Atezor's strikes were as swift as his mind. He progressed much over the last four months, and his skills with a sword were giving mine a run for their money. Left, right, left, I managed to keep up. His training gave me a grasp on his fighting style and I had exploited its weaknesses to improve it. He had exploited mine and in turn made me improve too.

I saw an opening and failed to fall for the trick. I hit his wooden sword to the side and made it wider. I turned and slammed my left shoulder into his chest, staggering him. I failed to finish the duel and allowed him to regain his guard. I went in for the attack to test his blocking capability. He matched me strike for strike.

Despite the cool morning air, sweat glistened on his brow. A particularly good parry set Atezor into a string of attacks, all blocked by my swift reaction. He suddenly thrust into a weak point in my guard. A bad decision on his part. I was prepared for this. I twisted my sword and disarmed him. I was breathing heavily as I placed my the flat of the sword on his shoulder.

We moved to sit on the edge of the pathway. I spoke first.

"One hundred thirty two to six?" I asked while smiling.

"One hundred thirty one to seven," he said in his accented voice, " you cheated last time." He returned my smile.

"How many times do I have to say that throwing my sword is a perfectly acceptable way to end the duel as long as it lands on your opponent's shoulder."

"You grazed my shoulder," He objected, "that barely counts."

"Barely," I said triumphantly, "still counts."

We laughed at the same conversation we had yesterday. It was barely dawn but I felt wide awake. For the first time in either of my lives, I truly had a friend that I trusted.

Atezor was the only one of the top five that I even talked to. Leviah stayed to herself. Enis did too, but I doubted it was for the same reason. Two of the five were commoners and one was a foreigner. The only outlier was me, I was supposed to be a noble of the highest order. Surely she saw it fit for me to be graced by her presence. But I think she was still a bit pissed that she only landed third. With me in first place it would be natural for her to not be friendly towards me.

Then there was Wayne he acted like he hated me. Other than the overly courteous greeting on the first day, he hadn't spoken to me. He only spoke to Atezor (the only other person who would speak that wasn't me). When I asked him why Wayne wouldn't speak to me, he said it didn't have anything to do with me personally but he wouldn't go further into detail.

Atezor himself was somewhat of a mystery as well. When I asked why he came from the north and how he actually got here, he only told me that he sailed to the empire and crossed into Doltia. He refused to tell me why he left his home in the first place.

Those thoughts ran through my head as Atezor and I watched the sun rise further into the sky. Soon everyone would wake and the quiet morning would turn into a rush for breakfast and a dash for the late risers to get ready for class. But for then the silence was peaceful, I never took time to enjoy the little things in my past life. Or even in the early stages of my new life. It was a mad dash to grow up. My death proved that mad dashes could as easily lead you off a cliff as they could to the finish line.

The silence was finally broken as the lieutenant came across us on his way to take his early morning piss.

"What the hell are you two doing up so early in the goddamn morning?" He was too tired to use his "inside" voice.

He looked around and saw the discarded practice swords.

"You mean to tell me that you two got up at the ass-crack of dawn to practice sword fighting?" He whispered.

I responded first. "No lieutenant. We got up before the the ass-crack of dawn to practice sword fighting."

He almost smiled at that. I could see the corner of his mouth twitch.

"You better not fall asleep during training." He said.

"I have a full day of classes before training. I'll be well rested by the time training comes around." I said, immediately knowing I made a mistake confiding as much to him.

"You sleep in your classes?" He asked in an uncharacteristically low voice.

"I sleep through the things I already know. Which is just about everything they teach us." I pretended to be oblivious to his obvious outrage.

He said nothing and turned to walk away mumbling something about me being a perfect reflection of my father. Atezor was silent through the whole thing. I turned to him expecting to share a look of relief, but he was deep in thought. I doubted he was even aware that the lieutenant had made an appearance.

I tapped his shoulder. "You okay?" I asked tentatively.

He stirred. "Huh? Yeah I'm fine." His voice was low and thoughtful. Unlike his usual bright demeanor. A clear sign that he was not fine. But I didn't press further, if he wanted to talk about it he would.

"Just thinking about my sister." He said in the same low voice.

"You have a sister?" I asked surprised. He never shared anything about his life.

"Not anymore." I looked at him and noticed that this man,who was always so cheerful was holding back tears.

"You want to talk about it?" I pressed.

He gave a weak chuckle. "And ruin such a nice morning? I will tell you, in time."

I just nodded. I could understand not wanting to talk about something. After all, I had sixteen years of something I didn't want to talk about. It wasn't that I wasn't going to tell anyone about my past life, it had never seemed like the right moment to drop that I was from a world were technology had advanced so much that it would seem as much as a fairy tale to these people as magic was on earth.

The morning lagged on, both of us lost deep in thought. Then the silence ended as everyone got up for breakfast. We picked up our swords and put them back were we got them. The rest of the day flew by until it was time for training.

The lieutenant came in and got straight to the lesson. Not even pausing to yell at us.

"You are already pretty good at magic but today you are gonna learn how to use that in battle. Resighting spells from memory is no good. In the heat of battle you often don't have time to think about what spell will work and why you have to use it. Magic users are typically in the rear of the formation using long distance spells but you five are proficient in both melee and magic. So you will be closer to the front, leading and protecting men. Some of you healing them," he looked at Enis, the water mage who heavily specialized in healing magic, and me, I was less effective at healing but still better than most. "that means you need special training to not get your men killed."

He continued his lesson and droned on for the whole three hours. After the lesson we went to dinner. The five of us ate alone because everyone already finished eating by eight.

This time it seemed that Wayne wasn't eating. Atezor asked him why, and he admitted that he had run out of money three meals a day. Atezor told him that he wished he could pitch in but I was paying for all of his meals. Which was true, with Atezor coming from another country he had very little money and I was a loaded rich kid.

