Esen blinked, then laughed, too loud at first and then honest. "Point taken."
Kori plucked the pin from the dummy and returned the badge to his palm - casual, inevitable. "Wear it lower if you plan to gesture at people. I like your face attached to your head."
She didn’t dwell on it. She was already moving, and the room remembered how to breathe again.
"Next," she called. "Spar hall. Try to keep up. If you get lost, follow the trail of chaos."
Feris fell into step with Raizen, eyes bright like she’d just learned something she planned to store for later. "She’s fast."
"She is," Raizen said.
"I don’t know yet, but someday I will be able to respond to that question with ’Nah, no way.’"
Feris hummed, satisfied with the kind of answer that left the future wide open.
The spar hall turned out to be a cavern of mirrors and light. The floor was polished to a shine that made it feel like water without the slip. Rings were marked in pale gold on the ground, but the rings could slide like coins on a table, joining, separating, shrinking, expanding at the touch of a control on the wall. Two students tested a paired routine in the far corner - the clack and slide of their aluminum weapons carried and softened into echo. An old man in a robe corrected their feet with a stick.
"Public spar," Kori said. "Don’t bleed on the mirrors. The custodians will weep and then I’ll have to buy them pastries again and I’m trying to look like I have self control."
"You don’t," Arashi said.
"I have focused control, alright?" Kori said. "I control the act of buying four pastries and then giving two away and then eating three. Isn’t that obvious?"
"No, and that’s five," Hikari said, frowning.
"However you say" Kori said, delighted.
They crossed a bridge that jumped a narrow chasm spanned by a glass roof below. The sunlight found the red banners and they looked as if they were burning. Raizen glanced down and saw a classroom through the glass - long desks, brass lamps, walls painted florals and patterns, a trio of clocks that told three different times. He wondered what it meant to hold three times in your head at once. He wondered if that was what Eon was - time agreeing to be more than one thing.
"Eon," Kori said, as if she had guessed the thought from his expression. "You won’t touch it for a while. You’ll want to. The very energy that flows through both your bodies and Luminite. The unfair advantage this academy offers. You’ll try to sneak into the lab and a very small, very old woman will appear behind you and say no. Last time when I tried, 2 glass tubes were broken on my back. When it’s time, you will know. After all, it’s the spotlight of the Academy! Until then, you learn not to be stupid with the things that like to be stupid back."
"Is there a class on that?" Keahi asked.
"There’s obviously a lifestyle on that" Kori said.
They paused at a balcony that hung over a secondary courtyard. Icicle-clear water spilled into an octagonal pool that had been lined with midnight tiles. The red banners sewn with the lotus crown rippled overhead. At one end, what had to be upper-class Royal Scholars stood in a huddle around a tall man who spoke like he expected obedience and got it. Get full chapters from noᴠelfire.net
Arashi’s gaze sharpened. "The older brats."
"Mm," Kori said. "You won’t be in their pockets. They’ve got their own work. One of them just lost four teammates to a thing that ate light and didn’t burp." She said it like weather, but Raizen felt the room drop a degree anyway. "You’ll meet them when it’s useful for you and not before."
They reached a straight avenue of stone that led to a set of heavy doors. The lotus crown emblem had been set into those doors in hammered iron, the petals fused into the crown base like a coronation you could touch.
Inside, what picky students would call the Hall of Petals. High arched ceiling, stunning chandeliers, the floor a mosaic of petals arranged in a spiral that made you feel like you were walking down into the heart of a flower. Rooms branched off like chambers. Students flowed in every direction. The noise hit like surf.
"Why are there so many?" he asked, low to the group. "Wasn’t it just the top ten?"
Lynea’s eyebrows made a very small, very judgmental movement. "There are always more than ten."
"Standard entrance," Ichiro said, which was the most Ichiro had said in an hour.
Hikari blinked. "Standard what?"
Kori made a show of checking her nail. "Right. I forgot to mention. You didn’t take the standard exam."
"What did we take?" Raizen asked slowly.
"You took the Elite exam," Kori said. She said it like she was telling them the flavor of the day at her favorite bakery. "Congratulations. You signed up for the class where the homework throws things back at you."
There was a hitch in the sound of the hall, like the building itself had snorted at their faces. Raizen became aware of his mouth being open and closed it because he didn’t want to feed Kori any more material.
"Wait," Keahi said. "So... they-" she gestured at the sea of slate uniforms "...took a different test...?"
"Written stage, physical stage. Simple. Not easy – not easy at all, but simple." Kori explained.
"They’re good. They’re going to be better. They’ll go into research, support, operations, all the spines the world sits on. You eight and the four ahead of you took the exam for people who get to be shiny and miserable at the same time. Royal Scholars are on the Vanguard track by default. Doesn’t mean you’ll make it. Does mean the remaining Phalanx decided to pay too much attention to you."
Feris’s jaw had indeed dropped. She flapped it shut, then tried to look like she had known all along. "Of course."
"Obviously," Kori agreed, pleased.
A first year skidded to a stop near them, breathless. He looked at Raizen with the expression of someone who had just seen an animal that shouldn’t exist. "You’re the one who did the impossible flash."
Raizen winced. "Please don’t call it that."
"What should I call it?"
The boy beamed. "I’m going to try a bad decision too!"
"No-" Lynea started but never finished. Instead she threw an ugly look at Raizen, to which he responded with raising his arms. He was saying "Hey, look, it wasn’t my fault I needed to do it!"
Kori patted the boy on the shoulder. "Library for you. Seventh stack, third row, the ninety-five, I think. A book that scares you and make it your friend. If you still want to be Raizen after lunch, come back and we’ll talk about your ankles."
The boy ran off, thrilled to have been dismissed.
Kori turned to the eight as if she had just remembered they were there. "Right. Expectations. Because Vanguard 1 got completely wiped out, the timeline moved. Usually the Royal Scholars get a year to pretend they’re students. You’ll get less. Half a year, if you’re lucky. That’s not because the city wants to break you. It’s because the world keeps calling at bad hours. You’ll train up here with everyone else. You’ll study until your eyes hate you. You’ll be kind to first years. You’ll wear your badges like invitations, not barriers. And when the time comes, you’ll go downstairs and learn why I keep telling you not to trip."
"Downstairs?" Raizen echoed, but Kori had already pivoted.
"Lunch now!" she announced. "There’s a library with a ridiculous tree growing inside because someone decided photosynthesis belongs indoors. We’ll sit there and I’ll tell you where not to nap. Someone remind me to tell you about the professor who collects pins. No, that’s not a metaphor."