Magic flows through the veins of all of humanity. But those born with noble blood are closer to the source. Staliel was not born into noble blood. He was content living a quiet, average life, when an event suddenly steals away his father and thrusts him into the responsibility of protecting the daughter of a minor noble house.

But the girl doesn’t want to be protected. She wants to become a Peacekeeper. A soldier. A spy. The queen’s blade in the dark. Staliel follows her, partly out of duty, partly out of his desire for answers.

I sighed, rubbing my shoulder as I lowered the last crate from the truck. The shed I was in was larger than our house. The ceiling was high, the walls covered in moss, but the architecture reminded me of the older buildings around my neighborhood.

It took time, but I eventually managed to get back up. I stunk. I was covered in sweat and grime. I wanted nothing more but to go home, get a bath, and lose myself in sleep.

I walked out of the shed and found my father talking to one of the manor’s servants; a tall, spindly man with bags under his eyes. Father looked as busy as he always was, his attention divided between the servant and his workers as they unloaded the other trucks into the manor.

“Stal!” Father called, noticing me. “I need your help with something.”

I approached obediently, my gaze shifting toward the manor that loomed to my left. It was large enough to take up two entire blocks. It wasn’t as impressive as a manor owned by a Council Family, and it was practically a dwarf compared to Castle Avalon, but its sheer scale was awe-inspiring.

“One of our boys forgot the job manifest somewhere in the manor,” father said, “do you mind getting it for me?”

Of course I did. I wanted to say no. I was exhausted and sticky all over. But the manor (which was practically a castle in my eyes) was too interesting a sight. I was not going to turn away an opportunity to go inside.

# # #

The manor was huge but dirty. Every inch was covered in dust, the fine pieces of furniture covered by grimy cloths and plastics. I covered my nose as I strode in, squinting as beams of sunlight entered from a half-open window.

A few of Father’s employees waved at me as I passed. I waved at a few of them in return out of courtesy. They were a friendly enough group, all of them hardworking, honest men.

It took what felt like an hour to find the atrium. Here I found more of the moving boxes, stacked haphazardly over each other in threes and fours. The entire arrangement looked fragile. Just one kick and they would all have come crashing down.

It was too dark to see. It took me a while to find the light box, but when I flicked the switch, nothing happened. Either the mansion wasn’t powered yet or the Creator hated me. I figured it was probably a combination of both.

Whatever.

I sighed, closing my eyes and peering into myself. I felt the thrum of magic in my veins, flowing through my body like blood. I envisioned my Cores, just as I was taught in school; eight coin-sized objects embedded in my flesh. Four Cores were found in my arms. Four in my legs. I would have had more had I been born into nobility, but alas, these eight were all I had to work with.

I reached for the two Cores in my right arm. Magical energy coursed through my veins as I burned the Cores, igniting their power.

“Illuminatio,” I said, snapping my fingers.

A ball of light, roughly the size of a marble, materialized in my hand. It hovered beside me, floating just above my head as I set about the task of finding the manifest.

“Should you really be using magic like that?” a high-pitched voice, distinctly girlish, caused me to turn my head.

There, in the shadows, stood a girl roughly my age. She wore an expensive-looking dress, all velvet and satin, the fabric soft like roses. The weak light of my spell sent shadows across her face, but this did nothing to stop me from appreciating her looks. She appeared sophisticated, fragile. Her lips were curled in a frown. Her chin was raised a fraction, her hair tied in a pair of tails.

“Hello~,” she said, “I’m talking to you.”

“Ah,” I shook myself from my stupor, jerking my thumb toward the ball of light beside my head. “You mean this?”

“Yes, that,” she said, stomping on the floor for emphasis. “Can’t you see all the cartons here! What if they caught fire because of your spell? Then what, eh?” She puffed her cheeks and crossed her arms indignantly.

“That’s not going to happen,” I explained wearily. “Illuminatio doesn’t make things catch fire. It’s literally just a ball of light. Didn’t you learn that in school? Even people who aren’t Sorcerers know that the spell is harmless.”

The girl’s mouth snapped open. “Wha— how dare you suggest I don’t know my magic?”

“Well, you don’t, do you?”

“I just never bothered with the basics!” Wow, aren’t you humble.

For the longest time we stood there, glaring at each other, not saying a word. But Creator, she was pretty. For some reason, the fact that she was glaring at me so indignantly made her even more beautiful.

I was just about to introduce myself when a shadow fell on us both.

The servant from before stood by the doorway, frowning down at me, then at the girl.

“Lady Veinhas, I wasn’t aware that you were here,” he said, ducking his head.

The girl scoffed at me a final time before she strode toward the servant. “I was just exploring. I got bored waiting in the car.”

It took me a while to process what was happening. I never much cared for the jobs my father’s moving business took. Most of his clients were small time Ancillier like us. But Father was the best at what he did. It wasn’t rare for him to get contracted by members of the lesser nobility.

I figured that this job was like the others. Most nobles didn’t care about the specifics of a job. They only cared about the task getting done. Nobles and other rich folk often sent their servants to oversee the moving process. The current job in particular was for a noble who was moving his family from Erinrea to here, the capital, the city of Corona. The only thing I knew about the client was that they were rich and that they were paying.

I didn’t know that the family had a daughter. I knew some noble houses by association, but this was the first time I had ever heard of Veinhas.

Close to a hundred noble families lived in Corona, but I had never actually encountered a noble in person. I was aware that there were protocols to follow, that there was a proper way to address them. I was halfway to bowing when the girl turned on her heel and left.

Her servant trailed after her, disdain evident in his eyes. I glared back, only to hide how nervous I felt. How utterly out of your element I just was.

