“I have no quarrel with you, dy Valensis,” Corentin said amiably, all the while bearing down hard on Zephyrin’s upheld, mana-enveloped arm.

“You certainly do not,” Zephyrin agreed.

“You also know that as a prince of the blood, I have a responsibility toward my inferiors. I can’t very well twiddle my thumbs while an Alérian upstart strikes a highborn noble—and an upperclassman who happens to be one of my friends, no less. My honor is at stake.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Moreover, if it isn’t I who punish him, a prefect will assuredly mete out justice—justice stiffer than I am inclined to inflict here and now. You understand this, correct?”

“Perfectly.”

Corentin’s smile tightened. “Then why is it—” he said through gritted teeth, brow beading with sweat from exertion—“that you insist on standing in my way, dy Valensis?”

Zephyrin fell back a step, then increased the flow of his mana as Corentin redoubled his efforts at breaking through his guard. The scriptorium’s dust, roused from centuries of sleep, stirred and swirled around them as if kicked up by a team of horses. Encircled and watched by the other boys, Zephyrin couldn’t shake the impression of being a gladiator in a coliseum. He couldn’t see Roger but knew the boy was behind him, no doubt on pins and needles as he observed his efforts to stave off the older royal.

Roger had been more than willing to face the consequences of his foolhardy act, offering no resistance and standing stock-still with a meekness completely at odds with his earlier fire. He had closed his eyes as the prince advanced on him, bracing himself for the inevitable blow—but Zephyrin had interposed himself between him and Corentin’s retaliatory blow. That had been the easy part; now, he had to find a way to appease the prince…

“Part of me admires your concern for your friend, dy Valensis, but in this case it’s entirely misplaced!” Corentin declared, then swept his arm outward, a silver surge of mana rolling forward like a mighty breaker. Zephyrin readied himself, extending the ward around his arm to encompass his whole body, while several students on the sidelines hastily erected their own, clumsier barriers, afraid of getting caught in the crossfire.

Their precautions were unnecessary; the prince focused the entirety on his attack on Zephyrin’s ward, his magic running headlong against it like the roaring tide on a rock. For a moment Zephyrin’s ward seemed as if it would break; but then the surge rove into harmless wavelets, dissipating long before it reached the feet of the watching crowd. Zephyrin had not been moved.

The prince’s face showed a hint of uncertainty for the first time since the beginning of the altercation. “Curious,” he mused to himself. “I thought I put enough force into that.” Corentin tilted his head, studying Zephyrin as he gathered mana in his palm once more. Then he hesitated, a vaguely apologetic, almost guilty expression on his face. For a moment Zephyrin entertained the hope that an amicable solution might be found, but right then Loris entered Corentin’s field of vision, bloodied and leaning heavily on his classmate’s shoulder. At the sight of his injured comrade the prince’s expression hardened, and with renewed determination he raised his hand and unleashed his second assault.

Seeing Zephyrin struggle with the powerful youth’s magic, Viristin opened his mouth in wordless indignation and took a step forward, intending on lending assistance, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked back to see Nèreus shaking his head. “This a battle between two silvern-blooded nobles; we’d just get in the way,” he observed, the luminous interactions of mana reflected in his eyes. Viristin’s eyes widened at his words, and he quickly returned his gaze to the duel.

Zephyrin and the prince were now circling each other cautiously, maintaining a consistent distance with the brazier between them. The spell Nèreus had cast for warmth was long since extinguished. To ensure he didn’t tire himself out too quickly, Zephyrin had only a rectangular, shield-like ward around his arm, which he was ready to amplify at a moment’s notice. If Corentin was cognizant of this, he didn’t seem particularly worried about exhausting his own reserves, instead allowing his mana to flow out freely as an imposing aura.

The standoff continued until the prince took Zephyrin off-guard—not with an attack, but by unexpectedly halting in place and performing an elegant bow, to Zephyrin’s bemusement.

“You’ll have to forgive me for my lack of manners. As a son of House Valensis, you’re surely accustomed to less crude training sessions,” Corentin said good-naturedly, hand in pocket. He then held out his right hand and coalesced his mana in the form of a translucent hilt, which he seized and lengthened at regular intervals, his stream of achromatic mana soon forming a dress sword moiré in appearance and as reflective as quicksilver. Adopting a dueling stance, he made an experimental lunge forward, testing the weight of his artificial blade with a self-satisfied air.

