Fatty's fist slams into the scarecrow with a force that shakes the ground beneath us, and an enormous shockwave blasts outward so hard that it knocks a few Squires off their feet while everyone's clothes flap wildly in the sudden gale. For a split second, an overwhelming aura crashes over us all until the world plunges into darkness, but then daylight snaps back just as quickly as if nothing happened.

I can't believe what I just saw, and I doubt anyone else here can wrap their heads around it either because that hit was on another level entirely.

The impact kicks up a massive dust cloud that billows everywhere, and now I'm left wondering what Fatty will look like once it clears since he might have morphed into some legendary warrior who was hiding his true strength all along. That strike was unreal, and I'm bursting with pride while the crowd around us starts whispering in awe.

Everyone assumes Fatty will emerge looking smug and superior, like an expert who had been playing weak the whole time, and the comments don't disappoint as voices pipe up.

"He was holding back!"

"That guy's a monster in disguise!"

"No wonder the Valemont picked him—he's been sandbagging!"

But when the dust finally settles, I just stare deadpan, and so does the entire crowd, because Fatty is hunched over on his knees with sweat pouring down his temples in rivers while he pukes up his massive lunch all over the square's cobblestones.

This isn't at all what I pictured, and it's clear from the stunned faces around me that nobody else expected a victory hurl either since we all figured on some heroic pose instead of this mess.

Lucen Margrave opens his mouth to mock Fatty with a sneer already forming.

"Well, isn't that—"

"Hey, Margrave, look at that," I cut him off by pointing straight at the scarecrow where the glowing number 7832 flashes bright and clear.

Murmurs of incredulity rise from the crowd.

"That's the top score any Squire has hit this year," one says.

"It's the kind of power you'd see from someone gunning for full Knight status," another, a Squire, mutters.

Lucen Margrave squints hard at me and Kai, his voice sharp as he snarls, "You think this changes anything, Valemont bastards? My little sister, Sabrina Margrave, is in your class, and she's the strongest talent our family's seen in ten generations. She'll crush you both before the year's out." He spins on his heel and stalks off.

A single Diamond coin flies in the air and lands between my feet.

Not bad for ten minutes of work, I smile, picking it up.

* * *

"He's really something," I say, and I keep my eyes on Kai because I still cannot understand how a nineteen-year-old carries that much muscle and yet moves like a dancer.

"The Margraves are our sworn enemies," Kai replies, and resignation drags on every syllable although the courtyard shines with morning light.

The giant pats my shoulder, and the jolt rattles three vertebrae, and he adds, "We will attend classes together, and Royal blood gives us precedence."

I have never thought about it, but if I actually were to accept the Valemonts' proposal, I'd be a Prince.

Prince Jacob Cloud, I smirk, it has a nice ring to it.

But then I remember that I'd have to change my last name.

"Jacob," Thorne says, stroking the back of his giant white tiger's neck, "you'll have to make a choice. Margrave will come after you, personally or through others, simply because you're associated with us. If you don't become a Valemont, I can shout as many threats as I want, but the family won't come to your rescue. And Margrave knows the rules. He can't kill any Valemont unless he wants a war. But our friends, servants, and allies? Those are free game on both sides. No one goes to war over a lost friend."

Suddenly, I feel a sweaty hand on my neck and someone, moving in front of me, saying, "I would!"

My older half-brothers look in confusion at Fatty.

"You'd go to war for a friend?" Thorne asks, skeptical.

"For Jacob. I'm his Squire! If anything happens to him, I'll kill those bastards! I'll avenge him after they have decapitated him, even if they were to burn him with the heat of a thousand suns and scatter the ashes in the sea! I'll pick every little speck of Jacob's dust, bake it into a cupcake, and eat it! That way, our bond would last—"

I kick the Fatty's in the buttocks and let him faceplant in the courtyard.

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"How did you know he was going to be any good?" Kai asks, ignoring the scrambling Fatty.

"I have my own little secrets," I wink at them.

"Take this," Kai says, offering the Diamond coin.

"No, I couldn't," I shake my head. "Let's split it."

Thorne, who has been observing the exchange from the side, raises an eyebrow. I know because I just ran a little Echo Pulse. He might have been expecting me to try and take advantage of Kai's generosity.

"But you—" Kai tries to protest.

"We're both first-year students. You might be a Prince, but didn't you just say you don't just get resources that easily? I mean, not heaps of Diamond Coins, at least."

Kai nods uneasily, as if he's not ready to accept that he's not exactly filthy rich. But for someone who grew up on Bronze coins at best, I'm more than happy like this.

In a short ten minutes, I pocketed five hundred Platinum coins.

"Listen," I say to Kai, who towers over me and makes me keep wondering what sort of food they fed this guy, "let's be friends, right?"

