“Name me any great hero, king, or scholar, and I will show you the competition they stepped over to reach their glory.”

-Royal Historian Maybet

4993 A.D. Fifth day of the seventh week of Autumn. Eleventh Bell of the Morning. Classroom 1A of the Royal Magic Academy.

Rolf stole glances at the girl next to him, he had recognised her the moment she had walked in, he had only dreamed of their meeting five times in the last few weeks so it was only when he noticed who was escorting her that he snapped his dangling jaw shut.

Damn, the prince was already putting his moves on her, and from the looks of it she was eating it up.

Then something wonderful happened. The professor mentioned the prince's name and her face froze up. Was she?

The girl sat down next to him; she chose to sit next to him! Did that mean she remembered him fondly? Wait, calm down Rolf. That was the only empty seat. She had no choice.

Rolf held down a snigger. His ostracization among the nobility present was now paying dividends. Oh, the looks on the other boys faces right now, the jealousy was palpable! The Silver hair beauty only had girls to her left, front and both front sides.

The girl had her head down, supported by both hands as they massaged her temples; she was obviously upset, and Rolf reached out a hand subconsciously, quickly yanking it back when he heard professor Hedilier call out her name a second later.

Cooper, her family name was Cooper.

Rolf frowned, there were no Coopers in the Nolusburg, he knew this because his mother had forced him to learn the names and families of all the nobility that resided in Nolusburg not three month back. Her intent had been to teach him who he should make friends with at the academy and who was a potential marriage prospect, but it puzzled him now.

She had also seemed familiar with the underside of the city when last they met, speaking in colloquial terms, and wearing, well, her state of attire had been decidedly risque, Rolf remembered.

These thoughts all flashed through his mind as the girl finally heard the professor’s repeated request and slid from her seat, firmly striding to the front, her hair bouncing behind her in shimmering waves of silver.

Rolf swallowed a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding as she turned and gave a very proper curtsey.

And then he knew her name. Henrietta.

He smiled at her as she made her way back, but got startled at the frown she gave him.

She sat back down and leant over to him. Her scent brushed his nose, he couldn’t immediately place it, but the faint fragrance was delightful.

“Not a word to anyone, we need to talk, later, in private.”

“S-sure, no p-problem.” he stuttered in reply.

Cursed tongue, it failed him at the worst moments!

Rolf felt heat infuse his face and quickly looked away, peeking back at her only once his breath had steadied.

She seemed preoccupied with her thoughts, and a good thing too. He was far from the only student sneaking glances her way.

Rolf let his gaze sidle sideways and caught a variety of expressions from his classmates. Envy, disdain, lust, even some icy hatred from one girl. Well, Euphemia Ironhold had quite openly staked her claim to the prince and beat down every other female challenger so far in one maneuver or another.

The professor must have realised his students lacked their usual attentiveness, because he shifted from their planned lesson on the habits and habitats of rare monster fauna and flora towards a flashier one on magic casting.

It worked, heads shifted back so as not to be seen staring as Henrietta’s own snapped up. An eager look of anticipation on her face was the last Rolf saw before he turned his own gaze frontwards.

Yet he could not concentrate, for a light jasmine scent scrambled his thoughts.

………………………………...

Guppy watched as the professor scribed a magic circle in the air using mana that flowed from his index finger, explaining the various parts as he went. Now this was more like it! This was proper magic! She listened as he extrapolated his method.

“Once you have set the stabilizing rings, you can then start filling in the outer runes, Pledie’s rule states they should all be done in a clockwise fashion, but modern casters agree that a more stable route is to scribe the first ring clockwise, and then the inner second ring of runes in a anticlockwise fashion for greater stability and output. Like so. Some of these runes you will find in the lesser spell firebolt, which will be a focus for the first semester here, only next year are you expected to have proficiency with all twenty-seven runes comprising the fireball spell I am showcasing here.”

Guppy gasped in delight as a fireball formed and shot over their heads to impact the far wall. A shimmering barrier lit up briefly as it absorbed the impact before turning translucent once more.

“Now who here wants to try out their bolt spells? The barrier on the wall is quite sturdy I assure you.” Asked the professor.

Hands shot up and Guppy watched on as a variety of smaller spells slammed into the practice barrier. Firebolts, water balls, Earth spikes and wind blades flying as the students sought to one up each other.

Guppy wasn’t impressed, the teachers fireball had been rather flashy, and these attempts felt slow and weak compared to its example. She was about to turn her sight to her textbook when a skinny blond girl with blue eyes stood and leveled a challenging glare at her.

As guppy blinked from the directed animosity, the girl turned and quickly scribed a spell with both her index fingers in the air, completing it far quicker than her peers. The temperature dropped slightly as an ice lance formed, and then shot forward with a lethal velocity before shattering on the barrier.

“Bravo, Miss Ironhold!” called professor Hedilier, “Tier two magic at such a young age, and mastery of dual scribing! Nothing less from the daughter of General Ironhold himself!”

The teacher was not the only one cheering for miss Ironhold, many of the young men and women were also clapping and whistling. Yet Guppy caught the girl’s quick glance at Duncan, and the flush that rose to her cheeks when she realised the prince had ignored her display and was still focused on the new student.

Guppy turned her eyes back to her textbook in an attempt to ignore the developing situation. Surely if she ignored it and pretended she saw nothing it would leave her be. Lets see, where were the runes for earth shard? Ah here we go.

Guppy felt a presence sweep up to her desk and a chillingly polite voice speak

“Perhaps miss Cooper can show us how magic is done in the provinces? She has yet to go and I am sure it’ll be a fascinating display.”

Guppy looked up to see Ironhold’s frosty smile. The girl wanted to mess with her? Well perfect, she wanted to try some magic, why not give it a go? What’s the worst that could happen with a basic tier spell when she had the clear instructions and runes to perform it.

So she smiled back and replied, adding a little twist to her words, “It would be my pleasure miss…”

“Euphemia Ironhold. You may call me Euphemia. Henrietta, I may call you Henrietta mayn’t I? I am sure we will be wonderful friends so first names are a must!” answered Stacy with a wide grin.

Guppy wanted to plant her fist in that smug face, maybe even a boot. Sadly, she was a lady now, and had a persona to uphold. So she smiled back, however forced it was, and stood, moving to the back of the classroom with her textbook.

Her actions brought several sniggers from amongst the girls as Guppy held the book open with one hand and slowly scribed the magic circle with her other.

A lot of the runes looked familiar, she had engraved hundreds of different pieces of magitech in her time working for Friedrich so a lot were natural, but others were new, and Guppy didn’t have the time to read the detailed explanation of their effects, she merely copied the spell out of the book as quickly as possible. There were only seven runes for the basic earth spike spell after all.

The result was less than perfect but it held up, only it did not shine brown as the other earth spells had done, but shifted along a range of subtle browns and yellows, perfectly normal right?

But as Guppy tried to force mana into the circle to activate it, several runes warped and the circle went all squigley.

Mud rapidly ejected out the circle, the wrong way, smacking Guppy full in the face and knocking her to the ground, where she slipped once more while trying to stand.

“Well, I suppose that's what we can expect from a provincial, they all like wallowing in the mud with their zugzugs.” whispered one girl standing next to Euphemia.

Euphemia said not a word, but as Guppy finally stood up and wiped mud from her eyes, she couldn’t miss the smug, condescending smile on Stacy’s face.

Guppy really, really wanted to hit something right then. Her pulse hammered in her ears as her fists clenched and her fury boiled over.