“I doubt there’s anything missing,” Sirena snapped.
She flashed her a smile as pleasant as the one that beamed on me in the reflection room. “You’ll find out tomorrow.”
Sirena was at the front of the class, but managed to shove her way through and storm out the door first. Daciana was right on her heels, ignoring our calls.
“Is she okay?” Ionna asked.
“I’m not sure. I got the feeling she’s not a fan of vampires.”
“None of us are after that,” Theron put in, shuffling up between us. “Think all that stuff’s true?”
Nitsa slung her arms around our shoulders. “I mean, it does make sense. Mother told me the monsters came to Olympia because they could smell the divine in our blood. If that was true of all of them, there’s nowhere we could hide. But we do and we can. When I was nine, I was playing with my brothers in the woods when I stumbled into the path of a gorgon. I dove under a bush and hid there until my brothers came to find me. If she could sense me, why aren’t I dead?”
“Nitsa, I never felt more stupid than I do right now,” Theron said gravely. “It’s so obvious now that you say it. Why didn’t we notice that before?”
Nitsa, Ionna, and Tycho echoed him.
“I know why.” My books crushed against my chest. “Because we believe in our mothers, and the sweet stories they tell us as we drift to sleep. We believe in them stronger than we ever will the gods.”
“That’s true,” Ionna whispered.
“—tell my mother about this.” Sirena echoed through the hall. “It’s an outrage that this information was kept from members of the Imperial household, but it’s even more disgusting that she shared it for every pig-stinkin’ peasant in there to hear. She should’ve held a private class for those with the right to know.”
I passed by her, barely keeping hold of my tongue.
“Mother will be furious when she hears about this.”
Her handmaidens chimed in on cue.
“You’re right, Sirena.”
“Madame Remis went too far.”
“I bet none of that was true anyway. No way would the first council let a bunch of beasts and mundanes dictate to demigods. The whole thing makes no...”
Their voices faded as we headed out of the lecture wing, making way for our last class of the morning. The guys told me a little about self-mastery class, but I was curious to see it for myself. I was even more curious about what the instructor had planned for me.
Together we gathered in the stadium arena, circling the lone man on the platform. Everyone except Daciana.
“You have all heard my speech, but for the benefit of our latecomer”—Instructor Kazran cut eyes at me so I didn’t mistake who he was speaking of—“I will repeat myself. Self-mastery is power combat training. Here you will train to improve your speed and accuracy.”
Kazran was a young man. I put him at early thirties, maybe late twenties. According to my friends, this should impress me. He was young, fit, and built. His spiky red hair caught beams of sunlight between his locks, drawing your eyes up for the slight second you could stand to look away from his cornflower-blue eyes and the tawny dusting along his nose and cheekbones.
Young, fit, handsome men such as he were serving their army sentence with no hope of getting a teaching position until they were much older and slower. For Drakos to get him assigned to the school proved how much power the headmaster had, and how impressive Kazran was.
“A long time ago,” he continued, “self-mastery class was sending novices off the grounds to face whatever crossed their paths. Some came back, some did not.”
I wonder if that was left out of the history books too.
“Eventually, monsters got wise. We weren’t sending out snacks. We were sending out hunting parties, and like us, some survived. Most didn’t,” he said. “As a result, they moved farther out of the area. Too far to send you out and back in half an hour. So, we make do.”
I raised my hand.
“Put that down,” Kazran said. “You’re not a child.”
Down it went. “How do we make do, Instructor?”
“With proficients.” Kazran clapped and ten men and women broke off from the circle, and joined him on the platform.