Punishment, as it turned out, was trash duty for a month. Which actually wasn't so bad. After weeks of no chores and nothing to do but schoolwork, Intan had begun to miss her life back in the village, where there had hardly ever been a moment for rest.

On the other hand, the Nine Dragons class was a punishment in and of itself. "Nine Dragons" was a bit of a misnomer, as it turned out; including Intan, there were actually only seven members, and she was the only cadet from Wisteria. The other two first years, a quiet, polished girl and an even quieter loner of a boy, seemed content to ignore her, and the second years, both girls, were rather intimidating. Tuyet from Hibiscus and Rusli from Azalea were quite kind, however.

But it wasn't her fellow Dragons that were the issue. It was all the extra work. Intan was quite certain she would go mad by the end of the month, given the dizzying reams of texts she was expected to copy and memorize and debate. Not to mention the training. All Academy students were expected to train in hand-to-hand combat, no matter their division, but the Dragons were required to participate in daily strength and endurance exercises in addition to the regular classes. By the end of each day, Intan was so exhausted that she plopped right into bed and fell asleep immediately. She couldn't see why the class was so special that it warranted all that effort and secrecy. Not that keeping the secret was difficult, when she didn't really talk to anyone else.

But as tired as she was, she had been unable to go exploring. (Part of Intan wondered if this were not the true reason the Headmistress had dumped her into the Nine Dragons at the last minute!) And though she wasn't particularly inclined to dwell on meaningless puzzles, the name "Ausos" continued to weigh uneasily at the back of her mind.

"I still don't get it," complained Hadil, at the end of the first week. The two of them were wheeling the last carts of garbage to the incinerator together on foot, having been forbidden -- for obvious reasons -- to drive the usual ground transports instead. Intan had declined Hadil's help at first, but the other girl had insisted on joining her anyway. Maybe she felt guilty about her part in Intan's escapade, though there was no reason for her to. It had not been for her sake that Intan had piloted the Doll.

Or perhaps Hadil, like Intan, was simply restless.

"Don't get what?"

"I went back to the junkyard again today since I got out of class early. But it just doesn't make sense. Those things are deader than herring! I even ran some tests. They shouldn't be in working condition anymore."

"You have to be gentle," said Intan, shrugging. The sticky warmth of the night combined with the overwhelming smell of rot made her queasy and not particularly inclined to concentrate on Hadil's usual stream of conversation. The weather was swiftly becoming insufferable enough that students and instructors alike gave up maintaining any semblance of propriety and rolled up their sleeves in attempt to keep cool. Some, like Intan, had even switched to the thinner hemp robes for the approaching summer already.

"I wish you'd come with me again. Show me how you did it. Maybe I could figure something out then."

Intan made a face. "I'm in enough trouble already, thanks."

"Are you sure the Headmistress didn't ask you anything about it? It sure seems like something she'd be interested in. Just imagine! A retired model! Still working after all this time! I must be overlooking something."

Intan wiped the sweat from her forehead and began to tune out. To take her mind off the heat, she gazed out into the distance, studying the mountains that encircled the lake in a protective ring. She had been searching for signs of the mountains' guardian spirits ever since arriving at the Academy, but thus far none had shown themselves. Probably they were just shy, though even in the bustling dreariness of the capital she had caught sight of tree sprites here and there.

Their absence had not troubled her at first, but as time passed, the emptiness seemed to grow, like an itch she could not reach.

"Intan. Hey, Intan." Hadil tugged at her sleeve, interrupting her thoughts.

Intan, hearing the sudden urgency in Hadil's voice, turned.

Running toward them was a girl from the Lotus division. In the dim glow of the street lamps, Intan made out swollen eyes, bedraggled fair hair, and a freckled face flushed in what was seemed to be anger rather than mere overheating.

"I wonder if all the people in Lotus are like this," said Intan.

Hadil looked at her funny as the girl neared. "Huh?"

"Murderer!" screamed the girl.

Intan stiffened.

Hadil stepped forward, frowning. "What the heck are you going on about?"

The girl ignored her and pointed a trembling finger at Intan. "You, you're the one who killed her!"

Intan stared. "Killed?"

"Don't act like you don't know. You -- you --" The girl broke down into tears.

"Wait a sec," whispered Hadil. "That's..."

Intan did not budge.

"He said you were there! You were there, when Sita, when she --"

"Si... ta?" said Intan, and knew, suddenly, that she must be referring to the dead pilot.

"She was my friend!" wailed the girl, who launched herself at Intan, clawing at her face. Intan stepped reflexively out of the way, still staring, stunned at the revelation. The girl stumbled into a cart of trash, knocking it over.

"Hey, are you okay?" Hadil was saying, looking concerned now. She crouched down by the girl, who lay there sobbing. "Intan, d'you have any idea what's going on?"

"I'm sorry," Intan began, distressed, when the girl sprang forward, swinging wildly at Hadil, scattering bits of rotted fruit across the ground.

Hadil, quick and surprisingly strong despite her diminutive frame, leaped up, grabbed the girl's arm, and twisted. "Honestly! What is your problem?"

The girl continued to struggle and weep. "Murderer! Murderer!"

