Seven Wardens: Books 1-4

Chapter 1-2

She walked into class with her head down, hoping no one would notice she’d arrived. It was a stupid thing to try, really. There were only ten others in the class, one person entering the room was going to be noticed.

“I see you’ve finally joined us,” an unfamiliar voice said. Amber looked up, surprised to find the blue haired man she’d run into the other day sat at the teacher’s desk.

“Sorry, sir,” she muttered, making her way towards her desk. He’d better get used to her being a few minutes late every lesson. It was her way of at least trying to avoid Tamsin.

She sat down, pulling out her notepad and pens. Now that she was here, she’d be the best student blue-hair had ever had. Not that he looked old enough to have had many. He couldn’t be much older than her. Twenty-four maybe?

“Where’s Professor Shales?” Becky asked. A good question from one of Tamsin’s lackeys there. She guessed miracles did happen on occasion.

“She’s sick,” blue-hair answered. Amber raised her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. It seemed unlikely that the bear shifter was ill. They were notoriously sturdy creatures.

The class tittered. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one to make that observation. It made sense others would. For all their faults, only the smartest stayed on to study at Ben Vair.

“Alright, calm down,” blue-hair commanded. Hmm. His demeanour had changed completely. Whereas before he’d seemed laid back but unapproachable, now he was actually commanding the attention of the room. It was a little disconcerting, but that pretty much summed up school in general.

“I’m not sure exactly where you’re up to, but I’ve been led to understand you’re about to start studying storm magic. I want you to get into pairs and try the exercise on page three hundred and ninety-four of your textbooks.”

The sound of eleven people opening their books all at once filled the room.

“But, sir?” Tamsin asked, only raising her hand after starting to speak. “We can’t do that exercise in the classroom.” As per usual, Amber noticed Tamsin had only glanced at her book once, and certainly not for long enough to read the large letters saying: to be done outside.

Blue-hair scowled at her. Amber wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told them his name yet. Most of the teachers seemed to enjoy the power trip it brought.

“If you’d read the instructions properly, Miss Garou, you’d know we need to go outside for this particular exercise.”

Amber hated to admit it, but she liked the way he spoke, or maybe she just liked the way he was putting Tamsin in her place.

“But-”

“Get yourself into pairs, and follow me outside.” Blue-hair busied himself with his things, and Amber watched as her classmates paired up. It was the same five pairs as always, then her. Why hadn’t the school offered a place to a twelfth student? Almost all their practical lessons involved splitting into pairs. Which meant Amber was on her own at least twice a day.

The class trailed after blue-hair, all chuntering about going outside in the rain. All except Amber. Even if she had someone to chunter to, she wouldn’t. She loved the rain. It was where she felt strongest. It wouldn’t regrow her tail though. More's the pity.

Her classmates squared off against one another and began to try and cast a storm. She hung back. Not only was she partnerless, but without her beithir powers, there was no chance she’d be able to summon any kind of storm. Therefore, it seemed better to hang back and disappear into the background.

“Miss Beithir, you should be practicing.” Blue-hair appeared next to her, a stern look on his face.

“I don’t have a partner,” she mumbled. There was something about him that had her on the back foot, and she didn’t like it at all.

Blue-hair sighed. “Right, yes an unlucky class of eleven.”

“I’d hardly call the others unlucky,” she responded.

“But you would yourself? I think you may be letting what you are define you too much, Miss Beithir.”

“Bit hard not to,” she muttered. Especially when her very name was a reminder. “I prefer to be called Amber.” She lifted her chin defiantly.

“You can work with me then, Amber.” His lips quirked into a smile.

“Thanks.” She tried to be sincere, she really did. But she’d much rather just slip by unnoticed.

He rolled up his sleeves, revealing colourful tattoos stretching all the way across his skin. Or all the way that Amber could see. Thoughts of how far they went passed through Amber’s mind, but she quickly dismissed them. These weren’t the kind of thoughts she should be having about a teacher, even a substitute one.

