The Sixth School Book Ii Ch 016

Author's note.

1). Remember, your help in pointing out errors will help keep me from having to take long periods off to edit. Your help in this is much appreciated.

2). Feedback from my readers is my fuel to keep writing. If you enjoy my work, please take the time to let me know in the comments. It does wonders for my motivation to write.

3). If you read the chapter, please take the time to rate it. It's just a few clicks of the screen.

***

All Characters in the story are 18 years of age and above...

***

Chapter Sixteen: Not My Slave...

Calyn hadn't been sure what to expect. The fearful part of her had been scared that living with Roka would be like living with a tyrant, someone who expected whatever he said to be treated like law. Reality, however, entirely contradicted this. Not only was he not the kind to order others around, but he made it a point to consult with those close to him when making most decisions. And more than just consulting, he actually listened to what advice the ones he consulted had to offer. That in itself wouldn't have been that odd if those around him were powerful mages with a deep knowledge of either magic or the world at large. However, only two out of five people around Roka had any magic to begin with. The first was his guard, Olivia as he'd called her. Calyn had yet to establish what school of magic she belonged to. The other was the flame-haired young man who was seated at the same table as Roka on the Airship. Lothar, a fire mage of the second tier. The other three around Roka were just mundane women. Two of the three were his immediate family, so Calyn could understand why he kept them close. In a way, it improved her opinion of him to see just how much he cared for them. It reminded Calyn that, despite the scary fact that this young man was somehow linked with a deity, he was still human. He had people he loved and worried about. And from what she could see, the feeling was mutual. The one that had left Calyn completely confused was the final woman. Despite straining her mana senses, she couldn't feel even a hint of magic coming off her. And yet, for some reason, Roka had repeatedly referred to this woman as teacher.

Beneath the fear, some small part of Calyn had been curious about what profound secrets of magic she would learn by serving a deity for a hundred cycles. Even with the prospect of a hundred cycles of being the deity's servant, Calyn's obsession with rising through the tiers and growing in power hadn't abated even in the least. A small, optimistic, and perhaps even naïve part of her had been hoping that the deity would share some knowledge that it considered trivial but would take her understanding of magic to the next level. Reality, however, was sorely disappointing. Forget sharing with her, the deity wasn't even sharing knowledge with his vessel. Any hope that world-shattering secrets would be shared with her was firmly laid to rest when she discovered that of all people Roka had a mundane woman as his teacher. But beyond her shock at how normal Roka seemed, how weak the people around him were, and the fact he had a mundane woman for a teacher, one odd fact still stood out to her. None of them were scared of him.

Calyn had been around enough powerful people to know how people acted around them. Unless the powerful individual was in a bad mood or known to be erratic, they rarely showed open fear. Instead, the people around them would do their best to act casual, maybe even try to be friendly. It, however, was a thin veneer. Underneath it all, there was always a subtle tension. The realization that you were in a cage with a tiger and that any breath you took was only because that tiger deigned to let you do so. Should that change at any time, then as sure as the rising of the sun, you would stop breathing. There was none of that with those around Roka. Here was someone who had stood toe to toe with two seventh-tier mages from the Draknar alliance and gotten them to back down. He had crushed a fifth-tier mage like he was little more than a bug. And yet his sister felt comfortable enough to joke and tease him over his losses at a board game. His mother had lightly admonished Roka when he'd been late to join them for dinner with zero fear that anything bad would happen to her for it. And to his credit, rather than flexing his power, Roka had instead apologized to his mother before kissing her on the forehead.

The only one who showed the reaction she expected was Lothar. While he did his best to play it down, Calyn had noticed the unconscious tension in the fire mage any time Roka was around. After three days of observing them, however, Calyn hadn't seen Roka mistreat the young man in any way. It didn't take long for her to work out the fact that he was afraid not because of anything Roka had done, but because he knew who Roka was linked to. In other words, like her, he was aware that Roka was the vessel for a deity, which he couldn't help but fear. But as for Roka's conduct, after three days of observing him, if Calyn hadn't been at the steps to the Governor's castle, she would have had no way of knowing that Roka was in any way linked with a deity.

