Legacy to Zero

2: Meddling Where I Don't Belong

Harlow

Despite the fact that I'd only seen through the barrier of the building for a moment—it didn't even qualify as a second—I knew it was true. A chill shot from my neck to my back.

I wanted to run. Needed to get out. But my legs were bolted down, as though the lower half of my body was no longer part of me.

Lars gasped as the crowd pushed against us, forcing me backwards and expelling me from the inner ring of people. Like they could tell that I didn't belong here, amongst Prismatrix sorcerers.

Among the heroes.

Lowering my eyes to the ground, I pressed my side against Lars' wiry frame.

"We have class," I said through gritted teeth. It sounded so hollow—a flimsy excuse to get me away from a building that stared at me with what seemed like a thousand eyes. Running through my head was a tale Lars had explained to me once. An outer-city story about a person who'd built wings, bursting into flames when he flew too close to the sun.

I couldn't really explain why. I was Haryun-born. It held no weight to me—just an outsider's explanation for magic.

But my skin was prickling, and somehow it was all I could focus on. I'm going to burn if I keep standing so close.

Lars' eyes swept across the scene. His mouth parted before he shook his head and pried his gaze away. "I can't—she isn't really—"

"I know." It was all I could think to say. The silence hung heavy between us.

It stuck inside my throat until we reached the polytechnic. A two-storey-tall building encircled by trees, usually in shades of gold and silver, but that was trapped in the shadow of the ivory overhangs.

"Can we study after class? At the archives? I'll be volunteering," I attempted.

"Yeah. Okay." His voice was barely audible, somewhere distant, but he bid me goodbye with a tiny nod and headed in the opposite direction across campus.

I hurried my way to the side entrance which connected to the basement floor, where my class on magical artifacts was. The time on the phone I barely used told me I was ten minutes early—not that I slowed down. Maybe it was because Haryun had adopted hours and minutes from the outer-cities that I could never seem to wrap my head around the concept. I'd overestimated how much of it I'd need to get from my residence apartment to the polytechnic so often that a second-floor bathroom had become my burrow of a hiding-hovel, where I retreated when I was too early.

Better than being late, though.

On my way through the short corridor, I flew by a wall-to-wall painting of the building's history. The city was at the centre, cloaked by an opaque barrier—the Dome—which had kept the city hidden for generations. Spots of gold broke through it, dashed with a luminous quality that followed me as I moved, showing magic as she revealed herself to the rest of the world. The polytechnic bathed in the shower of sparks, bustling with dotted figures across its expanse; both Haryun sorcerers who'd enrolled to learn about what existed beyond and outer-city ones wanting to harness the ability everyone possessed.

At the end of the hall, I flung the classroom door open and squeezed through. The scent of pine from the open window filtered through the auditorium-style room. The professor, Dr. Harth, leaned over her desk to place her computer against a nearby reserve of magic—a fluorescent-yellow flicker that bobbed on the table like a storm trapped in a bottle. She beckoned me over to her as I slowed to a halt.