Determined to take control of their fates, Arjen and Arien escape Derolina Castle at the age of sixteen after their cruel mother dies. They adopt new names and find a home in the city of Aramore, while the Emperor of Yuriana searches for his missing...
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Arien placed the bucket on the ground and gazed up at the high facade of the bookshop and its inn. She took a nervous breath and glanced down at the bucket again.
I can do this...right?
The building badly needed a fresh coat of paint. It also needed upgrades and other minor repairs, but Marcus didn't want to do it all simultaneously, and so the list of needs continued to expand. For now, he just wanted some paint on the outside.
Arien pried open the bucket's lid. Marcus had settled for a blue color, thinking it would better compliment the yellow door. She had never thought paint would exist in this world, but this was a different kind of paint, and she didn't know how it was made. It didn't smell bad, which she found odd since she always remembered paint having a strong odor. Arien dipped a finger in the liquid and sniffed. Yep, no smell. What was this stuff made from, anyway?
She wiped her finger on the apron she wore and stepped back. Last night, she read the spell over and over to be sure she would get it right, and then recited it a hundred times in her head. But she had never done something like this before. The spell required absolute precision if she didn't want to coat the door and windows, too—and the buildings next to the shop. And the incantation came from an ancient language that had some awkward pronunciation. More than once she had stumbled over them.
With her heart pounding, she lifted her hands. The blue paint rose from the can, and she started the first spoken lines of the spell. The paint bubbled. The next step was critical. She came upon one of the more difficult words, and it flowed smoothly off her tongue.
Her pride boosted, and Arien continued the spell, that is until the paint began to expand wider than she had expected. It oozed outward as it stretched and started boiling, growing larger and larger by the second. Arien then stuttered over the next line of the spell and—
She flinched and squeezed her eyes shut. After a moment had passed, she dared to open her eyes to find the paint looking like someone had hit a pause button. She exhaled in relief. It had been exploding just before it froze, and not a drop of paint had hit the building or herself. How did it stop?
"Well, that could've been a bad accident," said someone behind her.
Arien found Marcus' customer, Lord Farnell, standing behind her with his hand outstretched. "Did you...?" she said.
He moved his hand fluidly and the paint swirled around like a small tornado. The paint then drained back into the bucket where it stilled as if nothing had happened. Arien blinked in awe.
"That was amazing!" she said. "Do you know a lot of magic?"
"I know some," he said.
"I've been trying to learn for a long time, but stuff like this always seems to happen."
"You have quite a bit of mana you need to learn how to control, but I think you have potential. All you need is a good teacher."
She blushed. I have potential? And could she really have a teacher? Arien had heard about the Arcante Imperial Academy of Magic. Mostly nobles attended, though, and as far as she knew, there were no magic schools exclusively for commoners. There was no way she could enter such a prestigious academy.
