“Hugo, will you stay after class please,” Sage Rasmus said.

Curious, Hugo walked up to the front of class once everyone else had left. He thought he was finally getting a handle on things, he wondered what he had done wrong now.

“Don’t give me that look, it’s nothing bad,” the sage said, “You have a meeting with a sentinel in a few minutes. Go meet with him at the front gates, he has a proposal for you. It will make you late to your history class, but just tell Sage Ioana that I excused you.”

“Why does the sentinel want to meet with me?” Hugo asked.

“Just go, they will tell you all about it,” he replied and shooed him away.

Hugo turned to walk away, confused about the whole thing.

“Oh and Hugo? Congratulations,” Sage Rasmus said with a smile.

As Hugo walked towards the front gate, he wondered about this meeting. From what the Sage said, it sounded like a good thing. He wasn’t used to good things happening to him. It felt weird.

An older student passed him walking the other way, she was holding a golden card and beaming from ear to ear. He looked back and forth between her and the sentinel standing just inside the academy gates. The man stood there in bright blue shining armor, with a ceremonial cape and everything.

“Hello!” the man boomed, “And who might you be?”

“Hugo Rebane, sir,” he said.

He laughed, “You don’t have to call me sir yet. Has anyone told you why you are here?”

“No, no one has said a thing,” Hugo said.

“Good, good. I love telling people myself. I am Lieutenant Daniel, sentinel liaison to the Blue Lion Academy. Part of my duties is to extend offers to promising students to help with the upcoming monster surge. Based on your performance, I would like to offer you a spot up on the wall. You will be given shifts to fill, and compensated based on performance. You can expect your payout to be anywhere between five and fifty gold.”

“Really?” Hugo said. He hadn’t heard of students killing monsters on the wall, was this some sort of weird joke?

“You tell me. The reports I received from the academy staff said that you have a ranged incendiary weapon. Apparently it is quite effective. The assumption is also that you can produce a great deal of ammunition given enough time. Is that true?” the sentinel said with a smile.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” Hugo said.

“Well then, congratulations,” Lieutenant Daniel said and handed him a card, “You are officially invited. Present this card at sentinel command the day after new years and you will be assigned a shift.”

“Thank you,” Hugo said, staring at the card in wonder. It was gold colored and it represented so much money. If he got lucky in each of the next four monster waves, he might graduate college debt free.

“You deserve it. Not many fourth year students get an invitation. It is very impressive to receive one as a first year. You should be proud,” the sentinel said.

Hugo thanked him again and walked away in a daze. This really happened. He kept taking out the card and staring at it with a goofy smile on his face. He hadn’t thought that his bomb lobbing crossbow was that special, but apparently he was wrong.

As he thought about it, the invitation made more sense. He had a ranged weapon, something that was needed on the wall. It was effective against monsters well above his level, and would probably work against a wide variety of them. It was also important that he didn't use mana to attack. The monster surge would require hours of attacking, any student that used lots of mana would quickly run out. He really was uniquely qualified to man the walls.

From that happy moment, Hugo had to go to his least favorite class, history class. The name was a bit of a misnomer. If Hugo had named the class himself, he would have named it etiquette class. Every day, Sage Ioana would start the lesson with a short story from history, usually one that ended in death or war. Then she would explain how it all could have been avoided if they had just remembered history and respected culture. The slave uprising of 3244 could have been avoided if the nox mayor had understood the importance of remembering a human’s name when introduced. So they all had to practice memorizing twenty new names within five minutes.

Today’s lesson was about Colonel Robin. He wouldn’t have been cut into ribbons in 3251 if he had just remembered the nox’s need for symmetry in all things. The rest of the class was spent setting symmetrical dinner place settings and practicing bows and movements that were symmetrical from two points of view.

It was, by far, Hugo’s least favorite subject. He dreaded going every day and couldn’t stand the look of Sage Ioana’s face. It wasn’t until Hugo was trying to list off all the traditional ingredients of verivorst blood sausage that he realized why.

He really sucked at this.

His fellow students knew exactly why riese were pacifists and drawn to nature and all things growing, but still insisted on blood sacrifice. Hugo had only met one riese in his life, and didn’t know the first thing about them. His upbringing in the narrows was a serious detriment to his education.

That was true of all of the subjects, really. He had to put in a lot of effort into all of his classes to become barely acceptable, and his fellow students rarely had to study. What made history class the worst was that Hugo didn’t seem to be getting any better. Each lesson covered something new and inevitably unveiled an area where Hugo was woefully unprepared.

After the meeting with the sentinels, Hugo was seriously considering just giving up on the class, and intentionally failing it. The way the grades worked, if he did well in his other classes, he could move on to second year study even if he failed this class. When he talked about it to Oskar, his roommate tried to dissuade him.

