Matabar. Book II. Chapter 149. Draws (Patreon)

Ardan turned the ignition key and set the parking brake. He let out a relieved breath, removed his gloves, and put them in the glove compartment. For some reason, despite how much the car had cost, the steering wheel wasn’t wrapped in leather like those in all the other new models. As a result, he had to wear gloves to keep his palms from slipping on the lacquer.

Ardi hadn’t exactly been eager to drive to the Grand in a car that had only been delivered to them the evening before. After visiting Boris and Elena, he and Tess had driven to Baliero and back, then found more... engaging things to do. Ardan had planned to take the tram that morning. For one thing, he disliked driving. For another, even on the uncomfortable bench of a tram car, there was always time to think about something or do some reading. Perhaps even dip into his own grimoire.

Besides, they needed the car more for weekend excursions around the city and, above all, so Tess could make her way to the Baliero Concert Hall in peace, without having to hide from reporters’ flashbulbs or fans who were not always polite. These days Tess was recognized far more often than she had been only a year earlier, especially after the success of the play The Death of the King and the furor at John Brolid’s Arena.

Unfortunately, Tess happened to be rehearsing with the musicians at Bruce’s that very day because the generation section and Ley-wiring at the Concert Hall were being worked on yet again. It wasn’t that Arthur “Dandy” Belsky had balked at the expense or been careless with one of the most important aspects of his brainchild. Not at all. The Baliero Concert Hall was simply the first, and perhaps the only, civilian facility with such a complex internal infrastructure. No Star engineer, not even one with Professor Convel’s qualifications, had the expertise the job required.

In the end, the Baliero Concert Hall had become, out of necessity, something of an experimental proving ground. Each new solution to one problem opened up a whole new set of difficulties. Those, too, were successfully resolved, but it took time.

During these interruptions, Tess took advantage of Arkar’s hospitality, helped by the fact that Bruce’s didn’t open to the public until five in the afternoon. Ardan had only recently discovered that Tess herself had learned to drive from her older brothers, even before she left Shamtur for the capital.

And so, as dawn once again washed the Metropolis in soft copper light, Ard found himself facing a moral dilemma of truly serious proportions.

He could treat himself to a peaceful half hour on the tram and leave the brand-new car sitting idle in the courtyard of their house beside the flower bed, a car purchased for an almost unimaginable sum. Just imagine! Not only had Ardan spent nearly two thousand exes from his account, but he still had almost eleven hundred more to his name!

Could he have imagined figures like those even a year and a half ago?

Of course not.

Was he, through some quirk of fate, living proof that Star mages were well-to-do, even though his own life regularly argued otherwise?

Perhaps.

But factor in all the research expenses still to come, and the answer is no.

So Ardan, reluctant though he was, stowed his staff in the special compartment between the front and rear rows of bench seats. Then he resolutely started the engine and pulled out onto the road along the Markov Canal. Once he had roughly calculated how many tram and taxi rides he could have taken for the price of his “Aktok-7,” any lingering doubts vanished almost immediately. To recoup the car’s purchase price, he would have to use it thirty-two hours a day, eight more than there were.

Ardan soon found a free spot in the student parking lot. He got out of the car, closed the door, and nearly slapped himself on the forehead. Then he went back and retrieved his staff.

Other students were emerging all around him. Some got out on their own; others waited until a chauffeur opened the door for them. Most were upperclassmen or students enrolled in the Magister program. There were exceptions, of course, but most of the students outside those groups wore dresses rather than suits, and the sturdy summer blouses they wore over their corsets bore Faculty of General Knowledge patches.

“Hel—”

But just as they had last time, the Nelvir sisters and Riitova pretended they had never before spent their breaks between lectures chatting casually with Ard. Ardan shook his head and moved aside, letting the other drivers hunt for a parking spot.

A little while later, a luxurious Entio convertible pulled up beneath the arch separating Star Avenue from the little street that led to the University parking lot. Despite his extensive collection of vehicles, Lord Fahtov had been driving this car exclusively ever since he had reached the top of the waiting list for one of the coveted automobiles.

Boris removed his glasses and driving cap. He left his cane in the car but took his staff with him. Lord Fahtov never even considered raising the heavy canvas top or throwing a cover over the car. It was hard to imagine anyone stealing a car from the parking lot of the Imperial Magical University, which probably had more mages per square meter than anywhere else in the world.

