Habit caused Robert to wake early. He groggily sat up, body aching from the hard ground. His eyes blinked rapidly, trying to force away the dirt and crud around them, as his brain slowly started up. Memories of the previous day came back to him and he frowned.

He was up due to a habit of practicing first thing in the morning but without his sword, there was no point. However, he also didn’t want to lie back down. Arthur had hogged the one blanket between the three of them, stealing the small bit of comfort they’d been offered. Pure exhaustion allowed him to fall asleep. He didn’t want to experience the bed of earth with a clear mind.

As he debated what to do, movement at the entrance of the shelter caught his attention. Alana James emerged from the gloom, her shoulder length blonde hair catching his attention like a light in the night. Quietly, she moved several meters away from the shelter. Far enough that her actions wouldn’t disturb others but close enough that should anything happen, help could reach her quickly. A decision that showed both courtesy and caution.

With nothing else to occupy his attention, he watched her as she stretched in the weak pre-dawn light, unsheathed her blade, and began swinging it. Warm nostalgia made him smile as he saw her perfect form performing simple chops. Before he knew it, he had climbed to his feet and was approaching her.

Her focus didn’t waver in the slightest. “Good morning,” she greeted without looking toward him.

“Good morning, Lady James.”

“Alana.”

“Then you must call me Quin.” He had to consider the future when he would be a name recognized in every household. The honorable knight Quin sounded far better than the honorable knight Robert, or worse, Bobby. He would make the world recognize the nickname he chose for himself, even if it was one person at a time.

They lapsed into silence. Words weren’t needed, both accustomed to the early practices where the morning was only disturbed by the controlled breathing that accompanied exercise.

After a hundred swings, Alana pointed the tip of her sword at the ground and extended it to Robert. He took it with a nod and a quiet smile. He took a similar stance to her own and began his own chops.

“You have good form.”

“Thank you. I use a similar blade. A bit longer.” And heavier, but he left that unsaid. He hadn’t met many female knights-in-training, but the ones he had took great exception to having their strength brought into question. He truly meant no offense. Being taller than her and the fact that men were predisposed to greater strength naturally meant he should wield a larger weapon.

“Where is it?”

He hesitated and it showed in his swing. His face flushed in embarrassment at the mistake and he started swinging faster, hoping the show of strength would make her forget his lapse in focus. “We encountered a strange monster. I lost my blade in the ensuing fight.”

“My condolences.”

“Thank you.” He felt her sympathy was real. After all, losing their blade was one of a knight’s worse fears.

“What kind of monster was it? And where did you see it?”

He understood her concerns immediately. “I don’t know the exact location but it was hours from here. I wouldn’t be concerned about it stumbling onto your shelter. As for the monster, according to Lanston, it closely resembles a slime.”

“A slime?”

“I hadn’t heard of it either. Apparently, it is a plant that can manipulate water. It lurks in water sources and drowns prey. When moving over land it appears as a rolling ball of water though what we saw was more, hm. If I said to say, gel-like.”

“Mm.”

“Its coloring was also strange. It was as if a piece of the night sky had fallen to the ground and gained sentience.” He controlled his reaction as he remembered the twilight blob with stars dotted along its body bobbing back and forth. He didn’t realize he had stopped swinging until she said, “Don’t tell me you’re tired. You’ve got forty-five swings to go.”

“Not tired in the least.” He had to admit, the thrall’s healing was impeccable. “The creature attacks by throwing out its appendages which can grow in length and are deceptively strong. It…eats by swallowing its prey whole.”

“…who did you lose?”

His lips twitched. Her voice contained sympathy but it was hard, telling him to put aside his guilt, regret, and sadness to deliver the crucial information. It reminded him of his teacher. “My mount, Thorgood. I tried to save him. The creature proved incredibly resistant, if not completely immune, to magic. A physical assault led to me being injured and losing my blade.”

He finished his swings and passed her sword to her. She motioned him back and began horizontal swings. “Why did you engage an unknown manabeast?”

