Elincia silently trailed after Lady Sylvia as she and the other sorceresses walked to the magical transport vehicle that awaited them.

She'd wanted to stay and speak with Caspian, but Lady Sylvia had told her that they were leaving and she needed to go with them. While the woman spoke with her usual calm tone, and her expression gave nothing away, Elincia had a feeling that her guardian was upset with her.

"It seems like this tournament will be interesting," Lady Aakarshana said.

"Heh, yeah, especially since our little Elincia has made it quite clear who she's rooting for," Lady Aakarshaka agreed, grinning as she wrapped an arm around Elincia's shoulder. Striding up ahead of them, Lady Sylvia stumbled. "But, really, that was quite bold of you, Elincia, making it clear who you would like to have win before the tournament has even started."

Elincia felt her cheeks grow warm. "I-it's not—I mean, Caspian is my childhood friend, and we made a promise, so I—"

"Oh ho! A promise." Lady Aakarshaka's grin widened until it nearly split her face in half. "What sort of promise did you two make, exactly?"

Further ahead, still not looking in their direction, Lady Sylvia nearly tripped on the stairs as they walked outside.

"Ah, it was, uh..." Elincia couldn't remember when she had started twiddling her fingers. "... um, back when we were younger, Caspian promised that he would become my knight and I promised to be his sorceress."

"So, wait..." Elincia's ears twitched as Alexander spoke in his boisterous voice. "... does this mean there's no need for us to even hold this tournament?"

"Do not be ridiculous, young man." Lady Sylvia finally turned her head to gaze at them. Her eyes could've frozen over Tartarus. "This tournament is a time honored tradition that must be upheld. If a sorceress could choose anyone they wanted as their knight, then there would be no meaning to the laws, traditions, and values that have been established since the Sorceress Council was founded."

Her guardian's face looked no different now than it always did. Calm. Composed. An eternally youthful facade carved from alabaster. And yet... Elincia was almost certain that Lady Sylvia was glaring at her.

Did I... do something wrong?

"Oh, my," Lady Erica muttered, smiling from ear to ear. "It seems Sylvia is frustrated. Well, done, Elincia. Well done."

"Um... thank you?" Elincia said, unsure of how else to respond.

A pair of MAFTs waited for them outside. Magical Four-wheeled Transportation. Their sleek design and gleaming black exterior marked them as one of the higher end vehicles used to transport the elite. Elincia had ridden in them only a few times, which was due in no small part to the fact that she'd rarely been allowed to leave Lady Sylvia's mansion.

"Well, I suppose this is where we part ways," Lady Erica said with a mysterious smile that seemed to contain more than a hint of mischief.

"Oh, goodbye, Lady Erica." Elincia bowed to the woman.

"Such a polite girl," Lady Erica muttered before leaning in and whispering into Elincia's ear, "good job riling up that old bat."

"Eh?"

Leaning back, Lady Erica shook her head. "Nevermind. In either event, I'll stop by some time tomorrow to continue tutoring you."

"What do you mean 'you'll stop by to tutor her?'" Lady Sylvia interrupted.

"Oh, you didn't know?" Lady Erica grinned. "If you don't already know, then I'm afraid I can't tell you. It's mine and Elincia's secret." Lady Sylvia twitched. "Well, I shall see you all later. Bye bye, flat chests."

"Who the frack are you calling flat chest, you bitter old hag?!" Lady Aakarshaka shook her fist at the departing Erica.

"You know that we're older than she is, don't you?" Lady Aakarshana muttered.

"Come along, Elincia," Lady Sylvia said as D'artagnan held the door open for them.

"R-right!"

Elincia and everyone else entered the vehicles. The one she sat in carried herself, Lady Sylvia and D'artagnan, and Lady Karen and Dolten. As the vehicle slowly took off, exiting the massive gates of the academy, Elincia found herself drawn to the dwarf.

"U-um, excuse me?" she said. The dwarf looked up at her. "I... was just wondering... h-how did—"

"How did Dolten come to be my knight is what you want to ask, right?" Lady Karen asked, not even bothering to look up from her work.