They shook hands, then looked each other in the eye for a moment. Yesterday’s conversation had not made things awkward between them, and there was nothing more to say. So they did what friends should do in a situation like this: they went on talking as though everything were just as before.

Because everything was just as before. And for now, what would happen (or not) in the future remained as hazy as the future itself.

“So, Mr. New Car Owner, how do you like it so far?” Boris asked as they rounded the service building and headed toward Star Square.

This separate exit from the parking lot was reserved exclusively for service staff and faculty.

“Hmph,” Ardan grunted.

“Eternal Angels, Ard!” Boris exclaimed with a laugh. “I’ll never understand your love of horses.”

Ardi grumbled something unintelligible.

“No pedals, no seat, and on top of that, it goes wherever it pleases,” Boris said, counting them off. “And the smell... Oh, the Light, if there’s one thing I hate even more than the rocking and the gnats when I’m in the saddle, it’s the stench.”

“You get used to it pretty fast.”

“Yes,” Boris conceded, “but that’s the whole point, Ard: I don’t want to get used to it.”

They entered the atrium and once again found themselves amid a crowd humming and seething like oil just beginning to bubble in a frying pan.

After squeezing through a crush of students from every year and every faculty, they reached the enormous bulletin board set some distance from the information desk. It was nothing more than a plain, unremarkable expanse of cork, usually used for routine administrative notices. Sometimes newspaper clippings appeared there too, if they concerned the Star community or student life in particular.

So it did not usually draw many curious onlookers. But not today. Boris and Ard had to press their way closer. Ardi himself had no real need to get closer, but he was determined to keep Boris company, elbowing his way through students pressing in around them.

“Well, at least I’m staying above the lower cutoff.” Boris exhaled in relief. “It’d be a shame to lose the contract too.”

The exam period was the exception: each day’s results went up on the board the next day.

Ardi knew, for example, that he had scored three out of a possible twelve points in History of Magic. He had earned a perfect score in Star Engineering, even though he knew his rig left much to be desired and would most likely cost more to build and maintain than any sensible businessman could afford; Professor Kovertsky had generously given him an eight. So Ardi no longer qualified for the higher scholarship, but he could still hope for the regular one and probably would not be expelled from the Grand.

The cutoff for losing the Crown’s sponsorship was eighty total points for the exam period, only ten below the scholarship cutoff. The second-year expulsion cutoff was thirty-five, and that threshold applied to everyone.

The first-year cutoff for expulsion was twenty-five exam points. In the second and third years, the cutoff rose by ten points each year; every year after that, it rose by four.

“Know what I’m wondering, Ardi?”

“Mm?” Ardan hummed.

“How did you end up with two fewer points than I did in History of Magic when I spend every lecture catching up on sleep?”

Ardan just waved him off, knowing full well his friend wouldn’t let him forget that fact anytime soon. Besides, as Eorsky would say, if you didn’t study for an exam but had a good head on your shoulders, a score between one and six points was more a matter of luck than a measure of knowledge.

Gradually, a sizable number of students wearing second-year patches peeled away from the crowd of Green cloaks. They spread out across the stairways so they wouldn’t have to wait in line by the elevator lobby, and before long they had reached the rooms below.

Military training sessions rarely brought all the second-year students together, so seeing the men’s locker room packed was a little unusual. The men changed out of their clothes, hung their lightweight summer suits and shirts on hangers, then pulled out their standard-issue uniforms, which looked somewhat like sailors’ uniforms.

“This just isn’t fair...” many of them grumbled. “Just look. Even the students from the advanced training groups are here. What am I supposed to do against them in a duel?”

“You can pray, Caleb. And please, don’t get on my nerves.”

“Yeah, Caleb. We’re all in the same boat here.”

“Yeah, a boat,” wailed Caleb, who was in the same department as Eorsky. “And the only thing I can pray for is that I don’t draw His Highness, the Great Prince, or Erkerovsky.”

“Would you prefer Fahtov?”

“Fair enough... Demons, maybe there’s some way we could arrange a draw?”

“A shield duel can’t end in a draw, Caleb.”

“Right... good point.”

“And anyway, I’d be praying I didn’t draw Egobar.”

Ardan tuned out the locker room’s endless clamor. Ardi left his undershirt on to spare anyone the sight of the still-healing injuries from his journey north, then changed fairly quickly and checked the time. He still had time, and...

