Bloodrage (Blood Destiny #3) by Helen Harper
Chapter One
I was on my hands and knees yet again, palms scratched by gravel, face no doubt an attractive shade of green, whilst I retched my guts up onto the ground.
“Are you quite alright, Miss Mackenzie?”
I couldn’t help but note the lack of solicitude in the inquiry. I dragged myself to my feet. “Yes,” I muttered, embarrassed. “I’m fine.”
“Then we should go in. The Dean is waiting for us.” Without pausing any further, the mage beside me swept through the door of the large sandstone building in front of us.
I glanced around, taking in my surroundings. We were at the end of a long driveway; in front of the training academy were large manicured grounds, covered with a layer of icy frost. A few crows cawed overhead, sweeping their way across the sky in search of some scarce winter food; to my left, the portal through which we had entered shimmered briefly in the air. I sighed deeply, turned, and followed inside.
My escort was waiting, a look of exasperated irritation on his weathered face. He didn’t say anything further, however, merely moved deeper inside through the main vestibule area before turning right down a scuffed corridor. A young teenage girl bustled out of a door just up ahead, carrying a few china plates with the remnants of some half-eaten food on them. Whatever the recipients of the plates had eaten, it didn’t look particularly appetising, especially to my still nauseous stomach. It was probably just as well that the meals weren’t fresh though, because when the girl looked up and saw me, her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open with a comic half ‘oh’ of surprise and dismay, and the plates went crashing to the ground. I paused, kneeling down to help her pick up the shards, but she backed away like a frightened rabbit.
The mage tutted to himself. “Really, Miss Mackenzie. We do not have time for this.”
He cast a stern look towards the poor girl, who seemed to be getting whiter and whiter by the second and was evidently praying that I’d just leave her and the smashed contents alone. I gave up and straightened. The mage made a moue of distaste and then continued forward.
At the end of the corridor a wooden door lay slightly ajar. He knocked on it briefly. A deep voice from within muttered something I didn’t quite catch, and then my ever-so friendly guide motioned me inside. I gave him a dazzling smile, ignoring the flickers of heat in my belly caused by a mixture of my nervousness and his rudeness, and went in.
Sitting behind a large desk that was strewn with all manner of books and oddities was an older man wearing a pair of half moon spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose. He stood up as I entered, clasping his hands behind him, and I realised that he was wearing an antiquated black academic gown in the ilk of someone who felt the need to proclaim his importance to the world. He gestured at me to sit down on a small chair in front of the desk and then seated himself again. The chair I was on was cushioned and fairly comfortable, but it was also considerably lower than the chair of the man in front of me, making me feel somewhat like a small child. It was a very old intimidation ploy, although knowing that it was a trick still didn’t stop me from actually feeling intimidated. I leaned back, trying to look relaxed.
For several moments, silence hung in the air. I bit my tongue to refrain from saying anything stupid. It was possible, well probable really, that I was going to be here for five years. The deal I’d made with the Arch-Mage in return for the mages freeing Mrs Alcoon, my old employer, from a particularly disagreeable stasis spell, meant that I had promised to submit to training here at the mages’ academy. Apparently the average length of time before graduation was five years; I was determined, if not for my sake then for Mrs Alcoon’s, to be much quicker than that. Pissing off the dean of the school probably wouldn’t help my cause much, even if he was being pissy himself.
Finally, he looked up from whatever he was doing to appear busy and stared at me over his glasses with a look that would no doubt freeze the balls off many young school-boy wizards. If he thought that looking at me was going to scare me though, then he hadn’t read the full report from the Arch-Mage. I might have been feeling intimidated by my surroundings, and by what was going to be expected of me, but I’d faced down scarier things than teachers. I straightened my back and gazed at him straight in the eye.
“So, Mackenzie Smith.”
I stayed silent and just continued to look at him. He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Your name is Mackenzie Smith, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said innocently. “I hadn’t realised that you were asking me a question.” I smiled at him pleasantly. “Yes, my name is Mackenzie. But please call me Mack.”
The Dean refrained from smiling back. “There is no need to get smart with me, young lady. We don’t tolerate attitude from students.”
Young lady? Attitude? Why that jumped up little…I continued to smile. “There was no, uh, attitude, intended, Mr. Michaels.”
“Dean.”
“Huh?”
