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The world is a stage. The people are an audience. You must convince them of your part.
Adel von Riegan was an actress. Sure, she was a princess and now the house leader of the Golden Deer, but first and foremost she was an actress, constantly wearing a mask and playing a part. Because she, like her mother, had a little quirk. And if she let anyone see her like that, she’d lose all the reputation she had worked so hard to build. The act would be sniffed out, and she’d lose her role.
Which is why she only trained that part of her in the dead of night. It was 2 AM, and nobody was awake at this hour. Dodging the guards hadn’t been too much trouble, and she’d managed to make it from the dorms to the training grounds unnoticed. Now she stood before a training dummy, wondering if it could withstand a real sword.
Only one way to find out.
Adel crouched and placed her hand flat on the ground. A glowing circle with an insignia appeared beneath her, and purple mist swirled around her. She winced as she felt the burning of the white tattoos appearing on her tan face, and her scalp warmed as her hair lit up a bright magenta. Ouch. Been a while.
Once the transformation was complete, Adel’s body had an ethereal glow almost like fire emanating from it. She stood up and swung her arm to the side. At once, a red sword appeared in her grasp, also bathed in a red glow. Facing the dummy, she readied her sword and started to slash at it. Her movements were quick, and her footsteps light on the ground. Quick spins and stabs as she moved around her target made it almost like a dance.
She was on a stage. One with a dirt floor and no curtains, but still a stage. And though she had no audience now, she still made it a breathtaking performance, as she always did. She wouldn’t settle for anything less. When she was done, the dummy was a pile of wood, straw, and shredded cloth. She stood breathing heavily, looking down at it with a bit of disappointment. Not enough. I’ve done better.
“Holy shit.”
Adel was really hard to scare. But she actually jumped at the sound of someone else's voice and whirled around to see Bella of all people, looking at Adel with raised eyebrows. She was holding a sword and must have entered too quietly for Adel to hear. The princess immediately dismissed her magic blade, canceling her awakened state, and stared at her classmate, mortified at being caught like this: with her mask down, and her secret in plain sight. For a minute, they both just stood frozen, eyes locked on each other, as if waiting to see who would move first. Maybe it was the residual energy from her transformation, but Adel felt as though the air was filled with static electricity. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck was standing on end. She hardly dared to breathe.
Bella seemed to get over her own shock first. Her eyebrows furrowed as she finally said, “Okaaaaay, that looked… not normal.”
“What are you doing here?” Adel asked, trying to swallow her panic.
Bella nodded down at the weapon in her own hand. “What do you think? Late night training. Can't sleep. Figured no one else would be here.” A short pause, then, “...Is this what you meant by a mask when we talked?”
Adel rubbed her arm and nodded, looking away. “Please don't tell anyone?” she asked quietly. “This isn't something I wanted anyone to know.”
“I figured as much. I'm not gonna tell, I have better things to do than gossip.”
Adel looked back up at Bella, who approached the ruined dummy and gave the mess a small kick. “Wow. You do know they're going to need to replace this now, right?”
“Yeah,” Adel heaved. “I was hoping it would be tougher to break, but it's too late now.”
“Well, if you're not too tired after that, I like to think I'm a little tougher to break than a training dummy.”
Adel’s head shot up to meet Bella's eyes. “You… want to train with me?” she gaped.
Bella raised an eyebrow. “Yes? Why is that so shocking?”
“I…” Adel’s head swiveled around the room, checking if there were any more unnoticed visitors. “I would have thought anyone seeing me like that would want nothing to do with me.”
“Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but it makes me want to test my strength against you.”
Adel shook her head. “That's an enhanced state. I'm stronger than a normal human like that.”
Now Bella just looked angry. She placed her hands on her hips and scowled. “You haven't seen me spar with Xavier. He's got the Crest of Blaiddyd, and the super strength that comes with it. I have no Crest, but I've trained myself to be his equal in skill. We're so evenly matched that we never hold back even in practice. I think I'm more than qualified to spar with you.”
Adel blanched. “Wait. My dad's always said the king of Faerghus is too strong even for him to take on because of his Crest powers. You're telling me you can match that insanity?”
Bella's scowl twisted up into a smirk. “Now will you spar with me?” she asked again.
Adel blinked, then smiled back. “I've actually never had someone other than my parents to test myself against,” she admitted. “Sure, why not?”
As Bella readied her sword, Adel touched the ground and transformed again. Her hair warmed and glowed, her face stung, but for once she felt like it didn't matter. She had a new person to spar with, and that filled her veins with more energy than just the magic of her ancestors. Adel summoned her sword, and the moment she took a stance, Bella ran at her.
