A blaze of flame, intense waves of heat strong enough to sear the skin. A bright burst of light erupting, flames splashing across it, dying without fuel to consume.

“Sloppy,” Liliana hummed as she waved away the wall of light she’d summoned. Even with [Light Manipulation] her Mana was disinclined towards defensive things, and forcing it to take the shape of a shield wall was a struggle for her.

“Minus five points, for not mitigating collateral damage,” Corbin nodded, writing down on a piece of parchment.

They had devised a game to play where they assigned the second years they were guarding a hundred points to start with. Any mistakes they made had points deducted.

They had little else of interest to do.

They had to follow the second years, and as they were embroiled in a fight, Liliana had to pay attention to them. Just in case one of them did something so horrendously idiotic that she had to save them. Corbin had suggested the game and Liliana had readily agreed to anything that would alleviate the boredom of watching second years fighting beasts Liliana could’ve finished off in minutes.

Is this what it feels like for our professors? I might owe Rauk a fruit basket. This is tedious. Liliana wrinkled her nose as she watched.

She could understand easily now why Guérin had refused to teach them until their second semester of first year. And even then, he was short and brusque with them. She’d never felt much of a kinship with her Battle Training professor before, but now, watching the group of second years fumbling around and managing to avoid grievous injury more from luck than skill, she understood.

Corbin was right. She was not suited for teaching. If she had to give the second years honest criticism of their fight, she’d leave them with so little self-confidence they’d never leave their rooms again. She had no idea how their professors managed to encourage them and not quit on the spot. Maybe she owed all her professors a fruit basket. And maybe a whole house for poor Silas who had taught her back when she barely knew which end of her weapon to point at enemies.

“Minus ten for not even noticing they allowed collateral damage,” Liliana corrected. Corbin tilted his head thoughtfully before he made a noise of agreement and corrected the deduction.

“Slow on noticing that flanking, minus three points.” Corbin pointed with his quill.

He was one of the few people Liliana knew who preferred quills over fountain pens. Liliana thought he liked to use them because he used his own feathers to make them, and it was a type of peacocking. She’d never tell him that his feathers did make for rather pretty quills. He’d never stop preening. But they did.

“There’s a rather large amount of Hellcats,” Liliana noted, eyebrows furrowing slightly. A large pride wasn’t cause for concern normally, but with how assignments had been going, anything out of the norm was concerning to her.

“A problem?” Corbin asked, looking more alert, eyes scanning the area the second years had chosen for their fight.

“I don’t think so…” Liliana trailed off, checking with Lelantos and Polaris mentally. They were scouting the area. Nemesis was wrapped around Liliana’s neck, and Serenity was tucked safely in her soul stone. It was never wise to spread themselves too thin. Especially not with how things had been going recently.

“No, the boys haven’t found anything odd. Yours?” Liliana blinked the glaze from her eyes, focusing back on Corbin.

“Agalope and Andrias haven’t reported anything. Muninn hasn’t seen anything either.” Corbin shook his head slowly, naming his Siren, Griffin and crow bonds, respectively.

“Then the pride has likely grown from killing other things in the area and freeing up the Mana for more of their spawns,” Liliana waved off her own concerns, settling into the branches of the tree she was sitting in.

“Makes sense,” Corbin said with a small, unsure smile, looking back at the battle. He was sitting awkwardly now though, body too tense to relax. Her words had unsettled him.

“Minus six points for the fighter not pulling back when the tank ordered and getting hurt unnecessarily in an AOE attack,” Corbin noted with obviously forced cheer, viciously removing the points.

Liliana was considering handing the page to the students afterwards. It would be good for them to see where they’d failed so they could improve later. Or would that be considered rude? Did she care, though? No, Liliana did not find she cared if their feelings were hurt. Better their pride than their lives.

“At least none of these have evolved into a Hellion,” Liliana noted, examining the black-coated cats, bodies so sleek that their fur looked almost like skin.

