Chapter 29

Ana woke up to her alarm the next day. Quickly getting dressed, she checked her schedule for the day and proceeded to pack her bag.

Reaching for the mana stone on her bedside table, she held it in her hand eagerly. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on channeling mana, to see if the blinding light she experienced last night would repeat itself. To her disappointment, the stone only emitted a dim glow, far from the intense light she had produced the night before. Although it was still brighter than any attempt she had witnessed Meghan make, it was nowhere near as powerful as her own attempt the previous night.

Brushing off the despondency, she walked over to knock the door to Meghan's room. "Come in, it's open!"

Meghan was almost ready when she stepped in, so Ana went on to make Meghan's bed while her friend dried her long red hair. "I won't be training with Khai today. Elliot will train with me instead." She said, trying her best to keep her voice even.

"Why's that?"

"The legacies have special training today and Khai has soccer practice right after training."

"I didn't know they played soccer at Arcane." She proceeded to brush her hair down aggressively before securing it into a ponytail with a hair tie.

"Me either, but it seems to be a big deal. He has to practice every night after dinner for all of next month."

Meghan noticed Ana's subconscious frown and gave her an amused smile. "You already miss him, don't you?"

"Well Meg… what? NO!" Meghan caught Ana off guard and laughed as her friend shuffled to collect herself.

As the classes went on, time flew by and before they knew it, Margarett's class was over. She had assigned several theoretical books for the students to read before their next class and the pressure was on. Next up was a challenging metrology class, which Ana and Meghan took extra seriously, being aware of their weaker grasp on the subject.

The three hours of classes took a toll on the girls and they were both left feeling exhausted and hungry. They wasted no time and made a beeline for the dining hall.

Ana was walking towards her table when she saw Alex running to make his way toward her. "Hey Ana!" he greeted her cheerfully. Although his face was red and his forehead was dripping with sweat, his sounded unusually energetic as he approached her.

"Alex! What brings you here today?"

"I'm here to relay some information to you. I have to run back to archer training, but Elliot asked me to tell you that he'll come get you outside your room at 7:15 this evening. Just wait for his text."

"He doesn't have to…" Ana was about to tell him that she would meet Elliot at the training grounds and that he should not trouble himself to come get her from her room. Alex, however, had already turned around to race out of the dining hall at astonishing speed.

George joined the two of them for lunch with a large pile of meat on his plate. Although Ana felt like she ate a lot of food, she started to feel comforted when she ate around the Wahrens lately. They seemed to have an exceptional appetite that made hers feel small in comparison.

"What're you girls doing after lunch?" George guzzled a whole grape soda like it was water before helping himself to some fries.

Ana noticed that he gained some weight in little time that they were at Arcane. Although he had a bigger build than the average Wahren, George was still smaller than Khai and Elliot in comparison

"We were going to go to the library to catch up on some studying before I train with you"

"Oh! I'll come with. I want to pick something up for later tonight."

Holding two books as thick as her arms, Ana walked out of the library with George and Meghan. Meghan was giving George an animated replay of how they struggled in metrology as Ana walked with her eyes cast down.

Guilt pricked her as George hovered around her making sure she wasn't alone for a second in the library. He walked out empty handed, holding the books Meghan picked for herself, claiming that he found nothing interesting. He looked exhausted from training all morning and she knew he could best use this time to get some rest. She realized that he had only offered to come with them because he didn't want her in there alone.

Suddenly George grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him. She looked up in shock at his abrupt actions and noticed that he was standing face to face, snarling at Sean Perkins.

"I just wanted to say hello." His wretched voice made Ana wince.

"Over my dead body." George said through gritted teeth.

Anaya cast her eyes down as she felt a familiar fear wash over her. Her palms grew sweaty as she struggled to hold on to her books. She tried to focus on her breathing, glad that George was here to protect her when the anklet Khai gave her came into view. Slowly, she felt the fear shrink back, replaced by a rush of anger.

Gripping her books tightly, she stepped ahead of George and pushed her head up to meet Sean's gaze.

"Move over or I'll scream." She said bluntly.

He looked at her with a mixture of anger and disbelief as she stood before him, unafraid. He was taken aback by her boldness and the fact that she not only managed to meet his gaze, but also proceeded to threaten him. Her current behavior was a stark contrast to her previous demeanor of cowering and submission, leaving Sean momentarily speechless.

Anaya looked him in the eyes and repeated herself, louder this time. "I said move over, or I'll scream so loud that the entire main building will come rip you into pieces."

Sean darted his eyes from George to Meghan to Anaya. All three of them were shooting daggers as they stood fiercely in front of him. A few students outside the library paused to stare at the commotion.

Sean seemed taken aback by the sudden bravery. Sensing his disadvantage, his face morphed into a venomous scowl and he gnashed his teeth at Anaya. His expression was fuming as he rammed into her shoulder while walking away, leaving Ana shocked at her victory.

"That was amazing!" Meghan beamed proudly at Ana. "I was holding my breath the whole time. I mean, babe you were all hot and angry and I love that. But Ana, you looked like a lioness! What has Khai done to you?"

"You should never stop training Ana. Meghan's right! You're a lioness! Did you see the expression on that scumbag?"

George and Meghan showered her with praises while Ana stared back at them with a small smile, trying to calm her heartbeats. Her face turned red and her hands shook, but she felt rapturous.

Pieces of herself that Sean had shattered a long time ago slowly started to attach themselves back together. A blissful sense of peace enveloped her as she continued walking back to her room.

George walked them to the entrance at the women's dormitories and went back to get some rest before he started ranger training.

Settling themselves in Meghan's room, the girls threw themselves into their course material. Ana focused on understanding the principles of mana flow and how to channel it through her body. She read about different elemental energies and how to harness them to expand healing abilities.

She realized that the key to improving mana affinity was to understand the importance of balance and control. Channeling too much mana could potentially hurt the Healer or the subject that they were healing while loosing control of one's mana would disrupt it's flow, causing harm to anyone in it's way.

She absently stroked her lilac mana stone as she flipped the pages of the tome Margarett had prescribed for them to read. She suddenly noticed a large gap, as if some pages were missing from the book and inspected the page numbers. Referring back to the index, she saw three chapters blacked out. Someone had torn nearly fifty pages from the book.

Unable to make any sense of the blacked out text, she decided to ask Margarett in her next class if she had a better volume with all the pages intact.

Before long, her phone alarm buzzed. She waved goodbye to Meghan, who was engrossed in studying the healing properties of the boswellia serrate, and rushed back to her room to get changed for training.