Magic theory class the next day is only a little awkward with the Mynharan missing. Actually, nobody notices him being gone, since apparently a few percent of the school always get caught up with something over the break and fail to return in time. Granted, most people have returned by procday, but supposedly, there’s always a few stragglers who manage to skip a whole second week.

  Regardless, I think I manage to avoid acting suspiciously – not avoiding looking at his usual spot, but not staring at it either. Though there is a fleeting not quite panic every time I glance at his absence as if my gaze might conjure up his spectre to accuse me. Absurd, I know – no one leaves Anar’s orchard.

  After class is the sword club with Bart and Preston. I perform badly, losing just about all of my spars, even against some of my fellow mages.

  “What’s the matter?” Preston asks after the club has split up for free study. “You’re even worse than two weeks ago.”

  “I… may have slipped up in my daily training,” I mutter bashfully. Which is true, as I didn’t exactly have time to while chasing after my friends, but it’s only half the story. The other half being the strain of hiding my recent enhancements. Trying to fight beneath my present ability is doable, but seemingly not not overdoing it.

  I try Monroe’s breathing suggestion, but I can’t figure out what she meant. I try everything: Rapid, slow, deep and shallow in every combination. Nothing seems to affect my effective enhancement in the way I want. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was lying about the supposed insight.

  “Oh, right, you left during the break, didn’t you?” Preston asks with an inquisitive smile. “I sent my servant over to perhaps arrange a meeting, but he was told you had left the capital and didn’t know when you would return.”

  “Ah,” I utter, scratching the back of my head in embarrassment. My eyes glance to Bart, who I note is regarding me curiously. “My apologies. I had to leave the city due to suddenly gaining too much attention. No doubt you’ve heard about my unexpected prominence at the court’s Equinoctial?”

  “No,” he shakes his head, eyes widen in surprise as he leans forward on his practice sword to intently gaze at me. “What happened?”

  “Uh, I thought everyone had heard by now. All the nobles, at least. Anyways, it really wasn’t much. The Empress decided to surprise everyone, especially me, by giving me a gift.”

  “What!?” his face brightens. “The empress gave you a gift? Like personally? In front of everyone?”

  “Yeah… you really haven’t heard?” I ask, surprised that he might be so unconnected.

  He shrugs. “I heard something about a commotion at her celebration, but I didn’t know you were involved. Are you saying you met her majesty?”

  “Umm, yeah, I guess you could say that. If by met, you mean I presented myself to her for half a minute and couldn’t say anything beyond the usual because of how panicked I was.”

  “What was she like?” Preston asks excitedly, wide-eyed with an anticipatory grin.

  “She was…” I struggle for a descriptor not coloured by my true allegiance. “…Imperious. Regal. Stately.”

  “As beautiful as they say?” Preston asks, almost dreamily.

  “Ah…” I utter, unsure what to say or how I’m to judge whether she falls into his criteria of beauty. “Yes, I suppose. No less than would be expected, given the magics available to her.”

  Bart interjects with a playful smile. “As beautiful as the coins which bear her face?”

  I smirk, deciding to match his tone with a straight face. “Surely nothing is as beautiful as that.”

  “Ah! Treason!” Preston says, gripping his chest in mock indignation as he whips up his practice sword from where he was leaning on it. “I shall defend her majesty’s honour!” He immediately lunges. I protest by attempting to parry in earnest, but fail to deflect even his thrust made in jest, and the tip of his weapon strikes true my heart.

  “Ah, I am slain,” I exclaim with deliberately as little emotion as I can express and fall to the ground dead with my hand gripping my ‘wound’.

  “Thus all traitors,” Preston says in faux seriousness as he returns to starting form with a flourish and eyes Bart suspiciously.

  Bart laughs loud enough to draw attention from the other groups with his resonant voice. “How delightful. It eases my heart to see such play.”

  I look at him askance as I take Preston’s offered hand to help me to my feet. I admit, I also feel more relaxed after the antic, but his words almost seem deliberately weighted.

  “Is there something that troubles you then?” Preston asks, head tilted with an equal mix of curiosity and concern for our friend. “Something we could help you with?”

  “Ah,” Bart opens his mouth as if to say something affirmative, but shakes his head. “No, nothing in the present. Let us just say that my break was eventful…” He glances at me as if deciding something, though which way or what I cannot tell. His smile takes on a cunning quality as he changes the direction of conversation. “Though not all stressful. Among other things, I finally broke through and became a page.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Both Preston’s and my eyes widen, but for different reasons. He was already a formidable foe to Ser Terry’s group when he was a mundane. How much more dangerous will he be now that he’s self-enhanced? Though on the other hand, this does mean that it’ll be that much harder for Ser Terry to catch him off guard and kill him, which I would also be loath to occur.

  Preston’s face is, of course, a much less complicated congratulatory expression, which I quickly emulate. “That’s fantastic!” He says, beaming smile. “I thought I could sense a difference, though of course, you probably don’t have much of an improvement yet.”

  He nods. “No more than a fraction of a standard boon, but I feel my strength growing every day now. The sensation is… exciting.”

  “Don’t I know it. I still remember when I fully became an aspirant… I hope your strength will grow more than mine did.”

  Bart gives a reassuring smile. “Worry not, I’m sure you’ll manage to achieve greater strength yet. In the meantime, you have done well training your technique to a level few who grow strong quickly achieve. Once the Eye finally grants you your full strength, I’m sure this period will be seen as a blessing.”

