Smoke and Shadow: The Fireweaver, Book 1

Chapter 15. TRIALS BEFORE CELEBRATION

CHAPTER 15. TRIALS BEFORE CELEBRATION

Mehlie hated to admit it. Denai had been right. Denai. As if that were her real name. Can't bullshit a Bullshitter. Her dad used to say that. Didn't remember much about him, but that much she hadn't forgotten. And his pale blue gaze that saw everything. Could size someone up in two seconds. Mehlie liked to think at least she'd gotten that from him. Denai might not be who she said she was, but she liked her enough. 

And then there was the Rendahl Academy. She already loved the place, but she wouldn't admit it to Denai. She loved its shiny soklo hallways, and big ceilings that opened up to even bigger rooms with all the best things. She loved it with a ferocity. A hunger. Wanted so much to see it all. Try everything. 

The Rendahl had everything you could possibly want. The rooms and libraries were filled to the brim with videos, books, sensory sims and mazes for math and logic. There were sound-proofed rooms with musical instruments, tools in workshops for tinkering, and chem labs for other kinds of tinkering. She'd caught the whiff of something burning sweet as her class walked by the labs.

The art studios had holographic colors for mid-air painting. The first time she saw it, just a snippet through an open doorway as she walked by, she'd thought she was hallucinating. The students moved in a wide-open room, arcing hands and arms through the air to create giant shapes of colors. They looked like dancers with colorful scarves floating about. But the scarves of color froze in mid-air. 

It was almost too much to take in at once. The few schools Mehlie had been to in the outerlands were beyond boring in comparison.

Best part hands-down they fed you breakfast and lunch. And water  was available without limit.

Mehlie's stomach grumbled for lunch as she followed her twelve classmates through the tall, arched doors into a park-like acreage called the Green, domed over with glass. Students ate lunch sprawled out on grass thick as carpet under blossoming trees, or walked down pathways to sit at small, round tables. There was a little bridge just barely visible through a weeping willow tree, over a pond with lily pads. Students ran around and played games on open field areas beyond the trees. It all seemed like a dream.

The first day she'd walked into the Green for lunch time, she'd stopped so suddenly in her tracks, so stunned by it all, that one of her classmates had run right into her, then pushed past her, grumbling.

Today, she was still in awe. Never thought she'd ever get used to the sight before her: Ten floating ledges of food. Gobs and gobs of food on white shiny platters, divided by five twenty-liter glass tanks of water, also somehow floating in mid-air. 

She walked carefully over to the food, like the spell might be broken; waited until most everyone had already gone through. Then, looking around as if someone might stop her, she walked toward the floating food ledge and picked up a plate from the warm stack.

"Make sure you try the the key lime tarts."

Mehlie turned to see a girl with stick-straight chestnut hair, cinnamon freckles. A sort of mischievous, lopsided smile. The blue satin and velvet she wore meant her family was among either nobles or elites, but she didn't carry snobbery around with her like a trophy. Like so many of them did. 

Barely anyone had said a word to her since she'd arrived. If anything, she'd gotten weird looks. Dimarrah had gotten her some new clothes, but it was nothing like what the girl wore. A band around her wrist glittered. Her necklace glowed too. She realized after staring longer, that the shimmering bangle and necklace were holographic.