"What's going on here?"

A male voice. Intan looked up, and saw a group of Azalea upperclassmen, headed by none other than her senior in the Nine Dragons, Jinwei Rusli. Most of the upperclassmen wrinkled their noses at the sight before them, which Intan distractedly thought was quite understandable, given the circumstances. A few of them shuffled around awkwardly, which was also understandable. One of them smirked and made gagging noises. That, now, was quite uncalled for.

Rusli, however, stepped forward, offering them a gentle smile. "Good evening," he said in a pleasant, conversational tone. "I see we seem to have stumbled across some sort of misunderstanding?"

Intan opened her mouth to respond, but a sudden wind arose, singing in her ears. Just beyond the crowd, she glimpsed a pair of tree sprites dancing merrily on the rooftop, their bright hair waving in the breeze like flames.

"I'm sorry," she murmured again, overwhelmed all at once with an odd mix of relief, guilt, and confusion. But before she could continue, the girl managed to wrench free of Hadil's grasp.

"You!" shrieked the girl.

To the surprise of everyone present, this time she struck at Rusli. Rusli raised his arms in defence. A shadow shifted in the crowd. Another voice rang out.

"You fucking idiot!"

This time, Intan recognized the blond medic instantly. He leaped before Rusli and took the girl's punch without even the slightest wince, then proceeded to return the girl's fist with a slap to her face.

"Get a damn grip, Park," he growled. The girl glared back for a moment before deflating. Without the anger fueling her, she looked rather like a dirty, bedraggled secondhand doll.

Someone in the back hooted. "Take it easy there, kid."

"She your girl? Guess it's true what they say. Crazy attracts crazy."

The boy turned slowly to face the rest of the Azalea students. Intan could not see the expression on his face when he spoke, but his back was straight and stiff, his voice low and brusque. "I apologize for my junior's behavior. We will take our leave now." He nudged the girl to a standing position and began to pull her away from the crowd.

"Kaneshiro," said Rusli.

The boy paused, but did not turn again.

Rusli ran a hand through his wine-dark hair, looking conflicted. In the end he said only, "Thank you."

The medic students left without another word.

* * *

Intan exchanged a look with Hadil as the medic students turned the corner, leaving the two of them alone with the Azalea upperclassmen.

"Are you okay?" Hadil murmured, this time addressing Intan.

Intan simply nodded. Of course she was okay. She glanced at the rooftop, but the tree sprites were already gone.

Rusli turned to them then. "Getting rather infamous already, aren't you, Aghavni?" he said in a light tone. "Did something happen?"

"My apologies, sir," said Intan. "I appreciate your interference, but it wasn't necessary."

He shook his head, smiling. "Come now, Aghavni. I thought I told you already. No need to be so formal!"

Intan nodded again. "It was just a misunderstanding, as you said." After a moment, she asked tentatively, "Did you know them? Those medic students?"

"Oh," said Rusli, looking startled at the question. "Just Kaneshiro. We're... acquainted."

"Bastard," muttered one of his friends, face scrunched in disgust. "Just because the Headmistress takes pity on him --" At a glance from Rusli, he fell silent.

"Why do you ask?" said Rusli, turning back to Intan.

He thought she had gotten in trouble with the Headmistress just for disregarding orders. Only Hadil knew about Intan's turn in the Doll. But even Hadil was unaware of the exact details, and Intan thought it all far too complicated to explain.

"I ran into him the other day," she said at last. "He seems to be a very angry person."

For a moment Rusli stared. Then he began to laugh. His friends, too, laughed, a bit nervously.

"I --" Rusli gasped, then broke off laughing again. "I -- I suppose you could put it that way."

"Angry is right. Not to mention temperamental, boorish, and utterly lacking in self-control," sneered one of the boys in the crowd.

"How can you joke about it like that?" snapped the girl behind him. "Or did you forget that he killed someone?"

"Killed?" squeaked out Hadil, who until then had been uncharacteristically quiet, apparently lost in thought.

Rusli sobered. "It was just an accident."

"Oh yeah? I think it was all just hushed up," said another of his friends.

"There was and remains no proof of that," Rusli said firmly.

"Then how do you explain his getting kicked out of the program? You really think the Headmistress would have done that if he were innocent?"

"It's possible he chose to quit for his own reasons. We mustn't judge him without knowing the full story."

"I heard he was in a street gang back in the capital!"

"I don't believe you actually buy the crap you're spouting, Rusli."

At this last remark, a tall, dark-haired boy whom Intan had noticed hovering silently nearby through this entire exchange, shifted his weight. Whatever he had been about to do, however, Intan did not find out, for Rusli held up a hand and the boy stilled.

"Come now, let's not get into another fight over this," said Rusli.

After some more disgruntled muttering, the crowd settled, much to Intan's surprise.

"Ah," Rusli continued then, as if nothing had just transpired. "After all that, I nearly forgot --" He turned back to Intan. "Actually, we were sent to inform you of an emergency school-wide assembly gathering in an hour. Half an hour, now. We'd best hurry if we don't want to be late."

Hadil said, "An emergency assembly?"

Intan said, "But the trash?"

