Fortov’s loud laughter broke him out of such gloomy musings. His older brother didn’t have such problems, that’s for sure. Like always, he was cheerful, sociable, and had a smile that could light up the world. The people he was surrounded with were clearly enthralled with him, and he stood out among them at first glance, despite having the same thin build that Zorian did. He just had that kind of presence around him. He was like Daimen in this way, only Daimen had actual skills to back up his charm.
He scoffed, shaking his head. Zorian didn’t know for sure how Fortov had been accepted into a supposedly elite institution like Cyoria’s magical academy, but he strongly suspected Father had greased a few palms to get Fortov in. It wasn’t that Fortov was stupid, so much as lazy and completely unable to focus on a task, no matter how critical. Not that most people knew that, of course – the boy was charming as hell, and very adept in sweeping his inadequacies under the metaphorical rug.
His father always joked that Fortov and Zorian each got a half of Daimen in them: Fortov got his charm, and Zorian his competence.
Zorian had never liked his father’s sense of humor.
A whistle pierced the air, and the train entered the station with a high-pitched squeal of metal wheels braking against the tracks. The original trains were steam-powered machines that billowed smoke wherever they went and consumed unholy amounts of coal to keep going, but this one was powered by the newer techno-magic engines that consumed crystallized mana instead. Cleaner, cheaper, and required less maintenance. Zorian could actually feel the mana radiating off the train as he approached, though his ability to sense magic was too underdeveloped to tell him any details. He had always wanted to look around the engine room of one of these things but could never figure out a good way to approach the train operators.
But that was a thought for another time. He gave a brief goodbye to Mother and Kirielle and entered the train to find himself a seat. He intentionally chose an empty compartment, something that was surprisingly easy to find. Apparently, despite the gathered crowd, few of them would be taking this particular train.
Five minutes later, the train gave another ear-splitting whistle and began its long journey towards Cyoria.
There was a sharp crackling sound, following by the sound of a bell ringing.
"Now stopping in Korsa," a disembodied voice echoed. A crackling sound again. "I repeat, now stopping in Korsa. Thank you."
The speakers crackled one last time before turning silent.
Zorian released a long sigh of irritation and opened his eyes. He hated trains. The boredom, the heat, and the rhythmic thumping sounds all conspired to make him sleepy, but every time he finally drifted off to sleep he was rudely awoken by the station announcer. That this was the very purpose of that announcer – to wake up passengers who would sleep through their destination – was not lost on Zorian, but it was no less annoying because of it.
He looked through the window, only to see a train station like any other. In fact, it was completely identical to the previous five, down to the blue outline on the big white tablet saying Korsa. Apparently the station builders were working off some kind of template these days. Looking at the station platform they were stopping at, he could see a large crowd of people waiting to get on the train. Korsa was a major trading hub, and a lot of newly minted merchant families lived here, sending their children to Cyoria’s prestigious academy to become mages and mingle among children of other influential people. Zorian found himself wishing that none of his fellow students join him in his compartment, but he knew it was an idle dream – there were too many of them and his compartment was completely empty aside from him. He did all he could to make himself comfortable in his seat and closed his eyes again.
The first person to join him in his compartment was a chubby, glasses-wearing girl in a green turtleneck. She gave him a cursory glance and started reading a book in silence. Zorian would have been ecstatic with such an agreeable traveling companion, but soon enough a group of four other girls came in and took the remaining four seats for themselves. The newcomers were very loud and prone to giggling fits, and Zorian was sorely tempted to get up and find himself a new compartment to occupy. He spent the rest of the trip alternating between looking through the window at the endless fields they were passing and exchanging annoyed glances with the green-turtleneck girl, who seemed similarly irritated by the other girls' antics.
He knew they were getting close to Cyoria when he could see trees on the horizon. There was only one city on this route that was this close to the great northern forest, and the trains otherwise avoided getting close to so infamous a place. Zorian picked up his bag and went to stand by the exit. The idea was to be among the first to disembark, and thus avoid the usual crowding that always occurred once they got to Cyoria, but he was too late – there was already a crowd at the exit when he approached. He leaned on the nearby window and waited, listening to animated conversation between three first year students beside him, who were talking excitedly amongst themselves about how they were going to start learning magic and whatnot. Boy, were they going to be disappointed – the first year was all theory, meditation exercises, and learning how to access your mana consistently.
"Hey, you! You’re one of the upperclassmen, aren’t you?"
Zorian looked at the girl talking to him and suppressed a groan of irritation. He so did not want to talk to these people. He had been in the train since early morning, Mother had given him a nasty lecture because he hadn’t offered Ilsa something to drink while she was in the house, and he was in no mood for anything.
"I suppose you could describe me as such," he said cautiously.
"Can you show us any magic?" she asked eagerly.
"No," said Zorian flatly. He wasn’t even lying. "The train is warded to disrupt mana shaping. They had problems with people starting fires and vandalizing compartments."
"Oh," the girl said, clearly disappointed. She frowned, like trying to figure something out. "Mana shaping?" she asked cautiously.
Zorian raised an eyebrow. "You don’t know what mana is?" She was first year, yes, but that was elementary. Anyone who went through elementary school should know at least that much.
"Magic?" she tried lamely.
"Ugh," grunted Zorian. "The teachers would so fail you for that. No, it’s not magic. It’s what powers magic - the energy, the power, that a mage shapes into a magical effect. You’ll learn more about it in lectures, I guess. Bottom point is: no mana, no magic. And I can’t use any mana at the moment."
This was misleading, but whatever. There was no way he was explaining things to some random stranger, especially since she should already know this stuff.
"Um, okay. Sorry to bother you then."
With a lot of squealing and steam-letting, the train stopped at Cyoria’s train station, and Zorian disembarked as fast as he could, pushing past the awed first-years staring at the sight before them.
Cyoria’s train station was huge, a fact made obvious by the fact that it was enclosed, making it look more like a giant tunnel. Actually, the station as a whole was even larger, because there were four more tunnels like this one, plus all the support facilities. There was nothing like it anywhere in the world, and virtually everyone was stupefied the first time they saw it. Zorian was too, when he first disembarked here. The feeling of disorientation was amplified by the sheer number of people that went through this terminal, whether they were passengers going in and out of Cyoria, workers inspecting the train and unloading luggage, newsboys shouting headlines, or homeless people begging for some change. As far as he knew, this massive flow of people never really ceased, even at night, and this was a particularly busy day.