Guardian Academy 3: Graduation Of Magic (The Mystery Of The Four Corners) Read online

  GRADUATION

  OF MAGIC

  GUARDIAN ACADEMY 3

  MARIA AMOR

  Copyright ©2018-2020 by Maria Amor

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  About This Book

  “Fans of Harry Potter, young and old, will love this!”

  Teenager Julia Beval was a four corner guardian.

  That meant she was one of the intermediaries between the supernatural and the everyday world.

  And this meant she was set to be one of the most important people on the planet.

  Now Julia had officially graduated it meant that things were set to get even more serious.

  And when she discovered that Dylan, the one person she thought she could trust, had been lying to her she began to doubt if she was really the person that that everyone thought she was.

  Did Julia really have what it took to graduate and become a four corner guardian?

  This is a magical adventure story series that fans of Harry Potter and Twilight will LOVE. Download now and enjoy getting lost in a whole new world!

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Okay, Jules—let’s try it again, but this time I really want to see some control out of you,” Ewan said, looking her up and down. Julia thought to herself that of all the words in all the languages she knew, control was quickly becoming her least favorite. The council wanted more control out of her; Ewan—the Rex Sylphae—constantly exhorted her to control her use of her air-aligned energy more, and her grandmother’s lectures on the subject of control—self-control and control of her political image—had long since lost any interest Julia had ever had in them. She understood the necessity; it would take a much more stubborn, determinedly ignorant person not to. But the emphasis on it in all areas of her life had become grating, reminding her constantly of the ultimatum hanging over her head.

  “Okay,” Julia said, taking a deep breath. She had come into her full abilities more than six months prior, but none of the professors at the School of Sandrine had been equipped to really challenge or stretch her strong potential. That was why, when her grandmother had suggested that she let Ewan Crofts tutor her over the summer after her graduation, Julia had initially leaped at the favor and the honor it represented. Even if she knew that it just reinforced rumors that she would eventually succeed him, Julia had been willing to take the annoyance in exchange for the opportunity to really and truly grasp her abilities.

  She called up the energy that now hummed constantly throughout her body, picturing it as a glow of bright, sunshine-yellow radiating from the center of her, outward, through her skin. The exercise was similar to the one that she’d done in school her senior year: creating a being of pure energy, with no mind of its own; a kind of specter, a shade, or as her professor had called it, an “avatar.” But Ewan was teaching her a more advanced aspect of the concept, with an imaginary creature that was tethered to her to become almost a second set of eyes, ears, hands.

  It couldn’t speak, but it could go ahead of her, providing her information. It couldn’t affect things—it was, after all, mere energy—but it could provide her with valuable information if she was in a place she didn’t know. From there, he’d said, it was actually easier for her to learn other ways to manipulate the energy into something that wasn’t quite substance.

  Julia built the form she wanted for her “avatar” very slowly, focusing on controlling the details of it the way that Ewan had wanted her to. Instead of just mentally drawing a basic outline of a person, Julia built from a sort of ghostly skeleton outwards, pouring the energy she’d collected inside of herself into a framework. “Very good,” Ewan said quietly, not breaking her focus. “Very good. The more detail you can give it, the better you’ll be when it comes to the next stage of this.”

  Julia had thought, after Ewan had shown her some of what he called the “higher forms” that it would be easier to make—say—a bow and arrow out of energy than it would an entire person. Ewan had explained that things, particularly weapons, were, in a strange way, more complicated to make out of energy—at least effectively—than an avatar was. The thing that Julia was making would only last as long as she put energy into it, but it also needed intention.

  He’d patiently explained that intention was much harder when it came to inanimate objects. “The thing is, you have to think about the mechanics of what you’re turning your energy into—even if you don’t know the physics. You have to be very focused on details. You could, for example, make a sword out of energy. Simple, right? But the sword has to have enough energy in it, enough intention behind it, to be able to actually do something with it.”

  Control. Intention. Focus. Julia started to turn her intention to her avatar’s face, contemplating details there. Her last attempt had gotten her to something like a 3-D rendering of a person, slightly blocky and with some details, but faceless overall. Now Julia gave the energy being she was creating a slight smile with pouty lips, a pair of sharp cheekbones, and a fine chin.

  “Very nice indeed,” Ewan said, sounding impressed. “Do you have it in you to give her freckles?” Julia took a deep breath and focused on the being’s eyes, picking them out of the mass of humming energy in front of her, sharpening the look of them, and then, straining as she poured more energy into the creature, she carefully thought of freckles, half a dozen scattered across the cheeks and nose. The avatar started to move, to walk in place, and Julia’s focus gave out, her energy—for the moment—spent. The being dissolved in an instant, the energy drifting back into her, and Julia leaned against the chair she’d been standing beside.

