They will be your familiars, yours to look after and trust in. Now catch one.”
Catch one? How the frigging heck am I meant to do that? I look down, seeing two brown horses right under me, and I mentally try to steel myself for landing on one of them. Inches before I reach my hands out for the horse’s mane, the horse flies away, leaving me tumbling down in the air. I scream, spinning around and taking a few precious seconds to flatten myself again against the air and look for another horse. I glance at the mountains below me and see a horse right on the tip of the highest mountain, its white fur shining, reflecting the moonlight.
Perfect.
It’s already still and landed, which should make this easier if I can just get near enough. Flattening my hands on my body, just like I’ve seen in action movies, I direct my body towards the tip of the high mountain and right towards the horse. As I get closer, it turns its gaze and looks up at me. The horse’s white wings spread out as we lock gazes, and I beg whoever is listening that this horse doesn’t move. My heart feels like it is in my stomach as I get so close, knowing this is going to hurt as I land. I’m inches away from the horse when the horse moves it wings and takes off. Tears sting my eyes as I see the snow below me, knowing there is no way I’m going to survive this.
I’m sorry, mum and dad.
I’m sorry, Riley, you’re on your own.
I’m—
My thoughts are cut off as suddenly the horse is below me, and I land on its back with a thud, smacking my head against its back hard enough to make me dizzy. I lock my hands onto the horse’s mane as I sit up, the world looking fuzzy as we literally fly on top of it.
“Hello, you saved me,” I whisper to my horse in pure relief. A smile fills my lips as I glance around, seeing Riley on a brown horse, flying right towards me. In the distance, I see Vesnia on a black horse with a long grey mane, and she waves at me.
A long whistle sounds in the distance, and my horse takes off, flying in the same direction as all the others with riders. I look back once, my smile dropping from my lips as I see two students’ bodies on the mountain, snowflakes falling on their lifeless bodies as blood spreads around them in the white snow.
What kind of academy is this?
The horses fly up for a long time through the clouds, and I keep my eyes high until we break out of the clouds and into the night sky, and there’s a castle floating in the middle of it. The castle sits on a floating rock, and around the castle looks like a jungle full of thick trees of all different colours. There are a few small houses around it and beautiful gardens in between them. The castle itself is stunning, like straight out of a Disney movie stunning. The castle has what must be dozens of white spired towers and bridges connecting all of the castle to the main part in the middle. When I look up expecting to see the moon, instead, it’s a floating orb of intense light, with angels in a line like a barrier all the way around it. The orb is shining the same light that the moon would give off, but I doubt we are on earth anymore. It certainly doesn’t feel like it. I stare longer at the orb, and I soon realise the angels around it aren’t real, they are made of stone.
I get a strange urge to fly up and touch them, but another loud whistle gets our horses’ attention. My eyes just briefly meet Riley’s before the horses are swooping down, taking all the air from my lungs at the same time. I hold on as tightly as I can, fearing I’m going to fall off any second, and when I open my eyes, I see we are flying around the castle and getting lower each time. The other horses form a line behind me, and my horse is the first to land right in front of an angel with a whistle in her mouth, which she drops and smiles at me.
“Welcome, new students! I am Professor Nina, and I will be teaching you everything there