Place · Duchy of Castal
The Imperial Magi academy on the river south of Sendaria Port — one of only two surviving magical academies in the Kingdom, and Minalan's own alma mater.
Inarion Academy, formally the Inarion Imperial Academy of Magic, sits on the river downstream from Sendaria Port in southern Castal. It is the last surviving daughter-institution of the Old Imperial (Perwynese) academic tradition in Castal, and was historically reserved for the magically inclined nobility of Old Imperial stock. Its curriculum preserves the classical Perwynese approach to thaumaturgy, with deep libraries, resident masters, a Rector, and a Master of Novices who inducts and tests incoming candidates.
Governance is collegial, headed by the Rector and faculty of masters, with formal examinations gatekeeping admission to the profession. A certificate from Inarion was long considered a guarantee of a court position somewhere in the Five Duchies. It was to Inarion that Master Tilo of Talry arranged for the commoner-born Minalan to be admitted — an unprecedented concession dressed up as merit but in truth political — and it was at Inarion that Minalan received the classical training that set him apart from mere hedgemagi.
After Minalan won irionite, Inarion's greed for witchstones gave him leverage for concessions; he sent his apprentices Tyndal and Rondal there to be examined and tutored by the faculty during the winter following the Bovali rescue. Part I of Knights Magi is set almost entirely on the Inarion campus, and the academy's ties to the Arcane Orders and to court politics make it a recurring institutional actor throughout the series.