Code of Shadows

Dove (Part 29)

Grianan. What was that?

"Please head over to the carriages and find your enterprise, and you will be taken care of from there."

I stepped out of the line, back into the snickering and insulting crowd. I walked straight toward the carrages. I didn't let the snickers bother me.

I hurried as the crowd started to empty. Each carriage group called out the name of their enterprise, or whatever you called it.

I finally found Grianan at the end of the line. There was a small crowd on the outside of the carriage, and they were all looking distraught. I slowly closed in to see what was happening. There were a lot of curses, and unhappy faces, and it wasn't until I was actually able to see what happened when I finally understood. The carriage axel had been hacked apart. The girl standing in front was cursing by far the most.

"Damn Bethabara! Why of all days did they have to mess with our carriage,"  she said. She took a moment to compose herself. She turned around. "Anyone here an Earth? Oh wait, what am I talking about, you guys don't know your strengths yet, let alone Latin." She turned back around, but not before I could force my way through the crowd.

"I am an Earth," I said. The girl look skeptically at me, not even noticing my clothes like all of the other girls around me. Everyone was quiet, and no one said a word.

Finally, the silence was broken.

"Go ahead. Fix it," she said. She was obviously trying to set me up for failure, but I wouldn't fail.  I smiled.

I knelt down in front of the broken axel, and I touched one hand to either side of the broken piece of wood. I took a deep breath, then I said the words Guru had taught me for mending broken wood. The axel immediately snapped back into position, just like it had been before it was hacked apart.

There was a collective gasp from behind me, and I smiled. This was a energy draining spell for me, but I would recover in less than a minute.

Before anyone could react more than that, the carriages in front of us started to move.

The girl screeched.

"Into the carriage now! If you aren't in the carriage in 10 seconds, then you are going to be left behind! Move!" Everyone followed the order quickly. By the time that I had made my way into the carriage, the girl had counted to 9, and I was the last one. I took in a sigh of relief, then grabbed for a bar as the carriage jerked into motion. It took a moment for everyone to settle down. Somehow, I had gotten squeezed in between two girls that were trying to have a conversation. I slid down in my chair. They didn't seem to notice that I was there. For once, I was okay with that; I was actually being ignored. I stared across the isle,  and caught a pair of dark grey eyes. The girl quickly looked away, but I continued to watch her. She had been the first pair of  friendly eyes that I had seen since Aala. The girl was sitting in her seat all by herself, and I could tell that wasn't by accident. Girls around her were specifically not looking at her or just straight out glaring at her. I quickly switched seats. The girl looked up instantly, fear written all over her face. I knew that look, it was the look of someone who knew that they were about to be bullied. As soon as her eyes met mine, her face relaxed.

"What are you doing?" she hissed. "Get away from here before they associate you with me." 

I chuckled. "Do you think I care? I have been looked at like a rat all day."

She gave me a serious look.

"Well, that can change as soon as we get to the academy. No one will care about what you are wearing now. They will just think you are a supper pretty and talented girl. I bet you will be popular."