She seemed to be playing with some kind of small device shaped like a rectangle. There were wires sticking out, and each one would occasionally spark. Elincia noticed that Lady Karen had been playing with that thing all throughout dinner.

"Um... yes, I was." She looked at Dolten and smiled. "Would you mind telling me how you came to be Lady Karen's Knight?"

"Don't bother," Karen grunted. "Dolten can't talk."

"He can't?" Elincia blinked. "Why not?"

"Because his tongue was cut out several years ago."

"W... what?"

Elincia was horror struck like she'd been hit by a lightning bolt from Zeus. She stood abruptly, as if jolted into action by Lady Karen's words. She then sat back down when her head struck the ceiling of the vehicle. Whimpering, she cradled her noggin while Lady Sylvia sighed and shook her head.

"I haven't seen that reaction before," Lady Karen muttered as she continued working on her magical technology.

After recovering from her head injury, Elincia cast Lady Karen a pleading expression. "Why would anyone do that?"

"Ah, well, Dolten here was one of Lady Sylvia's attempts at bridging the gap between humans and dwarves," Lady Karen said, glancing down at Dolten who, seemingly sensing her looking at him, glanced up. "Helheim has the highest dwarf population in Terraria, so I guess it was only natural that our academy would be chosen to have one of them attend. Unfortunately, things don't always work out like we want them to."

Elincia knew that she lacked worldly knowledge. She didn't know how the world worked beyond her textbooks and what the servants at Lady Sylvia's mansion had taught her. However, recently, she'd been learning about how unjust the world could be. Caspian was treated like garbage. No one even knew about his half-elf status. They merely hated him because he wasn't a noble.

The hatred between humans and nonhumans was a well-documented fact. Elves had harbored a grudge against humanity since the elven wars, and dwarves had hated them almost the moment humans appeared before them. Likewise, humans were prejudiced against anyone who was not human.

None of these sides were to blame. Lady Sylvia had always told her that peace had yet to be achieved because these races didn't understand each other. She'd been trying for a long time to broker understanding between these three races, but she had yet to succeed. Hatred still blossomed within the hearts of everyone; dwarf, elf, and human.

Those people...

Elincia could imagine how poorly Dolten must have been treated. Knowing that he couldn't speak, that his tongue had been cut out, she could guess what they'd done.

"That's awful," she whispered, sniffling and wiping at her eyes.

"That's life." Lady Karen shrugged.

"Can we please stop speaking of this," Lady Sylvia said.

Elincia grew silent and Lady Karen went back to tinkering with her machine. Dolten seemed to be just as intent on helping Lady Karen with whatever she was doing. He would occasionally point things out, and the sorceress would nod and change something inside of the machine.

Despite the trip only taking a few minutes, for Elincia, it seemed to be much longer. The silence was stifling. Lady Karen and Dolten were absorbed in their work, and Lady Sylvia sat with her arms crossed and her eyes closed. Beside her, D'artagnan remained unmoving, a silent sentinel chiseled from stone.

When they arrived at the mansion and exited the vehicle, Lady Sylvia turned to her and said, "follow me, Elincia. There is something I wish to discuss with you."

Apprehension caused her insides to quiver as she followed Lady Sylvia into the mansion with the others. Lady Karen and Dolten parted ways with them. D'artagnan followed her and Lady Sylvia without saying a word.

The room that Lady Sylvia took her to was a study. Her sandaled feet slid across the soft carpet as they proceeded further in. Lady Sylvia walked over to a fire place, which she lit with a practical application of Spiritual Evocation.

"Please, sit down, Elincia."

Elincia nervously sat down, placing her hands in her lap and trying not to twiddle her fingers. She felt like a child who was about to be scolded. Finally, Lady Sylvia turned to her, and though her facial expression remained the same, dissatisfaction seemed to permeate from her face.

"I am very disappointed in you, Elincia," Lady Sylvia's words cut through her like a knife.

"W... why?" It was a single word, but it carried so much weight.

