Her eyes opened to an unfamiliar sight: clean white, intricately designed ceilings. A low light bathed the room in a faint glow. The walls were also white, smooth, and bright, a place Opal found utterly depressing. The bed creaked as she pushed herself to sit. It was vastly softer than her dormitory bed, confirming she wasn’t hallucinating. She was in a completely different room.
She tried hard to recall what had brought her here. After much effort, she remembered the training ground... and Eric. Then the rest of the memory flooded back. Looking around once more, she realized this was the academy’s hospital.
"I can’t believe I actually lost to him," she sounded lost in thought, finally sitting upright.
She had initiated the fight to test her suspicions about Eric. He had been admitted in the middle of the school session and assigned to her dorm room, which had made her profoundly uncomfortable.
She really did not enjoy the feeling that Eric’s secret admission was all about her. She wasn’t a narcissist, she knew.
But when you’re the special daughter of a family as strong as hers, you can never manage to let go of suspicion and slip into your robe of self protection.
In the years before her enrollment at Azuren Heart Academy, she’d been the target of numerous kidnapping attempts, all of which had failed. Most would have succeeded if not for the team of elite swordsmen guarding her—feared, iron-handed figures dedicated to her protection.
To her sorrow, a few of those men had died protecting her.
She’d always loved the company of swordsmen and she always built a friendly relationship with even her guards, so it was known that anytime they died because of her, she was thrown into dismay.
But to her father, the strict, stone-hearted head of the Flames family, the guards were merely contracted help, easily replaced if they fell.
There was one time when mages were sent after her. Her swordsmen guards failed completely. She would have died if not for her own quick thinking and her father’s last-minute reinforcements. That experience soured her relationship with mages, and it might have also quickened her emancipation from her father’s hold.
She threw a tantrum and declared she wasn’t being guarded any longer as she was constantly targeted by her father’s foes. She had two younger brothers and two sisters who were her father’s illegitimate children. So this made her the legitimate firstborn, even though one of her illegitimate siblings was older than she was.
The enemies must have sought her repeatedly just so they could control her father.
She was fed up with the game, and her father had no choice this time but to grant her wish and let her go where she desperately wanted to go—to Azuren Heart Academy, a place where the kingdom’s greatest mages and swordsmen were forged.
Her father would never have allowed it if he hadn’t confirmed the academy was one of the safest places in the kingdom.
She, however, was learning quickly and improving faster, and the feeling of being watched had finally left her.
Well, that only lasted until Eric showed up at the academy. Since the first time she saw him, his aura had come across as different to her. He looked like an extremely dangerous kid who was suppressing his aura to avoid detection—a perfect figure for spies.
Maybe her father’s foes had started making a move against her again. Since they couldn’t penetrate the academy’s defense, maybe they’d decided to put a powerful kid as a spy or as an assassin, hence the anxiety she showed toward Eric since the first day.
Her suspicion only grew when she saw how he’d managed to hold off Styles, one of the top-ranking mages among the first years. So she’d ended up fighting him for confirmation.
She’d picked the time she knew the training ground would be deserted, and luckily she found Eric alone. If the mission here was to kill her, Eric would immediately accept the offer for a fight.
And to her shock, he had accepted quickly. But if the case was meant to capture her alive, he’d only need to knock her out and take her away.
But again... it was no easy task trying to sneak a body out of the academy’s gate.
She had found the fight against Eric too easy. In fact, she felt like she was fighting a brazen toddler. Thıs text ıs hosted at novel•fire.net
She had thought Eric might be a trained assassin when he pulled out those twin training daggers, but he proved her wrong again by being clumsy with them, making Opal look like a master swordswoman by comparison.
Although she couldn’t deny that he was really fast and determined, his attacks were far too reckless and unplanned, which just went to show how unprofessional he was as an assassin.
But Opal remembered the moment that made her pass out. She remembered seeing Eric change his boots just before the match began, but she’d dismissed it as a slight. Anybody can switch their gear to perform better.
She couldn’t believe that Eric had finally attacked her with that boot made of Porcupine skin. A kick from a boot like that could have killed her if it had struck a vital spot.
"So, he really was trying to kill me," she muttered, disturbed at the thought of being an assassination target again. "That damn, sly..."
Just then, an old man entered, followed by Silver and Gary. A dark figure lingered outside, refusing to cross the threshold. Opal instantly knew that it was Bastion.
"That’s generous of him," she thought, seeing his retreating figure.
The old man checked her eyes and pulse and said, "The boy who brought you said you fainted after training too hard. But I can tell it wasn’t your training that left you in this state. You have had little to no rest lately, stressing your body to its limit. Training is important, but so is rest. You will only end up performing poorly without proper rest."
Truthfully, Opal had been training nonstop for the past weeks, and she knew she must have caused the accumulated fatigue, else she wouldn’t have passed out that easily just from a fall on the training ground.
The old man nodded to Silver and Gary, who bowed respectfully before they were dismissed.
"Where’s Eric?" Opal asked, masking her fury.
Silver replied, "Eric? His match against Stanley is starting soon. He’s preparing..."
"...by lounging under a tree," Gary concluded.