Arcana Academy (Arcana Academy, #1)

by Elise Kova

Graysword: the name given to all orphaned and unwanted children in Eclipse City.

We halt before an unfamiliar door. On it is carved a single sword emerging from a field of clouds. A crown caps its tip, and rose vines trellis down and around the blade. The iconography is unmistakable—the Ace of Swords. First of the suit. Symbol of the royal family of Oricalis.

Danger, the very air around the man in the wingback seems to whisper. Even the light seems to fear him. Prince Kaelis, second of three sons of the Kingdom of Oricalis, reverse wielder, and headmaster of Arcana Academy. The prince who reduced an entire noble clan to rubble. A man whose name is synonymous in Oricalis with despair. Who I have every reason to believe killed my mother…And the man who put me in Halazar Prison.

I’ve heard about the destruction the Knight of Swords card can reap in the hands of a skilled Arcanist.

Looking at him, it’s easy to wonder if the rumors are true that he is void-born—a wielder of the reversed arcana, an abomination that has only ever lived in folklore.

Each Minor Arcana is governed by an element. Wands are fire, Swords air, Coins earth, and Cups water. The cards Two all the way through King of each suit have their own unique properties…but the Ace? That’s the beginning. The primordial essence of the suit.

Twenty-first tarot card? There are fifty-six cards in the Minor Arcana, fourteen of each suit, and twenty in the Major Arcana, not counting the illustrious Fool—the start of it all and so numbered at zero…Unless…

“Which means, as a noble and future High Lady of a clan, she is more than eligible not only to join the academy late, but also to be my future bride.”

My fingers settle on the broach pinned over my left breast. It’s an intricately detailed silver pin of a fist clasping the handle of a lantern. The symbol of Clan Hermit, the once keepers of the knowledge and histories of the Oricalis Kingdom and beyond.

Every noble clan is a family that controls a small domain under the rule of the crown. The head lord or lady of the clan oversees the family, lands, and other wards on behalf of Oricalis. Clan Hermit was one of the ten major clans still standing at the end of the brutal Clan Culling, a war that narrowed the clans down from the original twenty—one clan for each Major Arcana, said to have been founded by the original acolytes of the Fool. Clan Hermit had survived countless ups and downs throughout the history of Oricalis. But they couldn’t survive Kaelis.

King Naethor Oricalis put Kaelis in control of the fortress and allowed him to found the academy within around his eighteenth birthday—a scandalously young age. Two years younger than the first crop of students he would be inducting. But, Prince Kaelis has always been a legendary wielder of tarot. And in the year after he annihilated a clan, very few would dare utter anything but support for the prince. In the four years since its founding, he’s used the academy as an institution to harness the power of every Arcanist for the crown, as a fortress to defend the kingdom, as a bottleneck to control all trade through the Farlum River, and as a means of intimidation against any who would even think of acting against the crown.

The Arcanum Chalice is one of the legendary relics of Oricalis. Before the days of the academy, noble and rogue Arcanists alike would make a forbidden pilgrimage to the fortress to sneak in and stand before the Chalice. Then, they’d make their sacrifice, by which unlocking a deeper power that allowed them to make and cast more advanced cards instantly.

But, even if the royals forbid talking about it, finding power without the Chalice is possible. It’s just harder, takes longer, and is not guaranteed to work, since every Arcanist possesses different innate abilities. As much as I hate the academy, even I must admit it’s an impressive process that ensures every Arcanist in Oricalis’s arsenal is as strong as they can be.

When they call your name, you’ll go before the Arcanum Chalice and they’ll give you a simple three-card spread, with each card representing a different aspect of your future. Then, you’ll pick what part of your future to give up.” “Give up?” Skirts echoes, leaning back. Her brow furrows. “What…what do you mean?” She has a soft voice and kind eyes. Neither is going to help her much here. I lock eyes with her. “This is Arcana Academy. Your future is your tuition.”

Mother was teaching me how to ink from the moment I could hold a pen. I knew how to read cards before I could read words. While most Arcanists don’t begin showing even the rough edges of an affinity toward tarot until the age of eighteen or nineteen, my skills appeared much, much earlier—a fact I suspect Kaelis is well aware of.

There are only two paths for an Arcanist in Oricalis: graduate the academy and be placed in the service of a noble clan, or be Marked with the brand and sent to a powder mill to work until a swift death. Magic is a rare commodity that requires even rarer resources to perform, making it highly controlled by the crown. Those who can wield it are never safe, and never free. Not really.

