Rising Magic Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  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 Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  More from Tara Lain

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  Copyright

  Rising Magic

  By Tara Lain

  Superordinary Society: Book Two

  Even as a baby mage, Dash Mercury dreamed of going to Arcantaria, the barely whispered about school for superwizards. When he’s invited at eighteen, making him the youngest student in Arcantaria history, Dash is less excited because he has to leave behind the only good friends he’s ever had—Carla, BeBop, Khadija, Fatima, and most of all, the guy he loves, werewolf mage Jazz Vanessen. At Arcantaria, the other students treat Dash like dirt until he manages to join the exclusive Olympus Club… a group with an agenda. A scary one.

  No one—not even the students—knows where Arcantaria is located, so Jazz is desperate when he picks up danger vibes from Dash. He and his friends set out to find the school and break in. When they realize what the club is training Dash to do—and the dire consequences if he succeeds—they know the human race is in danger, and they’ll have to step up and save it.

  But first they have to save themselves.

  To my editor, Andi Byassee, for making the tough task of building the world of the Superordinary Society so much easier and so much fun!

  Author’s Note

  WELCOME TO the world of the Superordinary Society. Some of my regular readers may find this plunge into mysterious magic schools, secret portals, teleportation, nefarious plots, and only a heady dash of romance to be surprising, but it’s a place I love to go. Because love and magic? Same thing. I hope you’ll enjoy the ride!

  Chapter One

  PHONY. TOTALLY phony. Reminds me of the freakin’ Matrix.

  Dash Mercury turned away from the window of his tower room, walked back to his chair, and flopped into it. With a sigh, he picked up his textbook on Casting Spells without Compromise. That would be “compromise” as in when he’d tried to wipe out the world’s greatest freakin’ wizard with magic and almost gotten killed himself because he didn’t have enough power. Of course, if he hadn’t made that effort, he wouldn’t be here—at Arcantaria—aka Superwizard School as he and Jazz called it.

  Whoa. Just thinking Jazz’s name socked him in the gut. Goddess, I miss him.

  They’d been so sure that their mind link would hold up no matter where they went that even though Dash couldn’t have a phone or an internet connection, they’d be able to feel each other and even hear each other’s thoughts sometimes. But so far, nothing. It had to be the magic surrounding the school, even though Dash’s brain loved to tell him that he couldn’t contact Jazz because Jazz had forgotten him and didn’t care anymore.

  Fuck! He tossed the heavy book on the table and leaped from the chair. Time to move.

  He stepped out the door of his small room and nearly ran into two men coming down the winding stairs past him. Dash pulled back against the wall, but one man, a black-haired guy with a mustache and glasses, clipped his shoulder anyway.

  Dash frowned but said, “Excuse me.”

  The guy gave him a full-on sneer. “I’m sure you feel entitled to the whole staircase, but we were actually walking here first.” With that, he stuck his nose in the air and kept trotting downward.

  Ass. Hole. Dash had to suck in the words because walking toward him up the staircase was the chancellor of Arcantaria, Master Romanescu. The mage glanced at the obnoxious guy who’d insulted Dash. His eyes widened, and he snapped a phony smile on his face and then nodded graciously to the asshole. What the hell? The master had to have seen what the guy did to Dash, but he smiled at him?

  The asshole nodded back, but it was pretty perfunctory, like he didn’t really respect Master Romanescu. Weird. The chancellor held that dude’s future as a mage in his hands—didn’t he?

  Before Romanescu got near the top of the stairs where Dash stood, the chancellor turned off the staircase onto one of the residential halls. He gave Dash a quick, uneasy glance but didn’t acknowledge him.

  Gods, what’s going on? Dash stepped back into his room and closed the door after him. He wanted to throw something heavy. Yeah, and he’d have to throw it with his hand because students couldn’t use magic except in designated areas. Rephrase that. They weren’t allowed to use magic, and if they did, the instructors and administrators could tell.

  He expelled a breath. Get over yourself, asshole. Mages would kill to be where you are. Still, since he’d come to Arcantaria not quite three weeks before, he’d encountered more than one person who treated him like crap for no reason he could figure out. Okay, he was the youngest, but so what? Some of these students had been there for months or even years and had to be far more advanced than Dash. On top of that, the whole Nardo event had been kept pretty hush-hush, so the other students shouldn’t know he’d battled the supermage. But the way he was treated was like someone had told these people to hate him. He didn’t want to care, but it was hard. He hated to admit it kind of hurt his feelings. That would make Carla laugh. Some big wizard he was.

  Blow-off-steam time.

  Clenching his teeth, he stepped out of his room again and started winding down the staircase to the main building, where the dining hall, most of the classrooms, and the social hall were located. The building also housed the wizard obstacle course—his destination. He’d already discovered it was his favorite place to burn away anger and tension. One place he could do magic till his eyeballs bled.

