My eyes slowly fluttered open, the dim moonlight casting a bright gaze directly over my face. I groaned in annoyance, my eyes already felt heavy just to keep open. The previous night had been so late—And I was still expected to be awake on time for morning training with Levi.
I let out a soft groan as everything from the previous night came rushing back to me. The anxiety, the fear, the confusion, the dread—It all rushed into my mind as I sat up. For once I was thankful for the horribly freezing air surrounding my bed, because it at least chased the sleep away quickly enough.
Tulip had already been asleep by the time I managed to get back to the dorm. And she was still asleep even now, resting peacefully with the continually rise and fall of her chest. I could hear a faint whistle to her breaths, her back faced me with her face nearly against the wall on her side of the room.
“It’s quiet…” I thought as my gaze turned back to the window. I could tell why Tulip wasn’t awake yet, it was still very early in the morning. It was probably just over an hour before it would be time to head out to meet with Levi for the morning, a sigh escaped my lips once I realized how long I’d be stuck sitting around. The cold had snapped me awake to such an extent that I knew I wouldn’t be finding any further sleep right now.
I glanced back at Tulip when I heard a gentle groan from her. She shifted around a little, rolling onto her opposite shoulder—Her eyes fluttered open, meeting my own.
“What time is it?...” Tulip grumbled out as she sat up.
“It’s early—I just woke up, didn’t think I was gonna fall back asleep,” I replied in a low tone. Shifting around, I pulled my legs up to cross one over another where I sat. “We still probably have an hour before Levi needs us outside…”
“Well—I’m awake now,” Tulip said defeatedly. She took in a deep breath as she sat up, leaning herself backwards, her arms extended gradually in a large stretch. “Wanna talk about last night?” Tulip offered after a few moments of silence.
“I guess…” I answered as I shifted around.
“How did you even meet Carmine Ferini of all people?—Or did she even meet you before pulling you up there?” Tulip asked curiously. Her eyes still filled with sleep settled upon me, expecting an answer.
“She made it sound like you sent her after me honestly…” I trailed off, but before long I found myself explaining the entire encounter I had with Carmine in detail. Or, every detail that I could actually remember.
“Then she dropped me off right where you found me, I guess she disappeared onto the stage after I looked away from her.” I finally fell silent with my explanation finished. Tulip nodded along slowly, bobbing her head in understanding of what I told her as if it was a normal occurrence.
“That does definitely sound like something Carmine would do…” Tulip muttered with a disapproving tone. “She’s always immature and does things the way she likes, which is honestly probably the reason she’s here in the first place.”
“What exactly did Carmine even volunteer me for? Carmine gave a little bit of an answer but all she really said is that it’s a competition and it ends with a fight…” I looked at Tulip expectantly. But I saw annoyance spread across her face, although that annoyance quickly faded as she gave a court nod.
“The Skyliner festival—Honestly that’s all there is to it for you, it’s a series of competitions for a reward at the end. I was going to suggest that we tried to compete in it together once we trained a bit more honestly, but now it looks like you got a head start on that,” Tulip’s tone grew distant as her gaze shifted to the window. There was a long moment where neither of us spoke, not until Tulip broke the silence again. “There’s not anything more to it until the events are announced, which won’t be until we have all the competitors.”
“However, you'll have to train even harder now.” Tulip said with some dread in her voice. Her eyes reflect that same emotion when they settled on me—And I could understand why.
“I’m willing to train… I just… couldn't handle being insulted more yesterday.” I sighed out. I could still hear Levi’s insults ringing in my mind just at the thought of them.
“Well, it’s just about time that we got up to go see what Levi’s gonna put us through today.” Tulip spoke with a reassuring smile settling across her face. She effortlessly pushed herself off of her bed, landing lightly as she turned to walk to her closet.
I remained seated for several moments, lost in my own trailing thoughts before I could even think of getting up.
“Just what in the world did I get myself into…”
—
“Ah, you’re both on time. Good.” I looked up from the dark soil underfoot to meet Levi’s gaze once he spoke. Any previous sense of anger, hate, or really any other emotion was washed away from his face and presence itself.
