The Initials | Nanowrimo 2023

17| Conquering The Flame

Sky focuses her gaze on the exterior walls of South Silver Oak Academy, blinking away the tears welling in her eye as she stares at her immediate future.

The castle on the hill, as it is often referred to by the townspeople, is exactly as it sounds.

The bones of the old palace are grand, having an asymmetrical design complete with tall towers, sharp spires, and an enormous system of pebbled walkways.

The brick walls of the Academy are stained black with age, sticking out like a sore thumb against the forest backdrop.

Nature however did find a way to get retribution, having thick vines of draping ivy and moss growing down its walls and in-between the cracks.

The Academy remains one of the longest standing buildings in the area, having once been the home of a king before being renovated and turned into an Academy for gifted students.

The general population believe that students that attend the school are gifted because of their intelligence, but really it has always been code for the children of the Celestium, the Channelers of the five elements, the Initials.

Sky peers down at her phone for what feels like the thousandth time since Cloud and the Jeffersons went missing, nibbling on a sweet from the bag in her left hand as she scans through their private messages.

It's been a month of radio silence, and an even long month of waiting for him to reply. And he's had that time to at least let her know that he's alive, to finally release her from a paranoid spiral.

It's been a month of nothing, and nothing is worse than something, even if that means her worst fears could come true.

The last time Sky saw Cloud he channelled enough power to create a spirit bomb and if she hadn't been there to counter his flames with the opposing element then a lot of people would have died.

But whilst thinking back on that day, she reminds herself of the relief she felt upon seeing his glowing eyes.

They were feint so she figures he only recently learned to channel but she vividly remembers the one thing running through her mind at the time. 'He's one of us!'

"Are you ready?" Neith calls, skipping down the steps to Sky wearing a green and off white striped v-neck jumper and a pair of high waisted blue jeans.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

Neith usually wears her hair down, letting her jet black hair curl freely at shoulder length but in preparation for the Olympia she has her hair pulled into a frizzy bun.

She eyes Sky up and down, noticing the death grip her best friend has on her phone and the bag of sweets, doing her a favour by removing both items from her. "Still nothing?"

When Sky shakes her head her hair falls in her face. She brushes out of the way, looking around at the faces of the other students walking up to the building, recognising a few but not all.

"I thought he'd be here."

Neith rolls her eyes, nabbing a few sweets for herself before Sky can protest. "Just give it a minute, you know he's always late. Plus, there's no way they haven't tried to recruit him."

"He could have gotten offers from other schools." Sky argues. "What if he went to the Caspian?"

"Look Jefferson can be a reckless bone head but he's not dense enough to refuse the top ranking school." Neith replies, taking a moment to self reflect on her own words, scrunching her thick, arching, brows together. "Actually, I'll take that back."

Sky laughs quietly, shaking her head at the innocent jab. "You're not helping."

"I'm not here to help. I'm here to tell you how it is."