The engine thrummed in Caspian's ears, a low sound that most people would have never been able to pick up. Caspian wasn't well-versed in mechanics, but he understood that the noise made by a MAFT's engine could barely be perceived, as the sound waves vibrated on a spectrum too high for most humans to hear.

Caspian ignored the noise and stared out the window as the MAFT they rode traveled along a rocky path. There honestly wasn't much to see, just the large faces of craggy cliffs shadowing them on either side. Yet, in spite of this, he still pressed his face against the glass, eagerly taking in the new scenery.

"Excited, are we?" Erica asked. The amusement tinging her voice made him turn to look at her. When he saw the way her lips were curled and noticed the sensual smugness exuding from her single visible eye, Caspian realized he'd been acting the fool.

"N-no." He moved away from the window and sat with his back straight and his hands in his lap, as if he could refute her words by pretending that he hadn't been staring out the window like a child staring into the front display a candy store.

"Hmm," Erica hummed as Caspian clenched his dark pants, refusing to make eye contact. After several moments of silent staring, the femme shrugged. "If you say so."

Caspian relaxed, his pants sighing in relief as he released his iron grip on them. "I do say so."

Stifling a chuckle, Erica shifted in her seat, crossing her right leg over her left one, the tight shorts she wore creaking slightly and showcasing her supple thighs. Caspian tried to gulp, but his throat had gone dry. The chuckling grew louder when she saw Caspian looking, which caused him to swiftly turn his head.

"This is your first time visiting a mine, if I am not mistaken," Erica tried to make conversation.

"Um." Caspian nodded almost demurely, trying to contain his enthusiasm. If he let her see how excited he was, then Erica would no doubt tease him for the rest of the day. "I've read a lot about the mines, but I've never actually seen one."

Mines had originally been home to the dwarves, underworlders who preferred dwelling within the bedrock as opposed to living on the surface. It was they who mined the Spirit Crystals and many other precious metals and gems. They were also master craftsmen. It was said that something forged by a dwarf cost more than a minor noble's mansion. Caspian knew from reading textbooks on modern history that several dwarves worked with Karen Hildegarde, helping the famous Sorceress in the creation of Magical Technology—some of the latest and greatest inventions had been crafted by dwarven hands.

Dwarves were also a very violent race who, up until the point where humanity had deigned to enlighten them, had been in a state of constant warfare. From the many tomes Caspian had scoured through during his long hours of isolation at the academy, he had learned of the many wars dwarves had over the centuries—civil wars and wars with their mortal enemy, the goblins. Fortunately, the goblins had been eradicated by humanity, when they had come to enlighten the dwarven race and bring civilization to them.

Now, the dwarves worked the mines for humans. Being a sturdy race well-suited to dark, enclosed passages, they were far better at mining than humanity was.

Darkness encroached upon the MAFT, startling Caspian, who moved back to stare out the window. Erica giggled at him, but he ignored her in favor of watching the outside. They were in a tunnel now, sparsely lit by a few Spirit Crystals embedded into the walls, which glowed with an otherworldly light. Shadows carved strange patterns into the bedrock, their forms flickering almost as if they were alive.

Before too long, the MAFT came to a stop near what appeared to be an entryway of some kind. A large archway carved from the very rock of the cavern loomed over them. Intricate designs had been engraved into the gray stone—symbols, runes, an ancient language that belonged to a race long dead. Caspian recognized a few of the symbols, but quite a few looked like older variations that he possessed no knowledge of.

"Come on. Time to get out, Caspie," Erica said.

"It's Caspian."

When Erica just giggled, Caspian sighed and exited the MAFT, holding the door open for Erica, who stuck one leg out first, then slowly, ever so slowly, set her foot down and stuck out the other leg. She held out her hands and Caspian, after a moment's hesitation, grabbed them and pulled her the rest of the way out.

"My, you're such a gentlemen," her voice was like silk, caressing the ears with the sweetness of honey. Caspian ignored the shiver that ran down his spine. "It really is too bad you're not my Knight. Oh, the fun you and I would have together."

Caspian could not, however, ignore the way his face felt like it had spontaneously combusted.

Erica laughed some more.

***

Once outside of the MAFT, they were greeted by two men, one older than the other. They stood before him and Erica, their faces partially cloaked by the barely lit cavern. Both men bowed when Erica approached them.

"Your ladyship," the older one greeted. "It is a pleasure to see you again. As always, you are a bewitching vision to behold."

"Let's dispense with the pleasantries, shall we?" Erica dismissed their fawning, and Caspian needed a second to figure out why—their status.

