The tests would continue for the next few days. The taxed recruits only had that much longer before they knew which specialization they placed in. Meals were had in near silence. There was much less talk and any conversation to be had was under one’s breath. Lisŗa had seen two boys get into a fight during lunch from a disagreement about the role of their noble families. A sergeant had to come and break them apart. They were both placed in solitary for the day.

Lisŗa could almost cut the atmosphere. It wasn’t about passing the tests, it was about making the standard. Each division only had so much room to accept recruits from each specialization. Her eyes wandered over to her bed neighbor Chessie. Chessie Peruliana, a well-fed noble from a family of mages, a luxurious occupation. The girl had no need to be as athletic as the other families, but maintained an enviable figure through an intrinsic understanding of the planes of power. The mage cadres almost never filled their quotas for recruits. Such was the privilege of being a rare commodity.

Her other neighbor hummed the melodies to songs about flowergirls and springtime. Dolores LaCheur absentmindedly bounced a ball off a tent support and back to her hand as she laid in her bed. She wasn’t even looking at the ball’s trajectory. Dolores obviously made it into a specialization. Scoutrunner? Bladedancer?

Lisŗa didn’t know. She had spent a full day in the infirmary being tended to by healers to fix the long list of injuries she had accrued completing the scoutrunner course. Dolores did the same one without chipping a single nail, and she had done it faster. Her one mistake was accidentally touching a bell when she vaulted the railing onto the balcony.

The acrobatic girl must have noticed Lisŗa’s concern. Dolores turned on her belly, her chin rested on her fingers as she swung her calves.

“You’re going to make it through, Lisŗa,” she said sweetly.

“I’m not concerned about making the standard,” Lisŗa replied.

“You aren’t actually taking that investigator’s word so seriously, are you?”

“Who knows about you noblefolk. You have much more to lose than what my life is worth.” Lisŗa wrapped her arms around her legs. She had done well to conceal her emotions since she arrived, but now a downcast mien hung about her.

Chessie left her book and brightened the oil lamp beside her bed with a snap of her fingers.

“Words can carry a lot of harm, can’t they, Lisŗa?” She said.

“Words are heavier depending on who says them. People, mean a lot of harm,” Lisŗa said.

“And people are all different.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“From what I know of you, Lisŗa, you have it in your mind that your life’s difficulties come from being born a conquered subject. Everyone around you is a Falerian except you. You think you’ve been downtrodden and judged. But Faleria has existed as long as Aldren. We’ve integrated countless smaller cultures. There’s a limit to how much you can blame prejudice as the cause of your frustrations.”

Lisŗa frowned and shifted her legs.

“What do you know of prejudice? You haven’t been picked on all throughout childhood just because of your eye color.”

“No, instead, my family tolerates talk of our cowardice in wartimes simply because we tend to stay behind our allies, as is the role of the caster.”

“Oh big deal, rich people denigrating their own.”

Chessie narrowed her eyes. “But the noble families subsist on good relations, especially through the word of mouth. We are affected by the attitudes of our peers, just like you, just like anyone who lives in any society, no matter the status. Look how easily you trivialized a woe you couldn’t relate to. I could easily do the same: your life is but an example of peons bullying peons. Not very fair is it?”

“Uh girls?” Dolores said nervously.

“You want me to just forget my heritage?” Lisŗa said hotly. “To just deal with the fact that one command from the Laplace and I just might be skewered and left on a spit to preserve their honor?”

“How do you know that for sure?” Chessie returned. “Do you know the Laplace family? Did you know Nathen Laplace?”

“No, I… It…”

“It just seems typical of the nobility to tread on people like you,” Chessie finished for her.

“That’s not what I meant. I… I don’t know.”

“Lisŗa, no matter from which caste you were born, which family you had at your back, you will be surrounded by actors outside your control. The only person you have volition over is yourself, for better or for worse.” Chessie picked up her book again and flipped to find her page. “God knows I didn’t come to a glorified daycare because I wanted to. I’m the youngest. My brothers and sisters are lending their strength to the main force. The submilitary is where the nobility sends children they don’t see the need to invest too much in while maintaining prestige. We’re all equals here.”

Dolores raised her hand.

“I joined ‘cuz I wanted to travel,” she said.

There was a moment of silence. Then Lisŗa began to chuckle, and Chessie smiled. The air seemed clear again.

“I just have to keep trying then,” Lisŗa said, “and live as though I’ve got a hundred years left.”

“Atta girl,” Dolores quipped.

“Oh, and I don’t think mages are cowards, Chessie,” Lisŗa said. “No matter where in the formation someone belongs, a soldier is a soldier.”

“I know. Winning the war took all of us,” Chessie said quietly. She had found her page, and was sinking back in. The lamp beside her dimmed to a comfortable level.

“Well, except for the last couple of years anyway,” Lisŗa said listlessly. She yawned and prepared for bed, but was swiftly interrupted.

“What did you say?” Chessie said sharply.

Lisŗa frowned, confused. “The last couple of years of the Falerian-Aldren war. It was almost won entirely by one mage, right? A Falerian necromancer.”

“Necromancy is illegal,” Chessie hissed under her breath. She looked around to make sure their tent mates were occupied with their own conversations or asleep. “It’s powered by Gate, the plane of ever-motion. It’s a prohibited plane. Most mages don’t even know it exists, let alone how to access it.”

“Wait. I don’t understand,” Lisŗa said, stammering. “My mother told me-”

“I think we’re all tired and should stop fighting,” Dolores said. She jumped over to Chessie’s bed and jabbed the flame in the lamp, putting it out instantly. A silvery wisp of smoke diffused away from the wick.

“I was reading, you cunt,” Chessie said, the corner of her lips lifted just a degree.

“No more reading or talking,” Dolores said.

And that was that. Perhaps Dolores was right. Lisŗa did feel particularly exhausted after the day’s routines. The three of them laid on their bed in the quiet dark, waiting for the sandman. He came for Lisŗa last; something she couldn’t quite put her finger on bothered her well into the night.