Page 24 of Fortune Academy: Year One
Blood pooled at her mouth and sanity came flooding back to me. “Oh gods, Olivia. I’m so sorry,” I whimpered as guilt and dread made my hands shake.
She didn’t react how I expected. She smiled, her teeth pink with her blood as her glowing eyes drooped with satisfaction. “I know... what I am.”
Olivia fell over onto the sands with a final thud.
Silence.
I stared at her, waiting for the magic to bring her back to life, but impossible amounts of blood soaked into the sands around her still form. I shot up a panicked glance at the dwarf. “Professor Payne?” I pressed.
He narrowed his eyes and waited, then after what felt like an eternity, he lifted one hand. The panther shifter took an orb from her pocket and broke it in her fist, sending awhooshto sweep through the room.
Olivia drew in a desperate gasp and I let go of the breath I’d been holding. “Oh gods, Olivia,” I cried, crawling to her and rolling her onto my thighs. I didn’t care that her blood smeared across my uniform. I ran my fingers through her sweat-dampened hair. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Does it... hurt?”
Her eyes still aglow, she glanced up at me and smiled. “Am I okay?” She lifted herself up and giggled, showing me the runes that flashed all over her body in vibrant swirls. “Lily! I’m a fucking dark mage!”
My hands fell to the blood-soaked sands and I tried to be happy for her. “Wow, Olivia. That’s, that’s really great.”
I didn’t feel any differently, and even though Olivia was the one who’d died, I felt like the one who’d been stabbed straight in the heart.
When would I ever find out what the hell I was?
A True Friend
Ididn’t have much of an appetite after murdering my first and only real friend at Fortune Academy, but Olivia was in the mood to celebrate. We’d been handed our welcome packets we would have gotten at orientation had we not been duds, as well as new schedules. Mine was an indefinite repeat of the Awakening Arena, once per day, with mandatory meetings with a counselor of my choice. They probably expected me to talk with Miss Williams, but it would give me a good excuse to go see Kaito later.
Still, I wished that I’d been Awakened too as something normal like a dark mage. I had a feeling when my powers finally came to light they wouldn’t have neat classes lined up to walk me through my development.
“Don’t look so depressed!” Olivia chimed, looping her arm with mine and dragging me down the street towards the cafeteria that better resembled a gothic castle than a place where the campus came to eat lunch. “I finallyknow what I am!”
I glanced down at her blood-soaked uniform. There was a change of clothes available in the arena, but Olivia had refused them saying that this was her badge of honor.
Gruesome as hell badge of honor... but I was the one who’d killed her, so I wasn’t going to deny her anything she wanted.
“But how did it happen?” I asked, still dazed by the whole experience. “I mean, didn’t it hurt?”
She shrugged, her bony shoulder bumping into mine. “Well, yeah, it hurt a lot.” She stuck a finger in my uniform hole where her bolt had pierced me. “Bet that hurt, too.”
It wasn’t even comparable. The magic of the arena had healed both of us, but she’d still fucking died. I never felt more like a monster than I did right then.
“Hey,” Olivia said, her voice softening as she tugged me to a halt, “don’t look so guilty, okay?” Her eyes still held that mystical purple glow as if she’d been suppressing her magic all her life and there was so much it was just shining out of her with the force of a miniature sun. She smiled, that joy in her beaming unlike anything I’d seen before. “I am more than thrilled. You have no idea what I’ve been going through...” She chuckled. “Well, I guess you do. I’m sorry. Here I am wanting to celebrate and you still don’t know what you are.”
I waved away her concern. “That’s not a big deal. I’m sure I’ll figure it out soon enough.” Of course the big question was eating at me, but a part of me was relieved, too. Whatever I was couldn’t be good. I doubted I was anything this school had ever seen or else Dante wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to track me down. Hendrik wouldn’t have had a vision of me that had set all of this in motion. No, maybe it was a good thing I didn’t know what I was yet. I’d find out soon enough and then my life would change forever.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. As much as she wanted to celebrate I thought it was sweet that Olivia was more concerned about my emotional well-being. “We could go back to the dorms if you prefer. I have some snacks.”
“No, that’s okay.” I tugged her towards the cafeteria again and my stomach released a growl that had us both giggling. “The dorms are too far away for my stomach to handle, I’m pretty sure.”
We ventured inside with our arms interlocked and it felt good, almost like this was a real university and I was finding a place where I could belong. Olivia didn’t know how much she grounded me and we’d only just met. It felt good to have a friend.
The roar of the cafeteria hit us hard when we stepped inside. The voices echoed off of the unforgiving onyx, reminding me of the dark mage dormitories, and I glanced up at the rows of looming statues. “This place is creepy,” I said loud enough for Olivia to hear me over the din.
She chuckled and took a big whiff. “But it smells delicious!”
She was right. Stations of every kind of food imaginable lined the walls and mouth-watering scents drifted over the crowd, making my stomach pinch with hunger. It felt like I hadn’t eaten in forever.
We bypassed a station clearly intended for shifters with raw meat served both bloody or cooked on a spit. A funnel drew most of the smoke through an escape vent, but enough of the aroma from the cooking meat made me want to pause. One of the shifters from Logan’s pack glared at me, so I tugged Olivia to keep walking.
Similar glares followed at each station. Golden fruit at the Demi counter came paired with a snub from Trevor who was eating fish whole. Then the dark magic counter which had black apples looked as if they might let us join now that Olivia’s powers had emerged, but the second we got close a group of dark mages barreled into us and sent me reeling to the floor.
