The soldiers in the blurry image kick ‘down’ the grainy simulated door and rush the room with crossbows pointed in varied but obviously precisely practised directions. The knight hiding on the other side spins into view and chops into them, causing black circles to appear where struck, but is shot an instant later by a survivor. A red circle appears and they stumble back just long enough for the heavy crossbow in the back to come into view, aim and shoot. The knight tries to dodge, but too late as the ‘bolt’ slams into their chest with a black circle.

  “What are watching?” Emily asks, leaning over to look at my section of the nexus table.

  “Oh, um, some recordings of army teams who use the same type of crossbows as me training in the underground. Someone sent me a key, but this is basically the only place I can watch them since the palm pieces can’t do moving images.”

  “Someone sent you access to secret records?” She asks.

  “I wouldn’t call it secret, more like restricted. The information isn’t more sensitive than any number of things we’ll learn just as part of our time here.”

  “Maybe, but you’d have to be high ranking to casually distribute it, no?”

  “Oh, yeah, it was one of the judges in my interview. She tried to recruit me, and sent me it with the follow up letter. Something about being useful to refine my fighting methods, which I think is true.”

  “Wait, who tried to recruit you?” Erik asks, shifting from his part of the group’s conversation to ours.

  “Oh, um, the commander of the wyvern riders.”

  He blinks. “Seriously?” I nod. “Huh, I guess she must have thought that weird archery magic would be useful from the air.”

  “Among other things. Apparently, her second in command was pestering her to find mages and I fit the bill.”

  “I see. So, you already have a post once you graduate.” Erik states, some strange glimmer of emotion flickers then suppressed.

  “Oh, no, I turned her down.”

  His eyes widen in surprise with a little anger mixed in. “Why would you do that? The wyvern riders are one of the most prestigious orders in the empire. Any squire would eagerly take up chevalier training at the mere suggestion that they might be invited, and you said no?”

  I sigh. “How many times do I have to tell you that despite the occasional similarities in our methods, I am, in fact, not an aspiring knight. Put simply, we were a bad match.”

  “Meaning you have greater ambitions than those of a mere squire.”

  “Meaning my familial circumstances have greater needs.” I resist rolling my eyes at a sudden insight into his mind. He, like many knights and squires, feel, or perhaps suspect is a better word, that mages look down on them. An absurd notion to anyone who’s fought a knight. We both have equally important roles on the battlefield.

  Though perhaps that is the issue, as having a sister who does look down on martial pursuits in favour of areas that mages are irrefutably better at might make one sensitive to perceived slights.

  “Well, I think you made the right decision,” Emily says with a mischievous glance at Erik. “I mean, I do prefer cooler climes, but not if it means being isolated from proper civilization with a bunch of smelly beasts.”

  “And what smelly beasts are you referring to, Lady Salhal?”

  She grins, having clearly hoped he would ask. “Well, certainly not the wyverns. They’re rather cute after all.” Her face says she doesn’t mean the jibe, but merely takes pleasure at the setup and execution. Especially since Erik had to seek the insult out to receive it.

  “Unfortunately, my lady,” I say before Erik can make a show of offence, “your description of life with the wyvern riders also applies to my home. So, the reason doesn’t really apply as I’ll be faced with that fate either way.”

  “Ah, well, apologies for rubbing salt.” I nod in ‘gratitude’ for her ‘compassion’, thus completing the joke… I think. She turns the conversation before I can decide. “But tell me, what was so interesting about army training that you’d turn to it after leaving us behind in the questions?”

  “I thought we agreed to let everyone have a go at them before offering to help?”

  “True, but there are other ways to flaunt your ability to do so that doesn’t make you seem bored. So surely there must be something insightful in the recording.”

  “Well, yes, it is always interesting to see mundanes taking down knights or mages. This last record, from about a month ago by the image decay, shows a team of six defeating a knight in an unfavourable situation while only losing two of their own.”

