Free Aldwyn's Academy by Nathan Meyer

heart up and forced his legs to move.
    “She’s getting away,” he said, turning his head to Caleb.
    The moonlight reflected in a brilliant sheen off the frozen water of the Reflection Pool and illuminated Caleb with a ghostly glow.
    Behind him the academy stood mute and mostly dark, as if the building were asleep. With the half-orc boy just behind him, Dorian ran across the grounds. He slowed as he came to the Ever-Changing Maze entrance.
    Then he plunged into the dark mouth of the maze.
    Instantly there was a rustle of branches moving around him and the walls of the magically constructed labyrinth changed and shifted. Dorian spread his arms out and half squatted as if afraid he’d fall over.
    He found himself standing in a long narrow run with walls rising above his head, blocking out the already scant light.
    “Wow,” he whispered.
    “Dorian!” Caleb suddenly called.
    Dorian spun around and realized to his horror that Caleb was gone.
    He stepped forward, right up against the branches and dense-packed leaves. He could hear Caleb moving on the other side.
    “Caleb?” he called.
    “I’ve been caught in the shift, I’m fine,” Caleb said urgently. “Find the center, then you can get out. I’ll wait for you outside. Don’t get caught by Helene!” he added in a tense whisper.
    “Right, I’ll wait for you on the other side!”
    “I’ll see you there.”
    Dorian heard a final rustle and then the half-orc student was gone.
    The shifting of the maze was the most overtly magical thing he had witnessed so far and it was impressive.
    He blinked, mouth still open in wonder, and when his eyes opened the maze changed again. He stood in the bend of an L-turn and he felt panic rise up in him.
    He was lost already.
    Then he heard the thud of footfalls running just over the next hedge and instinctively he followed the sound. He wasn’t going to find his way out on his own, he knew. He wasn’t good at things like this, at puzzles or mathematics or riddles.
    Once again he’d jumped into water that was over his head.
    He raced forward, turned left, turned right, ran into a dead end and turned around, took a left, and raced down a long, straight passage.
    At the back of his mind he remembered what Helene had told him earlier in the day about the spell that any student could use on the grounds of Aldwyns. It would trace the route back to safety in a mystical blue light; but he was still too stubborn to use the spell.
    He had something to prove and now he felt like he couldn’t let Caleb down so easily, not after his roommate had risked serious trouble to help him.
    Not yet anyway. He could still hear her, and as long as he could he didn’t want to give up.
    Suddenly he ran through a patch of darkness so inky black it blinded him and he slowed his pace, thrusting his hands out in front of him in confusion.
    He reached out and felt a wall of twisted branches, hard leaves, and evergreen needles before him in a wall. The maze had shifted again and his long run turned into a blind alley.
    He spun and set the muscles of his legs ready to run.
    Tattered shreds of mist formed thick cobwebs among the dark pillars of the tall, sculpted bushes.
    His fears grew exponentially.
    Magic was dangerous. Magic was power, and powerwas always dangerous in the same way his father’s sword, always used to protect, was dangerous.
    Dorian knew that Aldwyns wasn’t a place parents sent their children to die, and the danger of the power was supposed to be contained by the skill and ability of Lowadar and his staff.
    But cold and tired and scared and alone in the dark, Dorian began to suspect that something was happening at Aldwyns. Something bad was happening right now, something that Lowadar had not guessed the full extent of yet.
    In the frost upon the ground between patches of snow, Dorian spied wolf tracks.
    The great dire wolves that hunted and fed upon the giant caribou and reindeer in the dark forest beyond the walls of Aldwyns were on the