Thin icicles started to form on the leaky ceiling as the girl concentrated.

In order to remove energy from a particle, without shedding its kinetic energy onto its neighbors, it had to lose energy as light. In nature, that only happens in a state when a particle already has too much kinetic energy and its electrons start to jump between their layers in a quantic dance of probability.

Unlucky for her, all of the materials on her future exam would be at room temperature. Cooling a blazing coal was an easy feat for her, but in order to graduate from acolyte to researcher, she had to demonstrate comprehension and dominance over several dimensions in which magic could affect matter. Rerouting kinetic energy into electronic was one of those, and then radiating that energy as light.

Converting the infrareds into visible light was another step needed to avoid heating of the system it is inserted in, but it was something she’d had to practice later, after dominating the previous steps.

A sequence of loud bangs on her room’s door took her out of her trance.

”Juliette! There’s a young man calling for you outside!” - ”On my way grandma!”

She had not realized the frostbites on her fingertips until then. She blew warm breathe on her hands then fetched her cloak, stepped out and was confronted by her grandmother before reaching the stairs.

”Is he the one your cousin talked about? He looks too thin but sure is handsome”

”My cousin WHAT?

”You know youre the last of your batch to find a good partner, we are all rooting for you”

“Harry’s not my boyfriend grandma… were almost late to the study session!

”Oh my dear he does look good…. may Sol bright your path! I’ll make supper

She just gives a weird look to her old lady, confused on when did she start to believe in such things. She hurried out to find her acolyte peer waiting by her doorstep.

”Sorry for being late Harry, grandma thought we were on a date”

Oh hey Julie… no problems… how are you doing tonight?” - In a hurry, she did not even notice his blushing cheeks.

”Still having problems in retaining clarity while delving into multiple dimensional channels at the same time. I can work with nuclear, electronic, and gravitational forces by themselves, but when I need to multitask, I'm losing grip of everything.”

”oh…” - Thats not what he was expecting to hear, so he took too long to think of an answer. By then she was already speaking again.

”We need to reach the universitys gates before the curfew, if we don’t want trouble with “His Bright” - The said the last bit in a jokingly manner, and proceeded to cover her head and quickened her steps. They reached the university in swift silence a third of an hour later.

Its not that they were doing something wrong, but the university has had most of its activities ceased by the city council, under the accusations of heretical teaching by the new Pontiff of the Temple of Sol.

Sneaking into the campus was easy, as it had many ways in, but they had to be careful not to draw attention to themselves and where they were going.

The labyrinth of buildings constructed throughout centuries by different cultures and architectures made the task easier. Their destination was a room in the underground floors of the Old Library, behind halls of old books filled with the bureaucracy of the universitys inner workings.

They were the last ones to arrive, and the faces of their colleagues showed a mix of scare and relief. No one followed you guys here, right?”

"The last sign of company we noticed was still near the entrance. We came in alone.“ Juliette said with confidence, and Harry confirming with his head.

The heavy wooden door was closed, and they silently greeted everyone in the room. With their arrival, the students counted 8, plus the Professor, who had already noted some formulas on the chalkboard.

The Professor, a bald half-Fae half-Human, waited for the two to sit down and get prepared. In our last meeting we revised the basic formulas that translate the motion of massive bodies across empty space, their attraction to each other, from local planetary bounds up to interstellar clusters. In the reading reference you took home, the author concludes that we can extrapolate those same rules to even bigger distances and masses, up to galactic attraction and merging. The quantum mechanism behind those forces is not something you should worry about for the first researcher grades.

He turned his back to the class and started to write down a formula on the board.

“This hypothetical scenario has been explored in acolyte graduation exams thrice, in the last century: a massive object O* flies through the area of influence of a star. Its passage was quick, but it was heavy enough to detach rocks of all sizes from their stable orbits. With the given system data, starting motion vectors of the main bodies, our task is to calculate the resulting paths and possible outcomes, like future collisions or a moon slingshotted out of a planetary system. We can start to crack this by finding the mean attraction vector exerted by O* through its trajectory…”

The acolytes were dead silent. They were not here tonight to ask questions, but to watch a professional do his work. All came prepared.

Half an hour in, the Professor suddenly stopped. The Half-Fae was the first to notice subtle sounds outside the door. Harry silently got up and stood next to the closed door, listening. A few seconds later, his body flew with violence towards the center of the room, followed by a hulking figure storming through pieces of broken wood - a magebane of Sol.

“I told you there was something going on in here!”

Exclaimed in joy the magebane, as he saw the fright in the young acolytes' eyes.

You were right, indeed something dark is going on here.” Said a chubby middle-aged man that entered the room soon after, dressed in red and gold garments, followed by a platoon of soldiers in the colors of Sol.

“There is no reason for violence, Bright Priest, no crime is happening in this place!” - The Professor said, standing between the magebane and a dizzy Harry, who was trying to understand what was going on.

Classes are forbidden, havent you heard?”

“This is not a class to the open public, but a session between fellow researchers, and that is still legal.

The priest pretended he did not listen. Everyone stood still while he walked up to the chalkboard and read its contents.

“Gravitational Magic is one of the Forbidden Heresies!” - Exclaimed in accusation.

