Imagine trying to rebuild a castle with your bare hands while someone keeps throwing bricks at your head. Now imagine that person is reality itself.
That's my life now.
Day one of my punishment began at dawn, when a magical alarm shrieked in my ear with Professor Nihil's voice. "Ardent. Construction site. Five minutes."
I stumbled out of bed. Finn groaned from his bed across the room, his pillow pulled over his head.
"Already?" he mumbled. "The sun's barely up."
"Nothing to worry about, just six hours of manual labor before classes even begin." I said, pulling on my uniform.
Gavril appeared in our doorway, looking surprisingly alert. "I brought you something." He handed me a steaming mug. "Moridian endurance tea. Family recipe."
I took a grateful sip and nearly spat it out. It tasted like someone had boiled tree bark and added a hint of... was that actual dirt?
"It's... intense," I managed.
"That's how you know it's working," Gavril said with a grim smile. "You'll need it."
****
The Rift Garden—or what remained of it—looked like a war zone. Our "probability incident" that had torn through reality itself, left the once-beautiful floating gardens in fragments.
Professor Nihil stood at the entrance, his skeletal face impassive. Next to him was Professor Zephyr, who offered me a sympathetic wince. The former gestured to a pile of tools, shovels, hammers, saws, and various implements I couldn't identify. Next to it sat a stack of massive stone blocks, wooden beams, and bags of soil.
"Begin with the eastern platform," Nihil instructed, his voice cold "It needs to be completely dismantled and rebuilt."
I looked at the eastern platform, a chunk of earth the size of my dormitory room, suspended forty feet in the air, tilted at a 75-degree angle with half its mass seemingly phased into another dimension.
"How exactly am I supposed to reach that?" I asked.
"Figure it out," Nihil replied. "You have six hours before your first class."
Professor Zephyr cleared his throat. "Perhaps we could at least provide a ladder?"
Nihil's gaze never left me. "Very well. One ladder."
With that, he turned and strode away, his robes seeming to absorb the morning light around him.
Zephyr sighed once Nihil was gone. "For what it's worth, Ardent, I argued against this punishment." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "The eastern platform is a lost cause today. Start with the vegetation. Some of the... altered plants are becoming increasingly aggressive."
As if on cue, a nearby vine lashed out, wrapping around my ankle. I yelped as it dragged me three feet before Zephyr casually incinerated it with a flick of his finger.
"That one, for instance," he said. "I'll check on you periodically. Try not to get eaten."
****
By midmorning, I was covered in dirt, plant sap that burned like acid, and sweat. My muscles screamed as I hacked away at a rosebush that had developed thorns the size of daggers and a disturbing habit of trying to impale anything that moved.
"Need a hand?"
I turned to find Finn and Gavril standing at the garden entrance, both looking concerned.
"You're supposed to be in class," I said, dodging a particularly enthusiastic thorn.
"Free period," Finn replied, grabbing a pair of shears from my tool pile. "Besides, Gavril's notes are better than attending Gravitas's lectures anyway."
"I take very comprehensive notes," Gavril said modestly, pulling on thick gardening gloves. "Also, we have an audience."
He nodded toward the walkway above us, where a group of students had gathered to watch my punishment. I recognized Valentina among them, her hair still cycling through rainbow colors. She noticed me looking and drew her finger across her throat.
I dropped just as something whistled over my head and exploded against the garden wall, leaving a smoking crater.
"Did someone just try to blast me?" I exclaimed.
Finn looked up at the walkway. "Can't tell who it was. They scattered pretty quick."
"Probably because Lady Fortune just showed up," Gavril said, pointing.
Sure enough, Liora was making her way toward us, the crowd of students parting before her like water. Even from a distance, I could see the annoyance on her face.
"Ardent," she called out. "A word."
I set down my shears and wiped my hands on my dirt-stained pants, which only made them dirtier. As I approached Liora, I became acutely aware of how disheveled I must look compared to her perfect appearance.
