If there exists one iron rule at the Academy of Wochir-11, it’s that hierarchy is sacred.

Seniority, influence, and talent reign supreme, enforced by their loudest voices. Upperclassmen rule their juniors, the influential — be it through wealth, blood, or connections — rule the commoners, and the strong rule the weak. It’s a complex web of social interaction, only truly understood when one party bows to the other – when a strong upperclassmen bows to a junior general’s son, or vice versa.

Though, just like most laws, there are those exceptional few who exist above it. The unfortunate who’ve paid the price to be noticed by people outside the Academy’s reaches.

“She still hasn’t given up, has she?” Ilyana asked, able to read her sister’s silence all too well. “How many times does that make it in this past week alone? Twenty? Thirty? Just give the old hag a straight no, already.”

The blade Vinyera held was perfectly still, angled with a precision not even sculptures could replicate. She’d been standing like that for minutes, yet now, her sister’s words left a crease upon her forehead.

A slip in her concentration, causing the metal to begin resonating once more.

Before it could fully tear itself free from her control, however, Vinyera spun around to split the air with a single cut that carried ten thousand repetitions.

Without a sound to tell of its passing, each of a dozen stone blocks, spread out at various distances before her, shuddered. A second later, all of them, except one, had lost their upper halves.

They fell to the ground with synchronous thumps, Vinyera having already returned the now shrieking blade to its sheath as she turned to face her sister.

“And leave the rest of them with one less competitor?” she dryly asked, sweat beading on her forehead. Although not ragged, her breathing was a bit strained as well. “The only reason I’m allowed to still be here at the Academy is because they’re keeping each other in check.”

“Barely.” Ilyana snorted. “How many ridiculous parties and ‘meetings’ have you been forced to go on? I hate the dresses they make you wear.”

“You’d prefer it if I wore pants and shirt?” Vinyera smirked. “It’s still my choice if I put on what they hand me, Ily, so you can rest easy. Just like it was my choices that put both of us in this mess.”

With a quiet ‘thanks’ she took the towel her sister handed her to wipe off her face. They both had the same bright hair as the rest of their family — except their father — and Vinyera’s was currently put up in a ponytail.

Ilyana kept hers short, and where one sister’s facial features were gentle, the other one’s were sharp. Still undeniably siblings, but different. Each of them would’ve insisted that the other one was prettier, or more talented without hesitation if asked. At least when the other one wasn’t listening.

Yet it was the latter of those two gifts which made people desire them. Where wealth, expensive mods, and influence was as well and good, what the old bloodlines truly sought was talent.

They wanted the next Archon to be born under their names, forever cementing their families in the annals of history.

“Had I only known to hold back when I was younger, things would’ve been far simpler for both of us.”

“As if you could have,” Ilyana said, rolling her eyes. “You love the blade too much to hold back, Viny. If anything, you should use that same blade to cut all the sleazy bastards approaching you a bit shorter as well.”

Vinyera’s laugh rang across the courtyard.

It was empty save the two of them, meant only for their private use only. It was the only way for them to focus on their training these days.

“And that’s why I need to keep this all up until the day we leave this Academy, Dear Ily,” Vinyera said, patting her sister on the cheek in a way to emphasis the single year that separated them in age. “Because if I didn’t, they might start coming for you instead, and none of us would become happier because of it.

“Now, why don’t we grab something to eat before I have to…” She fell silent. “What?”

Ilyana’s expression had shifted, and now, she spoke with hesitation, “Viny…did you hear about the U-grade child that’s arriving with one of the special transports tomorrow?”

“The commoner girl whom the instructors have been wringing their heads over?” Vinyera asked, eyebrow raised. “What about her? Are you planning to go talent-scouting with the other seniors or something?”

“You didn’t see her name, then?”

It only took Vinyera a few seconds to look it up. Her brow now furroed.

“Myla Pheon? Isn’t that…”

“The only kid who ever played with our shut-in brother, yes,” Ilyana confirmed, her voice having gradually become more tense. “Do you think she knows what happened to him?”

𐫰 𐫰 𐫰

When Adrianna Du’vitri chose to follow her dad to the edges of the known galaxy, she’d done so hoping that it’d be less tedious than attending school back home. It wasn’t.

Ever since she separated from her dad, the kids on that special transport had been no different compared to those on the main worlds. They didn’t know know her, but their parents must’ve told them something. They’d been skittering around her as if they couldn’t decide if the floor was brittle ice or made of polished gold wherever she walked.

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She hadn’t even been allowed to introduce herself before they knew. Just like back home…

But then they’d picked her up, along with that Luminesari man not even grandma Beux dared talk about. And grandma Beux gossiped about everyone.

“Hi, my name is Myla.” The girl had said. “What is yours?”

Adrianna now knew what that greeting meant, and it was so silly she couldn’t help but smile. Or she would have, if that same, red-headed girl hadn’t been huffing and puffing there on the floor besides her.

There were even times when she’d scream out loud, seemingly at random, not that it helped her push herself off the floor with any more force.

For some ludicrous reason, the girl was doing push-ups in the middle of the common room, meant for creating connections with children of other promising families.

Nothing Adrianna would’ve cared to do herself and, normally, she would’ve returned to her room by now. Before she’d met Myla, she’d expected to spend most of her time by herself in there.

Now, however, as long as Myla kept showing up out here, so would Adrianna. If the girl herself wasn’t entertaining enough, the reactions of the other children certainly were.

Mostly, at least. Though, one time, the red-haired girl had let out such a loud shout that even Adrianna became embarrassed.