Vein like patterns of burning orange, that looked more like slow-moving lava than fur markings, traced across their bodies. Hot enough to burn bones if one foolishly touched one of the beasts. Hellcats, like all hell beasts, didn’t have blood like most creatures. They had liquid fire flowing through their bodies. Deadly to the touch, twice as deadly when ingested.

“You’re going to jinx us.” Corbin sighed, resigned as if her words had already doomed them to facing a fight.

“Afraid to get your feathers singed?” Liliana mocked, reaching over to tug on one of those aforementioned feathers gently.

“I find it a natural thing to avoid fire when you’re flammable.” Corbin sniffed haughtily, batting her hand away from his feathers.

He painstakingly brushed the feather back into place, erasing the damage from Liliana’s grasping fingers. Liliana noted another fireball heading their way. Not purposefully, the Hellcats had steadfastly avoided coming close to Liliana and Corbin, knowing they were no match for the pair. For a moment, Liliana considered not blocking the fire, just to watch Corbin get his precious hair and feathers singed.

Summoning her Mana and creating light from nothing, Liliana wove a star of eight shining swords in front of his body seconds before the fireball collided with the wall of light. Her Mana resisted far less with this configuration, even if the purpose was the same as a shield. She’d spent so many years training her Mana into being a weapon, meant to slice, to cut, to rend and tear and destroy. Taking the form of weapons would always be more comfortable for it.

Something to consider. Forcing it to take the shape of a shield took too much time, pitting her will against her Mana’s nature. While she was using this as an opportunity to train her [Light Manipulation] some, it would be pointless to continue something that would never truly work. If she could make it take the shapes of weapons, but use them in unconventional ways, it would achieve the same results without wasting time and effort.

“Another ten points?” Corbin asked, shooting an unimpressed look towards the Hellcat that had sent the fireball.

“No, five. They’re rotating the fight to avoid more collateral.” Liliana nodded at the fight, where Andusmelt had noticed the errant fireball this time, and started shouting orders at her team to move.

“Strange scent,” Lelantos’ voice interrupted Liliana’s thoughts. Sitting up straight, Liliana felt her eyes unfocus as she shifted most of her awareness to Lelantos. Seeing what he saw, feeling what he felt, smelled, heard. Melding herself into his mind.

“What is it?” Liliana asked, her voice whisper soft in both their minds.

Lelantos was pacing in front of a set of old ruins. Once upon a time, they’d probably been a beautiful estate. Now they were forgotten, abandoned in the depths of the countryside. Maybe a noble family gone to destitution, or a merchant family that lost their wealth. It mattered little. Learning the history behind the ruins was not why Lelantos had called her. Such things had never been a concern of his.

“Burnt.” Lelantos sniffed at a stone, blackened from intense flames, cracked and crumbling. No moss over it, no dirt either. Recent burns, then.

With a mental nudge, Lelantos swung his head around the area, taking it in. It took Liliana a second to realize what felt so wrong with the image. Ruins normally had plant life covering them, nature reclaiming what had always been hers. These ruins were cleared of anything living. No greenery graced the ancient stones.

Burns colored the old, tanned stones black in several places. Lelantos carefully stalked forwards, his fur and body vanishing with the activation of [Evanesce] rendering him invisible except the occasional stripe shimmering like a rainbow in the sunlight. His head hung low as he sniffed over the ground, trying to discover more through the smells that covered the area. Liliana had discovered through her bonds that entire stories could be told through scent alone.

“Brimstone. Charred meat. Old wood smoke.” Liliana listed out the scents Lelantos came across, filtering out the more inconsequential ones.

“Sulfur? Blood?”

Liliana froze, fear leaking into her heart.

“Lelantos! Get out of there! Now!” Liliana ordered, voice screaming through their connection.

Lelantos startled, and it was a mark of the trust built over long years that he turned tail and ran without hesitation. Liliana watched, heart thundering in her ears as she kept her connection to Lelantos and watched, until the ruins were out of sight, until the scent of copper blood and damning sulfur left his nostrils. Until bird song resumed in the air and she finally could believe he was safe.

“Return to me. Immediately.” Liliana instructed, not bothering to keep her fear and relief from her voice. She pulled back her awareness to her own mind when Lelantos sent an assent back to her.

