The Fight for Seats
Henry's soundless death left the lecture hall stunned, sick with terror, and sunk in silence. The Tower's mages had always slighted the children of nobles, but no one had imagined they would kill a noble simply for failing to keep quiet. He was not even the son of some fallen house. He was the second son of a count who held a vast domain.
William spoke as if nothing whatsoever had happened, his voice perfectly ordinary.
"Anyone who has felt mana, step forward."
No one dared ignore the command. Some thirty-six apprentices came forward.
"Welcome to the world of mages."
With that, he took them and left the hall. Only the failures remained, and the corpse. Before a mage had entered, the lecture hall had been terribly loud. Now that he was gone, not a single person opened their mouth.
A short while later, four Spirit Awakening mages in yellow belts came in and cleared Henry's body away. One of them spoke.
"Come back to the lecture hall in two months."
Smith asked, "What are we supposed to do for those two months?"
The answer was purely administrative.
"Feel mana."
After class, the members of Squad 1 — all but Alex and Catherine, who had gone with William — returned to Lion Pavilion and sprawled in the lounge. Every one of them looked blank. The shock was too great for anyone to think of doing anything else.
Chris sat blankly among them. David had said a mage stood above a noble, and Chris had taken that to mean mages were simply that impressive. He had not trusted the claim completely. In Javier Barony, the fire mage Randal had burned Jack to death, but Chris had thought that possible only because Jack was a worthless slave.
Today, William had killed a count's second son without a moment's hesitation.
David had meant every word, and the other mages held nobles cheap as well. It was astonishing. It also made him want, all the more, to become a mage.
Chris remembered something from his years in the barony. The baron's second son had been a squat brute with a loud voice. Once he started learning archery from a knight, he had stopped Chris on the road in the name of practice and propped him against a tree.
Chris had not known what was coming. He still had not known when an apple was set on his head. Even watching the boy draw the string, he had thought, surely not, surely not. He had never imagined anyone would loose an arrow at an apple resting on a person's head. The boy had done exactly that unthinkable madness.
It was a mercy beyond measure that his skill was wretched. The arrow flew somewhere else entirely and never even came close. Had his aim been decent, it would have passed near the target, and Chris would have been badly hurt, or dead.
Remembering that day, his body trembled all over again. Not from fear. From rage.
He imagined going home a mage.
How sweet it would be to sear that bastard with fire.
"What are you thinking about?" Smith asked.
"Mages."
"The mages are insane!" Tony shouted.
"Calculated," Prince Mark said. "Not insane."
"You mean he did it on purpose?"
"Tony, you've never been in the army, have you?"
"I never enlisted, but I've seen plenty of domain troops."
"They say that when recruits come in, you pick one man and smash him to pieces to knock the rest into line."
Tony's eyes went wide.
"You're saying he killed Henry on purpose, just to establish discipline?"
"That's what I think."
Tony jabbed a finger at Chris.
"If you're going to murder someone for that, you should have used the slave over there. Not a count's second son."
"He wanted a bigger shock. If a slave had died, we wouldn't be this shaken."
"That's... true."
"In the Tower, even a noble is nothing special, so keep your head down and do as you're told. That'll be the message."
Listening to the two of them, a thought struck Chris, and he shouted.
"Andrew!"
Tony snapped in irritation. "Quiet."
His temper only seemed to swell as time went on. He was carrying on like Alex.
"We indulge you, and you shout while nobles are talking! No manners at all."
Mark stopped him. "Wait. Let's hear him."
He looked at Chris. "What about Andrew?"
"Andrew was the first one he caught."
"The first?"
"A month ago, Mage William meant to kill Andrew. At the last moment, he changed his mind. Why?"
"Hearing you point that out, I'm convinced I was right."
"That he killed on purpose to establish discipline?"
"Yes."
"Why do you say that?"
"I just told you."
"Pardon? Told me what...?"
"Andrew is a commoner. He must have decided that killing a commoner wouldn't hit hard enough, so he waited until a noble rubbed him the wrong way."
"Ah. That could be."
But was that all of it?
Chris tilted his head. William had clearly meant to kill. He seemed like a man who hated inconvenience. Would someone like that have bothered to sort commoner from noble?
There seemed to be some other reason. One thing, at least, was certain. A mage was an extremely dangerous being.
If I want to live, I'll have to watch my step even harder.
"Why bother talking to something lowborn?" Tony said. "Treat them well and they start climbing. Deal with them in moderation."
He does phrase it prettily.
With Alex gone, Tony is doing Alex's job.
Faye wrapped both arms around her shoulders. "I want to go home."
The nobles nodded as if they felt the same. Chris shook his head. To him, the Tower was far better than Javier Barony, because here, at least, there was hope — hope that life might get better.