  Adrian joins in. “A testament of how effective those crossbows you use are, no?” I see Ser Terry wince and look down at where I shot (I mean, didn’t shoot) him, but he remains focused on the problems.

  I make a wishy washy hand gesture to Adrian. “The crossbows are necessary but not sufficient. I’d say that if you gave them to even the average soldier then any of the squires at this table would easily have defeated the whole team. No, what was impressive was how they arranged themselves upon entry to the room so that any one of them can instantly shoot at any enemies who appeared with minimal adjustment.

  “Really, it’s fascinating. I was under the impression that these weapons were created for defensive use where we couldn’t afford to send the empowered. But it seems the army is developing offensive methods to be in keeping with the aggressive ground taking focus of our heavy infantry doctrine.”

  “And what does this mean for us knights and squires, little mage?” Clara asks.

  “Little mage?” Ser Terry asks, mockingly (at her or me I do not know), finally looking up from the assignment to join in.

  “Does no one else say this? He is little and a mage. I thought it obvious, since he competed so well in a squire contest.”

  “Another one?” Erik side eyes me, “I’m beginning to think you protest too much about your mageness.”

  “Probal,” I say with as much contempt for the assertion as I can muster.

  “Yes,” Clara agrees, “but to my question. What are we if we can be killed by mundanes with overly enchanted crossbows?”

  I shrug. “I haven’t really thought about that, given that I’m neither upstart mundane nor knight. But I imagine the knight’s role will change from spearheading advances to ranged fighting. Of course, archery has always been secondary to knights due to the expensiveness of magic arrows that can survive the acceleration of your bows. So perhaps a shift to less noble weapons, such as cheap but durable throwing items or slings.”

  Erik scoffs. “You’re saying we will shift to fill more mage like roles.”

  “Perhaps, though perhaps your sister is right and mages will shift our role off the battlefield to accommodate you. Regardless I think your mobility and perception will maintain a unique role in Caethlon type fighting which will likely become common. Likewise, battle mages will probably focus more on illusion magic like Adrian.” I nod to Adrian who nods back in acknowledgment.

  Everyone else goes quiet at the suggestion that Caethlon will become common in the future, and the food comes before anyone can process the statement enough to speak.

  The room is a large chamber shaped abstractly like a flower. There is a large orange crystal collum that is the centre of the nexus depository which resembles a pistil in its context. Thick lines of crystal run through the floor across the whole room and rise up to form at least a hundred tables shaped liked petals and leaves which are orange or green respectively, plus an even thicker one acting as the stem which runs to the kitchen.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  It’s pretty, in a sense, though requires imagining the view above it to really get the effect.

  Communication within the room and the kitchen is instant via the tables, which create images on the surfaces to facilitate. Communication outside of the room requires physical transit with nexus disks or their larger counterparts. All written text stored at a given time (that isn’t restricted by the administration) is transferred to the disks whenever they come into contact with the depository, but images and other recordings require larger crystals which are exchanged between the three campus sites (interior, exterior and underground) daily. Crystals are also sent daily to and from the central communication nexus in the imperial palace to allow correspondence with the other three cities that hold one. Well, two now, excluding Malsas.

  “I do like your Arkothian food,” Clara says, dipping a soft breadstick into a mostly white and slightly blue cheese sauce. “Much better than back home. There, bread could be clubs.”

  “I fear bread in my territory is often just as bad,” I say, dipping my own bread into the bowl. “Though merchants would occasionally bring delicacies.” I turn to Emily. “I imagine it’s not much of a change for you.”

  “Hm, a little,” Emily dips her own bread in. “More cheese here, and the bread’s different. More wheat than rye. Also, less fish and more red meat. A pleasant change, but I’ll probably miss the old food in a few years.”

  “You won’t return home during the breaks?” Adrian asks.