Status in the noble clans is mostly hereditary. The closer you are in blood, then marriage, to the High Lord or Lady, the higher status you have. The further you are, the less connection you have…until it dissolves entirely. In rare cases, a High Lord or Lady can ascend someone to status within their clan regardless of relation. But, given that the power of individuals within a clan comes from their exclusivity, it’s rare to see.

The four royals of the house. They’re not actually royals; they have no relation to the Oricalis family. But Arina explained them as “royals of the academy.” They represent the nobility of each Minor suit—Page, Knight, Queen, and King. The Page and Knight are second years. The King and Queen are third years. All are the top of their class and exemplars of the cards they are said to represent.

“I only mean to serve the crown.” Kaelis leans forward ever so slightly and whispers, “I am the crown.”

Rage is worth little if it’s not channeled.

“It’s an honor passed along not by bloodlines or titles, but by destiny itself. Random chances of fate. The magic of each figure of the Major Arcana is always alive, transferring from one individual to someone new upon their death.” Kaelis takes a step forward, and then another. The gap between us closes, and with it, my heart quickens once more. “And you, too, Clara, are one of the Twenty.”

A smirk arcs across his lips, and Kaelis tilts his head slightly. “Shall we go and formally introduce you to your other Major brethren, Fortune?”

“Only King Oricalis himself, his inner circle, Head Lords and Ladies of clans, and those who are related to a Major know about us. Though we’re technically supposed to keep what we are a secret, even from our families, should they not already have uncovered the truth.” “A few Majors are kept at the castle court, under the close watch of the king himself,” Elorin adds. “In service to the king,” Myrion corrects.

“Every Major’s magic is different but powerful enough that it gives each individual unique additional benefits. Our Major Arcana is our primary power—and the card is the way we actively access our power. When successfully inked, the card turns silver. Every Major also possesses the ability to use other Major Arcana cards—which regular Arcanists cannot use.”

“When a Major inks their Major card successfully, the ink turns silver. It’s how you know you’ve done it true,”

Before the academy’s founding, every clan educated their own, raising their own Arcanists born into their families and onto their lands. Mother told me of how the clans would endlessly war over Arcanists just as they had once warred as kingdoms over the resources used to make cards. Tensions arose from some clans simply being luckier and having more Arcanists born on their land, which led to jockeying for power and then, ultimately, to the Clan Culling—a legendary war that wiped out half the clans. From that war, Oricalis rose, and the laws governing Arcanists were put in place.

He has yet to release my hand, but with his other he reaches up and grabs my face, fingers curling around the back of my neck. I had already been looking directly at him, but now I lack any choice. Our noses nearly touch. “I had no choice. I had to find you.” “Me?” I blink. “Yes, you, and all the other nineteen Majors.” It sounds a bit like he’s backtracking. Find you was said with such purpose. As if I’m different, somehow.

I’m drawn to the base of the statue. A ring of what appears to be glowing water separates the figure from an outer wall with twenty numbered slots, each clearly crafted to house a card. The meaning is clear. “Twenty slots, twenty Majors,” I murmur, resting my hand in the center one labeled with a 10—the Wheel of Fortune…my slot. “The journey of the Fool. Each encounter exposed the true, magic nature of the world. All must be accounted for before the World might be summoned once more and used.”

The way he looks at me is as something to be claimed. Possessed. Owned. I tighten my arms slightly around myself, as though I could protect my person from the man who already has me in his palm. Maybe, something in me whispers, he was right about you. Maybe, for once in your life, it’d feel good to submit.

“You are the Wheel of Fortune, the least understood Major because your power is luck itself—changing fate. That luck has given you the ability to craft any Minor Arcana with any ink.” My escape from Halazar, the inks available to me then…even Glavstone giving me fewer and lower quality supplies across the months. My suspicions were right: It was all a test.

“What must I do to prove to you that I need not be your enemy?” I can’t stop myself from licking my lips, the attention making me realize how dry they are. “Change your name—your destiny. Give up the Oricalis Kingdom entirely when you remake the world. Shatter it.” “Give me the World, and I will. Gladly.” His eyes bore a hole straight through me, as if he can see everything I am and have ever been.

“To ink cards is to channel the primal forces of nature on ink and paper. “To read cards is to surrender to the fates that guide your hand. “To wield cards is to make the true power of the undercurrents of this world unquestioningly your own.”

