Ella stood, and Darren’s nails dug into the wood. “The Council’s Treaty states no heir of the kingdom can undertake training as a mage. T-to prevent the Crown from interfering with matters of magic.”
Not only was Ella there, but she was also trying to get rid of him. A prince. The future Black Mage. And she did it all with the audacity of a snake, except now she couldn’t even meet his eyes.
“True,” the master agreed, and Darren’s fingers gripped the wood so hard they hurt. “But the doctrine was alluding to first-born children who would be inheriting the throne. Prince Darren is not.”
“But we’ve never had a prince before—”
“You’ve never had one before because nobody was good enough!” Darren snarled.
The lowborn, at least, had the audacity to wince. Ella just stared at her hands.
Master Barclae laughed harshly. “Ah, my dears, you are so young to have already made an unpleasant impression with a member of the royal family.”
Unpleasant? Darren’s eyes burned crimson fire. Those two had just earned his permanent wrath. And for a moment, when he had first realized it was Ella, he had thought… no, it didn’t matter what he thought. That girl was not worth his time. And that lowborn, that stuttering redhead that continued to find herself in his way, he didn’t know who she was, but she would regret the day she ever questioned a prince.
They both would. And he would be laughing all the way.
“What happened at that dance?”
Darren shot Eve a look that stated clearly the earlier event was not up for discussion.
Priscilla looked pleased. Of course she would. The only girl she had ever deemed as competition was not on good terms with her prince.
“That lowborn,” Priscilla declared, “that one that was with Ella, she’s the one that smelled like manure last night in our barracks. I could hardly stomach the stench.”
“And yet somehow you managed.” Eve’s remark was quiet but dry. She, of all people, harbored the best intentions toward the lowborns in the Academy. Darren supposed it was because her father, Commander Audric, had once been a lowborn at the School, and squires were just as competitive.
Darren didn’t care for lowborns any more than highborns. Each had their own way of ruining his day. The less he dealt with either, the better.
“At least she was polite,” Eve added. “Not everyone can afford to stop at every inn along the way for a lavender oil bath.”
“Doesn’t look like much,” William grunted.
Jake nodded along. “In the lessons, she was quite slow.”
The girl wasn’t the only one who was slow, but Darren didn’t have the energy to critique the brutes. He was too busy concentrating on the rest of the day’s events. After lunch they transitioned from book learning to casting.
It would be his chance to make an impression, and he wanted to make sure it was something the others wouldn’t forget. After all, like the masters said, the more first-years they discouraged, the better.
And he knew of two first-years he wanted to leave.
As he was turning the corner, someone collided into him, knocking the contents from his arms and stuttering an apology. It took Darren of all two seconds to recognize the culprit.
Darren ground his teeth as he knelt to the ground.
Scattered parchment and books he had painstakingly arranged for his study were littered across the marble tile.
It was her. Again.
The gods had a cruel sense of irony.
“I’m so…” The lowborn’s apology faded away as she realized exactly who she had hit. He heard her hitched intake of breath.
The idiot lowborn was everywhere. She had to be the clumsiest fool in the Academy.
She reached out a pale, freckled arm to help, but Darren snatched the scroll out of her reach. He was not about to entertain any notion of friendship with the likes of her.
“Your grace,” she stammered. “I want to apologize for earlier.”
Your grace? It was ‘your highness’ but she couldn’t even manage the correct greeting. He bit down on his tongue. He had more pressing concerns than the likes of her.
Darren glared, but the girl kept rambling on. “It wasn’t right. You deserve a chance just as much as anyone else, especially since you are not the heir—”
Enough was enough. “Thanks,” Darren bit off, “but I don’t need some backcountry peasant asserting what I can or can’t do.”
Gray eyes flashed angrily. “I didn’t mean—”
“Look,” the prince spat, “I didn’t come here to socialize with commoners and learn about their feelings, I came here to be a mage.” Especially inept ones like her. “I’ve got more pressing affairs than listening to you apologize for your own incompetence.”
Darren didn’t bother to stick around. He saw her face flush red as he shoved his way past. For a second, he contemplated the fact that he had been a bit too cold, but it didn’t matter. The girl was friends with Ella and had no problem making assumptions about what he could or couldn’t do. Her attempt at an apology had come a little too late, and if there was one thing Darren had learned, it was to never look weak.
The girl wouldn’t last the year. Girls like her were soft and easy to break. Lowborns always wanted glory until they realized the hard work it entailed. Darren had worked hard for everything, and a girl who tried to take that away? Well, she wasn’t worth very much.
The rest of his lessons went exactly as planned.
It started with a bit of fire. The knight master in charge of physical conditioning wanted a demonstration on the importance of casting and endurance. Darren was only too happy to oblige, and if the hushed whispers and looks of awe were any indication, he had surpassed even Sir Piers’s expectation.