“That’s quite a reputation you’ve got there.” Boris popped around the corner, looking utterly delighted.

Lord Fahtov had been quick to get behind last year’s education reform. Then again, what else could anyone expect from a true fan of Magical Boxing?

Ardi merely muttered something, just as he had in the parking lot.

“Oh, come on,” Boris snorted.

They joined the rest of the crowd and soon emerged onto the Grand’s main testing floor. The machinery hummed as usual in the generation section, and their fingertips prickled sharply as they passed the raised lip of the floor conduit. There, the Ley-cable snaked through a small concrete tunnel sheathed in thin sheets of Ertalain alloy. It encircled the testing floor and formed the backbone of the entire array of shield spells that kept Lord Aversky’s invention running.

“I hope luck’s on my side today.” Boris narrowed his eyes.

It was easy enough to understand what he meant. Ardi didn’t need to follow Lord Fahtov’s gaze. At the far end of the hall, a group of students well known at the University had gathered, talking among themselves: Iolai Agrov and his friends among the barons, along with Tina Eveless, an impossibly beautiful elf whose Star talent was every bit as exceptional as her beauty.

“That slug’s been showing up at society functions much more often lately,” Boris said quietly, grimacing slightly.

“How would you know?” Ardi asked in surprise. “You ignore them completely.”

“I do.” Fahtov nodded. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t read the papers, same as you. And his witless mug shows up in them fairly often, invariably in Eveless’s company. Of course. ‘One of the last remaining claimants to the throne demonstrates full commitment to the course charted by His Imperial Majesty.’”

Judging by Boris’s tone, that last sentence had clearly been written by some journalist, but... Lord Fahtov had misjudged Iolai, at least a little. Yes, Iolai was still a thoroughly unpleasant, arrogant man, but he was no idiot. What was more, he had considerable talent for Military magic.

He certainly had far more talent than Ard, and perhaps even more than Boris. Give it ten years or so, and people would begin to see Great Prince Iolai Agrov very differently: not merely as one of the Agrovs or as the son of a celebrated military officer, but as a talented practitioner of Military magic in his own right.

Boris most likely understood that too, but his deep personal dislike of Iolai kept him from admitting the obvious, even to himself. This was especially true since Lord Fahtov himself was excelling in Military Studies.

Ardi, meanwhile, spotted Lady Polina Erkerovsky, whom he would meet again in Shamtur just a few months later, at a wedding, no less: her father’s wedding to Tess’s younger sister.

Once Polina, outraged by Iolai Agrov’s brazen rudeness, stopped pretending that he had any chance at all with her, she... how to put it...

She stood proud and alone inside a bubble that had formed all on its own. Without even realizing it, the other students shied away, if only slightly, from Polina, the statuesque daughter of the Empire’s foremost patron of ballet and heir to his fortune. Some because of her striking appearance; others, perhaps, because of her equally difficult temperament.

Their eyes met for a second, and for the first time in his life, Ard felt, almost literally, as if Polina were cursing him out from a couple dozen meters away, without ever opening her mouth, with nothing but her bored eyes.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Colonel Kshtovsky said as he stepped onto the training ground with his assistants, including Keriy Lavrlivov, whose group Ardi had spent some time “studying” with.

The colonel’s assistants spread out across the training ground, while Kshtovsky himself, wearing a dress-uniform coat, wide-legged trousers, and polished boots, stood at its center. His war staff, engraved with dozens of seals, somehow looked perfectly suited to him and yet out of place within the walls of the Grand.

“Glad no one was late or decided they could somehow duck the new rules.” Kshtovsky surveyed everyone present. “For those of you who might prefer to forget, let me remind you: as a result of last year’s reform, we’ll be holding one-on-one shield duels. Starting next year, they’ll be bloody. By the way, if you’re curious, you can ask the upperclassmen at the end of the week what it all looks like.”

Disgruntled whispers rippled through the students, though they were nowhere near as loud as they had been at the end of last year.

“Unfortunately, our officials proved too softhearted to keep the reform intact.” His voice made it clear that Kshtovsky wasn’t being sarcastic. He genuinely believed what he was saying. “With all the amendments in place, a duel won’t account for your entire score, only half of it. So the loser gets zero; the winner, six.”

Before the amendments, the reform had been far more radical: the loser of a duel would get no points at all. But the catch was that exams in Military magic weren’t limited to duels. If the reform had gone through unchanged, it would immediately have rendered every other aspect of Military training meaningless.

