CHAPTER 8

“Welcome back.” Winfred smiled at me somberly and looked almost worried about me before frowning. “Weapons?”

“Just the one, really.” I showed it to her and she frowned. “What?”

“It’s an odd one, for sure.” She passed it over to Xanile who blinked at it and shrugged. “I’ve not seen the like before.”

“Am I allowed to wear it here?” She nodded as if I were daft, then helped me belt it.

“That necklace is interesting, where did you get it?” Xanile’s question held curiosity as she stood to come closer to look at me. “It almost looks like a beast core.”

“They were both gifts from my mother and father.” I pulled out the receipt out of my pocket and handed it to Xanile, “A gift to you from my family as well.”

Her eyes widened and she whispered, “This is worth a fortune and they just handed over twenty of them?”

“They’re accomplished botanists.” I lied smoothly. “They wanted to be certain you and your family wouldn’t regret taking me under your wing.”

Xanile and Winfred both smiled, “We get a prodigy and a rare type of wood? Outstanding.”

“Are there other weapons I can have access to?” I raised my eyebrows at them hopefully.

Winfred nodded, “Yes, but you’ll be measured and will have them taken from the armory here for your lessons.”

I didn’t like the way she made that sound, “I take it they are more for training than anything else?”

Once more her head dipped and I sighed. “A glass sword would be nice.”

“Yes it would.” Xanile lamented with me. “But until you master the basics with the weapons they give us, it would be like giving a brownie pearls.”

I snorted at the idea of the furry little creatures clutching the white objects and chittering as they did and tried to find food.

“You’ll be measured in your first lessons in a few days. You should get your schedules for the year as soon as I put these requests in.” Winfred bowed her head and stood aside. “That will be all for me today, as I have other errands to run and assist with around here. I suggest the two of you learn your way around the grounds, or at the very least your way from here to the mess hall. Until tomorrow.”

With that, she turned and left to room with the receipt and our decisions on what classes to take with her.

Once she was gone, Xanile and I sat in silence for a while, amicably at first. After about ten minutes of softly sipping tea, the silence grew hostile until she finally cleared her throat and looked up at me, “I never properly thanked you for your assistance when you first arrived here.”

“If I recall correctly, you told me you weren’t a damsel for me to rescue or something like that.” I was trying to be polite but she just blushed a little deeper.

“It was true, especially in front of the others, but I wanted you to know that I appreciated it.” She took a deep breath and released it in a rush, then looked at me straight in the eyes. “You will find that perception is just as important here as actual strength. The more people who perceive you as strong, the less who are likely to challenge you. As I said before, you can look at these halls and hallowed grounds as a war zone and we the warriors. Political games run rampant here and we need to present a strong front.”

“So in other words, lie?”

She chuckled to herself and shook her head, “No. We maintain a strong front until we are strong, then we make sure that everyone knows it.”

I nodded, then blinked at her and suddenly I had to know, “Are we allowed to kill people here?”

She stared at me, uncertainly at first, then with growing concern, so I added, “I just can’t imagine that there are some here who haven’t gone to the point of death in their duels. Do they stop us when the winner is clear? Are there accidents?”

Her mouth fell open and I assumed it was at the volume of question I had hit her with, but finally I heard, “Some accidents, yes. But those are harshly punished here and not to be replicated.”

I nodded. So that was a no on the whole making an example of someone and letting them all fear me. At least through killing someone.

I blinked and shook my head, What the…is it really me thinking this? I took one life and now that it produced results, I’m willing to take another?

As I dealt with the growing horror at my own morbid curiosity where killing was concerned, Xanile rose from where she was seated and tilted her head toward me. “I look forward to these coming years with you, Saemus.”

“Thank you, lady Doranda.” I nodded back to her and she paused as she was about to turn and walk away. I watched her for a moment as she looked to be mulling something over until finally I asked, “Yes?”

She frowned and muttered, “If you would like, I would be happy to assist you with any homework you might have that you don’t understand. The education I had before coming here was crucial to my development and as an unaffiliated elf, you won’t have the foreknowledge to do everything on your own.”

I smiled at her with genuine gratitude, thankful not to have been denigrated for being born by her too, “Thank you, lady Doranda, I appreciate it.”

She nodded and left the room as I stayed behind to gather the cups and saucers that were left behind. I didn’t know where to put them, but the least I could do was stack them for someone else to gather and take away.

I returned to my room and went about trying to familiarize myself with my new weapon as best I could, but when I felt like I might begin to form bad habits, I stopped and instead began to push my body like my father had when I was younger.

