A new year at Nine Petal Academy means a new crop of students, including a boy who can't control his magic, a thief, an angel, and even a suit of armor? Adela, Lei, and their friends are tasked with welcoming the new class of first years and helping...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I stared at my knife as I put it into a pile of sand for cooling. Was it possible to make a prosthetic arm in class? The Hierarchians seized our assets, so my family was poorer than Ayawamat's. If not for the support of Wahkan, Mina, and Kyuu Seishin, we would be in worser straits right now. They could probably get my brother a standard replacement arm, but as the king, he needed something more. Else, he would be unable to use magic on his right side.
"Is something the matter?" Xue asked.
I blinked. Not particularly.
She sighed. "You were zoning out again, so I thought maybe you were worried about something."
I rotated my knife. If not for it still cooling, I probably would've written on the black sand with it. Writing in the sand... It had been years since I'd done that.
***
[Years ago]
"Yahoo!" my big brother said as he jumped from a cliff, creating a wave that wiped away my sandcastle.
"Argh! Stupid big bro!" I yelled, standing up. "We worked hard on that!"
Mom giggled as she pushed back her jet black hair behind her ear. She had helped me build it, yet she still laughed.
"Mommy, aren't you gonna punish him?" I pointed at my brother as he swam toward us.
He gulped. "S-sorry! I didn't mean to!"
Mom smiled as she put her hands over the wet sand. "I know."
I pouted. "Aren't you being too lenient on him, Mommy? He destroyed our hard work!"
She patted the sand. "True, but he didn't mean it. Also, nothing lasts forever. If not your brother, the natural course of the waves and wind would've knocked it down."
Hmm. That seemed too defeatist for me.
"Then does that mean I don't have to eat as I'll die one day too?" I asked, poking the wet sand.
She frowned. "Of course not! That's like saying that building the castle in the first place was a waste of time."
I blinked. "But we didn't even get to take a picture with it."
She raised the sand more and put the fallen blue flag on top. "There! Now we can!"
But it was a dinky hill.
"Think we should work on it a bit more," I said, giggling as I picked up some more sand with my bucket.
She grinned widely. "Okay!"
"I'll help, too!" big bro said, kneeling next to us.
I pouted. "You better work harder than us to make up for it."
He laughed awkwardly. "O-okay."
With Qing's help, we rebuilt our castle, bigger and better than before!
