CHAPTER 13

Once we finished Latin, I made my way to Will for the following class on human psyche. It was a class where we learned about forcing fear upon the enemy, however weak or outnumbered we were.

We read scripture from ancient war generals and tests were the worst. I could learn a language or two, memorize history, read literature and choose the right answers, but I didn't know anything the human psyche.

If I did, I wouldn't be having so much problems with Clive.

Clive started hanging out with me when I befriended William. With Clive came Samuel Goldings, who scowled and changed his seat unhappily.

"You really could sit with Goldings," I told Clive. He smiled and slide next to me, bumping our arms and chuckling.

"No, I don't want to be left out of you and Crawford's fun," he said. "After all, you're my partner."

Honor classes such as these had few eleventh year students but everyone noticed the disruption and started whispering as the professor flipped through pages.

"That's the top team of the eleventh years, right?" A twelfth year looked our way.

"Wonder if they could beat Stein and Vic."

Stein and Vic were the highest two, and Vic, like Clive, was referred to by his name due to his being a refuge. Will was called William, similarly, because Crawford wasn't his real family name. Until he passed the knight tests, of course.

So I ignored what the two said and stayed quiet like Will even as Clive whispered in class.

"Say, aren't the second years there eating in class?" Clive said, poking me. "They're eating cookies!"

"Shh!" I hissed at him. "What they do or eat is not our business," I muttered under my breath to him.

"Don't you know?" Clive's voice lowered. "Those two in the middle are doing the same as us. Maybe not killing, but one of them loitered outside the Headmasters' office when he saw me there."

Them?

I scrunched my eyes to see the two he was referring to, one had dark brown skin and large dark eyes. The other boy was pale with a sloppy look on him, even the way he wore his uniform seemed untidy.

As he ate his food like a barbarian, spilling crumbs on his lap, his partner only snickered behind his book and ate his sandwich discreetly.

Somehow I missed that, the innocent act of those two boys made me feel—know, that they didn't have a job as heavy as Clive and mine. They probably also didn't know about what was done to the rebels.

Truth was, we civilians thought rebels were mainly imprisoned or tortured for information and it seemed like enough of a reason that we caught them. I knew, as a son in a family of knights, that they were usually killed, but I didn't imagine people as young as Clive and I. We were barely just seventeen. By eighteen one just graduated and knight exams were usually taken after graduation. Even so, I heard tales of novice knights being used as guards (like Daniel) and never moving up in ranks.

I saw those two and for the first time, spoke during class.

"I wish we can do that too," I said.

As though on cue, Clive nodded and fidgeted happily in his seat, no doubt thinking of us eating sandwiches like that. The childlike innocence he still had made me envious before I added, "Will, you should join too."

"Eh," he said. "I'm too busy taking notes."

"Come on, you can afford to let loose a little," Clive whispered to Will across me. "You have the highest grades."

"I need to keep it up," Will said stoically. No doubt it was also because of the need to show Whitecross he was worthy.

"Oh look, the professor caught them," I said.

The professor was berating the two in front of class but we saw the hands they were holding behind their backs were gripping their sandwiches.

We laughed and the other seniors or eleventh years followed and eventually the room was full of laughing boys.

The professor didn't see what was so funny and made the two boys hold out their left hand. With a ruler the professor slapped it, harder each time they showed no expression or flinched. I saw as the brown skinned boy couldn't bear the pain and dropped the sandwich, and somehow that small action quieted all the boys.

All thoughts or plans of eating in class was discarded and we realize we had forgotten we were not only boys. We were aiming to be knights. We were boys who held the burden of protecting Goldenvale, our nation.

Our blood was not enough, our ancestry meant naught if we were not knights.

We realized with the pathetic falling of that sandwich and as one of the boys shed tears without making a sound, his eyes narrowing but not closed, we are not allowed to be "boys".