Every say he would lay flat on the ground and push himself straight up until her was on the balls of his feet and on his palms with his hands on the ground and arms fully extended. Then he would go all the way down to the ground and lift his palms and push them out to his sides before coming back in to rise again.

Sometimes, he would have me sit on his back when he did this and I would laugh and cheer as he did them. Thoughts of him made me smile as I pushed myself to do ten of them before I was sweating and my arms had begun to shake, my chest and shoulders aching from the effort.

Then I did ten jumping squats like some of the frogs I saw with powerful legs, though father had done them differently they made me smile too until my legs hurt after twenty of them.

Sweating profusely, my breath coming in heaving puffs, I decided it might be better to take a bath than to continue this right now. I will do this daily though, so that I can become even stronger without needing to spend points until I absolutely need to.

I sat in the water and mulled over the things my mother and father had impressed upon me since my arrival and when I was clean and free of the stink of sweat, I dried myself and went to bed.

**

The next morning an intense glow of sunlight above my bed startled me awake, my body bounding out of the bed before I could even think about what it could have been. There was a small hole with glass in it radiating an amber light just above where the head of the bed was that bathed it in light.

“Clever way to wake people up.” I muttered to myself before stifling a yawn.

Though I wanted desperately to go back to sleep, I put myself through my new morning routine and then bathed swiftly so that I could go out in search of food. I was almost out of my door when I realized that I had almost left the shuna behind and softly berated myself for not having belted it on immediately before heading back into the hallway maze.

There were more children around today in the hallways, the tables in the mess hall much more tightly packed than they had been but as I walked through I noted that I was the subject of a few conversations. None that I could readily hear without pausing and looking odd, so I just chalked it up to my being younger than the majority of the students who came here.

I thanked the gray elves behind the food table for the meal as I finished collecting all that I would eat for the morning, then made my way to the end of the first year table closest to the food line in case I wanted to return for seconds. I ate in pleasant silence as the dull roar of the room continued around me. Once I had moved from the main course, the lightest and fluffiest eggs that I had ever seen or tasted, I moved to a piece of Cindry fruit that had mysteriously shown up over night. This one was ripe, the skin of it a deep purple that most people tended to avoid because they though that the skin was sour.

It was, but I loved that part the most.

As soon as I took a bite of the delicious and delightfully tart fruit bigger than my hand, Xanile sat down next to me with her own plate of food. She wore her hair down and the same clothes that I had, but her’s fit her better than mine did. “Good morning, Saemus.”

I was about to wish her a good morning as well when someone slammed their hand against the table, then took the Cindry fruit out of my hand. It was the Marki siblings and their cronies.

The boy Marki bit into my fruit then grimaced at the flavor before tossing the food behind his shoulder, uncaring of where it went. “This side of the table is reserved for anyone not a beast or a little boy. You two should clear the way for your betters, because clearly your taste is lacking.”

The girl snickered and I actually just leaned away from them and raised my eyebrows in surprise as I looked them over. Gaudy jewels and accessories set them apart from the average student, even the third years favored simplicity. But it was that they did all of this in plain view of the entire mess hall that made me grimace and try to evaluate how to deal with them.

“It looks like he’s finally beginning to learn who we are!” The girl chattered to herself and patted her brother’s arm before pointing to me and speaking slowly. “You take the animal outside and leave this to us. Alright?”

Her laughing made the others around her start to chuckle and join in, her brother just smirking as if he were the biggest man in the room. But that smirk slowly died as I began to laugh, probably harder than I had meant to. It got to the point where the majority of the room had quieted and turned to us.

Finally the boy just snarled, “What’s so funny to you, filthy courtless child?”

I slowed my laughing from a roar to acting like I was gasping for breath and wiping tears from my eyes as I sighed and spoke loudly, “I just realized, I don’t even know your names and here I am just imagining how badly I’m going to beat you in front of everyone. Like a nameless, faceless, worthless creature who hides behind titles and perceived power.”

I reached out and made a show of grabbing for the Cindry fruit on his plate, which he snatched back and instantly bit into and swallowed. I grinned and turned to Xanile and whispered, “Get you plate and lets go—you aren’t going to want to be here for this.”

She frowned at me but I silently urged her to join me in grabbing our trays as he stared at us with a superior smug look on his face all the way until we crossed between him and the older student wearing a red shirt stained purple from the fruit that he had thrown. “You want to tell me who you are so I know who’s life to make a living hell?”

