The meeting broke up not long after Bleddyn’s somewhat overconfident statement. All of us had things to do, now that the refugees had finally arrived. Maria was the best of us at managing large crowds, so she went down to help direct the former slaves into suitable dwellings. Meanwhile, I joined Renauld in our infirmary to help with the Healing of those who needed it.

  After all, I had been taking a course on Healing Magic all semester. I had learned enough by this point that I was good enough when combined with Aetherial Melding to act as an emergency medic. Frankly, after this semester, I might not continue on with the Healing track of Magic. I’d never had any kind of ambitions to become a career Healer like Renauld was aiming to be. I just wanted to be able to save the life of someone out in the field if it came down to that.

  A kind of…reverse, voluntary washing out, in comparison to how I’d completely failed to grasp Mind Magic. Next semester, I’d probably try and join the Neophyte Evocation course. Surely some practical combat Magic would do me some good, right?

  I did notice something curious, though, as I was helping to erase some grueling scars from the back of one thankful man.

  Isolde and Bleddyn were leaving the Bastion together. From their trajectory, it looked like they might just be heading to Kyronkar.

  I…suppose that made sense. Bleddyn had seemed plenty eager to get to his business here in the city, especially considering the time limit he was on. He had to finish negotiations with the Throne at a breakneck pace if he was going to get back to the Principality in time before the fighting happened. If he was looking to rope Herztal into the almost certain Velancian civil war that was brewing, then Isolde was a good choice to try and sway her cousin to his cause.

  However, if that was the case…

  Why did the two of them look almost awkward in their conversation as they left the yard?

  I didn’t have to wait very long for the answer to that question.

  ………………………………..

  “Herztal and Mynydd Clans reach agreement!” A smartly dressed crier bellowed from his pulpit, standing above the morning crowds in the Academy plaza. He waved the parchment proclamation held in his hands above his head excitedly. “Princess Isolde and Heir Bleddyn of the Calonawr Clan to marry in binding agreement!”

  I suddenly choked on the sip of coffee I’d taken from my personal thermos, as the crowds of students about me murmured in excitement. I had to pound my chest multiple times as I spat the wonderful, and extremely expensive, bean juice out onto the stone of the plaza. I only spared a moment to regard it mournfully before looking up to outright goggle at the crier.

  That was what Bleddyn had been planning?! He hadn’t said a word about this to me before he left! Neither, for that matter, had Isolde!

  I mean…I guess I could see it? It’s not like Bleddyn could have possibly had much leverage to hold over Wenzel. Our Regent Lord was a very smooth operator when he chose to be. He really was not susceptible to bribery or coercion. Some would call him cold, and rightly so, for his decision to sit on the sidelines during the Construct War. But because of that, nobody could say that he would be easily swayed by arguments in favor of intervening in a foreign civil war to free slaves. It would have taken much more than emotional arguments about freedom and dignity to convince the man.

  I…guess I knew just how he’d done it, then.

  Bleddyn had offered himself and what he represented for the future.

  The Mynyyd Clans.

  As far as I knew, he was still the Heir to take over the Chieftainship of the Calonawr Clan. They were, by far, the largest and most influential Clan of the entire Mynyyd people. For the most part, they didn’t actually rule, per se. It was more like…they were the first among equals, whose voice carried the most weight in a gathering.

  If Bleddyn and Isolde were to marry, then Herztal would suddenly gain preferential access to their closest neighbor. The Mynyyd Clans were very fractious, and truthfully were not cohesive enough to be called a true nation. But if the Calonawr spoke, and said to allow Herztalian traffic in their lands without harassment…

  That would be a huge coup for Wenzel’s reign as Regent. Hell, it would probably be a large boon to Oskar’s reign as High King as well.

  I just wondered if Bleddyn even had the authority to arrange something like this on his own. Had Gruffyd approved a union like this? Had Elder Einion, the head of the Calonawr Council of Elders?

  I was extremely tempted to blow off class and wing my way over to the Bastion to figure out what had happened exactly. I didn’t think it was out of the question to ask about the potential political marriage of my second in command. But I’d already sent Bait off to act in my stead for the day over at our fortress, while I attended class. Yesterday, we had worked quickly enough to settle all of the arrived former slaves before Tarus had fully set, owing to just how much we’d been preparing. None of the wounded had been bad enough that I didn’t feel like our Healers couldn’t manage it either. Thus, I’d decided to knock out my one class for the day quickly.

