Samantha Luminaris bared her teeth in a pained snarl as her free hand gripped tightly to her middle, where a deep gash was bleeding steadily. Her eyes darted around, seeing what was left of her team. Daniel, their fighter, had already been taken out, evacuated by their healer, Tral’deon. The remainder of her team were lagging, sweat pouring off of them in waves mixing with the blood that flowed freely from their accumulated wounds. They were low on Health, Mana, and Stamina, doing all they could just to stay standing.

They wouldn’t last long now.

They had been misled in their assignment details, told it was only a small band of roving trolls harrying several villages. No one had told them what attacked the villages were different war bands, all belonging to a single collection, army, truthfully, of trolls. Far more than they could handle alone, at their levels. This was a doomed mission. Samantha had led them to their deaths. She was the leader, and the guilt laid far heavier on her shoulders than her armor ever had.

“Run!” Samantha shouted back at her team as her hand tightened its grip on her sword.

Samantha was all that stood between what remained of her team and certain death. Sending a prayer to her patron goddess, Vita, Samantha raised her sword and charged forward at the ranks of trolls. Samantha tasted death on her tongue, hoping against hope her actions would give her group time to escape. Better she alone die than all of them. If she could just give them a few minutes, they could get away. Most of her team could survive, and only her life had to be paid in recompense for the mistakes she’d made.

A bright blaze of light blinded Samantha before she could make contact, drawing her up short as she released her slowly healing wound to raise her shield.

“We heard you needed some help,” a melodic masculine voice called out, and Samantha blinked dazed eyes to look up.

For a moment she was certain she was dead, because standing in the sky in front and above her was a woman coated in white light, a crown of light on her head and great, thick wings made of what looked like sunlight itself spread behind her. A wave of Vita’s comforting presence rolled off the winged figure, so powerful Samantha wanted to drop to her knees.

The figure beside the, surely an angel, was a boy dressed in all black, feathers accenting his clothes, and woven in his hair, smaller feathers trailing across his cheekbones as he sat atop a majestic onyx steed.

Samantha was convinced, for a moment, that Vita’s angel and Mor’s reaper had come to take her on to her next life.

“Pfft, she thinks I’m an angel, Corbin. And you’re a reaper,” the angel spoke, her voice less sweet to the ear than the reaper’s, but right now Samantha was prepared to call the voice of any angel saving her the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard.

“Lili, it’s rude to listen to other’s thoughts,” The reaper chided, Corbin? Were Mor’s reapers named? They surely must be. She had seen depictions of Mor’s reapers and Vita’s angels in the temple murals, and these two could’ve walked right off of one. They so closely resembled the holy beings.

“I know, but it’s hard to ignore when someone is practically shouting them at me,” the angel, Lili, said.

“Wait, are you Liliana Rosengarde?” one of Samantha’s teammates, Neoni, their Umbral Panther beastman rogue, asked, voice tinged thickly with awe and relief.

“Got it in one! Give the girl a prize.” Liliana’s words were traced with amusement as she nodded her head, apparently uncaring that there was still an army of trolls in front of them. Oddly enough, the trolls, usually such vicious creatures ready to attack at any chance, held still. As if they, too, were spellbound by the angelic visage before them.

“As in, seven time tournament winner, undefeated Liliana Rosengarde?” Cynthia, their mage, asked, and Samantha was slowly coming to the realization she wasn’t dead. That these two figures who radiated power in a thick aura around them were not holy beings sent to retrieve her soul for the beyond. Strange, this Liliana was coated in Vita’s energy. Samantha had only felt such a powerful godly essence around the highest ranked of the priests.

“Aw, you have little fans, Lili. Should I be jealous?” Corbin teased.

“Oh no, your position as vice president of my fan club is being threatened, the horror,” Liliana snarked, tone thick with sarcasm that firmly shattered the last of the illusion of holiness Samantha had for the woman.

Evidently looking for something more interesting to focus her attention on, the woman turned to the spellbound trolls, who had still yet to move. Perhaps they, unlike Samantha, were still under the impression this Liliana was a holy messenger and showing the proper deference for such a being.

