Peak of Spring, Week 2, Day 4

  “I’m not going,” Nora declared, abruptly stopping before she got to the Magic Tower.

  Beside her, Uriel Hyperion stood as a bastion of summer warmth—with his straw-like hair and golden eyes. His appearance was betrayed by the fact that the weather was still too cool to allow for shorts. Thus, he was in a burnt orange jacket and pants, with shining embroidery that sparkled in the midmorning sun.

  “Stop being dramatic, you do this every week.” Uriel rolled his eyes and passed by Nora, who had an utterly miserable expression on her face.

  “This is unfair. Why doesn’t Master Kroll ever harass you? You’re the son of a Marquis!” It wasn’t quite a whine, but it was a near thing, and it made Uriel laugh.

  There were few things that had that effect on Nora. Usually, if she was unhappy, she just disappeared—she wasn’t one to suffer publicly. Not to say she didn’t experience such things, Uriel wasn’t blind, far from it.

  “I’m not the granddaughter of his childhood friend, now am I?” He teased, holding the door open for Nora and ushering her inside. He followed immediately behind, but still propped the door open for the rest of their entourage.

  “All he does is tell old stories,” Nora sighed, leading the two of them up the stairwell. “I’ve never even met my grandfather!”

  “That’s because you’re not set to inherit your house, Dawn,” came the smug voice that Uriel had come to despise.

  “Ed, I swear, it’s too early for this,” Nora said, walking right by the Horus boy and making her way into her and Uriel’s usual seats.

  Occasionally, other nobles built up the nerve to sit next to them, but it’d grown less common over the past year—mostly due to the fact that many of them weren’t fans of Uriel himself. And, when one of them said something snide about him, Nora took offense on his behalf. Thus, it was the two of them who sat in the front left row, with a generous amount of space around them.

  Except for Horus, who was trailing along, his face growing pink as he spoke. “It’s true! My father said you must be the lowest of your siblings if the Duchess let you come out to the borderlands.”

  Nora hummed, pulling out her books.

  “Considering two of my siblings haven’t even Awakened yet, that doesn’t seem fair to say. Besides, if I’m the worst of the Dawns, what does that say about you?” Horus blinked, but Nora barely even paused. “I’ll be surprised if you make it to Year 2 without remedial lessons.”

  That, however, had the boy spluttering. “Take that back!”

  Looking up from her desk, Uriel watched Nora scan Horus’s face. He watched as she took in the redness of his cheeks, the watering of his eyes, the crossing of his arms. Uriel had already seen the signs, but maybe Nora did too.

  “I’m sorry, Ed,” she said softly, her blue eyes clear as a winter sky, “I was distracted, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Horus’s cheeks continued to darken, but Uriel didn’t really care about that, so he shoved past him to take his seat by Nora.

  “Horus,” Uriel said dryly, “Are you going to sit? Because if not, it’s nearly time for class.”

  As Horus fled back to his side of the room, Uriel peered over at Nora, scrutinizing her. She narrowed her gaze back at him.

  “What’s the matter with you?” She asked.

  “You coddle him,” he said simply.

  When Nora laughed, the iridescence that decorated her hair sparkled in the magelights, and the star-shaped gems that were embedded into the woven strands cast rainbows on the desk. Uriel found himself laughing along.

  “It’s not his fault,” she said softly. “Baron Horus raised him, and those were Baron Horus’s words. One day, Ed will have a thought all of his own.”

  “That day can’t come soon enough,” Uriel grumbled, pulling out his own notebook.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  After class that day, Uriel went with Nora up to the highest floor of the tower—a horrible amount of stairs that Mun complained about every week and refused to climb. Outside Master Kroll’s office, Uriel sat in the same spot as always. A red chair that looked terribly uncomfortable, without so much as a single cushion. Sitting down, Uriel sank slightly into the wood, and he could feel the enchantments brushing against his [Mana Sense].

  “I’ll just be in for a cup of tea, then we can do lunch,” Nora promised right before the nuisance himself opened his office door.

  “Ah! Young Nora! What a pleasant surprise—do come in,” Master Kroll ushered the girl inside, before looking back at Uriel with a smile. “Young Lord Hyperion, a pleasure as always. Won’t you join us today?”

  Shaking his head, Uriel pulled out a notebook. “Studying, sir. Lots to do.”

  “Wonderful,” Master Kroll said, letting the door close behind him.

  Silence filled the waiting room, and Uriel pretended he didn’t catch the betrayed look Nora had sent his way. They only ever talked for a quarter of an hour, anyway—truly no longer than it took a cup of tea to go cold. Nora was adamant on it, Uriel knew. She didn’t care to hear about Duke Killian, never mind that he was one of the strongest Dukes of Dawn in living memory.