The youth seemed so enthused by the prospect of an unregulated sparring session that Zephyrin suspected the incident which had sparked their bout in the first place had altogether slipped his mind. However, there was just one problem…

“What are you waiting for, Zephyrin?” Corentin exclaimed, now switching a standard en garde stance. “Show me your House’s famed Pardine Style!”

Zephyrin’s mana flowed unevenly for a moment. Pardine? What was the prince talking about? He thought back to Abbé Beauvran’s instructions on Gaulyrian nobility and House Valensis in particular, trying to link the prince’s words to what he had hastily inculcated before leaving Estrelti, but to no avail; his curate hadn’t said a word about swordsmanship.

Meanwhile, Corentin’s mouth curled into a grin, then opened wide as he laughed incredulously. “Zephyrin! Is this really the time to be hoarding secret techniques? You’re up against the secondborn of the Prince third in line to the throne! I’m showing you the courtesy of going all out: kindly do the same!” With that, Corentin forcefully pushed off a brightly glowing heel, propelling himself forward with unnatural strength.

Zephyrin barely raised his arm in time to deflect the blow, sucking in a sharp breath as the youth’s blade violently impacted against his ward. Spark-like fragments of mana erupting in the air as they broke off from his amorphous excuse for a shield. He found himself wholly on the defensive as Corentin thrust over and over, his thin sword seeming almost hammer-like as it mercilessly sought to penetrate through the anvil of Zephyrin’s barrier.

I’m not taking you lightly!…

Crack. A fissure in the shield. Zephyrin injected fresh streams of mana into his ward, frantically repairing it as it threatened to collapse.

… I just have no idea what you’re talking about!

Failing to notice how close he had come to breaking through, Corentin grimaced and prematurely abandoned his attack, falling back briefly to catch his breath and refashion his blade. He infused it with more mana impatiently, his eyes alight with boyish glee. “Your endurance is impressive, for a first year! It seems I’ll have to use a little more… finesse.” Corentin’s stance only changed imperceptibly, but Zephyrin felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. What was he plotting now?

“That’s the Sanct-Àura Dolphin Stance…!” drifted a hushed comment from behind him, confirming his suspicion that Corentin was preparing to unleash a consequential attack—and in all likelihood, his most powerful attack yet.

A bead of sweat rolled down Zephyrin’s brow.

Should I use the asterite…?

“Prepare yourself,” Corentin said deliberately, breaking into Zephyrin’s thoughts as he concentrated his mana in the tip of his blade. “If you intend on defending this attack, you’ll need to use the techniques of House—”

“He’s not a dy Valensis!” rang out a muffled but decided voice from near the stairway. Zephyrin and Corentin’s eyes both flew in its direction. There they saw the third year Roger had struck. Now standing unaided but still clutching a handkerchief to his nose, Loris d’Arx fixed Zephyrin and the little group standing behind him with a baleful expression. “He’s not a dy Valensis!” the boy repeated, more loudly this time.

“Not a dy—Loris, what on earth are you…” said Corentin, his breathing ragged from the strain of preparing his technique.

“My cousins are Valensi; I’ve been to Valens! Your Highness, he isn’t one of them! They train all their sons in the dueling arts as soon as they can hold a sword! Who… Whoever this runt is, he’s an impostor!”

Zephyrin’s mouth went dry. He had expected this to happen sooner or later—but now? In this place, with a prince of the blood bearing down on him, and a gallery of onlookers ready to spread the particulars of this encounter like wildfire around the lyceum?

As the prince’s gaze flitted from Zephyrin to Loris, then back to Zephyrin again, the perplexed expression that had deepened during their duel gradually morphed into suspicion as Corentin considered the merits of his friend’s argument; though not yet lending full credence to Loris’s words, he couldn’t deny that there was something very unusual about the foe standing before him. “Are… Are you a bastard?” Corentin finally demanded. A wan smile almost rose to Zephyrin’s lips as his speculation about Nèreus’s background was now applied to him. “I’m no bastard, Your Highness.”