“Do I get to know my partner’s name?” she asked, surprising herself. She wasn’t normally so confident, especially around people she hadn’t met before. Or teachers. She especially didn’t trust teachers.

“Izban - err - Mr Smith.” He coughed as he corrected himself.

Amber frowned. Why would a teacher accidentally introduce himself as the wrong name? Obviously she was right about him being new to the job, otherwise he’d never have made such an obvious slip up.

“Well, Izban - err - Mr Smith, I hope you’re ready to watch the most pathetic storm conjuring ever.”

He ignored her attempt at making fun of his name. "Let's start with looking at the instructions together," he said. "Where's your book?"

Amber was kicking herself inside. So much for going under the radar. "I left it inside."

A frown was appearing on his forehead so she quickly added, "I don't need it. I've got a photographic memory."

"Oh yes, I've heard that about beithirs." He was suddenly looking very curious. "Do all of your kind have that?"

She shrugged. "As far as I know. It's not something special for us. I didn't know not everybody could recall things like I do until I came to Ben Vair." Now that she'd lived among both humans and supernaturals for a while, she was convinced that the conception of snakes being intelligent was based on beithirs.

"Fascinating," he murmured, looking at her as if she was a specimen waiting to be studied. She wasn't sure if she liked being looked at like that. "Let's begin - without your book."

He smiled at her, making him seem like a very different person. But as soon as he stepped away to give her space for the conjuring, he turned into the stern teacher again. Curious.

She looked around. The five pairs were in various stages of success and failure. With a satisfying smirk, she noticed that Tamsin was having trouble controlling the tiny bolts of lightning flashing above her head. Her dark hair was beginning to stand up, destroying her carefully pruned hairdo. Meghan, one of the nicer girls in her class, was swaying her hands above her head, seemingly in total sync with the storm clouds she had conjured. Now if only Amber could do the same...

She sighed and began with the first step in the instructions. Visualise a storm. She huffed. Now that could be anything. A little rainstorm? A summer thunderstorm? A hurricane?

"What's wrong?" her teacher asked and she sighed again. Could this lesson please be over?

"What kind of storm are we supposed to conjure?" she asked and watched in surprise as his eyes lit up.

"Excellent question. Strange that nobody else has asked that. They've all jumped straight into the exercise." He seemed genuinely puzzled by that. What a weird man. "Let's start with something small. A cloud and some lightning, perhaps?"

Amber nodded even though she knew she wouldn't achieve either. She didn't have much magic, and the powers she had were not related to storm conjuring. Not at all. But at this school, everybody needed to go to all the lessons, no matter how irrelevant. Others got additional tutoring in the afternoons, depending on their abilities and species, but so far, nobody had bothered to give her those extra lessons. She was quite glad about that. She excelled in theoretical subjects, partly thanks to her memory, but the practical studies... yuck. They usually ended in her being tailless.

Oh well, she wasn't going to achieve anything by standing here, lost in self-pity. She squared her shoulders and pictured a cloud. Grey, dark, foreboding. About half as tall as she was and just as wide. She added some shading and swirls for good measure. It was just like painting a picture. Except that she was great at art, but not so good with magic. When she had a perfect cloud, she breathed it out of her mind, just like it said in her textbook. She wasn't sure how that was even supposed to work. But that's what it said, 'Breathe out the magic.' Had the people writing it been on some kind of psychedelic drug? She wouldn't be surprised.

She opened her eyes to look at her work. Nothing. Not even a tiny speck of a cloud. Deflated, she sighed. She'd known it from the beginning. She was useless at this. Why did the teachers keep forcing her to try? There was no point.

She was never going to be a mage. Not like him. She could smell it. Opening her mouth ever so slightly, she tasted the air around her. Yup, definitely mage. She may not have a forked tongue in her human form, but she still had the senses of a snake.

"Try again," he said, ignoring the blush on her cheeks. Failure. She was such a damn failure.

