FVN Chapter 22 - Cycle Three
Chapter 22 - Cycle Three
Mirian awoke with that raw scream still on her lips, and stopped.
Someone groaned. Selesia, she thought. She's wounded, but we can still—but no. It was Lily, saying, "Gods above, Mirian. You've got a real set of lungs. That must have been some nightmare."
Mirian sat on the bed and clutched her head in her hands. "I need—give me a moment."
"You okay?"
Mirian burst into tears, which hopefully answered the question. A drop of water hit her on the head, which made her burst out laughing. Of course. The hole was back.
Lily came over and put her arm around Mirian, which made her start crying again. She hugged her roommate back. It took a few minutes for her to stop trembling, and to find her voice.
"You don't remember, do you? Or we'd be having a very different conversation."
"Mirian, what is going on?"
She forced a smile. "Nothing. Don't worry about it. I just... I need some time." Another drop of water splatted on her hair, dripping down her face. She sighed. "And I need to shut off the water heater above us."
Lily looked at her like she'd grown a third leg out of her head, but Mirian just pointed up, then rose to grab the storage tin and her spellbook.
"What is... how did that happen?" Lily said, staring up at the perfectly clean hole running through all three stories of the dormitory.
"No clue," Mirian called as she shut the door behind her. Mirian used her lift object spell to get the third floor door open again, slapped the tin down over the hole so it would at least catch the rain coming through—it wouldn't be much, she knew the next few days would just be a light drizzle—then found the hidden panel with the switch to the water heater and turned it off. The water stopped hissing from the pipe shortly after. Everyone's showers would be ruined. Good, she thought. They could all suffer together. Someone else could go bother maintenance.
When she got back to the room, she dressed and grabbed her things in silence. She spent a moment looking for her spellrod, then belatedly remembered she hadn't made it yet. It was back to the minimalist clay cube. Lily was staring at her, but she just couldn't handle it right now. She needed time to process what had happened. Time to think. "We'll talk after classes today, yeah?"
Her mind kept going back to the battle on the hill. That had been a nightmare, just giant beetles skittering about, and she'd nearly died twice. Selesia had died. Well, they'd all died, in the end. Those damned Akanans. Just gunning people down without mercy.
She zoned out as students trickled into the classroom. The battle had happened less than an hour ago. How the hell was she supposed to concentrate after something like that? Belatedly, she realized she needed to figure out how to get Nicolus to sit next to her again. But she hadn't been paying attention the first time it had happened, so what had the reason been? She sat in a similar spot each day. The other thing she needed to check was for Xipuatl. Looking around, though, he didn't appear to be in the class. It was a prerequisite to the Spell Engines class, but he must have taken it sometime last year.
The bell chimed, and Professor Seneca lowered the lights. Mirian watched as Nicolus entered class—late, obviously—and sat in a random spot. There was a girl following him. Was that... what was her name again? Caldera? No, that was a volcano thing. Calenna? Calisto, she remembered. The seat he'd chosen had no seats nearby. That was what he'd been doing—evading Calisto for some reason.
She started taking notes in her notebook. One set was on alchemistry, the other, on times and days. Both would be erased again, she was pretty sure. Is that what the Prophets had gone through? Died over and over again until they got it right? What was she supposed to get right?
Mirian didn't like the consequences of if she was wrong. What if she skipped classes, failed an exam, and the month didn't repeat? What if she took risks and lost an arm or died—and it stuck? She had always been a cautious person. But something had to change.
She thought of the dream she'd had, the word still resonating in her mind: GROW.
Mirian didn't need some weird dream to tell her that. That was what she always did: growing in knowledge, growing in skill—but she did realize she needed to grow in new ways. If she was right, and dying would just repeat the month again, she could let go of some of her anxieties. She could take risks.
At the end of class, she strode up to Nicolus before Calisto could get to him. "Hey, I heard you were doing studying sessions and you knew your Alchemistry. Can I join? I have some extensive notes I've taken...." She opened up her notebook and started paging through so he could see.
"I don't actually... who told you that...?" Nicolus's eyes narrowed with suspicion. Then he said, "Hah! Oh, you mean the dr—social sessions. With my friends. We don't really do much studying," he admitted. He'd almost said "drinking," but that was technically banned, and Professor Seneca was still in the room.
"Oh," Mirian said, and made a disgusted face. "No, I mean actually studying. Sorry, I guess I've wasted both of our time." She flipped through one last page in the notebook, and Nicolus finally noticed it.
"Hey Nicolus," Calisto interjected, but Nicolus shushed her and said, "Wait, let me see that notebook. Wow. These are... okay, so you know what, I actually do study—don't go spreading that around, I don't want to tarnish my reputation or anything—but it's usually private sessions with a, uh, tutor. Last one for the quarter is tonight, actually. Listen, meet me outside of Bainrose at four."
Then he was off, with Calisto following him, pestering him incessantly about something, though Mirian couldn't hear what. Well damn, she thought. It worked.
Next, she had to decide what to do about the break-in to the Myrvite Studies building that was going to happen in about two hours.