Way of The Wand
Chapter 26

Tomi made up in her mind to let Zaria have the first strike, so she could gauge the wizard’s strength.

The moment the battle began, Zaria manifested knives in each hand, curved blades, the type common up north where her school was located. She hurled them at Tomi the next second, giving her no warning.

Tomi dodged, twisting to one side and then the other to get out harm’s way, not realising it was part of Zaria’s plan to distract her.

By the time Tomi balanced herself again, Zaria was an inch away from her face, coming with fists glowing with fire.

Tomi jumped back, putting some much-needed space between herself and her opponent and give her free rein to move her wand as she saw fit.

Zaria set her sights on the platform of weapons, using her telekinetic control to pick them all up at once– swords, axes, spears, maces and war hammers– and sent them at Tomi.

Tomi reacted quickly, turning her wand to the incoming hurdle of weapons and yelling, “Condense.”

The objects doubled in weight, causing Zaria to lose her control over them.

They clattered to the ground one after the other, providing Tomi an opportunity to strike.

Tomi trained her wand on Zaria, the voice in her head telling her to blast the other girl away with a well-placed spell.

But Tomi hesitated, and in her moment of hesitation Zaria struck, firing a bolt of lightning at Tomi.

“Deflect!” Tomi voiced out in time just as the lightning reached her.

The surge of electrical energy bounced away from her and hit the column behind Zaria, sending chunks of marble and brick flying everywhere.

Tomi’s eyes flicked to her audience to check if they’d noticed how her hesitation to strike almost cost her.

Jira’s solemn eyes, Arron’s bewilderment, and Leonaria’s smirk gave her the answer she sought.

Tomi tore her attention away from the audience and returned to the fight.

Not a moment to soon as Zaria sprayed out deluge of flames from her hand.

Tomi jumped aside, escaping the fire and putting herself in a good position to attack.

Again, she hesitated, and this time she paid for it. Zaria froze the ground beneath her feet, stripping away her mobility.

Tomi tried to yank her feet away from the ice, but then a gust of wind from nowhere crashed into her, carrying her into the air and sending her flying into the wall.

Leonaria deliberately let out a chortle to mock Tomi. She hadn’t expected the battle to go any other way. Tomi kept hesitating like she didn’t know who she would be facing at the task of strength. If she showed mercy, she can be sure Daila would not return the favour.

“Stop!” Arron yelled out and rose to his feet.

Before he could let out another word, Jira brushed past him and hurried to Tomi.

She helped the little girl sit up.

“Are you okay?”

Tomi motioned for Jira to help her get on her feet. “Not one of my finest moments,” the young witch admitted.

Jira smiled. “You were holding back,” Jira said. “Don’t.”

Tomi saw no use in arguing or denying. It was just, defending herself came more easily to her than attacking someone else, even if it was nothing but a training spar.

Arron walked up to them then and asked if everything was okay. He was relieved to have his suspicion confirmed. Tomi’d lost not because she was incredibly outclassed but because she was afraid of hurting her opponent.

Still, he brought out something from his pocket, a gift he thought would help Tomi build her confidence.

He presented Tomi with a crystal wand.

Tomi’s hand jerked away from the crystal stick. Here she was, holding back in her fight against Zaria because she didn’t want to hurt the wizard girl, and Arron was trying to give a powerful tool to help her do just that.

“Take it,” Arron urged.

It was beautiful, the wand. It had lines and geometry running in a spiral around it and had its base covered in gold.

“Model 25,” Arron said, “has ten times the power output of your wooden wand. It’s not even on the market yet.”

Tomi had only ever held a crystal wand once. Jira’s crystal wand.

Jira had caught Tomi staring at it that day and asked Tomi if she wanted to try it out. Tomi collected the wand from Jira but was too scared to fire a spell from it and so simply returned it to Jira with thanks.

Tomi reached into her pocket and pulled out her wooden wand. She loved the wand in her hand. What would she do with it if she accepted Arron’s gift?

Confused, the young witch looked to her teacher for help.

Jira sighed. The subtle hint of longing in Tomi’s eyes didn’t escape her. She turned from Tomi to Arron and looked intently into the latter’s eyes.

“Are you sure?” She asked, questioning if he really wanted to give such a powerful wand to a fourteen-year-old.

