Stepping into the inner courtyard of the Storm Guard Academy was like stepping into another world. The first thing Peri noticed was the immediate muting of the hectic noise that had bombarded her sense out on the street. She could hear it still, yes, but it was oddly muffled and distant despite the crowds being only five feet behind her.
“This is some impressive wielding,” Tuya muttered, her lips pressed into a thin line as she contemplated something. “It’s like a very large scale version of Elder davaa’s sound bubble trick.”
Peri frowned at the mention of their mentor's favorite trick. Whenever she and the old master would get into a particularly vicious verbal encounter, Elder Davaa would wrap her in an air bubble that effectively soundproofed her inside. A petty way to end an argument, but clearly an effective noise blocker in a large populated area. Not that it was all that quiet in the Academy’s inner court.
The large interior court was big enough to hold the entire population of the Valley of the Wind and multiple herds - not that it already wasn’t teeming with enough life, both animal and human alike. Other novices in a variety of clothing were clustered together with their luggage and cages. Pack animals and carriage horses stood with their heads dipped into the basins of two large fountains. Fleet footed horses from the Lei territory to the Southeast, sleek black bulls from the Eastern Shimizu territory, even antlered reindeer harnessed with bells from the Morosov territory to the north. Peri already knew the Salhi had come by train, leaving the gathering bereft of the powerfully muscled horses that came from her native South. Looking at the Lei thoroughbreds, Peri could swear their delicate fetlocks would snap if they turned too fast, let alone trotting along a mountain trail back home.
Where there wasn’t a person, horse, ox or reindeer, there were birds. Kites, kestrels, hawks, falcons, even a golden headed eagle or two resided either on shoulders or in cages, filling the air with their proud cries. If Peri closed her eyes she could almost pretend that she was home in her parents rookery, surrounded by the creatures who understood her better than any human could. On her back, Tsas let out her own special cry, though this one wasn’t an errant caw meant to be heard above the din of the other birds.
It was a warning shriek.
Without thinking, Peri quickly threw herself and Tuya’s luggage to the side before shoving Tuya in the opposite direction. The two girls and their birds clattered to the ground, Peri hovering over her friend as they lay sprawled on the Inner court stones. A flash of gold and the rapid pounding of hooves shot past where the two girls had been previously standing. A lead horse followed by two other riders and a pulled cart trampled into the Academy, sending more than one other student leaping out of the way as the group came to a stop. The horses were a smaller build than a Lei but not as stocky as a Southern Salhi breed and the light chestnut coloring quickly gave them away. No Southerner would keep a light colored horse like that for themself. A Western Khan then.
Peri’s theory was proven when the lead rider dismounted with a flourish of their brown leather long robe. Emblazoned on the back in gold embroidery was a Steppe eagle with its claws extended, its beak open in an angry cry - the symbol of the Khan noble family of the Western Territory.
The lead rider was certainly dressed like they were of the elite. Under their robe was a gold tunic lined with fine fur and embroidered with birds along the collar, their skullcap made of velvet and detailed with more gold. Their riding gloves and riding gloves, while clearly broken in, were still high quality - as was the horse whip that was being waved in Tuya and Peri’s direction.
“What fool stands gawking in the middle of a gateway!” It wasn’t a question, but an irritated accusation that immediately got Peri’s blood boiling. She could feel Tuya’s weak tugs on her tunic sleeve as she pushed herself to her feet. Her hands stung from where she had hit the ground and there was definitely a tear somewhere on her leggings as brisk air started biting at the exposed skin. If there was a single mark on the tunic her mother had carefully embroidered, the rider wouldn’t live to see the next morning, noble or not.
“What kind of fool goes around almost running people over without any regard!” Peri barked back as she shrugged off Tsas’s carried from her shoulders. Now less than a foot away, Peri could make out the affronted expression on the riders face - a novice age girl with golden eyes, a heart-shaped face with pale skin and a snarl on her lips.
“You dare talk back to a Khan?” The girl spat.