“Dean Michaels. We expect you to display appropriate humility whilst you are here. You will address me as Dean Michaels. You will address everyone else with their full titles. The trainers you will address as Mage, followed by their surname. And that same humility goes for your attitude towards the other students who are here due to their lineage and ability –neither of which I believe you possess. You will address them as Initiate followed by their first name.”
Well, I actually did have some ability. In fact, I had a pretty nifty trick with fire that I could happily show him. But I reminded myself that I was trying to be conciliatory and unthreatening, so I just gave a perfunctory nod and ignored the seething coils of fire inside me.
“I apologise, Dean Michaels.”
He didn’t appear particularly mollified, but he inclined his own head slightly and continued, shuffling more paper around. “You will start at Level One with all our other Initiates. You are expected to attend every lesson and every gathering unless told otherwise. There are certain events which are reserved for real mages only and we will not expect you to attend them.”
Or want me to attend them anyway. That was okay. I was pretty sure my ego could survive not having to pitch up to some dull-as-dishwater magic parties.
“Breakfast is served at 5.30am. Lessons begin at 6am. You will have to master all five disciplines before you can move onto Level Two studies.”
I cleared my throat.
He blinked at me and flicked a finger in my direction. “What?”
“What are the five disciplines?”
The Dean stared at me as if I had just sprouted purple horns with yellow polka dots. “You mean you don’t even…” His voice trailed off, and he rolled his eyes. “Kinesis, Divination, Protection, Evocation and Illusion.”
“Ah, I see.” I nodded sagely.
“You have no idea what any of those actually are, do you?”
“Kinesis is moving things around, I guess. Protection will be warding, I imagine, and learning how to kick the shit out of nasty things.”
The Dean winced. “Language, please.”
“Oh, sorry. Learning how to utilise one’s alchemical hocus-pocus in order to suppress and extirpate the existence of any objectionable entity that threatens either to subjugate or generally cause botheration.” I crossed my legs and leaned back again.
He didn’t look very amused. “Trying to be clever here, Miss Smith, will not help you. Neither will showing off, provocation or violence. I have been ordered by the Arch-Mage to train you, and train you is what I shall do.” He stood up, towering over both me and the desk. “But that does not mean that you are to be anything other than tolerated. You are not a mage and you will never be a mage. You are a thug that we have had foisted upon us. I expect you to be seen and not heard, and to not bother me in this room again until it is such time for you to leave. You will not bring shame and disrepute upon our institution. The oath-taking ceremony begins at dawn tomorrow, after which point you are bound by our laws. Break them and suffer the consequences.”
He lowered himself slowly back to his seat, and looked down at his desk, picking up a squat pen. “You may go now.”
I stayed in my chair for one slightly stunned moment, before gritting my teeth and standing up. I opened my mouth to say something back to the stupid old fool, then thought better of it, and turned back to the door, curling my fingernails into the palms of my hands. I told myself that there was little else that I could really have expected. Absolutely the best thing that I could do would be to excel in every area that this jumped up Hogwarts offered and get out with my dignity intact and Mrs. Alcoon’s consciousness restored. My bloodfire was screaming at me to do differently, but sanity thankfully prevailed.
My escort was waiting outside, smirking at me. Clearly he had heard every single word. I gracefully resisted the impulse to slam my fist into his face and forced the edge of my mouth into a smile.
“Well, that was fun. The Dean is such an inspirational and motivational guy.”
The mage ignored me. “I’m going to take you to your room now.” He pushed himself off from the wall and motioned down the corridor. “It’s this way.”
I followed him again, back down the corridor and then up three flights of stairs. We passed several people, some of whom seemed to be students, wearing different coloured robes, and some who were older and were no doubt teachers, judging by their black academic gowns, which mirrored the Dean. None of them appeared particularly thrilled to see me, in fact more than a few moved swiftly out of my path in case they might happen to brush past and actually, shock horror and heavens forbid, touch me. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t here to make friends, and after already being thrown unceremoniously out of Cornwall where all my real friends were, I was pretty sure that this bunch couldn’t do much to hurt my feelings.
We passed a row of rooms that were filled with bunkbeds, and a few terribly young looking girls, again wearing robes of various colours, were milling around inside them. Great. Not only was I being put through all this ridiculous rigmarole, but I’d have to share a room with some giggling adolescents. I had a flicker of a memory of my old bed in the dorms at the keep in Cornwall and pushed it away out of my mind. What was past was past.
