Back in her dorm, Mel found Gabs lying on her bed with her feet up against the wall. She was reading a book, one of Mel’s books, in fact. Or one that Mel had borrowed from the library. A mage smith’s memoir.

Mel furrowed her brow and moved quickly through the room to her dresser. She unstrapped the knife from her chest and placed it in the bottom drawer again. After closing the drawer, she turned back to Gabs and saw her rolling over onto her stomach.

“How is it?” Mel asked.

“Boring,” Gabs said.

“Then why are you reading it?”

“There was nothing else to do,” Gabs said. “Test days are the worst. Everyone is either preparing for it, taking it, or fretting over the test. No one wants to hang out. No one is here to entertain me.”

Mel chuckled, sure that Gabs hadn’t seen her deposit the knife into her dresser. She grabbed her red cloak and wrapped it around her body.

“Where are you going?” Gabs asked.

“I promised Marcus I would meet him after the test in town square.”

“Doesn’t he have some soldiers to punch or something?” Gabs asked. “Beasts to punch, perhaps?”

“No, he’s done for the day,” Mel said. “They start early every morning and his afternoons are often free.”

“You’re seriously leaving me here in my boredom?” Gabs asked. “Please take me with you.”

Mel gave her a thin smile. She didn’t want to take Gabriella with her to see Marcus. Mostly because she wanted to talk to Marcus about the dagger and what had happened during the test. She needed someone to talk to, and he was the only one who already knew about the knife.

“You don’t like Marcus, remember?” Mel said.

Gabs waved a hand in front of her and threw the book down on the floor.

“And he wasn’t happy with me last time, because I brought Austin to the Last Stance.”

Gabs’ eyes widened, and she attempted to crawl out of bed.

“You did what?”

A second after her question, Gabriella landed with a thud on the floor.

“He was helping me to study, and I asked if he wanted to come,” Mel said. “But when we arrived, Marcus got sort of weird about it.”

“No shit,” Gabs said. “He’s not exactly the easy going type and you know he thinks you two are dating.”

“How does everyone know this?” Mel asked, throwing out her arms to her sides.

Gabs picked herself up from the floor and shook her head at Mel.

“Okay, I won’t come,” she said. “But if there is any development in the Mel-Austin department or the Mel-Marcus department. You have to promise to tell me. I love gossip.”

Mel rolled her eyes. “It’s not gossip if I’m the one that tells you.”

Mel opened the door to leave, and Gabs gave her a knowing look. Mel smiled at her, showing off her teeth, and then headed out of their dorm. She left Gabs alone to entertain herself with the promise of future entertainment to come. Mel felt a bit iffy about that. She didn’t know if she wanted to tell Gabs if any development were to happen with Marcus.

#

Melissa got to the statue before sundown and looked around after Marcus. At first, she didn’t spot him and felt foolish for heading here so fast. But then, behind a group of people, she spotted Marcus a small distance away, walking up toward her.

Mel smiled and closed the distance between them.

“Hi,” she said.

He smiled back. “Hi.”

A moment of awkward silence followed when they just stood there looking at each other. They were standing close, and Mel could smell soap and his clean skin. It took a while, but Marcus averted his gaze first, looking down at his shoes. A blush spread over his face, and he cleared his throat.

“Do you want to get dinner?” he asked.

“I don’t know if I can afford dinner out,” Mel said. “I haven't found a way to make any money yet.”

“That’s okay,” Marcus said. “It’s my treat. I just got my first payment from the army. So technically, it’s Aldrion’s treat, I guess.”

“Okay, sure.”

Marcus grabbed her hand, and Mel followed a step behind him. He took her down a street and then into an alley close by. The houses were built narrow here, and it smelled faintly of garbage. Clotheslines hung between the houses, high up toward the sky, and Mel caught a whiff of detergent as Marcus led her down another alleyway.

“Here,” he said. “Catherine recommended this place. Said I should take you here. They’re supposed to have great food.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Mel looked around. There was just a small door in front of her with a couple of letters carved into the wooden frame above.

Pedro’s, it said.

Mel nodded, and Marcus opened the door for her to walk inside. The restaurant was small, with only a couple of tables and some seating at the bar. The kitchen was open and you could see an older man chopping onions on a cutting board. A man at the bar talked to him and Mel got a sense of friendship between the two.

The older man looked up from his onions with faint tears in his eyes and smiled at Mel.

“Welcome to Pedro’s,” he said. “I’m Pedro. Sit wherever you like and I will come out with a menu.”

Marcus held out a chair by a table for Mel and she sat down, feeling like she wanted him to stop fussing over her. He made her feel special, a feeling Mel didn’t especially like. She wanted to feel as if he understood her, as if he saw her for her. But she always got the feeling that Marcus had to elevate her into some distant star he couldn't reach. It made her uncomfortable.

Pedro came out with a menu and brought out a pen and paper from his blue apron.

“We have noodles,” he said. “In soup or not in soup. That’s pretty much it.”

Mel scanned the menu and saw that there were only two dishes to order from, noodles in soup or not in soup. Just like Pedro had said. She gave him a smile and shared an amused glance with Marcus.

“One noodle soup.”

“I'll have the same,” Marcus said. “And please bring us two beers.”

Pedro wrote down their order and took the menu off the table.

“Great choice,” he said. “I will come out with the food when it’s done.”

