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“Wow. How strange,” Peter said, pulling my gaze from the girl as he held up her folder. “She was declared a rank zero today at her evaluation. Her name is Scotlind Rumor. Orphaned at seven, but her parents weren’t impressive either.”
“What?” I grabbed the folder from him and quickly glanced over it. For the first time during these Trials, it felt like an invasion of privacy to read the papers that were given to us. They included a picture of her, zoomed in on her face. She really was beautiful. Up close, I could make out all the freckles scattered across her pointed nose and the way her bottom lip pouted. Her eyelashes were dark and heavily framed her wide eyes, drawing even more attention to the beautiful coloring.
I had to force myself to look away from the photo to read what was enclosed. They had listed everything about her: her age, birthday, weight, and height. They had her entire school records, which portrayed her as an average student. I was surprised to see she had a long list of hindrances and seemed to get in trouble a lot. She wasn’t that impressive on paper.
I looked down at her again. Now, a tall, brown-haired male was looming over her. She snapped her head quickly in his direction, rolled her eyes, and stormed away from him. He just laughed as he watched her go, paying attention to her ass, no doubt.
Professor Hale, who delivered the files to Peter hours earlier, walked out onto the arena, ushering his students to follow. I did my best to watch everyone in the tournament and evaluate them fairly, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t focus on Scotlind more. I was impressed by her. Shocked that she was even competing, especially with no abilities. She had nothing to gain from being a guard. Regardless, she was surprisingly good.
The first round of the Trial was combat-only fighting. She annihilated it, coming in second only to the brown-haired male who had been taunting her earlier. The moment the buzzer sounded, it was as if a switch in her flipped. She transformed, and I was transfixed.
Her eyes narrowed and honed in on whatever poor male she was fighting, solely fixating on them. I could see the determination and focus etched onto her face. I could see she worked hard for every win, with each drop of sweat that glistened off her body. She left the world around her behind, engulfing herself in each round. Like the fight was the only important thing on this Goddess-forsaken planet. I was watching a huntress toying with her prey, and she was about to make the kill. She passed with flying colors and only had a few black and blues to show for it.
After the first round, they began to transform the arena for the weapons portion. Staff set up targets for archery and a knife combat section to the left.
“Kole Sanders is good. Really good,” Peter said as the brown-haired boy stepped up to the target. He hit the bullseye every time. The arrows were practically splitting down the middle from being embedded on top of one another. “He was in the lead for the first section of the Trials, and according to his file, he will be declared a rank four at his graduation ceremony.”
“What are his abilities?” I asked, my eyes still glued to Scotlind. I watched as she took the sleeve of her shirt and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
“His abilities are telekinesis and compulsion. We could use him at the castle.”
“Yeah, we can take him,” I said quickly, not too keen on having another asshole around, but I couldn’t deny that he was damn talented. “The girl is good too,” I added.
Peter flashed his famous smile at me, exposing all his too-white teeth. “That she is,” he said. “But you know we can’t take her.”
“I know that,” I admitted. “I wasn’t saying to hire her for the King’s Guard, but she should be a guard regardless of her ranking. She’s impressive.”
Peter sighed. “It doesn’t matter how skilled she is. They are planning on making her a servant because of her ranking. Synder was at her evaluations earlier this morning and already made note of it.”
I ground my teeth together. I hated Synder as much as I hated my father. The two of them lived and breathed the ranking system. If it was up to them, they would make every rank zero a slave and take away all their rights.
“She deserves more than being a servant,” I growled.
Peter tore his eyes from the arena to look at me and smirked. “You have a soft spot for her.”
“I do not,” I said way too quickly judging by the smile still beaming on his face. “Fine,” I added. “I just don’t want her to become a servant. Just get her a different job.”
Peter nodded, but didn’t say anything else as we continued to watch student after student come up to the target range.
He knew better than to bring up why I didn’t want her to be a servant. He’d been to my house numerous times to see how my father treated them. The thought of her talents wasted on doting on people like my father made me sick. With her looks, I knew she would be abused in more ways than one.
I also knew better than to assume my request would be granted. It didn’t matter what I wanted, not until my six months of training were up and I became King. I didn’t plan to abolish the ranking system. I knew that was impossible, but I at least wanted to make things more fair. I didn’t want to give in to people like my father. I didn’t want them taking advantage of lesser rank Advenians just because they could. This girl would end up a servant if that’s what Synder wanted, and there would be nothing I could do about it.
As they finished up with the weapons portion, the staff cleared the arena once more for the last section of the Trials.
“Your girl didn’t miss a single target,” Peter teased.
“Shut up,” I snapped but couldn’t hide the smile creeping up my face. “She’s not my girl. Just because I don’t want her to end up being a servant doesn’t mean I like her.”
“Okay. Okay.” He laughed as he threw his hands up in the air. “You know, though, she’s going to struggle in this portion if she has no abilities.”
“I know.” I didn’t want to think about all the ways she could get injured fighting without powers. I honestly didn’t know why she was even competing or why it bothered me. I decided to read Kole’s folder to focus on something else.
The last part of the Guard Trials allowed only two students to fight at a time instead of everyone sparring in pairs at once. It allowed me to evaluate them better. I could see who relied heavily on their abilities and who had learned to incorporate their powers with their combat skills.
Peter and I made notes of the ones we liked and the ones we didn’t as they fought again. Each fight lasted two minutes with the winner continuing on. They won by getting the most points on their opponent, knocking them out, or earning a surrender. The loser of the match was eliminated immediately, and their Trial was over.
So far, it was a mix of all three, and I found myself hoping that it wasn’t a knockout whenever the girl fought.