Instead of entering any of the dorm rooms, however, we went past every single one and ended up at the end of the corridor heading up a rickety spiral staircase. At the top, there was a small door. The mage pushed it open and walked inside. There was a tiny narrow bed and a small sink, and not much else. A sliver of a window let in a minuscule shaft of light.
“This will be your room,” he announced, with no small hint of satisfaction in his voice.
I looked around. The Ritz this most certainly wasn’t, but the single bed at least was reassuring. “I don’t have to share with anyone?”
He snorted. “We didn’t think it would be fair to impose your presence on any of our students.”
“I think you’ll find that I’m also one of your students.”
His lip curled in derision. “Yeah, well, that remains to be seen.”
I scowled at the mage. “Hey, I didn’t choose to come here. But I will be here until such a point as I graduate, because this is what it is going to take to free a harmless old lady that your lot have decided to keep in a coma so you can hold me ransom. Don’t blame me for being here.”
“Don’t presume to think that I give a shit what your situation is,” he retorted. “Make yourself at home. I will be back in five minutes with a robe.” He turned on his heel and walked out.
“Hey! Can you get me a toothbrush as well?”
Silence rebounded back at me. Outf*ckingstanding.
I tugged at the tight hairband holding my hair in place and pulled it out, wishing I still had some silver needles concealed there so that I could have poked his eyes out with painful ease, then ran my fingers through my hair, unknotting the tangles, and lay down on the hard bed, closing my eyes. A moment later there was a knock at the door.
“Hello?” Called out a tentative, yet surprisingly cheery sounding voice.
Jeez. What now? I opened my eyes again and swung my legs to the side, sitting up. “Come in,” I muttered.
A smiling face peered round the door. “Hey! You must be Mack.”
A girl of about seventeen with short dark hair and a purple robe came in, sticking out her hand. She looked vaguely familiar for some reason. I stared at her outstretched palm for a heartbeat and then shrugged and took it. She shook my hand enthusiastically.
“I’m Mary. Level Four. I can’t believe you get your own room! Only the trainers normally get their own rooms.” She wrinkled her nose for a moment. “It is a bit, er, stuffy though, isn’t it? Maybe we can get you some air freshener or something.”
I continued to stare at her. I seemed to have been beset upon by the human teenage equivalent of an over-enthusiastic Labrador.
Without appearing to even stop for breath, she continued. “So, did you meet with the Dean? He normally greets everyone when they arrive for the start of the academic year, but of course you’re a bit late for that. I’m sure you’ll catch up really quickly though, I’ve heard you’re, like, amaaaazing at Protection.”
I finally found my voice. “Um, yeah, I did meet with him. He wasn’t very friendly.”
“Ah, he’ll get over it.” She bounced down onto the bed. The mattress springs let out an alarming groan that she seemed not to notice. “Can you show me?”
“Show you what?” This girl was becoming more and more confusing by the second.
“The green fire thing that you do. I’ve never seen anyone with any colour other than blue. I’m not really much good at that myself. Illusion is, like, more my kind of thing, which is a bit boring really.” Mary looked at me expectantly with an eager glint in her eyes.
I tucked my hair behind my ears and regarded her steadily. “How do you know about that? And why are you being so friendly? Everyone else seems terrified of me.”
She laughed out loud. “Gosh, I’m so sorry, I should have explained properly. I have an older sister – Martha?”
Dawning realisation hit me. Martha was the mage who had come to pick up my theoretically comatose body in Inverness. Except it had been Mrs. Alcoon who was comatose, not me.
Mary carried on. “She says you met her and that you, like, saved her life. She’s a pain in the arse, really. I mean, I love her and all but she’s a bit full of herself sometimes, working for the gatekeepers and all. So it’s kind of cool that you managed to beat her in a fight. And, don’t tell her, but it’s also kind of cool that you rescued her. She asked me to make sure that you’re all right and don’t get bothered that much. She thought things might get kind of messy.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Do you ever pause to take a breath?”
“Hahaha! You’re funny! Martha always says I talk too much.” She beamed at me happily.
“You said Martha’s a gatekeeper? What’s that?”
“Oh, they’re a bit like the police. They’re mages who excel at Protection,” she raised her eyebrows pointedly at me as she said this, “and who are recruited to keep the peace, watch out for rogue mages, deal with any incursions from other planes that we might be called upon to sort out. That kind of thing.”