  As he hit the base of the stairs, the high ceilings of the reception hall towered over him, although he gave the vaulted rafters a skeptical glance. Around here it was always tough to figure out where reality stopped and magic began—-if there was any so-called reality at all.

  He crossed the vast rotunda and trotted down the long glassed-in hall that led to what they called the “physical culture” areas of the school, including the obstacle course where a student could set the program to random and be confronted with different challenges every time. Like a live video game.

  As Dash passed the gym, he noticed a guy with long red hair inside shooting baskets, running, dodging imaginary defenders, and attempting three-pointers from midcourt. Dash smiled at the man’s fantasy prowess. It was unusual enough to see a person in the gym voluntarily. While they had classes in the obstacle course and were given time for exercise, most of the students seemed to consider magic all they needed to prevail in the world. Dash remembered so well the physical exhaustion he’d felt in his battle with Nardo, even
though he was young and fit. If these mages ever found themselves in a life-or-death conflict, they’d be in for an ugly surprise.

  Dash pulled open the double doors at the end of the hall and stepped into the dressing and preparation room for the obstacle course. He stripped off his white shirt and put it in a locker, layered a padded vest over his T-shirt, added some goggles, then walked to the control panel and selected the random program of the day, level five. Five out of ten should get him breathing hard but not wipe him out. Let’s see what we have on tap. With a thrust of his arm, he slammed his way out to the course.

  The opening of the door triggered the start of the program, and the second he stepped onto the gravel path, a bolt of magical power shot toward him from the upper branches of a tree. Dash leaped to the side, and the energy spear hit the ground, raising a spew of gravel and dirt.

  Dash sped forward only to be confronted by the specter of a mage in black robes, with heavy, hissing breath. How very Darth Vader of him. Dash paused. He’d been taught never to strike until the threat was known. This dude could be a harmless wise man. But just as quickly as he thought that, the specter slashed out with a swipe of his arm and shot a current of power. Dash jumped away and simultaneously blasted energy from both his hands, one toward the mage and one toward a seemingly harmless rabbit that suddenly grew fangs and leaped for Dash’s throat.

  After neutralizing both threats, he proceeded forward with caution as he entered a dark and scary forest. Sometimes they lacked imagination at Arcantaria. Hell, the forest made him think of Jazz. If they wanted real danger, they should look to the streets of New York.

  Suddenly, someone stepped out from behind a tree. Dash started. This was no 3D construct. He was real. It appeared to be the redheaded guy from the basketball court. The man nodded with a rakish smile, then flicked his fingers and tossed a little pinwheel of energy toward Dash, who merely batted it aside. That earned raised eyebrows and a more serious bolt of power. Dash sent his own blast, which knocked the other blast to oblivion, but as fast as he sent it, the redheaded guy powered off another and then a fourth.

  The intensity made Dash frown, even though his redheaded opponent never lost an amused grin. Dash had programmed level five, but this dude didn’t seem to have any awareness of degree of difficulty. The guy spun, and flashed a two-handed wall of shimmering energy that, for a second, made Dash shiver. It reminded him of the moment when he’d met Nardo and the mage had gotten serious about killing him. But this redhead was no Nardo, or at least he wasn’t trying that hard. Still, the dude might be attempting to look casual, but his attack was deadly serious.

  Forget that. Dash locked and loaded, waving his hands like clouds to send powerful counterstrikes against the incoming wave, then fired a sneaky low ball of energy that got past the dude’s defenses and smacked him in the ear, singeing a little hair.

  “Ow.” Redhead grabbed his ear with a scowl. For a second he looked mad as hell. Then he glanced at Dash and swept a grand bow. “Well done, young mage. You’re as talented as they say.”

  Dash quirked a half smile. “I guess that depends on who they are.”

  “Very true. Enjoyed sparring with you.” He nodded and stepped off the path, only to disappear. Poof. Gone.

  Whoa! Dash stared at the spot where the man had vanished. Teleportation. According to what he’d read, few mages could do it. The whole encounter almost seemed to have been conjured, except the smell of burning hair was very real.

  I wonder what that was all about?

  Shaking his head, Dash turned and trotted back to the locker room without any further confrontations. In the prep room, he glanced around with a little disappointment. It might have been interesting to see the red-haired guy again. At least at the end, he’d seemed to have a sense of humor. Everybody around here took everything so seriously.

  Dash peeled off the vest and goggles, then slid his white shirt on. After sloshing some water into a glass, he left the locker room and ambled back to the nearest window, staring blankly at the magic-altered view as he sipped the liquid, which ought to have been more soothing and cooling than it was. His trip to the obstacle course hadn’t exactly been the relaxing experience he’d hoped. Who is that redheaded guy? Truthfully, Dash had never seen a mage who could teleport at will—except maybe Nardo.

  He shivered. Nothing about Arcantaria was what he’d expected. He hadn’t thought it’d be all warm and fuzzy but….

