Reactions to Shaya’s question were mixed, some scowling at her and others nodding in agreement. Most watched Zaal with rapt attention, waiting for his response before letting on which way they leaned.

Zaal nodded, almost impressed by her restraint, “An understandable question given yesterday’s events. As you all know, the last Celestial War of Succession was...a bloody one. It left our ranks of mages depleted, yet the threats within the Empire’s borders remain numerous. Rather than deploy lances of experienced mages to combat each threat, we determined it would be better to deploy a few experienced mages to oversee and support those who will be relied upon to eventually secure our Empire’s future – all of you.

“The pressure placed upon you is titanic,” he continued, “but we ask that you trust us.”

Zaal looked at Shaya with his last comment, as if it had greater meaning than what was on the surface.

“Next question.”

Yllaneth raised her hand and Zaal nodded to her. The pretty woman looked haggard, her autumn-coloured hair a tangled mess and orange eyes puffy with Lan’s continued absence. Shaya wondered just what had happened to him. Even Apricot and her lance, which Lan belonged to, still seemed tense about something.

“Why was intel so bad on this mission?” Her normally sweet tone was sour today, “Are there any records of who the necromancer might have been?”

“Are there any thoughts on where the intel gathering went poorly?” Zaal asked the students with a tight smile, Basillo’s face reddening behind him.

Samorn answered, her thoughts matching Shaya’s exactly. “The scouts were too focused on the villagers’ views since trouble started, likely missing that the necromancer had set up their lair amongst the Titan spawn, somehow, in advance of that. They asked what villagers went missing, failing to consider that travelers in the area had also disappeared with no one to report that, and didn’t think to ask about other necromantic events, thereby missing the presence of an apostate mage entirely.”

“But why kidnap a few villagers if they already had an army?” Another student asked from the crowd.

“Bait,” Shaya said, nodding to the operational map, “I think they bit off more than they could chew with our entire cohort, but they were likely looking to draw in skilled monster hunters to keep building up their army.”

“You’re being paranoid,” Galo scoffed at her.

“Just look at their level of coordination across the swamp,” Shaya said, pointing to the glowing operational map, “each time the reserve team was called in, it was by a lance on the opposite side of the swamp from them. Only one or two lances at a time faced significant attacks, while others were baited away or delayed. I dare say the necromancer even observed the lances to determine which would succumb to its strategies best.”

Like Azreon’s lance rushing off by themselves, if allowed to.

“Sound theories,” Zaal cut in before things could get further out of hand. “We’ll now go through each lance’s actions in specific, starting with the one that ended the threat.”

Azreon puffed up.

“Shaya,” Professor Cellica said, her gentle voice soft as velvet, “with your permission, I would like to play your memories of the final battle, so that the class may see what happened in real time.”

“O..of course,” Shaya nodded, dreading what everyone was about to see.

Azreon paled upon hearing this.

Shaya watched her own memories as an illusion cast before them, playing at slightly increased speed than the actual events, and the surreal experience gave her goose bumps. The battle she remembered played out before her eyes again from her perspective: the class saw what she saw, heard what she heard and, fortunately, didn’t have to smell or feel what she experienced. Shame built in her as she continued watching the battle unfold, the moments of silver lining she focused on quickly building towards darker moments she dreaded sharing with the world.

The class snickered at the opening of the battle, whispering and pointing with amusement as Galo unleashed a stream of fire from his maul. The amusement faded when her eyes locked onto the injured people at their feet, and she glanced over her shoulder to see Azreon’s lance sink deeper into their chairs as she called for their immediate evacuation. Some students nodded with her reaction time, others chuckled when she cursed at Galo as he stubbornly insisted to fight on.

The class’ attitude changed as the battle went on. The snickers died and people in Azreon’s camp started shooting him surreptitious glances. They straightened as Shaya’s memory scanned the battlefield, seeing Azreon battle six skeletons by himself – as well as allies that tried to aid him.

Shaya was surprised how much her field of vision narrowed as her eyes focused on him in anger at his actions.

The glances returned as Azreon rushed off by himself, leaving his enemies unfinished. Suffering as the enemy mage buffeted him with spells after leaving the rest of the group.

He lied about what happened, Shaya concluded, taking note of the student’s reactions since she already knew what was going to happen in the memory. I guess he wasn’t aware that the tele-pearls were recording our memories either, or that this type of magic existed. It must be very powerful or at least rare.

Shaya and her lance earned more and more appraising looks from their peers as the battle played out. They nodded as she issued clear commands to her group without hesitation, as they adapted to the changing situation, and how they battled against the monsters around them. Shaya straightened in her chair as she absorbed their reactions, able to view her actions and decisions in a better light.

“Close your eyes if you get motion sick easily,” Zaal warned the class.

Everyone was stunned as Shaya leapt through the small portal that Apricot opened. Some of them were at the edge of their seats as she dropped through the air and slammed the Titan’s skull into her inverse guillotine. The maneuver even earned her some excited gasps and even a cheer.