Kaelis is a ropy, lean creature. A man of hard contrasts, with a body that looks…aching. It’s the only word that comes to mind to describe him. It’s as if he aches for a nourishment food can’t give him. He aches for a comfort deeper than the velvets and furs he surrounds himself with. Aches for the touch of something kind…or at least of a pleasure deep enough to forget himself for a while. His body is full of valleys and hollows for the shadows that love him. He’s so full of voids that I can only imagine he’s struggled to fill for years.

“How many wounds do you have that you just let bleed, Clara?”

“How many wounds do you have?” Turning the question back to him is a weak retort and I know it. As weak as my knees feel. “Enough that I’ll remake the whole world to fix them.”

He doesn’t touch me again after we enter the carriage. Not even when we say a somewhat awkward, muted goodbye back at the academy. But I feel the ghost of his touch and the heat of his mouth on mine long into the night.

“The only place I want Eza’s bloodstains are on the floor. And maybe my knuckles.” “I didn’t take you for one to resort to blows.” “I’m not, usually.” I glance his way. “Am I to believe you’d get yourself dirty for me?” “Believe whatever you like,” he says aloud. But his slight smile says simply, Yes.

“What happens if you kill a Major?” “A Major’s magic always exists in the world, so it lives on in another.” “A sort of reincarnation?” I ask. “More of a transference. The magic moves to another individual instantly. It could be an old man, or a young baby. The person could be across the world, or right next to the Major who died,” he explains. “But that person must be found, and then they must learn of their new abilities. As you can imagine, it’s quite the process.”

I can ignore a thousand stares as though they are little more than passing glances—save for his. Kaelis’s attention carries with it the weight of the world. That stare fills my mind with the memory of the sound of my name on his lips. He says my name like a command. Like a plea…

He lifts the paper and studies it. “Beautiful.” The feeling behind the word is deep. Never have I seen anyone admire anything I’ve created the way Kaelis does. It is as if the secrets of the world are wrapped in my rough lines and hasty inking. As though he is entranced wholly and completely.

“Someone is going to try to kill your father.” Kaelis, very slowly, returns his pen to its stand and steeples his fingers, as though I have come to him with a business proposal and not news of his sire’s impending demise. “Clara,” he starts slowly. “You cannot just barge in here and talk dirty to me.”

She was right—that building that became the academy ended up holding only danger for me. But maybe danger is my destiny. Maybe I felt drawn to this place because it was what I was meant for all along. A part of fate that couldn’t be taken.

I look to him and, for a moment, I am fire incarnate. I burn brighter than the sun—unrelenting and undeniable. Kaelis could be the darkest night of winter, and it won’t cool my rage at the injustice of one of the most talented initiates, a woman I need—a friend—about to be Marked.

“You are insufferable. You are too talented for your own good. You are so—fuck—so arrogant at times and more stubborn than I have ever imagined a person capable of being. You are angry, fiery, passionate, often impulsive, and more determined than any creature I have ever met. And what’s worse is that—for as annoying as you are—you’re so gorgeous any sane man wouldn’t be able to take his eyes off you.”

“Do I look all right?” I ask. But what I really mean is, Do I look like I was ready to have you push me against the wall and fuck me senseless? The prince, to my surprise, answers sincerely. “Frustratingly immaculate, as always.” “Good to know my mere visage is enough to frustrate you.” “More than you know,” he murmurs under his breath so quickly that I am left wondering if I heard him correctly at all.

“The World gives one wish. You have one chance to speak your will, only one command. The more complicated it is, the less likely the outcome you hope for. Too vague and you run into the same problem. We must be perfect. Then, the deck is shuffled once more. Everything changes—including who the Majors are.”

His eyes shine with such admiration and hope. He looks like a completely different man here. Kaelis is right, he’s not wholly a monster. But he’s not innocent, either. And I don’t know, when all is said and done, which side of him will win out.

I realize I’ve become a part of these little hallowed spaces he’s allowed me into. The way he touches me makes me feel as sacred as the tools in the Fool’s workshop. More invaluable than the golden cards I know he keeps hidden somewhere in these apartments.

What do you want from me?” The question repeats like a plea. His eyes search mine as he looms over me. The wall is cracking, my heart with it. “I don’t know.” The confession is little more than a breath. “Then set me free.” “What?” “You consume my every waking moment. Devour my thoughts. You’ve poisoned my halls with your scent. Flooded my dreams to the point that I cannot tell if it is a delight or a nightmare to want to drown in you. If you hate me, then hate me, let us be eternal rivals. Let any future where you and I are more than enemies finally be done and gone.

Kaelis grabs my chin to look me in the eyes. The dark voids of his eyes are aflame. “If you give yourself to me, I will take it all. Now. Time and again. I will not be gentle.”