While Kshtovsky went on and on, several visibly exhausted Healers followed his assistants into the hall. In yellow cloaks, their faces grim, they settled into the chairs set out for them and, almost in unison, buried their noses in their grimoires.

After all, they’d basically have to spend the whole week stuck at the training ground, dealing with the consequences of decisions made by Parliament and the Guild.

“To ensure fair pairings, we’ll hold the draw right here in front of you.” Kshtovsky pointed to a simple Ley-mechanical device.

It had a display board with miniature seals and an entire web of Ley-cables running to each plate. Beside the plates, rows of card holders sat on separate vertical tracks. Cards bearing the students’ surnames had already been inserted into the holders, and since there were exactly half as many seals as cards, it was easy enough to see how the device worked.

The simple mechanism set the card holders in motion. They shuffled the names, and when they stopped, the miniature seals projected illusory numerals. Students whose numbers matched were paired for a duel.

“Let’s begin.” Kshtovsky wasted no time: he formed a very simple seal and tapped his staff lightly on the platform floor.

A gust of wind condensed beside the device into a ghostly hand, then pushed down the heavy-looking lever. Pointless extravagance, Ard thought. And yes, someone might say the rays would immediately return to the Stars thanks to the testing platform. There was just one catch.

Ardi was now the proud owner of just such a platform, if only temporarily, and he understood perfectly well that while the platform returned a mage’s spent Ley according to the principle of Resonance, that did nothing to replenish the consumables. Colonel Kshtovsky, however, didn’t seem particularly concerned about the unnecessary expenditure of government supplies.

Just as Ardi had expected, the stands with their placards began to move, a little like escalators leading down into the Underground. They shuffled the names at random until the gears finally creaked and the device went still. Then the miniature seal-lamps flashed, lighting up the numbers beside each name.

Since Ardi hardly knew anyone in his year by sight, he simply took a few steps forward and stood in the designated area while the others called out to one another. While the device spun, Kshtovsky’s assistants laid out roughly fifty lengths of rope on the platform, each two meters long, with a tag dangling from its midpoint. Each tag, as anyone could have guessed, was marked with a number matching one on the device.

So there was no need to shout at all. But with the crowd’s attention fixed on the lottery, many had failed to notice the ropes laid out there.

As the students sorted themselves into pairs, Kshtovsky kept bellowing:

“First- and second-year students may use war magic no stronger than three rays of the Red Star or one ray of the Green Star. Combat is limited to destroying your opponent’s shield without causing bodily harm. Any student who deliberately injures another will face disciplinary action and fail the exam.”

Ardan felt no emotion whatsoever about the coming bout. He took his place beside the rope marked “32.” A few seconds later, a slightly potbellied dwarf with rather comical sideburns stood opposite him.

His square nose, equally rectangular jaw, and angular pupils would all have seemed perfectly normal. Except for one thing. Inside that short, broad frame, his heart was racing—not from mere alarm or confusion, but from utter terror.

The dwarf smelled of fear and a peculiar sort of uncertainty. He nervously ran his fingers along his small staff. The shaft was made of inexpensive Ertalain alloy and scaled for a dwarf no taller than one hundred fifty-five centimeters.

At first, Ardi thought Boris was right: his rather peculiar reputation at the Grand really had been cemented once and for all. But when Ardan studied the dwarf’s face more closely, he was surprised to recognize an old acquaintance.

That was assuming, of course, that the word “acquaintance” could really describe their decidedly brief encounter: Ardi had broken this very dwarf’s knee, knocked two elves around a bit as well, and then moved out of the student dormitory at the Grand that same night.

Remarkably, he and the nameless dwarf hadn’t crossed paths at all throughout those two years. And judging by how the dwarf’s palms were sweating and how rapidly his gaze darted about, he would have preferred to maintain that status quo.

And Ardi... and Ardi, even after recognizing his “acquaintance,” felt no emotion toward him whatsoever. Come to think of it, if those three hadn’t accepted Iolai Agrov’s offer, clearly in exchange for some kind of payment, Ardan would never have ended up on the Markov Canal. He’d never have met Arkar. And most important of all, he’d never have met Tess.

Ardan looked at the ring finger of his right hand, where the dark band of his wedding ring glinted.

That is the dream of the Sleeping Spirits.

