The corridors of the Academy had a way of looking the same no matter how many times one walked them. The only differences were in the different portraits and statues, none of which I recognized, and none of which stood out. I had conquered fortresses with more architectural variety than this. Still, I walked them now with considerably more purpose than I had on any prior occasion, and with only slightly more weight atop my head.
Sol sat between my horns. She had claimed this perch within the first hour of her life and had shown no inclination to relinquish it since. Her talons gripped my hair, and her four wings were tucked neatly against her body. I had permitted this once, and it seemed the baby phoenix would stretch this permission far. I would allow it, during her first few days.
Students stopped as we passed. They pressed themselves against the walls, their conversations dying mid-syllable. I was used to this, both from my brief time at the Academy, and my long life, a thousand years ago. Some in my own hordes had shied away from me with the same looks. This was little different. What was new was the direction of their gazes. They were not looking at me today, they were looking at Sol.
A boy with a green Spark on his wrist stopped so abruptly that the girl behind him walked into his back. A pair of students near a window turned in unison, bumping into each other. An Inker -a woman in silver robes carrying an armful of scrolls- paused mid-stride and stared for three full seconds.
"Is this Academy to your liking?" I asked Sol, as we turned a corner. If she found this place wanting, I would find her somewhere better.
Sol let out a chirp. It was louder than I had expected. A student ten paces ahead of us flinched and nearly dropped her books. Why did she flinch so? It was a nice sound. Sol did not seem to notice, or perhaps she did not care.
I nodded. "I will consider that faint approval. It seems you are more generous than I."
Ash walked beside me. She was smiling. I did not tell her to stop, because I knew it would not work, and because some part of me did not entirely wish it to. Edda walked a few paces ahead of us. She glanced back, and then hurriedly glanced forward again. She was to be our guide today.
The Archon had been right. It had hardly taken any time at all to get from our new room to the Beast Hall. Ash and Edda waited outside, near the door. They were speaking to each other in low voices. I stepped inside.
The Beast Hall smelled of something faintly acidic that I chose not to think too carefully on. The space stretched far enough that the rear wall was dim, and the pens that lined both sides held creatures of every size, shape and form. I walked through them slowly, with far more attention than I had last time. Sol regarded every beast we passed with quiet contempt. That’s what I chose to interpret her small ‘huffs’ as.
Most of the beasts were ones I had seen before. My gaze lingered on the horse-sized spider. I had never liked arachnids. That was perhaps the one thing Zera and I had disagreed on most. It was the beasts I hadn’t seen before I paid real attention to. In the first pen of any note, a crystal serpent lay coiled in a bed of...sand? Its scales caught the light from the high windows and its skin cast shifting patterns across the walls. Sol watched it for two full seconds. It was easy to feel her tiny weight shifting in the direction of the pen. Then, she shifted back.
Further in, a pair of dark foxes paced their pen. Their bodies were translucent at the edges, almost blending into each other. When one turned its head, the other turned with it. When one paused and regarded Sol, the other did the same. How strange. It seemed they were mirroring each other. This was not a cerberus, yet it seemed distantly related, in some fashion.
Ash had acquired more strips of raw meat before we left our room. I had infused each one with the Cradle, bathing them in white fire until Sol's particular demands were met. I carried them with me, in the small pouch that had once served as the home for Sol’s egg. It was enough for several hours, by my estimation.
The woman was waiting near one of the larger pens, her hand stretched past its bars, towards a large turtle of some kind. She turned when we approached. Inker Hesta regarded me, and then finally regarded Sol atop my crown. She did not reach for Sol when I approached. That was a point in her favour.
"So this is her," Hesta said. She studied Sol from a distance. "The Archon mentioned she was unusual. I can see why. What strange coloring that is. Blacker than black."
"She is not unusual," I said. "She is singular." I lifted Sol from my head and held her at eye level. Sol chirped once, glanced at me, and then at the handler. Her feathers puffed. "You will treat her as you would treat royalty. You will not touch her without her permission. You will not permit anyone else to touch her. You will ensure her cushion remains in the exact position I leave it. You will not even consider putting her in one of these pens. If I return and find her distressed in any capacity, I will hold you personally responsible."
The handler blinked once. "Right," she said. "I'll keep her comfortable."
The lack of fear was almost offensive. I set Sol on the cushion I had folded away in the pouch, alongside two strips of meat. She settled onto it, her four wings tucking against her sides. She looked up at me with those round golden eyes. "I will return shortly," I said. "Do not cause trouble."
Sol chirped. It did not sound like agreement. I pushed the satchel into the Inker’s hand. “This is her food. She will have this and no other, and I have tried.”
The woman’s brow furrowed, but she nodded. Good. It was nice when people listened.
I turned to leave. I made it four steps before I turned back, checked that the cushion was positioned correctly, and adjusted it half an inch to the left. The draught from the nearest window would not reach her now.
I made it to the door. I looked back once more. Sol was watching me, her golden eyes steady."Shortly," I repeated, and left before I could check a third time.
Ash was waiting just outside the Beast Hall. Her lips were quirked up. Edda had the grace to look more reserved, though I saw her lips twitch too. "Stop that, both of you." I said.
"I haven't said anything." Ash said.
"See that you don’t."
Neither of their smiles diminished. I would perhaps permit Ash this level of disrespect. I would not permit the same for Edda.
Edda had come to find us earlier that morning, under direct instruction from the Archon. She had seen Sol for the first time then, and her gaze had been anything but flat then. She had approached.