Peri felt her own lips curl back from her teeth. “I don’t care if you’re the Storm Warden General's niece, watch where you’re going.”
The girl let out a high pitched gasp, the only warning Peri got before pain exploded in her shoulder.
Peri fumbled back, gripping the blackened fabric of her tunic. The smell of scorched wool invaded her senses and the girl had the gall to smirk as her fingertips steamed in the winter air. She had actually shocked her with her gift!
“Peri…” Tuya tried to warn as Tsas let out a panicked caw, flapping irritably in her carrier. Peri ignored them both as she focused on the noble girl with the cocky smirk.
Her own gift crackled angrily to her fingertips, making her blood howl like the wind whirling through the alleys outside had. She sharpened the wind to a cutting edge, a razor made of anger and elemental might that she shot from her hand and exploded the cobblestones at the other girl's feet. The rider threw up her arms as debris went flying, causing one of the Khan horses to bray nervously. The noble’s expression turned outright murderous as she lowered her arms, her hands shaking with rage.
“Was that supposed to scare me? A simple shot to my feet?”
“I was aiming for your pointy head,” Peri snapped, never one to hold her tongue when her temper got going. She really hadn’t been aiming at all. When it came to controlling versus aiming, her talents tended to skew one way or the other. Making that razor wind meant she had little control of where it went, something Elder Davaa never had the patience to coach her through.
The noble girl's fingertips sparked, making the air shiver and the hair on Peri’s neck stand on end as static built.
“You’ll pay for that,” the girl hissed like an angry cat. “Go back to the hills where you belong, little Southern girl!”
Go back to your tower where you belong! The memory came unbidden, unwanted and cutting into Peri from the past. The last time she had voluntarily spoken to the headman’s son, Sacha, he had snarled at her for using her gift to herd a few stray sheep that he had been struggling to return to his fathers flock. She thought she had been helping, but the mocking laughter of Sacha’s male friends told her otherwise.
Go play with the wind and birds in your strange tower like the freak you are! Peri knew he was just embarrassed at needing help with his sheep, from a girl no less, but his words had cut deep. Throwing him into the creek with her bare hands instead of wasting her gift on him had been a temporary balm to the wound. Her otherness in the Valley of the Wind pressed in on her greatly from then on - averted eyes, whispered conversations and barely disguised disdain from Sacha whenever she drew near. Her gift made her special, but it also made her painfully different back home. Now she was here, in a place designed for the gifted, and someone was still trying to separate her as something that should be hidden away. She would not stand for it.
She pulled on another source with her gift, weightier and more stubborn than the agile wind but it would obey her. What worked on Sacha would work just as well on the snooty Khan.
The horses by the fountain screamed but their cries were no match for the shriek that came from Peri’s target as the frigid water splashed over her fine clothes. Her velvet cap went tumbling into the puddle that surrounded her, leaving her formerly tidy hair dripping down her face. More than one bystander gasped, probably Tuya if Peri had to guess, but most had just circled like buzzards waiting for the kill.
“I think you need to cool off,” Peri sneered as pride burned through her veins. Her opponent didn’t bother to respond with words, choosing to fling another wild bolt that sent Peri scrambling to gather her wits and her own offensive. The crowd roared and jeered as the girls exchanged blows - Peri switching between wind, water, lightning and even ice if she had long enough to concentrate while the Khan shot bolt after bolt of electricity, scorching the stones beneath their feet where they fell. What both lacked in technique they made up for in power. The air around them vibrated with the energy of the elements they wielded as both girls fought to stay on their feet and out of the others blast radius. Eventually though, fatigue began to eat away at both their stamina and concentration, leaving Peri drawing the short straw as she slipped on a patch that she had made.
Peri went crashing to the ground, feeling her bones rattle as her exhaustion finally caught up with her aching body. She scrambled to turn over and climb to her feet only to come face to face with the still steaming fingertips of the Khan’s fingers. Her eyes glowed with adrenaline but her hand was clearly shaking. Normally, that might interfere with a gift user's aim but this close to her target, Peri knew she’d be hit unless she did something fast.