Eight swords appeared around Liliana, floating in a circle like devoted worshipers in a chapel. The swords turned on their sides and shot out too fast for Samantha to follow, seeming to vanish entirely. Samantha startled, drawing back a step when blood gushed in great gouts of crimson as the blades, moving too swiftly for her to track, began to slice mercilessly into the bodies of the still trolls. Limbs were sliced clean off, wounds opened up as if from nothing, and finally some of the trolls began to move.

“You just going to stand there looking pretty or are you going to help?” Liliana called out as a wicked-looking polearm appeared in her hands and she dived from the air into the midst of the tolls, turning into a whirlwind of shining light and singing steel faster than Samantha could process.

Samantha assumed she was talking to Corbin, but the boy seemed content to lounge on his flying horse. Rather than join in the fight, he pulled a flute out and playing an upbeat melody that not at all matched the grisly scene in front of her. A bard then, an odd choice to accompany a clear physical fighter such as this Liliana Rosengarde, but Samantha was too busy watching the brutal decimation of the trolls to pay much mind to how such a pair would work together.

A blur of movement rushed past Samantha, the paladin only registering the presence when it was past her, her hair ruffling in the tail wind left behind. A yipping noise she could not place filled the air in accompaniment to the raging roars of angered trolls, steel slicing through flesh, and the happy flute music. Samantha watched, utterly dumbstruck, when she saw a winged, multi-tailed fox appear for a moment before it disappeared in a flash of chaotic fire.

“Samantha, come back here.” Cynthia tugged on the paladin’s armor and Samantha stumbled back, steps clumsy as she watched in open mouth disbelief as Liliana and her strange fox like creature cut a bloody swathe through the assembled trolls that had nearly wiped her team.

She had never seen a fox that looked like that. She was fairly certain they were not supposed to have wings. Or quite so many tails. Its size was closer to that of a wolf as well, though far larger than the ones she had faced in the past. She was suddenly filled with a gratitude that it seemed to be working with this Liliana, who appeared to be at least an ally and fellow student, rather than trying to fight them. Samantha knew she and her team would’ve fallen in seconds to that multi-tailed winged fox/not-fox.

“Who?” Samantha finally managed to choke out as her team converged around her, all of them watching the fight.

“Don’t you pay attention to the tournaments, Sam?” Neoni scoffed, a rhetorical question.

They all knew Samantha cared little for performative shows of strength, like the tournament. They were nothing more than posturing, vain attempts at worthless glory. She was in the Academy to gain strength to better fulfill her goddess’ requests. If Vita did not send a divine sign to her to pay attention to a tournament, then Samantha cared not at all for them, unless she was in it. And then only so much as she gave a good showing to properly pay homage to her goddess, and the advantages she’d been gifted.

“That’s Liliana Rosengarde. She’s a fourth year, and has won every single tournament she’s been in. No one has managed to beat her, and there are rumors she’ll be the first Academy graduate to win all eight of her tournaments.” As Cynthia spoke, Samantha could recall some rumors and chatter about a Rosengarde, but Samantha tried to stay away from gossip.

It was not holy or just to participate in such things, speaking of someone when they were not there, and often only speaking lies or slander meant to harm. Vita taught to be kind to all, for all that lived was of her creation. All with life within them were of the goddess. To speak badly of those who held the spark of Vita’s power inside them was sacrilegious.

“Her friends are all beasts, too.” Neoni sniffed, shaking her head, “every year they manage to get in the top fifty. Most of the time, the only people who can knock them out are each other, or those from class S. The lot of them have been in class S since their first semester.” Neoni continued as they watched Liliana behead six trolls simultaneously.

Corbin was reclining on his flying horse, fingers dancing over his flute, as the song switched to something victorious. He seemed utterly unbothered by the fight, almost bored in his body language. It drove home to Samantha how outclassed she and her team were in this moment. These trolls that had nearly killed all of them were nothing more than a mere inconvenience to these two. What kind of power did they wield to be so lackadaisical about facing down a veritable army of monsters?

“Wait, they’ve never dropped down a class?” Samantha asked, finally finding her voice again.

