"How strange. It responded when I touched you, but not when you tried alone." Bellamie kept her voice low while watching the dark crystal, but Lenora Lion was already approaching the three desks.
Octavia returned to her seat on Gaelira's other side and gave a quick glance toward the hand Bellamie still had around her wrist.
The Stormwing student seemed to notice, because she took a little longer than necessary to let go.
Lenora extended her glass hand and Gaelira placed the stone on her palm.
Several glowing currents moved through the professor's transparent arm as she examined the inside of the object.
Bellamie leaned over the desk, interested in the result, but Lenora looked up before she could offer any theory.
"The crystal did not react to your mana, Miss Barrow. These objects reject any energy different from that of the person holding them." Bellamie rested her cheek on one hand and looked at Gaelira with renewed curiosity.
"So she only needed me to touch her." Lenora returned the crystal to Gaelira and corrected her conclusion with complete calm. "She needed to recognize a sensation she has spent her entire life ignoring. Your contact only showed her where to look."
Gaelira closed her fingers around the stone and felt its cold surface again.
Knowing that the golden light had been produced by her own mana should have made the exercise easier, but the sensation Bellamie had helped her find had already disappeared.
She tried to remember the warmth moving from her wrist to her palm, although the more she focused on recreating it, the more distant it seemed to become.
"Repeat it without help," Lenora ordered. The professor remained beside the desk, watching her with a patience that felt more uncomfortable than any scolding.
Gaelira closed her eyes and searched for the pulse in her wrist, but only managed to hear the breathing and movements of the nearby students.
After several seconds, she opened her hand. The crystal remained dark, and Lenora pointed at the stone with one of her transparent fingers. "Again. This time, don't try to remember the result. Pay attention to the process."
Gaelira took a deep breath and made a second attempt. She searched for the mana in her fingers, then in her arm, and finally near her chest, but every change in focus erased the previous sensation.
Frustration began to tighten her shoulders. She had held a sword in that body for less than a day and still managed to defeat Clarke, but a stone the size of a walnut refused to produce even the smallest flash.
Bellamie leaned closer again, although this time she kept her hands on her own desk. "Stop searching your entire body like you lost a coin somewhere inside it." Gaelira opened one eye and found the girl's amused smile only a few centimeters away. This chapter was taken from novelping dot com without permission.
"Your instructions were better when they didn't sound like an insult." Bellamie tucked her green hair behind one ear before answering.
"They also worked better when you let me touch you, but the professor seems determined to take away the fun part."
Octavia lightly tapped the tip of her pen against the notebook, drawing both of their attention.
"You could focus on the exercise." Bellamie looked at the redhead and her smile widened as if she had just discovered another source of entertainment, but decided not to provoke her yet.
Instead, she pointed toward Gaelira's wrist. "Start with the pulse. When you recognize the warmth, don't try to push it. Just let it keep moving."
Gaelira closed her eyes once more. First she felt the steady heartbeat beneath her skin, then a fainter current stretching between each pulse.
Instead of chasing it, she kept her attention on the path it was already following.
The sensation slowly moved along her forearm and reached her palm, where the cold of the crystal seemed to intensify for an instant.
Gaelira tried to hold onto the current and lost it immediately.
She released her breath in frustration, but did not open her eyes. She had felt the mana without help, and now she knew she was not imagining it.
She repeated the process, this time allowing the current to move forward without trying to control it.
The warmth reached her fingers and made contact with the crystal. A faint golden light appeared at the center of the stone, flickered, and managed to remain lit.
Gaelira opened her eyes. The glow was much smaller than the manifestations produced by her classmates, but it belonged to her.
If she managed to understand it and develop enough control, perhaps that energy could offer her something more important than good grades.
Magic had brought her to that place, and it remained her only possibility of returning to her mother.
Lenora picked up the crystal, observed the light for several seconds, and handed it back. "Weak, unstable, and far too slow." Gaelira felt her brief satisfaction fade, but the professor continued before walking away.
"It is also genuine. You now know how to recognize your mana, Miss Veyr. From now on, you will not be able to use ignorance as an excuse."
Bellamie waited until Lenora moved away before leaning toward Gaelira again. "I suppose you should thank me now." Gaelira closed her hand around the crystal and watched the light gradually fade.
"Thank you for helping me between all the teasing." The Stormwing girl smiled, satisfied with that answer. "Don't worry. I'll think of a way for you to repay the favor."
The bell signaled the end of class shortly afterward. While the students returned the crystals, Octavia packed her materials with more force than necessary.
Gaelira placed hers back inside Lenora's box and returned to the desk.
"Bellamie was only helping me." Octavia adjusted the strap of her bag without looking up. "I didn't say anything." Gaelira remembered the way she had tapped her pen against the notebook and decided not to point it out.
The next subject was Armed Combat, something Gaelira understood far better than mana.
She arrived at the training courtyard convinced that she would finally have an easy class. That confidence lasted until she saw the professor waiting in the center of the arena.
He was a tall, muscular man with a square-tipped practice sword resting on one shoulder and six small silver bells tied to his long copper-colored braid.
The thirty-six students took their places around the edge of the courtyard while the professor walked toward them.
Not a single bell made the slightest sound with his movements. Then he planted the sword into the sand, spread his arms, and looked at the group with a challenging smile.
"Your first task is simple. Attack me all at once and make a single bell ring."