GOSSIP

The New Term Address by Headmistress McLaren is rarely exciting. I think the most interesting thing that ever happened was a rock dove crashing into the massive stained glass window of the Grand Hall and startling a First Year so badly he fell out of his seat.

But not this year. Because this year in a terrible twist of luck—or due to someone’s intentional malice—Zalan Astaroth has arrived moments after the headmistress already begin her Welcome to Term speech. And so as my new dormmate enters the Grand Hall everyone turns to stare at him. One because he’s far more interesting than a rehash of the same speech some of us have already heard a half dozen times before. And secondly because the massive doors to the Grand Hall creak as if they hadn’t been opened in a century.

I cringe, the deafening silence as Astaroth enters is beyond brutal. And yet, he stalks forward to the very center of the hall as if he couldn’t care in the least that everyone is blatantly gawking at him. 

As dormmate moves through the Grand Hall his green-eyed gaze shifts over our fellow mages searching for a seat until he finally reaches the very front. Only then does he find a vacancy between two terrified looking First Years. As Astaroth gracefully takes his seat Headmistress McLaren regards him for one brief moment before she continues with her address.

* * *

The Mages of Bealnora are a flurry of gossip as soon as we’re turned loose from the Grand Hall. And thanks to my dormmate’s dramatic appearance, me and my marmalade hair are old news. Replaced in a snap with something far more intriguing to whispering about. As if they think he somehow can’t hear them if they huddling in little groups.

I clench my jaw. Gossip is the root of everything awful in this world. It destroys lives. Ends them as swiftly as any poison or blade. It’s a curse cast by the rumor-maker that spreads unchecked regardless of truth. And I want no part of it…

…But it hounds my every step as if stalking me from the shadows. Relentless.

“Did you hear? That’s Zalan Astaroth.”

“Really?”

“He’s first Astaroth to ever be expelled from Astar Magikal Academy.”

I scowl at them darkly, turning away as I head toward the courtyard. 

“What do you think he did to get kicked out of Astar?” my cousin questions in a hushed whisper as she rushes up beside me, her skirt rustling. 

“Tegan, do you honestly think if it was worth caring about they’d let him enroll here?” I counter harshly as we round the corner. 

She bites her lip. “Well…”

“Of course they wouldn’t. If it was truly so heinous they’d send him to Black Spire.” I shove my fists into my coat pockets. “He probably just had relations with the wrong type. You know how they can get.”

My mother was the “wrong type” and no one has ever let me forget it. 

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“Gossip” ExSpelled © 2025 by Kat Vancil

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