It was unheard of in the Academy to not drop your class at least once. It was a like a rite of passage, a much needed knock to many’s egos, to be shown they were not all they thought they were. It reminded them to be humble, and to never think themselves too great. There was always someone stronger, and many needed to be shown that.

“Not once. They’re monsters.” Cynthia held a hand out at the scene before them to punctuate it, where Liliana was tearing apart the troll army like it was nothing.

Some had still yet to move, and Samantha suspected whatever skill gave the girl a glowing crown had something to do with it. In the time she and her teammates had been talking, over half the trolls had already been dealt with. Minutes, a handful of minutes, and so many were already taken down.

Liliana looking as if she was doing nothing more than performing a dance recital. Under the sounds of the flute playing, Samantha would almost swear she heard a haunting accompaniment, so light it almost slipped beneath her notice. It was as if… as if Liliana’s blades were singing as they cut through the trolls like chaff.

“You three okay on Health, or do you need a boost?” Corbin called out, his song pausing momentarily. The three girls jolted, not expecting the attention of the older man to turn on them.

“Um, yes, we need some uh Health, Mr. Newfeather, sir,” Cynthia squeaked out, face flushing as she half hid behind Samantha’s bulk.

Corbin smiled down at them, inhuman eyes glinting with amusement as he drew his flute back to his lips and a soothing song poured out. Samantha let out a sigh when she felt her Health Regeneration kick up. The wound on her stomach stitching closed quickly, other wounds accumulated across her body closing up with the itching sensation of healing. Samantha had hardly realized how dire her situation was until the multitude of pains had faded.

“Lili, you almost done?” Corbin paused his playing again to shout at the fighter who was dancing between her own floating blades as if they were her partners, leaving felled trolls with every step in her hauntingly beautiful ballet.

Perhaps Samantha should’ve been paying more attention to the tournaments.

“Yeah!” Liliana shouted back as her wings exploded from her body, feathers shaped like swords digging deep into what trolls remained standing, even as her eight blades slashed and struck between.

Another minute and Liliana stood in the middle of a field of felled corpses, her vulpine companion resting on a pile of bodies. The crown above her head faded and Liliana recalled her swords to her, dismissing them to her storage along with her odd polearm.

“I didn’t even get any experience from that. They were too low leveled,” Liliana called out to Corbin, sounding disappointed as she crossed the sea of bodies in a single bound, landing before Samantha and her group. Her fox followed on her heels, flying rather than jumping and settling at her side.

Neither one of them had a speck of blood on them.

Corbin’s flying mount landed and the bird beastman slid from his seat with a liquid grace as he walked to Liliana and shoved her shoulder.

“You knew you wouldn’t get any when we arrived,” Corbin told her, and Liliana rolled her eyes. The banter would’ve relaxed Samantha if she hadn’t just witnessed this woman take down an entire army of trolls that her group had struggled to simply survive against.

“We were in the area for an assignment,” Liliana started, turning to address Samantha and her group. Cynthia and Neoni both were hiding behind her now, peeking out shy eyes.

“Assignment? That’s a nice way to say you cajoled a professor into letting you go here under the guise of an assignment because you heard there’s a cute beastie stalking these forests,” Corbin teased, laying an elbow on Liliana’s shoulder.

The two were almost the same height, close to Samantha’s own 5’10. Corbin was maybe an inch above her, Liliana perhaps an inch or two below. The move was obviously meant to tease the girl as she glared at her companion. The two must be close, for them to be so obviously comfortable around each other. The glare Liliana leveled the man with held no true heat, and even some fond amusement in it.

“And you joined me because you want to see it too,” Liliana hissed at the feathered boy, who shrugged with a wicked grin.

“Maybe I just like being near you,” Corbin teased.

“Maybe I’d like to sink a dagger in your gut if you don’t shut up.” Liliana growled, her eyes flashing in warning. They were such a deep, striking jewel blue that Samantha didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed them earlier.

“Anyway,” Liliana glared once more at Corbin, who pantomimed locking his mouth, “we got your distress signal and came over immediately. Did you lose anyone?” Liliana’s face turned gentle as she looked over them, her attitude change so sudden it gave Samantha whiplash.