  “Yeah… sure,” Preston says, a slight annoyance at Bart’s attempt to ameliorate him. It’s a nice concept, but one I’m sure Preston has heard many times. Though, having heard it many times, Preston does not linger on his friend’s inability to come up with a more novel reassurance, and returns his attention to his friend. “So, what was your moment of breakthrough?”

  “Oh,” Bart says, turning slightly. “I suppose you could say I had some frustrations over the break. Nothing important, just work related. I can’t say what exactly due to privacy contracts. Anyway. I channelled the frustration, and I think it is that which finally prompted the Eye to relent and grant me the ability.”

  Preston nods attentively as he describes vaguely what I know some of the details of. If I understand him correctly, it would seem that my intervention and thwarting of his plans prompted him to finally advance. I don’t know how to feel about that… Probably nothing, since he’d probably advance in a few weeks anyways.

  “Yeah, frustration is common,” Preston says, seemingly only aware of the flow of conversation, with none of the ominous weight seemingly making its way through. None of my reading into whether Bart’s reading into my reaction. So, it’s probably just my imagination. “I think I had a lot of frustration for my breakthrough too. Lots of expectations to live up to my mother, but I kept on losing to… well, you know, a rival.” He glances to me with an embarrassed blush, and I realize that he’s talking about the girl I reported during the entrance exam.

  “I see,” Bart says, “and did you soon overtake this rival?”

  “Preston shakes his head sadly. “No, she soon advanced herself, and grew faster than I did… Though now that I look back, I think maybe that wasn’t as true as I thought. I think I might have been able to beat her if I wasn’t always in my own head so much. You know, haunted by the pattern of defeat. Cause in the entrance tournament, I ended up beating the person who eliminated her.”

  “Ah,” I say, remembering her exchange with me after. “She didn’t mention that. I guess that just strengthens the arguments I made to her.”

  Preston gives me a quizzical grin. “You argued with her? On my behalf?”

  I study him and shrug. “I suppose. Though really, she was just being annoying, and I was more using you to taunt her… So no, not really for your sake.”

  He chuckles. “That is more you… But what about you? How’d you first break through and become a mage?”

  Memories flash through me. It was a cold winter night, nearly seven years ago. I remember wolves howling, though that can’t be right. Wolves had been driven from the area some time ago. I had been studying a basic flame spell for several weeks… How long had I been in the cult? Where did I come…? Pain shoots through my skull, and I stop trying to remember before. It seems the patriarch’s spell is still in effect, though weakened with time.

  I had been studying a basic flame spell for weeks. We had just moved into an area, and the patriarch captured a woman from the village. He said it was my turn to receive Anar’s grace. She was still awake, begged us not to, then bit off her own tongue in a futile attempt to deny us our prize when she saw our resolve. But she didn’t bleed out fast enough for that to work, and I was soon blasted by my first taste of Anar’s pleasure.

  It’s funny, she was just a peasant, but I still remember that first taste as something astounding. After, I rose to the top of the hill and gazed at the rising sun, flushed with Anar’s power. It didn’t take the full rising before the Eye relented to Anar’s power, and I became a mage.

  “Oh, you know,” I say with a masking smile. “The usual. Studied the concepts and standard riddles until the eye relented. Mages tend to not have as interesting stories. More rational in our negotiations… You know.”

  Preston rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure. Come on, I’ve heard plenty of wild breakthrough stories from mages. I even heard one claimed she had to dance naked during an eclipse.”

  “That is… not standard,” I say, with baffled expression. “And dangerous. Way too easy to go in too hard if you’re not even a full mage yet.”

  He chuckles. “Yeah, well, she was older. Said she felt it was her last chance. Which wasn’t true, but maybe it might as well have been, you know. But then again, she was telling the story to a guy her age, so maybe she was just embellishing, if you understand.”

  I scrunch my face up. “Not really.”

  He laughs. “No, I suppose you don’t.”

  We continue practising after that, then split up when the club ends. Bart, however, hangs back with me and gestures to go to the side with a conspiratorially low voice.

  “There was something I’ve been thinking about asking you. Something you might be interested in. I can’t tell you here though. Could meet up some place more quiet?”

  I freeze in realization. He’s clearly about to try to recruit me to his side… I don’t think I want that. I thought I’d be neutral between them, not choosing until one of them asked me to. But I don’t think I’m that torn between them. I might be convinced to join Ser Terry against him, but not the other way around. I do at least have that slight preference.

  Part of me feels that perhaps I should hear him out. After all, I did already act against him, and he is no doubt trying to replenish the losses I inflicted on him. Better to balance it out. But no, I won’t act against him more than is necessary, but I won’t help him either. After all, his side already has more resources.

  But how to refuse without revealing that I already know what’s going on, or allowing him to tell me about it, which would force me to reject him? How do I keep both friends?

  I regard him silently, then mentally shrug and decide being direct as possible without revealing anything would be best. “Would this have anything to do with the tension you have with Ser Terry?”

  He flinches at the direct tone. “…Yes. I suppose it does.”

  I shake my head. “I’m sorry, but I consider you both friends and have no intention of choosing between you. I don’t care who’s right or wrong, I won’t pick a side.”

  He silently thinks for a moment, clearly having not anticipated my anticipation of his intent. “You may have to choose, someday.” His voice is deep and a bit threatening.

  I shrug with an unstressed smile. “No reason not to enjoy the time before then, no?”

  His eyes narrow, but he nods. “I suppose you are right. No worries, I will just have to look elsewhere.”

  His gaze goes to Preston walking about, and I suppress a shudder, not knowing how to feel about the implied prospect.