“Begin!” Colonel Kshtovsky barked.

*

Ardan barely managed to get out of the way before a military truck rumbled past him, packed tight with young recruits. They sat in the truck bed beneath a swamp-green tarp that snapped against the iron hoops overhead, glancing in bewilderment at one another and at the city receding behind them. Some had already gotten to know one another and now chatted easily, plainly trying to keep their spirits up. Most, though, sat silent, clutching bundles and kit bags in their laps, their boots and trousers still marking them as civilians.

There were several dozen young men, most of them even younger than Ard. Half had clearly only recently turned sixteen and received their papers. The others were probably seventeen, with maybe an eighteen-year-old here and there. The truck carried them toward the Old Bridge, which led out of the city through Old Park, while they fanned themselves with their caps.

As far as Ardi remembered, a military base stood there, in the northeastern part of the city. That was where they took the recruits. Apparently, the Crown had made the right decision when it raised Army pay by almost half and at the same time plastered the major cities, even Delpas, with advertisements touting the chance to enlist.

It was only a matter of time, Milar had said, before the ranks were full of young men in uniform, rifles in hand and a private’s stripes on their shoulder boards. For a sixteen-year-old to earn fifteen exes and fifteen kso at any civilian job, he’d have to beat fate itself at Sevens. Fresh out of school, even those with practical skills could expect, at best, menial factory work. General laborers there earned no more than nine exes, perhaps eleven.

Not to mention that a paycheck was not all they needed. They still needed food and drink, clothes, and a place to sleep. The Army provided all of that, plus medical treatment at the Crown’s expense for both the serviceman and his family.

So Ardi had often seen little trucks like these streaming toward Old Park from all over the city. Before his trip north, though, he hadn’t paid them much attention.

“I’m... done for... right, Drab? I’m already... a dead man...”

Ard looked across the road and, for a moment, met the eyes of one of the recruits. He had no proper outfit at all, not even a plain jacket, only patched trousers and a sweater someone had painstakingly reworked into something that almost resembled one. Ard wore the full regalia of a Star mage. The recruit rode in the bed of a clattering truck beneath a swamp-green tarp; Ard rode inside a brand-new blue car with an oversized hood ornament shaped like a golden oak. The hood ornament sometimes blocked his view of the road ahead, so Ardi planned either to cut it off altogether or somehow modify it himself.

The truck turned at the intersection, while Ardan drove on and pulled to a stop a few minutes later near the Nursery’s main building. The last time, he had taken a completely different route, coming in through the complex’s service side, past the utility buildings and the structure whose platform descended underground.

Now, though, Ardan pulled up beside the sidewalk. Evening was already gathering overhead, but this was the season when night never truly fell on the Metropolis, so the exact hour was hard to judge from the color of the sky. From about ten at night until four in the morning, when the sky began to brighten again, the world remained the same bright gray. At all other times, the city glittered just as steadily in the sun’s gold.

Boris was already standing beside his Entio. Ardan could tell from his expression, and from the other striking cars parked a little way off, that Iolai and Eveless had already arrived. Probably the rest of the second-years from the Grand’s first Military art group, too.

Ardan stepped out, this time remembering his staff.

“I honestly tried not to fall behind you.” Ardan waved to Boris. “But I’ll admit, that’s almost impossible.”

“Sorry, Ardi.” Boris exhaled and helped him fasten his cloak at the shoulders. “I got lost in thought for a moment, and when I snapped out of it, I couldn’t see you in the rearview mirror anymore.”

For a Star mage, driving in full regalia was often its own special kind of torture. Then again, when the law was passed nearly five hundred years ago, automobiles didn’t exist at all. Back then, anyone who ventured more than half a day’s walk beyond their village or town wore a cloak of one kind or another.

“I don’t know why, but I’m almost sure that idiot set the whole thing up on purpose, Ardi,” Boris grumbled. “I can’t explain what happened any other way.”

“Yeah... you’re probably right...”

“Let’s go, buddy.” Boris waved a hand, then limped toward the only entrance to the Nursery’s research building, which doubled as its ceremonial hall.

With neighboring structures crowding close around it, the building looked as if it had been lifted straight from a street in the Central District. But Ard’s mind was elsewhere just then.

The duel between Ardi and the dwarf hadn’t lasted even a single exchange of spells. Ardi broke his opponent’s shield with his very first casting. Most likely, the dwarf knew little about Military art and wanted to put as much distance between himself and Ard as possible.

