I spent the three days before I was allowed to return home on the one free day out of ten – which was imaginatively named ‘Freeday’ – exploring the castle and meeting the instructors. I saw many of the students as well, though they mostly ignored me (of course). There were about fifty of them in all, with the youngest being nearly eleven, and the oldest being just over fourteen – almost ready to travel to The City for the annual Black Tournament in a few months. There were four Masters, one for each subject, and each had three Instructors working under them. All of the students I had seen were busy doing something or other, though with a total of sixteen teachers to fifty odd students it wasn’t surprising that none of them (the students) seemed to have much free time.

And I found out later that it was even worse than I had thought: All fifty or so students shared a single teacher group (one Master and three Instructors), while the other three teacher groups (three Masters and nine Instructors) were all focused solely on the ten or eleven students who had chosen the path of the warrior! So for the majority of each day there were only those few students taking turns training with a dozen teachers, but every afternoon another forty young girls and boys arrived from the village with an escort of House Flameward soldiers. When I asked I was told that the few who came from further afield (one of the smaller settlements scattered around House Flameward’s territory) were housed in the Village, often with relatives or the families of whatever tradesperson they had arranged to apprentice with.

I felt it was ridiculous that they wouldn’t let me return home, especially since I had nothing to do for those three days, but even though I asked several times I was told that because I was going to start training as a ‘warrior’ after the next Freeday, it wouldn’t be fair to the other children if I was allowed to return home early. I considered sneaking off by myself a few times, but our society was an orderly and law abiding one, likely (according to the musings of Wolfram and I) made more cohesive than most due to both the low birthrate and the constant outside threat of Beast attacks. The one thing I didn’t want to do, at this point, was to give anyone a lawful reason to go after myself or my family. I didn’t trust Lord Runax at all, and he seemed exactly the type to take advantage of any technicality he could find. Right now he was blatantly trying to manipulate me by being friendly (which might have worked on an ordinary five year old, but certainly not on me), but I suspected that he wasn’t above blackmail if he was able to somehow gain leverage on us.

Being away from mother and father was hard in a sense… but it was also strangely liberating. I had gone from being an independent adult in my previous life straight into the most dependent position I could imagine: That of an infant with no ability to fend for myself, my very survival completely at the hands of my newfound parents. Perhaps I was still very much dependent on this society for survival, at the moment, but having mastered my new powers (especially the magnetic abilities) had suddenly granted me a rush of confidence (and a sense of competence) that I hadn’t felt in years.

It may seem like a small thing, but the ability to stop an adult from picking me up was absolutely HUGE for a grownup trapped in a child’s body. Sure, maybe before this I could have electrocuted them, but being able to stop somebody without potentially killing them was completely different – it was the difference between being a bodybuilder who could just stop someone without a fight, or a five year old child with a loaded pistol (one was intimidating but harmless, the other terrifying and deadly).

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“Heller! Heller, My brave baby boy!” Yelled mother as she ran towards me along the road. I was caught off guard for a moment as we were still at least fifteen minutes from the village itself, but my eyes started to mist up as I moved towards her as well. Tears were leaking down mom’s face, her eyes were red and puffy, and her hair looked out of place and strangely messed up; but she was otherwise unharmed. Then I saw Jaws limping towards me, a bandage around his right arm and left leg – but before I could ask what had happened mother had lifted me into the air.

She was sobbing and hugging me tight, muttering that she was proud of me in a broken voice (I had a feeling what she actually meant was that she missed me, and this was just how she translated it). Before I knew it father had joined us, wrapping both of us in a tight hug. I heard someone yelling that they had passed the marker, but I was too caught up in the reunion to really care.

After we had finished our emotional greeting, we were escorted by the stern faced soldiers of House Flameward back to a group of guards I hadn’t noticed. They were reprimanding my parents for having passed the marker (I found out later that commoners weren’t allowed within a certain distance of the Garrison without permission), but neither of them really seemed to care (though Jaws did apologize with a smile on his face).

When I had a chance, I asked father if it was the Guard who had injured him, and he shook his head and looked at mother, whispering, “No, my boy, but it wasn’t easy to convince your mother to wait these three days.” We shared a grin, though secretly I was shocked at his injuries – did my mother really stab Jaws for keeping her at home? He seemed to take it in stride, only wincing occasionally when he placed weight on his injured leg.

Both of them asked me questions about the Garrison and Academy, so I told them most of what I had learned.

“Did you start any classes yet, Heller? Did you make any friends? How are the other students treating you?” Asked my puffy eyed mother.

After seeing the both of them in such a sorry state I was starting to reconsider my previous actions: Maybe I should have tried to fight my way back home… Although… if I broke any laws it was my parents who would have been held responsible – the law was that parents are responsible for their children’s actions until the children are fourteen years old. At least mom and dad hadn’t been mistreated by the Guard, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise given how close Jaws was with many of their members. After all, any professional warrior is going to need a good blacksmith every now and then.

“I made one friend,” I said, “A girl named Tetra.” I smiled, thinking back to our meeting. I had looked for her when I wasn’t busy meeting my new instructors, but she worked in the Garrison, which I wasn’t allowed access too.

I was bombarded with questions immediately, of course, and I answered with a light heart. It was nice to have at least one pleasant topic to speak about during these last few days of madness. After that we walked in silence for a moment before Jaws surprised me by asking about one of the teachers.

“I heard that Instructor Jaduk is a Master now?” He asked me with a curious glance.

“Jaduk… the old man with the white-red hair and horns?” I asked him, making a coiling motion close to where my own small straight horns were (Jaduk’s horns were curled like a corkscrew).

Father smiled though a wince as he again put too much weight on his injured leg. “He’s a good man, Jaduk. Master of Earth… he deserves the title.”

Master of Earth was the title of the leader of the division in charge of teaching hunting. The titles were all named after prime elements, antiquated labels that seemed to, at best, only roughly relate to what the instructors actually taught. None of them actually taught anything to do with their actual element, which had greatly disappointed me when I found out. Earth was in charge of teaching skills related to hunting beasts, survival in the wild lands, tracking, and was generally considered the overall highest ranked set of skills. ‘Hunter’ was a title only given to soldiers who had proven themselves in battle numerous times, and who had gone on many successful missions. Generally only older students (twelve and up) were given lessons by the Master of Earth and his three Instructors.

Next was the Master of Fire, who was in charge of close combat training and the use of weapons and armor. The title had nothing to do with House Flameward itself, as all three Great Houses used the same general scheme in their respective Academies. The Master of Fire herself was a woman named Sylko who looked completely human, and she was honestly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen (in either life)… but unfortunately she had been very short with me in our few brief encounters, reluctant to answer even simple questions. I could tell she was angry about something, and was expecting lessons from her to be anything but easy…

Then came Haar, the Master of Air. He was in charge of all things to do with ranged combat, and also teaching scouting techniques. I wasn’t yet clear exactly what his lessons would be like, but so far he was by far the most outgoing and friendly of the teachers I had met. During one meeting he had said that, due to my small size, I would be ideal for a ‘cata-scout’ mission… then going on to try and explain to me how much fun it was to fly by catapult. He had been obviously joking, and I had found his energetic and jovial attitude quite funny. I was looking forward to his lessons the most.

Finally came the Master of Water, Ginma. She was a light blue skinned woman with long and dangerous looking claws at the end of each finger, which she loved to wave into the air as she spoke. She was in charge of History and Legends, as well as teaching us the basic writing and arithmetic that commoners were allowed to learn. I was worried that her lessons would be hard to sit though, especially since I could already read and write their full language thanks to Wolfram… and I was willing to bet that she had very little to teach me about sums…