âHow has your time in the capital been?â Luna asked her wayward friend. It still felt odd to her to be split up with her friends. Hard to believe they had only known each other for a little less than a year.
âNot too bad. Alice hasnât made me do anything crazy aside from some detective work, which was relatively easy.â It didnât take her much effort to picture Azura as a detective. He was plenty good at sussing out secrets, even when he was just casually interacting with someone. âHow about you? Have you gone to visit your family yet?â
She groaned. Asking difficult questions also happened to be another specialty of his, much to her consternation. She was terrified of seeing her parents. She had defied them after all, because they wanted her to be anything other than a mage, in fact they had even expressly forbid it. âDo you really think I should go see them? Itâll only end in a fight.â She frowned at the thought, a traitorous part of her mind bringing up how much she missed them.
âSo? Fighting with the people you care about is natural. Iâve had several arguments with all of my friends at least once, and even my sister who is easily the most tolerant person I know has gotten mad at me before. The more you care about someone the easier it is to be upset by them, and vice versa. That doesnât make the fact you care about each other go away.â She sighed as Azura gave her a ⦠pep talk? Well she wasnât quite sure it qualified as that, he wasnât trying to cheer her up so much as convince her to see her family, because he was somehow convinced it would help her in some way.
âItâs not like Iâm the only one not visiting my family.â That was a low blow and she knew it. Azuraâs father was an entirely different beast from her family, so Azuraâs situation was entirely different to hers, and he had still gone to visit his sister. Still low blow or not she hoped it would steer the conversation away from the current topic.
âNo, but you are the only one who has the option to visit family that cares about them, but isnât.â She winced. Only Azura could slip that many barbs into 1 sentence. She sighed again, perhaps she was being unreasonable, her parents had only wanted her to be safe. She couldnât avoid them forever, especially not when she had seen the opposite side of the scale. Having a parent that didnât care at all was much worse than one who cared too much and became overprotective.
âAlright you win, Iâll try and visit them soon.â It was odd how many mixed feelings the declaration left her with. Excitement, and anxiety swirled together leaving her a little light headed. Or the lightheadedness might come from the immense relief she was feeling. Deciding to herself that she would visit had taken quite a weight off her shoulders.
Azura smiled gently at her. She really had gotten lucky with the friends she had made in the academy. Of course her bad luck had still been going strong for small things, like for example the tile she just stepped on happened to be the only one in the entire castle that was loose, and it sliding beneath her foot caused her to fall flat on her face. Or well it would have if Azura hadnât caught her before she reached the ground. âI see your luck hasnât changed.â
She chuckled anxiously as he helped her back to her feet. Luckily her humiliation didnât stop her hand from darting out to catch the piece of stone that had fallen from the ceiling high above them and nearly landed on her friend's head. âYours either, at least when youâre not in the academy.â The day they left for break had been rather amusing in that the literal second her and Azura stepped out of the academy grounds, or rather the headmistressâ barrier their bad luck had returned with a vengeance. She had been hit by bird poop, and the ground Azura stepped on instantly became a sinkhole.
***
âAnd isnât that strange, I really need to ask the headmistress what kind of magic is in that barrier, because itâs without a doubt true that my luck is night and day inside and outside of it.â He supposed there were a few exceptions to that, both inside and outside, but that fell within the bounds of reasonable probability.
âGood idea, if you could make an enchantment that does the same thing on us permanently that would be fantastic.â They shared a laugh in commiseration. It would be nice to not have to deal with the minor inconveniences anymore. Thankfully it seemed that the more dangerous side to his bad luck had been due to the being watching over him, who thankfully had stopped interfering in that way, but the minor things were in fact just him having bad luck.
âThatâs the goal. Unfortunately I imagine magic that affects probability to be quite difficult.â Not that something being difficult had ever stopped him before. Besides the barrier had plenty of other effects he would love to examine, so it would be plenty worth his time, even with his current time crunch.
âSays the person that utilizes both time and space magic. Magic being difficult barely means anything when you have all the extra time in the day because of your copies.â He chuckled at that. She wasnât wrong even now as he walked with Luna his copies were doing plenty of studying and working on the âhomeworkâ he had been assigned for the summer. Apparently his biggest weakness was a lack of mid tier offensive options. He had extremely powerful attacks, and plenty of weak ones, but he didnât really have many standard power spells that he could use to probe for weaknesses. The headmistress was an extremely powerful mage, so he took her word for it and had been working on correcting that issue.