"You look terrible," she confirmed, her nose wrinkling slightly.
"Thanks," I replied. "It's my new aesthetic. I call it 'Post-Apocalyptic Gardener.'"
She didn't smile. "Our supervised training session is tonight. Eight o'clock, eastern courtyard."
"I'll probably still be here at eight," I said, gesturing to the destruction around us. "Nihil wants to extend the daily manual labor so I can finish rebuilding the garden with a hammer and my broken spirit."
"You'll be there," Liora said firmly. "The Headmistress's orders supersede Nihil's... enthusiasm. Don't be late."
She turned to leave, then paused. "And Ardent? Try not to get yourself killed before tonight. Your probability field is still dangerously negative."
"Is that why someone just tried to blast me?"
"No," she said. "That was just someone who hates you. The negative probability merely ensured they missed."
"So my bad luck is now good luck?"
"No," Liora sighed. "Your bad luck means you get attacked. Your worse luck means you survive to endure more punishment. It's a special kind of misfortune."
With that comforting thought, she walked away, leaving me to return to my gardening duties and my growing fan club of would-be assassins.
****
By lunchtime, I had managed to clear exactly one-eighth of the garden, at the cost of twelve thorn punctures, three acid burns, and one near-strangulation by a particularly clingy vine. My stomach growled, but I knew there was no time for a meal break if I wanted to finish before my afternoon classes.
"Professor Nihil really wants you dead, doesn't he?"
I turned to find Elias leaning against a half-collapsed column, looking immaculate as always. His silver eyes surveyed the destruction with academic interest.
"It's just a working theory," I said, wiping sweat from my forehead. "But yes."
"Interesting," Elias said, approaching a plant that resembled a cross between a sunflower and an octopus. "These probability disruptions have created some fascinating mutations. This one appears to be developing rudimentary sentience."
The plant turned its bulbous head toward Elias and made a strange gurgling sound.
"See?" Elias said, sounding delighted. "I wonder if it's responding to magical signatures."
"Great," I muttered. "Sentient, homicidal plants. Just what I needed."
Elias tossed me a wrapped package. "Eat. You'll need your strength for tonight."
I unwrapped it to find a sandwich and an apple. "Thanks. Why are you helping me this much though?"
"Enlightened self-interest," Elias replied smoothly, prodding the plant-creature with a stick. "Besides, I've placed several wagers on your performance in the tournament."
"You bet on me? To win?"
"Of course not. I've wagered on specific catastrophic outcomes. The odds are excellent."
"I'm touched," I said, taking a bite of the sandwich.
"You should be," Elias replied. "My predictions are rarely wrong. Now, about tonight's training with Lady Fortune..."
"Of course you know about that too." I sighed.
"This time almost everyone in the Academy knows," Elias said dismissively. "As I was saying, you'll want to focus on emotional regulation. Your probability field responds to your mental state."
"Liora mentioned something similar," I said, recalling our disastrous session. "The more agitated I become, the more the currents intensify."
"Precisely," Elias nodded. "And since you spend approximately ninety percent of your time in a state of panic or existential dread..."
"I get it," I interrupted. "Calm down, don't blow up reality again."
"A sound strategy for life in general," Elias agreed. He checked his watch. "I should go. Professor Vex's lecture on complex binding sigils starts in ten minutes."
As he turned to leave, he added, "Oh, and watch out for Valentina. She's been practicing a particularly nasty transmutation spell involving bone density. I believe she plans to test it on you."
"Thanks for the warning," I said weakly.
"Don't mention it," Elias replied.
As Elias strolled off toward the lecture, I looked around the ruined Rift Garden—now one-eighth less of a disaster—and let out a slow breath. My body ached, my clothes were barely salvageable, and my list of enemies appeared to be growing by the hour. But I had survived the garden, the sabotage, and the sentient flora. Now, all I had to do was survive whatever fresh torment awaited me for the rest of the day.