Apart from Rede, Verina his partner, and the combat healer sat waiting in an office long since converted into a meeting room. As promised, food waited for them. Six seats, five present.

  Verina nodded. “Hanna, our aura manipulation expert, will attend as well.”

  Ioha sagged into a chair. Wooden and heavy, the same hardwood as everywhere else. Table just as inviting, and even the door looked like it needed a battering ram just to open. Just as if to taunt him, it suddenly opened with barely a noise, and an elderly woman entered.

  “Hanna, welcome!”

  Ioha didn’t recognise her from their teaching staff, but Spellsword Academy had a lot of students and therefore a lot of teachers.

  Verina caught his glance. “Hanna teaches third and fourth years.” A low growl mixed with her words. “And from tomorrow, freshmen as well. Two of you, to be more exact.”

  “We don’t have the time,” Ioha and Ai protested at the same time.

  “You will make time,” Hanna said.

  “But…”

  “Or you will die.”

  Dying was bad. That shut them both up.

  “Lady Nakagawa, you’re young, but your aura is already as strong as a master mage. You have every right to be proud but it’s not enough.” Hanna looked at her. “What you did today will kill you if you’re not careful. That ability uses aura even if you have none. Where do you think that extra aura comes from?”

  The temperature in the room dropped, or at least it felt that way. Ai could die? He didn’t dispute the statement. He’d seen her shuddering in spasms earlier, and he recalled how all his own strength left him when his wrath subsided.

  “My life force?” Ai asked.

  Hanna smiled. “Let’s call it that, if it makes it easier for you to understand. It’s not really important.” Then the smile left her. “Grandmaster aura, or arch mage class, minimum, or I’ll forbid you from ever training that ability again. Are we agreed?”

  Ai nodded. They had planned to keep it a secret anyway.

  “I can help you strengthen your aura. I’ll also teach you how to use less of it.” She turned to face Ioha. “Your aura is enough to study as a mage. It’s already more than enough for a battlefield combatant. A normal one. If you plan to burn emotions to fuel your abilities, you’re taking the same chances as Lady Nakagawa. Master class aura, or I’ll have you reassigned to the soldier of fortune class.”

  Ioha nodded. He’d seen where this meeting was headed for a while now. “Same lessons concerning aura efficiency?” he asked. He could as well accept the entire package.

  “Yes.”

  He made it halfway out of his chair before the insane combat healer stopped him. “We’re not done yet.”

  She threatened to rip his legs off once before. He sat down. “Lady Nakagawa, what you did was very dangerous, and not for the reason you’ve been told here. Transferral magic is rare, very rare. You’ll attend classes with me, and we’ll pretend I taught you my speciality, remote healing.”

  This time it was Ai’s turn to nod. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you, young Ioha, will train with me,” Verina said. “I’m not from the federation. I come from the other side of the western mountains. Well, where I grew up, we called them the eastern mountains.”

  Love their naming sense.

  “You’re not a cat.”

  Ioha stiffened in his chair.

  “You’re a defender. We still have a few of them from where I come.” She stared at him. “A strong one at that. Do you know what we call your kind?”

  He shook his head. He didn’t like where this was going, but he’d played his fair share of games, and a lot in this world looked more like a game than the real world. Status displays were merely the representation of a game system. Even without them, his abilities felt more like something from games than from the fantasy stories he read and watched earlier in his life.

  “Gatherer, lightning rod and well of rage.”

  He refused to accept it. He’d become a cat. He knew perfectly well where his abilities pointed. Back on earth, in the games he played, he would without a doubt be called tank. Still, roles were more fluid here. He could be a cat. A defensive one, but a cat still.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “My father be one. Stronger by far than you be right now. He taught me a little, and I will teach you.” Her lips turned into a crooked smile. “They be long gone from the federation, or rather from this side of the mountains. Federation coalitions have tried to conquer us since long before I was born. They failed.” The smile turned straight again, even a little complacent. “I will teach you to do more with less, just like Lady Nakagawa, but since you handle both weapons and aura, you need to learn different methods than hers.” Her smile vanished and left her face strangely neutral. “My father said that when the flame dies, so does the heart.”

  Ioha shook his head. It meant one of two things. Either you kept raging long after the battle died down, or you never fuelled your aura with wrath to begin with. Neither option seemed right. Extra aura when in a pinch was just too useful a tool.

  “I can see what you’re thinking,” Rede said. He threw his partner a quick look. “I’m federation, she’s not. We’ve spent most of our lives together. We’re the same and yet different.”

  Ioha waited for his teacher to arrive at whatever conclusion needed that introduction.

  “In the federation, we only use aura. At least officially. So fewer people get hurt, but our knowledge, I believe, is lacking.”

