The Headmaster greeted us that midnight.

"My favorite duo. Rottings and Vagrant. Let me explain your missions; the first rule is to call each other by a different name. Now, give me your pseudonyms."

I was in the dumb getup and matching Clive and with the Headmaster in his office was embarrassing more than honorary. I didn't even know we had to come up with names.

"Would Nell and Five work, sir?" Clive said.

Oh, so he was Five. What was Nell? Was it like a pet name for Nelson? I scrunched up my face under the mask.

"Great," the headmaster said. "Now, your missions are going to be, well, killing rebels. There are terrorists and rebels who will be trying to escape Goldenvale, once we've located their hiding locations we will send you to them, usually one or two, and we expect you to kill them."

"What?" I spoke up. "You can't tell us to actually kill people! The King and his real knights do such things, we are students!"

"Haha." The Headmaster showed no change in his lower facial muscles. Was he angry or apathetic? "Yes, indeed. The secret, though, is that we always take some of the easy tasks and give them to students as extracurriculars. I thought the older Rottings boys would have told you."

"Well, sir, they never told me I would actually be killing people, which I believe students shouldn't...do." I was so dead. Why was I babbling so much? I turned to Clive for help. He looked on, sympathetic.

"I don't think we even had practice killing, or evening hunting, for example deer or pheasants. Maybe we could start with smaller tasks, sir?" Clive asked.

"You two are the hope of the Academy, and these missions the court have issued to me to give my students. It's a chance that could ensure your future citizenship, Vagrant, and you, Rottings, a spot as a knight after graduation." He waited for us to think it over.

"Don't force yourself," Clive whispered.

I didn't know what to think.

It was the an honor the king always employed a male from the Rottings house since our great-grandfather was involved with making new bills. We all swore to keep the family line going, but hadn't my two older brothers fulfilled it?

A part of me wanted to kick back and enjoy years with my peers, playing ball and maybe jousting, but it was all too hard to picture.

Then the part of me, the majority, was still suffocating under the pressure of our family and father especially. I wanted to feel that pride in my own veins for myself, and as always, I followed what I was told.

"Sir," I said, bending down on one knee before his desk. "Pardon my previous words. There is no greater pleasure as I have always wanted early exposure to the missions knights are in charge of. I will kill the mages as directed."

Clive followed, bending next to me, and I could see from the corner of my eye that his eyes were looking down and he was as serious as me.

"Same here, sir."

The Headmaster stepped out from his desk and stood over us before clapping softly with his gloves hands.

"This is it. The passion needed to be a knight. Perfect."

The Headmaster turned to get a piece of paper and began to read from it.

"Get up, Rottings, Vagrant," he said. "Your mission today is to find a few rebels the court found. They are in hiding in the forest here. There's one male and one female rebel but only the female throws small knives, be careful."

"Yes sir," we both said, and stood up to see his map. It was useful, as we both didn't know land other than the places around academy.

Maybe that moment was when I lost my joy as only a student, a knight-in-training, to a killer.

Clive and I chose horses and then set off with nothing more than that map, our weapons, and the acceptance that we would kill these two rebels.

"I've never met a rebel," I said when Clive and I got on our horses. I stroked the head of my horse, Rosie. She was much more relaxed than the stallions other boys fought over. Clive had a stallion, golden like him, named Woolf.

We had finally gotten a job and we were doing something as knights but the idea still scared me.

"I knew boys who said some noble families they knew might be housing rebels once," Clive replied. "Are you having second doubts?"

"What if one of our friends are a rebel? What if, I don't know, I become a rebel? Or you?" I was babbling nonsense but I was indeed having second doubts about my second doubt. "They have to be bad people if they force the Knights to kill them. They must have tried to harm a knight or guard or someone."

"Nathan—I mean Nell, I know it's scaring you and you're not wrong, but we going or another knight going would end the same. They've gotten themselves found so it's only a matter of time before, you know, they die," Clive commented.

Clive followed me with the map and it grew more and more quiet as we quickened the horses and only the sound of their hooves was there. We didn't speak and I wished I could be sleeping in my bed, fooling around with Clive, just enjoying adolescence.

We reached the forest and I think that's when my body started shaking.

It was going to be my first time seeing a rebel. Fighting a human. Killing one.