Maybe all the boys had grown up that way, in fact, because all I remember from my childhood was Jonathan and Daniel crying as father whipped their backs. If they didn't do good on a test or their home tutor said something they were punished, and the whipping soon became scars. Although known as Iron Geoffrey Rottings, he soon realized he couldn't carry on with it as Jonathan joined the knights. It would cause his reputation to become that of a child abuser.

It was one of the first reasons Daniel began to cover himself up. He wore a layer of black under clothes at first, then gloves, and thus is known as the weird knight (aka bodyguard).

I grew up without getting whipped. My memories had scarred me but I also had two older brother I knew would step in to protect me. Jonathan always wants to hear about my day and was a loving although strict older brother. Daniel also played along whenever I wanted, until our father came home. Then the three of us would become quiet, and his scrutinizing glare told us we weren't allowed to have had fun.

We had no boyhoods.

***

Clive and I eventually had to go to our next target. We left the Headmaster's office without asking any unnecessary questions and outside, in the dark halls, we went down the stairs quietly.

We had finally reached outside the academy when Clive halted and I bumped into him.

"Clive! What are you doing—"

I caught sight of the two boys before us, also masked and hooded. I had said Clive's name!

We moved immediately, me moving up closer to Clive and the two boys had an authoritative stance. They were both taller at around six feet, and I immediately noticed the dark skin of one boy.

It had to be the pair of the sandwich boys.

I elbowed Clive who probably knew, and the two walked closer, making me clutch my dagger in my jacket.

"Don't come closer!" I said as monotonous as I could from my mask. I pulled the dagger out and the blade glinted under the almost full moon.

"Let's go," Clive whispered, and I didn't know if he meant the stables to get the horses or something else.

"So you two are also part of this knight in training work, huh?" the boy in the mask said, sounding cheery. "I'm not going to attack, don't worry. Aren't we the same?"

Both boys took off their mask, and I saw it.

Stein and Vic.

I had roughly known rumors of them and forgot Stein had dark skin, too. His face was chiseled and his eyes seemed empty in a scary way.

Vic was the one talking, and he had straight teeth when he grinned in his self-assured way. He was still grinning as he kept talking.

"I heard so many rumors about the great Rottings and Clive pair, and to think I'd meet you tonight. Stein, wanna fight them?"

"No." Stein was a man of few words.

"Come on, they're off to a mission, let's make them fail a few—unless you two have failed a few or more already." Vic's face was mockingly innocent for a minute before he showed his teeth again.

"Don't talk to them," I whispered to Clive. I couldn't see his expression, but his knuckles had popped and I saw the fine bones in his hand.

I reached out to hold his hand and clasped it, as silly as it might be to Stein and Vic.

"In the future," Stein whispered, "we will meet again, masks off. Until then, wait to be defeated." Stein's eyes lit up before he placed his mask on again. "Let's go, Vic."

"Aye, aye," Vic said. "Bye, eleventh years! You two better fill the hole when we graduate."

With that, the strangely annoying duo went into the academy we had just left, capes flowing. It was already a dark night, but looking at their shadows behind them retreating gave me an ominous vibe. As though those shadows would return and I'd have no idea when or where.

I simply knew I didn't want to fight them.

"What was that?" I finally spoke, breathing finally steady although the panting against the mask was loud.

"I don't know. They are the best in the academy, though, I've seen their sparring during class," Clive said.

"Me too," I whispered. "We all would gather to see, Vic with his one glass eye and Stein with his prosthetic hand. They both lack something but have polished what senses and other muscles."

"One day we might fight against that," he said.

"Stop, don't listen to their bull. We won't be fighting comrade knights. Our enemies are the rebels and we don't have time to waste, Five."

Our hands unclasped easily like something torn apart, and in the night the owls and birds screamed in the black sky. I wondered why I felt so anxious and jumpy, and even my horse seemed at unrest.

Then I remembered. They said they wanted us to fail our missions, as though they hadn't. But that couldn't be true—they must've failed at least one!

I have to be the best.

I saw the ruler and the whip and my father's face all at once and pulled the reins.

I have to be the best.

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