  Emily exhales sharply in a not quite laugh. “And let my parents get a hold of me? No, they still haven’t gotten over the fact that I came here against their wishes, and until they do, I’m not speaking with them.”

  “Pity,” Adrian says, their mind churning with calculations… as is mine.

  If she’s truly estranged from her parents over this, and plans to be at the next break, then this isn’t a temporary dispute. It’s something that could potentially boil over to having inheritance implications. The difference between me and Adrian though is: he has the further information needed to make use of this revelation, and I need all the contacts I can get.

  “Yes, you did mention some difficulties with your parents,” I say in my most compassionate voice. “Something about them not appreciating magic. You used the phrase ‘new nobles’ which I hadn’t heard before but have since.”

  “Yeah,” she waves her hand in disgust, “they’re disappointingly common here in the home of the finest magical learning in the world.” She glances down at the table and the image of our assignment. “Speaking of, you’re on problem five, right. Instead of talking about depressing people, tell me how you got number four.”

  “Oh, I um, skipped it.” I blush, having really not wanted to talk about it.

  “Skipped it?” Clara scoffs, “You? The great diviner?”

  “Yeah, well, I think I see how it’s done, but it looks tedious,” I lie. “Five is much more interesting. I’ll work out four in my dorm without all the noise here which might cause mistakes in the calculations.”

  “Of course, must be nice having a disk,” Clara gestures to the crystal hexagons placed on the table next to me.

  “It is,” Erik says, oblivious to her… not sarcasm, also not resentment, but tastes similar to both, “you should get one. I’ve heard it makes classes a lot easier and it’s popular for leaving messages.”

  Clara scoffs, “I can’t afford it. No, we poor foreigners will have to make do with the depository room. Eh, Terry?” She shoulder bumps him, causing him to look up.

  “Hmm, what? Did you get two yet?”

  Two?! He’s still stuck on two? That’s one of the easy warm up questions. I avoid scoffing, but I do catch an amused smile from Emily and Adrian who are both on question four. It seems the cliché of knights being bad diviners holds true once again.

  The questions are divided into three pairs of ascending difficulty (easy, medium and infuriating), with each pair having one question from both tracker and fugitive perspectives. Ser Terry and the squires do eventually make it to question three, but I have to explain the principle behind it (it’s from the pursuer’s perspective, and has to do with maximising the variables for a team of diviners while avoiding causing distortions.

  “The most challenging part is that you can’t quantize the relative strength of divination methods, or at least not accurately. You just have to know the general strength of the methods coupled with the general strength of the diviners, estimate a range of ratios, plug that into the formula, and come out with another range of numbers representing formation, distance and intervals. There isn’t really an exact answer on paper, so long as your method is sound. In the field, it’s a bit easier since you can narrow down the variables by causing test distortions.” I explain to no sudden understanding from the squires.

  Erik sighs. “Why did I let you convince me that taking this class was a good idea?”

  “I don’t recall advocating for it, just that you shouldn’t be dismissive,” I say, perhaps a bit snappishly. He doesn’t seem to react though, just stares at the problem obviously going over what I said.

  Ser Terry speaks up. “What about four? You said it was tedious.”

  “Yeah, it’s similar. You have to cause a sounding distortion to gauge the pursuer’s strength, then use that information to tune a weaker divination while running as fast as you can as they home in on the distortion. The tedious part is tuning the second divination as it relies on a lot of variables. At least on paper, it’s supposedly a lot more intuitive in the field.”

  “Sounds terrifying,” Ser Terry says.

  “Yeah, probably, though I’ve only read about the theory,” I lie. “Anyways, I’m almost done with five, so just keep working without me.”

  We work in silence for another ten minutes until I finish the fifth problem, leaving me with four and six, and a dilemma – they’re both based on me.

  Really, it casts doubt on her claim of not wanting the class to be about her Caethlian experiences.