Rusli laughed again. "Word has it the Bear herself has come calling. Something about the Double Five Festival next week, I wager. As for the trash --" he glanced at the overturned cart and the garbage strewn across the ground "-- why don't I help you finish up here?"

"But Rusli --" protested the girl who had spoken earlier.

He shook his head and addressed the tall boy at his side. "Yusaku, you and the others go ahead. We'll catch up."

The boy nodded and began to herd the other students away.

Rusli grinned at Intan.

Intan forced herself to smile back.

* * *

"I must apologize for my friends," said Rusli under his breath some time later, as they left the incinerator and started making their way to the assembly hall. Hadil, already recovered from the earlier incident, walked a little ways ahead of them, babbling away to no one particular about a hydropowered fan she had been tinkering with in her own time.

Intan, preoccupied with her own thoughts, did not respond.

"He was one of us."

That caught her attention. She looked at him. "You mean..."

"Eguzki Kaneshiro of Wisteria. Yes. He had a bit of a reputation from the start -- whether or not it was justified I don't know. But there's also no denying that he was the top pilot in his class, perhaps even in his year... Until he dropped out of the program and transferred to the medic division."

"Because of the accident."

Rusli sighed, and it was some time before he continued. "You must have wondered why we number only seven. I don't know the details myself... but he got in a fight with the second year Wisteria representative right before the winter holidays. It ended with the second year dead. There was a huge outcry for Kaneshiro to be expelled, brought before the king for sentencing, even. But the Headmistress intervened."

Intan thought of the dead pilot. Sita -- Sita Chang. And her medic friend -- Park?

She said, "Because she didn't want to see his talent wasted?"

Rusli looked surprised. "What makes you say that? No... I heard that the Headmistress was good friends with his late mother. I would guess she simply wished to allow him a second chance, in honor of past relations. After all, without the school, he had nowhere left to go."

"I didn't think the Headmistress was so kind."

He chuckled. "She doesn't seem the type, does she? But you know how it goes. 'In the beginning, the nature of man is good,'" he said, quoting from a classic text. "To be kind is to be human. The Headmistress may be strict, but even she is no exception. She's no robot, after all!"

That wasn't quite what Intan had meant, but she smiled back nonetheless.

Unified are their natures; divergent are their habits.

* * *

The hall was already packed and sweltering by the time they reached it. Intan searched in vain for the rest of her division, but Rusli laughed and waved her and Hadil to an unoccupied corner near his class. They squeezed into the small space, ignoring the other students' reactions to their stench.

It seemed they had arrived not a moment too soon. As they settled into their positions, the assistant headmistress Miss Singh entered from a side door, dressed in filmy green robes that were quite appropriate for the weather, if not for the occasion at hand. At her side strode a tall, dark-haired woman with an impressive scar slashing across the bridge of her nose. She wore the red and gold uniform of a high-ranking officer, rendering her instantly recognizable as the great war hero, the Crimson Bear.

As the two women stepped onto the raised platform at the head of the hall, a hush descended upon the gathering.

"Your presence with us tonight is quite the pleasant surprise, Brigadier General Hsiung," said Miss Singh with a sly smile, projecting her voice loudly enough for the entire room to hear. "On behalf of Headmistress Liow, I welcome you to the Academy. What manner of urgent business brings you here, if I may inquire?"

With a barely withheld look of -- disgust? irritation? -- the general turned to face the audience. "I come," said the general, gesturing to the hall's main entrance, "on behalf of His Royal Majesty."

Students and instructors alike turned as one. There was gasp. The crowd parted, and as one, scrambled to their knees and bowed.

Intan held her breath for an interminable moment. She imagined she could hear the king's footsteps, treading softly down the path.

"Rise." The general's voice echoed through the room.

When Intan looked up again, the king himself stood upon the platform before them all. She found herself disappointed. But for the richly brocaded robes he wore, marked with the emblem of the royal family of Nahwan, she might have mistaken him for a commoner. Some lanky, unassuming middle-aged merchant, perhaps. Or one of the addle-brained classics professors at the academy. Intan had expected more from her first ever glimpse of the king himself, especially on such a rare public appearance.

"We come here tonight," he said, peering out at them from behind his spectacles, "with an important announcement." His voice was surprisingly deep and resonant, and in this manner, at least, befitting of a king.

"On the new year in seven months' time, it is our intention to hold a grand ceremony for the gods."

A murmur ran through the crowd. The ancient ceremonies had not been held in over twenty years. Intan glanced around the room to see everyone else's reactions. Hadil looked curiously thoughtful; utter shock flitted across Rusli's face before he composed himself again. Even the instructors ranged from appalled to bewildered. Only Miss Singh and the general did not seem surprised at all.

The king continued, as if he knew what everyone was thinking. "We have too long neglected our sacred duties. For this we must make amends." He paused. "Thus did we come to a decision: at summer's end, we shall come again to this place. We shall choose, from among the students of the Academy, four attendants to hold the initial rites."

And now the murmur broke out into a storm.

To be chosen as an attendant in the ceremonies was a great honor indeed.

But in the history of Nahwan, none had ever been chosen, but from among the highest ranking of nobles.