“Oi. You’re an idiot for thinking of giving up,” Oskar said and threw a book at him.

“That’s easy for you to say, this stuff comes easy to you,” Hugo said, stepping aside and letting the book hit their apartment wall.

“Sure, it’s easy for me because I grew up in a merchant family. Manners are our lifeblood, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t an idiot for even considering you don’t need to try hard in history class,” Oskar said.

“I’m not an idiot. I looked it up and it’s true. I don’t need this class. I don’t need to stress about it and study for days only to mess up and have everyone laugh at me. Again. Sage Rasmus says I am doing better, so I can probably pass that class, and the other ones aren’t that bad either. History class is just the worst. I don’t need to know about stupid nox manners and I am tired of stressing about it.”

Oskar grabbed another book and threw it, “That’s exactly why you are an idiot. You do need to learn your manners.”

Hugo grabbed the books and threw them back, “I have more manners than someone who is throwing books around to make a point.”

“No you don’t, and it's important,” Oskar said. He sat down and seriously continued, “Being an academy mage opens up things for you. When you lived in the narrows, you were unlikely to ever see anyone that didn’t grow up there. But as a mage you have a good chance of meeting important people. People you can’t afford to piss off. Don’t worry about your grade in history class, but seriously, you need to try and learn the lessons.”

Hugo plopped down on his bed and said, “And how likely is that, seriously? I am going to get a factory job or commission with the sentinels and I never have to meet new people.”

“And who is going to give you that factory job? A nox or a riese? If you need to make dinner for a sentinel colonel, you will have to know the difference between Estonian and Romanian traditional dinners.” Oskar said.

Sitting up, Hugo said, “Is there a difference? Do people really care about old Earth stuff like that?”

“Rich people do, and they are the ones you need to impress. That’s the secret to making money as a mage, making rich people like you.”

“I used to think the secret to making money as a mage was getting a super high rank,” Hugo said with a sigh, “Why did I bother risking my life to get soulmarked when I should have just been making friends with rich people?”

“Yes, if you knew some rich people already, you really should have focused on being their friends instead of getting soulmarked. Much better than risking your life,” Oskar said.

Hugo swore and plopped back onto his bed. He realized he had actually done that. He was friends with some some rich people, Kristofer and Sofia, but they had betrayed him.

Oskar laughed and said, “Don’t be like that. You are just in a bad mood because you have to leave the academy tomorrow.”

“That might be a factor,” Hugo said. It was month-end vacation again, and he didn’t know where to go tomorrow. Obviously he couldn’t go home, not after what had happened with Mom and Marius. He wasn’t even sure if his mom would even want to see him again. He could afford a room at an inn for a few days, his bottles were selling well after all, but still. It put him in a bad mood, knowing that instead of having a good family vacation, he would be spending money to be alone and miserable.

“I got something to cheer you up,” Oskar said, “You know my friends in the city? Or, no, I haven’t told you about them. Anyway, I have some friends and they set up this meeting with some hedge mages tomorrow.”

“Hedge mages? Why? I don’t want to be caught with hedgies, even if we are real mages now. Why would you want to be mixed up with scum like that?”

“They aren’t scum, at least I don’t think they are. That’s kind of the point, we can feel them out, see if they are the ones behind the wall sabotages. If they are, we can turn them over to the shimmer corps, and if not, then we will know that it was all Deva. That would mean that war is coming, which is valuable information.”

“Who do you think you are? You aren’t Andre Aaron and this isn’t some two copper novel. This is real life. If the hedge mages are actually mixed up in the murder of hundreds of civilians across the River Coalition, we don’t want to be anywhere near them.”

“Ok, first of all, I’m thinking that they didn’t do it, probably. And second of all, they won’t know we are trying to get info out of them. We are just going to have them do a little fortune telling, we are paying them for a little prophecy or two. They are thinking we are just paying customers, and we can slip the wall breaks into conversation, all casual like. This is something you have said you wanted to do, now we have the chance to do it. We can actually find out who is behind it all.

Hugo thought about it. Oskar was right, he did want to get to the bottom of things, that night kept showing up in his nightmares. On the other hand, associating with hedgies was a known way to get dead. It was frankly a surprise that any of them were still alive. He said, “Do you think they can really tell the future, or is it all just bullshit?”

Shrugging his shoulders, Oskar said, “I don’t know, maybe? Their magic can’t be that good, otherwise they wouldn’t be hiding in the shadows. They would be ruling the city if they had any real power. On the other hand, they do seem to be able to always avoid the shimmer corps.”

“Most of the time,” Hugo said. The whole reason they suspected the hedge mages in the first place was because of their ongoing fight with the shimmer corps. The hedge mages did get captured or killed by the corps from time to time.

