Abaddon's Gift

Chapter Six

Graydon walked into the Grand Hall and grimaced at the sight of fifty-five young mages about to start their schooling. Some twenty of them might make it through to graduation, ten would drop out and become a problem.

A problem Graydon would then have to deal with.

They wore long, flowing robes. Some of them were trying to roll up their sleeve, a habit they no doubt learned from their fathers.

Members of the Seven were slipping through the crowd, correcting the motion. The sleeves were to remain down, covering their arms for the first semester. Their robes were even too large for them, baggy as could be and constantly getting in the way.

The robes would make the boys aware of every move they made, and what got in their way. It would prevent them from using proper magic because they wouldn't be able to make the spells effortlessly.

Three would die or be injured during the first year because they ignored the warnings and insisted on practicing magic while wearing their robes. At least one would do something stupid enough that the Seven needed to step in to save the day.

There were charms and spells in the walls, carpets, even in the robes the mages wore. Most of what the students did would be nullified by those spells, but mishaps were expected to happen. The populace of the city built up around the university knew the dangers of living there, but they had decided the privileges of living in Amos' shadow outweighed the dangers.

Graydon was in his third year of auditing, but because the Seven didn't need the classes, their schedule was typically all over the years. One of each family served at Amos, taking classes start to finish. Their names were not given to the mages until their peers outed them.

Those auditing classes numbered between seven and twenty-eight depending on what else was going on. Graydon's 'graduating class' had seven students, and the next class was not due to enter until after they left. They had free run of university grounds, one from each family.

Him as the heir to the Pan line, and those from the other families who Graydon would spend his life working closely with. They would be messengers between their families and him. The closest thing to friends Graydon would ever have.

When everyone was seated, the dean stood and gave a rousing speech to the young men gathered in the hall. Something about being the future of magical history and coming from a long line of tradition, a foundation built on...

Blah, blah, blah.

What Trathor said, without really saying the words, was that tradition was important and they had to stick to those traditions if they wanted to make it through. He rallied the new students against change.

Trathor sowed seeds of discontent in the students before he introduced Naena. He knew he couldn't do anything, so he tried veiled passive aggressive behaviours which were hardly veiled at all. After two full years around the dean, Graydon knew the difference and despised it.

He and the other auditors would need to begin damage control right away.

They would speak to the undercover Seven members, who would begin their own whispering and murmurs.

After Trathor's rousing speech, he called each student up to receive their three-armed spiral necklace made of iron. Spelling iron was difficult. The mages of Amos had figured it out, but it took a special skill-set to do so.

Each of the necklaces contained a tracking spell that only the dean could activate.

When Naena's name was called, the boys went still. They knew it was a girl's name, and when they saw her stride across in trousers and a linen shirt that didn't fit her, they immediately whispered.