After preparing, the four were being escorted through the city. They were brought up the main road, through the inner wall to the wealthier district, and finally to the keep’s gate where they were received by servants and guards.. Langyao had seemed a bit shocked at the state of the city and was looking around the whole time they were being led to the keep.

  Finally, when they were brought inside they were led to a main room reminiscent of a throne room. A large comfortable seat made of wood was sat against the back wall, slightly elevated. Beside it was a lounge chair. Sitting in the wooden throne was Margrave Sorray. He was reading through some documents before his dark eyes lifted and looked into the groups. Standing by his side was Coddsworth and sitting on the lounge chair was his wife and young son, around 5 years old at this time but Akai and his group wasn’t sure of any exact age.

  Unlike last time, the group wasn’t receiving and weird or offputting feelings around the Margrave right now. He seemed normal if not looking tired. He handed the papers off to Coddsworth and stood up, approaching the four as their escort of servants had backed off and bowed their heads. Margrave Sorray walked before the group and stood in front of Langyao. He rested his hands on his cane and for the first time, Langyao seemed sheepish, if only the faintest bit.

  “Your name is Langyao, you claim to be the heiress to the Lang clan, the scarlet wolves of the northernmost island. I believe you named it the water dragon island.”

  Langyao regained her fortitude and nodded, she spoke still with a distinct accent. “Yes, I am the 2nd daughter of the chief, and next in line after my eldest sister had been crippled.” she said, staring up at Margrave Sorray’s eyes.

  “Explain why you came to Legonia. Why should I pay for your admittance?”

  Langyao stood quiet for a moment, not exactly realizing that someone would have to pay. After she thought of this, Margrave Sorray added “You are not a citizen of this country. You are not entitled to any of the same rights as they are, that includes your enrollment in the academy in Thedifell.”

  Langyao’s ears twitched and she looked up with fierceness. “My family no longer has the resources to support my growth after a siege. Heading to any of the other families guarantees I will only be taken to give children, not to be trained to use my powers. The god who blessed me agreed and it was his explicit instruction for me to sail north to these lands.”

  The margrave furrowed his brows a bit before Langyao continued further.

  “I will fight in your armies to repay my cost. I only ask that at the end of service I will be returned to my clan to regain our lost standing.”

  Margrave Sorray hummed and leaned on his silver headed cane. He look to be in deep thought for a moment before nodding. “You will succeed with high marks when the first year is up, in all regards. Do that and I’ll pay for your entire enrollment.”

  Finally, Langyao relaxed her shoulders and nodded with determination.

  The Margrave stepped closer to the trio of Akai, Kidd, and Lamorie. He leaned forwards onto his cane and looked down at them, the local lord said “I entrust you three will be doing your best at the academy?” and the three nodded, saying “Yes Sir.” in unison.

  A small smile crept onto Sorray’s face and he said “good. You three are from the village closest to my city, so your performance most strongly reflects on me. Your appearance also reflects on my prosperity. On your way out, one of the servants will give you each money to buy yourselves proper clothes.”

  He looked up and one of the servants understood the message and quickly left to go fetch the money.

  “From what I hear, this year is a very important year for the Academy, so I expect many great things from you three. When you graduate, I will see about having you stationed under my command.”

  “Under your command?” Akai asked before he could stop himself. He knew it was rude to talk out of turn when addressing nobility, this had been taught to him by some of the older villagers. But Sorray didn’t seem to be offended by it. He simply gave a small nod. “We are unlikely to war with either the Rivell Dynasty to our west or our neighbor kingdom in the Northern Empire any time soon. So it is likely the royal army will not object to having you under my banner, where the primary job will be ensuring peace and quelling both local bandits and surges of beasts.”

  Akai nodded, Kidd and Lamorie listening to their possible future prospects. When the servant that had went to grab the money returned, Sorray returned to his seat. He said “You four are dismissed.”.

  The rest turned to leave, Akai began to feel a strange feeling so he lingered for a moment. Though, he soon did turn to leave. When he did, he felt a sudden and extreme hostility gazing upon him. He flinched and looked back, but as he did the feeling immediately suppressed itself.

  The Margrave Sorray had turned and was speaking with his wife as Coddsworth was preparing some documents.. It was the lord’s son that was staring at Akai with a calm face and polite smile.

