Chapter 79: Territory
The dining hall was too loud for 7 AM.
Aegis sat between Scarlett and Lune, mechanically shoving eggs into her mouth while her brain tried to process the chaos around her. Seven days until the Monthly Ranking Test. Seven days to figure out how she was going to keep her spot at the top.
[Helps that I have some actual skills now. Not quite a challenge run like it was before.]
"You’re brooding," Scarlett said through a mouthful of bacon.
"I’m thinking."
"Same thing with you."
Across the hall, Serilla Frost held court at the opposite side table. She had three girls hanging on her every word and two boys staring at her tits. Every few seconds, she’d laugh—the kind of laugh that made everyone in a ten-foot radius turn to look.
[Show-off.]
"She’s really working the room," Lune observed, sketching in her notebook without looking at it.
"She’s a predator marking territory," Scarlett corrected. "Look how she keeps glancing at Liora’s table."
She was right. Every time Serilla touched someone’s arm or leaned forward to give them a better view of her cleavage, her eyes would flick to where Liora sat with some second-years.
"Jealousy play. Classic."
Aegis blinked, doing a double-take at Lune.
"How do you know about jealousy plays?" Aegis asked.
"I read."
"You read romance novels?"
"I suppose you could call them that."
[What’s that supposed to mean?]
A shadow fell over their table.
"Morning, nya~!"
Kai’Lin dropped into the seat next to Aegis, tail swishing. Mei’Lin took the seat on the other side, moving like water poured into a chair.
"We’re going to kill you," Kai’Lin said cheerfully, stealing a piece of toast from Aegis’s plate.
"Not today though," Mei’Lin added, examining her nails. "Today we’re just going to make you paranoid."
"That’s nice of you."
"We thought so too!" Kai’Lin bounced in her seat. "Death threats are so much better with buildup, don’t you think?"
[What the fuck is wrong with these two?]
"You know Professor Nazraya will literally skin you if you touch me, right?"
"Oh, we know." Mei’Lin’s smile was all teeth. "But there’s no way she’ll find out."
"We’re sneaky, nya."
"Indeed, nya. In fact, even if she did- ACK!"
THWACK
Professor Nazraya’s rolled-up newspaper connected with both twins’ heads, one after the other.
"Bad cats! No plotting murder at breakfast."
"Ow!" Kai’Lin rubbed her head. "Professor, that hurt!"
"Good." Nazraya loomed over them, red eyes glowing faintly. "What did I tell you about threatening my pet?"
"Not to do it," Mei’Lin muttered.
"And what were you just doing?"
"...Threatening your pet."
"Exactly." She raised the newspaper again. Both twins flinched. "Now apologize."
"Sorry for threatening to kill you," they said in unison, not sounding sorry at all.
"Better." Nazraya lowered the newspaper. "Though your technique needs work. Perhaps I should make you assassins actually feel sorry instead."
"W-We’re not real assassins!" Kai’Lin protested. "We’re just students!"
"We didn’t mean it, nya!"
"Students who happen to work for a mercenary guild that performs assassinations," Nazraya said dryly.
Suddenly, the temperature in the dining hall dropped ten degrees.
But, not because of this interaction. Rather, because of the woman who’d just entered the dining hall.
Sister Mirabel stood in the doorway, her nun’s habit somehow making her look like an avenging valkyrie. Her frost-colored eyes locked onto Nazraya.
"Professor."
"Sister."
The two women stared at each other. Students between them suddenly found urgent reasons to be elsewhere as the air filled with an odd tension.
"I see you’re bothering the newest transfers," Mirabel said, walking closer with measured steps.
"I’m educating them. There’s a difference."
"Is that what you call it?. Threatening students with newspapers?"
"Better than threatening them with divine judgment." Nazraya tilted her head, black hair spilling over one shoulder. "Though I suppose that’s more your style, isn’t it? All that righteous fury and... passion
."Mirabel’s jaw tightened.
"I teach discipline."
"Oh, I’m sure you do." Nazraya took a step closer, smirking. Their tits almost pressed together and Aegis found her eyes battling between trying to focus on their faces and their chests. The catgirl twins scrambled away from their seats. "Tell me, do you still make your students kneel during prayer? Or have you found more... creative positions?"
Mirabel’s cheeks flushed.
[Holy shit.]
"My teaching methods are—"
"Rigid? Inflexible?" Nazraya’s red eyes gleamed. "Come now, Sister. We both know you’re capable of being much more... accommodating."
Mirabel’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. Mirabel was clearly gritting her teeth from annoyance, and yet, there was none of that "I’ll smite you" energy Aegis had seen before. Instead, in the midst of that rage, Aegis saw... embarrassment.
"You haven’t changed at all," Mirabel hissed.
