TheFallenHer0: No, Marelda's teacher isn't Glenn. I'm saving all the new characters from Cerim on for the next generation (meaning the entire Princess of Crystal trilogy will be included in Aurora's story).

Chapter 2

Marelda's POV

"Again!"

I begin the drill again. Left slash. Uppercut. Spin slash. Feint lowercut. Right slash. Spin stab.

"Again!"

I've done this particular drill so many times. It's been ingrained into my muscle memory to the point where it leaves my mind to wander. I vaguely acknowledge Sir Vargas call the drill change to another set.

I haven't seen Luca today. He normally pops up at least once. He's been doing it for almost a month now. I remember the first time he popped up, he tried to trick me into thinking he was lost. Bull. I had payed a little more attention since then, and had heard a lot of talk about Luca Orlem.

Mostly, he was a bad boy flirt who liked to skip class, annoy Elias Goldstein, and screw off. His grades didn't matter to him even though he was said to be pretty smart. He was also apparently good friends with that girl, Selene Fonix, who seemed to be one of the most popular people in the school, despite only having been here a couple of months. I hadn't even seen her. The girl named Amelia Nile, who's in my classes, used to be her roommate.

And the talk about the girl had sharply increased, because she supposedly disappeared last weekend for reasons unknown. The rumors were flying.

I didn't put much stock into rumors, though. In my experience, many barely have a grain of truth, if any truth at all.

For instance, the rumors about Luca weren't all that correct. He wasn't much of a flirt, at least with me. He just liked to tease me and push my buttons and be annoying. He skipped class because they rarely taught him anything. He had mentioned that he often spent a lot of time in the archives and the deepest recesses of the library, reading. For some reason he trusted me enough to tell me things like that.

There were other rumors that were accurate, though. He admitted to me himself that he loved getting the Goldstein boy worked up, because the reactions were hilarious. I can believe that, particularly since he likes annoying me during my breaks from training.

There was also something I noticed that he didn't tell me directly. Most people say I don't pay attention to anything but my training. They're both right and wrong. Paying attention to my surroundings and what's going on is part of my training. And I tend to notice things that not even rumors catch wind of.

Luca, for instance, likes to draw.

He hasn't told me, but I've seen the pencil and ink smudges on his hands. He's even got them on his face sometimes, where he'd use his hand to brush back his hair. I've noticed, on occasion, a sketchbook among his things, or poking out of his bag. I don't think he knows that I know. It seems to be something about himself that he guards.

Another thing. He's very guarded, and not willing to talk about himself. He'll ask me questions but dodges most of the ones I ask in return, not so much the ones pertaining to current events, but questions about his past, anything pre-academy. I personally think his normal behavior is a front for something. What, I don't know. But I don't think I've ever seen the real Luca, and I doubt anyone else has either. Maybe his family, if he has one. He's never mentioned them.

I wonder where he is. He's not come to bother me today. Maybe he decided to actually go to class for once, without Selene bribing him with sweets. Yes, I know all about that. He'll share them with me, on the occasion he can convince me to try some. I'm not a huge fan of sweet things, but even I'll admit that Selene is good at cooking. And from what Luca says, she sounds pretty interesting. But I'll reserve judgement for when and if I actually meet her.

Like I said—I don't put much trust in second hand information. Even if Luca's information tends to be more accurate than most.

And I don't miss him or anything. It's more like good riddance.

Yeah. That's it.

…. …. ….

I didn't see him again until Thursday. I have to say that's the longest I've gone without seeing him during the week. Training was much easier, though I will admit it was less interesting. He popped up randomly halfway through class. I was doing drills by myself. Sir Vargas had been called away yesterday. Something about a disturbance in the west. My guess was raiders from Eclos, our neighbors along most of the western border.

Eclos was a ruined country. They had been run by gangs for almost a century. They did nothing but take. The sad thing was, they couldn't do much else. Almost exactly 97 years ago, the land in Eclos suddenly stopped growing crops. The surrounding countries tried to give aid, but they found that the more they did so, the worse their own countries resources became. Gedonelune, the richest and most prosperous of the countries, had been the longest to help, and had stopped helping around sixty years ago. Rumors said that the fae had completely left Eclos, after the fae monarchy was highly offended for some reason or another by the royal family of Eclos, causing them to completely leave the country. And since Eclos was left with nothing, they fell into anarchy, and formed groups within the country that both fought each other and stole from the surrounding nations. Gedonlune was the only country that still allowed refugees from that country, even though that's rare now. And even we only allowed children.