“Any last words, goat herd?” The Khan oozed smug pride as she hovered over her.
Peri’s mind scrambled for an idea, any idea to get her out of being splattered across the cobblestones on her first day because of her ridiculous temper and big mouth. The hand not propping her up twitched against her tunic sash before catching on a smooth bone handle. There was an idea, not a particularly good one, but an idea nonetheless. If it worked she would have the upper hand on this smarmy noble girl. If it didn’t - well it was best if she didn’t dwell on that option.
As quickly as she could, Peri kicked the Khan’s feet out from under her. As the other girl squawked at the sudden change of gravity, Pei launched her plan. She pinned the girl in a similar hold to how she would pin an unruly goat to keep it from kicking her before pressing the untested blade of the knife her mother had gifted her to the girl's jugular. One twitch and she would be bleeding and from the look in the Khan’s eye, she knew it.
“Better a goat herd than an egotistical songbird with no talons,” Peri retorted. She was certain the bout was over, they were both too exhausted to continue and the Khan was just shy of gutting herself under Peri’s knife. When she felt the familiar static of a building charge from where she knew the noble girl's hands were splayed by her head, she knew she was wrong.
Luckily enough, or maybe unluckily enough when Peri looked back on it later, they were both forcibly pulled apart by what felt like a targeted windburst that exploded between the two girls, pressing the Khan noble girl into the ground while Peri was tossed through the air to land on her back a few feet away. Peri groaned on impact, her knife still clutched in her hand in a white knuckled grip while she tried to will her head to stop spinning. Who did that?
A howl mixed of pain and anger drew her attention back to where the Khan was now sitting up on one elbow, glaring in her direction with golden eyes full of unguarded hatred. Her left cheek had a bleeding cut on it. Apparently Peri had managed to nick her opponent when she had been thrown through the air. An accident, she wouldn’t have actually cut the girl, but what was done was done and the Khan noble was more than livid.
“You’re dead, goat herd!”
“That is enough, Mistress Khan!” The voice roared from the direction of the Academy’s center tower. The crowd that had gathered around the two girls quickly scuttled back from the approaching woman whose thunderous expression was enough to make Peri wish the earth would swallow her up.
The woman was clearly a southerner with her tan brown skin and thick black hair that she had twisted into two braids in front of her. She had a scowl that would impress even Peri’s mother, deep lines carved on either side of her mouth and under her eyes from either the years catching up or exhaustion. She was wearing a long black robe trimmed with white fur thrown over slate gray flight leathers with the Storm Warden Generals crest on the chest. Peri’s sluggish thoughts eventually coughed up a bit of trivia from one of Elder Davaa’s prolonged history lessons. Gray flight leathers mean she was a Child of Wind like he was when he served. She must be the one who threw Peri and the Khan apart. She came to a stop between the two girls, her arms crossed as she eyed them both full of irritation.
“I am Instructor Taymour of Wind,” the woman said in a low voice, her tone bidding the crowd to quiet and lean in. “And here at the Academy, we do not tolerate any kind of physical assault between novices outside of hand-to-hand training. Especially without a trainer present to make sure they don’t do something stupid like you two have done here.”
The Khan’s lip curled back, no doubt ready to say any number of condescending words only to have Taymour’s hardened expression whip in her direction to preempt her.
“Even nobles adhere to the rules of engagement we put forth here, Mistress Khan Zarena,” the older woman snapped. “Unless you’d like to turn back around and make the ride back to the west the same way you came in. I’m sure your Ata Khan Sanjar would welcome you back with a smile.”
Khan Sanjar was a name that even Peri knew, the first commoner to break into the nobility after a civil war with the Morosov and establish his family with the four other titled families. Judging from the way the noble girl, Khan Zarena, went purple with either embarrassment or rage, her relationship to the revolutionary was closer than a second or third cousin. Khan Sanjar was said to have a brood of children and grandchildren running his expansive Trade Company - a granddaughter perhaps.
