Page 9 of Elemental Hall: Nautica
Steeling myself, I step into the pool.
“How am I meant to do this?” I ask.
“You don’t know?” Sybil shoots back. There’s something harder about her tone now. I see the way she looks over to Orion. There’s something proprietorial in that look.
“Just… reach out,” Orion says. “Let the creatures of the ocean feel your power. They’ll come if they’re interested.”
That’s worryingly vague, but I try it anyway. I reach out to the water, feeling it, feeling the pulse of the currents beyond the bay.For a moment, it feels foolish, but this is no different from what I did for much of my journey over.
“Nothing’s happening,” Sybil says. “Obviously, she isn’t everything you think she is, Orion.”
I hold back my irritation, reaching out deeper into the water. It’s as if I can feel everything there now, every creature, every shift of the water beneath their fins.
Something rises out of the bay to look at me. At first glance, I might mistake it for a dolphin, except that it has iridescent scales instead of smooth gray skin. A powerful tail beats the surface, and it looks at me with large, dark eyes.
I know what it is instantly. How can I not? It’s the creature that I’m named for, the one my father claims to have seen only once. A seraphin.
It drifts close to me. I reach out with a hand, resting it against those brightly colored scales. I feel a moment of connection there, a moment when it’s hard to tell where I end and it begins.
It swims lazily around the bay once. A flick of its tail makes the water form into a funnel, which it rides right to its crest as though looking out on the world. Then it dives, disappearing from view.
Somehow, though, I know that if I call it again, it will come. I’ve never wanted anything more.
Chapter FIVE
Summoning a seraphin is more than enough to make me a part of Orion’s cluster of friends, although frankly, I suspect that just his word would have been sufficient. It’s obvious from the start that they look to him like some kind of leader.
There are routines on Nautica. We sleep in our dormitory, we eat in the large refectory, where the food is simple but filling enough that I can’t believe some of the wealthier students complain about it. There are classes given every morning in a vast amphitheater, hemmed in on three sides by rows of stone steps and open to the sea on the fourth. Those classes cover the basics of fighting, the basic theory of the elements, history, politics. The rest of the time, though, we are free to do as we wish. It’s a combination that should make for a simple, easy life. It would be so easy to take a day or two simply to relax on one of the beaches.
Except that we all know that none of us can afford to relax like that. I have seen firsthand how the elemental teachers here like to teach and test us: by setting us challenges where our skills are the only things standing between life and death. Anyone who lazes on a beach isn’t likely to last long before being hurt or worse.
“Don’t you think it’s strange that they train us this way?” I ask Aria as we head down from our rooms for another day. “If we’re meant to defend Lumina, shouldn’t they be training us to fight in disciplined ranks or something?”
Aria laughs at that idea. “Elementalists, marching neatly and fighting like some well-ordered machine? Oh, we have to obey instructions, and they’re not above disciplining anyone who steps too out of line, but they’re more interested in ensuring thatwe all reach our individual potential. Not every elementalist will join the army. Some will be diplomats, advisors, explorers.”
She pauses for a moment, seeming to relish the last option.
“Besides, could you imagine how someone like Orion would react to being ordered around like some kind of peasant spearman?”
“Just how nobleishe?” I ask. It’s a stupid question. It doesn’t matter how noble he is, only that he, like so many of the others here, is, and I am not.
“His family is on the ruling council that advises Queen Niann of Lumina,” Aria explains. “They have a grand home on an island not so far from Nautica. They say his family donated the land for this house of the Elemental Hall to be built generations ago.”
That’s impressive. After all, Lumina has several smaller regions within its federation. To be on the council that decides matters connected to all of those places, to advise Queen Niann… that’s real power. And yet, his family sent their son to a place where he’s potentially in danger every day. I’m here because what other life is there for me? Someone like Orion, though… he could have anything he wants in life, and he’s still here. I’m not sure I understand that.
“Come on,” Aria says. “We need to get to the others. The undertow challenge is today.”
Instantly, I’m nervous. I’ve been training with the others in the class for only a short time now. I’m only too aware that there is still plenty I don’t know. My affinity for water gives me a head start, but if we’re being pitted against one another, I’m at a disadvantage.
“You want to team up for the challenge?” I ask Aria.
She smiles but shakes her head. “I don’t think we get to choose who we work with on this.”
Which meant that I wouldn’t even have the advantage of teaming up with a friend for the challenge. I’ll be stuck withwhoever I’m given. I half expect it to be someone like Ash or Sybil, someone who obviously dislikes me.
We make our way down to a beach, where most of the others in the class are already waiting. Elemental Mistress Halan is there, along with several other elemental masters. It seems that they want plenty of people to watch us for this.
It’s Halan who speaks, though. She seems to be the one who sets the challenges here, although I have yet to see her teach a class.
