The Restored: Chapter Fifty

Twenty years later…

Maryam Johnson took a deep breath and adjusted her robes one last time in the mirror. She didn’t even know why Bronzelight University bothered with the silly ancient mage robes tradition for all its graduates – she wasn’t even a mage, not really. Sure, she might have the aura generation tattoo that let her practice a bit of magic, but everyone had one of those. To say she was a mage just because she had a tattoo that gave her aura was like saying that someone was a long distance sprinter because they had legs that were capable of running. 

No, Maryam was far more an architect than she was a construction mage. There wasn’t a ton of need for architects, but she loved the work, and it wasn’t like it had cost her anything – apart from her time, and right now, the stress over her appearance. She wanted to look good for her own graduation, as well as for her girlfriend’s thesis. Once she was content with how she looked, she slipped out of her apartment and took the lift down from her dorm room, glancing out the glass and copper elevator at the city below. 

From the elevator, she could just make out one of the Kahlon Permanent Portal Stations floating in mid-air around the edges of the city as it sparked and fizzed, then erupted into a massive gateway of gray light. Moments later, a sleek airship flying the flag of the New Ulactan Democracy slid out into the air above the city, joining in the airship skylanes behind a ship from Paerús as they moved to one of the docking bays atop a nearby building. 

Before she could watch the landing procedure, the lift dinged and its doors opened. She walked out onto the fourth floor and began joining the rush of students who were making their way to Bronzelight’s auditorium for the graduation ceremony. 

Despite all the rushing and the fact that she’d had to get up at five in the morning to make it in time, it still took forever. Everyone was organized into a line and were forced to stand around, waiting to shuffle into the auditorium and find their marked seats, and then the dean took what felt like a year talking about the history of Bronzelight University, and introducing a guest speaker, some ranking military official that she didn’t recognize. She looked to be in her late thirties, early forties, with steely gray hair, and she wore the long coats that had fallen out of fashion fifteen or more years ago. 

“Thank you, thank you,” she said, smiling at them all. “For those of you who don’t know me, I am Brigadier Jin Kahlon. I might not have graduated from this fine academy–” 

“Not for lack of trying to get her in,” one of the department heads, an absurdly tall man who almost sixty interjected, and Maryam perked up. That was Professor Font. She wasn’t an engineering student, but there was enough crossover between her field of study and engineering that she’d taken several of his classes. She liked him well enough – though it was clear that teaching hadn’t come naturally to him, he put time into each of his students, and his demon was funny. 

“As my father said, not for lack of trying,” the woman said, and though Maryam was too far to actually see the brigadier roll her eyes, it dripped from her voice. “While I may not have graduated from this university, I do still feel some special connection…” 

The speech went on for some time, as these things tended to, and Maryam was practically asleep in her chair by the time the brigadier had stepped down and the diploma distribution began. When her name was called, she jolted out of her chair and quickly walked up the line of department heads, smiling at Professor Font and as he gave her an approving nod, and as his husband – some history professor, she thought – softly congratulated her. She received her diploma from the dean, and then headed back into her chair. 

She didn’t look out into the audience. She didn’t need to – she didn’t have any family left, apart from an uncle in Traktath she never spoke to, and her girlfriend would be preparing to defend her thesis. 

She settled down into her chair for the rest of the ceremony, and as soon as it began, practically sprinted to get to the front of the line and rush out, where she raced through the maze of buildings and over to the hall where Chiyo waited. She spotted her girlfriend and her mother sitting in the chairs, and Chiyo bolted to her feet, wrapping Maryam in a hug. 

“Congratulations! I’m so proud of you,” the smaller girl said, only for a smile to tug at Maryam’s face. 

“You’re the one who's looking to get an Ar.D,” Maryam teased, pulling a string of hair from her girlfriend’s eyes – Chiyo tended to futz with her hair when she was worried. 

“It’s still strange to me that you can get a degree and prove you’re competent enough to be considered an Archmage,” Chiyo’s mother, a woman in her fifties with warm eyes said. “I still remember a time where I had to warn you that you might never be able to awaken an aura or qualify for an auraspark, since we were undercity folk.” 

An Ar.D, or a Doctorate of Archmagedom, wasn’t the same as having five arch-stars, but it did signify that a person was capable of crafting spells on the level of an Archmage in their chosen field, and also qualified them to run for one of the ten Consulate Archmage positions – three druids, witches, and sorcerers, with a single position given for singers. There was some talk of expanding the singer positions, but the fact was that there were less than five thousand singers in the entire city.

In response to her mother’s comments, Chiyo flexed her aura and grinned at herr mom, saying something about the wonders of modern technology. She didn’t technically have a natural aura, having also received a tattoo, but unlike Maryam, she was a proper mage. She’d worked to expand the basic fifty Auric Units that the tattoo provided to a bit over three hundred.

The tattoos were still imperfect – Archmage Consulate Witch Hadiya Abbas had managed to let them grow like an aura did, but nobody had cracked the methods for letting them form arch-stars, familiars, rune bonds, or be added to anyone with an aura yet. 

The only reason Maryam knew all that was because her girlfriend’s thesis had combined research on disjointed casting, new magic coming from the island chains where the Singers lived, and her own brilliance to find a workaround. 

When her girlfriend was called, all three of them shuffled into the room, and Chiyo let out a gasp. Maryam and Chiyo’s mother both froze, worried something had happened, but Chiyo was staring at a man in his late thirties with sandy blonde hair. He smiled at them and lifted a hand in a wave. 

The professor leading the Ar.D. defense nodded to the man, then to Chiyo. 

“I’m aware that this isn’t standard procedure, so by all means, feel free to request that Kelly leaves.” 

“My dads told me you’d done something interesting with my knack,” the man said, his accent the same rough, distinct tone that people who had grown up in the Undercity, back when it had been the poor part of Elderglass as Chiyo’s mother. 

“Thank you, of course, no. I mean. Yes. I mean–” 

Maryam reached out and put her hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder, then squeezed. 

“It’s completely alright,” Chiyo said, swallowing. “Today I will be introducing…” 

Maryam tried to pay attention, but within minutes the group had begun throwing out four and five syllable words – all save for Kelly, who kept his comments far more grounded in reality. Eventually, they struck on the crux of the problem that Chiyo had written her Ar.D. about. 

“You claim to have created a method to allow someone with an aura tattoo to become a sorcerer, then?” Kelly asked, knitting his brows together. 

“No – I claim to have created a method to allow someone with a tattoo to cast sorcerer spells. It’s still limited, but by using singer techniques to layer the spells directly into the aura and disjointed aura manipulation skills modeled after your original…” 

Chiyo continued for some time before one of the women who was there to question her raised a hand. 

“I’m satisfied with the theory. Does it work?” 

In response, Chiyo held her hand out and removed a coin from her pocket. She placed it on her open palm, then concentrated. Her aura bloomed around her, and then it forcibly shaped itself into one of the patterns of a spell. Chiyo screwed up her eyes, glaring at the coin as aura flowed into the construct. 

Slowly, the coin began to rise into the air, and Maryam clapped. That got an amused snort from Kelly, but he nodded. 

“You’re targeting it with disjointed casting?” 

“I am,” Chiyo confirmed, a note of pride entering her voice. “I’ve yet to figure out how to hide the patterns in the same way a sorcerer can, but I’ve successfully incorporated four metal sorcerer spells.” 

The group all looked between one another, and Kelly was the first to speak. 

“As far as I’m concerned, she’s an Archmage. I think Hadiya would agree – even if the rest of these professorial types don’t want to grant you the title, I’d be happy to introduce you.”

The End