A Darkness With No Name // Book 1: The Warriors of Light

7: How to Train an Afferens Lucem

Song for this chapter: Ten Feet Tall Afrojack.  Personally don’t like the song, but the lyrics are so relevant so yeah.  (Thanks, Sara)

This is a diary entry from Ian’s diary

{Hi Alfred!

I know, you were called Astrid, but I prefer Alfred.  Deal with it.

Lucas is out doing his weird warlock training, and training classes start in an hour, so I have no one to talk to.   Except you, of course, and you’re an inanimate object made out of paper and shit.  Not literal shit of course.

Well, my usual day starts of quite early.  Well, it’s supposed to, but Lucas is always ready before me and he has to wake me up every damn day.  It’s quite fun, waking up and finding him staring down at me with a half-endearing, half-exasperated look on his face.  My Prince Charming.  Heh.  Then we all gather up outside our dorms, and check the huge noticeboard on the wall to see the classes of the day.  The younger students go upstairs to their classes, and the older students go to the grounds for combat training. The oldest students go to the lower levels for simulation battles, which are bloody awful.  Well, Lucas told me that they’re bloody awful; I’m only going to start today.

Lucas explained the different training each student gets.  Apart from a mandatory history class, which I’m also getting seeing as I missed around four years of Afferens Lucem training, they also get separate training to enhance their special powers and control it.  Lucas, being a half-warlock, received extra special education by a Healer warlock.  He explained to me that his mother was a Healer warlock, but his father was human.  His warlock tutor taught him how to hone his abilities, and also gave him some history lessons on the ways of the warlock.     

Last year’s training was tiring too.  We had to pair up and fight each other with blunt swords, and then we’d have target practice.  Our exams consisted of trying to beat either David or Edward.  Although David seemed a much more formidable foe, Edward literally knocked out everyone that came into his path, including, at one point, David himself.  He knocked me out.  Well, maybe I’d been gawking at him for a little too long, but hey, he’s hot!  Oh, thinking about that particular incident, I can finally decipher Lucas’ weird ‘I’m-jealous-omg-’ look.                      

The archers are so cool.  Lucas used to train as an archer, but thought better of it when he accidentally almost killed Edward.  You don’t just accidentally almost kill Edward Murray without getting transferred.  So he joined us lowly swordsmen.

Oh shit, I have to go, Lucas is knocking.  Can’t let him see the Prince Charming comment, he’ll bug me for DAYS ah bye

BYE ASTRID

Yes I like that name better actually.}

Ian hastily shoved his diary under the mattress, but not hastily enough.  Lucas had already opened the door and was looking at Ian with a raised eyebrow and a half-smile, and Ian grinned guiltily.  “Oh, Ian, Ian, my heart is speared by your secrets.”

Ian raised an eyebrow, matching Lucas’ look.  “Still haven’t told me your past, warlock boy.”

Lucas sighed, and looked at his watch.  “Well, I finished a little early today.  What have I told you already?”

“That your mom was a Healer warlock.”

Lucas nodded and sat down on Ian’s bed, close to Ian.  “Yeah.  Well, my father was a normal human, and he fell in love with my mother.  He knew her secret because she’d told him, and he was a huge help for the warlocks, as he was some kind of mathematical genius.  When I was born, they realised I’m not normal.”