Our eyes met for several heartbeats, but I couldn’t even begin to read Levi’s expression—His face was mute of all emotion, his lips settled in a slight frown that seemed to just be natural on his face. His eyes… for a moment they almost looked tired.
“What are we doing today?” I asked in a low tone. Tulip glanced at me, surprise written on her face for a moment. I glanced towards her, giving just a faint shrug in response.
“Today starts your continuous schedules. Every day you will be meeting me out here as per usual, I will still be focusing on training your physical bodies above all else. Afterwards you will have enough time to clean up, eat, and be prepared for your daily classes,” Levi twisted his palm upwards, two papers forming in his hand as he offered it forwards. “Your class schedules.”
I extended a hand forwards, grabbing the paper Levi offered to me. Tulip mirrored my motion, grabbing the second paper—I glanced at her for a moment before my gaze settled down to examine the page.
It had my schedule divided into three blocks; morning, midday and afternoon. Inside of those three blocks it had five sections carved out for my classes.
The first was labeled as “Personalized Training” on the paper, and just like Levi said it distinctly stated that it only took up two hours. I had an hour and a half of free time before it moved on to Geography for an hour, two hours after that it moved on to History—Last in the main classes was Beast Research for four hours until early evening.
At the very end, clearly just recently tacked onto the paper was a fifth block labeled “Skyliner Preparations.” I examined this last block for a few moments in confusion before I remembered Carmine’s words—Was she going to be training me too?
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“Once you’re ready let’s begin.” Levi spoke calmly. I nodded as I finished taking in the paper, flicking my wrist I let the paper disappear into the Spatial Ring that remained on my right hand. I was able to catch a glance of Tulip’s paper before it disappeared—It was far more filled, but I at least saw a single class in common in the split-second glance; Beast Research.
The morning went on in what was an almost normal fashion afterwards. Levi had us both start with a set of laps around the training ground—However he was being far less aggressive with me now. It wasn’t quite the same level of pseudo-respect he held for Tulip, but it was at least enough to make the morning bearable.
When the exercises finally came to an end I was left breathing heavily—Heaving in and out for air that refused to fill my lungs as I leaned forwards, resting with my palms on my knees. I heard someone walking towards me, I forced my head up slowly.
“Good job, Kirin.” Levi muttered unconfidently. He didn’t stay, nor did he say anything else, he just stated it and walked away. It honestly left me rather confused, but I pushed the thoughts to the side as I groaned.
It took a serious amount of effort just to straighten my back, let alone to start walking again. Levi had beaten us down today, he first started with five laps around the training grounds—Then immediately moved into sparring between me and Tulip for a substantial amount of time. Just when I had thought it might be done he sent us both to begin strength exercises, which quickly turned into seeing how long we could stay standing until Levi found enough weight to crush us.
But finally, it was over for the day.
“Ready for our classes?” Tulip asked with a smile on her face. Sweat had her hair pressed tightly against her head—And I knew I looked much the same. My entire body felt drenched in sweat and I must have had at least three pounds of dirt stuck to my body.
“I’m ready for a shower…” I mumbled. Tulip gave a soft giggle, swiping the back of my head as she walked by me.
“Let’s go get changed.” She stated. She had a smile on her face—It was contagious to look at, before long I could feel a mirror of that same smile spreading across my own face as I followed her.
Before long we were both cleaned up, wearing our uniforms, and heading for the dining hall. My stomach was growling audibly every few steps, forcing an embarrassed blush to my face every time it did.
“Try and be a little more patient Kirin…” Tulip teased as my stomach roared in protest again.
I only gave her a disgruntled groan as she pushed the door open to the dining hall. I could hear the chattering of thousands of people inside of the hall—The echoes of hundreds of conversations overlapped upon each other into a meaningless white noise.
Yet once I followed in behind Tulip the room grew progressively quieter. Heads turned towards us—Towards me, gazes were settling upon me. They examined me, tearing at my flesh like they wanted to see straight through me. Faint whispers slowly reached my ears as I followed even closer to Tulip as she made her way into the hall.
