Read Online First Year by Rachel E. Carter - Free Book Online

myself. I may not have had practice fighting with staffs or learning the names of Jerar’s eastern seaports, but at least meditation was something I was good at. Years of failed magical attempts could attest to that.
    The next two hours seemed set aside to prove me wrong. I wasn’t horrible, but I was at best a little better than the norm.
    Master Cedric and his assistants walked around our giant group, each carrying a heavy satchel filled with small, white pebbles that they distributed each time one of us failed the exercise.
    For the first half hour we had simply been instructed to close our eyes and keep still. We were to maintain an “air of calm” and to focus on a moment of peace and tranquility. That was easy enough.
    But then I realized the role the instructor and his assistants were playing in our meditation—pouring hail one second, thousands of angry bird cries the next. I tried not to flinch when I felt the slimy, wiggling body of a snake against my skin, but I could not suppress the tiny whimper that escaped my lips when I felt thousands of tiny, bug-like wings on my face. I opened my eyes just in time to see one of the assistants set two stones by my feet.
    Luckily, most students had a small pile forming next to them as well. Unfortunately, there were still those without a white rock to bear.
    For the second part of our exercise Master Cedric had the class keep their eyes open while continuing to practice the same meditative state. Of course, sight only made our practice harder.
    It was
not
easy to remain calm when you realized a hoard of angry rodents was headed in your direction.
    Whenever I made a mistake, I’d take a quick peek to see how everyone else was faring. Most had as many as I, but there was still a small portion of our class that hadn’t collected any stones yet—Darren and his group of four, plus seven others.
    As minutes ticked by, the exercise got increasingly difficult. The small piles began to resemble mountains. My forehead pounded, my muscles ached, and sweat stung the corners of my eyes. I was trying hard not to give in to the distractions Master Cedric and his assistants were casting, but fear and surprise were not easy reactions to ignore. When a small stampede of spiders took over the field and proceeded to climb up several students’ arms, mine included, I lost it, screaming and shaking the vile insects off.
    A lifetime of fear could not be erased in two hours.
    Eventually, the session ended. We all looked at one another and greedily eyed each other’s failures. No one was stoneless, not even Darren and his cohorts. The pale, blonde-haired girl had only two, and Darren and a couple others had no more than five a piece.
    I had twenty. Alex had even more. Ella, fifteen. We were all failures in comparison to the prince and his following.
    Everyone waited to be dismissed.
    “How many of you have changed your minds about the uselessness of meditation now?” Cedric rasped.
    Several of us cast our eyes down, shame-faced.
    “As you have just witnessed, we are too often allowing sight to dictate our actions. That’s fine in day-to-day living, but it will not get you very far in your magical studies.
    “Most of you were sufficient in the initial stages of your mediation —that is, until you opened your eyes and saw what types of horrors my assistants had cast. Sight is
not
an understandable reason to lose focus. Sight cannot harm you, and it should not be a cause to waiver in your meditation. Sight can only invoke fear, not pain.
    “Physical pain is an understandable reason to lose focus. Sight is not. The precious seconds between seeing the snake—a harmless act—and its venomous bite could make all the difference in a casting. Focus cannot be rushed—that is true—but in magic, every second counts.
    “If you want to succeed here, you had best master your fears early on because sight is the least of your worries. There are two much