It had been four days since their last training session. Riley hadn’t seen Haven since, she’d even been missing in the classes they shared. None of her friends knew where she was (or at the very least they weren’t telling the pyromancer), nobody had seen her in the corridors, and her training partner was getting nervous.

Over the past few months the duo had spent almost all of their free time training together, and for one of them to suddenly disappear on the week of challenging day could only mean one thing.

“She ran away.” Riley stated aloud, voice fraught with disbelief “I can’t believe she’d abandon me like this without even telling me…”

Alex lay back on Riley’s bed, his blonde hair splayed out on the sheets. “Hey, at least she trained you before she bailed!” he uttered nonchalantly.

“Alex, be nice!” Rachel chided her boyfriend, standing with one foot kicked back lazily against the door, and her hands on her hips.

“What?” Alex looked around with his hands raised in confusion. “It’s true! It would’ve been worse if she hadn’t, you were truly awful Riley”. His eyes met with Riley’s “No offence.”

Riley sighed. “That’s not the point. We spent so much time working to build each other up. I was training her too, what does that say about me?” he was getting agitated. “Either she ran because I didn’t train her well enough, which makes me a leach.” he paused to clear the heaviness in his throat “Or she doesn’t believe in me, and I’m going to lose and end up someone’s familiar.” he’d said it. His greatest fear. Saying it out loud made it real. It gave the thought power.

Rachel interrupted his spiral. “Come on Riley, it isn’t like that.”

“It is like that, you wouldn’t get it. It’s different for you guys, you already know how things are going to play out.”

It was true, the two had planned to become a magus-familiar pair by having Alex surrender at the start of the duel. They would hide away in their room on challenging day, and challenge one another as soon as they could. Then it would just be a formality, as long as Alex didn’t chicken out.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I have an idea, I have a plan, but it was Haven’s plan, and she ran away. I don’t think Carenia could possibly beat me in a duel, but what if someone else challenges her first? What if my backup choices get taken, and I end up facing someone tricky who does something I’m not expecting? This is all so stressful, and I know Haven wouldn’t be able to fix all of it anyway, but her disappearing like this is really throwing me off…”

Riley was practically out of breath by the time he stopped to look at the expressions of his friends. Alex started towards blurting out a ‘definitely very well thought out’ response, but Rachel shoved her hand over his mouth before he got a single word out.

“That all sounds really tough Riley, and honestly I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now.” She looked down into her partner’s eyes. “If my plans with Alex got interrupted I’d be distraught.” Riley looked over at the two, forlorn. “But your plans haven’t changed. You can still challenge Carenia tomorrow, and if something goes wrong you’re still one of the strongest duellists in the class. You’re going to be okay, you’re smart. You just need to adjust your idea of how tomorrow could go, that’s all.”

“I guess you’re right Rachel,” he managed a smile “nothing has changed. I think I just need to sleep it off…”

“Wow!” Alex exclaimed, “I didn’t know you could feel so many emotions at once!”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “You can’t because you’re a dumbass, Riley has lots going on in his head.”

“I dunno, I don’t think it’s good for guys to use their brains for that kinda stuff.”

“For thinking??!” Riley cried out, shocked at the suggestion.

“No, for like emotions! Just do the thing, you’ll be fine!”

“I don’t think you get it Alex.”

Rachel turned her attention back to Riley, “And I don’t think you get it, Riley. Alex is telling you that overthinking things is going to make it worse.”

“How’s that meant to help? Now I’m worried that I’m making it worse!”

Alex joined the fray “Look, now you’ve made it worse Rachel!”

“ALEX!” both Riley and Rachel shouted.

The room went silent for a beat, before the three of them let out a stifled laugh in unison.

“Things will be okay Riley.” Alex concluded. “Tomorrow you’ll wake up, and it’ll all go to plan.”

“Yeah, it’s all going to go to plan.” Riley agreed, tentatively.

With that, the two left. And Riley was alone for the night. The last night. He didn’t even bother getting ready for bed, he just lay back, staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to take him, and wondering what had happened to Haven.

***

Riley turned.

A giant wave crashed into his bedroom window.

Water gushed in, extinguishing the candles on the windowsill.

Darkness washed around him as debris and foam spiralled his room, disorienting him as it swirled.

He was at the heart of the rushing vortex, pieces of furniture bashing against him like rocks battering a shipwreck.

Riley reached to grasp some kind of handhold. He felt the water solidify under his grasp, before it melted away with a whimper.

