The School
Ember made her down the path under a canopy of trees. The sun shone through the leaves, the cool mountain air warming in the morning light. It was beautiful weather for such an important day. A day where she would be given her military assignment, as was tradition, from the Hirana Empire’s Military Strategy Academy. After ten years, it was time for her and her peers to take the next step be promoted in a way, from student to soldier. She should have felt happy, but she wasn’t. Relieved, sure, but happy would only come once she was old enough to be discharged from the military and be able to settle and have time for herself where she didn’t have to think about the quickest way to kill someone or how the magic taught was only the basics and there was more than just killing spells. Though she mainly wanted a normal life, or as normal a life she could get as the king’s niece, it was highly unlikely. Not just because of her relation to him, but being the only child to her parents and the only child born recently with a connection to the shadowlands not seen in several decades. It was because of this connection she had been at the academy for so long, and it was because of this that even if she never went directly to the military, she would surely end up in Irian to hold back the plague that still lurked in the swampy waters, trying to escape. She shook her head, the thought to dark for what was supposed to be a happy day. A day marking the beginning of the rest of her, and hundreds of others, lives.
She stopped short in front of her dormitory, a silent buzz filled the air as the rest of her peers woke and prepared for the day. The building was old and creaky, only barely two floors with hardly enough space for the few hundred or so girls that it housed with its long, narrow hallways with a different section for each age group. She had always been an early riser, so she was already cleaned and dressed. She walked in, the floor giving ever so slightly under the weight of several dozen pounding feet as the heavy sleepers leapt up and rushed to get ready. Any other day it would have been an entertaining sight to behold, but not today. They were all too nervous, including her, to laugh at how ridiculous it was for them to be the last up and ready. Such behavior wouldn’t be tolerated outside the academy property, no they would be made to run laps or clean up after meal time by their superiors until they ‘corrected their behavior’. Not that there was really any reason for it, other than humiliation and power grabs.
She watched red fabric fly from empty drawers as everyone finished. If it weren’t for how different each girl looked, one might think they were clones. All of them, including Ember, wore red tunics embroidered in silver and gold, the stiches forming the outline of a majestic and extinct creature that was once called a lion. It was standard issue, along with the dark brown pants and leather boots. The key difference between each girl the style of their hair, though there were a few like Ember with unnaturally pale skin and rich violet eyes, or some like her friend Maria with skin ranging from a light brown to dark black with tightly curled or braided hair and amber eyes that seemed to shine in the early light. Every other girl had dark, tanned skin from years of constant sun exposure, light brown and blonde hair with eyes that varied from a leaf green, to a foggy blue. Once they were all dressed, they filed into a five by ten row with Ember at the helm, being the oldest and strongest from this group, with only the sound of the worn boots stomping along the stone paths.
As they walked, more groups with varying degrees of put together joined them. Each led by one student, mostly boys no, men, all of them in the same red and brown uniform. Around them were several more buildings of the same wood and style, long narrow and sectioned for the age group. Each range holding about a hundred or so students, each for a period of eight to ten years. The dorms were their home, and now they marched one final time to the Arena, as it was called. An old mining pit that had been smoothed and leveled, with a tunnel going underground that led to the floor. An ancient seal had been carved into the structure to keep the arena from ever collapsing, even from the strength of a thousand magical blasts. The walls had been carved into seating, with enough space it could hold fifteen times the number of students, which today it was. Thousands of adults from the military, nobility and regular working class gathered in the stands along with the remaining students from the Military academy, as well as the two other academies.
The more prestigious of the two the Academy of Politics, Philosophy and Leadership. It was also called the Nobles school, since it was mostly nobles who had barely passed the academies entrance test that were sent there. They were lucky enough to be located the base of the mountain the where the Empire’s capitol, Scala, was atop the Dead’s Tomb. The students were very uptight, always careful to make sure their bright white dresses or dress shirts were never stained. It was the school where her similarly aged cousin, Amelia attended. Always getting to go home for brief periods to undergo special training from her father and mother.
Then there was the A academy, the name as shrouded as its exact location. And though it never announced what the purpose of the school was, there was only so much left to teach when one school applied itself to magic and military strategy, and the other prided itself on training the future leaders of the country. All Ember knew of the other academy, aside from their dark, plain green tunics and black pants and boots, was that they lived in a muggy swamp and the name of the students were never handed out. They were also the ones who showed extreme cunning when put through the entrance test and disappeared after the week long trial never to be seen from by the rest again.
All three hundred students who had survived/completed, the trial gathered on the arena floor, the greyish white powder slowly settling back to the ground as the green, white and red sea stood still under the rising heat while the Headmasters of each school gave a winded speech of how proud of this years graduates they were and the high hopes they had for them all in the future and the prosperity they would bring the Hirana Empire. To any of the younger students listening, it would sound inspiring. They were, in fact, just repeating things they had said to each year of students for the past decade at least. The only real changes were the names announced as the pride of the school and why.
After the headmasters, the King Devin Calivan, gave his speech. This was was a new one each year, that spoke of the trials each class had faced in learning and training, with the same hope and pride the teachers held in the students, though it always came off more genuine than the head teachers. King Devin was a kind, fifty year old man who towered at near six feet tall. His voice was a low, baritone that echoed through the stone, starting from the makeshift podium he stood on to the far reaches of the stadium seats filled with hopefuls and newly inducted kids who had just returned from their trial. Ember found it hard to focus on the speech as it continued on, longer than normal. She shouldn’t have been surprised, Amelia was the youngest with a strong future and of course he would want to give her a ceremony worth remembering. He did it with all of his children.
“Now, I welcome the three graduates from each school that led their year through the trials set before them. First, Ash of A.” The words jolted Ember back to attention. The top three were unknown until the day of, and often it was a surprise to who would be chosen. Ash was a petite thing, a hood covering their face and hair, though it looked hastily flipped up. They had probably been somewhere in the middle where the lines blurred on who was who. A path lit up as they approached the bottom step of the podium, stopping before going up. “Next, Larin of Nobility.” This time there was faint applause that reached the arena floor. The boy who walked up was stocky, even though combat was optional for that school. He could have easily been mistaken for someone from her school if it weren’t for his clear, olive skin and perfectly kept brown hair. Ember could already hear the teasing he would receive for being a ‘pretty boy’ if he was ever assigned anything military related. Larin stood next to Ash at the base of the steps, looking far more proud of the accomplishment than he probably should be.
“And from my personal favorite school, Military training, Maira.” He said. Ember quietly sighed, though did her best to hide it since she was in the front. Maira had been a friend of hers and she was happy for her while being relieved she wasn’t stuck with even more eyes on her. Maira walked by with a stoic expression. Her reddish brown hair kept back in a braid. Like many from the academy, scars and old burns covered most exposed skin, including her face that had a ice rune imbedded her left side, partially into her hair line from a backfired spell first year. After that incident, Maira had trained in only physical combat and strategy, leaving her with as much of a stocky build as Larin, if not more. Once Maira was next to the other two, some high commanding officer led them off. It was a strange deviation from what normally happened, but Ember had little time to dwell on it before the teachers began leading students out for assignments. She glanced back at where the three had been taken before leading the sea of red out the tunnel to an awaiting caravan of wagons and carriages meant to take them home long enough to see their families before being sent off.