âThe big deal about those magic types is that they are dangerous, not that theyâre difficult. If weâre talking about the spells that were the hardest for me to learn then it would have to be elemental magic without shards. Now I suppose if we were talking about the magic that killed the most copies during practice then it would definitely be spatial magic.â He had lost many a copy, in fairly gruesome ways to getting better at that particular branch of magic.
âStill always caught up in semantics I see.â He laughed again. It had only been a couple of weeks, itâs not like she had changed any either. Evern her outfit was the same as when heâd first met her. Which was odd in of itself because he had gotten so used to seeing her in the school uniform. The small armor pieces did make her look a lot more professional though.âOn an unrelated note, whatâs with all the black? You going through a rebellious phase⦠A more rebellious phase?â
He had forgotten about that, thankfully the bottom mask was down, and the eye mask was clipped to his belt, so he at least didnât look like he just got done breaking and entering.ânothing like that, I just had a task that required a more subtle touch than usual.âHe glowed briefly as his clothes shifter to white with gold patterns. He decided he could get away with gold instead of silver as long as he was still a student. His affiliation with the grand forge academy was definitely something his father would approve of him acknowledging.
âThat is unfairly handy. Wait, if you're forming the clothes with your magic doesnât that make them part of your body?â He rolled his eyes fondly. It was pretty obvious to see where this question was leading too, and he debated on how he wanted to handle it. Playing into the being naked joke would be amusing, but on the other hand it would leave some misconceptions about how his magic body worked, that could become an issue later. He supposed he could play along now and correct her later.
âI suppose you could look at it that way.â Still not a lie. She could look at it that way, it would be wrong, but she could still do it. In the end it was the same as yggdrasil, he wasnât forming anything, only reshaping things he already had, or in this case re-coloring.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
âSo youâre just naked all the time now?â He was right, playing along was proving to be quite amusing. Luna looked so embarrassed she couldnât meet his eyes, which meant her eyes would land on his clothes, which would embarrass her further, and she would cycle between the 2.
He laughed. After watching her being embarrassed over nothing for a bit he finally took pity on her.âOf course not. Itâs not like I donât have a body beneath these clothes. I can still take them off if I want, I merely reshape them instead of going through the effort of changing. Itâs merely a convenience.â
Luna sighed in relief, the embarrassed flush slowly leaving her face. âYou did that on purpose.â He waved off the accusation, which was ultimately the same as admitting to it. Not like there was any doubt, his love of teasing his friends was already well known. Luna rolled her eyes, but her small fond smile wasnât hidden. âMoving past that, where is Katy? She came here with you didnât she?â
âShe came to the same place as me technically, but she wanted to train on her own over break. If she trained with me Iâm always going to be stronger because I have my copies working too, so she wanted to try on her own to see if she could find a way to keep up with my growth.â It was commendable really, even if he didnât really think sheâd be able to. Even without his copies his magic core made it so he recovered mana unbelievably fast, which meant he could train for longer and recover faster, which then made his copies even more productive.
âI see, well I suppose itâs not a bad mentality. Even if she fails Iâm sure sheâll get a ton strongerâ That about summed up his thoughts on the matter too. âI guess she just came here to say hi to your sister then?â He hummed in agreement. In a lot of ways Katy was actually closer to Serena than he was.
âHow about you? If you havenât visited your family, what have you been doing?â He knew Lily was traveling around taking monster extermination requests, Cynthia was with her mother, and Siara was out studying nature. Roran hadnât actually said where he was going aside from that he wasnât going home with Cynthia.
âTraining mostly. Iâm intending to take a ship to Lindin and spend the last 2 months of my break there.â That made sense, Lindin despised âmagic,â but only the kinds that were overt. As far as magic for enhancing physical capabilities went and close combat skill there was nowhere better in the world to learn. They didnât call it magic, but it was semantics really.
âWell you will certainly grow a lot there, if you want I can teleport you over there. It will get you a few extra weeks of training.â Not to mention it would save her a lot of money. âI would have a condition though.â He felt a little bad as the excited look in Lunaâs eyes immediately dimmed. It was obvious what his condition would be, but he didnât think sheâd react that negatively to it.
âI already said Iâd visit them soon, but I was thinking more at the end of my trip right before break ends.â He sighed. He supposed that wasnât unreasonable, that way they would have some time to cool off from the inevitable argument.