From his observations of her, Erica was a woman who loved receiving attention. When she entered a room, when she walked down the street, she wanted everyone to see her, to be in awe of her, to revere her and worship the very ground she tread on. That was why she wore such extravagant clothing no matter the occasion.

Even now, the clothing she wore reflected this desire. Her short-sleeved collared shirt fit snugly around her torso, showing off her magnificent body in all the right places, and the top three buttons had been undone to reveal her expansive bust. Hip hugging shorts conformed perfectly to her skin, and her thigh-high boots also enhanced her overall visual appeal. She looked like a ridiculously sexed up explorer.

However, Erica only desired the attention of the common folk. In her own words, she was a "gift" to the peasantry, something for them to gaze upon in awe and admiration. She also disliked the nobility for some reason, which put her up a notch in his book, even if he still didn't like her personality.

These men were nobles.

The older gentleman, who Caspian believed was in charge, had a neatly trimmed goatee and dark black hair that was swept back from his forehead. However, a few bangs had been carefully placed around his face to better bring attention to his dark eyes, which gleamed with a sharp intellect, keen like the edge of a blade. Despite his clothes being a little dirty, Caspian could tell they were made of the finest fabrics.

The other man was nothing but a boy who looked to be around Caspian's age. He couldn't have been older than sixteen or seventeen. His hair was dark, much like the other man's, and Caspian could see the similarities in their facial structure. A son, perhaps?

"By the way..." Erica suddenly grabbed him by the arms and yanked him forward, presenting him to the two men. "This is Caspie—"

"Caspian."

"—he is my temporary Knight until my poor Derek is feeling better. Please be sure to treat him well." Erica's smile was disturbingly bright. "He's taking care of this magnificent body of mine, after all."

"Don't say things that are so easy to misunderstand!" Caspian's shout went ignored by Erica.

The two nobles looked at each other, as if they were unsure of how to take her statement, then they looked at Caspian.

"We're pleased to meet you," the older gentleman said. "I'm Morrison Lafiette Heathcliff, and this is my eldest son, Elric."

"The pleasure's all mine," Caspian nodded at the two. He didn't like nobles, but he would be polite for the sake of keeping things cordial between them. If he ever wanted to become a true Sorceress's Knight, then he would need to learn how to make friendly with nobles eventually.

"Well, then," Morrison clapped his hands together, "why don't I give you a small tour of my mine?"

"That is why we're here," Erica said, her voice holding a hint of condescension. The noble either hadn't heard it, or he chose to ignore it. "Please, lead on."

The two men bowed again, then turned around and led them further into the cavernous passage. It was dark, but Caspian could make out their surroundings with his sharper than average eyes. The walls were smooth, as if they'd been shaved down and smoothed out through centuries of erosion, or maybe even from the power of a Spirit.

The two men led him and Erica to a large doorway that stood out starkly against the cavern walls. Bronze plated, the doorway gleamed like a flare within the dark cavern. A large kite shield covered much of the door, the symbol of a pick axe and a Spirit Crystal making up the coat of arms. A hallway lay on the other side of the doorway, brightly lit with spirit lamps that glowed a brilliant yellow.

They walked along a path paved with marble. Caspian silently gazed upon giant pillars; corinthian columns of a most pleasing aesthetic design, with motifs of crystals dancing along their base and capitals decorated with acanthus leaves. The walls in between were lined with expensive artwork—portraits and landscapes, all of them set within beautifully crafted frames of gold.

How... decadent. Caspian wrinkled his nose. I should have expected nothing less from nobles.

He kept his thoughts to himself as he walked several paces behind Erica, keeping his eyes out for anything that looked suspicious. Ahead of him, Morrison and his son walked alongside the Sorceress, engaging her in conversation, though it seemed to Caspian that Erica was barely even listening.

"We've recently hit a vein of Spirit Crystals," Morrison was saying. "It's quite large. We're still working to mine most of it, but what we've been able to mine so far has increased our profits by thirty percent."

"That is quite a boost," Erica allowed, her eyes roaming with the sort of boredness Caspian had come to expect from her, "especially since your mine deals mostly with orichalcum deposits. I had not realized there were any ley lines located underneath this mountain."

"I believe it's a small ley line, which is why we haven't hit a Spirit Crystal vein until now."

"Yes, that would make sense."

As the adults talked, Elric slowed his pace until he was walking alongside Caspian.