“Most of the time. But it doesn’t really matter if their magic is real or a trick, we just want to get some answers out of them,” Oskar said, “My dad would be so happy if I could tell him for sure if war was coming. Retooling from sewing machines to weapons could mean the difference between riches and debt slavery, but only if we are sure.”

Feeling like he understood his motivations better now, Hugo nodded. This was all about Oskar and his family. Still, Hugo wanted to know the truth himself. It was worth a bit of risk. He didn’t want to lose Oskar as a friend anyway.

...

The next day, Oskar and Hugo found themselves blindfolded and being led down a series of alleyways. It was a little surprising that their meetup wasn’t in the narrows. Hugo had automatically assumed that is where it would be, all of the shady deals in the city seemed to happen there. Instead, they had met up just behind the merchant district, near some of the warehouses. He didn’t know where they were now, but he could smell the ocean. They must be pretty close to the docks.

Hugo stumbled as he was led through a second doorway, but caught himself quickly. The extra points from being soulmarked were coming in handy. They were told they could take off their blindfolds now, and they looked around. They were in a small room, drab stone walls and a single table in the center of the room. There were two wooden chairs on either side of the maroon table, and nothing else. Besides the door, the room was empty.

Their guide left them shortly after they arrived, and they sat down to wait for the hedge mage. Oskar flopped down into one of the chairs right away, facing the door. Hugo didn’t want to have his back to the door in an unfamiliar place, so he walked around the room.

It was strangely quiet. The sounds of the city had been nonstop before they entered the room, but cut off as soon as the door was closed. His breathing sounded loud in his ears. It must be magic, but Hugo didn’t see any runes.

Activating his new skill, Hugo looked around with Mana Sight to see what he could see. He was right, there was some magic here. It looked very different from what he was used to seeing. Instead of thin sharp lines flowing through runes, the mana in the room seemed to flow more organically. It reminded him of how mold spread across, seemingly random up close, but with an overall pattern. It was also much fainter than the magic he was used to. His and Oskar’s soul cores almost drowned out the mana in the room with their mere presence.

He still had his mana sight up when someone new came into the room. She was decked out in red and yellow silks, with a mask covering the lower half of her face. He knew right away that this was the hedge mage. She was suffused with magic, mana flowing throughout her body. She didn’t look like she had a soul core. She was only slightly brighter than the mana in the room, still much dimmer than either of the boys.

“Welcome to the inner sanctum, oh ye seekers of truth,” she said, “I am Saskia, your guide into the unknown, the past, present, and future.”

Oskar had stood up when she entered the room, and she waved him down. “Please, sit. I know you have many questions, and we have very little time.”

With an awkward smile, Oskar sat back down and said, “Thank you for seeing us. I wanted to ask about...”

She cut him off and said, “I know what you want to ask, and I will attempt to answer for you.” From the folds in her dress, she drew out a deck of playing cards. She spread them out face up, and then flipped them all face down in a single motion. With practiced ease, she shuffled the cards and fanned them out on the table. A trickle of mana poured out of the hedge mage and touched the cards.

With a serious voice she said, “Pull three cards from the deck. Do not flip them over.”

Hugo frowned. He had seen this routine before. It seemed like a parlor trick the last time he had seen it, but now he could also see mana flowing. Does that mean that this was the real deal? Or was she just pushing mana around to fool mages?

Once Oskar had chosen three cards, she flipped over the first. It was a drawing of a nox, standing on a crossroads. “This first card represents the past. You have a question about an important choice you made in the past. Was it the right one?”

After a beat, she just shook her head, “No. You chose poorly. But there is nothing to be done about it. Accept that fact and move on.”

Hugo almost laughed. That was so vague and trite. Everyone had choices they regretted after the fact. Oskar didn’t feel the same, evidently. He just nodded back at her, a somber look on his face.

The next card was a riese stepping on a thorn bush. “This is an answer to your unasked question. You are spending too much on the thoughts of others. Avoid parties and social events for a time. Wait for an invitation before you return.”

Oskar made a face at that one, but Hugo thought that she might be onto something. His roommate had been stressed about parties for a while now, maybe a break would do him some good.

The last card was a human riding a wyrm, a giant sword in his hand. Saskia sighed, “This is the card for war. I have been seeing this card too many times, people’s future shouldn’t contain the war card this much.”

“Does that mean that there will be war soon?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. All I can tell you is that the future will be turbulent. I advise caution, particularly when making long term plans.”

“Caution? That’s it? You advise caution? Can’t you tell me if war is coming or not?”

Saskia just sat there silently. She turned to Hugo and motioned to the chair.

Oskar looked between Hugo and Saskia incredulously before getting up in a huff. Hugo sat down in front of the hedge mage.

She spread the cards across the table, face down. A flash of mana poured out of her, covering the cards. Looking at him straight in the eye, Saskia intoned, “Choose your own destiny. Pick three cards.”