  As their eyes properly met, Akai felt a deep wrongness envelop him. But when the kid broke their stare and looked up to say something to his mother, the feeling vanished. Akai quickly left, taking the small pouch of coins he was given and leaving the keep. Then asking for their escort to take them to a tailors shop on the way back to the caravan.

  “Is something the matter?” Lamorie asked, noticing the slight change in Akai’s demeanor.

  “Yeah, just.. Well.. It’s nothing, I can tell you later.” Akai said, rubbing the back of his head and trying to get that feeling out of his mind. He wasn’t sure if it was the kid or something else, but it was not a pleasant experience.

  The group made it to a tailors shop and after spending most of the money that had been given to them, they had swapped from their normal clothes they wore at the village and bought a couple sets of much finer clothes. They went to one of the more affluent shops and the tailor had helped pick outfits for them, he even discounted the clothes when he learned they were attending the academy and that Lord Sorray had given them the money to buy the clothes.

  Akai found himself wearing a white buttoned shirt with a dark colored vest, tucked into trousers of a matching color, and boots made from polished leather. One set had a dark blue hue to the clothes, the other had a more washed out grey look.

  Kidd was given black pants and boots, with a nice red button shirt similar in color to his hair, and a light grey shirt with a yellow trim to it.

  Lamorie had been given a lovely green dress with brown leather to reinforce the more delicate cotton thread, as well as a sturdier brown linen dress with green cloth as highlights. Both dresses inverse to one another in color.

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  Understanding they would receive jackets as part of their uniform at the academy, the tailor had forgone giving them any. They would have these clothes plus a more formal uniform to pair with the academy jacket when they get there.

  Finally, with that settled, the group made it back to the caravan. Some of the other teens were a bit envious of seeing Akai and his friends in nicer clothes, probably getting the wrong impression that they had bought them with their own money. Others tried to approach Langyao who dismissively said to those who tried “I have greeted the lord of this land and he had sponsored me for the academy.”

  Langyao seemed uninterested in anyone else and was focused on getting to the academy.

  After a handful of boring days stuck at the caravan camp, it was finally time for them all to set off.

  So they didn’t dirty or damage the nicer clothes, Akai and his friends decided to wear their usual clothes until they were supposed to arrive at Thedifell, which was a thankful idea.

  The next night they were set up at camp, Akai was woken up by a sound. It was dark around them, illuminated only by star light and a half moon. Akai heard the crunch of a fallen leaf near his head and opened his eyes. That was when he saw someone he had never seen before trying to open the door to the carriage. They were obviously not with this caravan because even in the low light level Akai could see the rough armor they wore, leather and padding and a drawn short sword at their side.

  Akai hadn’t been seen awake yet. He looked around and noticed over a dozen people like this trying to sneak through camp, and the posted night watch guards had been either knocked out or killed because they were nowhere to be seen.

  Before Akai could get up, he heard a horn blow and from further down where the soldiers slept, began to hear shouting. The man trying to get into their Carriage stopped and was about to run away when Akai took this moment to subdue them. He rose to his feet and, with a careful amount of strength, he kicked the side of their leg. Causing them to shout in pain as they fell to the ground with a bruised but thankfully not broken knee. This shout woke up Kidd and Lamorie, but also drew attention from some of the others around them.

  There was no point in not doing his best to subdue as many as he could, they could heal minor injuries anyways. The area around them became brightly illuminated as orange flame erupted from Akai. With better lighting, he could see these men were all wearing masks as well. And that most of them weren’t even men.

  Akai burst forth towards a bandit woman and managed to get a solid punch in to her core. He struck where the liver would have been exposed under her ribs. Despite the padding, his substantial strength was enough to have her on the ground reeling in pain.

  “Run away, we’re caught!” someone shouted and most of these people began running, but akai saw the person who gave the order. Also a woman, she was wearing similar armor to the rest but with thicker leather and had no weapon on her. Akai tried running to them as the rest of the teenagers were getting up, but had to stop when he saw a bolt of bright blue shoot forth from this woman’s hand. Akai brought his fire to his hands and barely blocked an arcane arrow with it. He looked and saw they were already running away. He memorized the features of this woman he could, though. She had chestnut brown hair and distinct eyes that blended a bright green and dark brown within her iris.

  Soon, some of the soldiers came running and asking “Is everyone okay?”

  Akai answered by pointing at the woman he left who was dry heaving on the ground while holding her stomach, then over at where Kidd and Lamorie were, Lamorie holding the man down. “I subdued two of them!”

