“If you find yourself alone, please find soone to accompany you imdiately. If you’re not in class, please be in class,” Lorvan had warned Fabrisse.
That was why he’d co to Fla Thaumaturgy I lecture today. And he hated Fla Thaumaturgy.
He didn’t understand why the founder of the discipline had nad it Twelvefold Fla, as if setting things on fire twelve different ways made it more sophisticated. He didn’t understand why fire, of all elents, was so relentlessly exalted in their curriculum when the others probably had just as much potential. But mostly, he hated the culture that ca with it.
Fla thaumaturges were so of the loudest, most self-congratulatory spellcasters he’d ever t. They carried themselves like walking furnace billboards, radiating ego and smoke in equal asure. And of course they did, because the Order loved to parade them as the golden standard: bold, dramatic, explosively charismatic. Fire wasn’t just an elent to them. It was a personality contest, and Fabrisse never wanted to compete.
Today’s lecture wasn’t helping. Professor Markenth was ranting at the front of the auditorium, gesturing with his arms as a cinder spiral burned over his shoulder like a halo made of sparks.
“Combustion is not destruction,” he declared, pacing across the tiered platform. “Combustion is conversation. The fire is asking to consu, to convert, to beco! And it is your job, as practitioners, to answer that invitation with confidence!”
Fabrisse slumped a little deeper into his seat.
Last week, Markenth had compared combustion to ballroom dancing. The week before, it had been kissing. Now it was conversational etiquette. No one ever compared Earth Thaumaturgy to kissing. Or Stone. Or Moss-based Lattice Enchantnts, which at least had a consistent tempo.
He glanced around. Half the students were eating it up. They always did. One of them had literally scorched their sleeve last week just to demonstrate a combustion trick. They wore the burn mark like a badge of honor.
After what felt like forty uninterrupted minutes of taphor-heavy theory and fla-poetry, Professor Markenth clapped his hands and hushed the room. “Now. Demonstration,” he said. “Montreal, would you be so kind?”
Severa Montreal stood from the second row. Her cloak swept behind her like she had a personal breeze. She was already halfway down the stairs before Markenth finished calling her na.
Fabrisse obviously wasn’t fond of Severa, but who was he to deny that she was good at everything? Not in the loud, flashy, obnoxious way so of the other fire students were—though she could be that too, when she wanted—but with that kind of unsettling competency that made it look like her spells had been pre-written in the margins of reality before she even said them.
“Basic Combustion Funnel,” Markenth reminded her.
Severa stepped into the casting square at the base of the lecture platform, turned, and raised one hand. She whispered sothing, and that was all she needed.
A narrow spiral of controlled fla blood from her fingertips, curling into a perfect helix. It vanished seconds later, leaving behind a neat trail of rising smoke that dispersed before it reached the ceiling.
There was no color in the aether at all, which ant no emotional sparks. She hadn’t felt anything, yet she perford the spell anyway.
The class broke into soft applause. One student in the back whooped. Severa bowed, barely.
“Elegant as always,” Professor Markenth praised, his smile wreathed in cinderlight. “Severa Montreal, everyone. Controlled and precise. Just as a fla should be—centered, not rely loud.”
The students applauded again, this ti a little more enthusiastically. Severa gave a small nod, then walked back down to reclaim her seat.
“Excuse ,” said a voice from the fourth row. “May I offer a different perspective?”
Fabrisse turned, along with almost everybody else.
Aldren Ranan raised his hand.
A glyphcraft specialist, he wasn’t the loudest student. He always wore charcoal-grey robes with no adornnt, save for a copper-rimd bookmark poking from his left sleeve, and he never seed to leave the library between classes.
Professor Markenth raised an eyebrow. “A perspective, Ranan?”
“Yes, Professor,” he said. “Montreal’s control is excellent. No one disputes that. But this is a demonstration lecture. And what she perford wasn’t a demonstration, but an execution. Demonstration requires more than clean delivery. Students need to see the gesture arc, hear the mnemonic cue, sense the emotional inflection. Without those, they can’t replicate the result.”
Severa had already made it halfway up the steps back to her seat. She regarded Aldren with the kind of polite interest soone might give a new kind of beetle. “I was under the impression we were here to learn fla control. Not showmanship.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Aldren is brave, but Severa is every professor’s favorite student. Professor Markenth won’t let him have it.