While I believed that the fae were responsible for a lot of the things in nature, I have my doubts about them being responsible for Eclos' fate. Plus, the only thing about Eclos that matters to me is protecting our people from their raiders. To prevent other kids from losing their fathers and elder brothers.

Back to today.

"So where's Sir Yells-a-Lot?" said a familiar playful voice behind me, "And I do have the most interesting story to tell. The new girl, Katalina Sommer, made it rain in class yesterday. Her magic's a mess, let me tell you."

I finished the drill I was on before turning to him. "His name is Sir Vargas and he's a remarkable man and warrior. You shouldn't be so disrespectful." I scold.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, bella." Luca's smug smirk made me want to throw something at his face.

"Don't call me that." I turned back to the training dummy and began another drill.

"Sorry, not sorry. When are you going to accept that you're beautiful, bella?"

"When. It. Hap. Pens. Mean. Ing. Ne. Ver." Each word was a staccato in time with a hit made upon the dummy. I wouldn't never have the muscle mass to be a strength-type warrior. My "strength" lay in my speed and agility.

"Why so frustrated today? Is it because your idol's missing?" He teased.

My drill ended. "He's not my idol. And he's been called west for a while."

That made Luca become a bit more serious, "For what reason?"

"No clue. My guess: raiders. Again."

He sat under the shade of a nearby tree, leaning against its trunk. "Come sit. Something tells me you've been working without any breaks all morning."

Normally I wouldn't listen to the likes of him, but I knew I needed a break. "Unless it's in the middle of the battle, take regular breaks. No use burning yourself out while you're training." Sir Vargas once told me.

I began a few cooling down stretches in the shade. Always stretch before sitting after training. Or you'll cramp up badly. Same with other forms of exercise, like horse riding.

"You're worried." Luca was far more observant than most people gave him credit for. He wasn't stupid, not by a long shot.

"Yeah. I am."

"You think they're going to hit Elston, don't you?"

I nodded. Nevermind that the majority of Gedonelune and the surrounding countries were in the middle of winter, the raiders didn't have a time schedule that followed seasons. The academy and the surrounding areas wasn't really affected by the seasons. It was practically late spring year round here. Starton, the nearest town, only got the occasional dusting of snow, but I had never seen or heard of snow making it to the academy. They say the weather is controlled by magic.

"I'm sure they'll be fine. You've trained them well, haven't you?" Luca was referring to my family. Every summer I went back home and spent it training my family, as well as a lot of other families from my hometown, how to hide in a way that they won't be found by raiders.

"It doesn't matter. Too much of it is still left to chance. I wish there was a way to permanently seal the border so we wouldn't have to be worried about constant attacks." I said.

"Even if it denies the children from escaping?"

"They're not our people. I know it sounds cruel, but I think our people should come first. We tried to help, we did. We still are, in some ways. We nearly bled ourselves dry to help them. But what do they do? They come across our border, steal our resources and kill our people. I'd rather have them dead than us. They can't chose where they're born, no more than we can. But they choose to make the choices they do. And they should have to suffer the consequences." I sigh, "At this point it's almost a 'them' or 'us' thing, Luca, and at this point I only care about the 'us'."

I'm not entirely sure, but I think I may have made him mad. "So you're saying it's okay to give up on them because they're stuck? That's it's okay to give up because we're tired of trying to help?" His voice was turning dangerous. I'm confused. Why's he so upset about this?

"Yes. We've done too much in my opinion. If they stopped trying to hurt us, then by all means we should help their people. But they don't. They continue to injure and kill and maim our people."

"So you think we should give up?" he barked a laugh, and I don't think it was just me when I say it sounded bitter, "Maybe we should. Just give up on all the hopeless cases. I mean, that's why their called hopeless cases, aren't they? Ha!"

"We're not talking about the Eclos people anymore, are we?"

He froze, "Perhaps not. I'd better go. Class and all." He stood up and walked off, not even saying a form of goodbye, which was extremely unusual. I must have upset him more than I thought I did.

But I'm not taking back what I said about Eclos. I may have felt bad about offending him, but I did not regret my opinion of those violent leeches.

How could I when they were the ones who killed Pa and Parker?

Marelda's smallest birthday knife has a blade about three inches long. It is the absolute sharpest of the three knifes. It's a double-edged blade and folds up, so it's kind of like a pocket knife. Careful, though, because it can cut through lots of things.