  Fundamentals of Aetheric Symbiosis, with poor old Simeon Veyl.

  This…shouldn’t take long.

  Still, I kept an eye on the sky as I wandered over to the Enchanting building, where Simeon was renting out a room for his class. Overhead, it kind of looked like a storm had rolled in. A dark pall had seemingly grown across the sky overnight, in stark contrast to the exciting announcement of the crier. Only thin rays of Tarus’s light were able to shine through the thick black clouds. They were dense enough that even the Green Period had been muted.

  Hopefully, it didn’t start raining while I was in class. I’d hate to try and dodge lightning afterward.

  ………………………….

  As I approached the door which led to Veyl’s classroom, I was completely unsurprised to find a small crowd gathered around it. Three other people, all of whom I was fairly well acquainted with, by now.

  The only other students who had been stuck with Aetheric Symbiosis.

  Well, other than Azarus. He still hadn’t returned from his trek out into the countryside.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  I raised a hand in greeting to one of them. “Morning, Martin. The usual?”

  The blond, bored-looking man only a few years my elder nodded from his place leaning against the door to the classroom. “Yup,” He said, popping the word. “You want in on the pool? My money’s on an hour today. Yvain-”

  “Can speak for herself,” A young, black haired Dwarven woman cut in, with a narrowed-eyed glare at Martin. He just raised his hands in faux defeat under her glower. Yvain just snorted before turning to me. “I’ve got forty-five, and Lucien has thirty.”

  The last person gathered, Lucien himself, was a light-skinned Rorician with the ease and confidence of a born ladies-man. He flashed his perfectly white teeth at me in a smile. “It is good to have faith…but let’s not be unrealistic. You’re stuck with the fifteen-minute slot, Hart.”

  I smiled and shook my head, digging into my pouch and fetching a silver coin. I flipped it over to Martin, who took with a wink and a smile of his own. “Alright, alright. But we all know I’m going to lose. Consider this a charitable donation.”

  What we were betting on, of course, was just how long after the official start of class it would take Veyl to show up.

  This…was common. So much so that I had never actually had one of these classes start on time. Poor old Simeon was…

  Well, to call him scatterbrained was to be uncharitable. I preferred to call it focused. Sadly, his focus didn’t extend to the banalities of things like, say, punctuality. Or even to actually living.

  The man was a bit…preoccupied with his research.

  An hour wasn’t even the longest we’d had to wait for him in the past. One day, a few months ago, it had taken the man three hours to show up for his class, only to find that all of us had left before his arrival. We only heard that he eventually turned up the next week, from a bizarrely hurt Simeon.

  This wasn’t Terran grade school. Nobody was counting attendance. If you didn’t show up for class, then oh well. It wasn’t a big deal if you didn’t care for missing the material.

  Our little five-man class of unlucky students was only willing to give Simeone Veyl one hour each time.

  He seemed to get the gist eventually.

  We heard him coming before we saw him. The sound of his oversized, thick-soled expedition boots rang loudly in the granite halls of the Enchantment building. Martin cursed at the recognizable din as he handed the pot of four silvers over to a smug Lucien.

  Moments later, the man himself came into view, skidding around the corner to halt. He stood there panting from his exertions, leaning over to rest his broad, skinny palms on equally thin knees.

  Simeon Veyl was…well.

  He was every single stereotype I’d ever heard about the academic nerd, all rolled into one forgetful, neurotic package. A mop of bright orange hair lay tussled on his head, looking like it hadn’t been brushed in eons. Tired blue-grey eyes stared out at the world from an almost gaunt-looking face, underlined with prominent black bags. He was a tall, awkward man, nearly rail thin and with zero muscular definition to mark martial ability. Over that, he wore the uniform of the Academy Professors, only marginally more professional than the student version. It hung off of his thin shoulders in a baggy, almost…sad manner.

  I think the only reason Simeon wasn’t wearing coke-bottle thick glasses was because you could just get that Healed.

  “Morning…class…” Simeon panted. He tried to stand up straight and project a confident voice, but it was…a bit hard, when you sounded like your balls-

  Well, no need to be crude. Simeon tried, he really did.

  He just…wasn’t great at it.

  I did my best to smile at the ‘Professor’, though I noticed, like always, I was the only one to do so. Even Lucien’s ever-present grin took on a scornful edge at the sight of Simeon Veyl. “Morning, Simeon. Up late with your treatise again?”

