The applied divination class has about fifty students in it, about half of which are clearly our seniors. A fairly large size considering the total student population and that it’s not a mandatory class. Not to mention that Erik’s reaction to it seems typical.

  Speaking of Erik, he’s here – as is Denton Brinhal (the annoying mage who eliminated me from the occulter tournament), Clara Talwin, Adrian and Emily. Erik, like Ser Terry, presumably petitioned to change classes after our conversation at the party. I don’t know if Adrian and Emily are here because of what I said, curiosity over the war ‘hero’ or just an innate interest in the subject. Denton’s presence is not unusual given how high he placed with the occulters, but Clara’s is. At least she didn’t give the impression of wanting to learn past basic utility during the token hunt. Maybe Ser Terry said something that piqued her interest.

  I half expected the cowardly youth to be here, though presumably he was prohibited on the grounds of not having any magic, divination or otherwise, to be applied.

  There’s a group of youths congregated sycophantically near the middle of the room. It’s puzzling as to why until I recognize the figure at the centre as one of the four royals on the stage at the entrance ceremony.

  He seems smaller than Vincent, though on further examination I would say he’s actually about a hand taller – an effect of demeanour. The sycophants talk about any little thing they can think of but always manage to bring the conversation back to his highness – an act that brings a giddy smile to his face every time.

  Part of me thinks I should join in, but my recent experience with his brother puts me off the thought. So instead, I follow Ser Terry to sit by Clara, though I make no more than perfunctory conversation in favour of observing the royal group and taking mental notes on the flatterers’ techniques.

  Everyone’s attention turns to a flutter of wind from a suddenly open window where our (presumed) instructor, dressed in a white linen riding outfit that includes breaches while still making her gender obvious, has just entered and gracefully set down. An impressive display. Most flight magic is forceful and fast, requiring constant speed to maintain with crude manoeuvrability. Certainly not something to gain ingress on the third floor with. But even the crude level of flight magic is considered very advanced. To do something as difficult as hovering long enough to open a window would require focused study even for an elite mage.

  “Greetings class, your highness. I’m Count Jessica Vithal, your teacher. I apologize if any of you were expecting Count Therinhal, but it was unknown whether I would make it back in time for the start of class. I was meant to teach last semester, but I was detained in Caethlon leading a taskforce in pursuit of a… tenacious rebel.” Her face is a constant neutral expression.

  “Tanyth?” the princep asks eagerly.

  Vithal shakes her head. “No, your highness, my killing of the rebel leader Tanyth was mere happenstance. In fact, it would not be unreasonable to accuse me of swooping in and taking the glory from another’s efforts. By which I mean that I was in pursuit of a different rebel when I came across and killed her.”

  “A more dangerous rebel than Tanyth?” the princep asks, eyes in wonder.

  “I did not say that, your highness. In fact, they only went after much softer targets than Tanyth tended to.” She hesitates at seeing the look of disappointment on the princep’s face, and that of the rest of the class. “Though in some ways they were more disturbing.”

  Excitement and intrigue go through the whole class, all except me, though I do try to hide the sinking feeling in my stomach with imitation.

  “Who were they?” someone asks.

  She shakes her head. “I’ve been informed that I’ve become somewhat of a minor celebrity for my actions against the insurgency. However, my intention was to teach divination, not regale you with my exploits.”

  A simultaneous ‘Awww!’ emits from the class. I would guess quite a few changed classes upon hearing she was teaching. I considered doing likewise, but I did want to take this class as soon as possible, and doing the opposite of everyone else might be suspicious.

  She sighs, audibly giving in. “Though I suppose I can make an exception just this once, by way of apology for replacing your teacher at the last moment.” An excited murmur followed by rapt attention from the class. “Unfortunately, even after a year pursuing them, I don’t know much. The main thing is that they’re an Anar cultist who offered dozens, possibly hundreds of our soldiers to their dark god.”

  A gasp goes through the room… sigh.

  “I thought we destroyed the Anar cult in Caethlon.” The princep says, terror tinging his voice.

  “We thought so too, your highness, until a few weeks after the insurgency started when bodies bearing Anar’s marks started appearing. Fortunately, from the timing of the attacks, and divinations made to confirm this, we believe that only one cultist survived and was using the rebellion as a means of revenge for their cult’s destruction.”