Pedro came back a second later with beers and placed them on the table. Marcus leaned in toward Mel and lowered his voice.

“I won’t drink more than one tonight, I promise,” he said.

Mel looked at him with confusion in her eyes until she remembered the night at the Last Stance and his hug afterward. She winced.

“I am really sorry about that,” he said. “I wanted things to go differently and I guess I got a bit jealous when you brought Austin with you to the Last Stance. I guess I thought you would arrive earlier and alone. But it makes sense he came with you since you were studying together. It wasn’t my finest moment and I shouldn’t let him affect me like that.”

Mel didn’t say anything. She just stroked her teeth with her tongue, feeling like her mouth was dry.

“Next time, please don’t bring Austin,” Marcus said. “I really don’t trust that guy and I wouldn’t want him around when we are on a date. Not that it was exactly a date…”

Marcus flushed red and took a sip of his beer.

“I mean… It could have been, if I hadn’t been too much of a chicken to ask you out and instead asked you to meet my new friends. But anyway. We will have plenty of dates in the future and tonight, and I’m glad Austin isn’t here.”

He stretched out his hand on the table and grabbed Mel’s. It had been resting around the bottom of her beer bottle and now it rested in Marcus’ palm. It felt warm and strong, like his hands had grown in strength during the last week. They probably had since he was training every day in the army now. But it was a strange feeling, holding someone’s hand that you had known for most of your life and realizing you didn’t remember it like this.

Pedro came out of the kitchen with two bowls of steaming noodle soup. Mel slipped her hand out of Marcus’ when Pedro placed the bowls down on the table. Her hand rested in her lap, feeling warm and touched. She balled it up into a fist and then released it.

“Oh, I forgot to ask,” Marcus said. “How did your test go?”

“I passed,” Mel said. “But I actually wanted to talk to you about it. Something happened during the test that made me worried and fascinated at the same time. Something potentially extraordinary.”

“Congrats,” Marcus said.

“Well, I sort of cheated,” Mel said. “I mean, I had studied so much, but there just wasn’t enough time. So I brought the dagger to the test, strapped to my chest as an indicator if I found the right earth and fire notes and let them ring at the same time. But the strangest thing happened…”

“You did what?”

Marcus dropped his spoon into his bowl and a splatter of soup fell onto the table. He didn’t even notice it and kept staring at her face with an open mouth.

“I cheated,” Mel said. “But that’s not the important part.”

“How is that not important?” Marcus asked. “I’m so disappointed in you. You should never cheat. You know the dragons don’t like liars and cheats.”

Mel’s eyebrows dipped, and annoyance crept up her neck.

“Can you just listen to me?” she asked.

Marcus stared at her for a moment, then picked up his spoon again and started shoving soup into his mouth.

“Okay,” Mel said, blowing air out of her lungs. “So, as I was saying, the strangest thing happened. I hit one of the notes, a note that I hadn’t been practicing with. Because Austin’s tuning forks only contained seven notes. And when I hit the tuning fork, the note rang out and my dagger glowed.”

Mel leaned across the table, feeling her eyes wide.

“It glowed, Marcus. It didn’t flicker. It glowed.”

“Okay,” Marcus said. “It glowed. So what?”

“It means it was the correct note for it,” Mel said. “And also, it didn’t glow red or brown, like fire or earth. But it glowed orange, like a mix. I think it proves it. It’s a double imbue.”

“Okay,” Marcus said. “So it’s a double imbue. And?”

Mel leaned back, hunching her back and staring down into her untouched noodle soup.

“It’s not supposed to be possible,” she said. “I told you about this at the Last Stance. It’s not possible to double imbue weapons. It’s something with the material or the magic. I know too little. But it doesn’t work. It’s not supposed to work. But what if it did? Could it be the way to defeat the beasts?”

“The dragons will defeat the beasts,” Marcus said. “We just have to find them in the Wasteland and bring them back with us to Windbrook, and then they will destroy the beasts and all the evil. Just like the stories tell us. You don’t have to worry about that, Mel. They will fix it for us.”

Mel sighed. It was like talking to a wall or listening to a broken record. He was too deep into the cult. Marcus was brainwashed by their upbringing, thinking the dragons were real, that they would come back and fight this evil. That wasn’t true. How could she make him realize that?

They were quiet for a while. Mel dipped her spoon into the bowl and brought up soup to her lips. It was delicious.

She loved this place, the food, and Pedro's low voice in the kitchen. The quiet atmosphere lulled her into feeling a contented happiness. She’d almost forgotten about their conversation. About Marcus’ unwillingness to listen and understand her, when he broke the silence.

“Okay, I’m not disappointed in you,” Marcus said. “I thought about it now and I think it was meant to be. The dagger, you bringing it here to Aldrion and having to use it during the test to pass. Maybe this is all a plant from the dragons. Maybe they wanted you to hear that note, to see the dagger glow orange and to know something forgotten. This could actually be the key to finding them. I think, perhaps, they’re guiding you, Mel.”

Mel met his gaze. His eyes were gleaming golden brown in the candlelight. There was something in them, an intensity, the same sort of intensity that Austin often had when looking at her. An intensity Marcus seemed to have when he spoke about the dragons and destinies. It scared her a little.

“Maybe,” Mel said. “I’m not sure.”