“Courage,” Taymour announced, turning back towards where Peri still lay on the ground. “Determination. Loyalty. These are the things we hold dear here and these are the things I plan on instilling in you children by hook or by crook. You both have two weeks of extra training starting tomorrow before dawn and I expect you to be on time. Anything less will result in a consequence far worse than what you two have inflicted on each other today. Is that clear?”
“Yes Elder,” Peri croaked, sheathing her knife and slowly sitting up from the stones.
“It’s just Master Taymour, not Elder, here Novice,” Instructor Taymour corrected in a low tone, her eyes flitting from Khan Zarena back to Peri. “The quicker you learn this the better.”
“If you’re done tormenting the new recruits, Instructor Taymour,” a smooth voice crooned from the tower steps. Peri’s neck creaked as she turned her head back towards the stairs where four more newcomers and a platoon of Chasers in full flight leathers and helmets flanking behind them stood. The one who spoke, an elegant looking man with porcelain skin, almond eyes and a cascade of black hair with a few gray streaks that fell down his back. Under his own black and fur trimmed long coat he had on a set of black flight leathers that made Peri’s eyes go wide with awe. This wasn’t anyone, this was a fully trained Storm Warden, Master of the Four Forms and a part of the elite guard that was said to have personal contact with the Storm Warden General himself.
The Storm Warden had a neatly trimmed beard and a pencil thin eyebrow that arched in their direction. “I do believe we have an opening ceremony to conduct?”
Instructor Taymour let out a huff of air before sticking her hands into the pockets of her long coat and marching back to where the other four Instructors stood waiting. As she made her way to the steps, Khan Zarena’s head whipped around to glare at Peri.
“You’re still dead come training, goat herd,” Zarena hissed as her vassals pulled her to her feet, one pressing a silk handkerchief to the sluggishly bleeding cut on her cheek. Where she had someone to help her up, Peri only had Tuya to help her flail to her feet before helping her hastily shoulder Tsas’s carrier once more.
“That wasn’t smart, Peri…” Tuya whispered, clinging to her friend's now blackened tunic. Whatever response Peri’s sluggish brain would have supplied was quickly silenced by a crack of thunder overhead. Peri flinched involuntarily, her head whipping around to where Zarena had disappeared into the gathering crowd, only to realize it was the Storm Warden on the stairs with one hand raised into the air, a powerful thunderbolt forking off his fingers into the Capitals overcast sky.
“Now that I have your attention,” the Storm Warden called over the many people gathered in the courtyard. “My name is Shimizu Minato, or Minato of Storms, and I am the current Headmaster of this esteemed Academy. You all have worked hard for this moment and both your tutors and the board have deemed you worthy to be here. Starting today, your lives are forever changed. You are, as of right now, Novices in the Storm Guard.”
Despite her growing headache and aching body, Peri pushed her shoulders back to stand a bit taller. This was really happening. She was an official novice and the pride she felt at that oozed through her veins like warm honey.
From the stairs, Headmaster Minato gestured to his left where the same instructor who had pushed Pari and Zarena apart stood with a tall, thin man with similar features to the Headmaster but wearing blue flight leathers. He was just as pale and held a distinguished air about him, his black hair pulled back into a tight top knot at the top of his head. “Our Master of Wind, Taymour of Wind and our Master of Water, Kaiyo of Water.”
To the Headmasters right stood a stocky looking man with a scowl and a long scar across his left eye, pale on his gold complexion. His hair was a dark brown, cropped short to his head while his beard obscured his jawline. His gold flight leathers were barely visible under his large coat. The final instructor looked like they could easily be broken in half by the flick of the other man's wrist. Everything about them was pale - their skin, the white blonde of their shaggy shoulder length hair and the haunting icy blue of their eyes, magnified by the large tinted glasses. They were almost swallowed by their black coat that Peri could barely make out the blue flight leathers that were slightly lighter in color than Master Hisakawas.