It appeared Bella wasn't exaggerating. She was good. Adel slashed and spun, dancing around her opponent, trying to find an opening. The issue was that Bella was fast. Every time Adel thought she had an opening, Bella either dodged, parried it, or used some kind of clever counterplay. And now it made sense that she could match Prince Xavier. Super strength means nothing if you don't get hit.
“You'd be a menace of a flier,” Adel quipped gleefully. “With how easily you can dodge things, you'd ace wyvern training in Almyra.”
“My Aunt Ingrid says the same thing,” Bella huffed with a grin of her own. “She nags my dad to let her train me as a pegasus knight, and he always tells her ‘there's no way I'm letting you fill her with your aggressive horse girl juice.’”
Adel laughed, and they continued to clash blades. This was so… fun. Having someone her age to spar with was refreshing. Shadi and Haven, the only two friends of hers who knew Adel’s secret, never crossed swords with her like this because she was too strong when transformed. But Bella was keeping up with her like it was nothing. And it was starting to tire Adel out.
“Geez, you don't run out of fuel easily, huh?” she panted, locking blades with Bella.
“I could have ended the fight a lot sooner,” Bella countered, “but I wanted to work out the best way to beat you. And now I have.”
“Huh?”
Suddenly, Bella ducked around and behind Adel. Thinking she was trying to attack from behind, Adel spun around to counter, but found herself flat on her back instead. Her body stopped glowing and her sword dissipated as she blinked, trying to figure out what just happened. Then Bella appeared in her view again, holding out her hand with a triumphant expression.
“You fight like a dancer, but if you can’t keep your eyes on your target and maintain your balance at the same time, you become extremely vulnerable to being tripped,” she explained. “Try not to spin when you don't have to, and keep both feet grounded as much as possible.”
Adel’s face brightened as she took the offered hand and allowed her classmate to pull her to her feet. “Thanks. I'll try that.”
Once they were both standing, their eyes traveled back to the destroyed dummy. “So uh. What are you planning to do about that?” Bella asked, pointing her sword at the mangled remains.
Adel only had to think for two seconds before she grinned again. “Easy. I'll make it disappear.” With no further elaboration, she reached into her shirt and pulled out a hidden necklace with a tiny, thin whistle on it. She blew into it, producing nothing but air to the human ear, and waited, watching the sky.
“A dog whistle?” Bella asked incredulously. But Adel didn't answer. Instead she just nodded upwards as the sound of heavy wingbeats started growing in volume. Soon, a large shadow flew into view above them, and a white wyvern landed in front of the girls. Adel reached out and let the drake nuzzle his snout into her hand.
“Masa al-khayr, Vanilla,” she whispered. “But maybe it's not really evening anymore… want a midnight snack?”
Bella stared at her. “You're going to feed the dummy to a wyvern?” she asked flatly.
“Vanilla has a stomach of steel,” Adel snickered. “He's made a lot of my messes disappear over the years.” And as a perfect demonstration, Vanilla ambled over to the destroyed dummy and started eating it, wood, fabric and all.
Bella watched the spectacle with an expression of morbid awe. “That is perhaps the strangest thing I've seen here,” she commented. “Not saying much, since the year just started, but I didn't come to Garrag Mach expecting to see a wyvern eat a training dummy.”
“You should see an average weekend at the Almyran palace. My cousins are a fun crowd,” Adel joked with a wink. “Well, at least the nice ones are. The others are killjoys. Those crazies are why my family lives in Riegan territory.”
“Uh-huh.”
Once Vanilla was finished, he licked his chops and stretched a little. With an affectionate croon in Adel’s direction, he spread his wings and took off, flying away in the direction of the Wyvern Keep. Adel turned back to Bella and gave her a grateful smile. “Thanks again. For not… freaking out, I guess.”
Bella shrugged. “It takes quite a lot to actually scare me. But I get why you'd want to keep it a secret.”
After a bit of an awkward silence, they agreed to walk back to the dorms together. The conversation turned to what their home regions were like. Bella told Adel about the deemphasized Crest system and hereditary nobility, and Adel told Bella about the elected king system and public interest surveys, which blew Bella's mind.
“So you're telling me the nobles get feedback directly from commoners, which they then present to a roundtable like… a representation of the interests of the people?” Bella asked in wonder.
