Daughter of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 4) (13 page)

Lari's hand shot up. The young
noblewoman smiled prettily, the proper and prim student.

"Yes, young Lady Serin,"
said Professor Fen.

Lari spoke as if reciting.
"First you would choose your material—the air around the vial.
Then you would claim the material—seizing control of the air.
Finally you would change the material—changing the air pressure to
levitate the vial." She shot a smug glance at Madori, then back
at the professor. "My father taught me. I've been lifting
objects at home since I was a toddler."

Professor Fen slapped his hands
together. "Very nice, Lari! And very correct. Would you like to
demonstrate for the class?"

"I'd love to." She
looked again at Madori and spoke with just the hint of scorn.
"Obviously, not all students are as knowledgeable."

Lari rose to her feet, smoothed
her fine robes, and strutted toward the head of the class. She held
her hands out toward the vial.

"First I choose the air as
my material," Lari said. "The air will compress around the
vial, eventually lifting it. Now I must claim that air. That is the
hard part . . . hard for some, at least." Another look at
Madori. "But I've been practicing claiming materials for many
years. I will imagine the air—its little particles, the different
gases floating within it, and claim control of it."

"The only gas here is the
hot air leaving her mouth," Madori muttered to Tam.

Lari continued as if she hadn't
heard. "I've now claimed the air and can change it." She
raised her hand slowly. Two feet away, the vial began to levitate. "I
am not magicking the vial itself; I am manipulating the air beneath
and around it." She lowered her hand and the vial descended back
onto the table. "Choose, claim, change."

She gave a little curtsy, then
returned to her seat.

"Fantastic!" said
Professor Fen, clapping enthusiastically. Several other students
clapped too. "It's wonderful to see such a bright student. I'd
have also accepted changing the glass itself to become lighter than
air, but that would have been far less elegant, and would often cause
the glass to shatter. Well done, Lady Serin."

Lari beamed and shot Madori a
triumphant look.

Madori raised two fingers,
knuckles facing Lari, a gesture so rude her mother—were she here to
see—would have beaten Madori with a belt. Lari—raised in a palace
where the rudest gesture was probably lifting the wrong dessert
spoon—blanched and looked away, lips scrunching together.

"Don't goad her," Tam
said.

Madori grumbled. "Just me
being at Teel goads her. I might as well have some fun with it."

"Now!" said Professor
Fen from across the room. "You will each find an assortment of
items on your table. Choose one and levitate it. I will be moving
between the desks to guide you."

Across the classroom, students
began to mumble, squint, and thrust out their tongues, concentrating
at lifting items off the tables. Conchs, animal skulls, chalices, and
bubbling vials rattled across tables. Only Lari was successfully
levitating an item: her Radian pin.

Madori stared at a pewter dragon
statuette that stood on her table. She sucked in her breath, trying
to claim the air. How did one claim air? When she glanced aside, she
saw that Neekeya was staring at a wooden toy knight, her tongue
thrust out in concentration; the figure was rattling. Jitomi was
having some success levitating a Venus flytrap, but the pot kept
falling back down after rising only an inch. Tam seemed as lost as
Madori; the mouse skull he was staring at simply stared back.

Madori returned her eyes to the
dragon statuette. It stood still upon the table, clutching a crystal.

Go
on,
Madori thought,
rise!

"Having trouble, mongrel?"
Lari came to stand beside her. She leaned against Madori's desk and
smiled. "You don't seem to be doing too well."

"Get back to your desk,
dear cousin, or I'm going to slam this dragon against your pretty
face."

Lari
pouted. "Oh,
tsk tsk
,
such a temper on the little half-breed. Must be your savage
nightcrawler blood." She crossed her arms. "Go on, let's
see your magic."

Madori growled and returned her
eyes to the figurine. She sucked in air through her nose, trying to
detect its texture, the icy coolness, the smells of the bubbling
potions.

Feel
the air,
she told herself.
Claim
it. Make it yours.

She let the air flow through
her, moving down her throat to her lungs, then spreading throughout
the rest of her, tingling her toes and fingertips. With every breath,
she let that air flow through every part of her, tingling the hair on
her head and wrapping around her bones.