As for her, she was in the awkward position of not knowing what to do with herself. Roka's guard, Olivia, was the one who had come to pick her up from the airship at the end of the day that she had been given to bid her family goodbye. On the way to the inn they were currently staying at, Olivia had made it clear that she was not to speak of the deity unless someone else brought it up first. She was only to abide by whatever instructions she would be given and try to carry out her tasks to the best of her ability. She had also been warned that should she try to harm Roka or anyone close to him or betray them in any way, her death wouldn't be quick. Calyn couldn't help but shudder as she remembered the woman's dark gaze as she said this. The look that Olivia gave Calyn told her that the woman was fully capable of dragging out the torture for weeks, months, or even cycles before she was granted the mercy of death. With such a cold reception from Olivia, Calyn had been expecting more of the same from Roka. When they got to the inn, however, all Roka did was turn to the others with him and introduce her. "This is Calyn, she'll be staying with us for a while." With that brief intro, he'd asked Olivia to show her to her room and help her get settled in.

That had been three days ago.

When Olivia had come for her, Calyn had prepared herself for the worst. Who knows what dastardly thing Roka would ask of her? She'd even been prepared to heed her aunt's warning. She wasn't happy about it, but she had made peace with the fact that she might be forced to serve Roka sexually. Rather than fight the inevitable, she'd instead do what her aunt had advised and use it to her advantage in whatever way possible. Now three days later and with next to no interaction with Roka, Calyn almost wished that he would give her an order or do something that would allow her to know where she stood and what was expected of her. This was why she was currently walking towards Roka's room. A part of her was screaming at her that this was a bad idea. That she should just sit and enjoy the lack of attention from Roka. That part, however, was overshadowed by the part of her that hated being left in limbo, to squirm and wonder when the executioner's ax would fall.

Calyn could feel the pace of her heart pick up right after she'd knocked on the boy's door. Her tension, however, turned to confusion when the mundane woman that Roka referred to as 'teacher' pulled the door open. The woman herself seemed a bit surprised that Calyn was the one knocking. Still, a small smile graced her lips. "Come in," she offered, taking a step to the side to allow her passage.

"Is this not Roka's room," Calyn questioned, uncertain if she was in the wrong place.

"It is, come in," the woman reiterated,

With that confirmation, the tension was back even as Calyn walked forward into the room. Once inside, it took her a second for her to recognize what she was looking at. "A space expansion formation," she muttered as her eyes moved from one formation plate to the next. Calyn had always been fascinated with formations and how they worked. Whenever she wasn't too busy with ascension towards the next tier, she'd dabble in them, trying to learn what she could. She couldn't by any means claim to be a prodigy in them. Her understanding was at best a bit above average. Still, she knew enough to recognize this formation. This was a common enough formation that was often used to expand space making a room bigger on the inside than what its dimensions on the outside would suggest.

The formation here, however, hadn't been used to increase the size of the boy's room. Instead, it only covered a small section of the room. If her assessment of the formation plates was correct and this was a tier-three space expansion formation, then the space inside the formation was probably ten times bigger than the rest of the room. This was why Calyn wasn't confused by the fact that both Roka and Olivia seemed to have shrunk to about half her size. From outside the formation, it might seem like they were just a few steps away, but in reality, they were quite a distance away in terms of actual space. This miniaturization effect was the mind's way of making sense of the distortion in distance.

Trailing after the mundane woman, the two of them stepped inside the bounds of the formation just as Roka was sent flying across the vast carpeted expanse by a blow from Olivia. Had she been a mundane human, Calyn wouldn't have been able to follow the fight. She, however, was a second-tier body-enhancing mage closing in on the third tier. Her eyes could easily track what would have otherwise been little more than a blur of motion. Besides, as a member of the Sydrak clan, she'd had the chance to watch seniors in the clan at the fourth or fifth tier duel each other. In such bouts, even she struggled to keep track of their movements. Compared to that, keeping track of the two before her was child's play. The fact that she could follow everything that was happening, however, left her eyes wide with shock at the brutality on display.