"You should not even need to ask that question." Lady Sylvia stared down at her. She seemed larger than Elincia remembered, but perhaps that was just her perception playing tricks on her. "During your speech, you not only forgot at least a dozen of the lines that I taught you, but you also refused to take your eyes off Caspian."

Elincia felt a moment of confusion. "What does Caspian have to do with this?"

"As a sorceress, you are to remain impartial during these events, especially as this event is being held in your honor. To show partiality toward one of the contestants is the same as declaring a victor before the tournament has even been decided."

Elincia bit her lip. "Are you saying that I should have ignored Caspian?"

"I'm saying that you should not make your favoritism so obvious," Lady Sylvia corrected.

"Caspian is my best friend."

"That hardly matters in this situation. You have to think about your duties as a sorceress. You cannot play favorites here. Doing so could foster resentment from the other competitors, who will come to believe that you don't want them to win."

"But I don't want them to win," Elincia said more loudly than she'd intended.

"Excuse me?"

"I don't want them to win. I don't want anyone else to win. Only Caspian. I could never accept anyone else as my knight."

Lady Sylvia finally showed emotion. She frowned. "That is not your choice to make. The victor of this tournament will decide who will become your knight. If Caspian does not win, then that will be disappointing, but it will not hinder my ultimate goal."

"Ultimate... goal?"

"The peaceful coexistence between humans and elves," Lady Sylvia said. "That has been my goal since after the war. I have tried many times, but I was never successful. With you, an elven sorceress, now in our ranks, I believe that achieving peace may be possible."

It was a good goal to have. Elincia would admit that much, and she wouldn't deny that she wanted humans and elves to get along as well. However...

"Caspian is going to be my knight," she said.

"Only if he wins," Lady Sylvia countered.

"He will win. Caspian will never lose. He promised me that he would become my knight."

"Just because someone makes a promise does not mean they will always keep it."

Elincia couldn't believe her ears. Lady Sylvia had never been the most supportive of guardians. Point of fact, she rarely ever saw the woman, except when Lady Sylvia stopped tending to her sorceress duties. Even then, Lady Sylvia's cool demeanor and general lack of empathy made it hard for Elincia to speak with her. There was always this gap between them, a space that had slowly widened as she became older and less dependant.

"Caspian will keep his promise to me," she whispered. She could feel tears sting her eyes. The idea, the very thought, that Caspian would not be able to keep his promise hurt.

"Excuse me?" Lady Sylvia asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Caspian will keep his promise to me," Elincia said loudly. "He will. Just you watch."

"It would be nice if he could become your knight," Lady Sylvia admitted. "However, it is not necessary. Regardless of who becomes your knight, peaceful coexistence will be achieved."

"Peaceful coexistence," Elincia muttered. "Is that all you care about? Peaceful coexistence? What about my feelings? What about what I want? I don't want anyone else to be my knight! I refuse to bond with someone who isn't Caspian! He's the only person I'll accept!"

"Why are you being so stubborn about this?" Lady Sylvia asked.

"Because Caspian is the only person I want as my knight!"

"But why?" Lady Sylvia pressed, as if she didn't understand why Elincia was making such a big deal out of this. "It matters not who your knight is. All that matters if whether or not your knight can do their job. While Caspian would indeed make a good knight for you, and I pray that he does indeed become the one who is knighted, any one of the young men currently competing in the tournament will do."

"You... you really don't understand how I feel, do you?" Elincia realized with ever increasing horror. "You have no idea how I feel about Caspian, do you?"

"How you feel?" Lady Sylvia frowned. "I do not understand."

"No... I suppose you don't." Elincia didn't know why, but she felt like crying. "Lady Sylvia, I love Caspian. I love him more than words can ever express, more than I could ever say. He means everything to me. That is why I won't accept anyone else as my knight. To become bonded to someone else, to share a bond with someone who is not Caspian... I can't do it."

"Love? What a useless emotion."

"W-what?"