He sighed. “I’ve been asking myself the same question. It goes against everything my teacher taught me. The thing looked so unthreatening. I…was too confident, believing that even if it proved beyond my ability, my team could escape to safety. I’m embarrassed to say I relied too much on my mount…my friend. My poor decisions cost him his life.” His stomach knotted when he thought of his teacher’s reaction to the news.

“Such is the life we’ve chosen for ourselves,” she said in a somber tone. “We put our lives on the line for our families, for our orders, and for our kingdom, but ultimately, for ourselves. My father told me, a good leader learns to be selfish. At the time, I thought he was simply trying to justify himself, but the more I experience, the more I agree. To become strong, you have to be selfish. Being selfish means someone else is going to suffer for your decisions. The only thing you can do is make sure your progress validates their sacrifice.”

She paused, turning to face him. There wasn’t a hint of deception in her clear blue eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Robert nodded solemnly, feeling a tightness in his throat and a twinge in his chest.

The silence returned as she resumed her swings. Robert’s thoughts returned to his encounter with the strange slime. It really hadn’t appeared as a threat but if he was honest with himself, it wasn’t his analysis of the creature that led to his hasty action but his greed. It was simply too much to ask him to pass up a pile of—

Robert tensed. In his mind, he saw the pile of mamaroons beside the bobbing slime. Then he pictured the pile at the back of the shelter. If he had to guess, he’d say they were the same size.

What were the chances that there existed two dens of that size in their general area? And that a team had managed to accumulate the same amount of bodies as the mountain he saw?

“Here.”

He snapped out of his thoughts and took the offered blade. “Your team did well,” he stated carefully. “How did you manage to kill so many mamaroons?”

She snorted softly. A normally unappealing sound but Robert liked the way it softened her stern expression. “You’d have to ask Lou. We split up to find dens. A few hours later, she called us over to collect a pile of the damn things. Saints know how she did it with a fire affinity but she has her methods.”

His suspicions grew, along with his dislike of Lourianne Tome. He formed a theory that the slime creature assaulted the den for a meal. Robert and his team happened upon it and the creature devoured his mount. Full, it had no need for its previous prey and left the mountain of corpses. Then, Lourianne Tome must have wandered upon it and called her team to collect her lucky find.

The thought of that woman profiting off his friend’s death filled him with anger.

“Stop.”

Robert paused mid-swing, dropping the point of the sword as Alana came closer. She motioned for the sword and he passed it to her. “You look ready to smash something and I rather it not be my blade.”

She sheathed the weapon and stared at him. After several moments of silence, she sighed. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or should I get a few rocks you can pound together to work it out?”

A smile broke through his tumultuous mood. He could hardly accuse her teammate of dishonest conduct. It wasn’t Lourianne’s fault he had made her qualifier easy. “If I’m being honest, I’m a little sour from being made to sleep on the ground like an unfavored pet.”

Alana chuckled. “Yeah.”

“Your friend is difficult to get along with.”

“For you, definitely.” She shook her head. “Didn’t I say it? Leaders are selfish. Neither of you are the type to compromise, which means you’re going smash heads until one of you breaks.” He saw her hesitate before she continued. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you should back down. You’re the one who’s going to break.”

Robert scowled. He couldn’t believe he was less talented than a pervert who laid in the open without a stitch of clothing. “What kind of a knight backs down from a challenge?”

“Didn’t that attitude already get you in trouble?”

He flinched, pursing his lips with frustration.

“Saints. I apologize. I didn’t mean to sound harsh. Just…I’m saying this for your sake. You’ve got the talent, you’ve got the backing, and you’ve got the drive. You and she are on two completely different paths. After this test, I’d be surprised if she remembers your name. Don’t make your life more complicated than need be.”

He couldn’t explain why her doubt in his ability irritated him the way it did. “I will keep it in mind.”

“Yeah, sure.” She turned her head to the quickly rising sun. “Ah, forget it. I’ve earned an easy day. See you inside for breakfast, Quin.”

She waved over her shoulder as she walked toward the cave. Robert watched her disappear inside before making his way back toward the patch of dirt where he’d fallen asleep, wanting a moment to think before he faced her and Lourianne Tome.

Arthur and Sebas had woken up and both stared at him as he sat down. “What?” he asked them, unnerved by the attention.