“Isn’t that?...”
“Why is she with the Princess?”
“What in the world was Ferini thinking?...”
“Doesn’t belong here…”
“Should have just been killed like her father…”
I clenched my jaw down, trying to ignore the voices that reached my ears. But no matter how hard I tried the voices kept oppressively digging into my ears until the room gradually returned to life again when Tulip found a spot for us to sit down.
“Ignore them, they don’t know anything.” Tulip spoke flatly. Her own eyes narrowed into thin glares from the whispered voices.
“It’s hard to ignore them when everyone is thinking the same things…” I replied with an uneasy glance around. The table was already set with breakfast, but I didn’t feel remotely hungry anymore. I let out a heavy sigh, just leaning forwards onto the table—I buried my face into my arms just to ignore the world for a little while longer.
—
“Mother! You cannot be serious about this!” Kendrick shouted, his temper quickly getting the better of him. But he could feel his mistake, the icy fingers that crawled up his back when his mother’s golden gaze settled upon him. “You are just going to abide by this?—There has to be some rule they are breaking by allowing the Vulender to participate!”
“Kendrick,” Lushia spoke threateningly. Her tone carried on easily, trailing away as her golden eyes barely shifted away from the papers before her to look at her own son. “Do you really think I approve of this situation? There is exactly nothing either of us can do in this current moment about the Vulender being a representative of the Ferini’s. Assassinating her is not an option, as it would be a direct attack upon their Estate.”
A devious grin spread across Lushia’s face as she leaned forwards. Dropping her pen she shifted her arms, interlocking her fingers together as she set her elbows upon her desk, resting her chin upon her hands.
“We can just simply embarrass her. Break her. After all, accidents always happen in a competition such as this one.” Lushia’s smirk widened as her gaze settled upon Kendrick.
Kendrick clenched his jaw down, nodding along to his mother’s words uneasily. It just didn’t feel right, or sound right to him—How and why would the Ferini’s support Kirin Vulender?...
“Tell me Darek, you will make me proud and break that girl, correct?” Lushia asked. Her venom filled tone prying Kendrick out of his thoughts as an uneasy nod escaped from him.
“I shall, mother.” He replied courtly. His gaze lowered to the ground, searching for anything else to focus on.
“Good. You are dismissed.” Lushia leaned back in her seat. Watching through narrowed eyes as Kendrick turned around. He quickly left the room, closing the office door tightly behind him.
“So many plans thrown astray…” Lushia muttered, turning her gaze back to the papers before her. But once she read the notes left upon them, she couldn’t help but grin ear-to-ear.
“Task successful.”
Perhaps, things could still go well for her in time.
—
I felt my stomach growling as I moved through the halls. I barely managed to force down a few bites—With so many eyes focused solely upon me it felt impossible to eat peacefully. Dread filled my every step as I made my way to my first class of the day.
I was constantly glancing down at the paper in my hands and back up to the halls around me. I could barely make out any of the signs above the different classrooms, there were hundreds of them everywhere I looked and none of them held the symbol I was looking for.
I really wished I had Tulip with me to show me around more, but she had to split off several halls ago to get to her own classes. This left me to try and find my way around the school while the halls were packed with thousands of bodies with their own objectives in mind.
“Is this?...” I asked myself aloud as I turned into yet another hall. This one was far less packed than any of the others in the entire building. Only a relatively small handful of a few hundred people were in the hallway that was easily two hundred feet long. There were far less doorways as well which gave me more hope as I kept walking.
Every step I took left an echo to call out across the stone halls. None of the students even bothered to look my way as I walked past them, the entire hallway was utterly silent—But finally I could see my objective!
At the far end of the hall I could see a door with a sign hanging outside the front of it. The sign held the representation of a map, and I had just about found it on time as I heard an unbelievably loud ringing from a bell.
In an instant every conversation in the building was silenced, and the relatively calm and collected travel of students turned into an aggressive tidal wave that I had barely escaped in time. I started into a soft jog, stopping just outside of the door. I gripped the handle, pushing the door open—Finally it was time for my first class!