"Love is not necessary for a sorceress," Lady Sylvia stated cooly. "Love clouds the mind and fills it with unnecessary desires. It makes you forget your duty, turns you into a slave, and when those feelings of love finally disappear, you're left bitter and empty, like Erica. Do not turn into that woman, Elincia. You do not need love."

"H-how can you say that?" Elincia asked. "Love might not be necessary to perform your duties as a sorceress, but without love, how can you ever understand others?"

"Understanding comes from communication," Lady Sylvia's words were succinct, "not love."

"But without love, you can't feel compassion for others!"

"Compassion and love have nothing to do with each other."

"They have everything to do with each other!"

Tears blurred Elincia's eyes, yet still she glared at Lady Sylvia. Looking back on her life, she knew that Lady Sylvia had always been this way, even when they'd first met. Elincia could still remember the first words that this sorceress had ever told her: "You may be separated from your family, but worry not, child. Family is just a word for people who are related to you by blood. You will eventually forget about them, so there is no need to shed tears."

Lady Sylvia had always been like that, believing in objectivity over everything else. Even so, hearing the woman say these things hurt. It hurt so much that Elincia wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.

Shaking her head, Lady Sylvia appeared utterly disappointed in her. "It seems you're impetuousness has not lessened with age. I had hoped that being away from Caspian and focusing on your studies would teach you wisdom, but you still have much to learn, it seems."

"What do you mean by 'being away from Caspian?'" Elincia asked softly, her voice trembling.

"I mean that I made Caspian come to the academy earlier than most to separate you two," Lady Sylvia delivered those words so calmly and with such composure that Elincia felt like someone had shoved a stake through her heart. "You and Caspian acted recklessly. You'd sneak out of the mansion, you'd run the servants into the ground with your unruly ways, you'd run amok of the city, you'd get lost and then come back in the middle of the night as if nothing happened, you gave no thought to how your actions would be perceived by others. When you and Caspian were kidnapped and almost killed, I had decided that enough was enough. I sent Caspian to the academy to separate you, so that he could focus on becoming a knight and you a sorceress."

"I... I can't believe you," Elincia whispered. She was glad that she was sitting, otherwise she would've fallen to the floor. Her legs had turned into jelly. "I can't believe you would do that to us!"

"I would not have had to do that if you had acted appropriately," Lady Sylvia admonished her like she was a child to be scolded.

Elincia gritted her teeth as hot tears spilled from her eyes. Struggling to retain a grip on her emotions was impossible. They flooded over her like a deluge, bombarding her on all sides. She wanted to scream, to cry, to rail at the person who she'd always thought had her best interest at heart.

Was it all a lie? Was everything that Lady Sylvia did for me a lie?

Unable to remain in the same room as this women, Elincia stood up and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To see Caspian."

"You cannot," Lady Sylvia said. "Now that the tournament is underway, you cannot afford to show favoritism. This is for his sake as much as it is yours."

"I don't care!"

Elincia tried to reach for the door, but D'artagnan, who'd been standing silently by the exit ever since they had entered, grabbed her wrist.

"Let go of me!"

"My apologies, Lady Elincia." D'artagnan's grip was like steel. "But I cannot comply with your request. Please do not make this harder on yourself."

"Let go of me! Let go! I want to see Caspian!"

"D'artagnan, please take Elincia to her room and make sure she stays there. If she tries to summon a spirit, I give you permission to use a mana suppression field."

"Yes, My Lady."

Elincia struggled in D'artagnan's grip, but no matter how hard she fought, she could not escape. He half-dragged, half-carried her through the hall, until they had reached her room. After which, he pushed her inside and closed the door. Elincia heard it locking behind him.

"Let me out!" Elincia banged on the door. "Let me out right this instant!"

"I'm sorry, but you know that I cannot do that," D'artagnan replied. "Please do not try summoning a spirit in there. This mansion was built using adamantium. Any mana you try to use will simply be absorbed through the floor and walls."

Elincia screamed. She banged and kicked at the door, even though she knew it was futile. When the last of her strength had left her, she sank to her knees and pressed her face against the door.

