One avenue of advancement that had, at least, been open to Cassiel over the years had been the shaping of her wing.

As one’s Implants grew, over time, their direction and shape could be partially directed, subtly angled and adjusted so as to create a wing word adapted for manoeuvrability, or speed, or long distance flight, and so on. Doing so in any detail required one to ‘spend’ their suffusion, so to speak, on creating further Crystals, growing existing ones, or altering details.

With nothing else to spend her suffusion on, Cassiel had spent the last ten years carving miniscule, razor sharp hooks into each Crystal in her wing.

It had been clumsy, and entirely too expensive and difficult, at first - but the years had passed, and the process had become almost meditative. She had not been sure, realistically, if it would have any measurable effect on her Sunshots - but at the very least, if someone tried to grab her wing, they would receive a nasty surprise.

Two years ago, however, she had found that channelling her Sunshots along these tiny spikes let her create a crescent-like wave of cutting power.

The process having borne fruit, she doubled down, tried to optimise for the one thing that might give her an edge.

And so she came to be standing within a cavernous dip on the face of the valley, an area scarred by some old event and with only now the beginnings of foliage springing up.

Across from her, the stony face of an embedded boulder was lacerated and torn, scarred by months of training her Sunrays. Her back was to the valley, but the Sunlight Aurora provided plenty of light to see by anyway. Her suffusion ebbed with each attack, but a few moments of rest was enough to bring her back to fighting form.

She crouched, bracing her legs, then brought the crystalline shards of her wing to cover the front of her torso, concentrating a buildup of suffusion within them. She could feel it bleed outward into the razor-like barbs and points she had painstakingly carved into the wing- and when the buildup reached the point of pain, she sliced her wing diagonally, the wingtip crossing the distance between her right shoulder and the ground next to her foot in an instant.

In that same instant, a whistling, screeching crescent of yellow-orange light tore free of her Crystals and surged towards the stone - where, with one further shriek, it gouged a deep furrow, serrated across every dimension.

Cassiel stood there for a moment, panting, and waited for the suffusion to swell back to its normal abundance.

“What was that?” came a dumbfounded voice from behind her.

Cassiel whirled, wing coming in to tuck itself defensively over one shoulder, and spotted Danion standing at the edge of the dip.

He was tall for his age, face still thick with remnants of baby fat despite the muscular physique years of training had given the Academy students. Close-cropped blonde hair stuck up in unruly tufts from his deep tan skin, and his blue eyes were wide and staring - past her, at the stone she had been practising on.

Self-consciously, Cassiel tucked her own platinum locks behind her ears, a flutter of panic touching at the edge of her heart.

“Lord Danion,” she said, touching one wingtip to her forehead in the Valley’s typical sign of respect.

“I thought you were a cripple!” the class clown exclaimed, stepping off from the edge of dip and floating down towards her. “Wow… will wonders ever cease?”

Cassiel grit her teeth. “Please, my lord,” she said, trying to keep her voice from revealing the undercurrent of fear. “Please don’t tell anyone else, I swear I’ll do anything, please just keep this a secret-!”

“What?” Danion finally tore his eyes away from the stone and gave her a look of puzzlement. “Why wouldn’t you want to tell people? Everyone thinks you’re useless, you know.”

Of course I know, you fucking idiot, she thought.

“They wouldn’t understand,” she said instead. “They would think I’m just putting myself at risk.”

Danion blinked a few times, as though he hadn’t considered that angle. “Are you?” he asked, voice hesitant.

“No!” She exclaimed. “I’ve been doing this for-” she hesitated at the thought of giving him too much information. “For a while, now. And… it’s finally starting to pay off. So please, you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Okay, okay,” Danion said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I promise I won’t tell.”

She sighed. “Thank you,” Cassiel said, and turned to begin walking back to her house, the secluded little cottage on the edge of the communal housing area.

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Danion said, lifting off and darting forward to land in front of her. “Just like that?”

She eyed him with a furrowed, suspicious brow. “Yes,” she replied. “Why?”

“Well, I don’t know…” he said, clearly wracking his brain. “Do you… want some tips? Or something?”

From the guy who carves out obscene images every flying day while Juediel is trying to teach? The scathing retort hesitated at the tip of her tongue, before she swallowed it.