  Not exactly, but close enough. Murmurs until someone asks “Did you catch them?”

  She shakes no. “I’m afraid not. We came close, near the end, by setting a trap. We killed the rest of their cell, but they got away.” I resist pointedly asking about the nature of the trap and the people she sacrificed for it. “We know this because we found a burned body bearing the mutilations of Anar style anthropomancy away from the scene. We believe the body was one of their cell, sacrificed to increase their chances of escape.” The murmurs take on a tone of indignation. I don’t see why, given her sacrifice of the bait.

  She continues. “We continued our pursuit, but with mixed success. They attacked a small scouting post to lay a snare for us. This was a mistake as I was well familiar with the explosive traps placed on the bodies, and the second point of incident revealed the direction of their escape. As we were several hours behind at this point, I flew ahead of my team in pursuit. Doing so I came across another imperial team fighting Tanyth’s cell. They didn’t know whose cell they had cornered, and so had gathered inadequate force. When I arrived, Tanyth had killed their leader, and her cell had nearly escaped. I quickly killed Tanyth and the remnants of her cell, but it seems my quarry had escaped in the chaos before I arrived.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “How did you kill Tanyth?” the princep asks, voice tinged with awe. “I heard her armour was invincible.”

  “It is,” Jessica nods, “but her body was not. The destruction from cascade orbs is largely sound based. By hitting her directly with one, the energy transferred through her armour and into her – liquefying her organs.” She pauses to allow monosyllabic sounds of admiration before continuing. “With Tanyth dead but the cultist still at large, I seconded the second imperial team under me and continued pursuit. Eventually, we tracked them to Fluemberg, but the city had already fallen at that point.

  “The commander in charge of the siege wanted to negotiate a peaceful solution and outranked me within the military. As such, by the time we retook the city all trace of the cultist was either gone or too old to use. We spent the next couple of months searching, but there was no activity. It seemed that they had either left the kingdom or went deep into hiding, and so I rushed here to fulfil my agreement to teach.”

  “What else do you know about them? Like, what do they look like?” A girl on the outskirts of the sycophantic cloud asks with odd fascination. Not that fascination is uncommon right now, but there’s something to the flavour of it.

  Jesica considers her before answering. “We don’t know. First hand reports are scarce and conflicting. We believe them to be male and in their mid twenties, but nothing else. The only thing we know for certain are methods. ‘He’ usually led his group against soft targets, focusing on minimal risk over impact against us to gain sacrifices. He also attacked his own people, which wasn’t unique to him as many cells retaliated against ‘collaborators’, but it’s clear he was interested more in the power it brought him than the excuse most gave.”

  I’m perfectly still, save for a fist quickly clinched and relaxed. What does she know about it? What can she even reasonably claim to know about it? She doesn’t even know who was in charge.

  “He did occasionally go after harder targets, but usually only when teaming up with other cells. The hardest targets his cell attacked on their own being Caethlian nobles who they viewed as traitors.”

  “He killed nobles?” The girl on the edge asks with strange excitement.

  “Yes,” Vithal answers flatly. “Children, mostly, to prevent them from marrying our nobility and legitimizing our rule. A common practice by the rebellion, but one he performed with unusual frequency as noble sacrifices grant greater power than commoners.”

  An uneasy murmur goes through the class. The girl in contrast only grows more excited.

  Count Vithal raises her fist and the class goes silent. “Now, I’ve shared more than enough on the subject. From now on discussion should be limited to divination.”

  The princep raises his hand, but speaks before being acknowledged. “How did the cultist avoid you for a whole year?” Vithal gives him a ‘really’ look, but he defends the question. “It’s relevant, isn’t it?”

  “…I suppose some teaching could be through the lens of my experience.” She sighs. “He was able to avoid capture due to a skill I hope to impart to all of you. He has an excellent intuition for balancing his divinations’ to be strong enough to counter ours, but stopping before causing distortions. Moreover, while it was never confirmed, I believe he was aided by illusion magic. Does anyone know why illusion magic interferes with divinations?... Blakerhal?” She looks to Adrian after no one speaks up.