“Yup. House Gloucester is particularly thorough in its surveys, and their territory's quality of life is one of the best in the Federation as a result,” Adel explained. “Pretty much on par with Riegan, which is kind of a big deal seeing as we have the benefit of having the capital city. Count Gloucester also has a unifying presence at conferences, so despite how pompous he can be, my dad has a lot of respect for him. Especially since he doesn't shy away from critiquing some of my dad's more… ambitious ideas. Keeps that particular side of him in check, you could say. Might sound counter-intuitive, but it's one of the reasons they're such good friends.”
Bella raised an eyebrow. “So why does Genevieve seem to hate you?”
Adel sighed heavily. “She doesn't understand. She's got a lot of siblings and isn't in line to be heir to her house, so she's never sat in on roundtables like Haven, Eli and I. The future count, her little brother Octavian, has, and he's not hostile towards my family at all.”
“So why is she here and not him?”
“Count Gloucester sends all his kids here, just in different years. If you ask me, she needs it more than her brother, so despite how obnoxious she is, I'm glad she's here. She needs to learn that her idea of who my family is isn't accurate. That's why…” Adel’s voice lowered. “That's why she's the one I'm most afraid of finding out my secret.”
An awkward silence fell over them, during which the only sound was their footsteps crunching the grass beneath their feet. “Let's talk about something else,” Bella finally suggested. “Any ideas about Noelle yet?”
Adel’s eyes glinted. “I've got a few basic ones. But first, what are you asking her?”
Even in the dark, Adel could see Bella rolling her eyes. “Fine. But so far this is my secret. You can't tell.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“My face is identical to hers.”
Adel halted. They had made it to the flowerbeds in front of the greenhouse, and Bella turned to face her. And now Adel saw it. It was true. She hadn't seen too much of Noelle since she liked pulling off disappearing acts, but Adel happened to be blessed with a very good memory, and Bella was correct. Ignoring the hair color, their faces matched. “Okay, that's… interesting,” she said slowly.
Bella nodded. “So I want to know why.”
Adel’s eyebrows furrowed as she started thinking hard. That put the simpler ideas she did come up with out of the question. This kind of situation required genuine trust, not getting chores together or a confrontation in some secluded location.
And then an idea came to her, and a smile spread across her face. “You have to save her hide.”
“Excuse me?” Bella questioned with a tilt of her head.
“Think about it. Bella, you're an incredible fighter. When we start doing real missions, the stakes will rise. With so little confidence, I can't imagine she's going to do so well at first.”
Bella frowned. “Xavier is going to be my priority there. He's already enough of a scaredy cat, he's probably going to be glued to me.”
Adel flipped her actress switch on and let out a dramatic sigh of disappointment. “That's too bad. I was under the impression you were skilled enough to do both.”
It did the trick. Bella huffed and crossed her arms. “Of course I can do both! It's just… I've known Xavier longer… if it had to come down to… nevermind, whatever! I can do both.”
Adel beamed. “I knew you could.”
“Hey! Who's down there?”
The attention of both girls snapped behind them. Across the pond, a lantern was waving. Bella cursed under her breath. “Shit, the night watch. Let's go!”
Adel didn't need to hear it twice. Both of them sprinted towards the stairs to the second floor of the dormitory and started pounding up the steps. When they reached the top, they rushed down the hallway, splitting off once Adel reached her door. She tried to give Bella a little salute before ducking into her room, but she was already gone.
The Fraldarius girl was fast.
Adel quickly shut and locked her door before leaning back against it, sliding to the floor to catch her breath. That was close. But also, admittedly, fun. She hadn't expected to make a new friend so soon, let alone one who knew her secret. But she was glad she did. It made her feel not so alone, to have a person skilled enough to take her at full strength.
No doubt Shadi would lecture her about it. She could already imagine it. ‘Why didn't you ask me to guard the door, that could have been disastrous, blah blah,’ the typical spiel about it being his job to protect her. Not that his concern was unjustified. It wasn’t just Adel’s own reputation among her peers at risk. Her father had enemies. Plenty of people would use anything they could to dethrone him, and the fact that his daughter had the powers of the Agarthans in her blood in addition to the Riegan Crest was dangerous intel. People knew of the queen's transformation powers, but their origin wasn't public knowledge. And Adel wasn't as strong as her mother yet. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn't confident that she could defend herself against bad actors who would do anything for leverage against the king of the Leicester-Almyra Federation.
For now, Adel was still on the stage. She had a part to play, a script to follow, and a dance to perform, so the show would go on. Even so, it felt nice to know that there was one more person she could let down her mask for.