"It won't work," she replied, staring down at the ground. "I don't have magic to do that kind of thing. I can shift, that's about it."

"Everybody has magic inside of them, even humans. But not everybody knows how to access it. That's why you're here, to learn how to do it. How to fulfil your potential. And once you find your magic, you'll find your destiny."

She looked up at him, open-mouthed. "Did you seriously just say 'destiny'? That's a bit over the top."

He stayed serious. "Apparently, I need to have a chat with the Headmistress. It's appalling that you're not taught your true value and purpose. How are you supposed to be motivated if they don't teach you what your strengths are?"

Ignoring her, he turned around and left, muttering under his breath. She stared at him in confusion. What just happened? Did he really just leave the class on their own?

She looked around. To her great pleasure, Tamsin's eyebrows had a new, singed and smoky look. It suited her... not. Another girl, Anna, was fighting an enormous windhose. A teacher would have come in handy here to help her. But Mr Smith had left. What a weirdo.

Amber looked at her watch and shrugged. It was almost the end of the lesson anyway. With nobody here to stop her, she could just as well leave and do something worthwhile. Like painting.

She headed to the college's studio on the top floor. It was a former attic that the arts teacher, Mrs Mumbly, had refurbished into a bright, welcoming room. This was Amber's second refuge. Any time she didn't spend in her dorms, she spent here among the canvases and the smell of paint.

There was nobody around; she had the studio for herself. Good. She picked up one of the easels and moved it to a skylight at the end of the room. If she stretched, she could just about see out of the window. In the far distance were the rolling hills of the Lowlands, some of them covered in clouds. Between the hills and the school were several rivers and a lot of farmland, but she couldn't see that from here. So she focused on the mountains instead.

She chose a large, square canvas and then went over to the shelf where Mrs Mumbly stored the paints. Everybody painted hills in green, so she was not going to choose that colour. A bottle of azure blue called to her. Why not. Nobody was going to see the painting anyway. It was something she did for herself, not for others. Her teacher was probably the only one who ever saw her paintings, and that simply because she had to leave them here to dry until she could take them to her room.

Taking a large brush, she covered the canvas in blue paint. A solid foundation, her old arts teacher at primary school used to say. Of course, back then she'd only drawn stick figures and misshapen animals. Now, she was trying to depict real life, but usually, she failed at it. Her paintings turned out abstract even when she didn't intend them to. Still, she enjoyed the peaceful feel of the brush touching the canvas, even though she wasn't always happy with the result.

That blue... it reminded her of something. Discarding the brush, she dipped a finger into the paint and drew a rough shape on the canvas. Her motions were fluid, almost automatic. She let her mind drift and her artistic sense took over.

An hour later, Amber was staring at her painting. And wasn't sure what to think. It was weird. That was the only word to describe it, really. It was the silhouette of a man, with a large symbol in the foreground. It looked Celtic, with lots of knots and pretty swirls. Thing was, Amber didn't know anything about Celtic symbols. So why had she drawn one?

It had to be just a random shape, a pattern that her mind came up with. And the man... surely it only looked like Mr Smith because of the blue colour. The same colour as his hair. Yup, total coincidence.

For once, she didn't leave the canvas in the studio. She carefully carried it back to her room, making sure the paint didn't run. There, she put it on her window sill, continuing to look at it. It had to be the strangest painting she'd ever done. She rarely painted people, they were hard to make recognisable and she didn't like it when they turned out looking like someone else. But with him... it was definitely Mr Smith. No doubt about it.

Was she turning into one of those teenage girls who had a crush on their teachers? She surely hoped not. She was too old for that, and he wasn't even that good looking. Interesting, mysterious, yes, but hot... no. She wasn't really into piercings either.

The dinner bell rang and her rumbling stomach told her how hungry she was. Since lunchtime she'd lost her tail, bumped into a blue-haired man who turned out to be her teacher, failed at conjuring a storm and painted the very same man. What a day.