He glanced at the young man who, though a noble, appeared to be a little more casual than the ones he knew at the academy. Perhaps it was just Caspian's own perception of him, but Elric seemed a lot more relaxed than most nobles.

It's probably because he doesn't know I'm not a noble.

It made sense. Caspian didn't know how nobles acted when they were with other nobles. The only times he dealt with the nobility were when they mocked him for his lack of social status—or when he was dealing with Christo.

The young heir to the House of Ancor acted almost disastrously friendly, but Caspian was positive that Christo's excitable personality was merely a false persona, a facade to mask his true intentions. It was probably meant to lull him into a false sense of security, then Christo would do what the last noble Caspian thought was his friend had tried to do—perhaps he would even succeed where that one failed.

I won't let myself be betrayed again.

Leather gloves creaked as he clenched his hands tightly into fists.

That was right. Caspian couldn't let his guard down, not around a noble. He still remembered what happened the last time he allowed a noble to befriend him, how he'd been drugged, trussed up and then dumped into a river. The pain of his hair being yanked as he was dragged through the mud remained fresh in his mind. Caspian could still feel his kneecaps shattering like brittle walnuts under the mighty swing of a blacksmith's hammer.

The fear he'd felt during that time, of the darkness encroaching upon his consciousness as he drowned, of how his lungs had begged for a breath that wouldn't come, of being cold and wet, the chill freezing his bones and turning his flesh to ice, those feelings remained embedded within his very core, as did the hatred.

It wasn't just hatred at the noble for what he tried to do that Caspian felt, but hatred at himself for being naive enough to believe that a noble would ever be friends with someone like him. He was a peasant—no, he was worse than a peasant, and if anyone realized that, he held little doubts about what would happen to him. Not even the headmaster would be able to save him then.

The noble who'd done the deed had been expelled, however, by that point the damage had already been done. Caspian had learned a hard lesson. Never trust the nobility. Trusting a noble, any noble, was like asking them to stab you in the back. He would not allow himself to get close to a noble. Never again.

"You're pretty young to be a Sorceress's Knight, aren't you?" Elric snapped Caspian out of his dark thoughts.

Not very subtle, is he? Caspian thought wryly.

"I'm actually just a Knight-in-Training," he corrected the young man. "I'm only here to temporarily replace Lady Erica's Knight, Lord Derek, until he recovers from illness."

Elric nodded. "I suppose so, but still, you must be quite talented to have been chosen as even a temporary replacement. That speaks greatly of your skill."

Despite himself, Caspian felt his chest puff up like a peacock. Caspian wouldn't trust the boy as far as he could throw him, but so long as Elric never found out that he wasn't a noble, he could at least pretend they were friends.

Surely, there's nothing wrong with that, right?

"Well, I don't mean to brag, but at Arcadia's Knight Academy, I currently hold the ranking of second place among the Knight candidates."

"Really?" Elric's eyes seemed to sparkle. "Then you must be really good with a sword."

Caspian tried not to grin. "I'm good at a lot of things, but yes, sword fighting happens to be my forte."

"That's really impressive." Elric's smile seemed almost jealous to Caspian. "I've been trained in the art of swordplay, but I was never any good at it."

"Is that why you're not attending Arcadia's Knight Academy?"

"Partly, but the other reason is because my family's not wealthy enough to pay the tuition fees."

Ah, now it made sense. The Heathcliffs must have been a minor noble family. Nobility could often be divided into three classes: minor, middle and high. It was basically just a hierarchy to denote how wealthy a particular family was. The differences between minor and high class nobles was astronomical, with high class nobles possessing enough money to buy entire cities, while the minor nobles could only afford, at most, a decently-sized mansion.

It also explained what these two were doing in a mine. They likely lacked the funds necessary to hire a professional overseer to look after the mine for them, and were thus forced to oversee operations themselves.

You'd think they'd spend the money they used for such extravagant architecture and artwork on manpower, but nope.

"Say," Elric said suddenly, casting Caspian out of his thoughts once more, "after father finishes taking Lady Erica on a tour, why don't you and I have a spar? I'd love to see how I fare against a student ranked second in the most prestigious school of all time."

Caspian thought the proposal over for a moment. He didn't know if he wanted to spar with a noble, but Elric hadn't been disrespectful thus far. That was more than he could say for most nobles, and it would be good to see what kind of training someone who didn't go to the academy had. He eventually nodded in consent.

"Alright. I don't see why not."

"Great!" Elric's eye gained a gleam of excitement. "I'm looking forward to testing my skills against someone as talented as yourself."

This time, Caspian couldn't quite contain his grin.