The next few weeks settled into something of a routine.

Liliana got accustomed to her classes, even as the workload increased gradually. It was clear that the Academy expected the best out of them, because they were always pushing them to their limits. Essays became something assigned daily for their classes, along with reading. Tests were weekly, with surprise quizzes a constant threat in their classes. Combined with her clubs and the self practice, Liliana did she rarely had time to rest. Her afternoons were filled with punishing training as she pushed herself to get stronger, cementing whatever lessons they’d learned in Battle Training.

Her evenings were full of studying, grouped in the study room she and Marianne had claimed, with a rotating circle of classmates coming in. Emyr and Alistair most commonly studied with them, but Fabian and Fiora would join them occasionally to go over their electives. And much to Liliana’s annoyance, Diana had begun to show up with some regularity.

Liliana was finding fewer and fewer reasons to protest the girl’s presence. Diana was irritatingly quite smart, and Liliana could begrudgingly admit that studying with her was a boon. She always had a smile ready for anyone who looked at her and was willing to listen when someone talked. She was utterly nice and after weeks of her presence, Liliana couldn’t find a single logical reason to dislike her. More often than not, she found herself pushing the voice in her mind, claiming Diana was up to something, down.

Zir’elon, by contrast, continued to engineer reasons for Liliana to dislike him. The worst part was she thought he might be trying to help her, in some odd, twisted way, as he seemed to have focused on Alistair as an enemy. In a reversal of the game, Zir’elon had decided that Alistair was the one in the wrong and she, somehow, was the one in the right. His rumors of Alistair aiding his mother in trying to steal Liliana’s position as heir and assassination attempts were prolific and constantly circling. Liliana rarely got through a day without Zir’elon or his sycophants muttering about how Liliana was the true heir and Alistair was a thief.

The only reason Liliana hadn’t attempted to kill him yet was because for every rumor about Alistair they started, Emyr had two whispered around the Academy about them, most of them true. Emyr was downright vicious when he wanted to be, and he had set his sights on Zir’elon and anyone following him in some sort of rumor war.

Liliana knew that the powder keg was just waiting for the spark to ignite it, but she hoped it would dissipate after the end of the semester. She hoped that Zir’elon wouldn’t stay in class S after the rankings came out, and she knew several of his followers wouldn’t, based on the amount of questions they got wrong when they were called on by teachers. Liliana would appreciate the reduction in stress, at the very least.

She had enough stress thanks to her nightmares, most of them familiar at this point, but there were still nights where she’d wake up with a scream trapped in her throat and her heart thundering in her ears. She had gotten more or less used to forcing herself to focus through exhaustion in her classes, and if she failed, Marianne and Emyr would share their notes with nothing more than a concerned look. Her sleepless nights were a badly kept secret in their group, and on more than one occasion she’d fallen asleep in their study groups only to wake up covered in a blanket, Marianne shaking her shoulder to tell her it was time to go to the dorms before curfew.

Today, thankfully, Liliana had only her normal nightmares. She didn’t think too long about what it meant that she preferred nightmares soaked in blood, but dreams were a foreign concept to her at this point. She had more interesting things to think about, anyway. Today was the day Rauk had told them they’d finally start team fights.

Apparently, they’d gotten to the point where Rauk thought they wouldn’t be as much of a danger to themselves and their teammates that he was allowing it. Guérin still didn’t teach them, only coming around occasionally to sneer at them in their training. Liliana wondered if the man would ever teach them, or if he was waiting for after the first ‘culling’, as Liliana had heard the older students call it.

“I’m glad he’s letting us pick our teams,” Alistair said as they stood from their seats and started to walk out of the class S classroom towards the changing rooms.

“He’s probably doing it so he can ream the students who pick their friends only to end up unbalanced,” Emyr said cynically.

“Isn’t that what we’ll be doing?” Marianne asked with a frown.

“Yea but we’ll be balanced,” Liliana pointed at Alistair, “We have a tank,” she pointed at Emyr, “A mage for large scale AOEs,” she pointed at Marianne, “A healer,” she pointed at herself next, “A fast moving physical and magical attacker,” she pointed at Anya, “and a hard-hitting purely physical attacker who can also double as a tank.”

“Still wish we could have six people per team,” Diana pouted, and Liliana shoved down the urge to scoff at the girl. Honestly, why was she like this? It was getting frustrating, and she’d assume some kind of mental manipulation if she didn’t wear Alistair’s necklace every day.

“Five is the normal setup for a dungeon team, and we only have 20 students. We can’t do teams of 6.” Liliana pointed out, and Diana’s pout got deeper as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“You’re going to be with Zindru, right? You’ll be fine.” Marianne soothed the girl, and Diana’s pout melted as she smiled at the princess.

