On her daily walk toward the university, Kara preferred to amble through the Minningen gardens, humming a made-up song in a dissonant warble. But today was not that day. Her carriage had been late. Again. If the young wizard didn't hurry, she'd soon miss the start of her Master level training exam.

Oh, curses! Not again!

To the great disgust of the other passengers, Kara pushed and shoved her way through the narrow aisle until she reached the exit. She tapped her foot and fidgeted with her bag, waiting for the carriage to screech to a halt, at which point she bolted and ran quicker than a magic arrow.

This time it's not my fault, I swear!

After taking a shortcut through the dense evergreen forest, Kara raced across the lush grass. Morning dew seeped into her boots, and the cold autumn air bit at her lungs. Mud splashed upon her sapphire blue wizard robes as she leaped over fallen logs, but she didn't care. Even the gushing waterfalls and chattering squirrels didn't distract her this time.

"Sorry," she called to them. "I'm late!"

Her boot heels clacked with resolve as she sprinted across the cobblestone courtyard. In her frantic attempt to make it, the desperate young woman almost knocked down some students and a professor.

Thank the Light I didn't hurt anyone. Or break an ankle, really.

Climbing the steps in pairs, she skidded through the foyer filled with ivory statues and famous works of art. Kara flew down the corridor of the converted castle and burst through the oak door of the Great Hall.

Many students whipped around to give her a derisive glare for interrupting their concentration, an angry rainbow of red, green, blue, white, and black. Only her best friend Hilda and her drinking buddies, all dressed in red fighter surcoats, gave her a welcoming smile. Hilda raised her right fist, her elbow bent at ninety degrees, in a silent dwarfish greeting.

The one time Kara's tardiness mattered, they had a visitor. Typical! Not only Professor Weisen gave her his signature critical stare over the top of his tiny round wizard glasses. The ones that remained perched on the end of his bulbous nose.

Kara sighed in resignation. Oh, no!

Beside him stood one of the most intimidating men that served Minningen: a member of the Tower guard. Like all warriors in his order, the officer wore a metallic mask that obscured his entire face.

Tall and willowy, he reminded her of a beanstalk. But no weakling became an elite Tower guard. His thin frame must have been hiding a subtle kind of strength his enemies could easily underestimate.

She didn't need to read his expression to know he was royally pissed.

Dressed in black from head to toe, Beanstalk stood ramrod straight with his arms crossed. Head held high. Not that he needed to do so, what with dwarfing the human professor by almost a cubit. As if that didn't make the soldier scary enough, an aura of condescension radiated from him like a rotten turnip.

What in the Shadow is the military doing here?

Kara fought to catch her breath whilst trying to minimize her panting so as not to disturb the other students. Her lungs burned in protest. "Sorry..." She took another deep breath. "...about that," after which she quickly added, "Sir."

She coughed, and a few of the examinees glared at her.

"Late again, Katharina?" said Professor Weisen, more of a declaration than a question.

"I swear it wasn't my fault this time," she whispered under her breath once she reached his ornate mahogany desk. "I got up early, arrived on time at the station, and--"

"We do not care why you are late. Only that you are." The Tower guard's voice thrummed in a bass rumble with an accent she couldn't quite place. "Had this been a battle, your fellow soldiers would have been killed due to your incompetence."

Kara opened her mouth, found herself too incredulous to speak, and closed it again. Is he serious? Oh, well! Who cares what this idiot thinks? He has no say here.

"I apologize, Sir. It won't happen again." When Kara reached for the exam booklet, the guard pulled it away. She scrunched her face. "Are you serious?"

"I could ask you the same question," came the guard's dismissive response. "Come back next year after you have learned some discipline."

Why does Beanstalk have such a stick up his butt?

When Kara turned to her professor for support, he ran both hands over his white hair, which frizzed wildly in all directions. "This is wartime. I no longer run the department."

Curses!

In her peripheral vision, Kara caught sight of a student raising their hand. The guard gave them a curt nod. "Sir, all due respect, I can't concentrate with that wizard talking."

Kara turned toward the red-headed sorceress. The way she said 'wizard' made Kara think she really wanted to say 'dung beetle'. Or possibly that she thought all wizards were dung beetles.

Either way, it wouldn't have surprised Kara courtesy of the not-so-cordial rivalry between their two academic departments. Traditionalist sorcerers didn't typically get along with the more studious and rational bookworms. While wizards didn't believe in a bunch of tree-hugging superstitious hocus-pocus.

"You will receive an extra five minutes to complete your exam."

"But that's--"

"There are distractions on the battlefield as well," interrupted the guard. "Do you think your enemy will wait until you are ready? No, he will strike at will. Now focus!"

The sorceress tugged at the neckline of her emerald green surcoat. Kara caught the full brunt of her glare, which turned the wizard's insides to paste. Before the angry magic user did actually cast an effective curse, she directed her attention to the guard again.

"Sir, I'm fluent in half a dozen Republic languages as well as several draconic dialects," she insisted. "I can do this. Please give me a chance to make it right."