That gave Ardan a chance to watch what was happening. Unfortunately for Boris, the draw pitted him against a girl from the History of Magic faculty, and that duel, too, ended almost immediately. And now the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, both frowning as they watched Polina Erkerovsky and Iolai Agrov take their positions at the ropes.

The duel between Polina Erkerovsky and Iolai Agrov was brief and showy. At the very last moment, Iolai let Polina’s attack spell pass through his shield and graze him. Blood from the gash in his forearm sprayed onto the floor; the Healers immediately got to work, and Kshtovsky bellowed at Polina as though Agrov had just been killed.

In the end, Erkerovsky was sent to Deputy Dean Alirov, and her Military exam was voided. That was precisely why her car, along with its very polite chauffeur, was nowhere to be found at the curb.

“Vindictive slug,” Boris said through clenched teeth. “And don’t get me wrong, I don’t give a damn about Polina any more than I do about Iolai, but... somehow, this just isn’t right. Setting her up like that just because someone told you no.”

“Considering—”

“Yeah,” Boris cut in. “Considering none of the men ever had a chance with Polina in the first place. But by the Light, Iolai’s as blind as he is stupid.”

Ardan merely sighed and said nothing else. True, in light of the past four months, both the exam period and Iolai Agrov with his retinue seemed like harmless enough inconveniences to Ard. But inconveniences nonetheless.

It was a strange feeling: he knew he was uneasy, and yet he would have put up with three times as much rather than face what remained in the north.

For some reason, Ardi was thinking of Mart Borskov again...

Inside, they were greeted by a gray-haired woman well past middle age. Her cheeks sagged, and her loose dress, worn without a corset, hid her figure. Her fingers, by contrast, had grown thin and looked a little like a raven’s talons.

She wore a Blue cloak bearing three stars, each with two rays.

“Magister Olga Fihtova,” she said by way of introduction, shaking Ard’s hand and then Boris’s.

“Lord Boris Fahtov.”

“Ard Egobar.”

“Come along, gentlemen.” Magister Fihtova nodded. “They’re already waiting for you.”

The research building’s interior looked much like any other of its kind, with the same wooden paneling and wallpaper. A carpet lay over aging parquet that had long been asking for repairs and would soon start demanding them. The windows had been flung wide, making the plain tulle curtains flap like the wings of a startled bird. People in suits and dresses hurried back and forth, rarely greeting one another; some, like Magister Fihtova, wore cloaks bearing insignia.

And then there was the smell. Even with the windows open, it lingered, faintly musty, with a trace of dusty paper, a scent you either loved or hated.

“Ahem.” Boris cleared his throat; Ard drew a deep breath.

They climbed the stairs and took several turns through the maze of back corridors until they reached an office with its door ajar. The other students and Colonel Kshtovsky were already inside. Eveless sat at a small table reading a newspaper. Iolai Agrov, dressed in a brilliant white suit, was chatting with another student.

“Colonel Kshtovsky,” Magister Fihtova said, then took up a position a short distance from the doorway.

“Excellent. We’re all here at last,” Kshtovsky said evenly, stepping into the center of the small office. “As you know, ladies and gentlemen, the second part of the Military exam varies by class year. This allows the Guild to assess every aspect of a future officer’s preparedness.”

Ardan noticed Iolai watching him with a smug, predatory gleam in his eyes.

“But under the recent reform, your assignment will not be to feed and describe Anomalies,” the colonel continued. “Instead, you will actually neutralize a hostile Anomaly yourselves, albeit under strictly controlled conditions. Given the events in the north, that is especially relevant now. And let me warn you now, before anyone raises an objection: even if some of you missed the essential training for this because of your own stupidity and negligence, you still have to pass the exam.”

Now Ardan finally understood why Kshtovsky, Alirov, and Iolai had engineered that incident at the beginning of the year, the one in which Tina Eveless had been injured. Bazhen had been right then. No matter how much time Ard had devoted to Military magic, fighting Anomalies was an entirely different discipline. Without preparation, passing this exam was practically impossible.

By an ironic twist of fate, Ardi had spent three whole months among people who made their living primarily doing exactly that.

A faint, almost wistful smile touched Ardan’s face, and Iolai Agrov’s eyes darkened.

But then again, that was the dream of the Sleeping Spirits.