“I’m just excited to fight five people at once!” Anya said, bouncing next to them. Liliana rolled her eyes affectionately at the wolf girl. Anya had been excited since the team fights were announced.

“Remember, you’re not in fact alone,” Liliana chastised her gently.

“I know! Wolves are great pack hunters, did you know?” Anya asked with a sharp toothed grin. Liliana felt a phantom pain in her calf, and she barely resisted the urge to rub at the scar she wore now as a reminder of how exactly she’d come across that knowledge.

“Yea, I’m rather intimately aware of that,” Liliana said dryly, Emyr flicking an amused glance at her.

Their group split up at the locker rooms and they got ready quickly, switching from uniforms into training clothes, things they wouldn’t be too fussed with if they got ruined, not that the shields ever let anything through. As cool and admittedly necessary as the shields were, Liliana almost wished they didn’t use them for every fight.

She could see how a reliance on the shields could make them unaware of the true dangers of fights, believing they couldn’t really die. She doubted the nobles would like their children being put in so much danger in school, though. And causing pain to reinforce their ‘deaths’ would probably be seen as child abuse. Some people could use a little more martial punishments, in her opinion, though.

Liliana’s group gravitated towards one another when they got into the training room. Much of the class had split into cliques, some small, like the trio of Koth’talan, Rathwater, and Dawn. Or Eaglebow and Ravenswood. Others were large, like her group, with the small clique of Zindru, Chiverton, and Goldstein hovering close to them, but not quite connected.

Zindru wasn’t what Liliana would call a friend, but he did talk to them in classes and had even stopped by a couple of times to study with them. He was more of an ally than anything. Then there was Zir’elon’s clique with him, Dunstan, Coppercolt, Allencourt, and Remrence.

Liliana had seen a few class A first years and some older years hang around Zir’elon’s group too, Emyr pointing out they were all second or third children of their parents. Nobles not set to inherit anything, clinging to a prince who could one day maybe become emperor. Social climbers and sycophants trying to ensure a better future for themselves through sucking up to someone higher ranked than themselves, rather than putting the work of actually bettering themselves. Perhaps all their social climbing was why they weren’t doing so well in class. You could barely read a textbook if your tongue was glued to someone’s boot after all.

“Do your warm-ups, then get into your teams,” Rauk barked out right after the bell rang.

Their class needed no other instruction, well used to the routine by this point. No one passed out, puked or got assigned extra laps or exercises anymore, the rebellious tendencies had been exhausted out of them, and by now they’d all learned how to ration their Stamina. When they were done, the class had split into their teams. Zir’elon was grouped with his clique. Diana had teamed up with Zindru, Chiverton, Mildenhall, and Goldstein. Koth’talan was grouped up with Rathwater, Dawn, Eaglebow, and Ravenswood.

“Who are the team leaders?” Rauk asked after the groups had been made, a small sneer on his face as he looked over some of the team compositions.

Alistair, Zir’elon, Zindru, and Eaglebow raised their hands, and Rauk’s sneer lessened slightly as he nodded at them. Liliana’s team had wanted her as the leader, but she had declined on the basis that Alistair had enough rumors about him not being fit to be the heir. If she took the leader spot, it would just reaffirm some of those rumors.

Alistair wasn’t a bad leader. He could think tactically and strategically. He still beat her and Emyr at chess more times than not. He just needed to not get overexcited and rush into battle before thinking it through. Marianne had declined the leader position, quoting that queens weren’t generals, they were political leaders.

“We’ll have the teams face off. The winner of each fight will face the other winner. The team that wins the entire thing gets twenty merit points for each member.” Rauk informed them, causing an eruption of excited whispers.

They all had merit points by now, but they usually earned them in small amounts. One or two from correctly answered questions, if their answers were properly clever. A point for perfect homework or tests, so on and so forth. Getting twenty at once was a huge windfall. If everyone wasn’t pumped for the fights before, they certainly were now.

“Rosengarde versus Eaglebow. Kastrioti versus Zindru. You have five minutes to prep before the fights start.” Rauk told them, stepping back as the teams whispered between themselves.

“Emyr?” Alistair turned to his friend, and Emyr’s eyes glinted.

“So Eaglebow has Light, Dark, Chaos and Illusion affinities. Her preferred fighting style is to stay far back while she throws out her attacks, switching between her affinities and sending out dud attacks to confuse her opponent. She’s incredibly weak close up and has only rudimentary close combat abilities. She’s a major threat, so she needs to be taken out quickly, as she’ll try to guide her team from her vantage point and pick us off.” Emyr started, sounding like a spy giving off an intelligence report.