# # #

Memories of the girl flagged my thoughts even as the sun began to set. I was sitting on the roof of one of my father’s trucks, legs swaying over the side, when I spotted the girl through one of the manor’s windows. She was yelling something at someone (probably the servant), hands rising and falling animatedly.

My father was with his employees on the manor gardens. They were gathered around a table filled with food and alcohol. They were making quite a bit of noise, father’s voice booming loud above the others. My father wasn’t perfect, but his employees loved him. He loved holding these little parties every time a job was done.

The girl’s yelling was getting louder. I raised my head, squinting at her visage through the window.

She was either crazy unstable or something was wrong.

A crack snapped through the air, loud like thunder, followed by a flash of light.

I don’t know what came over me, but in a heartbeat I’ve stood up, leaped off my father’s truck, and raced into the mansion. The dust-covered hallways gave way to dust-covered stairs, which gave way to a set of double doors. I shouldered through these, surprised at how easily they opened.

I found the girl inside, huddled in a corner, a sword of all things in her trembling hands. She stared across the floor, toward me, eyes widening, before her attention snapped back to the man that towered over her.

The servant.

He spared me a glance, lips curling into a disapproving frown.

“What’s going on here?” I yelled, trying to sound brave and failing utterly as my voice pitched at the last syllable.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the servant said, his entire body turning in my direction. He had a knife in his hand, a foot-long serrated blade. The design reminded me of the combat knives we practiced with in Basic.

“Call for help!” the girl yelled, scrambling back.

The servant was seven meters away. I breathed, searching for my Cores. The two Cores I burned from before had already cooled down, and that meant I had full access to all my magical resources.

My training flashed in my mind’s eye, kicking my body into high gear. I instinctively lowered myself to the ground, my hands tightening into fists. Words from my instructors rang in my head, when faced with an armed assailant—

I blinked. The servant flickered, disappearing one moment and reappearing in the next, except now he’s crossed the distance.

I raised my hand by instinct, but the man reached forward and grabbed me by the collar, tossing me aside and sending me crashing against the far wall. Breath escaped my throat as I slumped on the ground, the world spinning around me.

“Incineratio,” I heard the girl say. A crack of lightning slammed into the man. Or rather, a crack of lightning slammed into the wall beside the man, missing him by a good foot.

I blinked and the man was gone again, having crossed the distance toward the girl in another heartbeat. He palmed her face, sending her slamming into the wall, hard enough to splinter the wood.

I groaned, kicking myself off the ground, teeth gritting as I burned all of my eight Cores at once. Instead of willing the Cores to power a spell, I drove the magical energy they produced inward into my body. The world blurred around me, then, in another heartbeat, the world sharpened. Motes of dust stopped in the air. My breathing steadied. Time slowed down to a crawl.

I kicked the floor hard enough to shatter the wood. The world coiled around me like a tunnel, the man’s neck was my target. If I could just get him in a hold—

His hand shot out then, catching me by the throat. Breath left my lungs, my mind scrambling to process what was happening. With all of my Cores focused on Enhancement, I must have been moving at around Mach one. But I still wasn’t fast enough.

I grabbed at the man’s hands, but his grip might as well have been made of stone. With an almost casual gesture he turned and tossed me through a window. I fell with glass and splinters of wood toward the gardens below.

I crashed against the ground. Hard enough to break my bones, to kill me even. But with all of my Cores alight, my body had reached a level of supernatural endurance.

My breath was hot in my throat as I forced myself to rise. It took what felt like hours before I was back on my feet, before I was walking, step after step after step, back to the room upstairs.

A feeling in my gut told me that the girl was dead.

That I was too late.

Instead.

Instead I found the girl huddled in a corner, covered in blood, crying. A man stood before her. In my tired, delirious state, I saw the man as the servant. But then I recognized the stained white shirt, the dirt-covered overalls, the short cropped hair.

It was Father.

“Dad,” I called out.

I extinguished my Cores. With the action came a sudden wash of fatigue and pain, coursing through my body like a curse. I stumbled, gritting my teeth as I took one step, then two, toward Father and the girl.

My father gave me a look. A cold, hard look that slowly softened to understanding. A figure was face-down beside him. The servant. His mouth hung open, blood pooled from his lips, eyes hollow and wide like discs.

“Staliel,” father said, kneeling down and placing something in my hand.

A knife, black as night. It wasn’t the same knife the servant used. No, that blade was stuck in the servant’s back. This knife was smaller, looking like something meant for cutting vegetables instead of throats. He wrapped my fingers around the hilt and closed his eyes, resting his forehead to mine.

“Thank you for everything, Staliel,” he said. His voice carried neither grief nor pain, only a soft sincerity. “And I’m sorry.”

“Dad?” I asked again, but my father had already stood, already faced the window.

Questions raced in my mind.

How did he get here so quickly?

How did he kill the servant without a scratch on his body?

“What was happening?

I wanted to ask these things, but all I could do was stand numbly, watching as my father put one foot, then the other, on the windowsill. And just like that he leaped. Not a word of goodbye uttered, not even a glance spared.

I took a step toward the window then, but then the girl stifled a sniff. Her eyes were watering. Her dress was stained with blood, though the lack of visible wounds made me think that the blood wasn’t her own. The sword she wielded a moment before was gone. She looked so fragile, so helpless and lost. She hugged her knees, squeezing her eyes shut as she sobbed silently against her skirt.

I felt like every bone in my body was broken, every muscle torn. Before I knew it, I had taken one step, then two, toward her. Before I knew it, I was sitting beside her, hands numb at my sides, my head craned as I stared at the ceiling.

We stayed like that for what felt like hours, until the sound of sirens began to ring in the distance.