Ren's attempts had been met with hissing, and biting. I had expected the same for the blue haired girl. Sol had tilted her head, considered Edda's approaching hand with one golden eye, and then -to my considerable confusion- permitted it. Edda had scratched beneath one of Sol's golden wings. Sol had trilled. While the sight had been annoying, I would remember that Sol seemed to like being scratched beneath her wings.
"Girl," I said to her now. "Tell me about these 'classes.' The Archon sent you to lead us to them, did he not?"
Edda did not seem bothered by the address. She reached into the pocket of her grey uniform and produced a small wooden tablet, thin enough to fit in one hand. Faintly glowing letters were carved into its surface, rearranging themselves as I watched. "What is that?" I asked.
Edda looked at me as if the answer were obvious. "Did…did Ren not tell you about this? She told me she showed you around.”
Ash and I looked at each other. “She did not.” Ash confirmed.
Edda let out something that might have been a groan. She pointed at the wooden thing. “No wonder you haven’t taken any classes then. This device shows all the classes currently available for your mark stage. Lines have a fairly wide selection, but it’s not like every class is running all the time. Nobody here has a fixed schedule, but you are supposed to attend a certain number every week. Attend certain classes at least once a week. Special students normally don’t have to attend even those but…." She shrugged and tilted the tablet so I could see it more clearly. The letters had rearranged themselves into what appeared to be a list, with times and locations beside each entry.
Ash leaned in from my other side. "That's very convenient," she said. "Why didn't we get one of these?"
Edda blinked. "You should have? It should have been in your room. Maybe you didn’t see it right away? Did you check the table drawers?"
Ash and I looked at each other again. We had never opened the drawer. It had never occurred to me that there might have been something important there. It seemed the same hadn’t occurred to Ash either.
"Perhaps," I said.
Edda sighed. "Ren…I swear. She should have told you both all of this. It was literally her job." She shook her head, though the gesture carried more resignation than frustration. "I guess it doesn't matter now."
She looked down at the tablet. "There are two classes starting soon. One is…Covenant History and Philosophy and the other one is…is Physical Conditioning. Take your pick, those are the only ones right now."
"It is not even a question," I said. "Lead the way to this conditioning class."
Edda nodded and started walking. Ash and I followed behind her. “I do wonder just why that girl was made our guide.” I said, in a low voice.
“Don’t think it’s an accident,” Ash said. Her own voice low. “Though the ‘why’ of it escapes me.”
We said nothing more as we kept walking. The Academy's corridors were busy. Students moved between hallways in small groups.
Almost all of them moved aside as we approached. It had been happening all morning, but the pattern was sharper here, where the corridors were narrower. A girl with a blue Line pressed herself into a doorframe as I passed. A boy ahead of us glanced back, saw my horns, and retreated into the nearest open door. Or he tried to. The door was closed, and he ended up colliding against it.
It was tiresome. I had ruled over millions, and even many of my own kind had flinched at the sight of me. The flinching of children was beneath my notice. Ash was less indifferent. I could see the tension in her stride, in the way her shoulders set each time someone pressed against a wall. "Don't," I said, quietly enough that only she could hear.
"I wasn't going to do anything."
"You were going to say something to that last one, weren’t you?"
Ash stared at me. Her eyes widened, which told me my guess had been right. It wasn’t only her who had learned to understand me.
"They're almost as afraid of you as they are of Ilyasviel," Edda remarked as we turned down another hallway.
"Ilyasviel? And who is this Ilyasviel?" I asked. I noted the name. It had four syllables, and there was a regal sound to it. It was not a bad name, I concluded.
"She’s just the strongest student at the Academy," Edda said.
"The strongest?" Ash asked from my side. "Like…physically or her mark is the farthest along?"
"It means exactly what I said." Edda's voice had not changed, but something beneath it had. "She's a half-demon with a Crest, and she's the strongest here, everyone knows that. She isn’t in the rankings -no consecrated student is- but even the first ranked Crest admitted she’s better than him. So she's the strongest. If that isn’t bad enough, then she has a Sovereign on top of that." Edda shook her head. I thought I saw her tremble.
A Sovereign mark? I felt the Cradle hum warmth on my left, and the Requiem hum cold on my right. How interesting. I would not mind seeing this ‘Ilyasviel’ for myself. I turned to Ash.
I could see her working through the implications. It was in the way her brows had furrowed. "You don't say that like it's a good thing," she said. "If the best student here is a half-demon, and she's earned her place at the top…that should be a good thing for you, shouldn't it?"
Edda sighed. She sighed loudly, which I hadn’t expected from her. "If only it were that simple," she said. "And if only it were anyone but Ilyasviel."
She did not elaborate. Ash and I both waited. Edda kept walking. I filed the name away with considerable interest. The strongest student at this Academy was a half-demon? A half-demon who inspired fear not just in the humans around her, but in other demonbloods as well. One who had a Sovereign mark. How very interesting.
Edda led us down a passageway I had not walked before. I knew this, because the hallway measurably changed. The stone here darkened. It darkened the deeper we went. Ren had led us to such a place when she’d taken us to the resonance chamber. We ran into no other students here.
The passageway ended at a heavy door. Edda paused with her hand on the latch. She turned to look at us. She looked back at the latch, then at us.
"This class is run by Inker Martial," she said. "He is..." She paused. The pause stretched long enough that I raised an eyebrow. "A little odd."
She opened the door before either of us could answer. The first thing either Ash or I heard was a shout so loud it might have rattled the stone beneath our feet.
"I TOLD YOU TO RUN WITH YOUR CHEST OUT, GOD DAMNIT! YOU THINK THAT PUNY BODY IS GONNA MAKE SIGIL?!"