That day, Elincia wept bitter tears as she realized that Lady Sylvia had never seen her as anything more than a tool.

***

After dismissing Elincia, Sylvia sat behind the desk within the study.

Because of the festival, she had even more work that needed to be finished. Reports had to be read, papers had to be signed, and decisions had to be made.

The other sorceresses had their own duties to attend to, perhaps even more so than her. Unlike her, they were all involved in their academy. Each one of them was the headmistress of the academy, and they were therefore in charge of the everyday affairs and policy making that went on.

Sylvia had relegated that task to Stratello. While some people had commented on it, stating that she lacked the commitment of the others, the truth was that she didn't want the nobility to think she was watching their every move. In order to foster trust between two parties, trust had to be established. Sylvia had decided long ago to trust in the nobility, even if she didn't always agree with them.

Minutes after she started reading reports, D'artagnan entered, moving silently across the room until he stood slightly behind her.

"Has Elincia calmed down?" Sylvia asked.

"She has stopped crying, if that's what you mean."

"I see."

There was a moment's pause. Nary a sound was made save for the rustling of paper, the crackling of fire, and D'artagnan's own movements. The subtle creaking of leather sounded out behind her.

"You have something on your mind," she stated.

"Was it really necessary to do this to her?"

"The nobles are already in an uproar. It seems that they have received word from ther children about how Elincia favors Caspian. I've received many letters from noble families demanding that I remove Caspian from the academy."

Leather creaked behind her again. "The nobility like to complain. They protested when he was first enrolled as well. Like all things, I imagine what happened here will settle down soon. Although, I imagine the reason the protests eventually stopped about his enrollment is because they believed that he would never amount to anything. Now that he has become a competitor in the tournament, and is apparently favored by Lady Elincia herself, the nobles are worried that the peasants will come to see him as a beacon of hope."

"An ill-bred notion to be sure." Sylvia set the paper that she'd been reading down, signed it, and then leaned back in her seat. "Even the peasants do not like him. To them, Caspian is less of a symbol to be looked up to and more of someone who did what they could not. They resent him just as much as the nobility—only for the opposite reasons."

"It seems we have made his life quite difficult."

Sylvia picked up another report. This one was about the growing dissent between a certain group of high-class nobles and the lower-class. In other words, it was worthless, but ultimately something that she needed to read.

"Indeed. However, it could not be helped. For peace to reign, Caspian must become a knight and Elincia a sorceress. I cannot have them squandering their lineage like they did when both of them were under my care."

"Could you not have informed Elincia of all this?"

Sylvia paused in her reading. "I probably should have. The idea had not occurred to me."

"That is because you assumed she would understand without you having to explain it."

"She should have known why I couldn't let her see Caspian anymore. The more she's seen around him, the more hostility will grow between the nobility and the Sorceress Council."

"If Caspian becomes Elincia's knight, the discontent will grow even more."

"Not if he wins on his own merits," Sylvia countered. "If Caspian were to win simply because he is better than everyone else, the nobles might complain, but those complaints would eventually die down. However, since everyone now knows that Elincia favors him, the nobility will protest it if he becomes a knight, claiming that we're showing favoritism to a peasant."

Ever since the Secession War, in which the sorceresses had wrested control of Terraria from the nobility, dissension between sorceress and nobles had increased. That distrust had only grown since. They were fortunate that nobles only made up about five percent of Terraria's total population. Still, Sylvia didn't want to anger the nobles and force them to act rashly, which was why she refused to let Elincia show her blatant favoritism towards Caspian any longer.

I should have never let that girl spend so much time with Caspian for the past two weeks.

It had been a mistake to be so lenient on the girl, but there was no point in worrying over something like that now. She'd simply have to deal with the consequences, quell the fires raging in the hearts of nobles, and do her best to make sure nothing untoward happened to either Caspian or Elincia.

She had placed her hope in those two. However, the trials to come would be theirs'. If they could not overcome them without her aid, then her plans would likely be unfeasable anyway.

She prayed that they would live up to her expectations.