Crashing into the swamp with a shouted curse earned her a few chuckles, then the group winced as she and Azreon tore the necromancer apart in grisly fashion.

Trepidation built back within her as the memory neared its conclusion.

Don’t show it.

Please don’t show it.

She couldn’t watch, but she heard her fist connect with Azreon’s face.

Bri put her good hand on Shaya’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. It meant a lot to her right then, a hope that Bri had moved towards forgiving her for leaving her out of the final battle.

There were gasps around the classroom.

Her fight against Azreon lasted only a few seconds before Oraeus intervened and saved her life.

The memory cut off at that moment.

“So,” Zaal said, “let's cut to the matter: why did Shaya’s lance succeed where Azreon’s failed?”

There was a sharp intake of breath from every student on Azreon’s side of the auditorium and Shaya thought she could hear his teeth grinding from half-way across the enormous room.

Damn good acoustics, she thought with pleasure at Azreon’s anger, but her mind was still stunned at Zaal’s words. Succeed? Maybe I’m being too hard on myself.

We were thrown into a situation way over our heads and pulled it off without professor intervention or lost lives. Punching Azreon in the face doesn’t dismiss the other good deeds I wrought with my friends, even if it is a punishable offence.

Yllaneth raised her hand and proceeded with a nod from Zaal, “Teamwork.”

“Good,” Zaal nodded, hands clasped behind his back again, “but give me more detail.”

“Shaya is constantly giving orders to her lance to ensure they know where they should be applying their abilities,” Yllaneth continued, “whereas Azreon gives no orders, despite being a team leader, and acts on his own.”

“Good,” Zaal nodded again, “what else?”

Someone from Una’s lance raised their hand next, drawing a few glares from Azreon’s camp. It took Shaya a moment to realize it was the mage who thanked her for saving them. His voice was deeper and louder than she expected, now that he had recovered at least somewhat from the ordeal: “While Azreon and Galo – and presumably the rest of the lance – are individually quite powerful, they don’t coordinate their abilities. To beat the Titan, however, we see Shaya’s lance work together to overcome it: I haven’t seen Shaya in alchemy, so she likely drinks potions made by Oraeus there; they rely on the elf to create the portal; their Azurite mage drives the controlling necromancer into a rage so they can’t get the undead Titan to react intelligently; Oraeus pulls double duty by using his foresight magic to call when the plan should begin; and finally Shaya delivers the killing blow with everyone’s power behind her.”

“Very good!” Zaal rasped with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, a smile almost touching his lips, “Now, where did they fail?”

“She didn’t punch Azreon hard enough!” A student joked from Lan’s side of the auditorium, drawing chuckles from more of the auditorium than Shaya expected.

“None of that,” Basillo growled from the stage, “we’ll address Shaya’s lack of character later.”

Una raised her hand and spoke with permission, “she let her evident bias against Azreon and Galo get the better of her – you can hear it in the way she speaks to them with anger and demeaning terms,” that earned her a few nods of approval from Azreon’s camp, “though Galo and Azreon returned her frustration tenfold and refused to cooperate with Shaya’s lance despite their situation, even going so far as to insult and provoke her despite how high tension already was.”

There was a shocked silence as Una crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat, propping her feet up on the empty chair in front of her. When Shaya shot her a shocked looked, Una sniffed and look away from her.

Damn, way to torch that bridge.

“Well said,” Zaal nodded, “though we are not yet at the point to criticize Azreon, let us focus our critiques on Shaya’s unit.”

Plenty of students from Azreon’s side had plenty of suggestions.

“They relied on strength of arms too much, when they should have been real mages.”

“They were all burnt out – in a real campaign they would have been useless for days or weeks while they recovered.”

“Their Azurite mage shouldn’t have incited rage in the necromancer, the killing frenzy put Azreon’s life in greater danger. A different emotion could still have distracted them sufficiently for the plan at hand.”

“Their plan was stupid. If anything went wrong they all would have died.”

Zaal nodded at each in turn, briefly dismissing some while accepting the wisdom behind others. Before moving onto the next lance’s critique, he opened up the floor to questions.

Shaya’s hand shot up, “What was the ephemeral substance covering the necromancer? And is that what made them strong enough to fight Azreon?”

“All you need to know is that it’s forbidden magic,” Zaal replied, then cocked his head at her, “have you seen it before?”

Maybe if I answer vaguely enough the Inquisition won’t be mad at- ah who am I kidding... but shouldn’t everyone know the dangers we’re in with these lunatics running around?

“No,” Shaya said, her tongue forming the wrong word against her will.

What in the nine hells!? Did that Inquisitor enchant me!?

Zaal’s eyes narrowed at the confused expression on her face and moved on to other questions quickly.

Zaal knows what just happened! Shaya’s eyes widened. Not just the spell, he must suspect the source of it as well since he avoided drawing more attention to it.