“N-No,” Samantha spoke as her teammates seemed star struck and utterly useless right now, “We didn’t lose anyone. Our fighter had to be evacuated by our healer, but he should be fine. Thank the grace of Vita,” Samantha said, gripping her hands together in a small prayer.

“Oh gods, not a religious type,” Samantha thought she heard Liliana mutter softly, her face drawn in distaste before it cleared to a kind smile.

Odd that someone who so clearly had the heavy touch of Vita on them would disdain others who loved and followed the goddess. Vita worked in mysterious ways incomprehensible to human minds, however, so if Vita had chosen this girl for some reason, Samantha would not question her patron’s choices. It was obvious her disdain had no effect on the favor the goddess bestowed upon her, and Samantha was not one to question the relationship between Vita and her chosen ones. Such things were incredibly private, and none of Vita’s followers would dare ask or pry into them.

“Good, that’s good. Why would you three face so many trolls? They matched you for levels, you didn’t stand a chance.” Liliana didn’t let silence fall as she switched her questions, reassured that no one had died. Her questions held a distinct tone of interrogation and disapproval now, though, and Samantha felt like she was being chided by a senior priest or a professor.

“We were told it was only a small band of maybe ten at the most. The assignment information said nothing about an entire camp.” Samantha defended her team’s choices. Her choices, she was the leader.

“Shit. Again?” Corbin muttered, voice dour, and Liliana’s face darkened, nodding.

“We’ll tell Vereign when we get back. This is the sixteenth instance of incorrect information on an assignment this semester. That we know of,” Liliana muttered. Corbin’s arm slipped off her shoulder and he crossed his arms, his playful attitude gone.

“Why did you not have someone scout first before initiating a fight?” Liliana turned back to Samantha, and the paladin gulped under the weight of those cold eyes.

“We were confident in our intel and were certain we could get the fight over quickly and head back,” Samantha explained, voice uncharacteristically small. She knew she had made a mistake, a nearly fatal one.

“Tch. Reckless children,” Liliana spat, shaking her head. Samantha wisely chose not to comment on the fact they were only a year or two younger than Liliana, hardly children.

“You could’ve all died here because you didn’t take the time to scout. I’ll be telling your homeroom teacher to restrict your assignment privileges until you learn your lesson.” Liliana lectured them and Samantha shrank, her teammates hiding fully behind her as the older woman dressed them down.

“Corbin, is there anything in the area dangerous enough to harass them?” Liliana turned to her partner as soon as she was certain the three girls were suitably chastened.

“No, between your bonds and mine, nothing more dangerous than a Cloud Rabbit is in a fifty-mile radius,” Corbin responded almost immediately. Liliana nodded as bright wings made of pure light burst from her back, flapping slowly, as if she was getting used to them.

“Then we have to go. Take care of your wounded and head back to the Academy. Immediately. If you're still in the area when we come back, I’ll drag you back by the ears myself. Understood?” Liliana turned to all of them, and Samantha nodded mutely. Liliana took a step back to prepare to leave when Samantha felt the familiar essence of her patron fill her.

Liliana shivered before her, body freezing as her head whipped around, blue eyes locking onto Samantha.

“Vita wishes to tell you, Be careful little dancer. It is beginning. If you do not act, then all you love shall be consumed. Remember your quest, for your time for idleness runs short.” Samantha spoke, but her voice was not her own. Somehow more, somehow other. It was the voice of her goddess, speaking through her as she could choose to when it came to her chosen ones, her paladins and priests. She did not often choose to speak directly to them, instead communicating in small signs. Or in small nudges of intention they could interpret.

“Fuck all the way off Vita, I don’t need more of your cryptic riddles.” Liliana hissed, voice thick with venom as her wings flared, feathers made of light bristling like a cat’s fur.

Samantha stumbled back a step at the pure anger in Liliana’s voice, but she had no chance to say more when Liliana flung herself into the air, wings heaving and quickly turning her into a small speck in the sky.

“Sorry for that girls, see you back at the Academy. No more fights with trolls, okay?” Corbin called out, already astride his flying horse as it took off. Samantha only noted, after Corbin and Liliana were blots in the distance, that the fox following Liliana had vanished.