  “Um…yes, yes I was,” Simeon hesitantly returned my smile, wilting a bit under the attention of the others. “Again, I…deeply apologize for my lateness, class. It…uh. It won’t happen again.”

  Yes it will. You say this every week.

  But I kept that to myself.

  Yvain snorted pretty loudly, though.

  Simeon’s right cheek twitched nervously in response, and his smile took on an even more forced edge. “Well. Let’s…get started, shall well? Let me just…” He dug around in his pocket for a moment before he procured the key to the room. When he approached the door, Martin didn’t move from his position, leaning against it with his arms crossed. I could see Simeon roll one shoulder in anxiety, as he tried to work up the nerve to confront him.

  Over Simeon’s head, I gave Martin a look.

  He tried to play it off with a shrug, but I could see just how unnerved he was by my disapproval. I had…a bit of a reputation, these days, for not putting up with people’s shit. He shuffled off to the side, allowing Simeon to open the door.

  All of us followed him inside, well prepared for what was sure to be an…exciting lesson.

  ………………………..

  As always, Simeon was…a bad teacher. Actually, that was an understatement.

  Simeon Veyl was a downright terrible teacher.

  I know for a fact that he was a good researcher. I’d read some of his work as part of the course. The man could make incredibly insightful leaps of logic about Aetherology. That was the entire reason Grey had believed in him so much that he let him teach a course.

  He just couldn’t convey that information to others in a format beyond the written word. Simeon paused and stuttered every other word, visibly collecting his thoughts. He couldn’t fully describe the ideas that seemed so obvious to him. The assignments he tried to give us were either effortless book reading or impossibly difficult and ill-defined essays on topics he hadn’t covered. On top of that, when he actually tried to lecture, his confidence waned very quickly. Like today, for instance.

  Simeon had started today talking about something I found very interesting. His personal research was that Aether was far more malleable than just the shifting forms of Mana and Ki. He started talking about the possibility of different polarities, using that exact word. About how it was entirely possible for Aether to be manipulated into forms beyond what we knew, capable of wildly different results.

  An idea that Grey and I had been considering in regards to the Flux Cores.

  While I had been interested, the others hadn’t been. Martin was just staring off into space, while Yvain was visibly resentful of the time spent in this class, as always. She never took her scowling gaze off of the increasingly nervous Professor, all the while Lucien blocked off the world with one of his romance novels. Knowing Azarus, he wouldn’t have been all that different. Probably would have been scribbling in a private workbook for his Smithing.

  Eventually, as always, Simeon gave up and let us go for the day. I couldn’t blame him. I was the only person who ever demonstrated an ounce of interest, and sometimes even I lost patience with his teaching. Honestly, at this point, I almost doubted if Simeon would even set up a final project or even a test for us. The semester was rapidly approaching its end, and I almost felt like the poor man would just…pass us all out of hand, trying to be kind.

  I probably would have resented Simeon like the others for the lost instruction time at the Academy, if I weren’t so busy with other facets of my life.

  When everyone else was gone, and it was just Simeon and I left, he sighed heavily, face planted firmly onto his rickety wooden desk. I approached him and set a hand on his shoulder. When he looked up with a piece of parchment stuck to his forehead, I quirked an eyebrow. “Have you…given any thought to my offer, Simeon?”

  After all…there was no way this class was going to last another semester. And honestly? It shouldn’t. Simeon was wasted in the classroom. Normally, that would be a shame. He received a generous research grant from the Academy as part of his teaching contract.

  But…maybe with a bit of private investment…

  The Academy’s loss could be my gain.

  The Order could use a research department. I think I would oversee it, as well.

  Simeon sighed and nodded. “I…yes. You’re right, Nathan. I’ve already been informed by the board that my course…isn’t going to be renewed. I’ll…join your Order, as long as I don’t have to fight. Just…later, okay? Once things are official. Give me a bit of time to mourn.”

  I nodded quietly and decided to give the man the space he so clearly desired. Leaving the morose researcher alone in the dim classroom, I left it and him be, stepping into the open air.

  Hmm…

  The dark clouds from earlier were still there, but there was no rain. Nothing on the ground, either, to indicate an earlier shower. I’d been sure we were only minutes away from a deluge, what with all the roiling up there.

  Odd.

  I put it out of my mind as I transformed in the overcast light of day, and winged my way toward the Bastion.

  Time to get some much more interesting answers.