“Our Master of Lightning, Tao of Lightning and our Master of Ice, Gennadi of Ice,” the Headmaster explained, folding his hands in front of him. “These four will be overseeing your training in the four forms to the best of your abilities. They won’t accept anything less than your best as will I. Between them and their Underchasers, along with select Predictors from the Royal College, we will ensure you know all you need to before releasing you into the world to keep our country and its people safe. It is the will of the Storm Warden General that you all succeed. Those who don’t will be sent on their way, but to those who do manage to make it to the end of their training period, you will go on to do truly great things.”
There was a whisper of excitement that flitted through the crowd, Tuya grinning from ear to ear while Peri felt her own smile threaten to leave her cheeks cramping later. They were doing this, they were really doing this.
Headmaster Minato cleared his throat slightly and the excited chatter died down. To his left one of the Underchasers stepped forward and came to parade rest at his elbow.
“With that settled, onto some housekeeping matters. Dinner is at 6 bells in the main hall. Those who come late risk not eating and those with dietary restrictions, your needs have been noted by our kitchen staff. The members of the Morosov, Shimizu, Lei, Salhi and Khan delegation will follow Chaser Lin of Water to their dormitories while the rest of you shall wait for your names to be called by Chaser Roman of Lightning. I hope I don’t have to see any of you soon and that we can get through this training period without any hiccups.”
His speech finished, Headmaster Minato turned on his heel and headed back into the castle keep, the other instructors and all but two of the Underchasers following after, off to do whatever their normal duties were at this time. A small section of the crowd with their many vassals trailed after Chaser Lin into the keep as well while Chaser Roman pulled out a long scroll from the inside of their jacket and began to read off name after name, each time having the chosen person head off into the castle keep with one of the people Peri assumed worked in the castle.
“How come the nobility got to go off all together but we have to go one at a time?” Peri pouted. After about the tenth name, she had sat down on her trunk with Tsas, feeding her bits of dried meat through the bars in her travel carrier. This needed to go quicker so she could get herself settled and then find the mews for Tsas to get herself sorted.
“Maybe they stay in a separate wing?” Tuya put forth, anxiously tugging at one of her braids.
“Have someone fluff their pillows for them too,” Peri snorted under her breath as Tsas let out a light trill that her owner took to be a sign of agreement.
“Corbingiin Peregrine,” the nasal voiced Chaser called. Peri had figured out after the first few Southern Territory names that Chaser Roman was hopeless at pronouncing the patronyms of her home, the words harsh and stilted in his mouth. Peri rolled her eyes in Tuya’s direction as her friend hid a giggle behind her hand. She gathered up her trunk with a trick of the wind and hoisted Tsas’s carrier back onto her shoulders.
She shouldered her way past other waiting Novices before climbing the castle keep steps, her trunk bobbing along behind her like a leaf in the stream. She presented herself before Chaser Roman with a tilt of her head, glancing between him and the servant girl who couldn’t have been older than 10.
“Corbingiin Peregrine?” The Chaser asked.
“Unless there’s another one,” Peri droned. The little servant girl bit her lip to suppress a smile while Chaser Roman frowned.
“Yes, well,” Chaser Roman huffed before gesturing to the little girl beside him. “Please follow after Katya. You may leave your bird and luggage here and it will be taken to your room.”
His piece on the matter said, he turned back to his never ending list, not sparing Peri or little Katya another glance. Peri let out a slightly irritated huff of her own, setting both her trunk and Tsas’s carrier down before gesturing for the little girl to lead the way. Katya gave an aborted nod of her head before taking off inside of the castle keep.
The two girls stepped into the large central tower, the interior lit only by electric lamps that were anchored into the walls. In the center was a long well polished table with multiple chairs seated around it on an ornate rug embroidered with birds and storm clouds. Portraits of who Peri thought might either be former headmasters or perhaps former Storm Warden Generals decorated the walls, with the largest portrait at the head of the table being the current General in a golden ornate frame. There were four doors heading off to other parts of the Academy no doubt. It was one of these doors that Katya scurried toward, holding open the heavy door for Peri to go through first.