“Did that really happen?” Cynthia whispered.

“Did we get to see the Liliana Rosengarde in action, get reamed by her, and then did Samantha get possessed by her goddess? Only for Liliana Rosengarde to sass a goddess?” Neoni asked, voice faint.

“Yeah,” Cynthia responded, breathless.

“Gods. What the fuck.” Neoni whined the words and Samantha wanted to whine with her.

What in the gods had just happened?

“Liliana.” Corbin’s voice reached her over the screaming of the wind, and Liliana slowed her pace slightly. She felt like she was running. Running from Vita, from her duty, from the great darkness she was somehow supposed to defeat.

“Should we talk about how you apparently know the goddess Vita enough to curse her out?” Corbin asked, his voice so soft it was almost erased by the wind.

“I’d rather you forget you heard that. Please.” Liliana turned her head to look at him and Corbin held her gaze for a long moment as Liliana stopped moving and hovered in the air. Finally, Corbin sighed and shook his head.

“Fine, but that warning? Gods don’t often give warnings to mortals. They shouldn’t be taken lightly.” Corbin met her gaze, eyes sharp, missing the playful tint they normally had. Liliana looked away, shying from his gaze that seemed to see past her defenses.

Friends for three years and he could already see right to the soul of her.

“I know.” Liliana whispered, hands clenched in tight fists.

She knew her time was running out. She had roughly two years left before the original Liliana was set to become the endgame boss. That wasn’t happening this time, but it meant she had at most two years before whatever had made the original Liliana came out to play. Or a different boss took her place.

“Lili, what are we going to do?” Corbin prodded. His Pegasus, Lysander, circled closer to her in the air.

“We? Nothing. We’re going to find this beast. Then we’ll go back to the Academy, you’ll forget everything you’ve heard, and I’ll do what I’ve been doing for the past six years.” Liliana whipped her head up, eyes sharp and cold, as she looked at Corbin.

“Prepare for the enemy I’ve known about and make sure when I face them, they’ll fall.” Liliana spat out, Corbin jerking back in surprise at the venom in her tone.

“Lili, I ca-“ Corbin reached out a hand and Liliana lurched backwards in the air.

“No. No, I will not put you in danger like that. Leave this to me. Vita’s warning was for me, her quest is for me. If I need help, I’ll ask for it. For now, just. Just keep being my friend, but don’t try to fight my battles for me. I have enemies that would crush you without a thought, Corbin.” Liliana hated that her voice had taken on a pleading edge, when she’d meant to sound sure and confident.

She knew, when it came time to fight the ‘great evil’ Vita had told her of, she would need her friends beside her. But if she could prevent some of them from ever seeing that battlefield, she would. Corbin, perhaps most of all. He was no fighter, had never been, had never pretended to be. He was a bard, supporting his bonds that he loved with his whole heart.

She couldn’t ask him to step on a battlefield where some were sure to die. Could not. Would not ask him to send his beloved bonds to war, where some might not make it. Couldn’t ask him to willingly tear his soul apart when he lost one.

Liliana wouldn’t ask that of anyone, but she knew there were those amongst her friends and family who would come regardless of her requests. But if she could make sure at least some of them remained safe, then she could face her fate happily. All of this, her training, her fighting, her desperate accumulation of power, it would be worthless if she lost everyone she was trying to protect in the end.

“Alright, Lili. Whatever you say.” Corbin’s melodic voice was soothing as he held a hand out in a calming manner. Liliana looked at him and couldn’t read the truth in his eyes and she felt her heart ache and crack.

Friends were a curse and a blessing. They’d never let you face your battles alone. And that was why they were as much a curse as they were a blessing. You were never alone in a fight, but you might one day have to watch the friend who had stood at your side fall in a fight they never had to be part of.

Be careful little dancer. It is beginning. If you do not act, then all you love shall be consumed. Remember your quest, for your time for idleness runs short.

Gods, I hope only I have to bear the consequences for the deal I struck. Liliana thought, eyes stinging as she turned in the air and shot off, hopefully before Corbin could see the pain in her eyes.

Six years. She’d had six years in this world, six years more than she ever thought she’d have, and six years too little.