âThatâs acceptable, Iâll grab you 2 days before break ends and Iâll drop you off at your home town. Deal?â He held out his hand. It was an odd middle ground, a handshake was a little formal for a deal between friends, and way less formal than the contracts he tended to make, but he figured it would be acceptable here.
Luna released a loud burst of air. âOk fine, thanks for the ride I guess.â He chuckled as she pouted even while shaking his hand. Heâd have to send her somewhere secluded lest she be seen appearing from a portal and be accused of witchcraft. âI donât plan to stay here long, so any chance you could have that set up by tomorrow morning?â
He smirked, it was a bit of a time crunch, but heâd get it done. He prided himself in his ability to get things done efficiently and quickly. âOf course I can get it done, who do you think youâre talking to?â She rolled her eyes at him, but smiled nonetheless. He couldnât wait to see how strong his friends would be when they all met back up.
***
Azuraâs break had been fairly uneventful since He dropped Luna off at Lindin. He trained, studied, and then trained some more. Occasionally he took a break to talk to his sister, but for the most part he just focused on getting stronger. At least that had been the case until yesterday. Xander had asked him for a favor, and unlike with the princess he was honestly glad to help the man out. Unfortunately Xanderâs favor ended up being a little more complicated than heâd expected.
A group had appeared recently with the goal of overthrowing the king. Which to be honest wasnât all that unusual on its own. No, what made this group such a big deal was that signs of their activity had already made it into the castle. Meaning there was either a traitor on staff, or There was a secret entrance no one knew about. He was betting on the former, if there was a secret entrance Katy would have found it by now.
Xander had tasked him with finding the traitor, and shutting down the group. Step 1 was easy enough for him, but step 2 might be some trouble given that he was looking at the corpse of said traitor. The gangly man had been one of the cooks in the Kitchen. His blonde hair was matted from wearing a hat all day and his blue eyes were glassy with no life remaining in them. Whatever poison the traitor had taken left a foamy substance coming out of his mouth.
He had approached the man to ask him who he worked for, but the second he said that he knew what the man was up to, the cook had reached for something in his coat. He had jumped back expecting an attack, but that had proven to be a mistake as the cook quickly ingested whatever he had pulled out. He sighed. âFanatics, awesome.â Easily the worst kind of people to deal with. With a final defeated sigh he placed an enchantment on the body to put it into stasis and then sent it to his storage chamber in the armory. Xander wasnât going to like this, and frankly he didnât either. Still he had agreed to get rid of the group this cook was attached to, and he always kept his word.
***
âHe killed himself that quickly?â Azura had just finished his report, and was gratified to see that Xander was just as concerned as he was. The prince was often overshadowed by his sister, but Xander was no slouch in the intelligence department and had quickly connected all the same pieces he had earlier.
âYeah, based on my current investigations Iâm left with the conclusion that the group is well organized and fanatical. Which is an awful combination for us.â Even with his time viewing magic, tracking them down wouldnât be easy. There was no sound, and the cook talked to many people every day. There was just no way to know for sure who his contact was for whatever group he was working for. On top of that the cook had been working in the castle for 6 years. Was he recruited, or had he been biding his time since the beginning?
âI was afraid that might be the case. Any attempt on me or my familyâs lives had been extremely subtle. So much so that for a while I genuinely thought them to be accidents and was very thankful to the guards we keep on us for preventing us from being harmed, but then the accidents started ramping up. A whole balcony almost crushed me last week. It was pure luck that Lux happened to be walking by or I would have died for sure.â He frowned in thought. Xanderâs story didnât make sense, not like he was lying, but it didnât add up.â
âAre you sure their goal is to overthrow the kingdom?â The prince dying in an accident wouldnât help accomplish that, and would only increase the guard on the other Royals. Same result if any of the others were the first to die. Not only that but groups like these are usually very vocal about their intentions because they would need to drum up support. It just didnât make sense.
âI canât really think of any other reason to attack the royals as a whole.â That was true enough. What would they gain by taking out the Royals? Instability in the kingdom is the first thing that comes to mind, and power loves a vacuum. Still the group had to know whoever their rep was wouldnât have a chance at taking the power position there are just too many top tier noble mages that would vie for the position his father included.
His eyes widened as he laughed mirthlessly. âA distraction.â He shivered violently at the implications. âThey were trying to assassinate you to start a civil war among the powers that be in this kingdom just so they could move around undetected in the chaos.â It was the only thing that made sense. If the Royals were obviously murdered the nobles would band together to take out the killers first before tearing themselves apart, but if their deaths seemed like a tragic accident? Just who was he dealing with?