Now
change that air. Wrap it around the dragon and lift.

Upon the tabletop, the figurine
began to rise.

Madori gasped.

"You're doing it, Madori!"
Neekeya said.

Focus.
Focus!

Madori tried to ignore everyone
else, to direct all her attention toward the figurine. She raised it
another inch, then another, until it hovered at eye level. A smile
stretched across her lips.

With
a
whoosh
,
the dragon figurine shot forward and slammed into Madori's face.

She cried out and blood spurted
from her nose.

The statuette clattered to the
floor.

"Stupid mongrel," Lari
said, smiling crookedly. "You didn't think it was you lifting
it, did you?" She clucked her tongue. "Looks like the one
with a face full of dragon is you."

Madori leaped to her feet and
lunged toward Lari, fists swinging. Arms wrapped around her, tugging
her back.

"No, Billygoat!" Tam
said, pinning her arms to her sides. "You're only giving her
what she wants."

Lari's eyes widened and she
laughed. "Billygoat? Does the mongrel have a nickname?" She
sighed. "She does smell like a goat."

Professor Fen rushed toward
them, mustache bristling. "What is the meaning of this?"
His eyes widened to see Madori's bashed nose. "What happened
here?"

Suddenly Lari's face changed
from cruel to distressed, and tears budded in her eyes. Her voice
rose an octave, taking on a childlike quality. "Oh, Professor
Fen! I was just trying to help her. She accidentally magicked the
figurine onto her face, and when I went to check on her, she suddenly
attacked me."

"I did not!" Madori
shouted. "I— I mean— She hit me and—"

Lari covered her eyes. "Oh,
Professor Fen! She frightens me. Can you punish her?"

"But—" Madori began.

"Enough!"
Professor Fen's bald head flushed red. "Madori, go to the
infirmary. Get your nose taken care of. Then report to the stables
and spend the rest of the turn helping the horse master. You may
return to your classes next turn—
if
you've learned how to behave."

As Madori stormed out of the
class, her eyes burning, she heard Lari's voice rise behind her.

"I say, some girls simply
can't curb their temper . . ."

When she was outside the room,
Madori allowed her tears to flow. They streamed down her cheeks and
dampened her robes, mingling with her blood. She heard the other
students laughing inside the classroom, and Madori imagined them all
mocking her. She leaned against the corridor's wall, her tears
streaming, her chest shaking.

I
never imagined it like this,
she
thought.
I miss
you, Father and Mother. I miss you so much. I miss home.

A lump filled her throat. She
didn't want to go to the infirmary. She wanted to run outside the
university, to hitch a ride with a peddler, to travel all the way
home to Fairwool-by-Night. Why had she ever fought with her mother?
Now Madori only wanted her mother to hug her, to smooth her hair, to
tell her it would be all right.

"I'm sorry, Mama," she
whispered, voice hoarse. "I miss you. I love you."

She walked outside, her sleeve
held to her bleeding nose, and stood in the courtyard. Rainclouds
were gathering and a drizzle fell. The columns and towers of Teel
rose around her, marvels of architecture, and the domed library rose
behind them, the world's greatest center of knowledge. Beauty and
wonder surrounded Madori, but as rain and tears fell, she only wanted
to return to her village.

"I can leave," she
whispered. "I can sell my books and uniform in the town, and
I'll have money for food, and I can travel home."

She let memories of
Fairwool-by-Night fill her: her cottage with the garden of sunflowers
and peonies, her horse Hayseed, her old bed and books, her rag dolls,
her parents.

But even standing here, she knew
that something was missing from that image.

There
were no friends waiting for her at home. There was no future, no
dream
,
not for her. Her parents had fought in the war; they had achieved
greatness, and they had found peace in a quiet village and with each
other. But she, Madori—what great things had she done?

She took a slow breath. Her
father's words returned to her.

To
survive, you only have to breathe the next breath. Breath by breath.

She took another trembling
breath.

She was still here. She was
still surviving, still at Teel.