Wait, this wasn’t real. He was dreaming. This wasn’t even his room.

The water rushed over his face and-

***

Riley woke with a start, the water may as well have been real with how his own sweat had drenched his sheets. He practically spat the salt from his mouth, running a hand up his head and feeling the sweat beads roll down his arm as he did.

What time was it? The clock was hard to read in the dark, so he flickered a flame for a moment. His own magic startled him, and he frantically searched the room with his eyes out of paranoid fear. Satisfied that it was only his imagination, he peered at the clock. It was only two in the morning, he had time to go back to sleep.

The ash-haired apprentice rolled over.

It was just a dream.

He was still unnerved, as one is when they rouse from a nightmare. It felt like he was being watched. Yes, that’s right. He was being watched. The eyes of his fellow students. They hunted and stalked him, eyes trained on him as he walked down the corridor. As he attended class, as he walked the corridors, as he read books in the library. Why not even as he lay still in his own bed? If they thought about challenging him in the Ritual of the Familiar during the day, why would they not still think of it now?

But of course, they weren’t watching him anymore. Not like they used to. Not since he’d shot up in duelling rank.

Over the course of a mere few weeks Haven had trained him from being a safe win, to being one of the most dangerous choices you could make.

The eyes that were trained on him no longer considered him to be prey.

They saw a demon, and they were right to be afraid.

But Riley had lived his entire life not understanding how to use his magic to its fullest extent. He’d failed more practical applications tests than he could have imagined. His pyromancy was only “passable”, unlike the abilities of his older siblings. Where they could cast fundamentals, or use any element they liked, Riley had been cursed with mediocre pyromancy.

It was hard to learn to control your magic when all it can do it burn and raze and scar. There were not many safe opportunities when compared to growing plants, or casting hexes.

In his own way, Riley had been like Haven. The two shared a kinship, they were intelligent, and competent, and self-assured, but they couldn’t do what everyone else could do. They were both outcasts.

With Haven, his magic went from pitiful to potent. Recently he even learned he could cast fundamental magic, although, being unable to cast spells herself meant Haven had never been able to teach him anything beyond the basics. Curiously, when he’d tried to show a professor after class, his runes were completely inert.

Letting his mind wander had helped calm Riley down. Nobody was watching him now, he was alone, in his room, safe. He still felt the presence of a predator, but it was all in his head.

Perhaps it was the looming threat of the Ritual? The terror of becoming someone else’s familiar.

Riley let out a sigh. His hand pressed up against his forehead.

Why had Haven left him like this? Where was she? Was she okay? Did Riley even want to care? She betrayed him, she abandoned him.

He was all alone.

He lay back down and stared at the ceiling.

***

Riley stood.

A field of dried yellow crops surrounded him as far as the eye could see. He spun in place, nothing but barren plants right up to the horizon in every direction.

He walked, what else was there to do? Without any kind of perception of time, it was hard to tell if he’d walked for a few seconds or an hour, but a voice called out to him. Before he had even heard it, he knew it was Haven, and turned around to find her.

She wasn’t there.

“You’re giving up on me?” she sounded hurt.

Riley swivelled his head, frantically searching for her, but she was nowhere to be seen. All there was was the stupid dead harvest, littering the ground.

He opened his mouth to call her name, but instead Haven’s words poured from his own mouth.

“Oh, you poor thing. You’re so lost.” she spoke, pitying, and still disembodied.

Riley felt as though a finger was tracing down his arm, and then fire sprouted from his fingertips. He blinked, and his view was replaced with a field of burned ash.

Smoke filled the air. Smoke filled his lungs. Smoke-

***

Riley bolted awake.

Darkness. Still in his room. Nothing had been burned down, unless it was just dark because of all the smoke.

He pinched himself. Definitely awake, definitely no smoke.

What the FUCK was that about? It was nonsensical, yet filled him with a bizarre guilt. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he was more awake than he’d ever been in his entire life.

If this torture was all that sleep held for him then he’d just stay awake. He’d power through and get his challenge done and dusted as soon as possible. And probably pass out in the arena of exhaustion. Stupid idea.

He considered sparking his magic flame again, but instead moved the clock into the dim moonlight, revealing it was only quarter past two.

He was even less rested than before. Even more on edge.

All he could do at this point was ignore his primal instincts. He was in bed. Alone. Safe. It was just a dream. He had things to do in the morning.

“Go to sleep.” he told himself.

And he did. Until the next nightmare woke him again.