By now, everyone had fallen into their routines of study, training, and meditation.

Rabya’s lessons remained enjoyable, but they became more intense. On one occasion, she took them all out of the city to a place where they learned how to quickly dig entrenchments to keep a military party safe when traveling. Another week focused on political dealings. She even taught them a few ‘spy’ tricks in case they ended up alone in enemy territory. They also trekked across the city and spent several hours at the Gateway complex, learning the ins and outs of such locations.

A ranking system was established for the officers, based on formal evaluations, input from the teachers, and a complex wargame system that the non-officers weren’t told much about. Gandash started out in fifth place, but quickly moved to fourth. Word started spreading among the non-officer students regarding the names and reputations of the officers, making them quasi-celebrities.

By the time Gandash climbed to third place in the rankings, it was common to hear his name spoken by other students. He had a reputation for being fair and clever. He excelled in the wargames, and had the lowest ‘casualty’ rate among all the officers. People wondered if he would be able to get to the top spot in the rankings and dethrone Magnus, who had held the first place spot since the inception of the list.

“Ain’t gonna ‘appen,” Enusat said at lunch one day. “Randy Gandy’s a stick. Magnus’ shoulders are broader than ‘e is tall.”

“It’s not a wrestling contest,” Kashtiliash said.

Jad popped a date into his mouth. “True. Being an officer is about leading. Strategy. That type of stuff. Randy Gandy’s always been a bookworm, right Xerk-man?”

Xerxes nodded. “Yeah. One time when he was like seven or something, he stayed in the library so long he peed his pants.”

Enusat nearly choked laughing. “Are you serious?”

It occurred to Xerxes that he shouldn’t have brought up the story. If Enusat spread the tale to other students, Gandash would be furious. But he couldn’t take it back now. “Well… yeah. He was so embarrassed he just sat in the chair in a pool of his own… well, you know. Until the library closed.”

Jad roared with laughter. “This is amazing. What happened in the end?”

“His parents had to come get him. But you cannot tell the story, alright? He’d get super angry. I really shouldn’t have said anything.”

Enusat did spread the story. He apologized to Xerxes afterward, and claimed that it had slipped out of his mouth by accident. Xerxes felt no reason to believe him.

Two days later, Xerxes spotted Gandash stalking toward him after the morning assembly. He ducked into a side hallway to avoid him.

Dammit. He spent the rest of the day coming up with clever ways of avoiding his friend. It was the same the day after. By the third day, Gandash had given up on trying to confront Xerxes.

On Sixthday, Xerxes found himself alone with Katayoun at the lunch table, and finally told her about the situation.

“I didn’t mean to tell the story, but it slipped out,” he explained. Convinced she would burst out laughing at the next part, he said, “You should have seen the look on his face when he realized it was me. I swear his ears were steaming.”

He chuckled in anticipation of her joining him in laughter. Instead, she frowned.

“I thought you said Gandash is your best friend,” she said.

“Well, yeah.” His previous enthusiasm at telling the story faded. “What does that have to do with anything?”

She tilted her head to the side. “Telling embarrassing stories about other people isn’t very nice, especially your friends.”

Her words provoked a prick of conscience that he suppressed with a guffaw. “Nah, Gandy’s got thick skin. He doesn’t care.”

“He seemed pretty angry the other day after morning assembly.”

Xerxes cleared his throat. “I don’t know what he’s all bent out of shape for. He’s rich. He’s almost reached number one in the officer rankings, so he’s famous now too. He’s got nothing to complain about.”

“It doesn’t matter how famous you are, an embarrassing story is still embarrassing. Maybe you should say sorry.”

“Yeah,” Xerxes said. “Of course. I was planning to.”

However, he never seemed to cross paths with Gandash, and with each day that went by, it seemed less and less necessary to apologize.

Despite hovering on the brink of a breakthrough, Xerxes struggled with the final steps to form his second chamber. That wasn’t an uncommon problem. There was a lot of talk among the students about ‘bottlenecks and breakthroughs,’ and how to deal with them. It was no surprise the topic soon came up in lectures.

He wasn’t the first to break through to the High Seer level. He wasn’t even in the top ten. But he did succeed.

He had read about what would happen in the moment of the breakthrough, and Mystic Rabya had even taught a lesson on the subject. Even still, he’d hoped there would be some sort of shocking sensation to mark the accomplishment. There wasn’t. He Flushed all of the melam, formed the second chamber, and went through the stabilization steps. Afterward, there was a brief period of time in which the second chamber attracted melam at an accelerated rate, allowing him to fill the dual chambers much faster than was normally possible. Then, the breakthrough was comlete.

Just like that, he was a High Seer.

When it was over, he sat in the meditation chamber looking at his hands. He clenched them into fists. Cracked his knuckles.

He didn’t feel much different.

Of course, he was different. It wasn’t just that he could cast more spells now—assuming he mastered the runes. High Seers were capable of top speeds double that of ordinary Seers. They were considered to be about thirty percent tougher, both in terms of how much damage they could take and how much they could inflict. Their mage sight and mage touch both had twice the range, and mage touch got stronger.

None of that was obvious as he sat there cross-legged, yet he still felt the urge to hold himself up a bit straighter.

He reported his accomplishment, and reveled in the sound of his name being read at the following morning assembly. The reward for the top twenty wasn’t an apartment outside the school, or anything even close to that. It was a single shekel, an engraved bronze goblet, and a special patch that he could put on his uniform. Not exactly lifechanging, but he still felt proud. And he was especially proud that he’d surpassed Gandash, at least in a small way.

Take that, Gandy, he thought. Maybe his friend was a fancy officer, but not even he had achieved that High Seer breakthrough.

At least, not that week.

The following week, Gandash did succeed, after two other students, which meant he did squeeze into the top twenty of High Seers.

But Xerxes had beat him there, and nothing could take that away.

A new rumor started to spread.

“I heard about it earlier this morning,” Jad explained. “The Abhorrent have launched a full-scale invasion. Entire starisles are in flames.”

“Shit,” Xerxes said, sitting up in his bunk. “Where? It better not be in the Humusi starisles.”

“It’s not,” Jad said.

Xerxes let out a sigh of relief. “Good.”

“In fact, it’s not even in the Ira starisles. So all of our people back home are safe. But we aren’t. Obviously. It’s only a matter of time before we get shipped out.”

“Yeah, we’re being trained to fight the next wave,” Enusat said. “I ‘eard Mystic Rabya say it ‘erself. They’re gonna send us all out.”

“But only a few of us are High Seers,” Xerxes said. “I thought the whole point was for all of us to break through.”

“They don’t want High Seers,” Kashtiliash said. “They want cannon fodder.”

“Quit being so pessimistic, Kash,” Jad said. “That makes zero sense. Mages are rare and valuable. Especially the more training we get. They’re not going to pour a ton of money into us only to send us out as Abhorrent food.”

“That’s what you think,” Kashtiliash said.

Xerxes wanted to believe Jad. But when he stepped back to think about it, he could see truth to what Kashtiliash said. From the perspective of the Sin-Amuhhu mages, they were all from backwater starisles and hardly counted as being civilized. Was the money being invested in this class of Seers that exorbitant? Was it possible the military had just conscripted some relatively expensive front-line dummies?

It can’t be true, he thought. He had friends who would stick their neck out for him. He was earning a name for himself on one of the greatest planets in existence. And he had the perfect girlfriend. There couldn't be something horrific lurking behind what was his best life right now. There just couldn’t.