Day after day passed in the same monotony: getting up, eating breakfast, school lessons, lunch, more lessons, going home, homework, studying, going to bed and every now and then he was allowed one short hour with the pendant. Wenzel hated this daily routine and he had no one to talk to about it. He did change one thing about himself, though. He worked on his self-control when he had time with his pendant. In the future, he would no longer allow his mind to wander off into cloud cuckoo land while who-knows-what was happening around him, just because he was too drunk on his own magic. That time had been the last time. He had vowed to himself to do this in the past, but now he had actually done it. What Aurel had once done to him would never happen to him again.

Today, everything went ahead as usual. He got up and ventilated the room. Aurel still seemed too tired to get out of bed. As Wenzel stretched his limbs after another sleepless night to at least somehow get going, his gaze fell over to his soul, which for once lay uncovered on Aurel's bedside table. As always, he was gripped by the desire to snatch it, to take it for himself, where it belonged. Then his common sense kicked in again and he dismissed the stupid thought.

However, Aurel had seen this brief moment of wavering with the eyes he had only just opened. Instantly, his right hand shot out from under the blanket and snatched the pendant. "Don't you think you can try anything stupid!" Aurel hissed. He immediately wrapped the stone in his blanket so that he didn't have to touch it directly. He was afraid of the "dark power" contained in the thing, which is why he always avoided touching it with his bare hands. "Don't worry, I won't do anything," replied Wenzel. Aurel looked at him, half sleepily, half angrily. Then Wenzel added: "But you also should understand, that I'm always drawn to something, that is part of myself. I just can't help it."

"No, you should understand that the more you use witchery, the more you’ll harm your own body. You still don't seem to understand that." Aurel had told him that many times before. In the past, he had always believed everything his big brother told him, but Wenzel couldn't for the life of him understand why his body should suffer from magic, when it obviously STOPPED to suffer when he was reunited with the stone. He did, however, not want to challenge his brother and kept his doubts to himself. A wicked grin came over Aurels face then and he said, "You know exactly what will happen when you get the pendant from me anyway. In the end, I'll always be the one who keeps it."-"I wouldn’t be so sure about that!", Wenzel thought to himself.

Apart from that, today's routine was quite normal, until school lessons finally began. At the beginning of the first lesson, someone new suddenly entered the classroom. The teacher introduced him to everyone as "Peter Rubellio". Without being asked, he introduced himself to the class again. What happened next surprised everyone, including Wenzel: Peter saw that there was an empty seat next to Wenzel and sat down right there. Quiet mumbling could be heard coming from the other pupils. Peter had no idea. He merely had sat down in an free seat. He didn't know anyone here yet, so of course he hadn't heard the rumours about Wenzel.

"Hello, nice to meet you," he said politely to Wenzel. He in turn tried to come across as "normal" as possible and introduced himself briefly, too. Wenzel could immediately tell from his strong accent that the boy was from Camenia. The teacher hadn't mentioned it, but it was obvious. His surname also made this clear at once. The two of them gossiped a little during the lesson. At least, they did this as best they could, without the teacher noticing it.

Peter seemed to be a nice guy. He was also clearly a straight-A student. He always had his things well-prepared, did everything he was told to and obviously always knew the answer to everything he was asked. Of course, that didn't stop him from chitchatting at every opportunity. During break, Bert came up to him and said: "Hey, wouldn't you like to sit somewhere else? You can sit next to me, but at Wenzel's .....you don’t wanna sit next to him." This statement made Peter really angry. "I know exactly where I want to sit and where I don't! I don't need you for knowing that!" When Wenzel heard this, he started to laugh on the inside, but tried not to show it.

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Later, at lunch, the two of them sat together as well and told each other a little about themselves. It was the first time, that Wenzel had someone he could talk to. Wenzel started by talking about himself. He told him about how his parents lived in Meglarsbruck, how his brother, in their absence, was virtually his guardian, how he hated school, but still had to study hard and so on. He tried his best not to say anything, that people weren’t allowed to know about him. On the part of Peter nothing that had been said was questioned, but he was somewhat fascinated by Wenzel's red hair. He had never seen anything like it before. "Well, it is pretty rare," was the only thing Wenzel could say in reply. He didn't dare mention that this was probably due to his "curse". His parents didn't have red hair either.

And just as Wenzel had thought, Peter came from Camenia. His parents had now moved here "for some work-related reason", as Peter put it. His Ordanian was broken and sometimes he couldn't find the right words to express what he wanted to say. Wenzel then suggested that he could switch to Camenian, if he didn't know how to say something in Ordanian. Wenzel would be able to understand him that way, as well. This brought a small spark of joy to Peter's eyes. Most of the other pupils couldn't understand him, when he spoke in his mother tongue.

Ironically, they had a Camenian lesson directly after the lunch break. For Peter, everything they did was child's play. Of course it was. The only thing that mattered to Wenzel was that he had a real work partner for the first time. He didn't really care about learning. In the next lesson they had religious education. Something unusual was going to happen here. As always, the lesson began with a prayer, after which everyone sat down. Today's topic was "God's mandation". "Oof!" Wenzel and probably the rest of the class thought to themselves. Only Peter seemed to be listening intently.

The teacher began to rattle away: "The king is chosen by God. His word is right and just. His authority is not of man, therefore man cannot remove him from power. This is the concept of "God’s mandation". Another word for this would be divine right. However, this concept was abused by previous rulers of Ordania to oppress the people and plant false ideas in their minds. It was not so long ago that the dynasty of the diabolical Melgarions, which had lasted for almost 400 years, was finally overthrown. They used witchcraft to manipulate people's minds and stay in power. They referred to the first witch-emperor Melgar or "Melgarus" as the "One Chosen by God". A devil made himself emperor and even changed the calendar of his empire to begin with his seizure of power. What a dark stain in our history! But the truth is only with God and God alone. And the truth always wins out in the end. This happened eighty years ago, when the now ruling house of Sorenstein finally put an end to unjust rule. But the problems are not over yet. There are still some who believe in the false teachings of the Melgarists and their mendacious so-called church. It will take many more decades to eliminate them."

Peter raised his hand. The teacher let him ask his question: "But wasn't the church that Melgar brought to the country the first? Before that, there was just some polytheistic faith in Ordania, wasn't there?"

"Before Teleiotism, there were only some absurd polytheistic beliefs here, yes. But our current church, the Alethic Church, has always existed, since the first advent of Teleiotism. It spread in Ordania at the same time as the other, false Melgarist church, which then had everything but itself banned and persecuted," the teacher replied.

Peter pondered for a moment and before the teacher could continue, he raised his hand again. Annoyed, the teacher picked him to speak again. "But isn't the veneration of saints also part of the 'Melgarist Church', as you call it? Wouldn't that mean that what the believers in Camenia, for example, do is also heretical? In our country, saints are worshipped everywhere."

Peter seemed to have angered our teacher with this. It was clearly recognisable from his posture and his expression. He composed himself and then replied: "This ancient practice of venerating saints is condemned as heretical by the Alethic Church, yes. And rightfully so! These so-called saints were almost all witches of the house of the Melgarions. The issue is, that this practice has been ingrained for so long, that it can't be removed overnight."

Peter replied, that he couldn't see how it would ever be possible to remove these things from the churches in Camenia. "Give it time," was all the teacher said in return. None of this was known to Wenzel. He wasn't really interested in this either, but Peter seemed to have taken offence at the teacher for what he had said. Apparently, religion was something very important to the Camenians. And not only them. Here in Ordania, too, you heard about these things ALL the time. Wenzel was sick of it. "Just let everyone believe what they want!"