Matlock Academy: Year One

*Chapter One

A hint of magic was in the air.

The kind of hint that slapped you across the cheek and shook your arms while it yelled in your face like a screaming toddler. The kind of hint that made your senses heady like you'd drunk too much ambrosia. The kind of hint that felt like a freight-train had just ploughed through your body.

Ana leant forward, resting her elbows on the rail in front of her, ready to watch the display in the Pit. The air sizzled with static and magic and shouts, both cheers and boos, as the eighty students walked into the Pit. Leia nudged Ana enthusiastically and she gave her friend an excited smile; they'd spent the last seventeen years of their lives hearing about their first Senior day at Matlock Academy and, so far, it was not disappointing.

The Headmistress stood up and called for some semblance of silence.

"Welcome to the new year, students. We welcome back our Seconds to Sixths, and those of you who started with us in Intermediate, and we welcome those first-time Senior Firsts. Before the Intermediate Combats, we will see our Seniors face off. After our displays from the Sixths to Seconds, we will invite our Senior Firsts into the Pit for their House Designation Trial. And, of course, after that, our combat winners from each year will face off for a bit of year-start fun and shenanigans." There was a huge cheer. "Hopefully someone can knock Lupoi off his streak!" Some laughs and the Headmistress waved her hands around. "Senior Sixths you will start us off; fight well and with honour."

A guy with bright green hair to the Headmistress' side flourished a mallet a little unnecessarily and smacked a gong with an enthusiasm that surprised Ana. That seemed all the sign the students in the Pit needed as they crashed together in a confusion of melee. The guy with the gong commentated as though the whole school wasn't watching avidly, and with more glee than Ana thought he should have. She'd expected him to be Gairou, but when she looked closer she saw he was dressed in Melchion blue and gold.

A little over an hour later, the red and black clad irin-shade called down a strike of lightning and the faelen-shade in dark grey and silver barely rolled out of the way in time. The students in the arena seats booed or cheered, depending on whose side they were on, but they were loud.

They were the last two students left from the Sixths. The rest had been carted out of the Pit welcomed well by death. But, the life-dome ensured no wound inflicted on the first day of the year would result in a permanently dead student; it would not do well for the school to lose a student on the first day, but how else would they test the extreme limits of the students? So, anyone who died under the life-dome was easily healed and easily revived that one day of the year.

The irin-shade's white wings burst out and he barely pulled his leg away from the snaking vine that was coming for him as he soared upwards. But, the faelen-shade wasn't being deterred. The tiny purple-haired faelen-shade with a wicked grin threw her arm up and the branches followed him. Just as Ana thought surely the faelen-shade would run out of oomph, the branches curled around the irin-shade's ankle and yanked him downwards. He beat his wings once, twice, and Ana thought he was going to get away. But, while he was worried about his ankle, another branch snaked up behind him.

A few students in different colours in the arena seating yelled out to him. He managed to turn just fast enough that the branch stabbed straight through his heart and out through his back. A slightly darker patch spread across the red of the irin-shade's shirt as his wings flapped once more, then he fell to the ground with an audible thump and the dirt fluffed up around his prostate body. The boos were louder than the cheers and Ana wasn't surprised; when it came down to any fight between Dragul and Gairou, three houses would be supporting the Dragul while only other Gairous supported the Gairou.