Page 4 of Black Wing and Shadows
Professor Melamora’s tone changed, and she said sternly, much louder, “no cadet except Historians are allowed below sublevel one without explicit permission from the Historian professor.” Well, okay then.
She clarified that our location was between the instructor chambers and the barracks, in the largest classroom on campus. In Alpha Wing, three sections were dedicated to Drusearons, Healers, and Riders. Charlie Wing contained the other three branches: Shapeshifters, Sorcerers, and Infantry. Each wing used the third floor for classrooms, and cadet leadership occupied the first and second floors. Once we completed basic training and became first-year students, we would be on the seventh floor.
“Quit fucking talking!” One of the instructors yelled, startling the absolute shit out of me, making me jump so hard I almost lost my balance.
“Start running up and down the stairs, now!” I turned to see Instructor Ossent screaming at a group of cadets, who immediately stood and began running up and down the stairs beside their section.
Professor Melamora raised her voice louder. “The rest of you, pay no mind to them and direct your attention back here.”
We all turned back toward her. She continued discussing some common laws and college etiquette. I tried hard to focus on her, although I already knew most of it—a perk of growing up in the military. Despite trying to focus—the cadets running up and down the stairs dragged my attention away.
“Turn the fuck around, Blackcreek, or you will be next,” Pascal said. His voice dropped low, but had a tone that went straight to my soul. My heart stopped for two beats, making my stomach queasy for a moment.
“Yes, sir,” I responded, snapping my attention back to the front.
Fuck, get it together.
Later that evening, after a day of having our brains overloaded with information, standing in endless formation, and eating food that was questionable. We wound down in our barracks. Some cadets were sleeping, while others found camaraderie in each other. I lay on my bed, trying to relax my body, willing my muscles to let go. The group of cadets near my bunks were chatting, every part of me said not to engage and get involved, but I couldn’t tune them out either. The nosy part of me. The part of my brain running rampant.
“I bet most of us won’t make it halfway.” One cadet shot out.
“It sucks they have taken our magic away,” one said.
“What magic?” one asked.
“Some of us have magic… your flummadiddle if you don’t,” another said.
Wow. Worthless if we don’t have magic. Clearly, some of them think they are better than the other.
“My brother said week five will be the hardest,” another added.
“Yeah, mine said that too. He said he couldn’t tell me details, but that a bunch of us will die,” one said.
“At least we’ve got each other,” one cadet said. “Fucking is a great way to take the edge off.”
My head snapped sideways before I caught myself. I should have kept staring at the slats above me, but the voice came from the bunk to my left, bottom row. The cadet wasn’t bad-looking—brown hair, dark blue eyes—decent enough if you were into reckless mouths. He grinned at me when I looked.
“You look like you would be fun in bed,” he said, nodding his head my way.
I shot my left eyebrow at him, cocked my head to the side. “In your fucking dreams…”
I turned my head back and continued staring at the slats. Closing my eyes, forcing myself to tune them out and get some sleep. We never knew when Pascal would barge through the doors, demanding something.
CHAPTER 3
The first week hadn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. It felt like the days repeated—over and over. Most nights, we got woken up by a screaming instructor. Sometimes it lasted for ten minutes, and sometimes it lasted for hours.
We began each day with physical exercises, though I was sure some of my fellow cadets considered it torture. Having trained for years beforehand, I found it manageable. After that, the dining attendants served us breakfast. Afterwards, we went to the lecture hall to review more expectations during basic training, the history of the college, and Yebel. We took a break for lunch, and oftentimes we spent the afternoons standing in formation in the courtyard for several hours. Sometimes, the instructors allowed us to go back to our barracks.
Most of us chose to get some sleep in, to catch up on the hours missed through the evening. After dinner each night, we received a rucksack filled with seventy-five pounds of gods knows what, and we ran around the college perimeter with it on our backs.
They told us that week two would be different from the previous week, and hell would actually start. When I awoke that morning, I could feel my nerves rumbling, anticipating the worst. I remembered all the warnings my dad gave me, telling me how horrible it would be. Like clockwork, Instructor Pascal came in and called for us to count, and we counted off, all one hundred and ten of us intact.
We marched into the dining hall and split into lines. I grabbed my food fast, ate the same way, shoveling it down like I had all week. When the plate emptied, I pushed outside to stand with my platoon.
Minutes later, the yard brimmed with bodies, rows locked in formation. The air pressed heavy, thick enough to taste. My gut tightened, warning me of something I couldn’t name—was it because I expected worse to come, or because it had already begun?
A low thrum rolled across the distance, faint but steady. Wingbeats. The sound bled into my bones, each pulse louder, closer, rattling the air like an oncoming storm. The sky above felt lower with every beat, shadows dragging longer across the yard. My chest clamped down. Not one—several. I forced my stance still, but tension rippled through the lines. Boots scuffed. A cough snapped sharp. Cadets shifted as if the ground itself waited to break beneath us.