"When you went to war,
Mother and Father, you suffered too. And you could have gone back
home, but you kept fighting." She laughed weakly. "You
fought armies. I can handle Lari."

She nodded and wiped the blood
off her face. A smile trembling on her lips, she decided to skip the
infirmary. She headed straight to the stables, and when she stepped
into their shadows, her smile widened.

For several hours, she tended to
the horses—and she hugged them, and she whispered her fears to them,
and they were her friends.

And
I have human friends here too,
she whispered.
I
have Tam and Neekeya and Jitomi. My motley crew.

When she left the stables, she
felt better than she had in turns. She would stay, she vowed, no
matter what. She would not let Lari drive her away.

"I swear to you, stars of
Eloria," she whispered to the cloudy sky, imagining those stars
hiding beyond rain, cloud, and light. "I will become a mage."

 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
SUNLIGHT AND MOTLEY

The bells of Teel University,
high in the northeastern tower, rang the end of the turn. Madori's
parents claimed that thousands of years ago, the world would turn,
that night would follow day in an endless dance. The bells of
Teel—like the hourglass her parents kept at home—tracked the old
days and nights. With Moth frozen, Timandra now basked in endless
daylight, and Eloria hid in eternal shadow, but still the bells rang,
forcing the old cycle upon the university. Madori supposed she was
the only student here used to such a routine; each turn was the same
twenty-four hours her parents used back home.

Rubbing her sore shoulders—she
had worked her arms down to the bone in the stables—she stepped into
the eastern arcade, the dormitory for first year students. For a
moment she stood in shadows, staring ahead. Here was the long,
covered walkway that formed one of the cloister's four facades. A
colonnade of many columns rose to Madori's left, affording a view of
the cobbled courtyard and General Woodworth, the old elm tree. A long
succession of archways rose above her, engraved with ancient runes. A
brick wall, lined with doorways, rose to her right. First year
students were moving back and forth, stepping in and out of chambers.
Sounds of laughter, gossip, and even crying wafted down the arcade.

Madori
bit her lip.
My
new home.

With a deep breath, she took a
step forward, emerging from shadows.

At once, all the sounds of
conversation and laughter died. Everyone turned to stare at Madori.

She raised her chin, squared her
shoulders, and walked down the arcade.

Let
them stare,
she thought.
People
have been staring at me all my life.

She kept walking as eyes
followed her. She was a half-breed. She was a freak on show for them.
But she would walk with pride, as she always had—the girl with crazy
hair, with the bronze skin of a Timandrian and the large, lavender
eyes of an Elorian, with the famous parents adored or vilified across
the world, with the fire inside her to learn magic—a fire none could
tame. She walked by them all as they stared—Timandrians who
whispered and gasped, Elorians who stood in shadowy corners. They
were day and night, and she—she was the dusk.

Halfway down the gallery, she
passed by Sunlit Purity, Lari's quartet. The four were leaning
against the wall, the door to their chamber ajar. They had hung a
Radian banner upon the door, and as Madori walked by, they shot her
dirty glances. Derin, the tall blond boy, muttered something about
mongrels under his breath. The twins—Fae and Kae—snickered.

"You stink of horse,"
Lari said as Madori walked by her.

Madori paused and turned to give
Lari a cold stare. "I had a doll that looked like you at
home—all golden tresses and freckled cheeks." Madori smiled
thinly. "I ripped off her head and used it as a ball. Do you
think your head would roll too?"

As Lari paled and covered her
mouth, Madori gave her a wink and walked on.

Farther down the colonnade,
Madori reached an open door and saw her friends inside the chamber.
She stepped in and closed the door behind her.

"I'm telling you!"
Neekeya was saying, standing with her hands on her hips. Her sword
and helmet, shaped like crocodiles, hung on the wall behind her. "My
pillow is magical! I brought it especially from home, and it always
gives you good dreams."

Jitomi was sitting on a bed,
painting a dragon onto a vellum scroll; it looked like the dragon
tattoo that coiled up his neck. "I have never heard of such
magic." The Elorian's eyes gleamed in the shadows of his hood.