  “Apparently, I can give her freckles or make her walk but not both,” Julia said dryly. Ewan chuckled.

  “You did really well,” Ewan reassured her. “That level of focus is intense—and that depth of control is hard to maintain. Next session we have together it’ll come more easily, and you’ll master it.” Julia nodded her acceptance of his evaluation and sat down.

  “One of these days, someone will explain how we can have energy coursing through us and yet be utterly exhausted,” she told the older Guardian. Ewan grinned.

  “Concentration takes a lot of human energy,” he explained. “Not the ethereal stuff we have flowing through us—not the elemental stuff. It burns a hell of a lot of calories, or hadn’t you noticed?” Julia half-shrugged; she’d started eating more heartily during her transition, and while she had
been able to back off somewhat when she’d come into her full abilities, she was still eating more hungrily than she had before her transition had started.

  “I try not to get too obsessed with what and how much I eat,” Julia admitted.

  “Well—for the most part, barring being sick or losing your abilities, or things like that, you won’t really have to worry about it until you’re old and your poor, too-human body can’t do its thing like it used to,” Ewan said. “Even then, some people are just predisposed to being skinny. I always had more problems putting on weight I needed than losing it.” He sat down in his own seat and picked up the cup of coffee he’d poured himself before the beginning of the day’s lesson. Julia leaned forward and lifted her mug from the spot where she’d left it on the coffee table.

  “The earth-aligned Guardians kind of get the short end of the stick there,” Julia remarked, and Ewan snickered, sounding for all the world as young as Dylan or she was.

  “Their body types tend to be rounder, that’s true,” he said. “Remember they’re aligned with an energy of abundance: fertility, plenty, all that.” He shrugged. “They’re heavier types of people, usually, though I’ve known a few willowy ones.” Julia rolled her eyes slightly at the apt metaphor.

  “So, air-aligned and fire-aligned people tend to be slim—almost skinny,” she said. “Earth-aligned people tend to be fuller. And water-aligned people just…” Julia shrugged.

  “Remember: water doesn’t have a definite shape,” Ewan pointed out. “In nature it’s solid, liquid, and gas—so water-aligned creatures have a much wider variety of body types.”

  “You know, you’d think they’d teach us something that basic at Sandrine,” Julia observed.

  “It’s not really necessary to know how to do what Guardians do—or for elves, or gnomes, or fae, or undines, or anything else, for that matter. It’s one of those things. You tend to know what element a supernatural creature is aligned to instinctively, even if they’re not wearing their colors.”

  “And all the elemental alignments have some kind of—psychic aspect to them, right?” Ewan nodded again.

  “For us air-aligned creatures, it’s a more direct kind of telepathy; but it’s only verbal thoughts. We can’t feel others’ emotions the way that a water-aligned person could. We also tend to have varying degrees of what they call clairvoyance: the ability to find lost things. Fire-aligned creatures tend towards some telepathy—usually only of the projective variety—along with some mild telekinesis, and finding people, more so than things. Earth-aligned beings tend—of course—to be on the receptive end, with a little stronger telekinesis and some ability to receive clairvoyant dreams or visions, which of course the water-aligned also get.”

  Julia absorbed this for a few moments, considering. Her grandmother had always had precognitive dreams—though not constantly; Julia understood that the ability was just as freakish and inconsistent as her limited telepathy was, and of course Dylan had always shown an ability to read her emotions as if they were an open book. Blake—and it had been days since she’d last thought of him and his impact on her life, his betrayal—hadn’t shown any real telekinetic ability, and she’d never really read his thoughts. But then, I was foolish enough back then—months ago, no less—not to want to read his thoughts.

  That was another thing that Ewan was schooling her on: learning to not only control but develop her telepathy. Julia was almost as nervous about that as she had been about learning to develop her ability to compel, but Ewan had insisted that it was as much about learning not to “hear” others’ thoughts as it was about learning to scan verbal ideas more deeply.

  “Was there someone who did this for you when you were my age?” Julia had meant to ask the question ever since she’d started working with Ewan; but it had remained deep in the back of her mind, not spoken, because there was a part of her that didn’t want to know. It would—she thought—bring back all the annoying rumors of her being Ewan’s heir, of her being too powerful for the council’s comfort.

  “Yes,” Ewan replied. “She didn’t go on to be the Regina Sylphaea—I heard that.” He smiled slightly. “In point of fact, she told the council that if they tried to force her into taking that role, she would use every bit of her talents to make their lives a nightmare they couldn’t wake up from.”

  Julia snickered.