"Neither have you." Nazraya reached out and straightened Mirabel’s collar, a little too slowly. "Still wearing your habits too tight. Still pretending you don’t remember that summer in—"
"Don’t."
"What? I was going to say the summer in theological studies. Whatever else could I mean?"
Aegis actually started feeling bad for Mirabel. It looked like any moment now, she might snap. So, she chose to step in.
"Uhm, ladies?" Aegis stood up, raising both hands. "Maybe we should all just focus on breakfast?"
Both professors turned to look at her.
Mirabel’s face went from red to white. Nazraya just smiled.
"Of course," Mirabel said stiffly. "I have students to prepare for divine instruction." She spun on her heel and marched out, habit swishing behind her like she was trying to outrun whatever memory Nazraya had almost dredged up.
Nazraya watched her go with the satisfaction of a cat who’d gotten into the cream.
"That was mean," Aegis said.
"That was foreplay."
[I didn’t need to know that.]
The professor dropped into the seat the catgirl twins had vacated, crossing her long legs. Students at nearby tables suddenly found reasons to be elsewhere. Even Scarlett and Lune had mysteriously vanished while Aegis wasn’t looking.
[Traitors.]
"Something on your mind, pet?" Nazraya asked, casually stealing a piece of bacon from Aegis’s plate.
Aegis leaned in close enough to whisper.
"Why couldn’t she sense it? Your shadow magic, I mean. She practically had me by the throat the other day saying she could feel it on me."
"Oh, that." Nazraya examined the bacon in front of her like it held the secrets of the universe. "Hiding your magical signature is child’s play."
Aegis pulled back.
"You can do that?"
"Of course. I’ve been doing it since before you were born."
"Then why don’t you teach me?"
Nazraya devoured the bacon. Aegis was almost jealous, in a way.
"No."
"..."
The sounds of ongoing chatting and eating filled the air for a couple of beats. Nazraya didn’t elaborate, despite Aegis waiting.
"That’s it? Just no?"
"Would you like me to elaborate?" Nazraya didn’t wait for an answer. "You, Aegis, are young and reckless, as all youth are. If I taught you to hide your signature now, you’d use it as a crutch. You’d get sloppy. I’ve got not doubt you’d cast shadow magic in broad daylight thinking you’re safe. Then one day, an accident would happen, as tends to happen to the youth. You’d forget to maintain the concealment, or you’d run out of mana, or you’d meet someone who knows how to detect hidden aether signatures." She leaned back, red eyes gleaming. "And then you’d be dead or in prison."
"So instead I just walk around hoping nobody notices?"
"Instead you learn discipline, my dear pet. You learn when it’s safe to practice and when it isn’t. You learn to read people, to know who’s suspicious and who’s just posturing." Nazraya stood, brushing imaginary crumbs from her skirt. "You learn to survive without tricks first. Then I’ll teach you the tricks."
[Great. Shadow magic training with a side of life lessons.]
"Now finish your breakfast. You have Political Intrigue in twenty minutes, and I hear you have a new classmate."
She walked away before Aegis could ask what that meant.
---
Political Intrigue & Courtly Manners had always been one of Aegis’s easier classes.
Duchess Valemont loved her by now. The other students either feared or respected her debate skills. And with Charisma 100, she could argue that the sky was green and make it sound reasonable.
Today, though, something was different.
"Class," Duchess Valemont announced, her steel-gray hair gleaming under the magical lights, "we have a transfer student joining us. Lady Serilla Frost."
[Oh, fuck me.]
Serilla sauntered in like she owned the place.
Her uniform was technically regulation, but she’d somehow made it look like fetish wear. The skirt rode higher than it should. The blouse strained against her tits. Even her pink hair looked like it had been styled by angels... who worked at strip clubs.
"I hope you’ll all make me feel welcome," Serilla purred, her blue eyes scanning the room before landing on Aegis. Her smile sharpened.
She took the empty seat directly behind Aegis.
"Especially you, Lady Starcaller," she said quietly, for Aegis’s ears only.
"Today we’ll be discussing marriage alliances," Duchess Valemont continued. "Lady Frost, perhaps you’d like to share your brief thoughts on political unions?"
"I believe in taking what you want," Serilla said, and Aegis could feel her breath on the back of her neck. Was she still keeping her eyes on Aegis, head tilted in her direction? "Even if sometimes you do so through paperwork than flirting."
Aegis pulled out her schedule to check her next class. Combat Fundamentals. She flipped to Artistic Expression. Then Strategic Planning.
Then, she glanced at Serilla’s schedule, which was sprawled out on her desk.
She had all the same classes Aegis had, at the same times too.
[Of course.]
"Something wrong, Starcaller?" Serilla asked with a closed-mouth smile and half-closed eyes.
"Not at all."