“Polaris, return. Now.” Liliana sent out to her other bond, her voice still tinged with fear that forestalled any argument from her Kitsune bond.

Liliana slowly focused back on her own body, and she felt a shiver race down her back.

Well, shit. Guess I did jinx us. Liliana thought, almost on the verge of harsh laughter.

“Lili?” Corbin asked, sensing she had returned from the depths of her bond. As another tamer, he’d know what it looked like when someone was melding their mind with a bond, and what it looked like when they were settling back in their own body.

“Call your bonds back,” Liliana whispered, looking towards the second years.

“What did your bonds find?” Corbin demanded, but his eyes were slightly glassy while he did as she told him to.

“It’s not a Hellion,” Liliana said, unused to the hesitation and fear in her. She was used to fear for others, but it had been some time since she felt the fear associated with discovering she’d stumbled upon something she couldn’t fight. Something too strong to fight.

“What is it then?” Corbin hissed. Liliana looked at him, eyes wide with fear, a rare showing of emotions she’d normally never allow. But she normally didn’t find that she’d stumbled across a Fiend or Archfiend’s territory with six children she had to ensure survived.

“A Fiend, possibly an Archfiend.” Liliana said softly, the words tasting like the ash she’d smelled in those ruins.

“Then the Hellcats…” Corbin trailed off, looking at the oblivious second years, still fighting the pride of fiery feline monsters.

“Fiends never work alone, they always have hell beasts with them. Hunting packs.” Liliana nodded.

“Then shouldn’t we get them away? The Fiend won’t react well when it wakes up and discovers its pack is dead,” Corbin moved as if to stand, and Liliana shot out a hand to stop him.

“It doesn’t matter. It’ll be angered already. They might as well finish off the pack.” Liliana explained, and Corbin settled back down, looking distinctly unsettled. Liliana’s arms wrapped around her middle, a pointless attempt to offer herself meaningless comfort.

“What do we do then? It’ll know come night, we can’t run far enough in that time with the second years.” Corbin said slowly, looking worried, unsure, and it was such an odd thing to see on the normally confident bard. Liliana’s arms dropped from around her middle, false confidence straightening her back. One of them had to be sure of themselves here.

“It’ll attack the town. We can get away with that distraction. Fiends need their packs since they’re bad at hunting and tracking. It’ll blame the nearest human settlement.” Liliana offered, mind whirling, trying to find a way out of this that had them surviving. That had the second years, who were her responsibility, surviving to get back to the Academy. They were her priority. No one else.

“They’ll die then, Lili! There’s no one in that town strong enough to fight a Hellcat, let alone a pissed off Fiend!” Corbin shrieked, looking appalled.

“Would you rather we die too? Your bonds? The second years?” Liliana demanded back, eyes flashing dangerously. “Our task is to make sure these students get back safe. If we stay, they’ll die and so will we, Corbin!” Liliana was nearly shouting, barely remembering to keep her voice low enough to not distract the second years.

Corbin stared at her, mouth gaping and eyes wide, a toxic concoction of guilt, fear and righteousness spilling through his inhuman eyes.

“But those villagers. They’ll all die. And it’ll be our fault,” Corbin said softly, weakly.

“They would’ve died eventually, with a Fiend in the area. It was likely only waiting until the pack was big enough to attack.” Liliana’s voice was firm, convincing. When dealing with fear in others, projecting confidence made them want to listen. To follow along with the strongest personality, to give them a sense of security when they felt like they had none.

“It won’t do any good if we die too, Corbin. We need to get these second years out of here. Retrieve the carriage. I want them out of here the second they’re done fighting.” Liliana channeled Alistair as she talked, cloaking herself in a mask of command and charisma. She doubted Corbin had wanted her to use her Charisma against him when he’d cajoled her about using it earlier that very day, but if it kept him alive, Liliana was more than happy to turn it on him.

“I-Yeah. Right. I’ll get the carriage.” Corbin stood woodenly, jerkily, like a puppet controlled by someone with unsteady hands.