“Im sorry sir but you are wrong!” - Debated the Professor - During the XXXVII meeting of the Realms of the Eastern Continent, it was declared that only Black Hole-related magic and studies were to be banned from the academy!”

Yet, the Basics of Black Hole Magic are the studies of gravity and cosmology. Am I wrong?

We are to avoid another tragedy, but cosmology can still be researched in safe environments, and even used to protect our planet!”

“Still, this is too dangerous to be happening unsupervised. Magic use shall only be allowed under Sols guidance. You are all to be detained and questioned for suspected Heretic Activities.”

This was music to the magebane’s ears. The sadistic man did not care for the professor, who was arguing with the Priest, instead, he was eyeing the room for a more interesting toy. He casually moved towards Juliette, but was jumped by a reinvigorated Harry, who screamed Do not lay your hand on her!”

Most of the acolytes were too shocked to do anything. But for the magebane, this was a common day’s work, and he did not enjoy his personal space being violated. The man left his smaller blade inside Harry’s belly, and turned himself back to his target.

Juliette could not believe what her eyes were seeing. In less than two minutes, her reality had gone from a focused study session to watching her best friend being fatally wounded. Her body refused to move.

The soldiers started to move towards the acolytes, when the Professor shouted them awake: Through the back exit! Hurry! - Two of the students got together to force open a dusty bookshelf in a corner of the room, while the Professor proceeded to defend his students.

He was never a man of violence, but there is not a single veteran researcher who can’t put up a show of dangerous magic, due to their varied studies. From a pocket on his shirt he took a small red crystal, Gleamstone, which he crushed with his palms, and from their fragments a burst of flames expanded to engulf half of the room.

The bright plasma forced Juliette to close her eyes, and the split second it took for her to open them again were enough for the magebane to cross the flames and swing his sword towards the Professor. The flame’s source died as the professor’s left hand fell towards the ground. The shocked Half-Fae could not react in time to the punch the magebane threw in sequence, knocking him down.

The Soldiers and Priest were trying to put off fires on their clothing, and the magebane complained about the fun being over so quickly. Juliette was lying on the ground, and her face of cornered prey was not what the treat magebane was looking for. No more play, it seemed, and it was now just a matter of cleaning up. She could not move a muscle as he grew closer to her, but her mind was focused visualizing the atoms of water dissolved in the air.

“Reroute and radiate… Reroute and Radiate… Reroute and Radiate…

She was already hot from the flames, so she did not care about the extra infrared radiation about to insulate her. One less step to worry about, and without any anticipation, a blast of freezing light swept the room.

Being blinded two times in a row was not something she enjoyed, but at least this time it was of her own doing, so she forced herself to handle it. A palisade of frozen water crystals stood before her, blocking soldiers against the walls, and immobilizing the magebane from the waist down. Both their faces sweating in the furnace-like room.

He was not mad. His face was of pure delight. He finally found a prey worthy of his hunger.

“No oral incantations… no assisting body movements, and not even the use of Gleamstone… you are a natural!

Juliette did not see his comments as a compliment. She ran to Harry, but his cold body did not respond. She could see ther peers also laying lifeless on the ground, near soldiers stuck on ice. Professor nowhere to be found. She needed to run.

The back exit was a narrow corridor filled with sharp turns, and she could hear the screams of “I will get you, girl!” from the magebane fade away as she made distance. After countless turns, she ran into a short stairway that leads into an open alleyway outside of the university. Juliette did not see the sky for long before she was pulled down behind a stack of linen sacks:

“Stay down and be quiet! - She was faced by huge white eyes constrasting against the black skin of a teenage girl.

She just saw evil eyes of the magebane. She could trust these eyes. They both stayed down and silent, when a soldier ran past them. A moment later, a crossbow bolt pierced the soldiers chest, who went down without much noise.

“Now, lets go!” - Commanded the teen. After they started running, Juliette understood that she was not a teenager: Her saviour was a Faeic woman in her twenties, whose height reached at most, Juliette’s chest.

“Who are you?” - She asked. While they ran she could see silhouettes of people on the rooftops, most covered in green and dark brown cloaks.

“There’s no time for it! We must run as fast as we can until we reach a safe point!”

How many!

“What do you mean?

“How many people left before me?

“You are the fourth!

Juliette stopped in shock. She could not believe that along Harry, she may have lost another three companions and the professor. This could not be happening.

“What happened?” - The Fae asked, trying to get Juliette moving.

We must go back we can’t let all of them die!

“We cannot!”

As Juliette started to run back, they heard screams. The soldiers had already found their fallen squadmate, and were flooding the alleys in search of the ones responsible. There was no coming back. The Fae pulled Juliette by her arm, and they ran. A few minutes later, the Fae slowed down and started talking.

“We knew Sol was about to make a move tonight in the college grounds… decided to check what was going on, and found your colleagues by chance.” - The Fae explained, but it made Juliette even more confused.

And who are you folks?

Insurgence! Resistance! Rebellion! I don't know! We haven’t chosen a name yet! The Fae answered with a smile on her face. They were out of danger. As soon as she stopped talking, she turned to enter a tavern where they found the other 3 surviving acolytes and a handful of insurgents.