  Oh hell, why did he even care whether the other students liked him? Still, even the chancellor had treated him strangely.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. He’d learned at his parents’ knees that the magic arts were everything, and if a mage couldn’t handle the heat, they should give up the spells. Apprenticing to Lysandra hadn’t been a lot cozier. Yes, he cared about her and she about him. Hellfire, she’d saved his life by intervening with Nardo. Of course that was before Jazz saved both their lives with one bite to the jugular. But bottom line, Lysandra had stepped up to defend magery, not him alone. And one could argue that she might not have known Nardo was more powerful than she was.

  He shook his head. He hadn’t been trained to care about the opinion of others—and then he’d met the Superordinary Society. His lips tugged up. For the first time, he’d been with people his own age who didn’t bore him. Every minute with his friends had been packed with excitement and purpose—and fun. Suddenly he’d found himself standing up and saying he had something, someone—more than one someone actually—who he was willing to die for.

  That was right before he’d been invited to Arcantaria. His whole life he’d hardly dared to want it—until he’d been invited and in the same breath told if he didn’t accept the invitation, he’d have to give up his magic. Not fair, but then what was?

  For a second, he’d contemplated walking away, but he knew he couldn’t live as a powerless mage. Trying to control his magic for the rest of his life would be an epic fail. So he’d left his friends. He’d left Jazz.

  Now he just felt alone.

  He blinked at the perfect phoniness outside the window. None of the students knew what was actually under the magic or where they really were. The Himalayas? Maybe. He sure felt like he had mountains between him and his friends. Between him and Jazz.

  A soft chime announced lunch, and Dash’s stomach growled like Pavlov’s dogs’ digestive tracts. Quit the drama queen shit and go eat.

  At speed, he headed for the dining hall and got in the line for service behind an attractive, curvy, fair-haired woman he’d seen in a couple of classes.

  She turned and gave him a smile. “Hi. We have potions together.”

  His mouth dropped open, and he tried to cover his surprise at her smile. “Uh, yes. I’m Dash Mercury.” He extended his hand, and she shook it.

  “Oh, we all know who you are. The prodigy.” She grinned. “I’m Kitty Miteralli.” She tapped the tall, beautiful woman in front of her who’d been sort of half turned toward them like she wouldn’t mind being included but didn’t want to intrude. Kitty said, “This is my good friend Anastasia Jones.”

  Dash smiled. “Delighted to meet you both.” He shook hands with Anastasia. Whoa. Power radiated from her, tingling up his arm. He looked up, and their eyes met. Her expression said she saw him as clearly as he saw her.

  She said, “I’m acquainted with Lysandra. She speaks so highly of you.”

  He nodded in acknowledgment of the praise of his mentor, Lysandra Mason. It seemed appropriate that Anastasia would know her since they were both powerhouse females, but while Lys was in her thirties, this woman, with silver in her tightly braided hair, might be more than a decade older. Was she a student? Mages of all ages came to Arcantaria, based upon their accomplishments rather than their chronology.

  The line moved, and Kitty got to the server. She asked for pot roast, Anastasia ordered a salmon salad, and Dash asked for pizza and a vanilla cola. Yes, it was masochistic, but it reminded him of his
friends.

  Kitty said, “Will you join us?”

  His heart slammed. Weird to be so grateful for a simple act of courtesy. “Sure. I’d love to.”

  She led the way to an empty table near the big windows. They had a lot of choices since they’d gotten to the dining room fast, but there were already a few filled tables. At one of them, a collection of the instructors sat in a circle, engrossed in conversation. Sitting with the group was the red-haired man who’d battled with Dash on the obstacle course. As Dash walked by, the man looked up, and his gaze followed for a few steps.

  When Dash put his tray down on the table, Anastasia said, “I see you’ve attracted the attention of our conjuring and manifestations instructor.”

  “Is that who he is? I saw him today in the gym. He actually battled me on the obstacle course.”

  “Battled you?” Her dark eyebrows rose.

  He shrugged. “A mock battle. We were both pulling our punches, so to speak.” Kind of.

  “And who won this mock battle?”

  “We both quit—after I singed his sideburns a little.” Dash grinned.

  “Hmm.” She stared at the redhead with narrow eyes.

  “Why?”

  “No reason, exactly. I notice a number of instructors seem to be trying to ferret out the best practitioners in each of the subject areas.”

  Kitty swallowed her meatloaf. “Ooh, did they pick you for summoning, Anastasia?”

  “Yes. Professor Sing asked me if I’d be interested in advanced learning opportunities.”

  Kitty sighed. “I’ll never be that good. But I’m lucky to get to be at Arcantaria at all.” She smiled sweetly.

  Anastasia said, “In a school full of raging egos, your attitude’s a breath of fresh air, Kitty.”

  Dash bit his pizza. Interesting. All the students at Arcantaria were supposed to be the best of the best. Why would someone try to subdivide them further? Why create an elite within the elite? “Maybe someone wants to play those egos against each other.”