Peri had assumed that this would have led to a corridor so they could head to her new room but instead she’s looking down a set of stone stairs. Whatever excitement had existed within her went out like a snuffed candle as a chill ran down her spine. Why would they be heading downstairs?
Katya gestured for her to move out of the way so she could close the door behind them, sealing them into the stone tunnel heading into the unknown. Katya flitted down the steps with familiar ease, glancing back towards Peri who followed at a much slower pace. Her hand stayed firmly along the damp stone walls as they headed farther and farther down into the bowels of the castle keep. The same chest tightening feeling from the crowds upstairs was back, a belt around her that squeezed tighter the farther underground they went. Why would they have to be underground for this part? Why couldn’t they talk to her outside, in the air where she could see the sky and feel the wind whip around her, out in the open world instead of in this confining liminal space?
Eventually the steps came upon another door, one that Katya pulled open with the same wide-eyed expectancy she exhibited throughout their descent downstairs. If she wasn’t scared or concerned, surely Peri didn’t need to be either?
The underground chamber they had reached was the same size as the room upstairs though instead of the lavish decor and large lacquered table, there were two tables sat parallel to one another. At the table furthest from the door they entered were three men, all in purple robes with long bell sleeves. The man in the center’s robe was trimmed with red and while he had somehow managed to age even more since the last she had seen him as a little girl, Peri had no doubt that this was the same Grand Predictor who had come to their house all those years ago.
His wrinkled and spotted hands were steepled in front of him as his pale but sharp gaze flitted over her. There was a slight flash of recognition, his eyes slightly widening as he took her in. He recognized her the same way she had him.
The Lesser Predictor to his left glanced down at the sheet before him, scanning the parchment for a moment.
“Corbingiin Peregrine?” The Predictor’s accent was slightly better but still grating on Peri’s ears. She merely nodded to him in acknowledgement, making the Predictor frown slightly. He gestured toward the other table that sat between Peri and the panel of Predictors.
“Please show us any form of your choosing.”
Sitting on the table were three objects. The first was what Tuya had explained to her once as a battery, a way of holding electricity the same way that the lamps around the city did. The next was a simple bowl of water and the final item was what appeared to be a long primary feather from what she had to guess was a falcon’s wing. Any form of her choosing…
It wasn’t a hard choice when it came down to it. She flicked her wrist, her fingers alight with power that thrummed through her like the plucking of a fiddle string. The feather sprung up from its place on the table as wind whipped up in the little room. It tumbled and danced through the air, bobbing along to an unheard tune as Peri weaved her magic to keep it airborne. The feather kept up its little routine, full of flourishes and twists, until gently landing back on the table. Her blood was thrumming, power causing her adrenaline to run hot through her in a heady rush. She turned towards the bowl of water, using her fingers to coax the liquid from its container when the Grand Predictor held up a hand.
“That will be all, Corbingiin Peregrine, or should I say, Novice Peregrine,” the old man croaked. He waved a hand towards the Lesser Predictor holding the scroll of names. “Put her down as the Wind Tract.”
Peregrine paused, the formerly warm feeling that had overwhelmed her turning cold. “What do you mean Wind Tract? I can do the other forms.”
“Yes but we don’t need you to,” the Grand Predictor hummed, his eyes half lidded and uninterested as he laced his spindly fingers together. “Those not born of a noble house are only expected to learn one form and you have shown a remarkable affinity for Wind, therefore, you will be a Wind Chaser when your training period is up.”
“But Storm Wardens use all four forms,” Peri argued. There was a growing pit in her stomach as her heart sped up anxiously. Surely they wouldn’t limit her potential like this?
“And you will not be a Storm Warden,” the Grand Predictor said matter of factly, his words piercing her in a way that Zarena’s lightning bolts hadn’t managed to. “That is a title reserved for those of noble houses. You have been tested, you have been assigned, and you will take your assignment and be on your way. We have other Novices to get to.”
