Free Soul Fire by Aprille Legacy

and instead replaced the cloth on the
table. She placed one finger on my jaw, near where the
whip weal ended, and another finger just above my left
eye, where the weal began. She closed her eyes, and a
second later, the pain vanished altogether.
“What did you just do?”
She looked at me in disbelief.
“I... I healed you,” she whispered, like she didn’t quite
believe it herself.
I touched my face, but any mark of the injury was gone.
“Larni, you’re a mage!”
“No, I’m not,” she stood up quickly and backed against
the door. “My parents tested me when I was four! The
tester said I didn’t have a trace!”
“He got it wrong then,” I approached my mirror and
examined my face. My skin was as unmarked as it was
before.
Larni fled before I could stop her.

~Chapter Six~
    I kept touching my face as I descended the stairs. My
skin was as smooth as it had been before Eleanora’s whip.
When I reached the bottom of the steps, my classmates
were filing out of the doors. Dena and the others saw me
coming down the stairs and waited for me to catch up.
“Your face!” Ispin said when I got closer.
    “What about it?” I asked, trying to reign in all kinds of
sarcastic responses.
“It’s healed!”
“Well I hope it’s an improvement on before,” I said, and
then, eager to get off of the topic, “Where are we headed
now?”
“Riding lessons,” Dena said, still examining my eye
suspiciously. “Should be interesting.”
It was. The sun was burning down, and the stables were
even hotter. We spent the first half an hour in there,
learning how to take care of the tack and our horses. After
polishing leather for what felt like half of my life, aching
with muscles I didn’t know I had, we were allowed to lead
our horses to the paddock beside the stables, and mount.
I managed to get my left foot in the stirrup, but I was
too short to hoist myself off of the ground. After a few
seconds of struggling, our teacher, Professor Alena, gave
me a leg up, and I sat up proudly in the saddle. To my
dismay, I realised that I’d been the last one to achieve this,
and everyone was having a laugh at my struggle.
Everyone except Phoenix, who stared blankly ahead. I
pulled a face at him when he turned away, and then
immediately felt childish.
Once we’d managed to get lined up, Professor Alena
began to instruct us in how to communicate with our
horses. When we began to negotiate a course made out of
old barrels at a walking pace, I noticed everyone else had
to dig their heels in to convince their steed to move. Echo
seemed more than eager to move off, and I adjusted my
weight as I needed to. We manoeuvred the course with
the most ease out of everyone and I was feeling a little
better about myself when we were told to dismount. I did
so, not very gracefully, my legs almost buckling when
they hit the ground. The sun was beginning to set, but
even so, we groomed our horses and cleaned the tack and
then limped back to the Academy for dinner.
Classes didn’t really end when dinner did. My
classmates set off to the practice hall to redo their lesson
with Professor Yu, and Eleanora and I were assigned to
the kitchens.
“Wash these,” the red faced head cook told us, pointing
us towards a staggering stack of dirty dishes. “Clean
enough so you can see your reflections. I’ll be the judge of
whether they’re clean or not. No magic.”
She bustled off to yell at someone else, and Eleanora
and I set to cleaning the dishes, avoiding looking at each
other. After an hour, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Do you really think yourself above them?” I asked her
quietly, beginning to dry the plate she handed me.
“It is how we’ve lived,” she repeated. “For thousands of
years.”
I didn’t try to speak to her again. I knew it was
pointless.
~
     
I was just opening the door to my room when I heard
my name being called.
    “Sky!” I glanced around and saw Dena poking her head
out of her room.