Myael's smile was bright, yet her words carried the weight of hidden emptiness. She confessed what few would dare: that her famed gift, Quick Learner, was both her strength and her curse. Without knowledge to consume, it was nothing but hollow potential. The Academy had seen through her façade, placing her in lessons meant not only to sharpen her sword but to force her to observe, to absorb, to grow beyond the narrow walls she had built for herself.
Still, the weight of genius meant little in the eyes of her peers. Whispers followed her, just as they followed Connor. Since the opening ceremony, they had both been marked—objects of envy, curiosity, and scorn. To spar openly would only fan the flames further. And so, in the stillness of an abandoned training chamber, she challenged him once again, their second duel sealed away from prying eyes.
The room was bare, its walls scarred from countless clashes. A space of silence, where only the echo of wooden blades could give voice to ambition. Myael stood with a stance too perfect for her years, her practice sword held as if it were forged steel. Connor mirrored her, rougher in posture yet steady with the weight of mercenary instinct.
The rules were simple—first to strike the shoulder would claim victory. But in truth, it was not victory either sought. For Myael, this was learning. For Connor, it was survival.
The duel began like a lightning storm. Myael's first strike cut through the air, honest yet impossibly swift, her blade descending with enough force to rattle bone. Connor blocked, wood shattering against wood, his arms stinging from the raw strength behind her frame. She pressed forward, adapting even as she attacked, replicating the same maneuver Connor had once used against her at the ceremony—an elbow strike meant to break his guard.
He braced, absorbing the blow with his arm, fire lancing through his muscles. She was relentless. Each movement was a reflection of him, as if she were holding up a mirror of every technique he had ever revealed. And yet, he was no longer the same man she had studied. Connor had walked too many battlefields to fall to his own shadow.
Anticipating her rhythm, he caught her hesitation—just a heartbeat when she shifted from elbow to leg. Exploiting that gap, he leapt, turning her sweep into an opening. His blade descended, victory within reach.
But Myael was not defenseless. With desperate precision, she struck upward, her sword slamming into his leg midair. Pain ripped through him, twisting his landing. His strike veered off-course, grazing past her shoulder instead of landing true. Momentum carried him downward, and in a clash of limbs and tangled weight, he fell upon her.
For a breathless moment, the two lay in stillness, their proximity breaking the fragile boundary between duel and something deeper. The silence was shattered not by them, but by the sudden intrusion of a booming voice. Their professor, a towering figure of muscle and discipline, entered the chamber only to find his prized students in a compromising scene—Connor sprawled above the imperial princess. Suspicion blazed in his eyes, accusations thundering through the room.
It took thirty agonizing minutes of desperate explanations and Myael's own calm testimony before the storm abated, leaving behind only embarrassment and sweat. The duel's outcome was no longer in question. Myael had dropped her blade, conceding defeat not with bitterness, but with laughter—a radiant, disarming smile that made her loss seem like triumph.
Two days later, the Academy returned to its steady rhythm. In the quiet aftermath of lessons, Connor sat with his professor, reviewing the profiles of each group member. Their strengths, their flaws, their human cracks laid bare upon parchment: Lanius, brilliant with machines yet inept with words; Lug, stubborn in effort yet rough with manners; Anastasia, confident to the point of boastfulness yet fragile beneath her bravado; Whifney, bound to dreams but shackled by lethargy; Myael, perfect in all but the delicate realm of art.
The professor read the words with sharp eyes, each line like a blade weighing judgment. For Connor, it was more than just a list. It was a reminder: behind every gift lay weakness, and behind every weakness, the truths that bound them all together.