Chapter 07:                         Secrets

The morning bell rang.

Cori was already awake. She had been too exited to sleep anymore. She had dressed herself and was now ready to leave her room.

'Bery will kill me if I come to her now. She is not a morning person. Not at all.' She went out of her room and knocked the door opposite to her own. No reply. Cori knocked again. "Come on Sam! I know you are awake. I'm coming now." She opened the door.

Sam was sitting on her bed, legs crossed hands in a strange position.

Cori grinned. "Ok. Let me guess ... you've been up for three hours. You have already trained a bit and now you are meditating to calm yourself down. Am I right?"

Sam opened her eyes slowly. "Two hours." She still had the dreamy look in her eyes she always had when she was meditating. She already wore the pages' uniform.

"These colours suit you well."

"Thanks. You too."

Cori sat beside her. "How do you think our first day will be."

"Long."

"Hey, come on. At least a whole sentence."

"The day will be long."

"Very funny."

"What do you want me to say. In the morning we will have training, in the afternoon we will  study. After that we will have some homework. And after that we will fall in bed as if we were dead."

Cori screwed up her mouth. "That wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear."

"Your problem. Don't ask questions if you don't want to hear the answers."

Cori jumped up." Ok. Enough small talk for the moment. Let's go for breakfast."

She opened the door again. Behind the door Bery was waiting. She hid a huge yawn behind her hand and murmured: "Good morning."

"Good morning Bery!" Cori said effusively and embraced her. Then she stormed away to greet the two sisters who went out of their rooms at that moment.

"She knows I hate that. That's why she does it." Bery looked at Sam. "Does she embrace you every morning?"

"No."

"I knew it."

Cursing, Bery went off to the mess hall.

Sam followed her, eyes smiling.

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At the mess hall Cori, Bery, the triplets and their sponsors sat down at one table.

Colin, Quentin and Robert still looked quite angry. They were observing the triplets all the time, as if they thought the three could vanish at any second.

Sam looked around and found Nat sitting at the end of an empty table. He looked up surprised when she sat down in front of him. "What's the matter?"

"I want to eat my breakfast."

"And why not at your friends' table?"

"You are my sponsor."

Nat shook his head. "I thought they've already talked to you."

"About what?"

"About me."

"What's so interesting about you."

"I'm a Malven."

"I know."

"My Uncle was a traitor."

"I know."

"Nobody wants to be with me."

"I know."

"So what do you want here?"

"I want to eat."

Nat looked confused. 'Is she playing with me? She looks serious ... maybe the others haven't talked to her yet.'

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"So you have already been trained. By whom?" Lachran looked surprised at Cori. The four pages were on their way to the training courts.

"Well, we have some soldiers at our fief, to protect it, and one of them showed me the basics. And I was trained by my father, too." Cori smiled.

"And what about you Bery? Were you also trained by your father?" Milan asked her friendly.

"My father is dead."

Both boys looked shocked.

"We didn't know that. I'm sorry for your loss." Milan said pitiful.

Bery shook her head. "It was four years ago. Half a year later, I started to train. My mother hired a good fighter, who taught me things like hunting, riding and some other basic skills."

"Then both of you started at the age of six?"

The girls nodded.

Lachran traded a secret look with Milan. Then he continued asking. "And Sam, did she start at the same age, too?"

Bery shook her head. "No, she started much earlier."

"Well, that really surprises me."

Cori looked at him suspiciously.

"Don't misunderstand me. My aunt also started fighting at the age of six. But I thought your families were very conservative. I'm only surprised that you three were allowed to come here. And now I hear from you that your families even prepared you for being knights. That's a bit strange. The parents of Ariadne and Aidan are known as supporters of the idea of Lady Knights. So it's no surprise they went here. But you ..."

Lachran shook is head. "Well, I don't understand that."

Cori traded a look with Bery. Then she started to explain.

"Both of us have lost our brothers. We are the only heirs of our families' fiefs. Sam's uncle never had a heir. It's only logical that they want us to be prepared as much as possible."

"But there would be other ways, why..."

"They thought it would be a good idea, Ok? I don't ask you why you are here, so stop examining me." Cori looked quite angry now.

Lachran was surprised. He didn't think that his questions could annoy her. "Sorry. I was only interested."

Bery sighed. "Come on, Cori, they are nice. They don't want to harm anybody." She looked at the two boys. "Well, the reason why our parents decided to send us here instead of the convent is that Sam's uncle talked to them."

"Bery!" Cori said in a warning tone.

Bery ignored her friend. "You are right, the families of Pinehollow, Kourell and Gohman would have never agreed with our wish to become Lady Knights only five years ago. In that time something happened that changed their point of view completely. A member of the Pineh..."

Bery stopped talking when Cori hit her. "Shut up!"

The two boys looked really surprised at Cori, whose voice sounded cold with anger.

"I only wanted ..."

"You don't have the right to tell them anything! It is not your story! I will not allow you to tell anybody more than necessary!" Every sign of a smile had left Cori's face.

Bery looked as shocked as the boys now. "But it concerns me, too. I don't know what's so bad about telling it."

"You don't know half of the real occurrences!"

"My mother told me ..."

"Your mother knows nothing! Don't talk about things you don't have enough information about! If you knew everything you wouldn't tell anybody anything about it!"

"But Sam ..."

"If she wants to talk about it, she will do it herself. If I hear that you have started with that thing again, you will wish that you were never born. WAS THAT UNDERSTANDABLE FOR YOU?"

Bery nodded trembling, eyes huge with shock.

Cori turned to the boys. "And you two. Who wanted you to interrogate us?"

"N- nobody."

"Some things are private. This is one of those things. If I notice that you bother Sam with your questions, you will experience how angry I can get." After that she turned around and rushed away.

The boys stood there, mouth open, staring at the disappearing girl.

"What was that?" Lachran looked at Bery.

The girl shook her head, face still pale, and followed Cori to the training courts.