"Friends?" Kai smiles. "We're brothers!"

"Yeah—but, let's also be friends."

I'm a little uncomfortable saying this because, to be honest, growing up, I didn't really have friends. I had colleagues, acquaintances, but never people who quite understood my dream of becoming a Knight.

So, it's my first time trying to… just make friends.

But I like Kai and Thorne so far, so maybe we can start there.

"And Thorne, I'll consider your offer. I feel honored that your family has offered me the opportunity to become part of your family. But I must tell you, I love my father. He raised me on his own and taught me everything he could—little, allegedly, since he was a common miner. But he tried. Mother is…"

I see Thorne sighing.

"A Princess—or a Prince—has duties to the Kingdom. When she met your father, after our own father's passing, she could never have agreed to recognizing you. Not because she didn't want you, believe me. Our Royal Grandmother, however, would have decapitated her. At court, your father would have been Mother's greatest weakness. And you, being born out of wedlock, are the same. You two would have been targets. You don't know it, but Mother did both of you a favor."

I bite my lower lip.

I know the guy's coming from a good place, I understand what he's trying to say, and I don't really blame him for it.

Prince Thorne Valemont—that's who he is.

But I'm Jacob Cloud—son of a miner and lucky son of a bitch who found a Rainbow Skill.

Without the powers coming from that, they would have never recognized me as part of the family. And I get it.

"Royals have duties," I smile tiredly, "maybe that's not something I'd like—something I'd want, too. Maybe it's good to be a bastard son who spent most of his life in shitholes. I could have a son and still see him every day, no matter what, until the day someone takes my eyes from me."

Both Kai and Thorne seem to perceive my bitterness and say nothing, they just nod, and soon we say goodbye.

We set off along the colonnade, and our steps echo beneath stone arches that display reliefs of past champions. Fatty recounts every rumor about the first-year trials even though nobody asked, and he waves his arms until he nearly smacks an old professor who carries scrolls.

The professor mutters about reckless youth, and Fatty bows so low that his forehead thumps a column. I laugh, and the sound feels strange, because laughter rarely visited the mines.

I gesture for Fatty to stand, and he scrambles upright although dust cakes his cheeks. I want to register at the Academy before sunset, and bureaucracy waits for no one.

* * *

Now that I have a Squire, I head for the main registration hall, walking beneath a colonnade that opens into a vast vaulted chamber carved from obsidian-veined stone. The crowd inside is no joke. Lines of first-years coil like serpents across the floor, each recruit clutching a folder, scroll, or letter of recommendation like it's their last meal. The air smells of mana ink, old parchment, and nervous sweat.

Fatty stays half a step behind me as we move through the mess.

An older Squire waves us toward an open registration desk. Behind it sits a clerk with a bowl haircut and a mole on his cheek that pulses faintly with embedded runes. I hand over my folder.

"Name," he drones.

"Jacob Cloud," I say. "Knight-candidate. I have two letters of recommendation."

He raises an eyebrow and leans forward with a little more interest. "Two?"

I nod and slide both across the desk—first Sir Greyson's, then the one from Sir Renquell. He snatches the first, opens it, and reads. The man's eyes flick from line to line, and I watch his expression shift from disinterest to mild approval.

He nods once. "Greyson's endorsement is solid," he mutters. "He's not royal, but he's respected." Then he sets the first scroll down and opens the second one.

The moment he sees the seal on Renquell's letter, he straightens in his chair. The faint buzz of idle chatter around us fades. Even a few of the other clerks look over.

"Wait here," he says.

He lifts both letters and walks them down a long aisle toward the raised platform at the end of the hall. Sitting at a wide desk inscribed with mana channels and bound by dozens of warding spells is a tall, bony man dressed in robes marked with the triple tower of the Academy. His white hair falls straight to his shoulders, and thin glasses rest on the bridge of his nose.

"That's Elder Lioren—head of first-year intake and," Fatty says, "if I remember correctly, a total stickler for protocol."

Is that an Elf? I think to myself, squinting to look at his ears.

The clerk hands over the letters and steps back.

Elder Lioren examines the first, makes a small note in a glowing ledger, then lifts Renquell's scroll with a pair of silver tongs.

He doesn't even touch it. The crowd has quieted further now.

I can feel the tension ratcheting up behind my ribs.

The Elder pulls out a crystalline lens bound in three iron rings. He sets it above the scroll, and a thin beam of mana arcs from the lens into the wax seal. The color flickers red for an instant.

My heart stutters.

Then it shifts to green.

Elder Lioren's face wrinkles into a frown as he reads. His lips press together like he's just bitten into something sour.

He reads the letter again.

This time more slowly. Then he lifts his eyes and motions to me directly.

"Knight-candidate Cloud," he says, his voice carrying over the chamber. "Approach."

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