“Of course,” she replied, forcing a smile. “I would be very grateful.”

I just need to keep the idiot quiet for one night, she consoled herself. In the long run, one night tolerating him isn’t so bad.

“Okay,” Danion said, grinning confidently and taking up a position across from the boulder. “The first thing you wanna know is that the Implants let us stockpile this weird energy thing, which can be used for a bunch of different things…”

It was all Cassiel could do not to audibly groan.

***

An hour and a half later, Danion was still showing off the precision with which he could carve a primitive likeness of his own face into the surface of the rock.

“Lord Danion,” Cassiel gently interrupted, only for the oblivious boy to interrupt her in return.

“Please, Cass, call me Danion,” he smiled at her.

When did I give you permission to call me Cass, she stopped herself from retorting. Instead, she gave him a tight smile and continued.

“Danion, then,” she said, her voice low and soothing. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to your House now? Won’t your mother and father be worried.”

“Ah,” Danion said. “Yeah. I- I guess.”

He didn’t move.

“Do you… not… want to go back?” Cassiel asked, hesitant. She felt intrusive even for asking, but the bounds of politeness had put her in an annoying situation - her practise time had been entirely taken up by Danion’s pretense at teaching, and now she wanted to go home and sleep.

“Tomorrow I start my apprenticeship,” he said. Cassiel frowned a little at the non-sequitur. “I’ve met the guy before - he’s a cousin of mine, an Elite who’s taken our family’s style to extreme heights. He’s strong, and impressive, and he’s going to be my teacher for the next four years of my life.”

“You seem…” Cassiel searched for any phrase other than, like a whining little baby. “Not very excited,” she finally settled on.

“I… I don’t know,” Danion finally admitted, slumping over to sit with his back against the boulder. After a moment, Cassiel cursed inwardly and went over to sit beside him. “He’s great, but… it’s like my parents have decided the exact course of my life, you know? Get the apprenticeship from the teacher we choose, train until we tell you to stop, join the Elites for as long as we decide, take over the House once we tell you it’s time… I want to be in control of my own destiny, I guess.”

Cassiel practically had to bite her tongue to stop from blowing up at the boy. You think you’re not in control of your own destiny? She screamed internally. Every single one of the Valley Wards would kill to be you! You think they want to join the Guardians?

That wasn’t entirely fair, she knew, but the sheer obliviousness of the boy was simply astounding.

“When I start my apprenticeship, he’s going to give my new Implants,” Danion continued. “Our family - well, the family style dictates two Crystals, here and here.” He tapped a finger on the edges of his forehead. “Then for the rest of my life I dedicate part of my day to growing out my horns, so that one day I can take my dad’s Heritage Crystal and do the same for my kids.”

Cassiel swallowed, and hesitantly patted Danion on the shoulder, offering him a tight-lipped smile. She didn’t trust herself to respond verbally. He gave her a wry smile in thanks.

“I’ve been tapped to go this stupid Tournament thing in a few months,” Danion said, and Cassiel’s body locked up. “So dad says my training is to be accelerated. I’ve got to be among the ‘strongest in my bracket’ so that I can bring the Valley, and the House, prestige. If I can win the prize, even better.” He hung his head. “I just want to live in peace, you know?”

Cassiel sucked at her teeth for a moment, too exasperated to talk- and then she sighed. “I know, Danion,” she finally said. “I know.”

They sat there in silence for a few moments, and then Danion stood.

“Well it was nice talking to you at least, Cass,” he said. “Even though I guess it was too much to expect you to understand everything I was trying to teach.”

Her left eye twitched.

“Thank you for trying anyway, Lord Danion,” she responded, a note of frost in her voice. He smiled back and offered her a hand up. She stood without taking it.

“Well, back to our normal lives, I guess,” he said. “The heir and the cripple… What a sorry pair we make, huh?”

We’re not a pair, she thought, furious. My life isn’t normal, and we will never be any kind of pair.

“I suppose so, my lord,” she replied instead.

“I’ll see you in class,” he said, and his crystalline wings flared, momentarily glowing a bright yellow-orange, before he lifted off and darted into the distance.

The moment he was gone, the tight smile dropped from Cassiel’s face, replaced with an expression of disgust.

“Fantastic,” she said to herself, beginning the walk back to her home. “Just another thing to deal with.”