Radiance - The Alight Archives Book #1

19. Letters

"Needless to say, I'm more than impressed with you all," Professor Knight announced in his booming voice.

The class had gathered in a crowd in front of the entrance doors after the last few students had subdued their homunculus. And despite Knight's words of encouragement, Elaine couldn't procure a sense of pride or enjoyment or satisfaction. She was exhausted, extremely so. It felt like she'd just ran a marathon, or had finished helping her father with cleaning the old shed—truly a herculean task, that one.

"Those homunculus I enchanted were intended for second and third years, yet you lot managed to take them out anyhow. Outstanding," Knight caught his words with a noticeable squint, and a grin wormed on his face. "Well, at the very least, most of you did."

Elaine heard someone mutter a curse next to her. It was Custas, and his expression had contorted into a frustrated scowl. The boy massaged the nape of his neck repeatedly; apparently his homunculus hadn't released him until the end of class. Was that some form of intended punishment? She wanted to say something to lift his attitude...but she barely possessed any invigoration to claim as her own, no light to give. She was herself running on fumes.

"Regardless," Knight continued, "this should give you a little taste as to how most lessons in this class will unfold. Don't be fooled into thinking you've seen the worst of it, you implings. I mean to push you to your breaking point, to free the sorcerer buried deep within your Essence. Having said that, however, I am by no merit a monster. So, it'd serve you all well to know that the results of today's lessons won't be graded."

"Wait, for real?!" exclaimed Rayla, gleaming at him happily. She'd been one of the students that had finished the exercise last, and Elaine hadn't seen precisely how she defeated her homunculus, assuming she did so at all.

"Truthfully speaking, I was only interested in seeing how you lot would react, and what spells you'd use to overcome this challenge," Knight grinned. "You've done well, but I've got this nagging suspicion that some among you have yet to bare their fangs. I guess it's depending on me to apply more pressure, what do you say?"

Hands on her stomach, Elaine peeked over to the left side of the crowd huddled in front of her. There she spotted Kliff Dresden, and she had a solid hunch that he was one of the students Knight was referring to. Kliff's magic was strong, as well as he seemed to be a pretty capable sorcerer in his own right. But this exercise hardly proved to be difficult for him. He along with Adeline and Jack were amongst the first to complete it.

An itch bothered her in the back of her mind. What would it look like, she wondered, for someone like him to get serious, to be pushed to the edge, to be forced to use his more advanced spells? She reckoned he had access to a plethora of powerful magic spells up his sleeve, just that he didn't deem it necessary to cast any of them.

To this, Elaine found herself feeling a tad bit jealous of her professor, his shoulders bouncing as a loud string of laughter flew out his grinning, wide teeth. From his position he'd seen it all, had seen each of her classmates casting their magic. She wanted to see them too! Elaine desired to know everything about magic that she could, she kept a strong yearning for—

A cramping pain twisted in her stomach, and Elaine had to lean on Fearne so that she wouldn't stumble to the ground. She imagined she was a rather sorry sight to behold. Hopefully her classmates—discounting Fearne, of course—wasn't paying her too much attention. Especially not Kliff, how embarrassing would that be?

Hang on, Elaine thought, grimacing. Why should I be embarrassed by what he thinks? It's not like...he...err...

She peeked towards him again, and the boy himself must have felt her stare as shot a quick glance back at her from over his shoulder. Elaine froze as a fire ignited on the sides of her face. But Kliff didn't say anything. Merely the boy shrugged, concealed a yawn with a hand, and then turned his attention to Professor Knight, who was rambling on about "passion" and "power" and whatever else.