94 – Rival

“No, you’re doing it wrong. Lady Vivi’s Haldr has more of a curve and swoop on the left. Like this.”

Isabella’s brow furrowed as she watched Saffra paint Haldr onto the air in front of them, then erase and do it again two more times. There were clear differences in each variation, but that was only to be expected. The Sorceress might have taken Saffra as her apprentice, but the legendary figure hadn’t somehow bestowed her phenomenal abilities upon the girl. Mana was outrageously difficult to control, and a talented third-year was just a talented third-year.

The two of them were out in the White Glove Academy’s training yard, which had all the amenities one would expect of a premier educational institution. The enchantments layered into the training dummies and the field could probably hold up to an archmage’s assault. There were even dispersion arrays for miscast spells so that a mage wouldn’t have to constantly pull their mana back into themselves if they failed to reach invocation. As far as Isabella knew, White Gloves only had martial classes, not magical, but they also trained against mages frequently, and the training yard had apparently been fitted to support them as well.

She and Saffra weren’t alone. Several White Glove students were in the training yard too, working to meet the no doubt brutal graduation requirements. A White Glove was also posted nearby, watching over them, but the servants were so unobtrusive Isabella frequently forgot they were even there, to the extent she sometimes startled when she glanced up and saw them. She did find it rather silly that they were being guarded in the middle of the Academy. Vivisari Vexaria’s personal estate likely had more powerful defenses than the High King’s Palace. Nobody here was in danger of anything short of a Cataclysm.

“More of a curve and swoop,” Isabella murmured to herself as she tried tracing out her own copy of one small portion of the ridiculously complex design. “Really, she let you choose any spell you wanted, and you picked a fifth-tier one? Start simple. Especially when you’re still learning her style.”

Spell architecture came with plenty of logic and theory, in the same way art did—certain colors meshed well and some didn’t, there were reliable methods to form appealing compositions, and so on. But there was also a flair to creation, a style unique to the artist, and Lady Vivisari’s was, unsurprisingly, archaic, eccentric, and genius. An extremely difficult set of qualities to imitate.

“[Flash Freeze] was the obvious next choice to round out my repertoire,” Saffra defended herself. “And it’s one tier higher than my standard, but it was simple compared to the rest. You should try sifting through that ridiculous book and finding something that won’t take six years to learn. I’d have to learn a whole new discipline for nine-tenths of what I saw.”

“And now she’s complaining about getting to look through the Sorceress’s grimoire,” Isabella muttered to herself. “How difficult your life has become, Saffra.”

Saffra’s cheeks colored. “You’re just mad I’m doing it better than you.” She clumped the mana back into a ball, then painted Haldr out again.

Isabella referenced the hand-drawn symbol and reluctantly conceded that Saffra’s was closer than her own best attempts. Face scrunching in concentration, she redoubled her efforts to copy the rune as closely as she could. Part of the reason she and Saffra had been the two students at the top of their class was how much they disliked losing to each other. Competition in general was an excellent motivator; most institutions employed it between their students in one way or another, and for whatever reason, Isabella had always found herself especially determined to come out on top over Saffra.

Finished, Isabella frowned at the result. The rune clearly wasn’t as clean or accurate as her opponent’s. That was only to be expected when Saffra had a head start on both this design in particular and the Sorceress’s style more generally, but it was grating nevertheless… yet it would also be unbecoming of someone of her status to make excuses, so she grudgingly accepted defeat.

Though, I suppose I don’t have much status at all, these days.

She’d heard no news on the topic whatsoever, but she knew that after what her father had done, the Caldimores had to be one of the most disgraced families in the mortal kingdoms. She had the opposite of status now. There were people who would want her dead just for the name she bore. The many betrayed members of the Wardens who had lost decades if not centuries of their adventuring gear, to name the most obvious.

“Why elemental spells, anyway?” Isabella asked, not letting her thoughts linger on that topic. “You could pick a whole new specialization if you wanted. I realize you’ve already laid the foundation to become an elementalist, but you’re no longer working under the same restrictions. The Sorceress knows everything. Illusions, druidism, mind magic, divination, gravity, temporal magic, probably stuff we’ve never even heard of.” Even Isabella was a little envious. Having open access to the Sorceress’s grimoire, not to mention tutelage from the woman, was an opportunity many mages would kill for, quite literally. And it had been dropped in Saffra’s lap. Yet she was continuing down an elementalist path?

“Elementalism is a solid, practical specialization, especially for adventuring,” Saffra said defensively. “And besides, I shouldn’t count on always having her there to help. This way, if something happens, I can keep doing what I was doing, rather than getting stuck down some path of magic I could never walk myself.”

Isabella frowned at the girl, and Saffra pointedly ignored the look. Isabella understood the logic and couldn’t even disagree with it, but neither did she agree. “You shouldn’t let what might happen decide everything for you. If you want to change specializations, you should seize the opportunity. She’ll help you do it; you know she would.”

Saffra crossed her arms. “Why are you talking about my future when you refuse to talk about yours?”

Saffra had her there, unfortunately. Isabella pursed her lips. The beastkin had been pestering her constantly over the past day, obviously with an agenda. Isabella suspected Lady Vivisari had put her up to it. Saffra was many things, but subtle was not one; she couldn’t hide such obvious motivations, especially from a duke’s daughter.

“Fine,” Isabella said. “If I answer, then I want you to answer—or at least to consider the idea more, without stubbornly going ‘but something might happen, so I should play it safe.’”

“But something could happen. I don’t care if she’s the Sorceress.”

Isabella raised an eyebrow, and the catgirl huffed. A red tail swished in agitation.

“At the very least,” Isabella said, “come up with a specialization you would want, assuming there was hypothetically some guarantee that you could see it through to completion.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Hypothetically?” Saffra asked skeptically.

Well, no. Isabella would tattle to Lady Vivisari at the very next opportunity. Since Saffra refused to advocate for herself, the task fell on Isabella. It was the least she could do, considering everything.

Isabella waited patiently.

“Fine,” Saffra said. “Now answer. What do you want, going forward?”

Unfortunately, the bargain meant Isabella had to scrape together an answer for something she simply wasn’t sure about. Saffra would have pestered her until she’d given one anyway, though, and Isabella was getting tired of the constant insistence. At least this way she got something in return.

Everything that had happened still felt so surreal. A week ago, she’d been resigned to a worse fate than death, and in a way, had been grateful it was finally happening—that it was coming to an end, however horrible. Now, she apparently had the personal protection of the Sorceress herself, and nearly all the problems in her life had been magically solved. Many new ones introduced, but she was fine with that.

“Do you want to go back to the Institute?” Saffra pressed. “Stay here for a while? A long while, even?” She hesitated. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Lady Vivi agreed to teach you, honestly.”

Even if Saffra hadn’t phrased it with any sort of guarantee, Isabella gave her a dubious look. “I don’t know about that, Saffra.”

“She took me as an apprentice.”

“And I’m not you.”