  “I somehow think they’d probably react differently to me if I made the same threat,” Julia pointed out.

  “Yeah—I don’t think it would be helpful for you,” Ewan agreed. He grimaced. “The council has been, shall we say, feeling its age for a while now.”

  “What do you mean?” Julia frowned in confusion.

  “There’s a heavier-than-usual concentration of earth and fire-aligned Guardians on it,” Ewan explained. “And most of the people really participating in the council are older—cranky, achy, and prone to thinking that anything new is extravagant.” Julia rolled her eyes.

  “Grandmother can text,” she pointed out.

  “Your grandmother is one of a kind,” Ewan countered. “And anyway, it’s more a mind set. They’re worried about strong Guardians like you—and you’re not the only one they’re worried about, so at least you have that to comfort you—and they’re concerned at the lack of responsibility that young Guardians seem to be showing these days.”

  “Because not all of us want to be as active in the supernatural world?”

  “Precisely,” Ewan replied. “It doesn’t occur to them to think that there comes a point where—even if they had their way, and every Guardian on the planet participated in our government, in our systems—that they still wouldn’t be happy. Because then there would be too many of us to make things function.”

  “Everyone would be arguing all the time, nothing would ever get done,” Julia surmised. Ewan nodded.

  “And frankly, even with the smaller group—comparatively speaking—that is actually on the council, that still happens,” he said. “Except for in tribunals, where they tend to the reactionary.” He raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to talk about that ultimatum or are we still pretending like it’s not on your mind constantly?” Julia’s cheeks burned and she rolled her eyes to cover her embarrassment.

  “How can they think it’s a good idea?” She’d been stewing over the edict ever since it had been announced. “It’s so—so—ugh!”

  “It’s misogynistic—to you, because it’s directed at you, though I will at least give the council the grace of admitting that they’d almost certainly do the same with a boy—and it’s outdated, and it’s ridiculous,” Ewan finished for her.

  “It’s the almost certainly that gets me,” Julia said. “They weren’t going to make Dylan choose a mate to bond with when he got in trouble.”

  “No, they were going to confine him to a room and bind his abilities until he got control of himself, which is just as archaic and outdated a concept.” Ewan sighed. “There are some of the supernaturals who want to go public,” Ewan told her. “And if you breathe a word of this to anyone, it’s your head as well as mine.” Julia smiled; she liked that the Rex Sylphae had relaxed enough to give her gossip, within the last few sessions.

  “They do?” What came as a surprise to her was how little it surprised her.

  “Some of them—not all of them,” Ewan said. “Therein lies the trouble.”

  “Because if some supernaturals ‘come out’ so to speak, then people might start noticing that other people around them might not be just regular humans?” Ewan nodded, smiling brightly.

  “Got it in one—did you pluck that one out of my mind?” Julia shook her head. “I’m not sure whether to be prouder that you figured it out from just the hint—or disappointed that you haven’t suddenly developed the ability to pierce my mental shields.” Julia laughed. “Why would you want me to?”

  Ewan shrugged.

  “It would demonstrate that you are my equal, power-wise,” he said. “I know that’s not really what you want—but we need t
o figure out where, exactly, your limit is.” His face assumed a serious expression then. “One of the things the council is afraid of is the fact that no one actually knows the limits of your ability. And if we can put even a loose figure to it, they’ll feel better about you being around and about.”

  Julia sighed.

  “But if I’m as powerful as you are, then they’ll want to force me to eventually follow you,” she said. Ewan nodded.

  “I’m still alive and kicking, however—and there may yet be born an air-aligned Guardian even more powerful than you are.” He half-smiled with wry amusement. “Of course, I don’t think that’s terribly likely.”

  “So,” Julia said, thinking about that—and the ultimatum—and everything else. “Is there any way I can get out of finding a mate in the next two years?” Ewan gave her a long look.

  “I don’t think that’s likely either,” he said. “My advice—for what it’s worth—is to seek someone yourself.” Julia scowled.

  “What do you mean?” Ewan licked his lips and set his coffee cup aside.

  “Ever since word got out about how powerful you were likely to be, people have been coming to you, interested in getting you to bond with their sons, or themselves—possibly their daughters, if that’s what you’re interested in. But everyone’s been throwing themselves at you.”

  “Right,” Julia agreed, still unclear of how that pertained to what Ewan had said before.

  “What you should do is, instead of picking from the people throwing themselves at you, find someone for yourself. Think about what you actually want in a mate; think about what qualities you could stand to be around for the next seventy-plus years.”

  “But I’m not even eighteen!” That was the part of it that bothered Julia the most. “How am I supposed to know what I’ll be able to tolerate when I’m eighty?”