Hmm. Well, Martha, who had unexpectedly – and rather pleasantly - become my apparent benefactress, might be a gatekeeper but Alex, the surfer dude mage who had helped me out in Cornwall, clearly hadn’t been. He had been terrified of any kind of fighting. So that would mean that with his skill at tracking he was probably into Divination. My ‘attitude’ had stopped the Dean from telling me more about the five disciplines, but this seemed like a good opportunity to find out more.
“So,” I said slowly, making sure I was getting this right, “Divination is about tracking things, then. With that blue light?”
“Yup. As well as a bit of fortune telling too and thought sensing for some mages.”
Right. So that would be what Mrs Alcoon had a small amount of skill in then. I definitely didn’t particularly like the idea of coming across any more talented mages who might be able to ‘sense’ what I was thinking, and made a mental note to find out later if there was a way to block my thoughts and maintain my privacy.
Mary continued, “Illusion speaks for itself really – we can make things appear differently to what they are. You know, so if, like, a great lumbering giant appears out of a portal, we can make him appear normal to the humans so they don’t freak out. Kinesis moves objects around. Some mages who are really good at it can send something from here to an address in Australia in almost the blink of an eye.”
“You mean like email?” I asked drily.
She gave a surprised giggle. “Yeah, I suppose a bit like email. And Evocation is the hardest one. There aren’t many mages who are skilled in that area. It’s when you, like, summon spirits to do your bidding. You know, fight for you, or create things. That sort of stuff.”
Interesting. None of this sounded like anything I could do. I wondered if they’d let me off if they realised that I was utterly unskilled at anything other than lighting a funny looking fire? It was worth investigating.
I smiled my gratitude at Mary for her explanations. “That was really helpful.”
She beamed back. “Why don’t I show you around the school? That’ll help you too. It’s a bit of a maze until you get used to it, and you’ll want to make sure you’re on time tomorrow to take your oath. The Dean gets a bit angry when people are late, especially when it comes to the ceremonies and stuff.”
“Thanks, Mary, I appreciate all the help I can get.” And I really did. It was refreshing to have someone being nice to me. “I should probably stay here though. The not quite so helpful and forthcoming guy who brought me here is bringing some robes. Hopefully some toothpaste and a toothbrush too.”
“Oh, you mean Jeremy? He’s an idiot, but he’s okay when you get to know him. In fact…” Mary’s voice trailed off when the door creaked open, and the man himself stood in the threshold.
“Initiate Mary, you do realise that vespers are about to begin?”
She scrambled off the bed. “Sorry, Mage Thomas.”
“You’d better run,” he said pointedly.
She shot me an apologetic look, and a rueful grin, then escaped behind Jeremy – Mage Thomas – and out of the door.
Once she’d gone, he held out a bundle for me. “Here you go. Inside you will find a blue robe, some soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, electric razor, scissors and,” his lip curled distastefully for a moment, “clean underwear.”
I almost laughed for a moment but then paused, thinking about what he had said. “Um, electric razor and scissors? Why?”
“You need to shave your head, of course.”
I gaped at him, my stomach dropping. “What?”
“You heard me. All initiates are required to do so.”
“But why?”
He shrugged. “Tradition. Who knows really? You need to have it done regardless before the oath-taking ceremony tomorrow. It starts at dawn so you’ll need to be dressed and ready before 5am. I will come and pick you up here and take you directly there tomorrow morning. You will need to dispose of everything you are currently wearing.” He nodded at my neck. “Including that.” My hand flew to the necklace I’d worn every day since Mrs Alcoon’s alleged friend had placed it around my neck and caused all these problems in the first place.
“I was told not to take it off.”
“Well, now I’m telling you to take it off.”
It was becoming hard to ignore the supercilious tone in his voice, but I focused on the orders themselves instead to avoid snapping unhelpfully back at him. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be glad to get rid of the necklace, or sad that I’d miss its now familiar weight. I was damn certain, however, that I was going to miss my hair. Mage Thomas for his part seemed to know exactly what I was thinking because he placed the bundle down on the bed and smirked at me again as if he was suddenly amused. My eyes narrowed. Was he one of the telepathic mages?
He winked at me and made for the door. “Sweet dreams.”
Tosser.