“She’s facing wizards now,” Arron replied, “she needs the best tools she can get.”

Jira turned back to Tomi, crouching to her level. “It’s your decision,” she told the younger witch, “I can’t make it for you.”

As Tomi stared back at the transparent stick, it occurred to her that this slick crystal cylinder was the reason the Orions were being overworked so much.

The “Model 25”, as Arron called it, were billed to be released a few months from now, and the increased demands on Tartian’s workers were just so the company could meet their deadline.

Tomi felt a gall in her stomach. Wouldn’t accepting this gift betray her friendship with Lila?

Her eyes darted from the wand and found Lila.

The two girls spoke, but not with words, and when Lila nodded for Tomi to take the wand, she knew she had the only permission she needed.

Tomi took the wand off Arron’s hands and slipped her wooden one back into her pocket.

“Let’s try this again,” she said, turning to Zaria.

She drowned out Jira’s and Arron’s footsteps as they walked back to their seats. This time, she would win. No holding back.

“Go!” Arron yelled once he returned to his seat.

This time Tomi decided to attack first.

“Blast!”

The release of energy that burst from her wand made her legs shake.

But just as she said it, Zaria made the cabinet with armour parts zoom in between them so that it got hit with the spell instead, shattering and spilling its contents all over the floor.

Tomi found herself flailing from the recoil of her spell. She hadn’t made herself sturdy enough for the blast.

Zaria had noticed and had broken into a run at Tomi to exploit the witch’s mistake.

Tomi thought fast and fired a spell at the pile of metal boots and breast plates on the floor.

“Inflate.”

The armour parts blew up in size.

Zaria, unable to stop herself in time, crashed head on into the mountain of metal.

Tomi heard Zaria scream out in pain and assumed stilled with shock.

Had she hurt her opponent like she feared?

She dropped her guard, only for her to notice the oversized amour parts shake with violent force.

Before she could get out of the way, a huge boot slammed into her face, knocking Tomi to the floor for the second time.

Leonaria laughed louder and longer this time, like someone had cracked the funniest joke she’d ever heard.

“Pathetic.” She turned to Jira. “You expect this…this…to win Daila in a duel? Do the right thing and call the whole thing off. Save face while you still can.”

“Wait!” Tomi said out loud, picking herself up. “I’m not done yet.”

She and Zaria went at it again.

Zaria lashed out with a gale wind once more and Tomi simply rolled out of harm’s way.

She popped up behind Zaria, pointed her wand to the area the other girl was standing and whispered, “Oil.”

The ground underneath Zaria became covered with oil and Zaria danced around as she tried not to slip.

“Now my turn,” Tomi said before adding, “Wind,” and Zaria was sent flying into the air.

Tomi was certain she’d won until Zaria, while still in mid-air, summoned a cushion of snow to soften her fall.

The Thatchel girl straightened up and manifested two flaming boomerangs in each hand before hurling them one after the other at Tomi.

Tomi spun away from the first and ducked to dodge the second, but the first came back almost immediately and hit her in the back.

She staggered forward and tried to recover, but then the second came around and knocked her wand from her hand.

Defenceless, she tried to jump to reach her wand which had fallen a few feet away, but Zaria made the black Tartian banner fall from the top of one of the columns, and then wrapped it around Tomi, immobilizing her.

Tomi fell like a statue to the ground, losing for the third time in a row.

“I’ve seen enough of this,” Leonaria said, getting up. She walked across the room, stopped beside Tomi, flashed the little girl a look of utter disgust, then continued out and disappeared behind the oak twin doors.

Tomi felt ashamed and turned her head away as Jira came to help her up. She could not bear to look into Jira’s eyes and see the disappointment hiding behind those brown pupils.

“I’m sorry,” Tomi apologized, finally finding her voice.

“Don’t be,” Jira replied. “We’ll get you there. I promise.”

Could Jira and Arron really? How were they certain she wasn’t a lost cause? Tomi did not dare voice out these questions. She’d failed miserably fighting a random wizard student from the fourth best wizarding school. It didn’t bode well for her future match against Daila, Airad’s star student.

“There’s no hurry,” Arron said, joining the duo. “Time is still on our side. A few more training exercises like this, and you’ll become the strongest witch in the city, no, the entire kingdom.”

Arron’s words of reassurance didn’t do much to reassure Tomi. She looked down at the crystal wand he’d gifted her. What great help that was.