  After a bit more of a commotion, the soldiers made it to the camp and helped ensure that all of the awakened are safe. Akai wasn’t the only person who were woken up by these people. After checking everyone, three further people had been subdued, though only the two Akai took down weren’t seriously injured. One had broken leg and jaw, another had broken ribs and Candell was asked to heal them to cure a punctured lung, which was very difficult for him to do so. Lastly, Langyao had sliced one’s arm off at the elbow when they were trying to grab her bag. They had their arm wrapped tightly with bandages now while bound and gagged with ropes.

  After the other thief was healed enough he was stable, Candell was brought over to try and stop the man’s bleeding so they could keep him for questioning. Candell had held an orb of glowing white light over the bound thief’s arm, but he wasn’t able to stop the bleeding.. This wound was beyond what he could successfully deal with. The wound tried to scab over but he couldn’t heal it enough to take off the tourniquet without the man proceeding to bleed out.

  Even though this was a criminal, Candell was disappointed in his abilities. He knew he could heal it but he didn’t have a firm enough grasp on his powers. Akai noticed the dour look on Candell. Akai felt the heat within his chest urging him for a moment, and Akai listened to it.. He had figured out that his fire, while very destructive, can also help in cases.. It wasn’t proper healing, but over the past years of practice he had grown fairly competent in using it.

  Akai stood next to Candell in front of this bound thief and formed a ball of fire in his hand. Some of the accompanying soldiers said “Hey, what are you doing? Stop” thinking Akai was doing something aggressive. But he ignored them and quickly shifted the mundane fire in his hands with the yellow phoenix fire that was his special power. Heat quickly built up in him so he acted fast, bringing it to the bandaged stub. Yellow fire enveloped it and burnt away the bandages and tourniquet, but blood didn’t flow out. The wound wasn’t cauterized either, which was the most surprising part for Candell who had been watching. But the man’s severed limb refused to bleed any further.

  The soldier grabbed Akai’s hand and moved it away as the fire diminished but was also a bit surprised to see the thief’s arm.. Akai said “I stopped the bleeding with my power, give it a try now.” softly to Candell as he didn’t fight against the soldier, understanding it probably didn’t look like he was doing a good thing.

  Candell nodded and returned his hands to hovering over the stunned thief’s arm, who stopped trying to struggle in his bindings but was still gagged and couldn’t be understood. After Akai’s fire touched the arm, Candell’s healing had a greater effect than before. The wound scabbed over without issue and even new skin covered it by the time Candell had stopped using his power. Though, Candell looked absolutely exhausted after doing so.

  The soldier finally let go of Akai’s arm and said a soft “sorry” before patting the silver haired teen’s shoulder.

  “We’ll be reporting to the commander soon, he’ll probably want to talk with anyone who fought with these thieves.” another soldier said, lifting the one armed man to his feet and guiding them to where they had the rest of the captured criminals.

  Over the next hour, Akai, Kidd, Lamorie, a few other teens including Langyao were being lectured about how they dealt with the criminals.. They were scolded for getting involved in the first place, Akai was commended for not using excessive force like the rest but was chastised for going out of his way to try and charge the leader. Saying it was pure luck he could block an arcane arrow that otherwise would have killed him.

  Akai didn’t believe that, but he understood he needlessly put himself in harms way trying to stop someone. He was told to leave it to the soldiers who are both trained and paid to do so.

  The two teens that broke the thieves bones were scolded for almost killing them. Regular people would have a hard time dealing with direct attacks from awakened with combat oriented abilities like them.

  Lastly, Langyao was chewed out by the commander for severing the man’s arm. And that if they didn’t come in time, she would have killed him. Langyao did try and argue back, saying it was her right to defend her stuff but the commander put a stop to that by reminding her right now she was not a warrior, she was not a princess or whatever she was in The Great Isles, she was a guest being graciously given an opportunity to serve the nation of Legonia and one of its nobles by joining their academy. And if she continued to argue back, he’d be sure to give the academy a reason to refuse her.

  Langyao was fuming at the threat of her being denied entry, but she managed to hold her tongue and only had a scowl on her face as she was made to listen.

  Finally, with everything resolved and no real punishments being given out to them, everyone returned to sleep but the night watch had been doubled..

  Akai felt the heat in his chest stirring as he tried to fall asleep, it was restless despite his attempt to relax. Eventually, his consciousness was pulled into another dream of the Phoenix King.