I finally led Clive with me there and got off and tied our horses to a tree. My fingers jumbled up the ropes and I had to have Clive watch in silent awkwardness.

We turned to the forest and Clive looked at me. The moon was making his hair more silver than golden but his eyes still that vibrant green. He held my hand before he let go and got out his dagger.

"Let's do our best, Nell."

"Let's go together," I suggested.

"Sure, but don't make a sound or duck, the woman fighter is dangerous," he ordered.

"Yes."

We both entered the forest and heard silence. We had to walk for a while before finding a fire that had been put out, twigs in a pile that must've been their kindling, and large footsteps stomping out the fire in the dirt.

Clive put a finger on his lips and then we continued upstream, only hearing the crickets and rustling of the trees. Nothing strange, and yet I remember how fast my heart was racing, the feeling of wanting to run but being chained down.

Then I heard it. Rustling that grew closer, slowed down, and rustled again.

It was so close to us.

I closed my eyes and then opened it again, only seeing Clive before steadying myself and wanting to end it sooner.

Clive pointed left then down and I nodded. He retrieved a stone I hadn't noticed he kept in his pocket and threw it right.

There were quick shining blades cutting the air and I kept in the scream as I ran left then hid in the bushes with Clive.

I saw the rebels. The woman was dressed like a normal woman, hiding behind a tree then screaming when Clive charged at her.

She crossed her arms before her but Clive reached out and I screamed, too, before I saw the gush of blood hitting the dirt under her before she fell back, and indeed, Clive didn't leave any other injuries than a deep slice to her jugular vein and I watched and fell back.

There was silence, and it was simply too jarring. The normal looking woman. Her last words.

"No, I'm so sorry, please don't—"

Then Clive had ended her thought along with her life.

I would've lied if I said I didn't cry, but I was unable to accept it—I chose this and made Clive kill her. What good would it be to call him a murderer?

So was I.

The man charged at Clive, sobbing as he screamed, a low voice without coherent words and Clive dived and I heard two more shouts and a gasp before the man fell backwards, the joint of his arm to his body cut, one more on his forearm and lastly the familiar cut in his neck.

"It's raining blood, Nell!" Clive turned to me, and cruelly, he was smiling.

I couldn't understand.

"This was a man," I whispered, scared at the moment I'd be killed off just as easily.

"Yes, a rebel too. The woman, too."

My eyes flickered there and I regretted it. Her corpse lied there, arms crossed over her head which had eyes open, neck nearly cut off.

"Why did you—cut their heads?"

I couldn't look at the man with his open eyes and still raging face. His tears still dropped down and the blood from his neck covered his lower half of the face.

"You need the cut to be deep, Nell, don't risk making a thin one that can heal. You need to cut off the vein, aim for the Adam's apple, although the side of necks are equally fatal," Clive said calmly.

"Let's go—go back to the academy now," I stammered.

Clive grinned and I saw the wet liquid on his black coat. He wiped the dagger on the man and looked up.

"Want to practice on them? How deep you need to plunge, cut, or chop off?" he asked with malice in his tone.

"I don't want to!" I finally screamed. I covered my ears, knowing I had heard too much screams today, and I was the one who accepted this "job".

I was shaking terribly and hurt Clive, who stood up for me when my finger got cut, was now ignoring my obvious fear and even suggesting mutilating dead bodies.

"Clive, just stop. I can't take it, you're like a different person," I sobbed, and took off the ridiculous mask. It was grotesque, and I hated it on Clive.

"Nathan—don't cry. I ended it quickly. They didn't have time to regret anything in their lives. It's gone like waking from a dream. Abruptly cut off."

"They didn't even hurt us!" I said.

"Try telling the King that," Clive snapped. I accepted he would be angry if I argued against his action but not to that extent. "Why don't you just accept this? We will be killing, making money and scoring points with the Headmaster until we become knights. Why isn't that enough for you?"

"Look at them!" I gestures to the bodies. "I can't do this again!"

"Then I'll do it alone. You're so spoiled. People get killed regardless, some never got water to drink. Some had to—had to lose so much more than you at a young age."

His whole demeanor was like a stranger's and if it wasn't for the hair I'd have wondered with that white mask if he was a clone made of the Headmaster, just a random killer. But he was Clive, and I didn't want that.

For the first time, I feared Clive.