Page 57 of Interion

“That's ridiculous—why wouldn't I? You seem like the most sensible person here.”

I frowned at her, a little shocked.

“Are you colorblind?”

“No,” Aish replied firmly.

“Okay, and your vision? Any problems with colors?”

“Also no. Should I?”

“In case you haven't noticed, my hair is red and my eyes are golden,” I whispered, afraid of drawing attention.

“So what?” she asked with a shrug.

“I'm a descendant.”

Aish gave me a mocking look.

“Yeah, obviously. If you're trying to convince me you're not a good person because of your hair color, maybe I should take back what I said about you being the most sensible person here.”

I was at a loss for words. It was the first time someone hadn't cared about that.

“It's just that I...”

“Relax, zoozi. You're a descendant, not a Drutes. Where I come from, we don't care about that. Ampér didn't go to war directly with Drutes until we were bought to fight alongside Interion. The reds didn't stain our nation, and from the outside looking in, we can see this prejudice is nonsense. Maybe if we were in Interion's place, things would be different, but that's what we believe.”

I blinked and looked at Aish's face, wondering if this was some kind of joke.

“You don't hate me for having red hair?” I asked, still unable to believe it.

She laughed and grabbed my braid. I pulled away instinctively, afraid of being hurt. Aish raised her hands in surrender.

“I think your hair is beautiful, zoozi. And if you look around, I'm the only Amperian here, so we're in the same boat.”

I stayed quiet, mulling over her words, and when I looked around the class, I had to admit she was right. Aish was the only Amperian woman among the students, and her skin stood out against ours. Ampér produced few elementals with a high enough level to enter the academy. Besides, in the Tamyrah desert, they had an academy nearly as good as ours that trained excellent soldiers, most of whom ended up being hired by Interion's army. Few managed to come here, and that year, only Aish and Isaac were part of our class.

She had a point, but still—her ancestry wasn't hated, just different.

“Are you saying you want to be my friend?” I didn't know how to make friends, so this seemed like the right question. However, I realized I was wrong when all the boys sitting nearby started laughing. Even Zion seemed to forget his act of ignoring us and stared openly.

“Depends,” she said, assessing me dramatically. “First, you have to convince me you're a good person. After your speech, I started to think you're not.”

I blushed and smiled shyly at her. Then Aish started sharing her opinions on the fights, and I let her ramble about the students' performance since she clearly enjoyed chattering. Training continued, and after Breno won his match, he sat down beside me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders.

“I can't even believe you got a win. Man, you beat Adele!”

Breno pulled me against his chest and squeezed tight.

“Thanks, Breno,” I mumbled breathlessly while patting his arms. “You can let go now—I can't breathe.”

“It's great that your win was today, because we're going to celebrate big at tomorrow's party.”

I agreed, a little anxious about the event. Breno let me go but kept smiling like an idiot. Then he exchanged a few words with Aish and Hiro, who already seemed close to him.

I didn't even need to look to know that a certain general wasn't happy with Breno's hugs. But I didn't pull away. After all, part of me liked seeing Zion bothered—as if I were somehow getting back at him for all the tears he'd made me shed. I was just afraid Breno was taking this too seriously. Lately, he'd been getting unbearably clingy, and I wondered if he enjoyed playing with death or if he simply couldn't sense the danger—which was impossible, since anyone would notice Zion's scowl.

Training continued, and at the end of the afternoon, Zion announced that classes were canceled the next day—the director had given us the day off to celebrate the Rosnir holiday. It was the holiday commemorating Interion's victory in the Great War and was named after the warrior responsible for saving the city.