Caleb
There was no point in rushing, I was late already. It had definitely been worth it though. I had forgotten what it felt like to truly train and fight. Aria was a breath of fresh air and, if I was honest, I hadn’t realised how much help I needed until she came along. When Dominic first approached me to run the combat training program at the school it seemed like a good idea. But I don’t think that I had anticipated how hard it would be to motivate the students. I was also starting to struggle with the moral question which Aria had inadvertently raised. Should we even be doing this? The students had no idea that we were training them to join an army that they knew nothing about. Shouldn’t they have a choice about whether they should fight or not? The more I thought about it the bigger the headache I got. That was probably the reason why, when I finally stormed through Dominic’s office door and slumped down on the sofa in the corner, I had suddenly gone from riding a high to a completely toxic bad mood.
“Good day?” Dominic asked looked up from his desk before not so subtly looking at his wristwatch and then raising an eyebrow in my direction.
I chuffed in annoyance and then got annoyed at myself for acting like a petulant child. “It started out the same as always dragging them through the training that they hate and try their hardest to avoid. Then it got pretty good. I joined in on one of Aria’s training sessions. It was impressive. Then I came here and started an argument with myself in my head, because apparently now I’m a raving lunatic, and it put me in a bad mood. How was your day?” I deflected.
Dominic pulled a bottle of whisky from his bottom drawer with a couple of glasses and came to sit with me. After he poured us both a generous amount
and settled back in his seat, he took a long drink before looking over at me. “It was illuminating and frustrating all at the same time. Shall we deal with yours first and then do mine? You seem to be in the worse mood.” He chuckled.
“When did this become us, Dom? When did we become the adults with the weight of the world on our shoulders? It feels like only yesterday that we were going through the academy ourselves.” I sighed putting my feet up on the coffee table and savouring the whiskey in the glass in front of me. It was smooth to the point that I knew it was expensive. He always had better booze than me and I genuinely had no idea where he got it from. It seemed to be from the human realm but as I was the only one who took the portals across and brought everything back, I knew that I hadn’t got it for him.
“When we decided to step up and try and save the world because no one else wanted to.” He joked. “Tell me about the training with Aria.”
“It was amazing. She started everyone out with weapons, basically the first proper time that they were using them, by the end of an hour I wouldn’t say that they were proficient but they were halfway there. I could feel the way that her magic wrapped around me, the way that it helped me move, I think I might be better with a sword now than I have ever been.” It was mind blowing when you thought about it. “I went in with an aversion to fighting with a weapon and came out loving the bloody sword that she gave me. She actually made a really good point about that the other day that we might want to consider. We only teach the students the basic weapons techniques, but what are we expecting them to do if they end up fighting in the human realm where they can’t shift or throw around magic?”
“We can’t factor in every possible scenario Caleb. We have to make the best that we can with the limited time that we have. If the fight takes us to the human realm then they will just have to shift in front of the humans. It’s not like we are a secret there anymore and the situation is fast becoming dire. With all of the investigations that we have done, we can’t find out who opened the portal to let the demon into the school. It could happen again at
any time and we would be powerless to stop it. We’ve reinforced the wards but the reality is that the strongest wards we have can’t stop the portals if someone on the inside is opening them.” He looked as lost as I felt. If there was one thing that we had not factored into the plans that we had made it was that one of our own was going to turn against us. “Its going to happen soon. I can feel it. We aren’t ready.”
“No, even the third years aren’t at a level where I would say that they were combat ready. Maybe we made a mistake not telling them. Maybe they would have been better motivated if they had known. Aria’s group though. In the few short weeks that she has had them, I’d say that if all hell broke loose tomorrow, they would have a fighting chance. Honestly Dom, it was unlike anything I had ever felt before. We need to get her training more squads if we are going to have any chance of living through this.”
“I haven’t been able to find out much about what she is. She definitely has god magic and I would bet my life on it that she is one of the god touched. But beyond that, I have no idea. I think we might have to take her to a seer.” He grabbed the whiskey bottle and filled up my glass before topping off his own.
“Is that wise? If we take her to a seer everyone and everything, in this realm and the next, will know about her. You know stuff like that causes a ripple.” I questioned, not liking the exposure that this could bring for Aria. We didn’t know what she was but could we protect her if others came for her? I scoffed at my own thought. As if that girl needed us to protect her. Guide her maybe, but definitely not protect.
“What other choice do we have? We can’t train her in her magic if we don’t know what it is. Barring breaking into the god realm and finding a god that can tell us, I fail to see any other option.” Dominic drained his glass in one gulp. Everything about this was going to shit, and it was going to shit fast.
“Seer it is then.” I said raising my glass to him before downing the contents myself.
