The Spirit Academy

Chapter 21 - The Prefect

Auretta

A/N New (one-off) POV in this chapter, hopefully you get most of your questions answered. 

Ever since Auretta had arrived at the academy she knew she wasn't like everyone else. Her blood had not disappeared in the golden bowl. She wasn't blessed. Auretta was the daughter of Aella. She had descendant blood running in her veins. She was not like the others. She was not like the commoners.

The other students had all arrived at the academy, the first years at the Junior Campus. The second years at the Intermediate Campus. And the third years at the Senior Campus. Where they were now. Or most of them anyway.

Auretta was a rational girl. She saw the world through a black and white lens. It was what her mother had taught her. Never trust your instincts. Emotions are your vulnerability. Auretta believed her mother, she believed her mother when she said family was all she had. Blood was thicker than water. And then she'd laugh, saying that their blood anyway. The commoners were different, her mother had said, they were not like her.

Auretta had believed that too, she had been lulled into the false sense of security. Of superiority. The small bubble she grew up in as a child. That, of course, had not lasted long.

Any sense of family she had as a child had been stripped away when her mother had given her up to Azalea, so she could climb higher up the hierarchy. So her mother could surpass her aunt, Alizeh, and become the leader of the air spirits. That was the same thing Blaze had done, her mother had told her, given up his little sister. Kenna.

It was for the good of the Spirit World, her mother had said. Nothing personal.

The descendant blood spirits had lived in a glass city. It was beautiful. It had towers that scraped the sky. It had lights that lit up the whole city. And it had a glass dome separating it from reality.

This is why she relied on statistics.

The endless war. Wasn't really endless. Lasted for four years. Wiped out most of the spirit population.

Fires attacked first. Pillaged villages. Destroyed farmland. Crops. The population went into starvation. The fires lasted for a year, destroying most of the land, leaving behind a barren desert.

Water spirits retaliated. Sent tsunamis from the west. Destroyed the building ruins left by the fires.

Earth spirits holed up underground. Anything to protect them from what was happening on land.

The smoke from the fires stayed around for another year. Air spirits had had enough. They started hurricanes, making the earth spirits flee from their underground homes.

36% of the population died in the fires.

96% of the remaining survivors died in the aftermath.

No-one was quite sure how it started but there was not enough spirits left in the world to balance the elements. The air was radioactive. The ground was radioactive. Hunger. Thirst. Neighbours turned on one another.

The few left barely survived.

The spirit world was dying. One side of the world was a barren dessert, the other side was freezing wasteland.

That was where Evka came in. Contrary to the popular belief that Evka saved them all from a doomed death. Evka instead gave a prophecy.

'Five girls, each whose blood disappears when it touches pure gold, and each the most powerful of their kind. They will restore the world to what it once was.'

The GloBals saved them. They had managed to pump underground enough to find drinkable water. They had managed to dig underground enough to find soil. They had food and water which they gave out among the survivors. But they also had control.

And that was why it was so easy to take their children.

Auretta did not believe in prophecies, but she did believe in science. From most of the other spirits when their power was taken out of the blood stream it would disappear. But for the most powerful, the five most powerful girls. Of each element. That would not happen.

In theory, they would be able to make it multiply and they would be able to use it to save the world. 

And that was why Auretta did not struggle when she was being taken away from her mother. Because she knew the truth. She had not been spoon-fed the Evka stuff every other student had. She had not been brought up in an illusion of a utopia where they were the lucky ones. She knew how bad it was out there. Even when they made a fake forest for expedition trips. It was all just an illusion. Things out there were really bad. And that's why she let them take her.

She was doing it for the good of the world. She was a patriot. Not a spy. Never a spy.

And that was what the Academy was for. Training them. Then finding the most powerful.

The academy was surrounded by a spirit-made forest, where the GloBals controlled the atmosphere. If you travelled past it, you would find the barren deserts and villages where the commoners lived. If you were in the desert, you would be able to make out the outline of the glass city.

She had made friends with Mishal, who showed early signs of great potential. But upon meeting her, she did not ever think Mishal would be one of them. She never took anything seriously. 

So Auretta had completely crossed Mishal off the list. And so had Kenna, when Auretta met Kenna, she had told her that Mishal was not one of them. Kenna had agreed and they had told Azalea that. 

Instead their focus was on the top performing students. Zinnia. Makani. Anala. Betha.

That was her monthly meetings with Azalea. There were only two other spies in the Academy. Kenna and Jade.

Then Dahlia had arrived at the academy and everything had changed. Azalea was sure Dahlia was one of the five. After all she was Avita's granddaughter. In any other case Dahlia would not have been in the academy. She was a direct descendant. Valuable. But Dahlia's grandmother was a traitor. And if there was one thing the GloBals didn't tolerate, it was traitors.

Azalea then had a theory. Because Dahlia was one of the five, the other four would be attracted to her. The power in them would call to each other. Something like that.

And then Mishal became best buddies with Dahlia.

Auretta hadn't thought much of it; just decided to keep her distance.

Well that was until she lit the hall on fire.

Then she became realised Mishal was more powerful than she had given her credit for.

And then she burned Kenna. Fire spirits don't get burned.

That was when she realised.

Mishal was one of the five.

She would be experimented on. Taken apart. Studied. Tortured.

But it was okay. She was only a commoner.