I offered to pay for Wayne's meal but he refused.

"I don't need the dirty money of a damned noble." He downright spit his words at me.

"You got a problem with me?" I asked genuinely confused.

He took it as a challenge. "Yeah, I do. All you damned nobles care about is money. You look down on us commoners as less than you because of an outdated system," he was talking in an angry voice. He spun hate in his every word. "you won't even spare medicine to a boy's dying mother because the medicine is supposedly worth more than her life."

I had a horrible feeling that he wasn't talking all nobles anymore. He was talking about one in particular. I had no idea what to say.

"What?" I asked confused.

"Don't act like you don't know," I responded spitefully, "when my mother was dying of a curable disease my father went to the lord of the town, asking for the medicine to cure it. He said that the Duke," he pointed at me, " your father, was the only one who had it in stock. When my father asked if it could be sent over he said it would be a misallocation of resources."

I was shocked. If my father had ever given any order to deny medicine to sick people that was the first I was hearing of it.

"Which lord was this?" I asked. I could think of a few candidates.

"The lord of Genuda village, Lord Derion." He said the word "lord" with such spite that it could be classified as verbal irony.

"The one who was imprisoned for embezzlement last year?" I asked, not needing an answer.

Now it looked like he was the one who was first hearing of something.

"He was? But I thought he spoke to your father. It took him a week to respond." He said shocked.

"If anyone knew about misallocation of resources, it was him. He was siphoning off money from various town budgets, including the medical facilities. It was our fault for not catching it sooner," I bowed my head apologetically, "I'm sorry you lost your mother because of our incompetence."

"So your father knew nothing about the situation?" He asked.

"I doubt that greedy bastard even left the village." I responded truthfully.

He looked like his entire world just got turned upside down. He sat down and buried his head in his hands. He sat like that for a while. Atezor sitting beside him and patting his back.

I had no idea what to do, so I bought the three of us food and left to eat in same place that I sat that morning. This time the sun was setting so I was just watching the sky get darker and the orange and red clouds change to purple.

Atezor came out after the sun had gone down and the stars were on full display. The brightest one was even brighter than Sirius. I had always loved the stars in this world. I wondered if anyone would believe that I came from a place where there was so much light that it blocked out the stars.

Atezor sat beside me. "Beautiful."

"Save that talk for the ladies." I said, not wanting to talk about what had happened.

He got the hint. "I was talking about the stars, dumbass." He was talking in his usual jovial voice but it was strained. He was obviously forcing himself to act cheerful.

"Today would've been her birthday. My little sister was born ten years ago. We lived in a village near the border of the demon domain. The people there were strong, we had to be. We lived on a fertile stretch of land next to the baren wastes of the demons. Even demons have to eat," his act had completely dropped, this was the face of a man who was devastated. "we were raided constantly by demons, so I was taught to use a sword as soon as I could hold one. It was two years ago. We hadn't lost a man in a raid for three months. The demon groups were getting smaller and smaller. We thought they had stopped trying. Then one day a large group came. Not to raid us but to invade us and push us out of our home."

He paused wiping a single tear out of his eye.

"My father ran out to defend the city and told my mother to stay in the house with us. I wasn't old enough to help but I was old enough to think I could. I wanted to go with father but he told me I had to stay and protect my sister, Ariadne and my mother. There were too many demons. My father fell after fighting 6 at once. The demons quickly overwhelmed the hastily prepared defenses and moved to the village. Mother told me to protect my sister as they entered our house. She surprised one with a kitchen knife but all I could do was protect Ariadne from the horrible sight of the demons tearing her apart." He choked.

"I picked her up and ran out the back door. I don't know how long I was running but soon enough the only sight I had of the village was the smoke. We survived on the road stealing from farms and sleeping in the barns. Then one day we were on a main road for the first time, on our way to a city. The bandits came out of nowhere, demanding that we hand over everything we own. We had nothing of value. All I had was the sword my father had given me and the dagger I stole from a barn.

"I pulled out the sword but I didn't even have a chance to fight. One of the bandits snuck up behind me and by the time I realized it he already had a knife to Ariadne's throat. He said 'drop the sword or she dies'," he gave a humorless laugh, almost a scoff, " I said we had nothing. They said even if that was the case, they wanted all of the nothing we had. I gave them the food but it was all we had. They were complaining that they should have known the two of us wouldn't have anything. Then one of them suggested that they sell us into slavery.

"I couldn't bare the thought of little Ariadne being a slave. I pulled out the dagger and stabbed one of them in the back. Then the next before any of them had time to react. I was disarmed and on the ground in the next moment. Then," he hesitated as though he couldn't speak, " then they killed her. My little sister, dead. My entire family, gone. Alone and weapon less. They sold me to a slave trader who brought me here. I worked in the mines until I saw the opportunity to escape. I practiced magic then killed my master with a fireball."

Through the entire story I sat in stunned silence. I couldn't think of a word to say. The entire time, I thought I had it bad because I got shot and died. But Atezor, his entire family died, and he had to live. The survivors guilt would be destroying him. He'd be thinking of all the different ways he could have saved them. All the ways that his choices led to his sister's death.

At last I decided to say something. "There was nothing you could do. You know what slavery is like. If you hadn't tried to save her she would be enslaved."

"Are you saying that death is better than slavery?" He asked in an uncharacteristically irate voice.

"No," I said softly, "I'm saying that ,even if she was alive, she wouldn't be living. And that's no kind of life. You did the right thing trying to save her from that. Don't you ever doubt that." Who was I to be telling him never to doubt it, I was never sure of anything. And I definitely wasn't sure I should be talking about sisters. Mine was back on earth feeling the same way Atezor was. And all I was worried about building a reputation in a world she never even knew existed.