“What are you doing?” she’d quietly hissed then, feeling her cheeks flush a bit as even the adults above had been unable to hide their quiet laughs. ‘Why do you keep making a fool out of yourself?’ she’d almost added.

“Becoming stronger,” Myla had just huffed in response, having barely finished her third push-up where she now lay with her face buried into the floor, clutching at the charred and tattered rabbit she always carried with her.

She was a strange one. U-grade as well…

If Adrianne hadn’t been standing right next to her, able to see those words on the screen all too well, as the other girl read them out loud, she would’ve never believed it. Now, she had no choice.

Maybe things were a bit more interesting out here compared to the main worlds, after all…

𐫰 𐫰 𐫰

They arrived in the evening, docking at the Iron Gates as the sun set over its watchful emperors.

For six hours they’d been hovering in orbit, all to ensure their landing would be coordinated with another four dozen special transports scheduled for that day. Their reception was nothing like the common transports that’s already been arriving for weeks already.

Thousands of seniors, instructors, and relatives awaited them. Some were there out of duty and obligation, others came to scout promising talent, or to forge new connections.

It could make all the difference when their time to serve the Stratos Apolytos came. It would dictate whether they be stationed near the main worlds, or if they’d be patrolling the Void’s most nightmarish reaches.

Adrianna wasn’t sure what to expect for herself. A hundred people waiting for her would’ve been no more surprising than zero. Her presence there was meant to be a quiet one, and she hoped to keep it that way.

There were very few individuals she would’ve cared to meet at Wochir-11, anyway, yet now, two of them were standing right in front of her.

It wasn’t just boredom that’d made Adrianna travel halfway across the galaxy. She was also, just a tiny little bit, a young girl chasing her idols.

Two of the youngest candidates to ever be considered for the Stratiotis Ouranios were attending this Academy, after all, and it was said that they rarely, if ever, mixed with politics.

Adrianna didn’t like politics either. She preferred real strength, like her father’s, which wasn’t made up of empty words or deceitful promises. The strength to not care about which senator’s son was in line to join the galactic government, or whose status was higher or lower than your own — dedicating who would speak first, who would use honorifics, or a hundred other little annoying details.

The strength to be free.

Kalyteros Vinyera and Stratigós Ilyana, were they here to greet her?

Adrianna could feel her pulse quicken and, for the first time in her life, she was glad over her own name.

Then the taller of the sisters — bright hair put up in a pony tail, eyes that glimmered like stars, and features that would’ve pulled gazes even if she wasn’t one of the most talented individuals this academy had ever seen; the prettiest girl Adrianna had ever seen, certainly, able to part even this influential crowd with ease — spoke up with a smile, “It’s been a while.”

A while since what? Adrianna thought.

But then, the red-haired girl that’d been walking next to her let out a whimper, only to rush over to throw herself into Kalyteros Vinyera’s arms.

…What?

𐫰 𐫰 𐫰

Some of Myla’s earliest memories were of the Astera sisters. They were everything she wished to be; pretty, talented, and really cool.

When they were no older than Myla was now, they had single handedly taken care of a rampaging bulltoad that she and Nyamien — mostly Myla — had accidentally angered. The beast had been big as an entire steel wagon!

They had been laughing while they did it.

There were a lot of things Myla had wished to tell them when she met them again – she’d even been asking Nyamien a hundred questions about them before everything went wrong -- but in that moment, after days of being stuck around strange children, feeling lonely and confused, just the sight of a familiar face had broken something within Myla.

For nearly a minute she’d cried in Vinyera’s arms, and then, naturally, they’d gently asked her about Nyamien.

At first, Myla had said that she didn’t know.

Nyamien wanted to pretend he’d been lost with the other children, after all. Why, Myla wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to be found yet. Not until she’d already graduated from the Academy.

Then, as she saw Vinyera’s face, however, Myla had quickly added that she’d seen him, but that she didn’t know. That Nyamien was probably fine, but that she didn’t know. That he might’ve gotten lost on the way here, but that she really, really didn’t know any more than that. But that they probably didn’t have to worry.

Although Myla knew the heated words the sisters had been exchanging after that were never meant for her, she couldn’t help but hear them.

“Even if you went after him, where would you even start, Ily? There were no traces of our brother on the files they recovered from that crashed carrier. Maybe he was never aboard?”

“The kid just said she saw him!”

“She’s one of Nyamien’s only friends from back home, and she’s just been through a horrible couple of weeks. Take it easy! Send a message to mother instead, and don’t make it too obvious that he never arrived…” Even as their voices became lower, Myla could still hear them. “In a sense, it might be better this way.”

“He could be dead, Viny!”

“At least he’s not here…”

Even as Myla put her hands over her ears, not wanting to hear things she wasn’t meant to, she could hear them. Just like how she could hear every whisper of the crowd around them — how she’d heard every mean word the kids back at the ship had kept saying about her and Raven.

Even as she’d screamed, they hadn’t become quiet.

Their bad words had only focused on her, instead, “the crazy commoner.” But that was better than them saying mean things about Raven, at least, so Myla continued. Every day through their journey, she’d continued.

Just like Nyamien hadn’t cared what anyone said about him back when they left their home, she wouldn’t care either. She’d just focus on getting stronger.

Even now, as hundreds of conversations surrounded her, thousands of whispers and even more footsteps filled her ears — too many heartbeats pounding within her head — she did her best to focus.

Slowly, she began rocking back and forth.

She knew that, if she’d been sitting on a chair, her legs would’ve been swinging instead.