Peri’s teeth ground together and her hands started to shake as she stared at this man who might as well have been a wall for all he reacted to her obvious fury. On the table the battery let off an errant spark while the bowl of water trembled. The feather twitched disjointedly in its spot on the table as if possessed, making the two Lesser Predictors glance nervously at their leader. The Grand Predictor merely tapped his fingers together.
“You can’t do this,” Peri growled out. The sparking of the battery got worse while the water bowl started to spin like a top with the way the water pushed and pulled within its confines. The feather stood perfectly on its tip, spinning so fast it was starting to create a breeze of its own that made the dust of the underground room shudder.
“I just did Novice Peregrine. That will be all.”
“No!” Peri finally shouted, her voice scraping against her throat from the force of her anger letting loose, her power reacting in kind. The batter on the table exploded making one of the Lesser Predictors shriek. The bowl of water shattered to pieces as the water within it abruptly froze into a ball of icy spikes. The feather was shredded to pieces in a razor wind that tugged at the occupants' clothes, howling in the same way that Peri felt like doing. They couldn’t do this- how could they do this? Her one dream and they were taking it all away -
The wind’s howling was abruptly cut off as a wind sheet blowing in the opposite direction overpowered her own. It pressed down against her, the air pressure weighing upon her shoulders as if it were a pair of unyielding hands. She sank lower and lower, her knees buckling beneath her as she sank to the hard packed ground. Her cheek pressed into the dirt, her body no longer able to resist the enormous force that was being wielded against her. From where she now lay she could barely make out the table where the Predictors were seated. While the Lesser Predictors had jumped to their feet, wide-eyed and wary at the scene this wild 18 year old girl from the south had caused, the Grand Predictor had barely budged beyond pointing a single bony finger in her direction. Peri was under no illusions that the mighty act of power that kept her immobile on the ground was his doing and judging by the irritated look in his eye, he would continue until she yielded.
“You do have some remarkable potential, Novice Peregrine, of that I have no doubt,” the old man wheezed in his thin reedy sounding voice. “But you also have a stubborn streak that you will need to control if you are going to succeed here so I will say it one more time: you have been tested, you have been assigned, and you will take your assignment and be on your way. Unless you wish to be excused from the Academy?”
It wasn’t a question so much as a warning. Her next answer would determine whether or not she would truly be a Novice in the Storm Guard or be sent home with her tail between her legs. Would it truly be so bad to go home? Back to her parents, their goats and the mountain wind? She would be free to practice whatever form she pleased and no one would fault her.
Except that wasn’t true though, was it? She could still hear the whispers, the almost fearful sideways glances from the villagers as she went past. Yes, her parents would accept her no matter what she decided but the Valley of the Wind? They would deem her unruly, undisciplined and ultimately too dangerous to stay there, that much she knew. She had seen it with the horses who couldn’t be tamed, the dogs that refused to be trained and the birds that couldn’t be taught that were ultimately released back into the wild and resigned to freedom but a shorter life over all. And it would be a short life, Peri could feel it in her bones now. She couldn’t go home and that left only one other option.
“I don’t wish to be excused, Grand Predictor,” Peri ground out, wheezing against the air pressure that kept her pinned to the ground. He must have deemed her to be truly repentant because a moment later the vice-like grip the air current had on the underground chamber was lifted, Peri sucking in a long breath as she shakily rose up to her knees. The Grand Predictor hadn’t moved beyond steepling his fingers back together on the table, his icy gaze watching her struggle without a flicker of emotion at what he had just done to her.
“Katya, please provide Novice Peregrine with her uniform and show her to her room,” the Grand Predictor muttered. “Predictor Hayate, please go get some replacement testing equipment so we can continue on with the placement exam.”
Numbly, Peri dragged her feet towards the door she had entered through, barely noticing the nervous way Katya’s wide gaze darted between the table where the Predictors sat to the hollowed out young woman she was escorting. Katya hurriedly shut the door behind them before scurrying up the stairs towards the surface and this time, Peri couldn’t decide if the constricting feeling she felt was because of how far underground they were or because of the role she had been forcibly locked into.