She raised her head and offered it back to Arron. The match was over. He could have his wand back now. After all, that was why he’d given her–so that she could use it to win.

“Keep it,” he said, pushing the wand back to her.

With the match over for the day, Jira gathered her students. It was time to get going. She made them file out in a line.

Arron had agreed to have his fleet of carriages ferry the students back to Witches’ Cove, and Jira was grateful for such kindness.

Lila made sure she was at the back of the line. And while the rest weren’t looking, she turned around and slipped back into the house.

Arron noticed her come back in and cut her off just by the door.

“Did you forget something young lady?” He asked.

Lila picked her words carefully. Perhaps if she sold this right, things would become easier for her parents.

“My Mum and Dad,” she started, “they work for you, at your wand factory, and they’ve been working more and more these days. I just…I was hoping you could do something about it.”

Arron Tartian twitched. He would have never guessed he would be having this sort of conversation with a fourteen-year-old. How to make her understand?

He crouched in front of Lila, scratching the side of his scruffy beard. “I’m sorry little girl, but this is something you might not understand because you’re not an adult. We have a goal in my company, a goal we have to no choice but to reach, because if we don’t, we won’t hit our projected profits. Everyone who works at the company has to make sacrifices. I’m no exception, and neither are your parents. I’m sorry, but there’s simply nothing I can do about it.”

It built up slowly, like how a tsunami starts, first as a trifling wave, then growing into the monstrosity that devours cities.

That was how Lila’s anger rose, gathering flame, catching heat. But before her rage could explode, Lila came to a realization. Her next words, her next actions, could determine the employment status of her parents. Lashing out at their boss would most probably cost them their jobs, and she didn’t want to cause them any more grief than they already had to endure.

She let her anger subside, turned on her heels and removed herself from Arron’s presence before she did something she would regret later on.

Her classmates had been waiting for her. None of the five carriages had moved in all the time she’d spent back in the house. Instead she found Jira waiting beside the carriage at the front, hands akimbo with a displeased look on her face.

Lila mumbled an apology for making them wait.

Jira seemed to have understood why she went back, for instead of berating Lila, she simply helped the younger witch into the last carriage, the one Tomi and Timi were riding in.

Lila kept her sour face on, even as Jira closed the door and returned to the first carriage so they could begin their journey.

Tomi, who wasn’t in the best mood herself, touched Lila lightly on the shoulder.

“You talked to Arron?” Her voice came out hoarse and weary.

Lila nodded. “He said there’s nothing he can do.”

Of course, there’s something he can do. It’s his company.

The words almost rolled down Tomi’s tongue, but reading Lila’s countenance she figured the other girl wasn’t willing to discuss the topic, which was okay since Tomi didn’t want to talk about her embarrassing match against Zaria either.

The carriage rocked along the road, it’s creaking noise the only audible sound for a long stretch.

It was left to Timi to break the silence.

He touched Tomi on the knee and told her to cheer up.

She couldn’t, not when she was this angry at herself, at her failure. “I messed up big time. I know you’re going to say I didn’t, but I did. I performed poorly today.”

Tomi suspected her brother’s attempt to cheer her up would involve downplaying how bad of a fighter she proved to be during her spar with Zaria.

“You’re right,” Timi agreed and stunned Tomi. “You were a mess back there.”

Despite herself, Tomi’s forehead creased with surprise. She must have messed up real bad if even Timi can’t excuse away her failure. He’d always been her cushion, for everything, against everything.

“But,” Timi continued, drawing back Tomi’s attention, “that’s a good thing.”

Tomi rolled her eyes. “How’s it a good thing I fumbled against Zaria?”

“Because,” Timi put a lot of stress on the word, “it’ll only make your eventual victory against Daila sweeter.”

Tomi hated that the last sentence brought a smile to her face.

Timi tickled her on the cheek. “Now that’s more like it.”

She swatted at his hand and he yanked it away, smiling.

Then, he turned to Lila, keeping his smile. “As you for you. Not to worry. I have a feeling everything is going to work out, for you and your parents.”

Lila managed a weak smile. He was attempting to comfort her. It wasn’t a very strong attempt, but it was something, and something was better than nothing. “Thank you for saying that Timi,” she said, and went back to keeping her mouth shut.

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