While we watched from a safer distance, I counted in my head as the Marki boy realized just what he had done, his expression shifting from arrogance to horror as the elder student grabbed his junior by the shirt and pulled him closer to shout, “Well?”

And then the show reached its peak. The Marki boy had eaten a sweeter, but tainted Cindry fruit that was harder to tell apart from any other one unless you knew to look for the slight discoloration on the bottom of it. These ones were actually best to use as fertilizer for other trees and when eaten, wreaked absolute havoc on the body.

Shaken, I almost felt bad for what was about to come, but watched nonetheless as the Marki boy opened his mouth to speak and instead spewed vomit onto the senior student’s chest and neck. His sister screeched as the backsplash landed on her legs and boots, but I just snorted and turned to Xanile, “Let’s go before they decide that it was my fault for not warning them.”

She nodded quickly and we moved out of the room down the hallway toward our lounge. Once we were far enough away, safely tucked into the room we had been in last night, she let out a torrential bout of laughter that surprised me.

In the short time I had known her, she had only been slightly cynical and up tight, but now here she was laughing hard enough that she had doubled over near her food.

I just watched her quietly with a grin on my face as I ate some more of my food.

She shook her head as the laughter died down, managing only the word, “How?”

I grinned and shrugged, “I know my crop, and that was a bad one.” I sighed wistfully, I do wish that he hadn’t threw mine away. That was a good one.”

She lifted her’s off her tray and tossed it to me, this one had been over ripened and I shook my head, “This one is no good either.”

She nodded to me in thanks as I set it aside and we ate in amicable silence.

After half an hour of neither of us talking, a knock at the door surprised us both and I stood to answer it. When I opened it, I found a middle-aged looking elf staring at me with a board expression on his face.

“On behalf of the children of the Marki family, I am here to extend to you the acceptance of your previous challenge to a duel at such a time as the faculty deems it feasible.” He bowed and raised his head so that he looked down his nose at me, “They wished that I express to you that running would be a bad idea, and that when you lose, you leave.”

I blinked, and turned back to Xanile, “So you can ask for things if you win a duel?”

She nodded once, the former mirth that she had been feeling gone now in present circumstances.

I turned back to what I assumed was their equivalent to Winfred and smiled, “I’ll take that wager, and if I win, they should be held to the same standards.” He started to bow, but I cleared my throat, “Oh, you may want to warn them that if they want to try and embarrass themselves anymore, they’re welcome to keep bothering myself, but to keep lady Doranda out of it. She’s much too good to deal with someone who can’t keep his breakfast down. Understand?”

“I shall pass on your thoughts.” He rolled his eyes and bowed once more before leaving.

“Well, it seems like our time here did indeed get more interesting.” Xanile muttered to herself.

I just shrugged, closed the door and went back to my breakfast and finished it with gusto. She watched me and as I turned my gaze to her, she spoke, “You seem different.”

“How so?”

“More confident.” She stared at me and I realized that it probably did seem that way by her perspective. “As if you truly do plan on winning and humiliating them.”

Thinking more on it, I had been acting a little more sure of myself since I had come here initially, and looking back, I knew why. I had all those spare points to spend and if I couldn’t defeat them with those—I was in a lot more trouble than I had ever thought. But that wasn’t all of it.

“Back where I grew up, I was always treated poorly by the other children because they didn’t understand me.” I shrugged and shook my head, “It kind of forced me to keep my own company or that of my parents, and though I’m far from home, I see those same bullies here and I have the ability to do something about it now.”

She snorted, “You mean to take out your childhood frustration on two of the more well-known noble-born Seelie that you could find?” I thought about it for a few seconds too long and she just began to laugh again. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?” It was hard to keep the hurt and indignation from my tone. “Little middling boy reaching too high?”

She looked taken aback at my outburst, but I was still upset and added, “What, are nobles too good to be taken down a peg by the courtless? I might not know anything right now, but I’ll learn everything I can and make sure that my presence here is felt by everyone so that everyone leaves me alone. I just want to do what I have to and then serve your sister and go home. I don’t care what anyone else does, or thinks. If they get in my way, I’ll make sure everyone else knows not to follow their example.”

“Saemus…” She started, obviously trying to think of something, and even though I knew I was acting like a petulant child my own age, I couldn’t stop the hurt from winning me over.

“Good day, lady Doranda.” With that I stood and stormed out of the room, leaving my tray behind for someone else to pick up.