  “Yes, of course,” Adrian says without fluster at being called out, “all magic operates via backwards causation. This necessarily implies a universal connectedness which we exploit to gain symbolic glimpses of future events. Illusion magic obstructs this connection via its inherent symbolism. Moreover, psychic illusions can cause the diviner to ignore the readings that make it through.”

  “Very good,” she says, causing a satisfied smile on Adrian, “a succinct summary on some basic principles of magic which I hope you’re all familiar with. Before we move on to my planned lesson, does anyone have any questions? It’ll be useful to know what preconceptions you have before we start.”

  Several people raise their hands which she acknowledges in turn. Denton asks something that I think is insightful. A few ask questions about Caethlon with divination as pretence. She answers the divination part while ignoring the Caethlon angle. Then she gets to Erik.

  “Is it true that you developed a method of using divination to aim cascade orbs from over the horizon?”

  Her face darkens briefly before returning to neutrality. “Where did you hear that?”

  Erik points to me, prompting me to give him a ‘really?’ look before giving our teacher an innocent smile.

  “Your name?” she asks.

  “Malichi Monhal, count.”

  She nods and mutters something that sounds like “I heard of you,” before addressing the question. “Well, Malichi, I’m afraid that is a mere rumour. It’s best that you don’t repeat it.”

  A mere rumour? I’ve been on the receiving end of that ‘mere rumour’ a half dozen times. Still, I smile and nod in acknowledgement.

  After that, she moves on to discuss the principles of applied divination. All basic stuff which I, and probably most of the class, already know but which she has to go over anyways. She finishes the class with an example problem which the class solves verbally. Once we do, she reveals that she has posted six more problems on the school nexus for us to solve before the next class.

  I get called over as she dismisses us. She waits for everyone to leave, or just be sufficiently distant before casting a spell that obstructs sound.

  “Where did you hear that rumour?” she asks sternly.

  I shrug. “My territory was on the border. We heard talk from soldiers passing through. Moreover, I’ve seen it, albeit from a distance. We live on a mountain, and one day a skirmish got close to us. From my calculation the orb travelled at least forty miles – well over the horizon from its starting elevation.”

  She sighs. “…Listen, there’s a military order prohibiting discussing that method with civilians. You are not to propagate that knowledge.”

  “A military order, meaning I’m not bound by it.”

  “Perhaps not technically, but you’d be advised to follow it.”

  “I don’t see why. In fact, I don’t see the point of the order. The Caethlians obviously know about the method as we used it on them. If the Caethlians know then we can bet Hyclion knows too. If Hyclion knows, then who are we even hiding it from?”

  She sighs and gives me a ‘you’re deliberately being obtuse’ look. “Why are you making this difficult? I’ve seen your exam scores. You made quite a stir with your breakthrough test. I don’t know what post you’re planning on pursuing, but we both know a military post one likely be your best option. Thumbing your nose at their edicts will limit those options.”

  She’s probably right. Why am I being difficult? Even ignoring her reasons, she spent the last year specifically trying to kill me. Best to avoid her attention. And yet…

  “…By denying my truthful claim as mere rumour you cost me credibility amongst my peers.”

  She shrugs. “A little, sure. But so what? It wouldn’t be the first time someone lost prestige from a false military statement. If you’re resentful of me then I would remind you that while you’re not bound by the order, I am. Besides, lots of people spread rumours while maintaining social credibility.”

  “But not everyone, and I have yet to gain that reputation. If I do gain it then I want it to be by my own choosing.”

  She sighs again. “Fine, do what you want. But I did warn you.”

  I assess her. She does seem sincere in wanting me to avoid trouble, so I sigh back. “I suppose I can limit my talk on the matter, but I won’t lie if asked about it. Though I don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to be hiding. I use the same principle to aim my crossbow, as did a few of the other examinees to aim their spells.”

  “The principle might be the same, but the effect is very different to your precision weapon. As for the examinees you’ve mentioned, they received similar warnings.”

  “Right… thanks for the concern,” I say and turn to leave.

  Ser Terry is waiting for me outside with Erik, Clara, Adrian and Emily. “Hey, what did she want?” he asks as I join them.

  “Oh, for me to lie about military secrets. The usual.”

  “Cool… want to do a study group?” he asks.

  I nod yes.