Lone Gold, Daring Purple ✓ | Sorcerers, framed, runaway

10: They can't stay there.

Despite the happy feelings, every time the storm disturbed his peace, Cypur recalled the reality and it hurt him. He watched Wescherlie sleep at those times. The angry storm didn't wake her at all. Seeing her there, peacefully snoozing, Cypur slipped into a dreamless rest.

In and out of sleep the storm took him and at last he woke feeling well-rested. The reality didn't hurt as much as it did before. A new energy flowed through him. Wescherlie was standing at the window with her hands on her hips, looking out. Her wings were folded around her making like a black cloak.

"Good morning?" he said, but she didn't turn and instead whispered,

"I think it's good night. It's really dark out." She kept staring out the window. Cypur got up to join her.

"I heard something," she whispered to him. "From the forest. Not now, but when the rain died down a little, there was something in the forest that made a strange kind of growling sound."

"It could be an animal. Like a Pyxic Amphebelius." Cypur peered out into the dark. Only the immediate scenery was slightly lit from moonlight. It was known that only the Sorcerer's Ring didn't hide the moon when it rained, especially in the areas where the moon was always shining.

"A what?" Wescherlie hissed.

"Basically, a giant bullfrog. Sometimes we just say Giant Bull."

"Well then just say it." Then she went on to mutter under her breath and Cypur caught words like 'complicated on purpose' or 'show-off Narsy'. Well, he couldn't help that he was smart. It had nothing to do with him being a Sorcerer. He just studied a whole lot and enjoyed feeding information into his brain. That was why he passed every test without trouble.

Except the Faud test. He remembered standing there like an idiot, waiting for the teachers to stop staring at him. They evaluated how well Apprentice Sorcerers could call upon their Fauds. Cypur couldn't call upon anything because it wasn't there.

"Then what was that?" He wondered out loud.

"Was what?"

He shrugged. "Just about my Faud and thinking about that gold magick."

"What's a Faud?"

Cypur sighed and launched into a short explanation of what a Faud was, only touching upon important parts. It was a manifestation of a Sorcerer's magick, it took the form of some kind of creature, and all Sorcerers developed it after puberty because that was when all Sorcerers gained control of their magick.

"Only then, can I become Junior rank. I'm the Apprentice rank now. This is my third year and I'll be sixteen this Wintertine." He hated having to think about it again. It was awful. It was his damned life. He hated his life. What parents brought him into this world?

"Well, that's inconvenient. What happens if you don't get it this year?" Wescherlie leaned on the windowsill and faced him.

"Exile, they said."

"Who said? Professors?"

Cypur shrugged. "Yeah. Because my magick is, apparently, out of control. I think they're right. I'm making history, the first Sorcerer to not develop their Faud."

"And I know," He added before she could object, "because I read all the history books in the library."

"How many books is that?"

"Oh, around a hundred give or take," he said like it was no big deal. He always thought his library reading was impressive. No other Sorcerer read as fast and as much as he did. "That's just history books."