks of the world are natural powers meant to only be wielded by the gods. Never mind those among usbornwith the ability to access magiks.
The priory of the Pillar hunted down magik users for thousands of years. They’re the very reason why our world was divided in two: the mortal kingdoms, and the eternal realms where the immortal descendants of the old gods still dwell.
It’s been a millennium since walls erupted between our lands, and instead of rejoicing that big, bad immortals were stuck in their corner of the world, far to the north east, the Pillar turned its attention to the mortals using magiks here. At first, they hunted and killed anyone they could find, but their massacres didn’t make for positive PR, so for a few hundred years, they turned their attention to black witches—those who leaned toward the shade rather than the light, drawing on the energy of darkness.
I know enough of power to say with absolute certainty there’s no good and bad magiks. Magik is an energy exchange between one force and another, just like physics. Sometimes it’s used for good, other times, for evil. That depends on the wielder, not the kind of magik they call upon.
Still, the Pillar managed to convince the world that the shade is the threat, so black witches were hunted almost to extinction.