  Uriel quietly slipped the adventure novel he had been reading late into the night out of his jacket, encasing it in his notebook to hide the cover from prying eyes, and continued to ‘study’ until Nora slipped out of the office. Alone, thankfully.

  “What’re you reading today, then?” She hummed, pulling the novel from his hands. “Mage Lord: Julian? Where did you even get this?”

  Uriel quickly took his book back, gingerly packing it up, before answering. “At a bookstore.”

  “Duh,” Nora smiled. “Hey, should we grab copies for the others? We could all read it together.”

  He knew who Nora meant: the Mithril kids. Remour, Louis, and Beck. Prior to Nora joining, they’d been casual friends, chatting at the Academy but not much more. Now, though, they spent every Eighth Day together. Their second year at the Academy was quickly approaching, and soon they would form a group for team fighting. Uriel dreaded the day that Horus would be allowed to challenge him to a duel. Annoying.

  “Yeah, sure. Think Beck even knows how to read?” Uriel said lightly as they started descending the Tower.

  “Don’t be rude.” Nora knocked into Uriel’s shoulder gently. “I’m going to grab a couple of other things too, it’s Remour’s birthday soon, and I want to make sure she has a good one.”

  “Rich, coming from the girl who didn’t tell us her birthday until after the fact.”

  Nora’s smile twitched, but didn’t fall. Uriel noticed, however, the way Nora was stretching out her palm. Uriel decided to let the topic drop.

  “Anyway, the Fritter for lunch and tea?” Uriel pressed on.

  “Happily.” His friend hummed.

  As they walked, Uriel wondered when that had happened. When had he started thinking of Nora as a friend? He was a Hyperion. Hyperions weren’t meant to be friendly with the family of Dawn. When his family had been elevated to Marquis, it was under the condition that they maintain enough power to challenge the Dawns—and they had to be able to do it at a moment’s notice. Usually, Dawns steered clear of Hyperions on principle. The Ancestral Counts hated the idea of having a ‘Watcher.’

  Uriel was sympathetic to the plight. To an extent. Dawns, historically, brought about change to the Queendom. And much of it was negative change. They fought wars on behalf of the Queen, but they did so brutally and without an ounce of restriction. They protected the largest border in the country, and they did it well, but their knights were wild, commoners or fifth children of noble families that had stumbled upon Classes that were too dangerous to leave alone. Dawn collected them like trinkets.

  It was one of the many reasons Uriel would have preferred to keep his distance from Nora. His [Observe] Skill went wild around her. He saw too much. [Young Lord of Hyperion] was a dynamic Class that was directly impacted by which Classes the latest generation of Dawns had unlocked.

  Slowly, his Skill had revealed her own Class—[Young Lady of Darkness]. He tried not to think about it too much. His father had certainly not been pleased by the fact.

  At some point, Uriel and Nora had taken to going to lunch after the Tower—even if neither of their etiquette teachers let them out of Seventh Day events. Settling into their usual spots, Uriel watched as Nora was delivered the blue concoction she always got.

  “I still don’t understand why they make that for you,” Uriel grumbled. “It was seasonal.”

  Nora gave him a pitying look. “I pay them, of course.”

  “Yes, that’s how buying things works,” Uriel said, his eyes on his own brown drink as he put in a few cubes of sugar. Tea with milk, just as he liked it.

  “No, you aren’t listening,” Nora’s voice was serious, and when Uriel looked up at her, his [Observe] Skill’s passive aspect activated, and he felt his stomach clench.

  “You pay them extra—I was listening.”

  Uriel hadn’t been, not really. Not until his Skill told him he was missing something. Nora’s frown didn’t disappear, but she left it alone and slid back into her chair, tapping her dark nails against the wood.

  Not for the first time, Uriel caught Nora’s shadow shifting. They’d never talked about it, not really. One day, Nora had simply invited him over for Eighth Day to train, and when he stepped into position, she’d summoned weapons of shadows to dance around him while she stood across the training grounds. He’d never asked what that show of trust meant. Never pushed for answers.

  If he had them, he knew he’d have to tell his father. And the thought of that had twisted Uriel’s stomach much like his [Observe] Skill.

  Shortly after that day, the rest of the Mithril kids had joined in. Incidentally, it had taken four weeks before they all appeared at the Dawn Manor outside Fellan at the same time. Uriel figured Nora had done the same thing to each of them. How she had convinced Remour to come along was beyond him, though.

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