Neither one held back in their attacks. Roka had barely stopped flying across the field before them when Olivia's foot landed on the ground where his chest would have been if Roka hadn't immediately rolled away. He'd barely risen to one knee when he crossed his arms to block Olivia's kick from slamming into his chest. Using the force of the kick, Roka jumped backward onto his feet. Barely half a second later, he was charging forward ready to body-check his guard into the ground. Back when she began fighting, Calyn would have seen this as a slugfest and nothing more. Each party seemed intent on landing as many devastating blows as possible. Now that she was a more experienced fighter, however, Calyn could pick out the subtleties of each party's approach to the fight.

While it might have seemed that Olivia was landing a lot more blows, she didn't seem to be doing as much damage as an equivalent blow from Roka. By the same token, however, while he was taking more blows than Olivia, Roka seemed capable of taking the hits better than his guard, making him more willing to take damage in exchange for causing damage of his own on Olivia. So this was an elaborate dance where they each tried to guide the combat in a direction that would benefit them and disadvantage their enemy. Roka did his best to limit Olivia's maneuverability and force the fight into close quarters where he could do the maximum damage. Olivia on the other hand, was an elusive ghost, always dancing in and out of Roka's reach and doing everything she could to ensure she could attack and withdraw freely.

"You might as well sit, they'll be at this for another hour or so," a voice reached her from the side.

Calyn turned to find the woman that Roka considered his teacher seated cross-legged on the ground. Calyn couldn't help but glance back at the two rampaging individuals just a short distance away from where they were. "Aren't you worried that you might be hurt unintentionally?" She questioned.

The woman smiled, looking amused at the prospect. "I'm not that easy to hurt," she stated calmly.

Calyn believed her. It was such a jarring realization that she had to check her mana senses once more to confirm that she was indeed a mundane woman. Having grown up around powerful individuals in the fifth and sixth tier, there was a subtle confidence in the bearing of such people that Calyn had come to unconsciously pick up on. Looking at the woman before her, there was that same confidence in her bearing. A part of her was tempted to test the woman. Calyn was, after all, a second-tier body-enhancing mage, to be cowed by a mundane woman hit at her pride as a mage. The thought, however, vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Roka, her new master, considered this woman to be his teacher. From what she had seen the past three days, not only did this woman command a lot of Roka's respect, but he cared about her a lot. If Calyn hurt her, there'd be no telling what he would do.

Taking a seat beside Roka's teacher, Calyn watched the two before them go at it. The woman had been right, Calyn was treated to another hour of pure carnage as Roka and his guard almost seemed intent on breaking each other down. If not for their resilient bodies, both of them would have both been a broken mess on the ground. Calyn was glad to wait as it gave her time to compose her thoughts. She had decided to approach the young man, but she didn't really know what to say to him. She wasn't even sure that there was a particular thing she wanted to say to him, she just hated the ambiguity of his silence and wanted to know where she stood.

An hour later, the ground was flecked with blood from Roka whose body was covered in various bruises and injuries. He may have been a lot tougher than a mundane human, but he wasn't impervious to damage. One of his eyes was swollen shut, his lip was split, and Calyn could see red on his teeth as the boy grinned in wild satisfaction as if he'd just engaged in a most exhilarating pastime. His whole body was covered in several bruises that left parts of him discolored. On her part, Olivia seemed completely undamaged. If she had met the woman just outside Roka's room, Calyn would never have been able to tell that she'd just spent the last hour pummeling Roka and likewise being pummeled into the ground. Calyn, however, wasn't surprised by this in the least. The woman was a shape-shifter. Trusting the appearance of a shape-shifter was something only a fool would do.

Besides, this was a hive scroll clone. At first, Calyn had thought that Olivia had a twin when they arrived at the inn to find someone looking exactly like her, already there. Just yesterday, however, the clone that was always hanging around Roka's family had run out of magic and broken up into motes of light that dispersed into the air. The clone that had led her here had then taken its place. The fact that Roka's family didn't seem surprised by this, told Calyn that they were used to this by now. Calyn had mustered up the courage to ask about it and learned that all the versions of her that were currently at the inn with them were her clones. The real her was actually at the Governor's castle negotiating with the mages from the Draknar alliance.