“Anya, you’ll be on Eaglebow. You can get to her quickly and can handle if she hits you once or twice. Focus on her.” Alistair turned to the wolf girl, who nodded excitedly, jumping on the balls of her feet.

“Rathwater has Water, Ice, Wind and Storm affinities. He’s a mage and focuses on big attacks. If he can get us covered in water, he’ll freeze it and lock us in place. Like Eaglebow, he’s not good close up and tends to get tripped up when someone engages him in close combat.” Emyr immediately jumped in on the next opponent.

“Lili, we need Nemesis on him.” Alistair said, and Liliana nodded.

“Dawn only has Dark and Shadow affinities, but she’s very proficient in them. She prefers close combat, sneaking up on her opponents and using her shadow selves to compound her attacks. She strikes hard and fast. If they’re smart, they’ll have her hit me or Marianne.” Emyr scowled at that, but Liliana wasn’t sure if it was because Dawn was better with the Dark element than him or that he was a target.

“Lili, we’ll need you to focus on Dawn and take her out. You’re the only one fast enough to intercept her in time.” Alistair told her and Liliana nodded, her eyes searching for the quiet, unassuming girl who was a nightmare made flesh on the battlefield.

“Ravenswood has Dark, Water and Acid affinities. She may try to combine Water attacks with Rathwater to make them more powerful, and she’s also more of a caster. She’s not very good at close ranged attacks either. But her Acid means even close up she’s dangerous, though her fire power is weaker than Rathwater.” Emyr looked rather unconcerned with her overall. Alistair didn’t give a designation with her and nodded at Emyr to continue.

“Kastrioti is a mixed fighter. He has Fire, Heat, Earth, and Lava affinities that we’ve seen, though I suspect he’s hiding other affinities we haven't seen yet. He can fight close combat but prefers to use Lava and Earth to keep people at bay and control the battlefield. Overall, their team is far ranged fighters and casters, with Dawn being the only exclusively close ranged fighter.” Emyr finished his report and looked to Alistair.

“I’ll be playing aggravating tank, keeping most of their attacks on me. Lili, Anya and Nemesis will focus on taking out Eaglebow, Rathwater and Dawn. Lelantos will play backup tank, protecting Marianne and Emyr. Marianne, we need you able to move around the battlefield fast, so get on Lelantos if you need to. We need to keep everyone’s Health up. Emyr, I want you focusing on getting a big spell off, enough to take out Kastrioti and Ravenswood in one go, or the rest of their team if the others haven’t finished them by the time the spell is prepped. Focus on nothing else Emyr, we’ll keep you covered while you get ready.” Alistair stood tall as he gave them their orders and the group nodded along, Liliana hiding a proud smile behind her hand.

“Are we sure Lili can’t bring out Polaris for this?” Marianne asked with a slight frown.

“It would be too easy that way,” Liliana said with a shrug. “He also refused when I asked, saying I need to get used to fighting without him there.” Liliana finished with a sigh.

“But it’s twenty merit points.” Marianne said with a pout.

“And we’ll win without him. We have the best balanced team here.” Liliana pointed out.

“Yea, but I wanted to destroy them,” Marianne muttered. Liliana blinked at her friend, a bit thrown off by her comment. Even if she’d seen how bloodthirsty Marianne could be, it always clashed in her mind with the image she had of Marianne as a sweet princess.

“We’ll be fine. We have Nemesis and Lelantos too, which means we have more fighters than the rest of the teams. We’ll be fine.” Alistair soothed Marianne to some success.

“Right! We don’t need Polaris. We can beat them into the ground without help!” Anya enthused, still bouncing as her tail wagged frantically behind her. Liliana was more worried about how fast her team would win rather than if they would. With Anya and Emyr on their team, she almost felt bad for Eaglebow’s team. Almost.

“Five minutes are up. Teams get to your rings.” Rauk’s loud voice cut into their chatter.

Liliana took a deep breath as their team turned to one another and traded nods and smiles, all their eyes excited about this chance to fight together. Liliana shook out her arms as they walked to their ring, feeling the familiar sensation of adrenaline flooding through her veins. Sometimes it felt like this was what she was born for, this feeling of excitement mixed with fear thrumming through her in the quiet moments right before a fight began.

Liliana called out Nemesis and Lelantos, the serpent retaining her small form as she curled up at Liliana’s feet, Lelantos taking point with Alistair as they stood arrayed out on the ring. Anya and Liliana stood behind and the sides of the tanks, with Marianne and Emyr behind them. They faced the opposing team, waiting for the shields to come out and for Rauk to call start.