  Well, four might be hubris, as others must have arrived at the answer in similar circumstances. But I know for certain that I’ve used the method at least half a dozen times during the period Count Jesica said she was chasing me. Still, it should be safe enough to answer it, and besides I’m committed now after giving away the basic premise.

  Number six though is maddeningly complicated. In fact, until today I believed I was the only living person who knew how it’s done. That was obviously an embarrassingly arrogant assumption if she’s giving it out as an introductory assignment. Though to be humble, I didn’t come up with the method. Well, beyond adding a few minor details that is. The general premise was the idea of a much more senior mage from another cell who died a few months before the end.

  The idea, as Count Jessica puts it, is ‘how do you, while under heavy pursuit, orchestrate a series of attacks with a partner, countering the pursuers while also communicating timings to your partner.’ Well, I would have added details like ‘causing your pursers to chase each other while you get away without them having a clue where you went’, but that might be a bit arrogant.

  If this sounds simple, it’s not. The secret, well, the first secret, is ignoring your own pursuers to only counter your partner’s. The second secret is complicated math. The third secret is precise navigation, being within a tenth of a mile of where you mean to be within five minutes of when at any given time. I admittedly nearly bungled this last part several times, which would have caused the entire arrangement to collapse and lead our pursuers straight to us.

  Fortunately, I managed to pull through, but it was extremely stressful and physically exhausting (requiring dozens of sacrifices just for the stamina to run from attack to attack). Despite the effectiveness I’m glad to have never had to do that more than once. But now I’m being asked how I did it.

  Obviously, it’s too dangerous to answer this question. There’ll probably be a few who can figure it out, but being one of them might earn dangerous attention… except…

  How embarrassing will it be if everyone else gets it but me?

  I glance to Ser Terry and the squires. Well, I won’t be the only one who doesn’t get it at least. But I still don’t want to be the only mage who misses it. That would be bad, given that it’s my speciality. It might even be suspicious.

  So, to be safe, I scribble reasonable sounding nonsense down until about ten minutes after the other two mages reach the problem problem before declaring, “Well, I’m stumped. What about you two?”

  Adrian glances up with strange relief. “You too? Well, if you can’t get it, I don’t see much hope in finding the answer. I certainly have no idea.”

  “Yeah,” Emily adds, “it’s a bit frustrating. Divination isn’t my best area, but falling flat on the first day is embarrassing. But at least no one else got it.”

  “Yeah,” I say, hiding my relief and just a little bit of smugness at my hidden knowledge, “same, and divination is my best area.”

  We spend the rest of the time eating snacks and watching my army recordings, or some other decaying images we find in the depository while waiting for the squires to catch up. It’s relaxing. Fun, I think. Emily laughs a few times, pointing out the mistakes of the trainees, though Adrian doesn’t do more than smile.

  A while later I spot a group of senior classmates grab a table a dozen spots away. In the middle of them is the sword tourney moderator who yelled at me for throwing sand.

  Suddenly remembering her instruction to write, I pull her key out from my pocket and write a message. “Hey, this is the sand thrower you yelled at. I got in. You told me to write for your amusement. Well, the head teacher was irritated at me during my interview for just about every one of my practical tests.”

  She laughs audibly from here and looks up to search the room for me, waving enthusiastically when she sees me and hastily writing a reply.

  “Knew I was right about you being trouble. Well… tell me more.”

  I begin writing down the details, but pause when she gestures to her friends to look. Though I guess I’m not telling her anything sensitive so I continue, causing laughter (but not mockingly so) from the other table.

  “Oh, you’re sending messages? That’s fun.” Emily says, looking over my shoulder then laughing. “Trying to impress a senior?”

  I side eye her. “I guess.”

  “Well, you won’t mind me looking if you’re sharing.”

  I shrug and continue writing, causing more laughter from both tables, even causing a distraction for the desperate squires who get in on it and start making suggestions for me to share.

  It is a bit strange to have people laugh at my past petty struggles, but not altogether unpleasant.