Whenever I made a mistake, I’d take a quick peek to see how everyone else was faring. Most had as many as I, but there was still a small portion of our class that hadn’t collected any stones yet—Darren and his group of four, plus seven others.
As minutes ticked by, the exercise got increasingly difficult. The small piles began to resemble mountains. My forehead pounded, my muscles ached, and sweat stung the corners of my eyes. I was trying hard not to give in to the distractions Master Cedric and his assistants were casting, but fear and surprise were not easy reactions to ignore. When a small stampede of spiders took over the field and proceeded to climb up several students’ arms, mine included, I lost it, screaming and shaking the vile insects off.
A lifetime of fear could not be erased in two hours.
Eventually, the session ended. We all looked at one another and greedily eyed each other’s failures. No one was stoneless, not even Darren and his cohorts. The pale, blonde-haired girl had only two, and Darren and a couple others had no more than five a piece.
I had twenty. Alex had even more. Ella, fifteen. We were all failures in comparison to the prince and his following.
Everyone waited to be dismissed.
“How many of you have changed your minds about the uselessness of meditation now?” Cedric rasped.
Several of us cast our eyes down, shame-faced.
“As you have just witnessed, we are too often allowing sight to dictate our actions. That’s fine in day-to-day living, but it will not get you very far in your magical studies.
“Most of you were sufficient in the initial stages of your mediation —that is, until you opened your eyes and saw what types of horrors my assistants had cast. Sight is not an understandable reason to lose focus. Sight cannot harm you, and it should not be a cause to waiver in your meditation. Sight can only invoke fear, not pain.
“Physical pain is an understandable reason to lose focus. Sight is not. The precious seconds between seeing the snake—a harmless act—and its venomous bite could make all the difference in a casting. Focus cannot be rushed—that is true—but in magic, every second counts.
“If you want to succeed here, you had best master your fears early on because sight is the least of your worries. There are two much more uncontrollable detractors of focus, pain and emotion, which will require much more effort to control.”
Master Cedric cleared his throat: “As I see it, there are many of you who will fail. The Academy is not meant for everyone. Today’s exercise is usually a strong indicator of how the year will end. Thus, if you did not perform well today, keep in mind you will most likely continue to struggle throughout the rest of your study.”
As I trailed off to the dining hall with the others, I bitterly acknowledged the reason so many resigned early on. Why waste a year when it was so blatantly obvious how behind I was?
There was no doubt who the most promising first-years were. Not one member of Darren’s highborn following had been below the top quarter of our class for any of the masters’ lessons. Of course, I shouldn’t have expected anything less. The prince’s contemptuous comments earlier on had made it clear that he would only associate with the best.
Now, his group of five had expanded to include seven more. Four of the newcomers were not of noble standing from what I could tell either. But all of them had done well, extremely well, in comparison to the rest of our class.
Apparently, the non-heir would make exceptions to be around “commoners.” But I, like most of the lowborn students present, was not promising enough to be worthy of his time.
Glancing around the dining commons, I saw more evidence of changes taking place. At the morning meal, students had sat next to friends or others of similar background. Now more emphasis was spent on sitting with those that had performed at one’s own level during training.
At the far end of the hall, where I had previously sat, were the rejects of our year: those that had not performed well in the first day’s sessions. Toward the front of the room were those that had.
At the very head of the dining hall was Darren’s table. While the prince had yet to arrive, a small cluster of loud highborns sat waiting for him. Their dreams were shattered moments later when Darren and his company of eleven appeared. One sharp look from the non-heir sent the disgruntled nobles retreating to a less prestigious table. They spent the rest of their meal eyeing the four commoners of the prince’s new crowd jealously.