2. The Fight for Seats
A day passed, and Lion Pavilion settled back into its ordinary look. Chris ate a full breakfast and, just in case, went to the place where Alex had meditated. He sat on the bench, quieted his mind, breathed with care, and recited the incantation.
"Era Seultinsiabi, Era Ummododisia."
⟨ Mana-Sensing Chant ⟩
He did not spare so much as a fingernail's worth of any other thought. Only mana.
I feel it. I feel it!
A thin chill prickled him, and his eyes flew open.
This is it!
It was not. A cold wind had merely raised gooseflesh on his skin.
The strength drained out of him, and his shoulders sagged. Tony came over.
"Move."
"...?"
"This is my seat."
"This is Alex's seat."
"I've decided to inherit Alex's seat."
"Did Alex tell you to?"
Tony exploded. "Is Alex your friend? Use his title!"
A title of respect cost nothing and took no effort. Chris did as he was told.
"Did you receive Lord Alex's permission?"
"Alex and I are equals. I don't need permission. And Alex wouldn't want a slave's filthy backside fouling the place where he sat."
Given Alex's character, that was almost certainly true.
"You have a point."
Chris vacated the bench, though he did not go far. He planted himself on the ground a little way off, and Tony's brow twitched in displeasure.
"Go somewhere else."
"This is where Lord Alex felt it, isn't it?"
Hearing he felt it outdoors gives me an odd feeling.
"I'd like a share of the good energy that made Lord Alex succeed, too."
With that, he closed his eyes and sank into meditation. He had expected Tony to make a scene. Tony did not. Taking the bench seemed to satisfy him.
Tony's meditation did not last. Prince Mark appeared.
"I'm sorry, but I'd like you to give up the seat."
Watching the two of them, Chris laughed to himself.
Even the prince believes this is an auspicious spot.
Tony looked troubled. "I claimed it first."
"Tony!"
The prince's tone turned severe.
Chris gasped inwardly.
Oho. So this is a prince's dignity.
Authority built over long years of commanding people with a jerk of the chin poured from his every word and gesture. Tony was a noble too, but he could not stand against a prince's presence. Reluctantly, he rose.
The prince took the bench and asked Chris, "Why are you sitting there?"
"Hoping to pick up even the dregs of the good energy."
"You're a nuisance."
"Yes."
Chris did not argue. He moved.
This is where Catherine meditated.
He was about to sit on the rock when Faye appeared. She said primly, "This is the girls' seat."
"Are there separate seats for girls and boys?"
"The energy is probably... different."
Hearing that, he supposed it might be so.
"All right. This spot might suit a woman better."
When he returned to the place where he had meditated for a month, Alice approached. Chris narrowed his eyes.
"Don't tell me you came to take my seat."
Alice let out a short laugh. "A spot that did nothing for a month. Why would I bother taking it?"
"Then what do you want?"
"I saw you hopping from seat to seat. It was funny."
"Hmm."
Chris put on a sorrowful face and sighed.
"You enjoy watching me humiliated?"
"You don't think of it as humiliation. Do you?"
"Does it look that way?"
"Yes."
"You're wrong."
Chris lowered his eyes and scuffed the ground with the sole of his foot.
"I am terribly wretched and unhappy."
Alice burst out laughing. "Chris, you are a terrible actor."
Then she came in close and lowered her voice. "You're not a slave anymore. Why grovel like that?"
"Like you said, I'm not a slave, but..."
"But?"
"I'm a pauper."
"You're saying you flatter them to make money?"
"Yes."
"And what do you want the money for?"
"I hear there's a mysterious helmet that lets you feel mana."
"You can't act, and your jokes aren't funny either."
"It's not a joke."
Neither Alex's seat, which Prince Mark had claimed, nor Catherine's, which Faye had inherited, did any good. Chris had watched just in case, but neither of them felt mana. It had not been the place. Alex and Catherine had been special.
A few days later, the two William had taken away returned to Lion Pavilion. The squad swarmed them.
Faye grabbed Catherine. "What did you do all that time?"
"We received special instruction."
"What kind?"
"The history of magic. The fundamentals of magic."
"Ah."
Faye breathed a sigh of envy. "That must have been nice."
Mark turned to Alex. "What magic did you learn?"
Alex cocked his head at a smug angle. "I was ordered not to tell outsiders. My apologies."
He put the apology in his mouth with an attitude that was not sorry in the least.
Mark looked offended. "We are not outsiders."
"You're mistaken. An apprentice isn't a member of the Tower. Just an apprentice. To be precise, an aspiring mage."
Then he flicked the yellow belt at his waist, once, twice.
"I'm tired, so I'll go in first."
Shoving Chris aside, he added, "A genius is passing. Lowborn trash, get out of the way."
The king of bad manners had now equipped himself with arrogance on top of it. Chris was used to such treatment and let it pass, but Mark was not pleased by the insolence and seethed for some time. Spurred by it, he rose at dawn from the next day on and threw himself into training.