“I was kidding about you having a crush on her but maybe there was truth there?”

Robert considered Sebas a friend, despite his insistent need to compete, but he knew better than anyone how petty he could be. The last thing he wanted was to be the reason Alana got dragged into his games. “Whatever you’re thinking is wrong. I admire her as a fellow—”

A blanket falling over his head cut him off. He pulled it off to glare at a laughing Arthur.

“Stupid virgin!” the chuckling man spit out, clapping him on the shoulder as he got to his feet. “Let me explain something your daddy should have told you. Unless she’s got a face like the ass end of a cow, a man only has one type of admiring for a woman that ain’t his blood. You want to put a leg over that but I’m telling you, those are shark-infested waters. Swim away boy! Bwahahaha!”

“You are vulgar.” Robert was thoroughly disgusted with his words. Watching Arthur pick his nose, he thought this was the kind of character he expected to find around that pervert, not someone like Alana. Though he loathed engaging with the other man, a part of him couldn’t help his curiosity.

“I object to your description of her as ‘shark-infested waters’. Alana is a perfectly lovely young woman.” As someone who wanted to rise to the top of the kingdom, he didn’t have the luxury of casual romance but if he did want to be with someone, a woman like Alana, both strong and caring, would be…nice.

“Not her, mud for brains. Lou’s the shark. That’s her woman.”

Robert frowned in confusion. “Her woman? What…”

“I keep telling you to pay attention to gossip,” Sebas said. “It’s not all malicious rumors. Lady Tome is married to a woman. She lusts for women like a man lusts for them. The oversized oaf who snores like a roaring bear is trying to tell you that the woman you ‘admire’ is that pervert’s mistress.”

Robert flinched. His mind didn’t want to imagine it. “No.” He looked up at Arthur who wore an evil smile. “You must be misunderstanding.”

“I understand more than a boy who thinks his aching dick is a knife he dropped down his pants, heh. Lou might not have pulled down her pants but the shark is circling. Blondie’s a tough nut. Not like our guide. By the deep, that woman is like a bitch in heat. Thought I had that.” He sighed. “Ah, well. It’s rough for a ship monkey when the captain’s on board.”

“…what does that mean?” Robert really didn’t want to hear anymore but he couldn’t make sense of the words on his own.

“Ain’t it obvious? I thought I would have her bent over and howling like a dog but she leaves me to climb into Lou’s bed.” He clicked his tongue. “It sucks but that’s how it is between captains and their crew. Captains get all the women, all the gold, all the treasure, and all the glory. Ship monkeys like you and me? We get what the captain gives us.”

The words made Robert feel like he had been dunked in grease, dirty and slimy. Even Sebas, who had no stake in the conversation, was disgusted. “Are you saying she owns her?”

“Like I know what they’ve got going on. That’s between them. I’m saying keep your noses out of it lest you want to be thrown overboard. Lou is strong, which you should know.”

Sebas cradled his hand, frowning. “She will pay for that disrespect.”

“Heh. Good luck with that. Let me tell you boys something. I grew up around killers. Lou’s got that look. You’re lucky she wasn’t born in Graywatch. She’s still got a bit of restraint left but I wouldn’t push it, haha!”

“Why are you so concerned?” Robert questioned. “I won’t believe you care about what happens to us.”

“Oh, I care. Got to recruit more monkeys.” He stroked his beard which was getting unruly after a few days since he was made to cut it. “I’m thinking I throw my lot in with Lou while I’m here. Long as you know your place, it’s a pretty good ship. Grub is good and she’s not the type to get jumpy when I get rough. Easiest way to make sure you don’t get swallowed by the sea is to sail a sturdy ship. But I don’t want to be the monkey on the lowest rung of the ladder. Which is where you two come in.”

Sebas moved away from him. “Are you mad?” he snapped. “I am not going to become that woman’s lackey!”

“Suit yourself.” Arthur’s eyes moved to Robert.

“As he said.”

“Ha! Idiots. Ah, don’t forget you owe me a fight.” He raised a threatening finger at Robert. “A seaman never forgets his debts.”

He walked off after the ominous warning, heading into the shelter.

Sebas shook his head. “All of these people are insane.”