The professor ran a hand through the cinder-spiral above his shoulder, as if rearranging its shape, then tapped his pointer finger twice on his lectern. A small fla snapped into existence and winked out. His smile thinned, almost indulgent.
“Excellent,” Markenth said, clapping his hands again. “Then I suppose we’ll have the rare fortune of an educational counterpoint today. Aldren, the floor is yours.”
Or maybe he will?
Aldren was one of the few students who could actually argue with Severa and not instantly get roasted. Maybe his demonstration will be different.
Aldren stood and calmly descended the steps.
As he stepped into the casting square, he turned to the class. “The Basic Combustion Funnel, as most of you know, has three principal triggers: ignition, spiral retention, and forward taper. If you want a fla that curves like a thread and doesn’t collapse under its own heat, you need to ti your pulse with each transition.”
He raised his right hand. “Mnemonic: ‘Draw breath, coax warmth, speak bright.’ It’s not official. It’s what I use.”
Then he inhaled, murmured the phrase, and made a deliberate spiral gesture. Fabrisse could follow the movent; he could actually rember the steps. But he could never replicate them so precisely.
Fabrisse caught Severa rolling her eyes, and that caught him by surprise. She’d always tried her best to keep a composed front.
The fla erged. It was not as perfect as Severa’s, but it had a steady coil and a pleasing cadence. More importantly, a flicker of yellow-orange danced along the edge. That ant emotion. Aldren had given the spell sothing to feed on.
He closed the casting and bowed his head.
“That,” Aldren said, “is what I believe a demonstration should be.”
The class clapped again—this ti not louder than for Severa, but with more murmurs of curiosity.
Severa had already taken her seat. Her foot tapped a few tis beneath her desk, rhythmically.
Professor Markenth chuckled. “Well then. We’ve had the courtly version and the scholarly version.” He swept his gaze over the room. “Do we have a third offering today? Perhaps one from the emotionally embattled faction?”
Fabrisse imdiately looked down.
Please don’t call . Please don’t call .
He could feel Professor Markenth’s gaze, like twin heat-lanterns drilling directly into the crown of his head. Not even the lecture flas were this intense.
Across the aisle, Cuman—smug little elental specialist he was, who lived to see people flounder—twitched as if about to raise his hand. But then he smirked and leaned back in his seat, folding his arms instead. He wasn’t going to volunteer.
He was waiting to feast on Fabrisse’s misfortune.
Fabrisse’s pulse thudded in his ears.
Markenth opened his mouth again. His eyes lingered on Fabrisse a second longer.
“If nobody volunteers,” he said, pulling out a chalk strip and tapping it once against the edge of his lectern. “We’ll work in pairs. A stronger caster will guide a struggling one. Teach the funnel and share the cadence. If your partner immolates their sleeves, that shall constitute a bonding experience. We shall start with Cuman and Nagrisse,” he called, glancing over his shoulder at the roster. “Aldren and Veck.”
Fabrisse let out a breath so long it nearly fogged the desk in front of him.
He didn’t realize, of course, that what ca next would be worse.
“Montreal and . . . Kestovar.”
The syllables hit Fabrisse in slow-motion. His gaze crept to the side.
Severa’s expression was as still and elegant as ever. But her foot had stopped tapping.
Fabrisse stood, clutching the hem of his outer sleeve. This must’ve been Professor Markenth sending a ssage.
You’re a brilliant caster, Severa, but can you teach soone who doesn’t even spark?
Subtle criticism. Served hot, fla-grilled.
Fabrisse made the walk over slowly, the way a guilty pilgrim approaches a very judgntal shrine. When he reached her side, she gave him a curt nod and stepped toward the casting square without a word.
He followed.
“Kestovar,” she said. “Let’s start.”
As he reached the casting square beside Severa, the system intruded with a notification.
[Quest Received: Trial by Fire Funnel]
✦ Objective: Channel your Resolve and successfully cast the Basic Combustion Funnel using the correct mnemonic and movent sequence.
✦ Bonus Objective: Hold the spell for more than 3 seconds.
✦ Requirents:
• Emotion: Resolve (minimum emotional intensity threshold: Moderate)
• Gesture Arc: Spiral-inward with tapered release
• Mnemonic: “Draw breath, coax warmth, speak bright.”
✦ Reward:
• Spell Learned: Basic Combustion Funnel (Rank I)
1 Fire Thaumaturgy Mastery
1 Concordance (Emotional) Mastery
Oh.
He realized he would get this as an imdiately usable spell. If he could survive Severa.
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