Favoring his right leg, Roka limped toward them, or more particularly, toward his teacher. There was a look of slight surprise on his face when he noticed her seated beside the woman. Still, the pain he was in didn't allow him to dwell on it too much as he continued his approach. Roka's teacher held out her palm to him just as he reached them, on it was a storage ring. Roka pulled it onto his finger before taking out a weeping flower tincture from it. Calyn couldn't help but wince when he emptied half the vial into his mouth. Weeping flower tinctures were one of the highest-quality healing potions of the third tier. Having one could mean the difference between life and death in a critical situation. Not even she, someone from a powerful clan, had that many vials of it. She most definitely would never use one to recover from training injuries, other less potent and more commonly available potions would suffice for that purpose.

Still, the effects of the potent potion showed immediately as all the bruises across his body faded, his split lip sealed up and the eye that was swollen shut slowly came back to normal. In short order, Roka was standing before them bare-chested and fully healed. Calyn had to force herself to look away when she found her gaze drifting down from his face, to his broad chest and his rock-hard abs, the sheen of sweat covering him somehow making him even more alluring.

"Just because you can take damage and keep going doesn't mean you let every attack land," the woman next to her spoke. "I can understand a sacrificial strategy and taking damage in exchange for causing it, but at least half of the injuries you suffered were unnecessary," she advised.

"Sorry, I got a bit carried away," Roka answered with a sheepish smile. He then turned to her. "Calyn, I didn't expect you here," he voiced, clearly curious about what she wanted.

Mustering up her courage, she spoke. "It's been three days since I was brought here by your guard, and in that time, you've barely said anything to me other than introduce me to those with you. If I'm going to be serving you for the next hundred cycles, I need to at least know what is expected of me," She said choosing to be direct rather than beat about the bush.

A sigh left the young man, a grimace crossing his face that told Calyn that for some reason, he hadn't been looking forward to this conversation. "Let me bathe first and we can talk after," he conceded.

Calyn had to bite down her tongue to control the impulse to say that she was perfectly okay with him staying as he currently was. "I'll be waiting," she eventually managed.

***

There was a long silence at the table as Roka seemed to take his time and compose his thoughts. Calyn herself didn't know how to proceed now that they were sitting face to face. What was she supposed to do? Should she ask what his orders were? Or was that too direct? Should she try to get to know him better? Or would he take it the wrong way and think she was being too familiar and overstepping her station as a servant? Should she seize the initiative and try to seduce him? Or would she be cheapening herself in his eyes? Before this conversation, had someone asked her if she was the nervous type, she would have said no. Now, however, with her heart hammering inside her chest, Calyn couldn't help the questions and doubts that plagued her whenever she thought to speak or do something. Mercifully, the boy spoke up in the end, sparing her the need to.

"Morpheus," he began. "That's what I call him, the deity that I'm linked to. He and I are like two riders on the same horse. When one takes the reins the other can only sit back and watch where the rider takes them," Roka laid out.

Calyn wasn't sure why he was explaining this to her, but she couldn't help but feel her dread spike as she asked. "Does... does that mean he is watching right now?" She questioned, not at all liking the idea of having a deity's attention on her.

Rather than answer, a small smile crossed Roka's lips even as the color of his eyes changed. The light caramel-brown color of his irises faded even as what looked like a nebula of stars took their place. Back at the Governor's castle, this had been what Roka's eyes looked like when the deity had taken him over. Calyn swallowed hard, doing her best to push back down the spike of fear that threatened to overwhelm her. Last time, those from the Draknar alliance had been the deity's true focus and those from the Sydrak clan only a side distraction. Now, however, she was the sole focus of the deity and Calyn couldn't shake the strong urge to shrink under that gaze. Before she could bow, however, color quickly seeped back into his eyes and Roka was once again in control.