“Can you affirm that the blood of Valens flows in your veins?” Corentin pursued in a challenging tone, and if his blade had been often foiled, his tongue struck home with ease. Zephyrin had no reply to offer.

The prince’s eyes narrowed. “Not a bastard, but not a blood descendant of the House…?” Corentin muttered, his tone full of doubt. He stared at Zephyrin intently, and from the way his fine features contracted into a scowl, Zephyrin perceived that his lack of forthcomingness was being taken as a personal insult. He tried to think of an answer that would satisfy the prince without revealing his identity; before he could, Corentin said something that almost caused Zephyrin’s ward to fail altogether.

“Whoever you are, don’t expect a place by my side under the new kingdom…” Corentin’s tone was low, almost inaudible.

… What?

What did he just say? The new kingdom?

Does he know something about the imminent rebellion…?

“Dy Sanct-Àura—” Zephyrin began urgently, only to stagger as the prince in his irritation poured out his mana powerfully, forcing Zephyrin back.

“Enough talk! Mock me by holding back if you like; either way, I’m going to—”

“Your Highness.” This second interruption came from the meditative third year by Loris’s side, and Zephyrin realized this was the first time he had actually heard the boy speak.

“What?” Corentin snapped, his eyes not leaving his opponent.

“Listen.”

As the two combatants allowed a brief truce, the hum of their coursing mana ceded to the deep, swelling tones of the church’s bells, signaling the commencement of vespers to the lyceum’s faculty and students. Lost in all the action had been all perception of the passage of time, and not one of the boys had remarked upon the change in the light streaming into the musty scriptorium, the early afternoon effulgence cooling to the soft ruddy hues shed by a sun falling fast to the horizon.

Zephyrin felt the tension drain out of his body. The stillness that had reigned over the long dormant scriptorium regained its ascendance; the rutilance of sundown offered a jarring contrast to the harsh light thrown off by his and Corentin’s clashes. Despite his recent exertion he shivered, suddenly conscious of the chilly air on his skin as it infiltrated the dilapidated section of the monastery they presently occupied.

He knew he wasn’t the only one to have the impression of waking from a dream of sorts, several of the assembled spectators blinking rapidly as the tolling of the bells served as an insistent, unignorable reminder of the outside world and their obligations as students. The electric atmosphere in the room abruptly dissolved for all those present, replaced by a sudden panic at the realization that they were terribly late, and their absences would assuredly be noticed by the prefects.

“My prince…” dy Castellélur tried again.

Corentin slackly held his pulsing sword at his side, a prey to indecision as his mana roiled around him. Then it calmed, and before long in his hand there remained only a hilt, then its outline, and finally nothing at all as he allowed the spell to come undone. “Consider us even, dy Valensis,” the prince said, calmly taking in the sight of Zephyrin’s bruises. “I’ll content myself with whatever punishment the Grand Prefect doles out to your friend. But if you or any of your merry band ever raise a hand against one of my classmates…”

“I understand, Your Highness. We all do,” Zephyrin added significantly, looking over his shoulder at the speechless group behind him. Garsil, his followers, and the majority of the boys were suitably cowed; Viristin was ashen-faced before the prodigious display; Nèreus’s lips were pursed and his head slightly bowed. But Roger… Roger, to Zephyrin’s amazement, seemed on the verge of back-talking at this condition. Did the boy have a death wish? In the end the Alérian subsided, but only after Zephyrin bore down on him with a look laden in unspoken warning.

Facing forward again once he was satisfied by Roger’s acquiescence, he saw that Corentin had regained his composure, and was now even wearing a faint smile on his lips. The youth said lightly, “With that matter out of the way… thank you for the sparring session. It was… enjoyable. Now begone, all of you; though I’ll put in a word to Father Director, I can’t save you from a caning if you’re not in church by the final bell.”

As Corentin watched his younger school fellows hurriedly disappear down the stairwell, he called out casually to the departing Zephyrin. “Dy Valensis! One last thing…”

Zephyrin stopped, then looked over his shoulder deliberately. “Yes, Your Highness…?”

Corentin held out his hands, his palms facing upward in a placatory, even inviting gesture. “Welcome to the Friends of Truth.”