His Griffin, Andrias, appeared, breaking through the canopy of leaves and branches and allowing Corbin to jump onto his back. Looking up, Liliana could see Agalope and Muninn circling high above them.

Like vultures circling the dead. Or the soon to be dead. Liliana observed darkly.

A tug at her mind alerted her to the approaching presence of her own bonds moments before Lelantos and Polaris appeared under her tree. She waited until Corbin was out of sight before she dropped down, kicking off from branches as she fell until she reached the ground, hand going out immediately to sink into the wiry, warm fur of Lelantos.

“A Fiend, maybe an Archfiend, is in the area. We have to get the young ones out of here.” Liliana instructed her bonds.

She could feel the low, rumbling growl filling Lelantos, could see the way Polaris’ hackles raised. Beasts were territorial, and while her bonds had no dedicated territory to call their own, they had transferred those instincts onto the humans Liliana spent time around. And by virtue of being people she had to protect, her bonds saw the second years as ‘theirs’, for at least as long as the assignment continued. As such, her bonds took threats to them the same way they’d see threats to their territory.

“Fight.” Lelantos barked in her mind.

“It’s dangerous. Fiends are Rank three creatures, Archfiends are Rank two to one,” Polaris cautioned. That he was the one advocating for caution was enough to drive home exactly how dangerous this was. Especially when Liliana could feel his instincts screaming for the exact opposite, to kill this threat to what was his.

“The town will fall if the Fiend attacks it without someone to stop him,” Liliana parroted Corbin’s argument. The issue was, she had never disagreed with him. She didn’t necessarily care about random people she didn’t know, but she didn’t enjoy pointless death either. Especially not when there was something she could do to stop it.

“So what? They are humans, they do not matter. You do not know them, you do not love them. They are not part of your garden. Why sacrifice yourself, why sacrifice ourselves, for them?” Nemesis joined the argument, head lifting to hiss.

She barely understood Liliana wanting to protect her friends. Humans Nemesis reluctantly had some fondness for. The concept of protecting an entire town full of humans Liliana didn’t know was something she doubted the flowered serpent would ever be able to wrap her mind around, not with her history combined with her nature.

“Because they don’t deserve to die,” Liliana said, softly, coaxingly.

“If it’s them or you, then I will choose you.” Nemesis’ voice was heating up, and her hisses were growing in volume. It was as close to shouting as the serpent could get.

“Look, there are no Hellions. If it was an Archfiend, there’d be at least one Hellion to lead the pack. We’re probably dealing with a Fiend. Even at Rank 3, with all of us, we can take it. Polaris is Rank 3, and we have Serenity. And it’ll have lost its pack. The four of us can take a single Rank 3 Fiend, especially with Serenity to heal us,” Liliana argued, gaining confidence in her words as she spoke.

She didn’t know for sure if it was Fiend or Archfiend. Between Fiends and Archfiends, there wasn’t enough of a difference in scent to be of note. But her words made sense. There was logic in them. Surely if it was an Archfiend, there’d be a Hellion with the pack to lead them. That there wasn’t meant the Fiend wasn’t high level enough to prompt the Mana in the area to spawn one, or for the Fiend itself to enable the evolution.

Likely, the Fiend was planning on leveling its Hellcats through the area and then using the town as a way to evolve its pack and itself. Unlike beasts, humans always gave experience no matter the level difference. It was one reason why beasts liked to kill humans if given the chance.

Inwardly, Liliana pushed down the thoughts that Fiends and Archfiends were dungeon creatures. That it’d been over a hundred years since one was seen outside of one. That this was all very wrong in a way none of the other assignments had been. She couldn’t focus on that because she had to make sure she was prepared to foolishly throw herself in front of a Fiend or Archfiend to protect a town full of people she didn’t know, who she didn’t care about. To prepare herself to risk her gods damned life to be a hero.

She had never wanted to be a hero. It made people make stupid, suicidal choices like this. This kind of thing was Alistair’s thing, not hers. Yet, now that the decision had settled in her mind, Liliana couldn’t make herself change her mind.

