Elven Legacy

Chapter 40

Tessa

The Chyulin Academy for the Demon Blessed sat on a main boulevard. Two stories high, constructed in pale limestone, it featured a fortress-style wall of the same material that circled around a broad open-air space.

A pleasant – if somewhat cloudy – morning stretched over the capital, imparting an ideal mix of warmth and wind. Nothing that could've troubled Tessa after the twenty-something hours she'd spent in the much colder high skies.

After arriving in Chyulin, she'd located a downtown inn and slept for perhaps three hours. However, her eyes and her skin were still quite irritated from the fierce high altitude winds. At Tessa's best estimate, Karma had been flying at forty miles per hour.

Still in her tight black-and-gray clothing and dark blue cloak – no need, in Chyulin, to cover her marks; the color of her hair, however, might've attracted attention – Tessa had knocked at the Academy's black-painted door at first light.

Early though it was, a band of female dancers entertained the passersby at a nearby street corner.

Dolla dancers, Tessa recalled from a book she'd read on Chyulin culture. The women donned cropped shirts and short frilly skirts that ended in dangling beaten brass coins, which clanged musically – or gratingly, depending on your mood – as they danced and twirled with sinuous movements of their hips. A musician beside them played from an instrument that resembled Jaden's lute, but somewhat longer and narrower.

Most city dwellers tossed them a coin or two as they treaded past.

It is considered rude not to throw any in the open instrument case at their feet, Tessa believed she had also read in that book.

Yet she hadn't done so. Should people find her rude . . . well, she'd been called worse.

When the door opened, apprehension tugged at Tessa's nerves, and made her clumsier speaking a language she was less than fluent in.

A middle-aged woman with black hair, olive skin, and far more dark magic marks than Tessa, welcomed her warmly enough regardless, and instructed her to wait in the entrance hall; the headmaster would be with her shortly.

Tessa waited two hours.

Irritation flared and mingled with the apprehension as she sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair, until only boredom remained.

Part of her though grew fascinated every time a wielder crossed the hall. Tessa had to admit, it proved quite a relief not to feel like some eyesore or renegade. Here, people like her were accepted. More than that, of course. We're called Demon Blessed, for the gods' sakes. Speaks for itself.

She even saw a student of perhaps ten with the marks, reminding her of Mikael's scroll, in which he'd mentioned something to that effect.

The décor comprised twin mullioned windows flanking the door, black curtains drawn back to let in the light, slim stone pillars holding up a high ceiling, tapestries and vast scrolls to drape the walls.

Most of them depicted the First Wielder and her Demon Wolf – Kespeon and Sunyi. The rich black of her long flowing hair rivaled only by the wolf's thick coat. Most of the time, the Cyprian Mountains served as background. Sometimes she was shown wielding a warrior's lance.

Tessa yawned. Then she grimaced as she shifted in her chair. Her inner thighs ached with soreness from riding Karma. The phoenix enjoyed a better deal. She could simply disappear and replenish her energies, the tattoo across Tessa's midriff as only proof that she still existed somehow. In a mysterious, shadowy, soul-clinging state.