  “In Haldenvale, my kingdom, more hurt, or even die. Never use more aura than you have if you can’t respect the limitations,” Verina said. “People who do still die. For different reasons,” she added.

  His teacher stroked the back of her head. “Some reasons out of that very respect,” he said softly.

  “In any case,” the healer said, “you’ll have more classes, but they won’t count towards your merits. Think of it as punishment or as an opportunity. I don’t much care which.”

  Ai and Ioha both rose. Their forced audience was at an end. What remained of the day belonged to the freshman open tournament. On their way out, they each grabbed food which had never been made for eating at a table. Ioha sent the adults a grateful thought and munched on his oversized sandwich on his way down the stairs. The reception hall was eerily empty, with what few people there were all gathered by the school-yard entrance. The doors stood wide open, and the top of the stairs offered a good view of the ring. From here on, bouts were duels again. Across the school-yard he could make out the broadside announcing the sixteen names, but he had to walk there to see who was his next opponent and if they had tried rigging the tournament despite the morning’s scandal.

  He downed the last of his food with the help of water in a bottle that followed him from the meeting room. By his side, Ai did the same. When a freezing howl of wind raised dust from the gravel, he put his jacket on, and again Ai copied his movements. She followed him between the stands, hand in his, and searched the broadside with her eyes.

  “Top sixteen,” she snorted.

  Ioha looked the broadside over. “Top sixteen,” he agreed. ‘She’s our princess,' he had earlier said to Ai’s disapproval. Princess didn’t mean cute and cuddly. He didn’t stand a chance.

  Feeling a little uncomfortable, he let go of Ai’s hand. It wasn’t a sense of danger. He just didn’t want to let go, but he had his spot of preparation, and she needed to stay here and make ready to heal combatants. More students from the logistics unit arrived, and he was just in their way. A quick kiss later, he walked to his private piece of gravel with brisk steps. At least the rest of the tournament promised to be a very short ordeal.

  The first match was between Anthony von Shithead and the commoner knight. Rumours had it Anthony was the one who dragged the unlucky merc to her destiny behind the wall of armour earlier. From the glares of the remaining three noble knights, the rumours were probably true. They were young enough to be filled with a mixture of aristocratic arrogance and knightly ideals. Throwing a girl to be slowly beaten to death, where no one could help her, didn’t seem right. That they were part of it themselves most likely never occurred to them.

  Anthony entered the ring without his normal support, and his opponent arrived from the opposite side. Anthony swung, got parried, and the wooden sword caught one of his fingers. He jolted back, and the commoner knight also stepped back. Once again Anthony swung, and once again his attack was parried, followed by the sharp crack when wooden sword fell hard on his fingers again.

  Ioha winced. His lone fellow knight from the battle royal could have ended it after the first attack, but what followed was several minutes of torture where he systematically crushed every bone in Anthony’s hands until he was forced to beg for mercy and forfeit. The knight left the ring and joined Ioha. During the meeting, he must have abandoned his fellow knights and joined the group of assorted commoners who made it to the final sixteen.

  He nodded to Ioha. “Thanks! Good technique. I’ll use it more.”

  Thanks? Ioha tilted his head. Too much time with Ai had him copy some of her traits. Ah! He probably parried with better control than the knights usually do, but the punitive counterattacks still came with better precision than Ioha could ever hope to copy. See, a defensive cat. He could still try.

  Up at the stands, Lord Clevasti had watched the spectacle. Ioha, in turn, spent half of the match watching the father. Not once did his face show what he thought of the painful humiliation his son was subjected to.

  The next bout saw a merc facing one of Anthony’s fellow knights. As far as Ioha was concerned, it was a fair fight where long years of disciplined training gave the knight an advantage that couldn’t be overcome.

  Up next, Karaki lost a very even bout against yet another knight. It was luck that saw him tapped out, and both boys grinned when they bowed. The knight won, as was proper, and Karaki had shown more prowess than anyone expected.

  After that, the princess gave Ioha a lesson in what cats were all about. He gave her the bow she deserved, and they both returned to where they could watch Canadena prove that knights weren’t invincible just because they were knights.

  Without the school interfering, the tournament ran its course like, well, a tournament. Grudgingly Ioha accepted that the bad blood was less a matter of noble and commoner students hating each other and more about a society where the aristocracy held on to their privileges long after they stopped delivering the leadership and protection that once awarded them those very same privileges. He himself attended a school that, despite its corruption, undermined the very foundation the aristocracy stood upon. Despite all discrimination, more and more commoners found themselves wielding power their own parents would have thought of as unthinkable.

  The few remaining mercs were quickly weeded out, and in the end the princess faced Canadena after a surprisingly narrow win against the commoner knight. Most everyone agreed that was the real final match rather than the formal one. Canadena put up a good fight but was overwhelmed in the end.