“If you fight. We fight. We are bonded.” Nemesis acquiesced, her tone making it how clear that she was not pleased with this decision.

Liliana stroked her fingers down Nemesis’ smooth scales in gratitude, ignoring the small twinge of pain when her bond bit her. She was far from forgiven. Nemesis never appreciated protecting humans who were not part of the very small handful that she considered an exception to her hatred. Liliana ignored the notification that she’d been poisoned and it had been neutralized immediately. Nemesis’ new poison from her evolution had stopped effecting her some hundred bites after she’d evolved.

“They have finished,” Polaris’ voice was carefully neutral, but he couldn’t hide his uncertainty in the bond. Liliana knew he wasn’t sure of their chance for victory this time, but he had faith in her. He trusted her, completely, wholly, to not send them into a fight they wouldn’t survive. Liliana wished she had his confidence in her decision making.

“Then let’s get them out of here, and hopefully far enough away they don’t get drawn into the fight,” Liliana said grimly as she straightened her shoulders.

Letting confidence fill her body, hiding her own fear and uncertainty under a charming mask she’d used earlier to shock Corbin. It was fragile; her fear almost enough to break it, but she hadn’t been a noblewoman for five years only to have her masks beak under something like fear.

Liliana pushed past her bonds and lifted her hand to her mouth, a piercing whistle slicing through the air, drawing the attention of all six second years to her instantly. Liliana strode forward, her bonds flanking her, and she watched as six pairs of eyes flicked between her and her bonds. She always made an intimidating sight when she had her bonds with her. That was good. She needed them to shut up and listen, not argue. Not right now.

“Corbin’s bringing the carriage around. You six need to get into it as soon as it arrives, and get out of here as fast as possible,” Liliana started without preamble, remembering to keep her tone civil. “There’s a Fiend in the area, possible an Archfiend, and when it wakes up to discover its pack was murdered, it’ll be on a warpath.” Liliana continued, cutting off several of the students who had started to protest.

“A-What?” Andusmelt asked first, face pale, voice shaking.

“We can’t fight a Fiend, or an Archfiend!” another student, Dorothy Dean, whispered, horrified, trembling already in fear just at the mere mention of a Fiend or Archfiend.

“That’s why you won’t. You’ll get into the carriage and get out of here as quickly as possible,” Liliana said firmly, her tone softening towards the end in the face of seeing a girl, no more than seventeen, so young, so small, trembling. Liliana might have little patience, but she was never needlessly cruel.

“What about the town? Won’t the Fiend attack it?” Stanely asked, voice hesitant. The tall girl was hunched now, but her eyes, even full of fear, were starting to spark with determination.

Determination to die. For that was all she’d do if she tried to stay and fight.

“So what, Duane? We can’t help! It’s a Fiend! We’ll be massacred!” Lamey spit at the girl, and the fire of determination extinguished in the girl’s eyes at the reminder that her good intentions were worthless if she couldn’t back them up.

“If we get out, we can reach the nearest city and call on an adventurer’s guild for help,” Hill offered softly. That seemed to comfort some of the team, the ones who would feel guilt about leaving an entire town to die.

“Are you going to stay?” Andusmelt, apparently partially recovered from her shock, addressed Liliana bluntly, drawing the argument to an end as all the second years turned to Liliana.

Hope blazed on their faces, all of them full of the belief that the Liliana Rosengarde, seven time tournament champion, strongest student in their school, could fight a Fiend or Archfiend. They’d probably believe she could do any impossible thing, truly.

Liliana’s first instinct was to lie. Because if she said yes, then they’d tell Corbin, and she needed him to run, too. To ensure he stayed safe. But in the face of the hero worship, and the damned hope, in their eyes the lie died on her tongue.

“Yes,” Liliana said softly. And that seemed to banish the last of their reservations, and much of their fear. The students straightened, and while none of them smiled, their faces were lighter.

It was the first time Liliana had truly seen the effect her reputation had on others. The expectations it birthed. The responsibility others hung on that reputation simply because it existed.

It felt suffocatingly heavy on her shoulders.