For once Kara wished Beanstalk would remove his mask so that she could interpret his reaction. But it hid every flicker, every quirk, and every facial tick beneath a cool, emotionless facade with thin, straight lips.

When the determined student took a few steps closer to him, she could detect only the color of his eyes: hazel with darker inner rings of brown.

They looked familiar. Oh, so familiar.

But where?

They didn't belong to any of Hilda's drinking buddies. Any of her mother's colleagues. Any of her professors or neighbors. Definitely not a former lover because she didn't tick that way. Her love belonged to books alone.

Though the answer hovered on the edges of her consciousness, she couldn't quite grasp it. It didn't matter anyway.

She cared about one thing only: Beanstalk stood in the way of her fulfilling her dreams, and that she would not stand. As implacable as the soldier, Kara stood her ground, never once breaking eye contact with him.

"Please, Sir."

Beanstalk studied her for several seconds, betraying no sign of relenting. Kara refused to look away. It was not her first battle of wills, and it certainly wouldn't be her last.

In his famous journal Simon the Bard once wrote the pithy quip, "Stare no soul in the eye whom you wish to neither punch nor plow."

That might well have been sage advice, but Kara wouldn't give up unless this dark knight dragged her bodily from the hall. If he wanted a fight, she'd give him one. Verbal or otherwise.

Kara had friends in high places, and she wasn't afraid to contact them when her career depended on it. Especially if this guard insisted on treating her with injustice.

Besides, she had witnesses. Over a dozen who would speak on her behalf.

"No extra time," he declared. "Double point deductions for missing answers and errors."

Kara beamed like the twin moons of Paxus. "Thank you, Sir! You won't regret it."

"Not another word."

Kara made a motion of plastering her lips shut and raced toward the only wooden table available, next to what could only be described as a human oak tree. It was Harald, one of Hilda's tavern buddies whom she'd come to know over the years.

Like Beanstalk, the warrior stood at least four and a half cubits tall, his long legs outstretched on either side of the desk ahead of him. Unlike the more slender elite soldier, Harald could have probably carried the professor's giant desk on his own.

On a dare he bench-pressed Hilda one-handed once without much of a problem. The memory made Kara's heart glow.

Kara exchanged a friendly smile with Harald before unbuckling her leather satchel. She retrieved an inkwell and a fancy aquamarine peacock quill with a vibrant yellow and black eye, her good luck charm. It was the last gift her father had ever given her. A special present for her eighteenth birthday.

Her heart gave a momentary twinge of sadness, but it quickly faded.

No time for grief. Focus! You have one shot at this, so make Papa proud.

Flipping open the exam booklet, her heart swelled. Curses! This is even better than I hoped. Child's play.

Peeking up at the Tower guard and her worried professor, she gave them both a cheeky grin before hunching over the paper, quill in hand.

Think of it like a competition, said her conscience, mirroring the depth and cadence of her father's voice. You have forty-five minutes to finish all the puzzles. Like we used to do back home.

Aaaaand--go!

With frantic quillstrokes, Kara worked through all the obscure anagrams, multilingual cryptograms, puzzles, word mazes, and translations with ease. Even the ones that included rare dialects.

She sank into that creative part of her mind that allowed her to block out all distractions and focus on her goal with the clarity of an Elvish flute. Her thoughts flowed freely. Like the teeming waters of the River Arla.

Her heart thrummed with nervous energy that had nothing to do with the elixir she'd drunk that morning. Kara was in her element. Just enough pressure to keep her mind from wandering. Not so stressed that she wanted to smash her inkwell against the wall.

I live for this shit.

Just as she'd finished the very last cryptogram, the guard declared, "Time is up! Katharina Firestorm, lay down your quill and flip over your parchment."

Once Kara finished the final word with a dramatic flourish, she flipped over the paper and crossed her arms, not bothering to rise and meet the guard halfway. Only once Beanstalk snatched the parchment and question booklet from her desk could she take a proper breath.

While he scanned her answers, her heart thudded. Kara could have sworn the sudden straightening of his posture betrayed a hint of surprise, though it might have been wishful thinking.

Once more he glanced at her, sending an odd chill across her skin. Kara ignored it. Though she could never know for certain, the wizard could almost sense his incredulity burning through the mask. The mere prospect warmed her heart.

Gotcha!

"You may leave," he declared.

"Thank you, Sir."

Slinging the leather satchel over her shoulder, Kara gave both of her potential mentors a Minningen salute--clasping her right fist over her heart--and kicked open the massive oak door with the back of her foot. She exited the exam room with her head held high. Last to arrive, first to finish.

If that test had anything to do with it, they would accept her into the program. Even if Beanstalk hated her, he'd take one look at her answers and reluctantly accept her.

At least, she hoped so.

That way Kara could keep the last promise she'd made to her courageous father: to serve Minningen with all her devotion. Only instead of taking up a blade like him, she'd take up her mind like her mother to protect their soldiers from afar.

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