“Fill it. This is your test.”
What the mage?
“That’s it?” I asked, letting the mass of power within me relax. I teased out my powers, thinking of cool spring water, blue, buoyant, and soothing. “You just want me to fill the glass with water? No tricks?”
“No tricks,” he said, pointing to the fountain behind him. “Just pull enough water from there to fill the glass—” he waved, and a stream of the brackish water curled through the air and poured into the glass, stopping an inch below the rim—“like that.”
I watched as most of the green and brown sediment settled to the bottom, but the water remained silty and cloudy.
Kian grabbed the glass and emptied it onto the ground, and the liquid seeped into the dirt at my feet. Then he sat the empty glass before me on the table.
Okay, here goes nothing. My gaze flicked to the orb floating above me, and I wondered if Gramps was watching.
After a deep breath, I relaxed and teased out bits of magic from the dense sensation of power within me: loamy earth, refreshing water, and crisp, cool air. Then I reached out with my water power, funneling it toward the fountain where a colorful, iridescent, magical netting seemed to overlay the entire surface of the water.
Weird.
I unfurled my magic toward the surface like casting a fishing rod—
Bam!
Something cracked, and my power recoiled, snapping back into me with such force it felt like a punch to the solar plexus.
I sucked in a sharp breath, gasping and bending forward.
“Mage heir?” Kian said, his faux concern as convincing as if he’d declared adoration. “Do you not know how to cast magic through a simple protection spell?”
He knew I didn’t. Asshat. At least, the douche was consistent.
I waved for him to back off while I focused inward, regaining my breath. This time, I didn’t bother to tease out any threads of my magic. I didn’t even bother trying to isolate my separate powers—after all, there was a frickin’ rainbow of colors on the barricade over the fountain’s bowl. Maybe I needed all of them. Wasn’t that what being a high mage was all about? Having a small amount of all of the elements?
Instead, I imagined the tangled ball of energy that was my magic to be a solid mass. Like Thor’s huge hammer.
And then I swung my magical sledgehammer at the shimmering obstruction.
A massive explosion pushed outward and threw me backward in my chair and then outward into the air. I flailed and then crashed into a bush, immediately curling into a ball as pieces of stone and concrete rained down.
Kian had been thrown into the air as well and landed somewhere near me.
My ears rang, and I pressed my hands over them, hoping to regain my hearing before the next test. Raising my head, I blinked, trying to see through the silty air, choking on my breath.
The air smelled as nasty as Kian’s water.
With any luck, the douche would be dead … but I doubted it.
And somehow, I still needed to complete his obstacle course.
“That’s one way to break a protection spell,” Kian grumbled, standing. He glared down at me, and I winced at the sight of the broken glass and marble. His courtyard was in utter ruin.
I stood angrily. “Don’t make a protection spell if you don’t want me to break it.” Something was up with that; he’d totally sabotaged me.
“Well, you can’t fill the glass now.” He glanced at the broken glasses pieces on the ground and crossed his arms with a smirk. “You’ve failed.”
That self-righteous bastard!
The glass was clearly broken, but I wasn’t giving up yet.
“Give me a minute!” I snapped, remembering Sariah’s words about not letting them bully me. I closed my eyes and relaxed, loosening any restrictions on my tangled ball o’ power. It could just scuttle out over the rubble and find all of those minuscule shards of glass and fuse them together with a bit of heat from my fire power, right? And while my magic was out there, the water elemental magic could suck up a bit of that slimy pool, too. I imagined the pieces of glass coming together into a squatty tumbler, right smack in front of Kian’s face … and then the nasty green water could wring from the air and fill the cup, spilling over the top onto Kian’s shoes.
A breeze kissed my skin, and I blinked my eyes open just as the brackish water dribbled over the top of the rim.
Ha!
An oddly shaped glass—that looked like a six-year-old had made it—hovered in the air right in front of Kian. It was filled with water, the rest dribbling down onto his shoes.
“Looks like an A-plus to me, teach.” I smiled sweetly at him, pointing to the glass, and gave him a thumbs-up.
He merely growled in response, jaw clenched.
One down.
Four to go.
Chapter Three
As I crossed the quad, Reyna raced out from Grandpa’s courtyard to meet me.
“You all right?” she asked, holding out a bottle of water and something wrapped in waxed paper.
I nodded and uncapped the bottle, chugging the clean lukewarm beverage. I unwrapped the paper and found a homemade granola bar. After taking a large bite, I met Rey’s gaze. “Kian’s trial was tough.”
She pursed her lips and then nodded. “The high mage of earth is next,” she said, pointing toward a large squatty castle made of red sandstone. “His name is Heath.”
I devoured the rest of the bar without even tasting it. Somehow, I knew I’d need every ounce of energy I could get before the day was done. “Is he as … lovely … as Kian?”
Rey snorted. “Heath is nothing like Kian.”
I could only hope that meant this task would be easier.
Earth was surprisingly the easiest obstacle I’d ever had.
Heath, the high mage of earth, buried me in the dirt all the way up to my chin and then told me to get out. At first, I panicked because the earth bound me so tightly I could only gasp short breaths. Once I relaxed and tuned into the soil around me, I widened the hole and then pushed the dirt beneath my feet until I rose out of my tightly packed near-grave. Then I stepped across the gap to Heath’s side.
“Well done, Nai,” he’d said, crossing the distance to shake my hand. His eyes were swirling shades of brown and gold, and his silk robes were the same color as the ground he’d buried me in. His grip was just as strong.
“Thanks,” I’d said, releasing his icy hand as fast as I could.
Mental note to self: Heath might not be a psycho, but his hands were the same temperature as the dirt six feet down.
Air had been the hardest so far. Orion, high mage of air, had basically stuck me inside of a tornado and told me to get out. I did, finally, and then promptly threw up. Now I was bruised, my insides were still churning, half the day was gone, and I still had the fire and spirit obstacles left.
“Do you want this?” Rey asked, holding out a foil-wrapped package that resembled a burrito. “You look a little green.”
I cleared my throat. “What is it?”
“A chicken burrito.”
I groaned but held out my hand. I would probably need the calories; this magic work was taking a lot out of me.
“Sariah thought you should get plenty of protein and carbs.”